New Song: A New Day Rising
Studio Tour
Ola Englund and Keith Merrow both recently posted studio tour videos and that inspired me to do the same. Of course in usual Jason fashion I talked way to much and it got really long, so I broke it up into 7 parts and made a YouTube playlist that plays it all, or you can jump ahead to the section you are most interested in. Enjoy!
Am I qualified to judge the Axe FX II?
I got quite a bit of flack from some die hard tube guys on several forums that my amp modeling article got posted on. The general consensus is that I only like how the Axe FX II and Pod HD sound because I haven’t ever really heard tube amps. I was cleaning up my studio today and decided to take this photo for those of you who come back to this site and aren’t sure if you can trust my opinion of modeling hardware.
For someone with no idea what tube amps sound like, I actually own quite a few. I have several low wattage ones like the Marshall Class 5, Egnater Tweaker and Vox AC15, as well as several fire breathing beasts like the 150w Peavey 6505+. I mic several different cabinets, most with Celestion V30s, with either SM57s or a Sennheiser e906, through a nice tube preamp. I spend quite a bit of time with isolating headphones on with a loop playing through DI so I can get the mic position just right, and I turn them up. We’re talking 7-8 on a 10 scale dial. As I am MOST accustomed to hearing them through studio monitors in the other room, and not in the same room, I’d say that makes me pretty qualified to judge how well the AxeFX II simulates a real recorded amp.
My opinion, very well actually. I did upgrade the speaker cabinet impulses to redwirez, because the loaded ones seemed a little harsh to me, but it’s the real deal. Will I stop recording my amps or sell them? Hell no. I am not going to get into the argument about how a tube amp “feels different” because it does feel different, but different isn’t exactly bad. If I go play out live or jam, I’ll be taking the Axe FX II, a power amp and a 2×12…no question. The point is, I have access to tons of amps I wouldn’t otherwise. It sounds fantastic emulating tube amps, and the effects are in a world of their own.
Ever try a practice journal?
I’ve been lazy at practice for awhile. I’ve got tons of things I want to work on in my technique and tons of things that I’ve purchased that I have yet to even look at. I’ve decided to take a page from the playbook of a few other guitar players I know and try a practice journal.
There is no correct way to do this, but I’ll go ahead and outline my strategy.
- Only plan a week of practice at a time. This should help accommodate the changing needs of what I should practice.
- Always start your last practice session of the week by planning the next week so you don’t end up with a day with no plan.
- Write down what you want to work on, and that day write down what you actually worked on.
- Be descriptive, draw shapes, keep good notes.
- Keep something handy to record if you stumble upon something awesome.
- Mix it up, don’t spend multiple days on the same topic if you can help it.
- Put in some of the things you would otherwise avoid (transcription, reading music, etc.)
I think the beauty of this is that it’s a forcing function to make you practice. So often we’ll just jam and call it practice, or go days without practicing. Since I have a plan, I find a way to commit 30 minutes to an hour on some specific thing I want to work on.
Have you tried this? Did it work for you? Sound off!
A cheap DIY clean boost pedal
I was looking for a quick and dirty clean boost pedal a few weeks ago when I found this kit from AmplifiedParts.com. The kit comes with everything you need to build the complete pedal for $24.95 plus shipping. I think the cheapest boost pedal I’ve seen is the $40 Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 (I have one, and this kit is better I think) so this makes for a real bargain.
Of course it’s DIY, so you need to be handy with a soldering iron and have some time to spare. It comes very well documented and took me about an hour to completely assemble and wire up. It’s not a very difficult project at all, perfect beginner project if you haven’t build pedals before.
I did take a slight detour from the printed instructions to add a BOSS style DC jack on the back so it wasn’t a battery only affair. You can get the jacks for less than a couple bucks and it only adds two small wires to the project.
If you are in the market for a boost pedal or just want to get started building your own pedals, I highly recommend this little kit. It’s called The Piledriver Power Power Boost Effects Pedal Kit and is available from AmplifiedParts.com. They shipped pretty fast too!
The sample below is just a quick thing I recorded so you could hear how well this little pedal drives a tube amp into clipping. I was playing an Ibanez Jem77BFP guitar through just this pedal into an Egnater Tweaker 15w half stack.
