Reviews of Things I Have

It seems to me that a large number of guitar players who are looking to get a 2-channel tube amp want these two things: Fender cleans, Marshall distortion. It also seems that a large number of amps claim to have these features, and they are probably the two most common descriptors when it comes to talking points for any two-channel tube amp. Well, I hate to say it – but one of the main reasons I own the Mesa Boogie F-50 is that it gives me…..well, Fender cleans and Marshall distortion.

The Mesa Boogie F-50 is a 50 watt, 2-channel tube amp loaded with a 12″ speaker. On the first channel, pull the gain knob to change the voicing from normal to bright for some extra spank or to tame down darker pickups. The second channel has a contour voicing, which, to my ears, adds quite a bit of gain off the top and pipes up the mids a bit for busting out a lead line or simply as an additional tonal flavor to work with.

One of my favorite settings on the amp comes from cranking the gain on the clean channel a bit. This is a low to medium overdrive setting, but when you start turning up the master volume, it has an unbelievable edgy punch to it that I’ve not heard out of any other 1×12 combo. I find this works well in situations where I’m using either an overdrive pedal or “old-guy overdrive” via the volume knob on my guitar. Of course, this limits the use of pristine clean tones but in the kind of music I play, this is a pretty okay compromise.

Another feature I use often is the recording out. The back of the amp has a 1/4″ jack for sending your signal out to a mixer or recording device. Below the jack is a switch to turn the speaker off. I know it’s not the most revolutionary thing in the whole world, but the sound quality on this particular recording out is incredible. I’ve made several recordings with it, and it sounds much better than using amp simulation hardware/software, or using an inferior mic in a regular bedroom. Plus, I can lay down my guitar tracks at 3am while the rest of the house is asleep and not bother anyone without sacrificing guitar tone. This is definitely a plus for me.

All in all, the F-50 is a great amp for live and recording use. You can use it to practice at home through the Celestion Black Shadow speaker, but be careful – it gets loud really, really quickly. ROTIH approved!

For some more real world reading on this amp, I highly suggest checking out this MASSIVE thread on the Harmony Central Amps Forum. It has settings, mods and all kinds of great info. It really helped me in my decision to purchase this amp.

The Earthquaker Devices (EQD) Dirt Transmitter is one of my favorite fuzz pedals of all time. I have pretty much run the gamut on fuzz pedals over the last 3-4 years, and this is one of only two boxes to stay on my pedal board and become an integral part of my guitar sound. In my (very expensive) experience with dozens of fuzz pedals over the years, I learned that it’s very difficult to make a decision to purchases one based of of things you read/listen to/watch on the internet. But hey, there’s not much info out there on this lovely pedal so I thought I’d add some words to the internet about it. Maybe it’ll help someone!

As you may or may not know, fuzz pedals are very quirky devices, in that they are quite particular about what type of instrument is being fed to them and what sort of amp they are running into. The EQD Dirt Transmitter definitely has that going on, but it’s a bit more predictable than many others that I’ve tried. With simple adjustments, I can easily get similar sounds running guitars with different pickup types into it. Adjustments for P-90′s, single-coils, humbuckers and so on can all result in similar fuzz textures while still allowing the pickup voice to come through. Very important for tone-guys who love buzzwords like “transparency.” In this respect, it’s easy to make the Dirt Transmitter act like a tame dirty boost or even a moderate overdrive before pushing into hard clipping fuzz territory.

But when you push it….it’s delicious. The Dirt Transmitter easily goes in to mayhem mode, with super-saturated-yet-hard-edged fuzz, making it excellent for rhythm work. You’re not going to get Big Muff sustain per say, but you can definitely hit that territory with some high output pickups or running a little compression on your chain.

One of my favorite elements of the Dirt Transmitter (and probably one of the most unique) is the way it sounds when set to “velcro” or “crumble” type fuzz settings. It’s hard to explain, but it does this beautifully. It’s very dynamic in the way it interacts with your guitar, so you can something soft, dig in hard for some sputtery, velcro break-up and then resume softly playing while you hear the remnants of the dirty fuzz texture decay over top. This is something that has to be heard to be experienced, and I really regret not having a way to record sound samples right now.

For guys that are looking for a no-hassle, do-it-all fuzz that can honestly and easily cover multiple territories, the Dirt Transmitter from Earthquaker Devices is definitely worth a look.

Most people who are familiar with Univox tie the companies name to the infamous Mosrite copy, the Univox Hi-Flier, which several famous guitar players – including Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, are known to have played.

While the Hi-Flier maybe the now-defunct Univox’s claim to fame, they also produced really fantastic copies of other famous guitars. On a recent Craigslist adventure, I procured what has become one of my favorite electric guitars – a 1976 Univox Ripper.

The Ripper is almost an exact copy of the 70′s era Fender Stratocaster. The key difference between the two is that, whereas a Fender Strat has 3 single coil pickups and a 5-way selecter switch – the Ripper has 3 humbucking pickups and a 3-way selecter switch. Aesthetically, the guitars are identical – right down to the chunky 70′s era headstock (which Fender now prevents companies from using on their Strat copies).

I’ve been lucky enough to play hundreds of different guitars in my lifetime, and will put my heavily (and naturally) “relic’d” Univox Ripper right up there with Custom Shop Relic Strats in terms of playability and aesthetic appeal. My Ripper has been played hard and tossed around by countless guitarists over the the past 30-some-odd years, and it shows! Belt-buckle rash, checking, nicks, dings, hand-oil stained maple neck and fretboard – all the signs of a well loved rock-n-roll instrument are clear and present.

The Ripper definitely has it’s own sound – and the pickups are very interesting. Between the three positions (bridge, middle and neck pickups working individually), there is an almost absurd range of tonal color. The bridge is very, very hot – and full of bite. The middle position reminds me of the neck pickup in a Telecaster. The neck pickup is so warm and “rolled-off” sounding, it reminds me of a more lo-fi take on that famous Woman Tone.

All in all, I recommend that if anyone sees one of these finely-crafted Japanese Strat copies out there – pick it up and play it! Mine is a wonderful blast from the past – I certainly wouldn’t pass up a chance to own a second one.

I’ve never used their services before so I can’t vouch for much, but AllBusinessCards.com is having a giveaway for 100 sets of 1000 16pt glossy business cards. That’s pretty cool!

They say they’ll declare 10 winners for the next 10 months, the first set being announced at the end of this month.

Yay!

Link: http://www.allbusinesscards.com/business-card-giveaway.php

I do a bit of freelance web design when I get home from my 9 to 5. Oftentimes, my clients already have a site, domain, and hosting, and it’s my job to take the whole thing and give it a facelift, keeping it on the same server with the same company.

Thus, my aggravating swipe with ReadyHosting (aka Ready Hosting, ReadyHosting.com), possibly the worst web hosting company in existence, came to be.

A short list of terrible things from my experience with them:

• un-intuitive, confusing, non-user-friendly administrative panel that had me accidently bringing down my client’s website for a couple terrifying hours
• incompetent, rude, outsourced tech support
• their servers are running PHP5, supposedly, but it’s not optimized nor does it have all the features installed, so good luck trying to use many of the features of modern CMS’s (if you ask them about it, they will give you the runaround and try/fail to fix it)
• they will cache things (in my case, an .htaccess file) and keep them outside of your jurisdiction, which is, to put it lightly, problematic

(I could write more, but my blood is angry just writing those… and this was months ago I dealt with them!)

After a week or two of trying (and failing) to circumvent their shortcomings and a couple calls with their ridiculous customer support that had me pulling my hair out, I convinced my client to open an account with DreamHost and had their beautiful new website up and running in a couple hours.

From what I’ve read, they used to be a fantastic company based in the States, but then the owners sold it to an Indian firm and things went downhill fast. Yay, capitalism! Boo, unfortunately true stereotypes!

Final verdict: Run, do not walk, from ReadyHosting.com. I’ve worked with lots of hosting companies, and they were definitely the worst of them all.