BOSS DIGITAL DELAY DD-3

UPDATED, WITH SOUND CLIPS
Behold, one of the most popular Digital Delay Pedal you've ever come across, it's the Boss Digital Delay DD-3. It's one of the most used digital delay pedal on the world. Popular artists such as Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and many others use this pedal to get that crystal clear delay sound with no added anything. This pedal does not belong to me but I'm going to have it on my pedalboard for some time.

Digital vs Analog
As we all know, there's a significant difference between a digital delay and analog delay. Apart from the circuitry, the tone between the two delays is quite different. Analog delay is known for its lush, warm, wobbly, saturated lo-fi repeats that sometimes resemble an old tape echo delay. On the other hand, digital delay provides clean, pristine clear, hi-fi repeats that really aims for simply clearer repeats. Both have totally different feeling although they can be used on same situation. I still prefer analog delay for its wobbly-ness but this DD-3 provides an extra range that can further enhance your sonic projection.

What's so special about it?
You can read all the technical details on the website, I'm not going to include them in here. Anyway, there are many ways to use this delay pedal; it's quite flexible, unlike my analog delay pedals. Paul Gilbert used to store some lick in it and call it down using the "Hold" mode, while Eric Johnson replaces his Echoplex tape echo with this pedal just to simply get that 300-500ms repeats. Some people set the delay time very short and get that slap-back reverb-kind-of repeats; some others set the time very long and get that glorious long delay lead tone which everyone loves to hear. Very versatile indeed!!

Anything bad?
It's not true bypass if that's your main concern, but it doesn't suck too much bypass tone so if you only have one of these on your pedalboard, you should be fine. When engaged, your real tone will get darken a little bit; while this will make your guitar sound fatter, actually some people hate it because their high end got lost and they cannot get that clicky pick attack sound when this pedal is engaged. Other concern includes automatic turn on every time I power it up using my One Spot 9V pedal power. I never tried the using it with battery so I can't tell you if there's any battery concern.

Is it worth the price?
This one comes at around $110.00, quite expensive but sounds pretty good. I say it's worth it and I may even say this one is a "must-have" on your pedalboard.

From 0 to 10?
I can say 10, but remember to try it first and see if it matches your tone. A great pedal to experiment with.

CLICK HERE FOR SOUND CLIP. I hope you enjoy this post, cheers and God bless :)

DUNLOP JAZZ III 1.68mm STIFFO VS DUNLOP TORTEX .88mm

It's time to discuss about some picks that I used and compare them. Pick/plectrum is the most underrated tool in tone chasing and they can alter your tone significantly when you use the right pick. I'm going to review two of my longest serving picks: Dunlop Jazz III Stiffo and Dunlop Tortex .88mm.

Jazz III

This is by far the most shred-friendly pick that I ever used. So easy to play fast with, so stiff that it transfers your picking energy to the string with lots of dynamics. When used on alternate picking licks, it will create short picking noise so this is very great to get the notes to ring clearly.

This one is used by many professionals especially shredders and jazz players. John Petrucci and Eric Johnson even had their own signature Jazz III picks. I personally used this pick most of the time because it's the most versatile one; you can play anything with this pick. It's thick so don't expect to get easy rhythm playing from this pick. It's also small and a bit slippery so do your best to grip it carefully.

Tortex .88mm

For you who don't really need a shred-based pick, this is a good choice. It's good for rhythm playing because it isn't too thick and too small, it has good grip, it's comfortable on your fingers and it has unique tone.

I watched Paul Gilbert used the orange Tortex which is not too different from this one and he can get a very good tone out of it. It's kind of mushy un-traditional pick sound. It's very good for strat because you can get more top end using this pick.

Beware, you can't really shred with this pick. I gave up on this pick because it's hard to alternate picking using this pick. It's also big so it requires harder string pluck to get a pinch harmonic using thumb; that's why I invented the method of getting a pinch harmonic using my middle finger haha! However, I get back to this pick frequently just to get something different out of my playing and this pick delivers a fresh unique tone very well.

Now let the fight begins!

Here's a sound clip of Jazz III vs Tortex on clean rhythm playing: click HERE --> Jazz III first followed by Tortex.

Here's a sound clip of Jazz III vs Tortex on crunch lead playing: click HERE --> Jazz III first followed by Tortex.

I must say that I love the sound of the Tortex when I scratch it on my muted strings! It really has a very defined attack that I am looking for. It's also good for rhythm. However, it's not easy to tame that green monster especially when I need to play fast lead solos. That's the time when I need to switch back to the Jazz III.

In conclusion, both are great but they really depend on what you want and how you play. The choice is yours!

Cheers and God bless :)

GUITAR ARTISTS WITH GREAT TONE PT.III

Finally, the last part of "Guitar Artists with Great Tone" post! Hopefully you already made some guesses on the artist that I will mention on this post.

I won't mention his name, but I'll mention some interesting facts about him.

He uses mainly Stratocasters.

He's from Austin, Texas.

He's 56 years old.

He had his own Signature Strat.

He uses Fender and Marshall amps mostly.

Any guesses? I'll give you some more hints:

He played an old ES-335 and Les Paul as well.

He suffered from a tone OCD.

He sometimes sings.

Is it clear now?

Anyway, our latest guitar artist with the greatest tone(in my opinion, of course) is

....(drum roll)....

Eric Johnson (applause)

In my opinion, he's the man with the tone and feel. He adapt his playing closely to his tone. He's surely not a shredder but his melody lines are pretty good and difficult to play.

He uses mainly his signature Fender Stratocaster which is based on early Stratocaster during the '50s and '60s. The newer signature Eric Johnson has rosewood fingerboard with modified pickups. His amps are Marshall Plexi 50/100W and Fender Twin Reverb. He's a very big fan of '70s Echoplex tape echo. He uses Tube Screamer and Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face as well as Deluxe Memory Man.

He has three main sounds: clean rhythm, a bit dirty rhythm and a full lead tone. His clean sound is sometimes boosted with a Dyna Comp. It's the cleanest clean sound ever with a very rich harmonics with little bit of delay and chorus; it's based on Fender amp. His rhythm tone is a classic Stevie Ray Vaughan type of sound with the help of Fender amp combined with additional gain box such as TS, very glassy and bluesy and very good for chord works. His lead tone is based on Eric Clapton's Cream-era lead tone that comes mainly from an overdriven Marshall Plexi amp and sometimes together with the Fuzz Face.

This guy really shapes his playing to suit his tone. He has a very good chording technique with some hybrid picking involved. Also he is very good with arpeggiated lead notes. Most of the time he involves some jazz licks together with blues based scale. Very non-traditional playing with influences ranging from Hendrix to SRV.

He's famous for his "tone OCD". He tweaks his gears frequently just to get the right tone. His perception of tone is very high above the standard and that results in amazing smooth fat warm tone that is really the best in my opinion compared to any other guitar artists.

Definitely check out his classic "Ah Via Musicom" album and his newest recording "Up Close" and listen to some of his songs to experience the best guitar tone ever recorded. Not just the tone, the fingers are also great on those albums, some songs are hard to nail!!

I hope you enjoy this post as much as I do and I hope that you can gain some knowledge from these series of discussion post. I will come up with more discussion post along with more review of some cool vintage-y guitar gears :)

Cheers and God bless :)