AC30, Twin, Lead or Bassilator? 
I’m guessing the first one?
Ordered a Klon Centaur clone today (Piedmont Aluminum Falcon II). Klon Centaurs are boost pedals that have an insane amount of cachet. Jeff Beck, Joe Perry, and other tone monsters use them, and they’re highly prized. They’re no longer made, and the originals go for thousands on EBay, but there’s people out there who make Klon clones, and Piedmont’s is said to be one of the best. We’ll see if it’s really all that and a bag of chips.
Now I just need to unload a few of my five or six other overdrive/boost pedals. GAS GAS GAS.
You make a good choice, I think. I was thinking about assembling a clone of my own, until I found a used Piedmont on eBay at a price that made the choice an easy one. Being a techie type, the first thing I did with it was open it up and check out the guts, and let me tell you, whoever put that thing together did a really nice job, and it looks built to last forever.
Some people have claimed that the Centaur is a ridiculously overpriced version of a tube screamer, but judging from what you can see on the web, the circuits aren’t all that similar; I can’t tell you if they sound much alike, having never heard them side by side.
What I can tell you is that I really like what I hear from my Piedmont. You can dial it anywhere from a sparkling clean boost to a somewhat grainy overdrive with just the right amount of hair around the notes, and it never gets too fizzy or too muddy. Heavy metal it isn’t, but what it does, it does very well.
Wow, thanks for the lowdown on the Piedmont! What I hear in the clips I’ve dug up of a Klon doesn’t sound at all like a Tube Screamer to me. I own a Screamer, so I have some experience with these. It’s more like what you said: a really clear overdrive that just adds some hair to your amp’s tone with no mud attached. A Tube Screamer adds tons of color, good in some ways, not so good in others, and sounds fairly brittle to muddy if abused. I’ll have both in front of me shortly, so I’ll let you know, but I’m not at all buying that they’re very similar. And the Piedmont is apparently a very authentic imitation of the Klon, so much so that it’s hard to tell them apart. Could be pretty cool.
From watching that, I’d say the Piedmont actually sounds a tenny bit less like a pedal than the Klon. Very nice.
I picked up a Malekko Heavy Industries “Spring” reverb pedal. The demos on-line sounded good. In person, it sounded like someone had turned the repeat all the way down on a digital delay. :rolleyes:
So I returned it, and picked up a Valve Junior head for $99, and the kit to turn it into one of these. So, as long as I don’t blow myself across the room learning how to discharge the caps properly, I should have something approaching a Fender external reverb tank’s sound for about $180. Wish me luck!
At first they’re slightly different, but if you watch for a bit the guy dorks with the Piedmont controls a couple of times early on, then after that I can’t tell them apart. I forgive you if you didn’t sit through the rest of his stunningly repetitive riffing. ETA: or did you mean the Piedmont sounded better than the Klon, not just different? Not sure.
Ooh, nice! It sounds really great, too. I wish that video had gotten more into how the mod is done and how weird the conversion is to do. I take it you throw away the power section and use the preamp to drive the reverb, but I’m not enough of an electronics nerd to think further than that. And obviously a spring reverb goes inside the head case. Really cool idea, and really cool project, esp considering Fender’s reissue '63 standalone reverb is like $700-$800 (give me break, it can’t cost $150 to make). Sweet. ETA: Let us know how it goes; I’ve been jonesing for a reverb pedal that sounds authentic for my Egnater fx loop, and I fear none of them do!
Well, I meant that the Piedmont sounded more like it was just boosting the signal without coloring the sound as much as the Klon. But you’re right, after he messes with the knobs, there’s no difference. If I wasn’t watching the light on the pedal, I wouldn’t know which one I was hearing.
I feel your pain. I have one amp w/ok spring reverb but no tremolo, and two amps with built-in tube tremolo: one has no reverb, the other’s reverb sounds like “someone shaking a spray paint can”. My guitarist has a standalone Fender tank, no pedal even approaches it. The Holy Grail from Electro-Harmonix sounds great for what it does, but it’s got too much modulation to really sound like a spring. Everything else seems to have the same problem the Malekko pedal had, or worse.
While the kit hasn’t arrived yet, from what I’ve read it keeps both tubes, and it does come with a tank ( a 8AB2A1B, if the forums are right.) So I think it’s a tube pre and collector, but I’m speculating right now. I don’t have an amp with an adjustable effects loop, but I bet that unit would sound nice with the pre tube being pushed a little.
I’ll write up what’s required, and whether it’s a pain for me for me to complete when I get it. I’ve done a few electronics projects, but I’ve never modified a head before. Among the “well, you can accidentally kill yourself” warnings on the kit’s page, there’s this:
So, along with what I now know about discharging the caps, it doesn’t sound too bad.
Cool, I’d love to hear how it goes. And those instructions are really encouraging. I’d do it except I don’t know how to discharge the caps safely, and don’t want to die.
Damn, now I have a jones to own a Valve Jr head with a Valve Jr reverb tank stacked under it. Thanks for the GAS, dude. 
For some reason I feel the need to chime in here and say that I am following all of this with interest, but am on the road for work and have very limited SDMB time, and since I am mostly an acoustic boy these days, haven’t got much to add to this particular discussion.
As for Klons - how can they make a clone when the guy famously sealed the circuits in thick black epoxy? (I am sure they’ve found a way).
I look forward to the full report.
I’m still playing Rocksmith. For something with “rock” in the title, I find myself most drawn to some of the more mellow songs, especially (at the moment) Love That’s Gone and Brand New Kind of Blue. I like the clean tones with female vocals, I guess. It does make it a little easier to hear my mistakes. I’m still kinda wondering how much forgiveness Rocksmith adds in to the mix.
However, I’ve been running into a serious bug in the software. For a while, after every song, the program would become unresponsive and I’d have to Alt-Tab out ('m playing on a laptop PC), kill it, and restart. Then it got better, and now it’s worse. With one of my profiles (I have two) it goes unresponsive as soon as I log in. The other profile seems to work fine, for now.
We’ll see how good Ubisoft support is.
Hey Robot: I’ve been playing (and loving) RS for a couple weeks now. Occasionally I’ve had some odd problems and what has always cleared them up is to quit the program, quit Steam, bring up task manager and make sure there still isn’t a Steam or RS process running, and then restart.
While lots of Steam programs were on sale for Christmas, I picked up the original version and the import tool so I could get a bunch more songs. My callouses are finally back and I can now play for an hour+ without dying. Now I just need to get my finger/hand strength back. Sucks getting old…never had that problem when I was young.
Got a reply from support. My graphics card is not on their supported list, so I may be SOL. It’s a laptop, so I’m not quite sure what I could do about that. I’ll try getting the latest driver and see if that helps.
I’ve been shutting down Rocksmith; next time it happens I’ll go in to Task Manager and make sure I pull up all the roots, too.
Any other comments; anything you like or don’t like in the software, or any favorite songs to play? I’ve played the lead on every 2014 song at least once. Almost nothing among the alternate tunings really grabbed me. Those will probably be the last that I come back to.
I wish I’d thought of that. There’s one downloadable song I’d love to get, and it won’t let me buy it because it says I don’t have Rocksmith. It’s a stand-alone purchase, and says it’s compatible with 2014. I always assumed that was a bug. The original Rocksmith included a bunch of songs, but are you supposed to need it to buy the downloadable songs, too?
Well, there’s no new graphics driver, so it seems like I’m semi-screwed (on that computer at least). I’ve got another monitor though, and even an everything-compatible TV. Does anyone know of a way to get a laptop to use an external graphics card and drivers?
Have you considered the audio drivers? Are those up to date? My gut said those might be the problem when you first described it.
Not sure on trying to get an individual song from the original RS. I bought the original RS through Steam and could play the songs in that interface but to play them in 2014, I had to buy an import tool…a bit of a racket but they are now all in one place.
I think the game is actually a pretty good way to learn guitar. I used to play a lot (over 15 years ago) but guitar isn’t like bicycle. So, relearning, getting my fingers and muscle memory back. I used to play with either sheet music or more commonly, tabs. The hardest part was getting my mind used to those colored strings. One thing I couldn’t get used to was the low E being on the top. I found a setting to switch that (low E on the bottom) and now I find it much easier since it is the same order as the tabs I played off of for years.
As far as the songs go, I started with the ones I used to play: Nirvana, Weezer, Ramones, Soundgarden, Pixies. I’ve played a lot more starting with some of the easier like Black Keys, White Stripes. Lots more to go. I tend to start with some of the missions (games, gear, etc) and then finish by focusing on one song.
Hey, guitar folks - I just wanted to let you know that my CD Guitarias, is going to be released as of February 16th, 2014. Details, sound clips, and other fun things can be found on my new website. There’s a thread about it all here at this link.
What’s up fellas? Haven’t posted in a while, but I’m always lurking 
Anyway, I been doing some demo work for Fender lately and got a chance to make this video for the NAMM for them with their new “solderless” American Deluxe Strat. It’s an interesting concept. I was curious what you guys think of it.
Here’s video of me playing the guitar:
And video of my friend from Fender at NAMM talking about the details:
Nice job, Shooter. You play the “young, studio-savvy player, way cooler than you” dude well. I bet Fender was pleased.
Hmm, I don’t see much utility in the solderless design; someone could do the same with a crimping tool and a handfull of connectors on any guitar. The personality cards are cooler. I wonder if the specs will be published, I could see making my own, though it’s unclear what roll the IC in the card plays. I want an MBX tone control, or switching that lets me have a neck + bridge pickup combo.
Also: how can they call something a Strat Plus without a roller nut? Sacrilege!
Goddamnit, I meant “TBX”. There goes all my Strat cred. 
Being able to swap out the analogue circuitry using the cards seems like it would be pretty nice feature. The “solderless” aspect, though, seems like a marketing gimmick to go along with that. If you have the cards, you shouldn’t need to rewire the insides. I’d also be worried that the quick connector plugs would loosen as they aged.