Finally! Getting rid of blog.com. It’s not that I hate blog.com……..no, I hate
them. I mean seriously, when was the last time you had to manually word
wrap? 1982 you say? Oh, no. I do it every time I post a blog. Oh ya. And
there’s also a typing lag……..and people say they can’t comment on this
blog……..and it’s slow. See, me being the technically savvy type, I punched
in ‘free blog’ into google (by the way, google is awesome……if you haven’t
heard of it yet, I’d highly suggest trying it out) and blog.com was the first
one to come up. And it sucks. Very much.

But, with my afore-mentioned technical savviness (and that’s sarcasm), I had
no idea how to transfer to wordpress. And I still don’t.

But guess what? My amazing and awesome wife does! Anyone else have a wife
who knows more about computers than they do? Well, that’s me. So she
transfered my whole blog to wordpress last week, and I didn’t even ask her to.
She’s the best ever. Thank you, Jams! I love you!

So the new site, everyone, is:

http://guitarforworship.wordpress.com

Oh, that looks awesome to have wordpress in the title. Sweet, sweet
wordpress. Please update your bookmarks and blogrolls accordingly, if you
would be so kind.

(This is how happy I feel right now. Almost as happy as Jack
is to have a picture of his own face.)

Splendid. A lot. And for the last time on blog.com.
Karl.

Awhile back, I posted a blog about mine and Justin’s trip to my amp tech to get a
half power switch put into my Holland, so that I could drop it to 15 watts when
necessary and hence be able to better enhance the worship music by not…..well……
let’s face it, if we’re honest we think our instrument is the most important and should
therefore be the loudest. So, trying to get out of that, I got a half power switch.

(“But these go to 11.”)

And it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done. Because now, in almost every
venue I play in, I run at 15 watts with the master volume dimed. And it’s a much
purer sound with the master volume all the way up, even though the Holland has
a very, very decent master volume control.

But a few nights ago, I’m playing at a church, and my monitor was so loud I
couldn’t hear my amp…….eh, at least not as much as I like. I mean, I could
hear it, but I want to hear it……you know what I mean, some of you are smiling
right now. So I go over to my amp as we’re rehearsing and flip the switch to 30
watts. 

Oh, sweet mercy.

I haven’t played at 30 watts for a while. There are a few venues I play where I
need more than the 15, but I have not played at them lately. And I have forgotten
how sweet it is to push the speakers like that. I was in heaven for the last half of
the song we were rehearsing (I think it was Brooke Fraser’s ‘Hosanna’). And then
I realized that the rest of the band could now not hear. Well, they could hear me.
And tempted as I was to say that hearing me was enough for them, I called back
to the sound guy to turn my monitor’s volume in half, and then I sadly (and not
without a few tears, I must add), walked back to my amp and flipped it back to
15 watts.

And that was the best decision at the moment to help the worship music the
most…….I think…….there’s still some deranged part of my brain that says that
30 watts would have helped the worship more, no matter whether people
could hear anything else or not.

Mmmm…….loudness.

Splendid.
Karl.

Remember that scene from Amadeus when Saliere is trying to get the king to
play the musical piece on time, and he just can’t? And finally Saliere claps his
hands on the correct beats and in time with those same beats states, “Tem-po!”

Ya. Absolutely imperative. I’m almost at the point where I’d rather someone play
an E chord over my Eb chord than play out of time. Not really. But close.

This last Sunday was a mess music-wise. Not so much worship-wise….God’s gonna
do what He’s gonna do, with or without us………and it was definitely without us this
Sunday. And it wasn’t my team’s fault…..it was just one of those days where all 8
of us just were not jiving together.
 
My wife (who is an incredible musician) asked me after the service, “Were you
guys on a click?”

I answered, “There was a click going in our ears…….whether or not we were on
it is another story.”

But, oh well, life goes on, and we learn. God still had his people worship Him, but
as long as my team and I are up playing the worship music, I’d like to help the
worship experience a little more than we did last Sunday. And props to my team,
especially our drummer and the singer I had lead all the songs this last weekend, for
recognizing that things were not clicking, and just going with it and worshiping
anyway. Killer team at this church.

So, I’d just like to say……tempo, people…………TEM-PO!

Splendid…………well…….
Karl.

In keeping with the theme of changing mindsets from ‘look how cool
my rig is’ to ‘how best can my rig help the music (and in turn, glorify God)
in tone, versatility, reliability, and playability’, it’s rig posting time. It’s been
about a two year process for me, but I am finally close to finishing……..
well, I’ve been around long enough now to know that a guitarists’ rig is never
finished. Nope, never. I’ve thought I was finished about 37 times in the last
5 years of tone journey (more if you include the first 5 years of playing where
I would inform everyone that pedals were cheating, and good guitarists’ didn’t
need them, and then proceed to try to emulate phase and rhythmic delay sounds
without pedals while botching immensely some Eddie Van Halen solo…..
oh ya…..those were the days.) So, probably not finished, but the closest I’ve
been in a long while.

So, first off in the Rig Update Series is the pedalboard. If tone is made up
of Mind–>Hands–>Guitar–>Pedalboard–>Amp–>Cab, the board is
probably the least important of all of these. It’s important, but not as
important as the other factors. But I’m starting with it, because, you gotta admit,
the boards are the coolest. That’s what people ask you about after the show.
They’ll say, ‘Hey, which pedal gives you that great clean sound?’ And you’ll say,
‘Actually, this bypass box takes all my pedals out of my signal for my clean tone,
so that’s just the sound of the guitar and amp.’ And they’ll say, ‘Ya, but which
one of these pedals is your clean tone?’ So…….it’s the coolest part.

Here’s my current board, as of today:

(Big, unfortunately, but relatively simple)


(I meant this to be a cool angle shot, and failed.)


(And of course, the obligatory space ship shot. The lights on the
two Timelines flash, and I missed most of their lights when I snapped the
picture. Blast.)

So, yes, it’s still big, but only because I have the unfortunate fate of liking
big pedals. Every time I try out pedals, it’s like……you gotta be kidding me.
My favorite sound came out of the blasted biggest one again. Oh, well.
But if you count ‘em up, there’s only 11 effects including the volume pedal,
2 bypass loops, 2 midi switchers, a tuner, and the pedal power-er underneath
the tier.

It’s simple, quiet, versatile, playable, and lets my guitars and amp do the
tone work. See, my mindset has come to be (for now) that the best tone
you can have will come from the guitar straight into the amp. However, in a
lot of modern music, you need some effects. So, you try and place them into
your chain as inobtrusively as possible. So, the bypass loopers (grey ones
in bottom left) allow me to take all my pedals out of the signal chain, so there
is no excess cable length and circuitry to bog down my guitar signal. Currently,
I’m not using any buffers or clean boosts either.

Compare that with my board two years ago:

(Scary……fun, but holy tone suck, Batman!)

There’s a Memory Man delay/chorus under the orange and black
boxes at the top left of the board that split my signal to go into two amps.
So, in this one, signal went into the fuzz (little electrical box), into the
blue looper, down into the grey looper on the lower tier, into the Fatdrive
clean boost, into the grey looper on the upper tier, and then into the
Memory Man. Not so simple, and some definite tone suck.

So, here’s how my current board lays out.

Signal goes into:

Loop-Master 4 bypass loop box with tuner mute and master bypass–>

Loop-Master 6 bypass loop box with master bypass

And all (except like, two, that I still need to change out) Lava ELC cables.
Very nice cable with no tone suck, but not adding their own highs to make
up for tone suck. Transparent…..yikes, I use that word way too much.

And that’s it. Much simpler, cleaner, and more toneful. The first
Loop-Master box is the grey one at the bottom middle. It’s my overdrive
loop box. I have fuzz, overdrive w/ switchable boost, heavier
overdrive/distortion, and a solo boost. The master bypass is quite useful
if I’m stacking overdrives….means I can switch them all off in one click.
And the tuner mute keeps the tuner out of my signal chain, and also allows
me to mute my guitar, as I don’t keep the volume pedal in my chain anymore.

The second Loop-Master box takes care of my effects (as opposed
to drive pedals). I have phase, tremolo, volume pedal, rhythmic delay &
ambient delay (in one loop), modulation & recording loops (one pedal does
both), and chorusy delay. And loops four and five have very little to no tone
suck, so I leave them on most of the time, and use one of the delays as an
always on, low in the mix, sound. Really adds some warmth and depth.

And I power everything with a Furman Power Conditioner Pro in a rack.
Really important for some of the high powered delays. The Diamond
Memory Lane and both Damage Control Timeline’s liek their own power.
And the rest of the pedals are powered by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power
2+ underneath the rig. I had to sell some pedals to to get the power taken
care of, but it quiets your rig so much. It’s definitely been worth it.

So, this is the part where, if you don’t want gross tech specs, you can just
jump to the ’splendid’ part below. ‘Cause I’m gonna list my whole chain and
their purposes. Yikes.

Signal from guitar–>

Loop-Master 4 loop bypass box–>

–>Tuner out/mute–>Peterson Strobostomp 2 (this my mute switch,
and I tune on it, too. I have learned to never, ever underestimate the beauty
of being in perfect tune at all times. Just my opinion, but you should always
have a tuner easy to tune with silently and at a moment’s notice. And the
Peterson, though expensive for a tuner, is extremly accurate. I’d sell a delay
if I had to to buy this and stay in tune)
–>Loop 1–>homemade (but not by me) Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face clone
(germanium fuzz for nice, sweet, modulated and harmonic, saturated dirt
sounds……I use this for a lot of swells and such, as well as some just classic
dirt and some weird stuff. It really takes on a life of its own, especially in
providing feedback. I don’t completely ‘get’ this pedal yet. Fun to experiment
with.
–>Loop 2–>Paul Cochrane Tim overdrive (light, indie overdrive with
solo/distortion boost switch…..my main overdrive…..really transparent……
sounds like your guitar’s and amp’s tone, just overdriven)
–>Loop 3–>Hermida Mosferatu (beautiful, harmonic heavier
overdrive/distortion…..clean, glassy, and full…..I use this for really driven
sounds, as well as leads)
–>Loop 4–>SIB Varidrive with ECC81 tube (my solo boost……..I leave
it on the high gain setting and it just sings for solos……cuts through the mix
beautifully, and sounds really clean but still saturated……has some compression
to it which makes it not as desireable for me as an overdrive, but very desireable
as a solo boost high on the neck…..the ECC81 tube is important, because the
stock ECC83 has too much grain and grit in my humble opinion…….doesn’t
really matter what pedal is on when you stack this, it just kinda takes over)

–>Loop-Master 6 loop bypass box–>

–>Loop 1–>Subdecay Quasar phaser (warmest and most useable
phase sounds I’ve found in this small of a box…..sounds good fast and
slow, and will go really slow, too……also hasa mix knob which is very
useful to hide it in the background of layers……I use it mostly for ambient
stuff, though…..sometimes for vibe-ish chords)
–>Loop 2–>Guyatone Vintage Tremolo (probably the cheesiest pedal
I own as far as name and color goes, but best sounding trem ever. I’ll use
it for slicing sounds, rhythmic tremolo at moderate speeds to sit in the
background, and for nice, slow throb)
–>Loop 3–>Ernie Ball volume pedal junior (best volume I’ve found,
but it does suck some tone, so I stick it in a loop…..I only use it for swells
and builds…..some sets it will never get turned on, but some sets I need it
constantly…..good throw to it)
–>Loop 4–>Damage Control Timeline (my main delay……I have to
do a separate post on all the stuff this thing can do, but it’s got everything
you could want……and 128 presets that I control with the Rocktron Midi
Mate at the bottom right……I program my whole worship setlist into this
thing……dotted eighths, reverse, swells, multi-tap, modulation, whatever
you want…..love this delay)
                –>Diamond Pedals Memory Lane 1 (same loop as the
Timeline) (I use this for ambient delays that need huge, deep modulation
sounds and also for rhythmic playing or solos that just need something
more…..the tap tempo is invaluable…….works great for single strummed
chords, too…….amazing analog delay)
–>Loop 5–>Damage Control Timeline (I use this Timeline for
recorded loops as it has a really, really good and touch sensitive phrase
sampler in it……I also use it for modulation effects…..reverb, chorus, ambient
delays…….seriously, an amazing delay…..and again, 128 presets that I control
with the Tech 21 Midi Mouse)
–>Loop 6–>1985 Arion SAD-1 analog delay (I use it sparingly for
washy, chorusy sounds on swells, and also to be able to switch the Timeline’s
loop recorder off a little less abruptly)

–>Amp.

So that’s the long of it. There’s a ton of information here, and I only
delved slightly into the mindset stuff, so hopefully you can skim through
it and glean whatever you want. If you read the whole thing, you’re probably
a guitarist as crazy into gear as I am.

More worship music mindset stuff to come, as well as a post on Guitars,
and Amps in this series.

Splendid.
Karl.

I’m sure we’ve all been in this situation……you’ve got the most killer sounding piece
of gear you’ve ever owned, but it’s a money pit. It just keeps breaking down.

I used to fall absolutely and completely on the side of tone. I had vintage
pedals whose metal housing were being held together by like, one single solder
connection on the battery connector wires. Sounded great……for the one song
per gig they actually worked for before eating it. Then I’d come home and
re-solder, or re-tape or re-glue more than likely……and make sure I stepped on
them much more lightly the next time. Well, after a few years of this, I came to the
brilliant conclusion…….’Wait……what good is good tone if there is no sound
coming out of your amp?’ I mean, it’s like, ‘Hey this pedal is the best you’ve ever
heard! Okay, now listen closely, because it only makes sound for about
a half a second.’

So, I moved out of that. And even further than that, I’ve been on a
‘toneful, reliable, versatile, functional,playable, and toneful, toneful, toneful’
rig overhaul the last year. (More blog posts on that tomorrow.)

But, I still have some remnants of ‘Tone over Reliability.’ Like this one:

This is my Mondo Amps bassman clone. Amp sounds fabulous, for
straight guitar–>amp playing and for ambient loops (which are basically the
two things I use it for). And it has a cool, vintage ‘found it in my grandpappy’s
basement’ thing going on looks-wise. But I’ve had it for four months, and it’s
already broken down twice past what I can fix.

See, I should never have bought it……..but I wanted an
‘American-blusey-6L6′ style amp, and I (for once in my life) actually stayed
in budget by buying this. (Ya, the whole ’staying in budget’ thing lasted for all of
about two weeks……..silly me……..good gear means in debt…….that’s all
there is to it.) And I should have sold another pedal or something or been
more patient, but……hey. And the funny thing is I sold it to replace my ’other
amp’ (a little boutique company whose name I won’t say to protect the innocent)
that broke down more than this one. Great sound……could never stay working.
I think maybe I’m done with combos. The constant vibrations of the speakers
just seem to be death for the amps.

So…..I’m curious…..doesn’t matter what instrument you play, but where do
fall in the ‘tone versus reliability’ issue? Or are you on a journey like me trying
to find the perfect balance? And anyone else have the same problem with
combo amps?

Splendid.
Karl.

Splendid.
Karl.

Promising to get back to gear tomorrow,
Karl.

hehehe…………..Keanu is funny (but does make much more money than I do),
Karl.

Splendid.
Karl.

Forgive the playing, the poor recording quality, the fact that youtube compresses the files in such a way that it actually sounds like a volume drop when the overdrives are engaged, and my knee blocking half the pedals. Oh, ya, and the fact that blog.com won’t let me embed videos. *Sigh* Hopefully you can at least get an idea if you’re looking to try out one of these pedals.