Unfortunately, you have to use your ear. I would guess Blues 1 or Blues 2 - Keef typically plays with the natural distortion/break-up from an old Fender Tweed amp - he is not one to use overdrive pedals and does not have a crunchy tone.
Does that help?
Yeah, that’s what I figured, but what I’m really wondering is, what are all these sly allusions I’m missing?
Now, I know they probably can’t say ‘We’re ripping off a tweed Fender here’ or ‘This is a two-stack Marshall’, but it really sounds like they’re describing things with a wink and promise that most guitar-heads should know. So… call it a little game. What do you guys think they’re describing? Don’t try finding someone testing the amp on youtube, I’ll do that at the end. This game is from the description only.
The last one is Eddie Van Halen
Not sure who the first one is (too vague - could be Stevie Ray Vaughn??), or the second one - when I think “banana” I think Velvet Underground and Nico…
Eddie is who I thought of as being obvious, but why is he ‘unchained’?
The song Unchainedwas a big VH hit…
I think this refers to maybe the VOX AC30, maybe?
The only highly recommended phaser that comes in a pedal that’s even remotely close to banana yellow is the MXR Phase 90, but that’s not even close to banana yellow…
Which would make the player most likely Brian May…or maybe The Beatles…
I’m wondering if they’re saying the Rolling Stones here? Or?
Oh, god, I knew it had to be something blatant like a song name. I wonder why I blanked on that.
… not the biggest EVH fan, admittedly.
No - rolling means rolling here. Meaning: you roll off your on-board volume to clean up your tone. Classic maneuver on an old tube amp - you didn’t have multiple channels to play with so you set your amp to be very gainy, then roll off the Volume to clean things up…
…they are trying to claim that the amp can behave like a tube amp. Hmm - doubtful.
Actually, that’s… what I’ve been doing. I kind of discovered that by accident.
Okay, so basically, they are being coy, but the coy they’re being makes no sense. So I just work with what I like.
I can do that!
In some cases they appear to be referring to players. In some cases they appear to be referring to classic amps - Vox’s are jangly, Marshalls are crunchy, Fenders are either surf-clean or warm and fuzzy. And in some cases they are trying to showcase features using the type of jargon that a reader knows they should appreciate, even if they don’t quite know what it means. Being able to clean up by rolling off your Volume is a pretty old-school approach - I do it, but I have come to it after really digging into my playing and tone. It has some retro cool, but the vast majority of players have digital, or at least multi-channel, master volume amps, and a host of pedals, so shifts between clean and crunchy or different levels of volume is a footswitch away.
I got a new pedal - I am experimenting with swapping out the one piece of my rig that has been pretty much a constant for 30 years: my first-gen ProCo Rat distortion pedal. Got it for $20 off the lead guitarist of my oldest guitar friend’s band. I just got a new boutique-y overdrive. So far it is pretty amazing. I will report back when I have a solid feel for it.
Well. THAT solved my problems. Went to a thin Tortex pick rather than the Fender Mediums. And presto, I can upstrum! (I still have issues hitting all six strings instead of just five or four, but hey, getting better.)
Also, while I was at Guitarcenter, I found something awesome at the counter. Slash has a new album. With Ozzy. Ian Astbury. Dave Grohl. Chris Cornell. Iggy Pop. And Lemmy Kilmister. (Also, for some reason, Fergie.)
Lemmy’s got the best track.
Here’s a cool performance of “By The Sword” from that Slash album, featuring the singer from Wolfmother (another awesome band, by the way):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owTpE16d0dY
Slash is a stud…
Andrew Stockdale - I like both Wolfmother CD’s quite a bit - nice combo of Led Zep, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple…
I just got **Stone Temple Pilots’ **new CD - solid. They are never going to blow open new sonic ground, but their songwriting is dependable, the performances excellent and there is enough of a hint of art in there to give them more than just copycat cred - kinda like the Sheryl Crow or Lenny Kravitz of harder rock. The song Huckleberry Crumble sounds like it (and a few other tracks) came off a classic Aerosmith album, but some of the other songs very towards Power Pop…
Oddly enough, the song “Days of the Week” was written for Sheryl Crow by the Deleo brothers before it became an STP song.
Good assessment of the new album too, I agree for the most part. What did you think of the closer, “Maver”. Completely uncharacteristic for the band, IMO, but at the same time, I just can’t stop listening to it. Great song.
Didn’t know that about the Crow connection, but not surprising; the Deleo’s are journeyman players, just like her.
I like Maver - I don’t find it out of their normal range. They cover a reasonably big footprint from hard rock to power pop. Their biggest issues are the fact that they are a bit too good at presenting a genre - the vocals and instruments vary to suit the style - but the artistic thread isn’t strong enough to knit all the various styles together into a statement. They’re a bit too good for their own good and need to focus more on having something to say.
Having said all that - I really enjoy how they rock.
Link to Gibson.com article on the top 50 guitarists: http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/Top-50-Guitarists-527/
This one is for #20 - 11, with links to the previous groups of 10…
I don’t give lists much thought, other than I like to be reminded of players I don’t devote enough time to digging into…
New thread where I discuss the rock band Cage the Elephant. Guitar approved.
They really do cover alot of ground, I just felt Maver was new in that it’s piano driven AND upbeat; now Cinnamon is a whole other story.
Add me too the list of people that think they rock. One of my favorite bands.
On another note, as someone that has no real soldering experience, how hard is it to swap pickups on a Strat? Something that I should be able to do on my own, or something that is worth paying for?