DIMARZIO VIRTUAL VINTAGE HEAVY BLUES 2, AIR ZONE AND TEXMEX

Hello everyone, I am going to share some sound clips of my newly installed pickups on my Strat. I hope you will enjoy these clips and make good use of them. Some notes first: the Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 does scream in high gain pretty well but I didn't have time to capture it. I'll try to get the recording next time.

On the other hand, Air Zone definitely sounds fantastic! It doesn't sound similar to any other DiMarzio humbuckers I've tried, this is very unique. It's not a total screamer, it doesn't make your sound muddy, it has definition and good pick attack. I really like it, it's very versatile.

The combination of the VVHB2 and the standard TexMex is very amazing! I can get a very funky clean tone out of the combination and it really works very well!

Here are the clips:
VVHB2: Clean wet, Jazz comping, Dirty
VVHB2+TexMex: Funk
TexMex+AirZone: Funk
AirZone: Clean, Dirty

Hope you enjoy!
Cheers and God Bless :)

IDEALISTIC APPROACH OF BEING A "GOOD" GUITAR PLAYER

This post isn't going to be a review. Instead, I'm going to share with you something that I had in mind for some time that can hopefully expand the horizon of your guitar playing and tone chasing. It's about becoming a better guitarist. What's been driving me to write this post is actually the fact that in the last few days, I've been searching for a way to keep me motivated as a guitar player.

First of all, let's look at some of the top guitarists in the planet. They all have some things in common regardless of their genre. One of them is the willingness to learn; to be humble. They are willing to learn from other guitarists that inspires them and apply that knowledge into their playing. Take Paul Gilbert for example: he's considered a monster in the world of fast guitar playing, but to acknowledge the work of Johnny Cash in the realm of country guitar playing and applying it to his song writing techniques is just very humble and heart-warming; the result shows best during his live performances when he's able to balance between hard and soft songs.

John Petrucci also improved his technique by simply learning from other guitarists that had been playing with him together during G3 concerts. He's so used to alternate picking, he doesn't even consider putting bits of legatos in his playing; but by learning from other guitarists and acknowledging their great work really put Petrucci on the extra mile of his already amazing techniques.

Secondly, most of them are willing to learn many genres although they are known only for particular genres. Take Eric Johnson for example, he's known for his instrumental Rock and Blues but he can go far with some cool Jazz comping, Latin, Swings and Bossa Nova. Guthrie Govan perhaps is one of a few guitarists that can master many different extreme techniques ranging from shredding speed guitar to groovy funk rhythm playing. That kind of multi-genre thing really helps many guitarists to enhance their tone palette too! They will not just stuck with one boring overdrive sound; instead, they will investigate how to achieve many different and interesting sound for different types of moods.


Other thing is their view about their gears. This is a bit hard to apply for us because some of us are limited both financially and/or availability of gears. Andy Timmons really knows the details of his gear, he knows exactly every pedal, every tube in his amps, every cable, every speakers, everything! This really helps him to shape his unique tone that influence him to play in certain way that goes into his liking. On the other hand, some guitarists such as Mike Stern don't really go crazy with expensive gears but they rely on simple setups that are handy, don't require massive maintenance and produce consistent tones during concert.

More importantly, the main point that I want to say ultimately is try to rotate your concentration on different stuffs. Don't just concentrate on tone alone, don't just concentrate on techniques forever, don't just concentrate on gear all the time; try to circle between different stuffs. That way, you will avoid getting bored and you will also develop a bigger picture of being an overall good guitarists. Many young players concentrate only on playing as fast as you can as precise as you can; that's good but that's boring, if players start to develop ear for good tone, they will start tweaking and probably learning different techniques that suit different tones and that is exactly what many young guitar starters need!

I've just recently started to explore good Jazz tone. It requires me to get out of my good overdrive tone and start exploring ways to replicate a semi hollow guitar tone. It's not just about the tone, I'm also trying to learn how to comp in a modern Jazz music and it's really hard for me considering how comfortable I am in the world of Rock music. But the result is starting to show slowly and it's very rewarding to see yourselves develop some new and inspiring tone and techniques.

I hope you all enjoy this post. Reviews aren't going to be as much as before, but I promise to keep the blog interesting! Come back often and enjoy your time here.

Cheers and God bless :)

IBANEZ TONE LOK WEEPING DEMON WD7

Tone Chaser Class: Introduction to Wah Pedal 101(skip if you're a tone chaser)
In the world of modern electric guitar music, wah pedals are commonly used in many different areas covering rhythm and lead playing styles. Hendrix was among the first one to use this type of FX and this inspires lots of players nowadays to add wah pedal to their rig.

In the world of serious tone chasers and guitar gear heads, the word WAH will summon a generally known picture in their mind; a picture of dark valley covered with disturbing thoughts of tone sucking creatures that will haunt their precious tone all day all night. I'm sorry, this is a little bit too much but basically most wah pedal sucks your tone even in off-switch position.

Okay...

I got this pedal long time ago since it was the only wah pedal available in my town. I used it back then when I was still playing Guns N' Roses and needed a wah to play Sweet Child of Mine. Then I used this pedal also for Satriani and Vai stuffs.

The thing I like about this wah is the fact that it has automatic mode, you press the rocker and it turns on without having to hit the switch. Also I like the controls that are very flexible. You can cover wide range of frequencies (or Q) and adjust how sharp or wide is the sweep. Other useful control is the low tuning mode to make the wah covers lower frequencies.

I must say I can cover lots of ground using only this wah. No comparison has been made with other pedals but the good thing is I can cover so many frequency sweeps by just changing the knobs and suddenly I have a new sound, almost like having a new wah pedal !

That's kinda cool

Well not everything is cool with this pedal. They said that this pedal is using true bypass switching. NOT TRUE. I recognize that this pedal sucks tone when turned off. It's been proven, I can hear the difference(hopefully I'll post some audio clips soon). Well, it's not too much since this pedal is using buffered switching system and it's impossible to use 3PDT or 4PDT switch since it won't be compatible with the automatic on/off mode. But it bothers me to be honest since I am using low output pickups.

Oh and keep in mind that this pedal is not funk ready; it adds small amount of gain to your tone when engaged, so this can only be good if you're using an already saturated signal. If you want a super clean funk wah tone, this pedal won't make you happy.

Not true bypass :(, but is it worth?

Roughly less than $100.00 for a new one, this is where it starts to get tricky. If you really need to use multiple wah sounds and you don't mind buffered switching that's sucking your tone a little bit then this pedal will totally worth your money. But if you really want to keep the integrity of your whole signal chain, then I don't really think this is the best choice in this price. Add $60 bucks and you already got a boutique wah with true bypass switching called Budwah by Budda, check it out. I haven't got a chance to try one, but Andy Timmons(yes, him again) uses one and it sounds great in my opinion (FYI boutique wah can reach $200.00 or more).

Final verdict, from 0 to 10

*sigh* I can only give this pedal a 7.5. What's keeping it from getting lower score is the great enclosure, the auto on/off, the flexibility, the Tonelok(press the knob down and you won't hit it accidentaly with your feet) and the size of the rocker that fits perfectly to my right foot.

If this pedal comes with true bypass with no gain reduction, I'll give it an 8.7. If this pedal comes with gain reduction and no true bypass, I'll give it a 9.2. Comes with both, 10 if it does not pass $160.00.

Cheers and God bless :)