CAE MC404 Wah

Hello everyone, I'm going to review a very cool wah pedal called CAE MC404 by MXR. As some of you might already know, this is one of those wah pedal that has tons of features that mostly are only available on boutique high end wah pedals but with friendlier price. Also, this one is built with the highest standard and could survive Armageddon without a scratch on it. Read on :)

CAE
In case you don't know, CAE or Custom Audio Electronics is a very famous rig builder that designed many high profile artists' rigs with ultra custom solutions that will maintain good tone, ease of use and durability. Besides building rigs, CAE also starts to build effects pedal as well. So far, they come with MC401 Boost, MC402 Overdrive/Boost and MC404 Wah.

Features
This wah pedal features so many stuffs!! First of all, it features two separate inductors, one called yellow and the other one called red; the red one has tons of low end deep sound while the other one focuses more on the high end treble, the two can be switched back and forth using a side switch on the right. It also has a built in MC401 Boost circuit, also with a side switch that can be easily engaged; the boost is very useful when you need to add more low end while keeping the top end loud and clear or as an extra dirt to kick the front of the amp.

However, the most important feature for me is the TRUE BYPASS. This pedal has been confirmed as a true bypass as it does not suck any of your tone at all. This is very important as I mentioned on a past post that wah pedals don't usually have the luxury of true bypass. Wah pedals like this usually comes in the boutique range but now we can have it for a more reasonable price.

Sound
Super nice!! One of the nicest sounding wah pedal that I ever heard. The yellow inductor works very well for clean funky tunes as well on some overdrive parts. The red inductor shines very well on lead playing. I don't really use the boost but it's very useful if you have some volume balance issue with the amp. The MC401 boost can really hit the front of your amp with more volume and with as little dirt as possible.

Still remember my old post about Weeping Demon Wah? This one totally kicks that wah out of the food chain haha! Although I don't use wah as much as some of my friends, this one really deserves a special place on my pedalboard.

Worth the price?
It comes for around USD $150 on the market, maybe higher than that sometimes. It's not cheap for sure, but  you get two inductors and a boost that comes around $90.00 alone, that's like three pedals in one form factor. What more can you ask? It's totally worth it!!! I wouldn't even mind paying a bit more.

From 0 to 10
11. Never been this happy with a wah pedal. I tried every wah that I found on guitar stores, this one wins the competition significantly in terms of price, reliability and tone.

CLICK HERE FOR YELLOW CLEAN AUDIO SAMPLE
CLICK HERE FOR RED LEAD GAIN AUDIO SAMPLE

I hope you enjoy the post, cheers and God bless :)

ELECTRO HARMONIX MICRO POG

Hello everyone, today I'm going to talk about Micro POG. It's a very unique pedal that can generates octave up and octave down sound and mix it the way you want. It's made by Electro Harmonix and it stands for Polyphonic Octave Generator.

Electro Harmonix
As you already know, EHX created tons of innovations that revolutionize the way guitar pedal sounds. Micro POG is one of the evidence of that. Although the basic idea that it enables you to play your guitar with added octave up and down sounds pretty dull, the reality is very far from dull because you can replicate some interesting tones that sound un-guitar-like. This pedal can make you sound like you play through a 12 string guitar and even like a Hammond organ.

This pedal features a true bypass switch, a dry knob,  an octave down knob, an octave up knob and a stereo output. The way you get the sound is by mixing the knobs until you get the desired tone that you are looking for. It's powered by a 9v adapter and that's already included in the box.

The sound
As I mentioned before, it sounds pretty un-guitar but it's quite fun actually. This is not the type of pedal that you turn on all the time all day long on any song; this is the one that requires the perfect timing to turn it on. Try to turn it on when you play harmonics with all knobs cranked, and you'll get a pretty sweet sounding harmonics. Turn it on with a Tube Screamer during a very mellow slow rhythm part with octave up and dry knobs cranked, you'll get a very cool and rich tone that'll add a certain air to the overall song.

Is it worth the price? 
Comes pretty expensive at around $200, the chip inside is pretty pricey. I don't say it's not worth it because it is worth the price, but I don't say that it truly is. Whatever type of music that you play, this pedal will not be used more than 40% of the time. For me, although it sounds good, it doesn't justify the price vs amount of time spent with this pedal. But hey, this pedal makes playing guitar more fun.

From 0 to 10
I'll give this pedal 9. If it comes cheaper, I'll give 10 for sure.

CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO CLIP

I hope you found this post useful, thanks for reading. Cheers and God Bless :)

RADIAL TONEBONE HOT BRITISH

Hello, today I want to talk about the Radial Tonebone Hot British tube overdrive pedal. While there are so many tube overdrive pedals out there in the market, apparently there are only a few that sound really good. This pedal happens to be one of them. Let's check it out.

The Spec
It contains a 12AX7 tube inside that produces most of the overdrive sound. There are so many knobs; a knob to control the output level, treble knob, bass knob, contour knob, drive and three voicing switches that controls the top end, the overall voicing and mid boost. Each of the switches had three different options, so you pretty much get wide variety of overdrive tone.

It comes with 15V adapter with more than enough power to accommodate the 12AX7 tube. It's also true bypass so if you turn it off it won't suck some power from your tone. The manual provides some helpful example settings that you can use as a starting point before you tweak the pedals.

The Sound
Extremely killer, life changer!!! This pedal can be used as your dedicated lead/crunch channel without changing your amp's channel. I used this pedal only on the clean channel of my amp and it does a wonderful job of providing high amount of gain to the amp. The knobs are extremely sensitive and they do provide so many options of tone that you can use to create whatever overdrive sound you have in your mind.

Turn the drive knob all the way down, the pedal will deliver you a hot Tube Screamer-ish kind of overdrive level, while turning it all the way up will deliver a super high gain Mesa Boogie lead distortion sound. It takes other overdrive pedals pretty well in front of it such as Tube Screamer or BB Preamp to add extra grit to your sound.

The Application
I highly recommend this pedal to those who only had single channel tube amplifier or an amp with bad sounding overdrive channel and needs to have a natural sounding amp-like overdrive that comes in a form of a pedal.

You can also use this on an overdrive amp that doesn't have an effects loop for your delay pedals. Set the amp clean, put the pedal in front of your delay pedal and you can have a natural sounding delays without the need of having FX loop.

I, however, do not recommend this pedal if you are going to use this on a solid state amp, I tried it with an Ibanez 5 Watt amp and it sounds like a total piece of garbage. Also, if you want to use it to boost a tube amp with a great overdrive channel, this might not going to impress you that much(although it can and it sounds good) because you can get a very decent overdrive pedal that sounds as good for cheaper price.

The Maintenance
Tube needs to be replaced once every few years depending on how often it's being used. Also, you have to let the tube warm up before you can switch it on, meaning that it has to be off when the power supply is connected and you have to wait for like 3 minutes or so to prolong the tube life.

Is it worth the money?
$230 is the normal price on the market, you can get it very close to $200 on some stores. I say this is worth it if it's applied the right way(see "The Application" above).

From 0 to 10
Obviously 10.

Sound Clips
Andy Timmons Tube Driver style overdrive
John Petrucci Mesa Boogie Mark style distortion
Warm Tube Screamer-ish overdrive

Hope you enjoy the post, cheers and God bless :)

MY CURRENT PEDALBOARD

Hello everyone, I want to share my current pedalboard that I use for practicing, recording and experimenting. It's actually a bit too big for me to carry during a gig, so I mainly use it only at home and I connect it with my Mesa Transatlantic TA-30 amplifier.

Signal Path
From guitar to Mesa TA-30 amp:
Boss GE-7 Equalizer, CAE MC404 Wah, EHX Micro POG, TC Polytune, EHX Doctor Q Envelope Filter, MXR Dyna Comp, EHX Worm, Ibanez AF-2 Airplane Flanger, Maxon OD9 Silvermod, Radial Tonebone Hot British, RC Booster, Morley Volume Plus.

On the FX Loop:
Boss DD-3, EHX Deluxe Memory Man.

Most of the pedals are powered by the 9V Visual Sound One Spot with the exceptions of Radial Tonebone, Deluxe Memory Man and EHX Worm.

Philosophy of my pedalboard
The general idea of this pedalboard is to be able to cover all kinds of popular effects that you usually hear on any guitar oriented music. Doctor Q can do some envelope filter funk songs, while Worm can deliver phaser,  trem and vibrato. On the other hand, OD9 can deliver some bluesy low gain overdrive tone while the Hot British can be cranked up to a very high gain John Petrucci crunch tone. The RC Booster acts as a transparent volume boost, more like a master volume rather than a gain box. MC404 wah can give you either a bright funky wah tone or a warm lead waht tone with a flick of a switch. Deluxe Memory Man will give you a rich dark analog delay tone while the DD-3 can cover more straight forward digital delay tone. AF-2 can act as either flanger or, with the right setting, an analog chorus from the '80s.

Do I need all of those 14 pedals to sound good?
This pedalboard grows from a simple idea that I talked about in a past post about signal path. Essentially, it can be reduced to four aspects with one pedal for each "tone aspect": EQ, Modulation, Overdrive and Delay. However, as we grow in terms of musical taste and tone consciousness, we usually want more choices for each aspect that I mentioned before. I've been very fortunate and blessed to have all these pedals but if the pedalboard is reduced to only 4 pedals to represent each tone aspect, I can still survive.

If you are a beginner in the world of effects, I wouldn't suggest you to get 14 pedals at once; buy just one or two pedals for each of the tone aspects I previously mentioned and then slowly upgrade in the future. Don't buy the cheapest you can get, buy the ones that sound good; buying cheap low quality pedals will give you hard time in the future, trust me.

What pedalboard to choose?
I'm using Gator GPT-Pro 16" x 30" but to be honest it's better if you can build your own simple board because you can save a lot of money unless you want to buy something more fancy like Pedaltrain or other high end pedalboards.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope you enjoy it. Cheers and God bless :)

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 :)

MESA BOOGIE TRANSATLANTIC TA 30

Hello everyone, today I want to talk about Mesa Boogie Transatlantic TA-30. A little background, Mesa Boogie is very known for its very high quality high end guitar and bass amplifiers and cabinets. Some of its successful amplifiers are now being used by high profile artists such as John Petrucci, Mark Tremonti, Andy Timmons and many others. 

The history of Mesa Boogie starts way back from around early '70s when Randall Smith started his job as a repairing technician for guitar amplifiers. He modified amps that was available during that time by "hot-roding" the amp with an extra tube on the preamp section of the amp to achieve a high gain sound that was not easily available during that time. Since then, he started building his very own guitar and bass amps that come in different tones, output power and size.

Transatlantic TA-30

Mesa Boogie is very well known for its reputation on making high gain amp, but those people working there want to show the world that they can also make amps that can do some great stuffs on lower gain settings; this is the main purpose of TA-30. This amp does so many great clean and break up tones, but you can always crank it up to get that mid gain tone out of this amp. This amp is also on the portable side of amplifiers, means that the head version of this amp is pretty small and light enough for you to easily carry it on any gig.

Technical Detail

I have the head version, it features 4xEL84 tubes, 6x12AX7 tubes, a special output transformer, Effects Loop, Reverb circuits for both channels, independent EQ for different channels, independent Reverb and FX Loop setting on different channels, independent output power level on different channels and some push-pull knobs. The EQ settings are consisted of Bass and Treble without any option to adjust the Mid.

You have two channels:

Channel Green, you can choose between "Normal" clean tone and a British sort of like Vox AC "Top Boost". When cranked up, the Clean tone will deliver an almost break up tone but still on the clean side while the Top Boost tone will start to get saturated. This channel EQ includes a Cut knob to remove some high end sizzle; the knob can be pulled and it starts to act as a Master Volume with pre-fixed amount of "cut".

Channel Red, you can choose between "Tweed" for American Fender clean tone, "Hi 1" for British mid gain tone, and "Hi 2" for Mesa's signature mid gain tone. When cranked up, Tweed will give you an almost break up tone with just a hint of dirt. Hi 1 will deliver Marshall-like mid gain tone when cranked up with enough sustain but not very saturated. Hi 2 will sizzle when cranked up and it will sound pretty good when you do lead stuffs.

All the channels have individual tone control as well as power selection of 15, 30 and 40 Watt. The 15 and 30 Watt power level will give you class A tube tone at different volume and headroom level. The 40 Watt power level will deliver class AB "Dyna-watt" tube tone with extra juice that can enhance your playability and tone.

My opinion

It's a super great amp!!! I personally like the clean channel on Normal mode with some added treble. With the help of its built-in Reverb, you can get so many great classic clean tone that can cover many ground of music styles. I also like the Hi 2 mode on the Red Channel and I usually roll down the treble to get that fat warm tone; I add my BB Preamp in front of the already cranked amp to push it harder and make it sound like a mid/high gain amp that doesn't fuzz too much and still retain the integrity of the original tone. 

You can add any pedal in front of it or on the Effects Loop if you need to use the FX Loop. It works well with all of my overdrive pedal and it projects the delays from my delay pedal nicely. I use a Mesa Mini Recto Cab as my cabinet and it works well especially on Hi 1 mode. 

Is it worth the price?

Nothing bad to say except its sky-rocket-high price. But I say it's worth it, the overall quality of the amp is very good and it's very well built. My personal experience with this amp has been very great, it delivers what it says on the brochure and on the internet.

From 0 to 10

10. Maybe even higher than 10, this is really one of the best amp I've ever tried.

Here's some sound clips. I used my PGM30 with DiMarzio AT-1 and Cruiser Bridge. I record the sound from the amp using Radial JDX Amp DI.

DIRTY

CLEAN

I hope you enjoy this post. Cheers and God Bless :)

Stay tuned for more reviews :)

FENDER STRATOCASTER, BEGINNER GUIDE

Hello readers, sorry for the lack of update, these past months were quite hectic for me but I'm happy with my new job. Today I want to share a bit about the difference between Stratocasters that Fender makes. There are thousands of version of Fender Stratocaster that are available in the market. Although all Stratocasters share the same physical characteristics, their "inner-organs" are different and that's what I want to share in this post. The goal that I want to achieve is to make anyone who is totally unfamiliar to Fender and doesn't know anything about Stratocaster can get an idea about all those Stratocasters.

History 101
Let me share a little bit history of Stratocaster. Stratocaster guitar is basically a follow up from one of Fender's most successful guitar which is no doubt the Telecaster(also called Broadcaster, Nocaster and Esquire; depending on the pickups/headstock). First built in 1954, it was designed to appeal many guitar player from different genres with three pickups configuration(Tele only has two pickups), futuristic dual cutaway body, and of course the Tremolo/Vibrato bridge that's better than current tremolo bridges on the market. The first Stratocasters features Alder/Ash body with Maple neck and usually comes with single sheet  celluloid plastic pickguard.

On late '50s, Fender changed the pickguard from one ply plastic to three ply celluloid plastic pickguard. They also added the 3-tone sunburst color. On 1962, they added the rosewood fingerboard on top of the maple neck to make it look more clean and to make trust rod insertion easier; 1962 is one of the golden era for Stratocasters because by that time, Fender had reached its peak of build quality as well as tone and feel. By the mid-end of '60s, CBS company bought Fender and the quality of all Fender guitars started to climb down. On 1985, Fender was bought back from CBS and start producing good quality guitars again and thus the Stratocaster got its "dignity" back and is still in production until today.

Tips: mark the important years: 1954, late '50s, 1962, mid-end of '60s, 1985.

Different Type of Stratocasters Available on the Market
After a little bit of history, here's the list of Stratocasters that you can find on the market:

1. MEXICAN STRATOCASTER (MIM)

a. Standard Stratocasters - This particular Stratocaster is made in Mexico. It's the cheapest Fender Stratocaster that you can get(if you want to go cheaper, you have to get a Squier). The guitar comes at around US$500. It features low quality Ceramic pickups that doesn't sound really good to be honest. Most of the new Standard Strat comes with late '50s/early '60s visual characteristics such as three ply plastic pickguard, maple/rosewood fingerboard and vintage tremolo bridge. It features a CBS style logo on small headstock.

b. Deluxe Stratocasters -  Made in Mexico as well but they feature better pickups(noiseless or Alnico, depending on the model) and sometimes a unique switching system for extra tone out of the pickups. They are pricier compared to the Standard Stratocaster, but they can give some features that even sometimes American Standard Strats don't have.

Other than those two models, you can also get Classic Player '50s and '60s, Factory Special Run, Black Top, Road Worn and some other models. They come with $600-900 price tag. Some Artist Series are also produced in Mexico.

Buying Standard Stratocaster will allow you to upgrade the parts and still pay cheaper than American Stratocasters. Deluxe Stratocaster will give you the upgraded parts already so you don't have to upgrade. But be careful, you have to try the guitar first before you are going to buy it. Mexican Stratocaster isn't too consistent, sometimes you'll get something which sounds so amazing but the other day you might get a total piece of junk sounding guitar. Mexican Stratocaster also doesn't age and turn yellowish due to its polyester finish (this doesn't affect the tone as long as it's applied thinly to the Stratocaster which is the case with Mexican Stratocaster).

2. JAPANESE STRATOCASTER (MIJ)
This particular Stratocaster is very unique due to its extreme consistency on its build quality. MIJ Strats are offered in many different models such as '57 Reissue, '62 Reissue, Standard and Deluxe. They are now only available in Japan but you can still find some used one from late '80s and early '90s when import guitars were plentiful.

MIJ Stratocasters usually offer a very neat finishing, wiring, as well as tone. They don't come with good sounding pickups, but once you put better pickups in it, MIJ Strats will usually transform into super nice sounding guitars. They come from as low as $600 to as expensive as $1200. Buy the used one will give you cheaper price

3. AMERICAN STRATOCASTER (MIA)

a. Special - The cheapest among the MIA Strats, come with '70s style large headstock and logo, super nice alnico pickups as well as vintage style tremolo and modern shaped neck and frets. They don't come with flight case. The current pickups for MIA Special Stratocaster are Texas Special pickups, they have a bit more power compared to regular Stratocaster pickup, which is good for playing blues and getting break-up sound. The new model also has the Greasebucket Tone Circuit which will remove unwanted extra bass when you roll down the tone knob.

b. Standard - Comes with two point tremolo that is very smooth but still with vintage stamped saddles that everyone loves. They come with flight case and the current model has the Fat '50s pickups that sound very good. Most of MIA Standard Strats can sound very good during live situation and they have the best build quality in my opinion. It also features better tremolo block that improve the tone significantly as well as thinner coat for improved resonance.

c. Deluxe - Comes with modern style two point tremolo and deluxe saddles. They have the unique switching for extra tones from your pickups, as well as noiseless pickups that don't produce 60 cycle hum. They also come with locking tuner for tuning stability, compound radius(super comfortable neck), contoured heel for easier upper register access, as well as V-neck option. This is the most expensive non Custom Shop and non Artist Stratocaster you can get.

Other than the three above, you can also get American Vintage Reissue '57 and '62, Artist Series, Select Series, Vintage Hot Rod and Custom Shop American Stratocasters. They come with $1200 to $2000++ price tags

MIM/MIJ VS MIA
American Stratocasters are the priciest compared to the other two because of its exceptional built quality and features that are not available on other Stratocasters. This caused a debate that has been going for some time whether is it really worth the price or if it's just a gimmick. I honestly don't know but owning both MIM and MIA Stratocasters, I can tell that they are quite different and not necessarily better from one another.

I say American Stratocaster is worth the extra price because of the different feel of the neck as well as the overall built quality of the body and electronics. The tremolo bridge has better metal block that causes the notes to sustain longer and to resonate across the whole body. While this is good for rock, blues and pop, this is not so good when you're playing staccato based songs such as some funk songs. 

My MIM and MIJ Stratocaster come with standard bridge that has standard metal block and they are finished with polyester. It has some sustain but not as long as my MIA Strat, so they shine the most when I play funk songs. My MIM Stratocaster can produce some heavy spank when engaged at 2nd and 4th pickup position. My MIJ Stratocaster can also produce that but due to its basswood body, it tends to gravitate toward warmer bell-like tone. My MIA Stratocaster comes with humbucker and while it produce some bright tone and spank, it doesn't do staccato note easily(you have to do extra work with muting the strings) but it cuts through the mix easier and produces some great heavy overdrive tones. So they are all good for different situation.

So here's my conclusion: If you want to buy a Stratocaster, it doesn't matter if it's made in Mexico, Japan or USA, but as long as you tried the guitar first and hear how it reacts toward different playing styles. American Stratocaster will have better feel and quality but it may not have better tone if you don't try it first. Mexican Strat may feel a bit stiffer but it may produce some amazing clean tone. FIRST, decide the features that you need from the guitar and decide your budget; SECOND, try that particular model of the guitar that you want; THIRD, compare it with other guitars of same models and try to compare it with some other models on same budget level and see if the other guitar of same or different models sound better; FOURTH, make the decision to buy.

Don't get overwhelmed with so many types of Stratocasters, all that matters is that it sounds good to your ears. Cheers and God Bless :)

DIMARZIO AREA SOLDERLESS PICKGUARD

Hello everyone, today I'm going to post a review of DiMarzio Area pickups that I recently installed on my MIM Stratocaster. They're being sold in a package called "Solderless Area Pickguard" complete with all the potentiometers and proper wiring(2nd tone knob goes to bridge pickup). The installation only took me 6 minutes, it does not require solder, you will only need a wire cutter and a pair of scissors to strip the wires. On the pickguard itself, there are 3 pickups already installed in a conventional SSS configuration: Area 58, Area 67 and Area 61. DiMarzio claims that these pickups are the best hum-free rendition of the original '50-'60 era Stratocaster.

Sound
Right away after installing the solderless pickguard, I put a fresh set of strings and immediately plug the guitar to my amp and start playing. My first reaction is the guitar seemed to reached a new level of dynamic and clarity. I've had lots of DiMarzios on my guitars but these ones are different from them. Compared to my Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2, these pickups sound softer, brighter and cleaner. You can get the famous Stratocaster clicky percussive sound using these pickups easily.

On an overdrive channel, the pickups seemed to retain its cleaner quality. On the neck and middle combined(58 and 67), you can hear very clear the original characteristic of the tone, even with generous amount of overdrive. The bridge (61) gets a bit harsh on higher register, but once you roll down the tone knob a bit, you'll get a very thick, warm and punchy sound from it. Add more overdrive and get the tone knob to around 3 or 4, you'll get a tone that's in fact sound so much like a full size humbucker.

Is this the right pickup for me?
If you play a Stratocaster and you've been struggling to get a good noise free pickups that retain the original qualities of vintage single coils, then these pickups are for you. Once again, they're not the most powerful single coils, but they're a tiny bit hotter than regular Strat pickups. Moreover, they had less magnetic pull compared to your average Stratocaster pickups; hence, you'll get more sustain.

If you're a humbucker guy, these pickups might be worth exploring. Although I never tried the original '50s and '60s Stratocaster pickups, I can easily say that these pickups changed my life. I was once a humbucker guy, believing that achieving good tone can only be done using humbucker; now I'm quite happy with my single coils because they can nail almost everything.

However, keep in mind that single coils are not meant for ultra high gain modern lead drive tone. No matter how good they are, humbucker is still better for ultra high gain; except for some single coil sized humbucker replacement.

Here are some sound clips:
Neck Dirty
Neck Clean
Neck and Middle
Middle and Bridge
Bridge Clean
Bridge Dirty 1
Bridge Dirty 2

I hope you enjoy this post, stay tune for more posts!

Cheers and God Bless :)

FENDER MIM STANDARD STRATOCASTER

Hello everyone, I finally acquired a Fender Standard Stratocaster made in Mexico. I originally hesitated on buying a MIM Stratocaster because of the polyester finish, but this guitar really blows me away. First of all, being a Fender, it shows an excellent craftsmanship and high quality on every details. So for you who think that MIM Stratocaster is not worth your money, please re-consider MIM Stratocaster, this guitar surely worth every cents I spent.

Basic Spec

The guitar was made in early mid 2011. Color is black, with maple neck no fingerboard 21 frets. It uses the vintage 6 screws tremolo and it's pretty smooth and easy to use the vibrato arm(I'm a heavy whammy user). It comes with ceramic single coil pickups on a semi aged plastic pickguard and pickup cover. Tuners are already staggered, it comes with a single string tree.

The Feel
Maple neck isn't glossy, it has urethane finish and it's doing good to my hand. Not as fantastic as my MIA neck or Prestige PGM neck though, but definitely better than my JEM-JR Korean Wizard neck. The tremolo can't be used wildly, it goes out of tune very fast. I'm in a process of getting a set of locking tuners to improve tuning stability. The fret is somehow smaller than my MIA(not quite sure but it feels small) and it's a bit harder to play on compared to my MIA neck. The polyester body finish is very sleek. I'm strongly against polyester finish but luckily on this guitar, the paint is applied thinly to the body(I checked the trem springs cover screw hole).

Weight is very normal for a regular Stratocaster, it won't weight you down too much. I set the trem to float, and the action is already low from the factory so I didn't adjust anything, it feels perfectly right to my hand. The neck is thick and rounded as in regular C-shaped Stratocaster neck, and the frets are slightly rounded too for a more comfortable chord playing.

The Sound
The sound is very Fender-ish; clicky, percussive, bell tone on 2nd and 4th position, very bright and clean, sits well on an average mix. It lacks only one thing: sustain; this is what I feared the most from Stratocaster-type guitars. I immediately put DiMarzio Area 58, 67 and 61, rewired the tone knob for the bridge, and now I got a proper sounding Stratocaster with no hum and long sustain.

MIA(Made in America) vs MIM
This topic has been discussed since the existence of MIM Strat. MIM is really worth every cent you spend, it's not expensive and it sounds good too. If you plan to use the guitar frequently, MIM is really worth the money, it has all the "mojo" of Fender guitars. Now you probably ask: then why should I buy MIA Standard Strat? Because it's also worth every cent you spend. The craftsmanship of an MIA is way better than the MIM; let's say if MIM is extremely good, then MIA is perfectly perfect. When you first touch an MIA, you'll immediately feel that "wow" factor even before you know it's an MIA. The neck, the body contour, the finish and all the details are very perfect on MIA.

BUT, if your priority is tone, it's not possible to get a good sound out of MIM Standard Stratocaster. That will depend on how much are you willing to upgrade the pickups on the guitar to make it sound fantastic. MIA by itself already sounds great but if you dare to replace the pickups with a set of better sounding pickups, then you'll get a fantastic tone.

Let's say you'll use a same set of pickups for both MIA and MIM and you do a blindfold tone test, you'll notice only a tiny sound difference. Although MIA surely sounds better than MIM, it's not significant at all.

Overall
10 out of 10. Once again, Fender made a believer out of me. Good quality guitar, good price, great sound. I'm very happy with this guitar and I'll make some good music with it for sure.

I hope you enjoy this post. Cheers and God Bless :)

p.s. I'll soon post a review of my DiMarzio Area Pickup set, stay tune!

DIMARZIO PAF PRO

Hello, this post will talk a lot about DiMarzio PAF Pro. As we all know, DiMarzio is one of those companies who are selling aftermarket pickups with many options to fit your preference. I got one installed on my JEM-JR now and the reason why I put PAF Pro on my JEM-JR is not because it's my choice; ironically, it chose me one day because my local DiMarzio dealer didn't have any humbucker left at that time except PAF Pro.

Paul Gilbert
First time I heard PAF Pro was on Paul Gilbert's solo albums. Paul put PAF Pro on the bridge position of some of his guitars, including the famous PGM300 which he later converted to a 301. It attracts my ear because it's a relatively bright humbucker which means it will blend perfectly with other bright sounding pickups and/or single coils. This also makes it very effective on the neck position to brighten up muddy neck position on a darker sounding guitar.

Put it on my JEM-JR
My original plan was to stick it on the neck of my JEM and get something hotter and darker for the bridge to kind of level off the EQ on both neck and bridge position so that I get the similar bass and treble on both position but with different gain. However, I was more interested with single coils on that time, so I chose Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 to be installed on the neck and middle position.

The sound
Exactly as what it was advertised: bright, strong, punchy and stands out pretty clear in the mix. It was bright enough that you can nail some bridge single coil tone using this pickup on the bridge position. It screams too if you need it to scream, just add more dirt on your signal and you'll get a fantastic result. Harmonic overtones are everywhere! It's not categorized as high output pickup, so it won't really drive your amp too much but that also adds more dynamics to your overall sound.

Is this the correct pickup for me?
I adjusted my volume pot to 250k in order to make this one works better, but even with 500k it was still sounding good. Beware, if you had a very bright sounding guitar you better be ready for some super bright tone especially if you put it on the bridge position. My JEM-JR is already strong in the upper mid but it's not bright enough on the top end. This pickup really helps me to achieve that top end boost so that it can cut easily on the mix without obstructing other instruments on the mid level. If brightness and top boost is what you're looking for, this is what you need.

Price?
Same with every other DiMarzios, they start around US$70.00 depending on the color you choose.

Worth the price?
Obviously, you can't go wrong with DiMarzio pickups if you know what you want.

Sound clip: coming soon
I hope you enjoy the post, cheers and God bless :)

BYOC TRIBOOST

Hey everyone, I'm back with a new pedal called Triboost. It belonged to my friend Anthony Woen and I am very lucky to have this home-made clone pedal in my pedalboard for testing right now. It sounds awesome, it doesn't price too high and you can build it yourself and save some money.

BYOC
This company sells you ready-to-make clone pedals of well-known pedals such as Tube Screamer, Boss Chorus, etc. The company provides easy-to-follow instructions for assembling the pedals. Most of the pedals are not too hard to build even if you have a minimal experience in soldering. All of them feature true bypass switching and high quality components(ICs are usually good NOS chips!).

Three in one
This pedal is actually three boosters being made into just one pedal in a compact sized enclosure. It features three mode:
- Green: based on a generic MOSFET clean boost that is available around you. It adds a bit of dirt when you dial the boost a bit high.
- Blue: based on a linear booster. This is simply the cleanest among all three, doesn't add too much dirt and colors your tone minimally.
- Red: based on a Dallas Rangemaster boost. It uses NOS germanium transistor to achieve the Beano/Rangemaster sound. It has the most dirt compared to all and you can also adjust the boost frequency using the top rotary knob; you can choose from full, treble and mid boost on this mode.

This pedal intended to work strictly as a booster and not as an overdrive. If you expect this pedal to do an overdrive sound, you'll probably be disappointed. Use it as a booster on either clean or dirty channel and you'll immediately hear some classic boost sounds on each modes. Absolutely fantastic!

Worth the money?
I can't see why not! This pedal does work as what its advertised. A three in one booster is one of the rarest thing in the world. As long as you can solder neatly, you'll get a good quality pedals in your hand. There's a Canadian seller that sells BYOC pedals that are already assembled if you don't want to solder the pedals by yourself. This one is priced at $95.00 and you can buy it on BYOC website: www.buildyourownclone.com. An LPB will cost you around $40.00, MOSFET booster at around $100.00 and Rangemaster Booster clone at around $100.00; three of them separately cost $240.00 approximately and this Triboost only cost you $100.00.

From 0 to 10?
Depending on how good you build the pedal yourself. Nonetheless, it will be 10 if you do a great job. I recommend this pedal for a less expensive solution for finding a booster pedal.

Here's the sound clip of this pedal. Clean - MOSFET - Linear - Rangemaster Full - Rangemaster Treble - Rangemaster Mid. CLICK HERE for the sound clip.

Cheers and God bless :)

DELUXE MEMORY MAN, NOW WITH SOUND CLIP

The holy grail of analog delay pedal is now finally available for review. I won't talk about it for too long, I'm just going to mention some of the best features from the pedal that I think is very interesting to know. Read on!

Dimension?

I've mentioned earlier about this pedal's ability of adding a certain "dimension" to your guitar sound. It is true, the myth is confirmed and it also increases the warmth of your tone even without any delay being added. The chorus on this pedal is amazing, it really pleases your ears with the super lo-fi wabbling lush repeats.

Booster
This pedal also has an adjustable level knob that can be set to match your amp's output. You can also use the level knob to make this pedal as a booster if you want to. It will sound similar to an Echoplex preamp I suppose, since it does not add any gain but push your amp to a near break-up when you dial the knob at its max. Sweet, isn't it? You got a pedal that functions as a delay, boost, vibrato and chorus.

Blend and feedback
It's a little bit too loud sometimes, the mixing between the dry and the wet signal is a bit weird because you'll get repeats that are actually louder than your original signal if you dial the blend too much. I had to find a spot where it doesn't sound too loud to keep it as subtle as it should be. The feedback knob is also a bit too short in my opinion, you don't get lots of repeats in my opinion even if you dial above 12 o'clock. They're just small things and they're very personal, but they don't really bother since you can tweak a bit to get your desired sound.

Memory Boy? Digital Delay w/ Analog Emulation?
This thing really shines and for its price it's really worth the money. But now, people might still ask, why do you still buy this thing if a Memory Boy can also do the same job with less price? I tell you, try playing with your earphone plugged to your ears and hear carefully how this pedal enhance your tonal space, a Memory Boy did that too but there's something unspeakable that comes out through this pedal that really makes it what it is. Until today, I can be certain that there is no digital emulation of analog delay that can sound like a real Memory Man. We're still lucky I guess, because Electro Harmonix still makes this thing. I don't know how long will this pedal still be available, so if you can get one of this, get it ASAP.

Sound clip of just the Memory Man: CLICK HERE (Andy Timmons - The Prayer/The Answer)
A comparison of Memory Boy and Memory Man, Memory Boy being played first: CLICK HERE

Thank you for checking out this post, hope you find what you're looking for and hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I enjoy writing it.

Cheers and God bless :)

OVERDRIVE PEDAL SHOOT OUT, REVIEW OF IBANEZ JEMINI, BOSS DISTORTION DS-1, SUPER OVERDRIVE SD-1

Hey everyone, today I just want to share a little bit of review about some Boss overdrive/distortion pedals that I currently have in my home right now as well as an Ibanez Jemini distortion pedal and see how they compare to the other pedals that I have reviewed before. These pedals belong to a friend of mine, Anthony Woen (thank you, Ko Awoen).

Ibanez Jemini
Everyone who knows Steve Vai must know that he has a signature distortion pedal called Jemini. It's actually two gain boxes being combined into a single form factor. Can be powered using a single 9V battery or 9V adapter (the battery compartment on the left side is not connected, it's just for spare battery). It has bright and save switch to reduce the LED brightness.

Basically the left side of the pedal is a modified Tube Screamer-ish pedal with some vintage feels but with lots of added low end and boost. It just feels so smooth and even and fat. It doesn't have too much mid hump compared to an original Tube Screamer. I heard that it was based on his modified TS808 by Keeley with some upgraded parts. I used it on a clean channel amp and it sounds wonderful, somewhere between my TS and BB preamp but with lots of low end. Steve probably used it as a boost on his crunch channel.

The right side of the pedal is actually a more straight forward distortion pedal with a lot of gain and presence. It has massive amount of gain, enough to turn your clean channel amp sound into a full stack distortion sound. It too also has huge amount of fatness and boost. It reminds me of an original DS-1 from the '80s which I don't have but heard many times. It has enough of drive to turn your guitar into a metal machine.

BTW, only one side can be turned on at a time, you can't turn both at the same time, I wish it can do that but it doesn't. Sad. But it's still one heck of a good pedal, though.

It's around $199.99, it sounds like two boutique pedals, it's true bypass, it's so colorful, and it's worth the money, like it or not. You got two good sounding boutique drive pedals in just one box, saves a lot of $$$ haha!

Boss Super Overdrive SD-1

A pretty good sounding overdrive pedal from a well-known maker: Boss. It's designed to rival Tube Screamers. It's not a Tube Screamer wanna-be FYI, it sounds different and it acts different. This one is similar like a Boss Blues Driver BD-2, just enough amount of gain without too much presence.

The knobs are pretty responsive and they all pretty straight forward. No nonsense here, just a simple, effective and good sounding overdrive pedal. It's not as fat as a Maxon OD or modified Tube Screamer, but you don't get too much low-end loss from this pedal.

Priced in just below $50.00 in U.S., this thing is a killer for sure. Please note however as with any Boss pedals, they're not true bypass. If you have a couple of them together they're gonna be just fine but if you had a lot of Boss pedals in your signal path, get a buffer pedal to strengthen your original signal, these pedals can cause tone sucking problem if you're not careful.

Boss Distortion DS-1

Similar to the pedal above but with more gain, less midrange and more presence. This is a very basic distortion pedal that already becomes standard for many other distortion pedals. It goes from a very low gain Tube Screamer-ish sound to a massive heavy metal sound with just a turn of a knob.

A very straight forward distortion pedal. Note however that this is not a boutique pedal, it does not have a lot of special things in it. Getting overtone harmonics and plenty of sustain requires more work with this pedal; but if you don't even care about that and just want a basic good sounding distortion pedal, this is a way to go.

It's important to know that lots of pedal makers are using DS-1 as a base to search their own unique sounds. So you can actually cover a lot of distortion sounds from using this pedal. It's priced just below $50 as well and it's not true bypass as I mentioned above. It's worth the price but requires you to be careful when combining this pedal with other non true bypass pedals.

Let the battle begins!
I made a sound clip of all of these distortion pedals being mixed together with my other drive pedals playing a same rock riff over and over but using different pedals.
Here's the order: BB Preamp - Maxon OD9/808 Silver Mod - Jemini Left - Jemini Right - SD1 - DS1 - RC Booster.

They're all being set with tone just before noon, drive between 2 and 3 o'clock and level varied a bit from one pedal to another to adjust the output from my preamp on clean channel. No other pedals are being used...

Here's the link : DISTORTION FIGHT

After you hear the sound clip, you'll see two sides of drive sound: one side is the normal distortion sound, the other side is the overdrive low gain Tube Screamer-ish sound. They're all good but note that some pedals are better for a certain situation while the others might be useful in other situation.

I hope you enjoy this post, thank's to all of you who keeps coming back to my posts! I really hope this post as well as the other posts will help you to find what you're looking for.

Cheers and God bless :)

TC ELECTRONIC HALL OF FAME REVERB

Tonight, I got a chance to review a relatively new reverb pedal from TC Electronic called Hall of Fame. It's a superb pedal with lots of knobs to tailor your reverb to your pleasing. One thing that I want to point out to you before we even start is that this thing marks the new chapter of digital guitar world that still carries the passion of analog sound; it has the new Toneprint technology that allows you to download an artist's reverb tone to the pedal via USB.

Overview

This thing looks nice and neat, it's just as big as your nano EHX pedal. It has four knobs; one to adjust the length of the reverb called decay, one to adjust the reverb treble called tone, one to adjust the level of reverb, and one to select the reverb mode. It has a selector for long and short pre-delay. It also has a true bypass switch(sweet!) that can be switched to buffer(even more sweet!) depending on how many pedals that you will have in series with this pedal. It has stereo output and input. What more can you ask from this pedal?

Sound

It's a digital reverb, same as the other reverb pedals out in the market, they are basically delay pedals. This one is more flexible and adjustable. I can get lots of settings out of this little box that can totally enhance the trails of my tone. It's just so good and so tweakable that it requires hours of some serious tweaking to get the ultimate reverb of your dream.

If you don't want to spend hours on getting your reverb tone, take the USB cable from the box, connect this pedal to your computer and download your favorite guitarist's setting. Voila, you'll get the exact setting of your guitar hero.

The different reverb modes, all sound very convincing. It even has the Mod option to add chorusing to your reverb just to make it sound like you're using a super short delay with lots of repeats from a tape echo.

What it lacks

NOTHING! I can't find anything wrong with this reverb pedal. It's so flexible, it sounds great, it's easy to use, it's true bypass/buffer, and it's small enough. I wish everyone on this planet would make pedals like this!

Worth the money?

Price range around $150.00, a bit pricey for a reverb pedal. But with those options available in this pedal, it's worth every penny you spend, trust me!

From 0 to 10

10 of course, you can already tell haha!

Here's a sound clip containing different modes of this pedal that I think are the best. It starts from dry to room mode, hall mode, spring mode, church mode and modulation mod: CLICK HERE

Cheers and God bless :) !

JEM 7VWH

This JEM does not belong to me, I'm actually quite honored to have what used to be one of my dream guitar sitting in my house. It belongs to a friend of mine, Anthony Woen.

The look

I got a chance to analyze this JEM both in terms of sound and look. It's just gorgeous; its gold hardware, Edge Pro locking trem, vine tree inlay, jumbo frets, gotoh tuner, DiMarzio Evolutions and its monkey grip are just awesome!

The feel

It's the ancestor of the current Ibanez RG model, so naturally it has that oversized horns on its body just like my PGM and every other RG based guitars. The neck is just awesome! It's thin, meaning that it will help you run across the neck easily. Doesn't feel to good when you try to play chords here, a bit more thickness should help. It's thinner than my already flat PGM Prestige neck. I don't need to speak about the locking trem, it's just totally awesome, the same exact trem as what I have on my PGM.

Weight isn't too bad. It's an alder body guitar, it's supposed to be a bit heavier compared to a basswood guitar, but it isn't; in fact it is lighter than my PGM!

The sound

DiMarzio Evolution on the neck, middle and bridge. They're fantastic for modern hi-gain sound! The alder body and rosewood combination adds more tonal color to the overall sound. The JEM supposed to sound pretty bright due to the alder body but in fact it isn't that bright. It sounded pretty good on distortion pedals and tube pre-amp! Overtone harmonics are appearing on some spots in the neck, it has a strong punch in the mid-high mid area. Definitely a shredder's guitar! Either the neck and the bridge delivers punch and clarity. Roll back the volume and I get that sweet spot break-up sound.

On the clean channel, the neck pickup sounded like an SG. Very good for jazz runs, lots of fat tone that's good for chording as well. Combine the neck and the middle and I got a pretty subtle sounding clean signal, good for funk and general strumming. I didn't really use the middle pickup but mid+bridge gives me another good funk-type sound with some added treble. I don't really use the bridge pickup on the clean channel.

Sustain is pretty good. It doesn't hold as long as my PGM, but it does hold longer than every Strats that I've touched.

What it lacks

Nothing! This guitar is in fact one of the most versatile guitar on this planet. It does everything. However, not everyone will enjoy this guitar. The pickups are a bit too hot for me and I always prefer a single coil in the neck. Nonetheless, it's my preference; this guitar will surely blow you away if you're a Steve Vai fans or just someone looking for a HSH super strat.

The verdict

I compared this gorgeous JEM side by side with my PGM, and I recorded some tunes with both guitar on same settings just so you can hear the difference between how the JEM and the PGM sound. All clips started with my PGM first, and then the JEM later.

Clean signal: CLICK HERE

Chorus added: CLICK HERE

Screamer and delay: CLICK HERE

Fat crunch rhythm: CLICK HERE

I hope you enjoy this post.

Cheers and God bless ! :)

MXR M234 ANALOG CHORUS

Finally, the pedal that I've been waiting for is here! It's the Analog Chorus by MXR! I can't believe I'm actually using a chorus pedal now, I've been living without one for years and I thought I won't need it until some days ago haha!

First Impression

Good pedal so far, not really true bypass but the buffer switching in this pedal isn't bad at all. In fact, it increases my signal volume instead of eating my tone, so I'm pretty grateful for that. Comes with EQ knobs that you can control to adjust the amount of bass/treble cut on the chorus; also it has a level, rate and depth knobs to adjust the basic chorus functions as in other pedals. It has a stereo option, the second output will carry the dry un-chorused signal.

The sound, the feel

This is not boutique pedal, doesn't have a sky-rocket price tag and it's not really something that people look around too much in the forums. I don't know how it compares to other chorus pedal yet except to a Boss Dimension C chorus. Boss chorus pedals are known for their wide open spacey lush layering effects that bring lots of air around the notes or chords that you play; that's exactly what I've heard from the Dimension C chorus.

But fear not, this pedal is not bad at all. In fact, it's pretty good and it's comparable to its rivals. Just hear the sound clip that I posted on the bottom of this post to get an idea of how it sounds. It's pretty flexible and you can adjust the kind of chorusing effect that you want from the knobs but it works best when you don't over-do the depth off the chorus.

What it lacks

It's a perfect chorus pedal if you want to layer your tone nicely just like in the '80s. It doesn't work well on a heavily distorted tone although it sounds perfect on a clean channel. It also doesn't bring out the dimension of the notes that you play as much as Boss DC-2. I'll try to compare this pedal with other well-known chorus pedals and see what will happen.

Worth the price

Yes! For a hundred bucks, this is the best chorus pedal for its price range!

From 0 to 10

10!

Here's a sound clip, beginning with dry signal, the pedal turned on and the pedal turned on with a touch of delay and reverb: CLICK HERE

Cheers and God Bless ! :)

NO OCTAFUZZ FOR ME, MXR ANALOG CHORUS ON THE WAY

Sorry for the very lack of update everyone.

Bad news and good news, here we go

I changed my mind, I don't really want the octave fuzz pedal anymore, I don't really see how it will fit on my playing style. So with the same amount of money that I already saved, I turned the budget to an analog chorus by MXR. It's on its way now, hopefully by tomorrow I'll get a chance to put it on my pedalboard.

What really draws me to this analog chorus pedal is the lush layering sound that it's capable of. I haven't personally tried this pedal on a local guitar shop, but from the videos on Youtube and from some reviews, I can be sure that this one will satisfy my needs for a clean, lush, wide, spacey chorus effect.

Those of you who doesn't really know what does a chorus pedal do, here's a short lecture about it.

Sometimes, a guitarist needs to add some layering to its guitar sound to recreate the effect of some number of guitars playing together. This can be done easily by stacking together multiple guitar tracks on the recording, but for live situation, this is where a chorus pedal will shine. It's a time based effect(mostly), it creates a slightly out of tune sound on a certain period of time and by doing this, it simulates multiple guitars being played together.

A chorus pedal will thickens a clean sound, will add some harmonics quality on dirty tone and it will help lead tone to layer up the notes even better.

Stay tuned!

Hopefully my MXR will arrive tomorrow, I'll have some time to post stuffs after that :).

Cheers and God Bless

DIMARZIO PAF 7

So sorry for the very lack of update last week, I went to so many places and didn't have much time to update the blog. Anyway, here I am with a review of DiMarzio PAF 7, the seven string DiMarzio low output PAF style pickup.

A little bit of background

It's supposed to sound like a regular PAF on Les Paul guitars. This one is formulated for seven string guitar and it has that low output sound of a weak magnet humbucker that makes it so sweet.

I installed mine on my RG7321 on the neck position. It doesn't sound good right away, but after I tweaked a little bit with the pickup height, I got my sweet spot right away.

Sound

The sound is very good, this is totally the best low output pickup for seven string guitar! This pickup doesn't boost the mid and bass like other high gain seven string guitar pickups, instead it adds a little bit more open-sound quality with more treble. On the neck position on a very dark sounding guitar, it will sound pretty much like the old PAF pickup on a '50s Les Paul guitar. Its low output doesn't mean it's not good for metal or shreddy stuffs, it's actually the best pickup on the neck for a fast legato runs! Doesn't get muddy is what it does best, so if you're frustrated with your seven string of getting too muddy and bassy, this pickup is the solution.

Keep in mind that it has what they call Virtual Vintage technology, you can do coil split and get a super sweet single coil-like sound that's pretty pleasing to hear. I don't make mine to sound like that but I guess you should be pleased if you have a coil tap function available on your guitar right now and you're thinking to get this pickup.

Price and worthiness

$70.00, It's worth every penny I spent for sure. This is one of the best replacement pickup for a seven string available. Probably the lowest output pickup replacement for seven strings.

From 0 to 10

10 ! Sounds totally awesome and not too expensive.

Stay tuned for audio clips.

Cheers and God bless :)

SEYMOUR DUNCAN JB

Hey all! Today I decided to review one of the most popular humbucker replacement pickup on the market. It's made by Seymour Duncan and it's called Seymour Duncan JB(Jeff Beck). This pickup is one of the earliest medium-high output pickup that's available in the market.

The sound

The sound that I'm getting out of this relatively high output pickup is very bright and happy, much like the original PAF of a Les Paul. It does not get bass-y, it does not punch you with too much mid, it stays clear on a highly driven channel and it somehow has some unique treble-ish sound, much like a single coil.

On the bridge

I installed mine on the bridge. I got the 7 string model by the way, because I currently don't have any 6 string guitar left for modification. I put this pup on an RG7321 that originally has AH pickups by Ibanez that's totally muddy and way too hot to control. I put a DiMarzio PAF 7 on the neck to balance this med-high output pup.

I really like this pickup, it shines very well and cut through the mix nicely even with high gain amp. Roll back the tone knob a little bit and you get a more defined mid frequencies and less harsh treble. Play some palm-muted riffs on my seven string, it sounds great! The chops are very clear, very pronounced and retains the original sound of the pickup. Drive this pickup as hard as you can, then roll back the volume pot and you'll get your sweet spot immediately, sparkle clear dirty-clean tone with some extra punch.

So far so good..

One thing that I hate from this pickup is the treble level that can be too dangerous especially when you crank up everything on your signal path. That's why you need a tone knob for this pickup. It'll be your best friend when you want to control the sound of this pickup. Other than that, I'm quite happy with this pickup!

Beware, this is not meant to be a high-gain friendly pickup. It's designed to give you more dynamics on your sound, not to compress and further drive your amp. I'm happy with it because it suits well with mid-gain type of guitar music. If you plan to play heavy metal music with this pup, you better be prepared. It doesn't mean it's a bad pickup for metal music, but you have to know how to control the pup properly. See my previous post about pickups for more explanation.

Worth the money?

Yessss!! For $80.00, this thing upgrades the sound of your guitar with some added clarity.

From 0 to 10?

What can I say? 10.

Hope you enjoy this review, sound clip coming soon!

Cheers and God bless :)

FENDER STRATOCASTER

Hi all! Sorry for the lack of update last week. I decided to review a Fender Stratocaster that belongs to my friend Anthony Woen.

To get started, I actually don't really know what kind of Fender Stratocaster is this. Might be Mexico, might be Japanese, might be American, might be something else. I couldn't find the serial number of the Strat :(

Well, it does look great, just like what a strat should look like. It does sound great too! This guitar really shines when I switched to the neck pickup. All the signature maple neck alder body sound came out nicely on this guitar. Bright, enough power to cut through the mix, excellent when paired with a clean amp or a mid-gain vintage style amp.

Plugged this guitar to my Tube Screamer on a clean channel and add some delays and reverb, roll back the volume knob a little bit and play some soft lead lick and it really shines pretty well. Get it dry with a touch of a compressor on the clean channel and play some funk rhythm, you'll get that strat-y sound we all want!

The single coils are pretty standard, nothing special. They are not noiseless so you'll get that 60-cycle hum when you add some gain. The pickup is pretty low output but when you get it pretty close to the strings, it'll start to get hotter. Not too close though, you'll distort your signal badly on a clean channel.

The only thing that bugs me is the fact that the previous owner re-wire the pups so that the mid tone pot becomes the volume pot for the mid pick up. Maybe he/she wanted to emulate a kill-switch by modifying the guitar that way.

I don't really know what kind of Strat is this. It sounds good though although there are some major things going on with the wiring and some other stuffs. The trem is definitely not the regular Strat trem. The decal is also a bit too large for a Strat's head stock. But really, those facts don't bother me too much because it sounds just nice!

Here are some sound clips:

Dry Tube Screamer: CLICK HERE

Clean delay: CLICK HERE

Crunch rhythm: CLICK HERE

Lead Tube Screamer with double delays and reverb: CLICK HERE

Here are some more pictures !

Hope you guys enjoy this post!

Cheers and God bless :)