quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:

quote:

Blue Chip Picks

I just looked these up. The TD80 is $50!? Is that for ONE PICK!????

Yes, but they are supposed to be the bees knees. I have some Red Bear picks I like for mandolin, and those are only about $40. They are extra nice and sound good, but I'll have to admit that they probably aren't 20 times nicer than a $2 pick.

The Blue Chip is made out of a patented blend of a polyimide God-plastic mixed with other materials. The raw plastic itself is stupid expensive. The Red Bear is made of a plastic based on casein, and is said to mimic organic materials like tortoise.

Your Strat looks really good. It is a good color. You will like the amp.

Let us know when you get that soundcloud account established.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
Let us know when you get that soundcloud account established.

Already have one! But as of yet, only for listening!

I tried the Blue Chip and Red Bear picks (and one other super-fancy I can’t remember at the moment).

There’s certainly nothing wrong with them, they’re nice picks, but I didn’t fall in love with them.

I’ve gone way down the pick rabbit hole a few times and have a box with probably 100+ different pick models and variations in it.

For years and years, I’ve kept going back to the Jim Dunlop Jazz III XL (same shape as the Jazz III but just a little bigger - still small compared to most other picks).

I tried all the different materials Dunlop makes it in, and for a thick, pointy pick like this, I like Ultex the best.

The regular Ultex ones are just fine, but the premium line “Primetone” ones (also made of Ultex) come with a smooth beveled edge (sort of pre-broken-in) and a fairly subtle textured grip area that I like a lot.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:

quote:

Blue Chip Picks

I just looked these up. The TD80 is $50!? Is that for ONE PICK!????

Yes, but they are supposed to be the bees knees. I have some Red Bear picks I like for mandolin, and those are only about $40. They are extra nice and sound good, but I'll have to admit that they probably aren't 20 times nicer than a $2 pick.

The Blue Chip is made out of a patented blend of a polyimide God-plastic mixed with other materials. The raw plastic itself is stupid expensive. The Red Bear is made of a plastic based on casein, and is said to mimic organic materials like tortoise.

Your Strat looks really good. It is a good color. You will like the amp.

Some versions are $35. I like my cheap Ultex almost as much.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
I tried the Blue Chip and Red Bear picks (and one other super-fancy I can’t remember at the moment).

There’s certainly nothing wrong with them, they’re nice picks, but I didn’t fall in love with them.

I’ve gone way down the pick rabbit hole a few times and have a box with probably 100+ different pick models and variations in it.

For years and years, I’ve kept going back to the Jim Dunlop Jazz III XL (same shape as the Jazz III but just a little bigger - still small compared to most other picks).

I tried all the different materials Dunlop makes it in, and for a thick, pointy pick like this, I like Ultex the best.

The regular Ultex ones are just fine, but the premium line “Primetone” ones (also made of Ultex) come with a smooth beveled edge (sort of pre-broken-in) and a fairly subtle textured grip area that I like a lot.

I've got this one as well as the 1.0. They are both good picks.

The Primetones are good. I have some and I like them. The Primetone Classic Large 5mm is where it's at for me. Yeah, they're $9.50 a pop, but that's not $40 or $50, they feel great, are easy to hang onto, and they last forever.



https://www.jimdunlop.com/prim...harp-tip-pick-5-0mm/

Ok, I'll bite. I'm gonna have to try out some of these apparently legendary picks.

And then there are effect pedals! Seems there are about 50,000 of those available as well. I'm familiar with a few of the old standards from back in the day -- distortion, reverb, echo, etc. But there are Soooo many more now.

I'm interested in one called the "B1G 1" gain boost, as I read an article where Julian Lage said he uses it always. Always there, always on. He runs his into a "Magic Amplifiers Vibro Deluxe", which isn't made anymore, but near as I can tell is pretty much a Fender Blackface knock-off. Thus I bought a '64 CDR as I figured that was as close as I was going to get to the same tone (I'm assuming).

I played the new amp last night. So good! Set to 3, it's getting loud, but not too loud yet. It's definitely big enough to rock out the house. Might try a load box to sync out the speaker so I can see what it sounds like when it's breaking up.

https://www.premierguitar.com/...e-b1g-1-gain-booster

Well, I wrote a long post, but the short version is: Sure, give it a spin and see if it works for you. Go forth and explore the rabbit hole! Nobody here can tell you where it will take you, how much money you'll spend while you're down there, or if you'll ever come out again.

I have a Boss RV-5, and/or a Zoom Choir 5050 I use in the FX loop to give my sound some depth - just the merest touch of one or the other on clean tones so it isn't totally dry. Most of the time, I don't even bother. Aside from that, it's ONE of about a half dozen boost/gain pedals, depending on the amp, the channel, the guitar, and the sound I'm looking to get. About 90% of the time, it's Mark123's Klon Klone. If I'm looking to get totally stupid, it's the Boss ML-2. The cool kid trick is to set your amp gain to low or medium-low and the use the pedal as a boost to get where you want to be. Less is more. If playing in a band setting, I use a volume pedal. It's just helpful.

I try not to put too much shit in my signal chain. I had a whole sympony of nonsense put together at one point, and then plugged in straight with about a five foot cable one day and it was a revelation. Everything between your fingers and the speaker adds capacitance, capacitance removes highs, removing highs muffles your tone. You can have a dozen "true bypass" pedals in your chain and it won't sound as good as guitar>cable>amp. Yes, you're talking about one pedal. One pedal quickly becomes many.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
Ok, I'll bite. I'm gonna have to try out some of these apparently legendary picks.

And then there are effect pedals! Seems there are about 50,000 of those available as well. I'm familiar with a few of the old standards from back in the day -- distortion, reverb, echo, etc. But there are Soooo many more now.

I'm interested in one called the "B1G 1" gain boost, as I read an article where Julian Lage said he uses it always. Always there, always on. He runs his into a "Magic Amplifiers Vibro Deluxe", which isn't made anymore, but near as I can tell is pretty much a Fender Blackface knock-off. Thus I bought a '64 CDR as I figured that was as close as I was going to get to the same tone (I'm assuming).

I played the new amp last night. So good! Set to 3, it's getting loud, but not too loud yet. It's definitely big enough to rock out the house. Might try a load box to sync out the speaker so I can see what it sounds like when it's breaking up.

https://www.premierguitar.com/...e-b1g-1-gain-booster

The true legend in boosts and gain pedals is the Klon Centaur, but the originals, which the guy no longer makes, are way into the thousands. He makes a modern version, which he says is electronically identical, but only makes them sporadically. They still aren't cheap on the secondary market. Bill Finnegan, the guy who made them, is amused and even somewhat disgusted by the current price of original Klons, but they still cost $5000 if you can find one for sale.

There are lots of Klon clones out there. Googling will get you hours of reading about which ones sound like a Klon, and how close. Also, lots of You-tube comparison videos, which are probably worthless because you don't know how they were recorded and are playing them back through cheap speakers.

But, yeah there are tons of pedals. Luckily you'll have vibrato and reverb covered already. I am not a big pedal user myself.

There is no voodoo and there are no magic diodes…

What the Klon does is a well-known 400 Hz boost.

A TS808 will be closer in the 7-800hz range and will certainly drop off a lot of lows.

Boosts are useful, because you can generally drive (ie Opamp etc.) up signal a little louder into the front of the pre-amp stages/tubes on your amp.

(I am constantly amazed by those who make wild claims re: silica-based distortion/clipping versus toobz distortion (ie pedal v amp) Lol)

Lastly, the benefits of a boost/drive pedal include more compression, more distortion for legato and beneficially of low cut trimming out the LF guitar content prior to hitting the amplifier stages.

There are so many various EQ and clipping types available to you, that you could easily have 50 different boosts/drive pedal options and they would each sound unique.

I own the one box to rule them all.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SIGnified,

Yeah, none of them are magic. The Klon and the Tubescreamer (TS808) are both boosts, and both give good useful sounds and are different.

But the Klon has gotten an outsized reputation. It is a sound I prefer over a boost like the Tubescreamer, but that is just a preference. As I said, even Finnegan is bemused by the Klon's reputation and the price for vintage examples. On his current boost pedal, which he calls the Klon KTR, he prints: "Kindly remember: the ridiculous hype that offends so many is not of my making."

quote:

The Klon and the Tubescreamer (TS808) are both boosts, and both give good useful sounds.

I've got a Tubescreamer modded by Analog Man. It is a really good sound!

quote:

(I am constantly amazed by those who make wild claims re: silica-based distortion/clipping versus toobz distortion (ie pedal v amp) Lol)

Especially when the sum effect is generally a blend of the two, or just using the silicon diodes to start to saturate the signal to push the tube diodes to clip. People get seriously hung up on shit like this. On the back end of the industry, they’re not-so-affectionately called “cork sniffers.” At one place I worked at, I had a customer swear you could hear a tonal impact if the stage lighting had any par cans running red lights. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know these are just gels (colored films) covering the bulbs and thus, no difference in any way that effects electronic anything, but he was dead serious about it.

The golden rule is “does it sound good? Ok then, there’s your answer.”

It’s all fun…

Enjoy yourself buying these kinds of toys. I sure as shit do.



Now I just wanna go fire up a bogner red channel or a 410HJS, stack a drive on it and toss on some plex delays and go play my newly learned js tunes. Wonder if anyone would mind?

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Everything between your fingers and the speaker adds capacitance, capacitance removes highs, removing highs muffles your tone. You can have a dozen "true bypass" pedals in your chain and it won't sound as good as guitar>cable>amp. Yes, you're talking about one pedal. One pedal quickly becomes many.

Capacitance between the guitar and amp only affects high frequencies because of the very high output impedance of electric guitars.

Most pedals (when turned on, or even off if they are buffered bypass rather than true bypass)) have a low output impedance, and any reasonable capacitance later in the signal chain won’t have a meaningful impact on frequency response.

If you’re going to play through a dozen-pedal pedalboard with all the pedals turned off, sure, you might see a significant impact, but if you’ve pretty much always got at least one of the first few pedals turned on (or add a buffer specifically to manage this issue), it won’t really matter.

There ARE some pedals (particularly fuzzes) and a few amps (particularly vintage ones) that depend on the high output impedance of electric guitars and won’t sound “right” with a buffer or turned-on pedal between them and the guitar.

The people who get really anal about signal purity but still want to use a bunch of pedals frequently use a pedal looper (not the record/repeat audio type of loop pedal), which lets you bypass unused pedals (and the cables to them) entirely.

My Wampler Tumnus is my favorite always on pedal. Gain set low - maybe 1/3. Like the examples others have mentioned, it is a Klon circuit. Wampler makes nice stuff.

Potential second electric for you, r0gue. You could probably justify those $50 and $75 picks with this one. Only 60 made (note the story of the Italian Stradivari spruce) and I’ll guess that despite the $30,000 cost that they’ll all sell out quickly, if they aren’t sold out already.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Potential second electric for you, r0gue. You could probably justify those $50 and $75 picks with this one.

Technically, my second electric guitar is already ordered. Or would it be my first...? I'd have to check the order date. Regardless, it won't be done until February of 2024.

Now I've done it. My first Reverb score. And it's kinda big. Road trip to NY on Monday. 12 hours minimum round trip.

Pic Monday night.

Good grief...