This Old Guitar Rig

I'm a big fan of plugging electric guitars into electric guitar amps (real ones!) and turning them up loud. That's when everything hits the sweet spot and the guitar becomes less about a particular sound and more about a physical force. You should feel it in your guts when you smack a chord, and you should be able to see your chinos fluttering when you stand in front of the speaker cabinet. Nothing is better than moving air. This doesn't just apply to rocking out at a show or in your mom's basement, it applies to recording as well. Microphones can tell the difference. If you really want THAT sound, you gotta get some air moving.

That being said, I will admit to being particularly fond of a lot of the modeling software and devices for guitar that are floating around these days. Some of these faux amps sound pretty damn good, and for practice or making kickass demos at home they're glorious. No need to let inspirado pass you by while you dick around setting up amps and mics and all that bidness, just plug the geetar into the 'puter and go to town. It's way easy and maximizes Time Spent Rocking vs. Time Spent Dicking Around.

In particular I really like the Native Instruments Guitar Rig version 1.2 . Its got some pretty happening tones in it. Some of them are better than others, and most of them take a bit of tweaking, but overall Guitar Rig is most impressive for a fake-ass guitar amplifier. The "AC Box" Vox model is my favorite by far. I think it sounds the most realistic of the bunch and it speaks to my love of El84 powered British (or Canadian) amplification. I use that model pretty exclusively when making demos and getting ideas down. I've also used it plenty of times on final master tracks when it sounded so good that it seemed like too much trouble to replace it with a real, live amplifier.

I also find that Guitar Rig responds really well to real guitar pedals. Putting my real pedalboard in front of it sounds a shit-ton better than using the Guitar Rig modeled OD and Fuzz options. For instance, my real ProCo Vintage Rat (see previous blog entry) easily trumps its digital doppelganger. No contest. It seems that one of the keys to Guitar Rig sounding nice is minimal use of the pre and post digital thingies. I pretty much just use the modeled amp and cab and keep all my overdrives, distortions, and fuzz boxes in the analog realm. Keep it real sucka, and watch your gain stages carefully to avoid any digital clippage.

On a non tone-related note, the other reason I really like Guitar Rig Version 1 as opposed to the later versions is that it's quite efficient and basic by comparison. It's not a CPU hog. I've tried the newer versions of Guitar Rig, as well as Amplitube and a few others, and they all suck computing juice like there's no tomorrow. Efficiency is key when you're jamming econo.



Currently Rocking Out To: The Minutemen - "King of The Hill"

Paul Westerberg - Everything Goes Wrong

Dude. What a kickass tune this is. Right up there with the best Replacements and solo Westerberg stuff. From what I understand it's only available on Senor Westerberg's Come Feel Me Tremble DVD. Never made it on a record I guess. Damn shame. The video is hilarious and awesome, with one-man-band PW laying waste to his basement "studio". The recording is amazing. It's all raw and nasty guitars, some truly filthy sounding hi-hats and what I can only assume is Paul playing all the instruments. Dirty basement demo goodies from one of the rock 'n' rollinest rock 'n' rollers ever. Dig it:



Currently Rocking Out To: See Above.

Want a Black Flag hairdo, but can't decide which one?

WFMU's Beware of the Blog has a most helpful reference for those of you considering heading to the salon. Will it be a reissue 1984 Greg Ginn Hardcore Mullet, or perhaps a clean shiny "Robo"?

Wicked hilarious, and obviously created by someone with wayyyy more free time than me.

Check it suckas:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/04/black-flag-hair.html

Currently Rocking Out To: (duh) Black Flag - "Annihilate This Week"

DIY One-String Electric Guitar

Electric Junk Guitar Workshop from ranjit on Vimeo.

Put one of these bad-boys through an Orange 120 stack, then you'd really have somethin'!

Currently Rocking Out to: Rhys Chatham - Guitar Trio (Homestead Records)

True Bypass: Good or Eeeeeevil?

Well, it would seem it's a bit of both. Like Lt. Frank Drebin says, "it depends on the situation". I've always felt a GOOD bypass (one that leaves your un-effected tone unaffected) was more important than true bypass. The ProCo Rat and any of the superb stompboxes made by Durham Electronics would be excellent examples of non-true bypass pedals that instead have a high quality buffered bypass. If you aren't generally plugged into some elephantine mess of a pedal board with every fuzz box known to humankind interconnected via several kilometers of Radio Shack cable, then you're probably okay. I generally have less than five pedals on my board at any one time with a mix of true and high-quality buffered bypass action, so I figure it's probably The Bueno either way. And I'm totally right. It's just that in these modern times there are so many pinhead, forum-rat, know-nothing loudmouths spouting off on the internerd about their fanatical devotion to true bypass that independent (or "boutique" if you're nasty) pedal makers have to use TB if they expect to sell pedals to the masses. Hence, true bypass is now far more bullshit marketing tool than actual quality pedal design feature. The only pedal-making dude I know of that has been bold and righteous enough to go against this tide of foolishness is the aforementioned Alan Durham. He's a bit of a hero really, and his Sex Drive pedal is fucking brilliant.

So anyway, there are some fine and just arguments from highly knowledgeable people going both ways. If the geekier aspects of the True Bypass Argument appeal to you then check these out:

Pete Cornish's take on the matter:
http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html

Muzique's Jack Orman weighs in:
http://www.muzique.com/lab/truebypass.htm

I say we dispense with all this foolishness and Make With The Rocking!!!

Shiner - "Christ Size Shoes" from the classic and brilliant rekkid Lula Divinia (Desoto Records)

Easy, yet badass ProCo Vintage Rat mod

If you're like me and you dig on raw tones of the good ole ProCo Vintage Rat pedal, but often find its lack of low end response dissapointing, then pay attention. I stumbled across the Ruetz Rat Mod awhile back while cruising the internerd and it's been a life-changing experience. If the ProCo Rat is an important part of your life it could work for you too. If you have a screwdriver, a pair of wire snips, a metric ton of enriched uranium, and three minutes to spare you can make this mod happen. Hell, now that I think about it you don't really need the uranium after all. Scratch that.

So basically, there's an evil resistor just chillin' out up the Rat circuit that's responsible for two things: 1) Low-end suck and 2) Some gain. The Ruetz Rat Mod involves finding said resistor and clipping it, the results being considerable fattening and tightening of the Rat's low end, and the halving of its gain. Open up your Rat pedal, find that bastard, and snip it with your wire snips. That's it. Here's a shot of my Rat's guts with the offensive resistor clearly labeled.


I never used all the gain my Vintage Rat pedal had on tap anyway, so less gain was no problemo. In the modded incarnation your Rat can function as a thick-ass overdrive with all those ratty overtones we all love, or with gain rolled back and volume up you get a semi-clean Rat Boost. Push your tube amp to the sweet spot with just a smidget of Ratty Flava! It works fricken magic on my seventies-era handwired Traynor YGM-3 combo. Behold the official The Bird is The Most Popular Finger Ruetz Rat Mod setting (PAF -ish humbucker with the Traynor on "6") :


If your model of ProCo Rat Pedal is different than mine (the circuit has seen a few variations through the ages) there are several different gut shots from different eras available on the www.diyguitaramp.com/rat.html page. Do it, then proceed to rock out. If you don't like the mod (You WILL like the Mod) it's a piece of cake to drip a little solder in the right spot and return your Rat to its original state. No worries sucka.

Currently rocking out to: Traindodge - "Bag of Vipers" (Ascetic Records)