Jeez, listen to you! That all sounds really cool. What guitars do you play this stuff on?
I’ve never had the patience to sit down and pick out classic blues pieces, with one exception: Hey Hey by Big Bill Broonzy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm1qtX7Mz5w Now that’s a thumb. (as an aside: could Broonzy BE more hard rock? Relentless groove is where you make it.)
Beyond that, I have basic thumb independence and the ability to run through a few blues licks. I spend most of my fingerstyle time “porting over” songs I played with a pick to fingerstyle. I play with a blurry style - I allow my hands to transition between a somewhat precise picky sound to more open-handed groove playing with a lot of finger-added fills and basslines. I would point to Dave Matthews based on that little I’ve heard, but believe me, it’s been little.
I am also grooving on Gabriela, of Rodrigo Y - her right hand is an instrument of god. I simply trying to play triplets in that style and I am a better player. When I go back to a pick, my groove is noticeably better.
But I couldn’t play a Piedmont Blues if my life depended on it
Everything on six-string nylon in standard tuning.
Sure you can. Hurt’s “Richland Woman Blues” is an even more basic pattern that doesn’t have a couple of harder moves that are in "Ain’t No Tellin’. Sounds like “Midnight Special.”
Funny you should mention Broonzy. He’s known for thumping the same bass note, but you can alternate the bass to great effect in two or three things of his that appear on solo recordings (just guitar and no singing, recorded in Europe; not hard to find). It’s surprising how well some of his ideas work with alternating patterns. I think some elements of his playing show the influence of ragtime guitar in Chicago in the early 20th century, a school that would have been led by Blind Blake, if what I’ve read is true and if I’m remembering it correctly. By all accounts, Blake was the best at that kind of playing.
Oh, I know I could. That style of song hasn’t been calling me to dig deep into it - could easily happen next week. But I love the music and respect what it takes to play it if someone invests the time.
Right now I seem to be playing extemporaneous stuff that comes from a combo of riffage that sounds like Monkey Man by the Stones fused with Life During Wartime by Talking Heads.
I contemplate a nylon string - e.g., one of those “crossovers” that’s a nylon built on more of a steel string’s layout for us non-classical types. I am just so darn Broonzy forceful when I play fingerstyle - and I strum like Malcolm Young was learning Keith Richards riffs. I *smoosh *nylon strings out of tune by looking at them. But I dig it to use for investigating Gabriela type stuff, which i could then bring back to my steel string playing. She is just so damn good.
I’m sure endlessly watching Gabriela is a real hardship, isn’t it… I’ve tried to play just the rhythm bits a few times and just end up watching them play instead of actually learning. I really ought to add a classical to my collection. It’s the same when I try to play any Jesse Cook, although he’s not nearly so pretty…At least to me.
That’s super cool. I’ve never played one of Mike’s guitars, but I’ve hung out in his shop plenty. He’s helped me out with work on four of my guitars. Good buy to chat with and he absolutely knows his business. I got to look at his Plek machine once and was suitably impressed.
I picked up an isolation cabinet from Reverb, a Grendel Dead Room with a WHG 30 loaded. I already had a Shure SM-57, and after picking up extra cabling, I’m all set with a quiet monitoring solution for my guitar amps. I’ve wanted an iso cab for years, but they’re ridiculously overpriced at retail ($1000!) for basically a speaker in a sealed box, so I was thrilled to pick this up for $340 with shipping. It’s a bit huge (12 x 12.5 x maybe 30" tall) and heavy as shit (70 lbs!) and the seller was a flake (submitted my bid 3 times over a week and it kept expiring and he’d ask me to resubmit, rinse repeat, finally got here 3 months later and it arrived with a busted caster WTH?), but fuck it, it’s an iso cab and it’s pretty damned iso and sounds great mic’d. Very pleased to have it.
Fender Custom Deluxe 57 arrives Tuesday, a demo from Sweetwater. Life is good.
It’s good to talk to someone that’s been by Mike’s shop. His name pops up in a lot of bass threads. I haven’t spoken to him. All my correspondence has been by email with his shop manager, Paul Schuster.
I’d enjoy see the PLEK machine leveling frets. Gibson uses them. It’s cool that a small shop, making basses has one too.
I’m glad that I am getting a Lull bass while Mike is still hands on. It’s a bit like ordering a PRS when Paul Reed Smith still got his hands dirty.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lull basses take the next step with a team building them. Then they could sell a hundred a month instead of a couple dozen.
They told me three to four months after I put down the deposit. It’s worth it to get a hand built bass.
It’s gotta sound more realistic than any preamp does direct or through a speaker emulator. I see one without a speaker on Reverb right now for $150. I should probably pick one of those up.
Custom Deluxe came today. Jesus, an actual, original design Tweed Deluxe is a weird beast. I’m watching this control tutorial from a custom Tweed builder, it’s amazing there’s only 3 controls on the amp and it’s super complex how to use them. Tweed Deluxe Volume and Tone Control Demo - YouTube
Ah - so you are building a kit or got a mfg’d amp? So that’s a 5E3 circuit - yeah, my boutique isn’t quite that; it doesn’t have the extra inputs. But either way, yeah, for something so simple, we musician types figured out a bunch of ways to manipulate it, just like a simple Tele is the basis for so many Tele-specific techniques. Fender builds good tools.
As for mine, I figured out where I like the settings and haven’t touched them in years
Enjoy!
ETA: I will be interested to hear how your various dirt boxes sound through it. Finding your right overdrive/distortion for your Tweed is a thing of organic, responsive wonderfulness. The thing I love about my Tweed is that I can Marshall it up, but it still has that bright open Fender character.
Fender Custom Shop amp. Found an open box marked down several hundred and pulled the trigger. Mostly because of glowing comments like yours about how magic a tweed is. On the other hand:
Hm. AFAICT, your Bruno seems to have the same controls as a ‘real’ tweed (single tone and two volumes) except only 2 inputs instead of four. Looks quite like a 5E3. Dunno how it boosts to 18 watts, so obviously there’s differences.
So questions:
What do you set your controls to and never change them from? The control range is pretty complex. Example demo here from that boutique maker, using a 335, a booteak tweed, and no pedals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAglneOf9yE&t=471s
I take it your dirt pedal approach with your Bruno is the one I’m familiar with: dirt pedal volume maxed, dirt at 1-2ish -
basically beating the crap out of the amp input stage and warming up the tone just a little in the pedal. Guitar volume at like 6-7.
Huh, for me it was quite a surprise that the classic fender clean chime isn’t really in this amp, it’s quite different than my Blues Jr or the 65 Pro Reverb I had as a teen. Maybe I just haven’t found it in the amp yet; watching that demo video I posted above it’s amazing how much variation is in there.
I believe mine is essentially a 5E3 but I haven’t dug into the differences. That video you shared was fascinating. I may have to go back and check some out. But to be clear, it would be to find another setting I would move to and stick with. I feel like I get all that coloration from my Tele’s controls + dirtbox on/off.
Yes, my to approach dirtboxes is similar to yours - use the Level as the main knob to dial in my tone, keeping the dirt as low as possible just to add a bit.
I have both volumes at ~2 o’clock and the tone dimed full on. My dirtbox as we’ve discussed. Main rock rhythm tone with my Tele is bridge pickup, Volume at about 7, Tone at about 5. I tend to go after the tone of Malcolm Young on AC/DC’s What’s Next to the Moon, off Powerage.
Fender Tweed’s are NOT the famous Fender “blackface” sound (for those not aware, that’s the jargon for fender amps built in the 60’s due to their black control panel. In the 70’s they built “silverface” amps. No Kiss jokes please). The 60’s Fender sound is big tubes and your chimey cleans. Tweed’s are proto Marshalls - Deluxes are small enough that they very little clean headroom, so they gain up easily as shown on that video. Add a dirtbox and yay.
Their signature is that super pleasing overdriven sound - with some of the bigger Tweed’s like a Bassman, you can get Setzer and Stevie Ray gritty cleans. But it is much much more about compression and midrange vs a blackface, which is all about scooped mids and creamy highs. The compression and midrange description sounds much more Marshall, but the Fender version isn’t as compressed - you hear a lot more string separation. The notes don’t “fuse together” in a classic Les Paul + Marshall block o’ sound.
I bet you will learn how to drive this particular car and then love taking it out for a long romp.
Thanks for all the info, as always WordMan. Well, I’ll see if I can get settled. This is a WAY different experience from other amps, takes a while to wrap your head around it. Also, it’s a loud sucker, really f*ing loud. I just ordered a Weber Mini Mass a minute ago, I need to tame this thing a bit. And I’ve wanted an attenuator for ages, so what the hell. But I will miss chime, I’m pretty addicted to that, but I still have the Blues Jr. for that. I do wonder if I would have been happier with a Fender blackface reproduction, like that new 64 Custom Deluxe Reverb. Ah well, this is pretty cool too.
I’ve tried to play just the rhythm bits a few times and just end up watching them play instead of actually learning. I really ought to add a classical to my collection. It’s the same when I try to play any Jesse Cook, although he’s not nearly so pretty…At least to me.