1998 Burgundy Mist Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster with Joe Barden pickups
Welcome to the most confusing stratocaster I’ve every owned or even played. I recently acquired this beauty in a trade for my Two-Rock Studio Pro Plus 22 and have been confused about it ever since.
Let’s start with the guitar itself, a 1997-98 burgundy mist strat with a rosewood fingerboard. The neck is wide and thick with a flatter, chunky ’51 U-shaped feeling to it and a 12″ radius on the finger board. This is very different from any other strat I’ve had as it is thick and wide, but not the comfortable V-shaped carve I had on my SVL. The closest neck I’ve had that I can compare it to is maybe the John Mayer signature stratocaster I had a long time ago. At first this felt strange and uncomfortable, but the edges are rolled so smoothly and the frets are done so nice (had a very recent refret with some really beefy frets) that it started to feel pretty nice after my hand adjusted.
The fingerboard as well feels very strange being such a flat radius on a stratocaster. I’m used to it on my PRS, but when I pick up a strat I don’t expect it to feel like this. However if I close my eyes, forget what I’m playing and just play, things start to make sense again. The frets are smooth and slick and leveled beautifully so the action is low and the neck set flat. The flatter radius means no choking on big bends and it doesn’t want you to grip and go, but let your finger dance over the frets with a light touch.
Now we must talk about the pickups, those Joe Barden mini humbuckers that give this guitar a different look and sound that I’m not sure what to make of. They’re sort like a humbucker version of the PRS Silver Sky pickups, where they sound undeniably stratty, but also somewhat more hi-fi, but unlike the PRS pickups they do have the compression of a humbucker. They don’t have the magic of the ’59 pickups, but they also don’t have the quirks and drawbacks since they are true 4 wire humbuckers.
And just like that it’s gone. The guitar was received with a gentleman’s agreement that if either of us were not happy with the trade after the weekend we would trade back. Unfortunately the Studio Pro Plus was too clean of an amp for the other person and as such the trade has been reverted and the Two-Rock is back home. It was fun for a while, but perhaps for the best as it was not my favorite strat and didn’t really speak to me as such. Sorry, no real pics since it was here for too short of time.
Hello my name is Andrew, and I am a fuzz addict. As guitar players we pretty much universally have too many gain pedals, overdrives in particular are the common sauce among those of us who are of the electric persuasion. I myself have many overdrives, mostly of the dual variety, almost all of which are top tier and quite expensive. They all sound wonderful and do their own thing, giving a little bit more, focusing the mids or completely changing the character of the guitar.
Then there is fuzz. In general you don’t use words like nice, subtle or little when describing fuzz. Except may when you say “it sounds a little like a jar full of wasps” or describing what the fuzz pedal is not. They’re noisy, nasty, loud, aggressive and absolutely fucking awesome!
Currently I have eleven overdrive pedals, but of those pedals 3 actually have a fuzz built in or do the fuzz thing. The Preamp Mk II has a fuzz circuit built in, the Brothers has 2 fuzz circuits built in, and the Hudson Broadcast when cranked is more fuzz than overdrive. If you include those 3 pedals in my fuzz count then I have 10 fuzzes, and each one does something different or unique despite being able to sound very similar in other situations.
Over the next month or two I will be putting out videos going over these fuzzes a few at time. Fuzz isn’t for everyone, but I think just about anyone could find a fuzz that works for them. The first video is out now, and takes a look at 3 DanDrive pedals.
Anytime I buy an amp used, I like to go through and replace tubes with high quality new tubes (or tubes I have that I know are good). I do this to make sure the amp is running correctly and sounding as good as it can, as well as making sure it’s running stable. This week I was finally able to get a set of tubes from the Tube Amp Doctor for my Bloomfield Drive 100-watt head, so I went ahead and swapped them all out as well as bias the amp.
Afterwards I played the amp for a half hour or so enjoying the slightly lusher and more sparkly clean channel before heading to bed. The next morning, I jumped back on there and switched to the gain channel to dial in some overdrive when I was confronted with a horrible static oscillation on low notes. (Tried to capture on video but compression and framerate removes it.)
Not sure what could have gone wrong, I started going back through and replacing one tube at a time. During this process of turning the amp off, swapping a tube, turning it back on and letting it warm up, play an open E, hear issue, repeat, I noticed it was only on the Lead channel. Eventually, having gone through every single tube and still having the issue, I switched the amp to the lead channel using the toggle switch on the head. No issue.
You see, up until that day I had been using the toggle switch on the head almost exclusively to engage the lead channel, but earlier that day I decided to plug in the footswitch. It turns out something with the foot-switch is causing the issue. I was about to bite the bullet and ship the head across the country to Two-Rock to fix before I tried this, never realizing that could be an issue.
Just goes to show, try EVERYTHING when trying to fix an amp. Some of the weirdest issues can come from really unexpected places.
At some point every electric guitarist these days stumbles across the amazing studio musicians that create content for YouTube. Just watch Tim Pierce, RJ Ronquillo or Pete Thorn and you’ll soon have amp fever, lusting after their quick multi-head amp switching systems. After my experiments with various cabs, leading to my decision to go with all head and cab amps instead of combos, I started looking at these switching systems.
At the same time I am a huge fan and constant watcher of That Pedal Show, where Dan and Mick have taught me about the joy that is a wet/dry rig. Having one amp run all the gain pedals and another running gain plus all the time and modulation effects gives a huge soundstage that doesn’t wash out you main tone. Trying different combinations of amps for each role has led to some very interesting and inspiring tones that would not have been otherwise possible.
The Problem with Most Switchers
But this has led to a bit of a problem. All of the top amp/cab switcher are pretty much mono, and even running 2 of them would mean having to split my amps into two groups ahead of time (I don’t have many amps, so that would make it pretty pointless). Just as I was about to bite the bullet and go full mono from now on, I came across a brand I’d never heard of before in a forum post.
De Lisle to the Rescue
De Lisle makes a number of switching solutions, some more basic than the often-proposed devices. In fact, the amp and cab switched I ended up with is a fully passive device that simply lets you switch any of the 8 cabs to any of the 8 amps. Its only safety measure is a passive load that protects an amp if it’s not connected to a speaker, but even then, only if you don’t send a signal to the amp.
So it’s not fancy, doesn’t have midi control and won’t let you swap between a bunch of amps while playing to try out various tones. What it does do is let me set any amp that is connect to any cabs that are connected. If the amp could handle it, I could run all 8 cabs to one amp. More importantly, I can run any amp to any cab at the same time, making any wet/dry combination possible without having to go behind and re-wire my cabs.
Not only has this wonderful device made experimenting more fun and easy, it’s also breathed new life into my Mesa Boogie Triple Crown as I play it way more often now that I don’t have to hook it up every time I want to play it.
Which only leaves one last question, which head should I buy next. Ok, maybe that one is already answered as well.
Guitar amplifiers fall into two categories, combo amps and head with cab amps. Both camps have their own pros and cons with space, portability and ease usually taking the top spots of each list, but should they? Once you have even one head and cabinet setup, and plugged another combo amp or other head into an existing cab you realize there is something even more important to consider. Tone. That magic word that all guitarists are on a never ending search for. Turns out the cabinet and speakers you plug into have way more to do with your amp’s tone and feel than you likely ever realized. So can your cab really free your tone? Yes, yes it can.
WHERE IT STARTED
My first realization came after I bought my first head and cab setup, a grail level amp, the Two-Rock Classic Reverb Signature V3. Huge cleans with tons of bottom end was the name of the game for me. like all things life changes and I decided I wanted something smaller and more versatile. Enter a Bloomfield Drive 40 watt combo amp and out goes the Classic Reverb. A second cascading stage to give more in amp gain, and a smaller footprint for if I ever moved (I was in a bit of a minimalism phase). The only problem? After some time I really missed the big deep cleans of the Classic Reverb.
Luckily (in hindsight) I sold the head separate from the cab as I got a change to plug the Bloomfield combo into the Two-Rock 2×12 cab. The difference was honestly staggering! Not only did the bass response of the 2×12 come back, but surprising some of the chime that I thought was inherently lost in the new amp too! This revelation lead me to run the combo into the cab pretty much all the time, and eventually I swapped the combo for the 100 watt head version of the Bloomfield Drive as it seemed silly to have a combo speaker that was never getting used and also gave back the 100 watt bass response that I adore.
ADDING SOME MORE
The next head and cabinet pair I purchased was another huge 100 watt beast, the Paul Reed Smith J-MOD 100. This time the cabinet was an even bigger closed back cab giving me something else to play with. When you need more bass out of an amp (rare, but happens as you will see soon), that is the cab to plug into. The cab matches to the John Mayer signature amp very well, giving it the signature bass response that John raves about in his demos. The closed back doesn’t fill the space with sound in the same way the Two-Rock cab does, but instead gives a quicker response to the speakers as the air behind helps bring them back to the ready position faster.
WHERE IT WENT WRONG, BUT THEN SAVED THE DAY
So far both amps sound great, but different into each cab, but what about an amp and cab that were meant for each other but just don’t do it for me? That’s just what happened when I picked up a Mesa Boogie Triple Crown 100 head and cab locally. The cab was compact by deep, giving a really percussive mid range that I could see working really well for high gain metal players, but make the amp sound quite nasal and honky in my opinion. As I got ready to sell the amp and cab I figured I’d give the amp one last try plugged into the PRS cab and I was blown away, almost literally. Gone was the honk and in it’s place was massive bass end with a more classic rock feel. That cab (and the Two-Rock one as well, which also sounds fantastic with the Boogie) saved that amp for me.
After I had gotten rid of my original Classic Reverb, I plugged a lot of amps into that 2×12; 5-watt marshal clones, 20-watt hand-wired Marshalls, Kempers, and more. Compared to a number of other cabs I have had (Marshall hand-wired 2×12 for the 20 watt as well as some unbranded ones) it’s always sounded more open and balanced than the rest. Even in the world of IR’s and digital amps, do yourself a favor and get a great cab or two, it’s worth it. Next up for me, I’m thinking it’s time to try and 4×12 or 4×10 and see what that does to my tone.
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I have had Kemper Profiling Amps on and off for the last couple years, normally selling them when I realize I don’t actually play them like an amp as much as I twiddle through the thousands of profiles I have on my computer. The concept of the Kemper was a ground breaking thing 10 years ago, but has been done by other companies with more powerful processors and updated UIs. The one thing none of the competitors have match thus far is the powered head/rack with their built in 400 watt solid state amplifiers which let you use the Kemper as a stand alone amp.
But there has always been a drawback to doing that, which is your still had to lug your favorite cab around with you (in my case a Two-Rock 2×12 open back) and it never quite sounded right for the different profiles, though I find I prefer the Two-Rock for most amps, digital or tube. Then Kemper came out with the Kab and Kone which are Full Range Flat Response (FRFR) speakers make by Celestion in a small cab (or sold alone). These plus a software update promised to let you change the sounds and response of the speaker to match a selection of popular speakers, giving you a truer amp in the room experience. But do they deliver?
Having picked one up for myself, I immediately loaded up some of my favorite profiles of a Hi-Octane kit amp I once had. It’s a 5 watt class-A Marshall clone, that sounded incredible when you pulled the second preamp tube out, giving more of a JTM vibe. I profiled this amp a while back using a direct box to record the speaker out signal, meaning the cab/mic was not in the “direct” profile giving it a true amp only feel. So how did it sound into the Kab? In a word: Terrible. You see, what I expected was that the Kemper Kone setting in the software would make the Kab work like a standard guitar cabinet. Instead what it does is use the existing cab information in the profile (in my case, nothing) and tweak the response and eq curves to mimic having that cab loaded with different speakers.
At this point I was pretty much ready to return the Kab and sell yet another Kemper, but then I decided to do a quick copy/paste of a Two-Rock cab off another profile, onto my Hi-Octane profiles to see how well it works compared to my actually cab. While I can say it’s not 100% accurate (partly because there is no impulse for the Two-Rock branded speakers in the cab) it does sound much better, and the little 1×12 Kab can really put out some volume and bass despite it’s diminutive size. Oh right, lets talk the Kab itself.
It’s small, about the size of a Fender Princeton, meaning it can fit pretty much anywhere. This plus it’s laughable weight (25 lbs) means it’s very portable, something that I was really excited for. You see, I have my guitar amps all setup in a nice place in the basement, good for playing and recording, but not near my computer. Especially having gotten rid of my Bloomfield Combo, I no longer have a good way to play guitar in my office area, so being able to chuck this speaker under my desk and far enough back that I won’t kick it is great.
Image Copyright of Kemper-Amps.com
The weight also means I can carry the Profiler in it’s case in one hand and the Kab in the other hand down halls, up stairs and anywhere else with ease. I’m still not sure how that speaker is so light, being used to a 1×12 Blackshadow in my old Mesa Boogie Mk III weighing almost 20 lbs by itself, I’m not sure how this beast of a speaker exists. What do I mean by “beast of a speaker”? The Kemper Kab is rated for 200-watts rms! Though they do say that you shouldn’t use it with any other signal generator as it won’t sound right unless running the Kone software, but it does pump out tons of volume. The bass response of this skinny, tiny speaker cab is also quite impressive thanks to that power handling and a bass boost option in the Kone settings page. I still need to play with it more, but it seems to get close to my very large 2×12 cabs in overall bass response, which is very impressive.
So what is my final verdict? At $500 with tax, it feels a bit too expensive, but if you want to go with a Kemper as your main rig without resorting to in-ears, it is a pretty good option for monitoring on stage. Ultimately for me, I am a bit disappointed by it’s failure to work without a cab in the profile, and I would have returned it the next day had the store I bought it from online not had a 5% restocking fee. But I am glad I didn’t as the more I use it, the more I find how I can tweak it to get some great tones and am spending less time zipping through profiles and more time playing guitar. Which is ultimately the goal of any gear.
Update (12/8/21) The Kabinet is gone. In the end I decided the convenience of the light 1×12 didn’t outweigh the cost when I already have a couple 2×12 cabs I like the sound of the Kemper through already. Money-no-object, I probably would have kept it around just to have under my desk for the occasional quick play, but at $500 it just wasn’t worth it when something like a Yamaha THC, Waza Air or other more practical options exist for less.
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Love it or hate it (or sometimes both) the Dumbloid pedals by Shin’s Music are some of the most fantastic overdrive tones you can get. Shinichi Suzuki is probably “the guy” to go to in Japan if you have a Dumble amp that needs service or repair. In his years of working on these amps, he’s learned a bit of the magic that makes them so special, and has translated some of that aural magic into his Dumbloid pedals.
So what makes this pedal frustrating at times? For me it comes down to the Accent control and the fact that this pedal sounds SO good in many different settings. First lets look at the Accent control, which is essentially a sort of a presence control that also affects the transient response of the note. The transient response is the initial attack of the pick on the string that give a note “bite” and is a big part of the Dumble ‘thing’. However this control isn’t perfect as sometimes it creates and unwanted buzzing noise when playing lightly with lower gain settings.
Turning down the Accent control all the way completely solves the issue but also muddies the tone a bit. Luckily you can max the tone control to match and have all the beautiful singing high end back in your signal. I find these controls (Tone and Accent) live in the most harmony when set inversely proportionate. When the Accent goes up, the tone goes down, but keeping the tone above the 10 o’clock position.
The other “issue” is that I love this pedal as a slightly dirty clean boost; and as a medium gain tone shaper; and as a high gain singing lead tone. It sounds so good at so many settings that I have trouble picking just one. While the Chase Bliss Automatone can get close and give you presets, it doesn’t quite have the same magic. Luckily this can be solved to an extent by buying a Dumbloid Twin. Two Dumbloids in one box, with the optional boost circuit.
To sum up, like many great amps and other effects, the Dumbloid series of pedals require some work and playing around with to find the sweet spots, but when you do it’s simply magic.
A collaboration between John Mayer and Paul Reed Smith, the J-MOD 100 was originally born from a need for an amp to take on John’s Dead and Company Tour. Once over, they went back with the prototypes and refined the amp to be an amp to end the search for amps. A lofty goal indeed, especially when Mayer himself reports on his own GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) saying he’s like all other guitar players collection and swapping gear constantly.
At $5,990 for just the head, this is by far not a cheap amp but can it be your last amp? To cut to the end, for me, no it cannot. However it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon as it is probably my ideal second amp, so lets take a look and see what the J-MOD 100 offers and where it comes up short.
Paul Reed Smith J-MOD 100 John Mayer Signature Amp
When you watch the videos of Paul and John’s release of the amp, and all the demos that came with it, you typically hear two main points be emphasized. They are that the amp is a lot quieter than expected and the “bounce” that John regards so highly with the amp. After playing the amp for a bit I can say that they are definitely both true statements, and are actually closely related.
100 watts of all tube power is typically an ear popping experience that is largely innapropriate for home use, or means you just tickle the volume on to keep from going deaf or annoying the neighbors. But with this amp, you find yourself turning it up way more than would seem reasonable looking at the knob. In comparison, with the J-MOD turned up to half way, I would only need to turn my 40 watt Two-Rock Bloomfield drive combo up to less than a quarter to reach the same volume. And it’s not all down to the pots with the volume jumping in huge leaps in the second half of travel, it’s relatively quiet all the way up.
So where are all those watts going? Are they just getting wasted, turned to hear in inefficient tube layouts? Not at all, all of those watts are going to the “bounce” we have heard so much about. You see, Paul and his team have managed to pack an insane amount of bass end into this amp and cab, and many of those watts are being used to support that bottom end to allow it to respond as quickly as the rest of the frequencies. There really is a bounce, an urgency, or a cleanliness to the bass response that seem to never flub out regardless of how high the volume or bass eq is turned.
But it’s not all good. Balancing the overdrive setting with the clean is a difficult process almost always ends in some compromise, much like early Mesa Boogie amps. Often the gain levels in the overdrive “channel” (not really a channel, but another switchable gain stage) are more than I’d want with just enough volume to make up for a low gain setting. It’s not to say I’ve found any setting that didn’t work, it’s just that I’m often right at the end of the pot’s travel with no room left “just in case” I wanted more.
Lastly, I understand that John doesn’t need a reverb built into the amp with his Bricasti near by, but for those of us with a standard pedalboard and no rack effects, it necessitates an awkward decision of either running long cables to put a single pedal in the effects loop, or a separate power supply for one pedal to sit on the amp. This to me, is the main reason why it could never be my only amp. Which is OK. Because it pairs perfectly with my Bloomfield 40 in a wet/dry rig that sounds fantastically epic at any volume, but especially sweet as your turn it up and feel that wonderful bouncy bass in your chest.
Bonus: The J-MOD 100 uses a 5 pin cable for it’s footswitch. If you want to use a pedal switcher (like a GigRig G3 or other similar ones) then you need to make a cable or converter to go from 1/4″ TRS to the 5 Pin connecter. Being the amazing company they are, PRS quickly replied to my questions and the amp tech drew this out to send to me.
In with the old and out with the new! Today with some sadness I pack up my last Silver Sky Lunar Ice Limited to be shipped off to it’s new owner. With that my last John Mayer signature piece is gone, but just as quickly the funds are turned around and put into another John Mayer signature piece, in this case an amp. The PRS J-MOD 100.
After selling my PRS HXDA, I have been down to one amp. While my Bloomfield Drive is still my favorite amp (especially through the Two-Rock 2×12) I have finally received my GigRig G3 (after 5 months!) and am dying to try out some wet/dry through their new ability to split the signal anywhere in the chain. A J-MOD came up at a great price, and the deal was done.
Now that I’ve got a 100 watt amp coming, I may decide to keep the 40 watt Bloomfield combo, and just swap the chassis into a head case or try and find someone who wants to swap one for one.
Either way, more information and videos to come on the J-MOD when it finally arrives.
I am starting a new series of videos and blog posts that I am calling “Pedal Deals” for now. The basic premise is to highlight some pedals that people might not know about, or have dismissed based on their price, but are actually great sounding or inspiring. As I have been getting into higher end gear over the last couple years, I am guilty as much as anyone as dismissing some of the old staples as too “pedestrian”. So let’s take a look back through some old favorites and try out some new pedals that are either at a deep discount or simply budget minded from the beginning.
The first pedal I wanted to highlight is the old series of pedals by Tube Works. These pedals are designed by B. K. Butler of Tube Driver fame (used probably most famously by Eric Johnson) and use a 12ax7 running at good voltages to generate the overdrive tones. The Blue Tube is a low to medium gain pedal, good for pushing an amp that’s already overdriving, or adding organic tube overdrive in front of a clean amp.
One popular mod is to replace the original foot switch with a high quality true bypass switch. The originals were somewhat prone to failure with heavy use, and the mod is very inexpensive especially if you can solder at even a basic level. Another much less common mod, is a power conversion. The original pedals have a permanent 110v power cable attached. This is a much more difficult mod but can make the pedal work much better on modern pedalboards.
One interesting feature on these pedals are the knobs. They are what I can best refer to as “clicky” knobs. As you turn them they have notches you can feel giving you more exact settings and making it easier to reproduce them. Not sure how robust they are, but I haven’t seen any fail on the pedals I’ve had in the past.
The Blue Tube and other old style Tube Works pedals can be consistently had for under $150 USD (at time of writing), and if you keep an eye out and are patient, can be found for around $100. At this price they are competing with inexpensive solid state overdrive pedals and are definitely a good deal that could give you some interesting texture and tones outside of what’s normally available.
One last thought is something I still have to try, but I wonder how well these tube based overdrive pedals would work in front of a cheap solid state amp? As these pedals do sag and compress as a tube should, they may be able to add some of the feel and life of a tube amp to a solid state practice amp. I will test this out when I get a chance to borrow a practice amp.
