Fender Acoustic Review DG41SCE

Why did I buy it?

I came to university with just an electric guitar and a bass after having spent the previous year playing bass full time in a band with an amazing electric player. I had become quite depressed about my own abilities so decided to swap my strat for a good acoustic guitar that I could play in my room. Originally I wanted a Takamine however the model I was after was out of my price range. I went into the local shop and started playing all their acoustics and this one, the DG41SCE, really stood out in both feel and sound. I fell in love and bought it immediately.

How does it sound?

This model was later discontinued by Fender, and I haven’t seen many other positive reviews (edit: however it seems this is because it is quite rare. I’ve now seen a couple reviews where other people have been as equally impressed with it as I am). I don’t know if I was lucky and managed to find a single instrument that really stands out as remarkable, or if they were all this good (and if they were why on earth did Fender quit making them?). Everyone who’s ever played it has commented on how it both feels and sounds like a guitar twice it’s price. I have used it for (probably hundreds) of gigs and recorded with it many times. It has an excellent Fishman pickup built in and sounds well balanced both acoustically and through a PA (although annoyingly the battery can only be reached through the sound-hole). A cool feature of the built-in pre-amp is a phase switch that can magically makes the guitar sound better on the rare occasions that it does not sound great straight away through the PA. I really cannot fault the sound of this guitar in anyway – it easily competes with all the Martins and Taylors I have ever played or jammed with.

Keep or sell?

Keep keep keep – if I had to choose only one guitar to keep this would be it. I have owned it for twelve years and been through so much with it that it is now part of the family – or even an extra limb!

Fender US stratocaster review

Why did I buy it?

As a kid my best mate had a squire strat that I used to borrow all the time. I was also a great fan of Clapton and so all through my teenage years aspired to get a US strat. I finally bought a US cherry-red one with a rosewood fretboard when I was 18, played it for a few years but then traded it in for an acoustic guitar when I started university. This was a real mistake that I made after playing bass in a band with an amazing lead guitarist and becoming depressed that I would never be that good. A couple years later I bought a Mexican “Sambora” strat which was great except for the Floyd-Rose tremolo that I really didn’t get on with. After a brief dally with a Telecaster I finally went to ebay and got this second hand maple-necked guitar at about the same time I bought the Fender blues-junior amp. I wanted to “cut back to the roots” with nothing but a good guitar and amp.

How does it sound?

I love the five pickup selections. The neck pickup gives a great bluesy lead, the neck+middle is a variation on this and also good for jazz, the middle is cool for clean, I don’t really use the middle+bridge, whilst the bridge on its own is really trebly and precisely what is needed to cut through a mix, especially with lots of overdrive. On my first couple strats I kept the stock pickups however on my current version I changed all three for Texas specials which have a much higher output and thus drive my tubes much better. After having a Telecaster for a few years it was a real relief to come back to a strat which is far more flexible, and quite good for mixing up your sounds a bit especially when engaged in shoe-gazing noodling!

The only problem I have had is playing in a couple places (churches) with a hearing aid loop that gets picked up by the single coils. After a coupl bad experiences I made sure I always carried a guitar with humbuckers whenever I took the strat out!

Keep or sell?

Although I have tried out other guitars I always keep coming back to strats. I know some people do the same with Les Pauls etc. however there is just something about the sound and feel of a strat that does it for me. I think I will always keep this one, and maybe one day add a HSS version to my collection when I have a bigger house. As blues rock is my favourite genre, a strat is about as good as you can get.

POD2 review

Why did I buy it?

I got this just after it came out because of all the positive press. I had never had a multi-fx unit before so this was my first dabble. I bought the floor board at the same time so that I could use it live.

How does it sound?

The shear breadth of sounds is impressive, and it does a lot pretty well. The preset sounds and downloadable ones are passable, however I only really used sounds I had programmed myself. As each bank has four channels I found it worked well for live use to assign a different amp to each bank and then program in four different variations for each amp with channel A always being my solo sound, B my crunch, C a crunch with some type of modulation and D clean. The amps I liked best were the “modern high gain”, “brit class A”, “Line 6 drive” and “tweed blues”. I didn’t really use the mode where the footswitch acted like stomp boxes allowing additional reverb/EQ/delay etc. to be turned on or off. One thing I found valuable was have a multitude of modulation effects to experiment with that I had never had access to before. The wah is disappointing and the tuner bloody useless!

The POD2 sounded great going directly into a recording set-up however I had lots of problems trying to get it to sound good at stage volumes. One of the big problems I have with multi-fx units is that there are so many settings that you only really have time to adjust them at low volumes (ie in your bedroom) which means the killer sound you dial in never quite sounds so killer when you take it to your gig and use it at higher volumes (it’s a psycho-acoustics thing). I originally used the POD going into my Laney clean channel, then tried it through the effects loop, then tried it through the Laney + my Marshall 4×10 speaker cab and then direct into the PA (turning on or off the speaker emulation as required). I wasn’t happy with the live sound produced by any of these combinations.

Keep of sell?

I sold this to a mate who although not a guitarist was doing lots of home recording and wanted options for guitar sounds. He actually went on to buy a Line6 variaxe to go with this and has been relatively happy with the recording sounds until recently (when he asked to borrow my Mesa V-twin!). I think if I did lots of recording I would have kept this, however the benefit of having lots of sounds in one small box never quite overcame the dissatisfaction I had when using it live.

Boss DD-3 delay review

Why did I buy it?

On looking for that “nut” factor for my overdriven crunch sound I found out that a short delay makes the sound bigger. As I only wanted a one trick pony I opted for this small delay pedal instead of the bigger multi-delay pedals. I also already had a boss tuner so could power this from the tuner without needing an extra power supply.

How does it sound?

I set the delay time to around 100msec’s, enough that you can hear it clearly on a quickly damped clean note but not enough that you distinctly hear the repeat on a more overdriven sound. This has the effect of making heavily overdriven chords and solos sound much bigger but without being able to specifically notice that a delay is on. I use this effect along with reverb for all overdriven tones.

Keep or sell?

It’s a keep, but only as part of a bigger pedal board. When it comes to throwing a couple pedals in a bag to go for a jam this seldom comes because I use it more to enhance my sound rather than make it.

Perfect guitar tone, part II

OK so I was probably a bit harsh in my last post on this topic but wanted it to strongly reflect my belief that ability is the major factor for a good tone. BUT as guitarists we love the hobby aspect of collecting pedals and trying new set-ups and this is what we want to read about. Is there a blog that will give us particularly good tips in setting up that killer sound?

I personally take a bit of the Neanderthal approach to guitar in that I think everyone MUST have three great sounds. After that all the other effects are just icing:

1) A great clean tone. I prefer single coils for this and especially love the neck & middle pickups on a strat for single note stuff and the just the neck or middle pickup for strumming. I swear by a tube amp due to it’s responsiveness which is especially noticable when playing single note runs on the neck & middle setting of the strat. I also always have a hint of reverb. In a band setting you need to EQ a bit more trebly than you would in your bedroom so that the sound cuts through the mix. When it comes to strumming you have to be a bit careful to control how the strings ring so I pretty much always palm-damp. A bit of chorus sounds nice BUT only once you’ve got the clean sound useable on it’s own.

2) A great rhythmy drive tone. This time the bridge pick-up either single coil or humbucker seems to work best especially if playing with drums and bass (it will sound too trebly on its own but you really need this especially if there is also synth or keyboard in the band). Again tube overdrive sounds the best to my ears as does a 12 inch speaker. I’ve never been impressed with 2×10′s although 4×10 are OK. I like a bit of reverb and occasionally add a short delay to make the sound seem a bit bigger. The trick is to avoid the “angry bee” sound that cheap transisters seem so keen to provide. If you have the angry bee sound and can’t get rid of it with your EQ you need to think or trying out a new pre-amp. I personally like the (discontinued) mesa V-twin however there are many similar options such as the damage control “womanizer” that also sound great. Drive wise I like to just hear individual notes in a chord. I normally set my drive level by switching to the front pup of the strat and playing a couple runs making sure that gentle picking sounds pretty clean but then harder picking brings in the drive nicely. Finally if Free’s “Alright now” riff sounds good you know you have the sound – I call it the nut factor.

3) A great solo sound. For this the front pup of a strat sounds bluesy and the bridge sounds rocky. Unlike the rhythm sound you want to hear the drive no matter how quietly you pick a note, and you also want it to ring enough to pull off some tapping. This may mean that the guitar feels a bit like a live beast but its up to you to try and control how much the strings ring with damping and also making sure you are accurate when you hit your notes. Volume wise it needs to be substantially louder than the rythm which can be a bit disconcerting in a live situation, however it helps to step closer to the bass players amp when playing a solo in order to stay in time and hear the chord changes. It is the solo sound that is most likely to show up poor technique and sloppy solos. The best practice is to play scales trying to make sure that you distinguish between notes as clearly as possible.

Once you have the above three sounds sorted out you can do whatever you like experimenting with effects BUT if you don’t have these sorted out spend money on your speaker, amp and guitar lessons before buying more effects!

Finally these sounds can’t be worked out at bedroom practice levels. I have ALWAYS been disappointed when trying to translate the perfectly dialled in bedroom sound into a live situation. You have to find these three sounds at gig volume with the rest of your band, tweaking perhaps during a practice or even a gig, and then trying to remember what worked!

Mesa Boogie review, V-Twin

Why did I buy it?

I wasn’t happy with the amount or quality of drive I could get from my Laney VC30. I jammed with a guy who had a Mesa amp and liked the sound so much I got a V-twin from ebay. I would love to buy a proper Mesa such as the Lonestar, however with limited finances and certainly limited levels (ie in the bedroom) the V-twin is just as good.

How does it sound?

It has three channels – clean, blues and drive – however only two are accessible via the foot switch. Also it only has one set of controls (including gain) for all the channels so you are sort of stuck to compromising with the settings. I have it configured so that one footswitch turns the pedal on and off whilst the second switches between the blues and drive channel. I essentially set up a great crunchy rhythm tone on the blues channel and then use the drive channel as my solo boost because it is much louder and dirtyier despite all the settings remaining the same. This has worked really well for me, so much so that I tend not to use the drive channel on any of my amps in favour of this going into the amps clean channel. The mesa overdrive sound powered by the 2x12AX7 valves really needs to be heard to be believed. The only negative on the sound front is that some say this can be used a a recording pre-amp however every time I try to record I get so much noise (especially on the solo setting) that I have never kept a track recorded through this pedal.

Sell or keep?

Definately a keep because this IS the drive sound for me. Of course if I could get myself a Mesa amp this pedal would probably become extra to requirements, however at the moment it forms the heart of my sound.

The perfect guitar tone

I have to admit to really quite enjoying the technical side of electric guitar – browsing around music shops and websites, trying out new amps, playing around on a computer or with the lastest amp modeller. However I have long since given up looking for that perfect tone for a number of reasons:

1. Tone is in the fingers. I was once in a band with one of the best lead guitarists I have ever had the fortune of playing with. What was most remarkable about him was that he didn’t really care about what kit he used so long as he could hear himself and had middle to lots of drive. He always sounded great no matter what he played through. Even going through a crappy boss SD-1 straight into a mixing desk he sounded better than I did through my valve amp. The only thing he was fussy about was his guitar that had to “feel right” which normally ment a US Fender, Tele or an Ibanez. After touring with him for a year or so I realised that there is quite a gulf between the great musicians and those of us who play for a hobby.

2. Tastes change. Although I have a long-term preference towards bluesy overdrive rather than straight distortion, I have noticed my tastes changing over time. What sounded great a couple years back doesn’t quite cut it for me anymore. I am also suspicious that I quite often blame my sound rather than my ability, and sometimes when things don’t seem to be rocking I’d rather change my amp than practice more!

3. Every room is different. Can’t add too much more apart from carpets really help!

4. Volume matters. A bit of a difficult one for those of us who are now bedroom guitarists, but there is something called “psycho-acoustics” which is to do with how our ear hears sound and transmits it to the brain. Since we have evolved to hear voices and communicate we are naturally sensitive to middle frequencies at low volumes, however as volume increases our auditory system starts to flatten out so that we hear all frequencies at similar levels. This is why people often scoop out the mids on their stereo systems but why anyone involved in PA looks scornful when the same is suggested. Basically our EQ on our ears flattens out around 60dB which is actually quite loud. So it is perfectly true that my guitar “sounds better when I turn myself up”.

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In conclusion, if you can’t get a great tone out of middle of the range guitar (eg US Fender strat) and a middle of the range valve amp (eg Fender blues junior) you probably need to practice more. Yes of course effects are cool, but great players don’t need to hide behind them.