Tag: current gear

The most infuriatingly awesome overdrive.

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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.

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Will the PRS J-MOD 100 overwhelm me with joy?

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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.

Chase Bliss Blooper – Can it do normal looping?

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From the creative minds of Chase Bliss Audio and Knobs, comes the “Bottomless Looper”, a creative fully featured looping pedal that can even be customized. But how well does it work as a standard looper, and does it’s extra features provide the normal person with enough value to justify the high cost?

As a standard looper, the Blooper has really just one hurdle to get your head around. The length of the loop doesn’t change even though it may seem like it temporarily. Confusing to describe, confusing the first time you do it, not too hard to work around once you know what’s going on. For example, when you slow the playback, it will play the full loop at half speed and an octave down. However if you then try to “record” that effect permanently into the loop it will only record to the length of the original loop, giving you only half of the slower loop. Like I said, confusing to explain, not too bad once you play with it.

So now how about that Repeats knob? Well when you put the pedal in “Add” mode, it takes any filter and re-applies it per repeat. So a slowdown gets even slower each time, a warp gets more warpy each time around, and the volume drops based on the repeats knob. Turning this creative, character-ful looper, into an awesome, customizable delay. Reverse delay, character delay, high-pass filter, dropper; all kinds of things are possible here.

At about $500 new, this is the most expensive looper that I know of for sale, making my previous looper (Pigtronix Infiniti Looper) look down right affordable. As is the case with pretty much all Chase Bliss pedals, it may look overpriced on the surface, but when you start looking at it as a whole it starts to make sense. Midi controlled, super flexible looper, incredible character delay and future upgradability via usb updates, this pedal gives you ton’s of options in a very small package.

Once again Chase Bliss Audio has taken a simple concept and expanded it to be a creative tool that you can get lost in for hours at a time. This is why I have embraced them wholly and built a board pretty much exclusively from their pedals.

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Return of the Strat

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Regret and reconnection, these two words sum up my history with this guitar. December first, 2017 after selling off some 50 pedals and other assorted gear I finally ordered the 1959 Stratocaster I had been dreaming of. I had worked with the buyer over couple days coming to a price that worked for both of us and was now in my budget.

When it first arrived I felt immediate regret. The tuners felt loose, the neck was super skinny (which I later found out is common on Strats of this year) and some of the controls were pretty sloppy feeling. Had I bought a dud? When people say that vintage guitars have their own personalities, they mean it. This guitar likes heavy gauge strings (11’s minimum at Eb) and prefers to be in standard tuning unless you go even heavier. At that point the tuners are rock solid, the frets play smooth and clean, and the guitar sounds incredible. Learning how to get it into the 2 and 4 pickup positions took a little while but have their own rewards. Did you know on a three way selector there are more than 5 pickup combinations? Apparently the 2 and 4 positions can actually “lean” towards the middle pickup and the neck/bridge. Resulting in different tonal combinations which for example could sound pretty much identical to the neck pickup, but both tone pots would affect the tone, giving very slight variations.

I had owned the guitar for just just over a year, have learning all the intricacies and foibles of the guitar over that time. However a new focus on financial freedom, and an immediate need for money to purchase a rental property would mean a need to sell. After fees I made a very small profit but was content that I essentially borrowed a vintage Strat for a year and got paid to do so.

A year and a half goes buy, replacing my guitars with a ‘61 Reserve SVL, which after replacing the middle pickup with a non-reverse wound one got as close to the tone of the ‘59 as any other guitar I had tried in that time. But then came the messages, first from someone who contacted me to see if they could get the buyer information of the Strat to see if they could buy it. That deal didn’t happen, but I was reminded of the guitar and new the buyer still had it and was willing to sell now though. Later when moving videos from my old YouTube account to the new one, I was reminded how incredible that 1959 Stratocaster sounded.

Some messages later, an agreement was struck to essentially refund the original purchase and return the Strat back to my possession. So now it’s back, and this time I’m not making the mistake of letting it ago again… well at least that’s the plan for now.

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Preamp Mk II Automatone VS The World

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The Preamp Mk II Automatone is a gimicky, over hyped and overpriced overdrive pedal. At least that is what I thought at first when it was first announced and I saw those automated sliders flicking between presets. In a world where pedal prices keep jumping up to new levels, Chase Bliss leads the way in high priced gear, but after spending time and completely loving their Thermae, I understand why.

The Preamp Mk II answers with gusto the main critique I have will all pedals that employ favorites or presets, that when you switch to said preset you have no idea where the knobs are set. Sure some makers have come up with work arounds such as Stymon’s where turning the knobs will blink the light when you read how it is set for the preset, but they have all felt like cumbersome hacks. Chase Bliss and it’s fancy auto-faders have solved the problem, the sliders move themselves to the preset settings when switching. It seems like a gimmick, but man does it work.

Then came the demos by people who’s opinions I hold with regard, the final straw being That Pedal Show‘s episode where they put the Preamp Mk II up against some of the heavy hitters of the overdrive world and even Mick’s Fuzz Face. See their episode here. So I decided to give it a shot and ordered one direct from Chase Bliss (which said it had a 1-2 week backorder, but shipped out the next day) and shoot it out again my newly wired pedalboard.

At first I wasn’t impressed by the sliders, they felt too light and not quite as sturdy as I’d like for a $750 pedal, especially compared to the beautiful knobs that are on other chase bliss pedals. However after some use I realized that they have to be extremely light in order for the motors in the sliders to last forever. It’s sort of like picking up a guitar with super light wood, at first you it feels like a toy, but after a while you realize that it’s lightness is part of what makes it great.

Actually dialing in tones, especially if trying to match another pedal, it takes time a experimentation. When trying to match the high gain sound of my Hudson Broadcast, there was a top end that I found hard to match. In the end I had to turn down the treble and boost the upper mids in a specific frequency range to get it there. Sometimes you get the right high end by cutting lower mids in either the pre or post mid eq setting. It seems simple, but the controls are so powerful that shaping your tone can be more complex than expected.

In the end, I managed to match my King of Tone (at 18v), Hudson Broadcast 24v, Dumbloid Overdrive BTM Boost and even my Fuzz Factory 7 to an extent. While at first it seems like an overpriced bit of a one trick pony, it actually revealed itself to be a true chameleon of a pedal and is going to replace all four pedals on my board… well maybe.

I still love my other pedals, so they’re not going anywhere. It may be time to build my own pedalboard, just for the Chase Bliss pedals I have.

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