Joe's most recent (current?) rig. Click to see it bigger.

Well-known fact: Joe Perry loves gear. Or more correctly, he loves gooooood gear. (That reminds me: There’s an interview with an ex-Gibson guy somewhere on the web where he tells how the Gibby folks would bum out whenever Joe and Brad went down to Nashville because they wanted to find only the good stuff, wouldn’t take just anything.)

Anyhow, here’s a pretty darn good rig rundown – caution: obligatory rock ‘n’ roll cussing from the Dunlop interviewer guy – courtesy of Joe’s guitar tech, Trace Foster. Props to guitarnoize.com for finding it.

Interesting tidbits: various Marshall amps with a mix of EL34s and KT66s (all seem to be 100w!); various Marshall cabs, all new I believe – 4×12, 2×15 and an 8×10 with old 70-watt 10s; a 1950 Fender Bandmaster (can I play through that for 10 minutes, please!).

Board: Dunlop Jimi wah; DigiTech Whammy; Fulltone OCD (no number given); Pharaoh Class A Boost; Klon Centaur (which apparently never goes away); Bradshaw/MXR Boost/OD; a couple of Line 6 boxes and two I don’t recognize – anyone know what they are?

The two pedals to the left of the Line6 pedals – know what they are? (Click to see it way bigger.)

Great tour of his guitars, too. I’m lovin’ the BC Rich from Live Bootleg!

Notable

> Here’s Joe’s rig from ‘09. Note the ‘50 Bandmaster on the right. Incidentally, the Bandmaster is apparently one of EVH’s favorite amps.

Click to see it bigger.

Glenn at the '83 US Festival (click to see it bigger).

Cool riff, cool tune, cool lead and a WET tone. That’s what I hear and have always heard in the Judas Priest tune “Another Thing Comin’,” off 1982’s Screaming for Vengeance.

While I of course know it’s a two-guitar band, I always think of the chords/riff and Glenn Tipton’s solo on this tune, hence the look at just his gear. Here’s what I found. First, some overall comments by Glenn from the book Gear Secrets of the Guitar Legends:

> “I’m like a mad professor in the studio. I like to try new processors and preamps, or even try out rackmount keyboard effects like the T.C. Electronic Fireworks. It actually works very well on guitar. I’ll try anything.”

> “The gear I use in the studio doesn’t differ greatly from my live rig….”

Guitars/Pickups

According to Glenn’s website, these seem to be the two guitars he used on Screaming for Vengeance:

> A ’78 maple necked, black and mirror-plated Fender Strat, customized with a Kahler Pro flat-mount tremolo system, and two cream-bobbined Dimarzio Super Distortion humbuckers. He calls it “a weighty beast indeed,” which implies it is northern/hard ash, and says “it’s very powerful.” He likes hot pickups (see below). He added: “I recorded the solo in Metal Gods with it.”

> A Gibson SG with a chrome pickguard and stock PAF humbuckers.

> Even though I could’ve sworn he played a Hamer in the “Another Thing Comin’” vid, turns out he didn’t (see below vid). He said that “around ‘84, I switched to a custom Hamer Phantom made for me by Jol Dantzig. This model was fitted with one EMG humbucker, a Kahler tremolo and one volume pot. A signature model of this was developed and sold to the public from ‘84-’86. I still use this guitar model.”

> On pickups for live work: “They’ve got to be hot! Most of my stage guitars are fitted with EMG 81s, which are of course active. All the EMG 81s are wired with the batteries in series so they run the pickups at 18 volts. That makes them last longer and the pickups sound hotter, with more edge and poke. This is partly for the signal-boosting active circuitry and partly so you’re not worrying about the danger of picking up the local radio station midway through a solo.”

> He prefers thin picks and light strings, 9s or Ernie Ball RPS 10s.

“Another Thing Comin’,” Official Vid

Amps/Effects

> From his website: “I used regular vintage [plexi] 50- and 100-watt Marshall heads without a master volume until 1982, when the JCM 800 head was developed. I then used the JCM 800 with Rocktron preamps….” [Not sure if he means a preamp.]

> He used a Pete Cornish custom pedalboard, the specs of which follow and are from Pete Cornish via the vintageamps.com forum:

I found the full details of Glen Tipton’s and Kenny Downing’s effects boards. I made these in October 1980 so they would have been used on the 1982 recording of Screaming For Vengeance.

The effects in the boards are as follows:

> PC [Pete Cornish] Input Isolator
> TB-83 (the original Pete Cornish Treble Boost)
> SS-2 (Cornish boost/OD)
> NG-2 (fuzz)
> Variable tone boost dual voltage 9/18 VDC, “an unreal EQ boost/shimmering pedal”
> ST-2 (gain/boost with Bass/Treble EQ)
> MXR Phase 100
> MXR Flanger
> MXR Analog Delay
> Echoplex EP3 Send/Return
> MXR 10-band EQ
> NB-2 (Linear Boost)
> Mute
> Four isolated outputs to 50w Marshall heads
> D.I. to PA.

Pete noted that “combinations [of effects] would have been used.”

Not even a chorus?! Does that argue for an Eventide Harmonizer? It was a ubiquitous studio effect, but “Another Thing Comin’” does sound more like a chorus. A tribute website also had this (all unsourced):

> Line boosters between each effect [on the Cornish pedalboard] to preserve the signal from input to output.

> A [Dallas] Rangemaster-based custom treble boost connected to the bass channel of Marshall 50- and 100-watt heads with no master volume [but JCMs had a master volume].

> Roland Chorus pedal.

Glenn also talks about using a Rocktron Intellifex unit, which has all kinds of chorus options.

That’s it!

“Another Thing Comin’,” Live, US Festival, 1983
> Here you get a good listen to Glenn’s tone, especially in the solo which starts around 2:33. He’s standing right in front of his Cornish pedalboard.

Notable

> Glenn says his mirror pickguards are, or at least were, “highly polished stainless steel,” not plastic!

> Here’s KK Downing’s 1980 Cornish pedalboard:

> PC [Pete Cornish] Input isolator
> TB-83
> NG-2
> ST-2
> MXR Phase 100
> PC-modified Cry Baby wah
> Echoplex EP3 send/return
> NB-2 (linear boost)
> Mute
> Four isolated outputs to 50w Marshall heads.

Al Estrada ripping it up in tribute.

The latest of the perennial debates about Edward Van Halen’s early tone/rig, the post You Too Can Sound Like Angus and this AmpGAS! post got me thinking: Can anyone with decent chops – say, “Running With the Devil,” “You Really Got Me,” “Dance the Night Away,” maybe “Everybody Wants Some” and “Unchained” – get close to sounding “like” EVH?

John Suhr, who recently offered up some KILLER info on EVH’s mythical Super Lead (here and here), also had this to say about playing through that amp on an enormous thegearpage.net thread:

“If the amp was ever modified in the preamp section [for more gain] it would be very obvious especially to me. I was looking for this with dentist glasses since I too had a hard time believing it [was largely unmodified] until Ed played it.

“When I got to wind it up in private, I cried in my beer since it seems Ed must have taken the magic tube out of the amp and swapped it with a 12AY7 [preamp tube] since with my playing it sound more like Billy Gibbons – EVH tone was nowhere in the picture.

“Also remember you need to Variac to get that last little bit of crunch. That is when the power section will lose headroom, but Ed sounded great either way. Remember too that he didn’t remember [effects] what he had in front of it. Even an Echoplex is going to add gain [going into the front of the amp].”

Remember that he’s saying that after playing through THE amp.

Al Estrada’s Rig

Here’s another bit ‘o crumpet…er, info…to throw in this particular pot. Have you heard of Al Estrada? If not, you might have run across him on YouTube by virtue of his spot-on Ed-mimicking performances. If not, here’s Al live this past April:

Awesome, eh? Not just the playing, but the TONE. Woody!

Luckily Al knows exactly what he used to get the tone, and was helped by John Suhr. Here’s what he used in the above vid:

> Suhr EVH replica guitar, Shure wireless
> Tonefreak Buff Puff (switched off, used as buffer only)
> MXR Flanger reissue
> MXR ’70s script logo Phase 90 [this is the order Ed used his effects: guitar > flanger > phaser....]
> Line 6 Echo Park (used for ‘Cathedral’ only)
> Maestro EP3 Echoplex run into a looper for clean bypass
> Boss GE-10 EQ [Ed might have only used these live, but a killer EQ, no longer made]
> Boss NS2 Noise Suppressor
> Marshall plexi reissue [100w], Variac set anywhere between 75 [wow!] and 90 volts
> THD Hot Plate attenuator, set down 2 notches (8 db reduction)
> 16 ohm 4×12 cab loaded with Celestion Greenbacks [25w each]

It might be tough to comprehend in this age of effects loops, but yes, all of that stuff is BEFORE the amp – all of which adds gain, per John Suhr’s comment above.

Al added this about the amp/variac attenuator setup:

> “This is John’s SL [Suhr-modded Marshall Super Lead] in the video. Everything is dimed except Bass at noon, Variac down anywhere between 80-90 volts. Only the upper right [amp] input is used – the other inputs on this amp are disengaged internally.”

> In terms of any issues from using a Variac and attenuator together: “No problem at all as long as the ohms are matched between the head and cab…. The Variac alone does bring down the volume quite a bit but not enough for sound men, apparently. I find that the Hot Plate doesn’t change the tone much if only taken down a notch or two. If I need more attenuation than that I would slave into another amp” [meaning run the Super Lead into another head or power amp, which would then control the volume going to the speakers].

If you need a visual representation of Al’s rig, here it is:

My 2c

My take on all this is probably the same as yours: If your chops aren’t up to it, you can play Ed riffs through a Metro Amp ‘68 Marshall replica and sound like crap. Or maybe “good crap” because the amp sounds killer!

It’s not as easy as channeling Angus. Ed’s style, rhythm, attack, note choice and all the rest of it are such a unique package that even one wrong note – with everything else right – will make the whole thing sound “wrong.”

But if you have decent chops and the right equipment, you can sound like Ed. Or at least Al Estrada (that’s meant as a huge compliment to Al!).

Notable

> Al’s websites are EruptionTribute.com and AlEstrada.com.

> Reach John Suhr here.

> Just in case you’re wondering how Van Halen got its first record deal, here’s a documentary on it:

Fingers flyin' in '78!

What did Edward Van Halen really say about his early tone? Did he really mean it? What can we read into it? Following is the remainder of the tone-related excerpts from the November 1978 Guitar Player interview (part 1 is here). Commentary by yours truly.

The Whammy

> Remember he’s talking about a vintage-style (6-screw) Fender bridge.

“Nobody taught me how to do guitar work: I learned by trial and error. I have messed up a lot of good guitars that way, but now I know what I’m doing, and I can do whatever I want to get them the way I want them. I hate store-bought, off-the-rack guitars. They don’t do what I want them to do, which is kick ass and scream. Take the vibrato setup, for example. You have to know how to set it up so it won’t go out of tune, which took me a long time to get down. It has a lot to do with the way you play it – you can’t bring it down and not bring it up. Some people just hit the bar and let go – you have to bring it back right. Sometimes you’ll stretch a note too far with your fingering hand, and it’ll go flat. Here you have to pull the bar up to get it back to normal.

“I’ve also found that gauged set of strings will work better than one you make up. Like, I used to use heavier bottom strings with light top strings, and it didn’t work very well. I also buy a different spring from Fender for my vibrato – one that’s a little looser – and this makes a big difference. You also have to watch out for the little string retainers Fender uses because sometimes the strings can get caught in them and go out of tune.”

> Looser springs = more in tune trem. Isn’t this a trick Jeff Beck employs?

> Ed knew his gear backwards and forwards. No doubt.

Effects

Onstage, Eddie uses an Univox echo unit that is concealed in a World War II practice bomb. “I had a different motor put in it,” he says, “so it would delay much slower and go really low. I use this for ‘Eruption.’ I also use two Echoplexes and a flanger for subtle touches. And I use an MXR Phase 90 phase shifter that gives me treble boost for solos, too.”

> Bang! “Treble boost for solos” – MXR phasers didn’t come stock that way. He got his modded.

The Variac

“I use voltage generators, which can crank my amps up to 130 or 140 volts. Amps sound like nothing else to me when they are cranked so high, but you have got to keep a fan on them because they blow so often. You have to retube them every day, and they usually don’t work for more than ten hours of playing.”

> This is a tough one. By now, many people have proven – some from watching Ed in private situations – that he turns the voltage down using the Variac, which decreases volume and “browns” the sound. Ed is also supposedly a master of misdirection when it comes to his gear, as are many of his peers. But Ed also said that for the Fair Warning sessions he turned up his variac to 140 volts (if I remember right) and “watched the tubes melt” or something like that. Since doing this would be very bad for the amp, most people feel like he was full of it. But in light of the ‘78 interview, maybe not – because he admits that turning the Variac up so much kills the amps. Also bear in mind that Ed was blowing output transformers left and right on the VHI tour, so…maybe he really was turning the Variac up?

> Messing with a Variac, especially turning it UP, supposedly is dangerous for you and your amp. So don’t try it.

Notable

> This is a cool story. Starting at about 2:24, Jas Obrecht tells the story about how he came to interview EVH for that 11/78 GP issue. Pat Travers blew him off and he got stuck with Edward Van Halen – but there’s more to it than that.

- End of part 2 of 2 -

(MXR photo)

(In case you missed it, here’s the first part of this review.)

Next I set the Output at 1 o’clock and maxed the Sensitivity, while zeroing out the Attack and setting the Trim at 2 o’clock – “Chime Bloom,” per the instructions. The noise increased, but not to a level you’d likely notice on a stage. You would notice the extra sustain, with a pleasing bit of grit when you really lean into notes, almost like the sag and give of a nice tweed-style tube combo.

Muted arpeggios leap to life (as does string noise, so be careful sliding your fingers on wound strings!), and tapped harmonics ring like fretted notes. This setting doesn’t sound especially “natural,” but there’s nothing bad to my ears about that. It’s a huge confidence-builder, and would be a great way to distinguish clean sections in a song tonally, or help you through a technical passage where you need a bit of extra push behind the notes.

On the Rivera’s distorted channel, the Custom Comp sounded great with the Strat – even on the bridge pickup, which I usually avoid when I’m playing with dirt. Pinch harmonics leapt out of the guitar, and it fattened up the pickups without losing that single-coil bite.

There was a slight decrease in string-to-string definition, but the added girth was well worth it. And again, whenever I turned the Custom Comp off, the Strat sounded thin, and borderline ice-picky.

With the Trim pot maxed, I was well into towering-Hiwatt-stacks territory, enjoying the most sustain I’ve ever gotten out of single-coils. Be advised that at these settings, the Custom Comp boosted the noise floor significantly, as any compressor would. Of course, you’ll only notice this when you’re not playing. A noise gate will fix this if it’s really killing you. And anyway, why would you not be playing?

I switched over to the McCarty, with the much hotter humbucking pickups. Here the Custom Comp was less noticeable than with the Strat, either clean or dirty. There was still an increase in sustain and better consistency in volume, as well as a creamier, less spiky tone on the distorted channel. But on the whole, the higher output pickups were doing a lot of the heavy lifting that the pedal was doing with the Strat.

Clean, it muddied up the McCarty a bit at higher Sensitivity levels unless I backed off the guitar’s volume. It was still a huge help on arpeggios or funk-style clean work, but I found I liked it best as a “cheater” for solos. Plug a set-neck solidbody with humbuckers into the Custom Comp, and then into a high gain amp, and absurd, Nigel-Tufnel’s-’59-Les-Paul levels of sustain are there for the taking.

Is It a Keeper?

The Custom Comp isn’t perfect, but a lot of what’s imperfect about it is just the nature of compressors. It isn’t silent, but it’s certainly one of the quieter compressors I’ve tried. The only time I really noticed the noise was if I was playing with a lot of gain, but had rolled down the guitar’s volume to clean up the distortion. (This will be an issue with any compressor.)

I found that since the Custom Comp was doing a lot of the heavy lifting for me, especially with the Strat, I could relax a lot more and felt more confident. I couldn’t imagine doing funk-style chording without it, and it made single-note lines really come to life.

My only real gripe is the inaccessibility of the internal adjustments. The Trim control produces a dramatic enough difference that I wanted to keep adjusting it for different tones. I almost wish that gain jump at the end of its rotation was footswitchable. Also, adjusting the internal controls while the pedal is on causes it to make some horrific sounds, as I knocked against the PC board with my clumsy fingers. It felt like having the patient emerge from anesthesia before the brain surgery was complete.

Given how much these controls enhance the utility of the pedal, an obvious solution would have been two small knobs on the face of the pedal, similar to the knobs Xotic uses on the BB or AC preamp pedals. However, I’m sure whoever designed this pedal is a lot smarter than I am, and whether it was to keep costs down or just to keep spilled beer out, they left the adjustments inside the case.

So, is it a keeper? Well, I purchased the Custom Comp at a local music store with my own hard-earned cash, and I’ve had it to play around with for a few weeks now. Just to hedge my bets, I made sure to write this review within 30 days, so I could return the pedal if it was a dog. But I’m putting my money where my mouth is, and keeping it. It’s that good. You might not realize it when you turn it on, but you’ll definitely notice it when you turn it off!

Stay tuned to WoodyTone for video demos of the Custom Comp alone, and mano a mano with its boutique brethren!

- End of part 4 (of 4) -

Schweet, eh? (MXR photo)

I’ve always had a soft spot for MXR pedals. A Distortion+ mated to a Boss GE-7 were the key ingredients in making my silverface Twin sound like a Marshall, back in 1986! But over the years I’ve become, well, a snob. A “boo-teek” snob. I thought, Surely some huge company with a team of talented engineers and millions of dollars couldn’t build a pedal as well as some dude in his garage….

But then I tried the MXR Carbon Copy, the best value in a delay out there. So I thought, maybe I’ll give these scrappy underdogs from Benicia another chance. Would their latest compressor, the Custom Comp, be another home run? Only one way to find out.

Features

Basically, the CSP202 Custom Comp ($129.95 street) is a cross between a classic M-102 Dyna Comp ($69.95 street) and the reissue ‘76 Vintage Dyna Comp ($174.95 street), but with a few smart tweaks thrown in.

The Custom Comp shares the basic layout of those two pedals: small but sturdy metal enclosure, big output and sensitivity knobs, metal switch, side-mounted jacks. Like the M-102 Dyna Comp, the Custom Comp has an indicator light and an adapter jack, modern amenities missing from its posh big brother, the script-logo CSP028 ‘76 Reissue.

While the ‘76RI sports nicer hardware than the Custom Comp, such as Switchcraft jacks and CTS pots, the ‘76RI and the Custom Comp share the component that MXR made the biggest fuss about, which is the scarce CA3080 “metal can” IC Harris semiconductor. Besides being notable for its excellent slew rate (50V/µs), which makes them especially useful for multiplexer and fast unity-gain voltage followers, as I was recently discussing with my girlfriend over coffee, the CA3080 is known in semiconductor circles for its dynamic range, transparency and quiet operation.

The Custom Comp also has:

> True bypass, employing a proper TPDT switch.

> “RF suppression components,” and while I don’t know what exactly in particular those are, it should make it less likely that your pedalboard will pick up radio transmissions like Spinal Tap’s wireless units did when they played at that Air Force base with their non-regulation haircuts.

> The true mark of a boutique pedal: internal trim pots. Nothing is more high end, and less Boss, than internal trim pots.

It’s not hard to appreciate what Dunlop’s going for here: the tone of the ‘76RI, but with modern amenities like true bypass, an indicator light and an adapter jack, all for less money. While there is some theoretical tonal or durability differences between the Custom Comp and the ‘76RI, unless you have your own signature model Strat or really clumsy feet, you’re not likely to notice.

How’s It Work?

We’ll start with the controls. Output is just what it sounds like. Fully counterclockwise, the pedal is silent. Unity gain is around noon, depending on where the Sensitivity knob is. Diming the Output gives you a noticeable, but not huge, jump in volume – enough to push a clean amp into slight breakup.

The Sensitivity knob also increases the pedal’s volume, and decreases its “transparency.” Max it and you’ll hear more tonal coloring and some slight grit, as well as sustain aplenty.

Pop off the bottom cover of the pedal, and you’ll find a 9V battery, a PC board and two small plastic wheels (trim pots). The top wheel is for attack: Turn it up, and the pedal’s audible take-up between notes decreases. I heard a slight increase in presence as well, which was a bonus.

The bottom wheel is for trim – it’s designed to flatten the frequency response as you turn it up. To my ear, this knob increased the audible “squish” of the notes. It also was quite linear until it was turned up about 4/5ths of the way, where there was a sudden, and dramatic, increase in gain. This setting increased the noise of the pedal significantly, and made the pedal behave more like an overdrive than a compressor.

Testing, Testing…

I tested the Custom Comp with a stock Fender John Mayer Stratocaster and a PRS korina McCarty with Rio Grande Texas (9.0) and BBQ (12.5) pickups, through a Rivera Venus 6, using Mogami Platinum cables. Ambient temperature was 68 degrees fahrenheit, with a slight northeasterly breeze….

Starting with the Strat and a clean setting on the amp, I set the Output at 3 o’clock and the Sensitivity at noon – what the manual calls “New Wave Reggae.” I don’t know what New Wave Reggae is – code for Andy Summers, maybe? – but this setting really smoothed out the dynamics of my pick attack, evening the output of fretted and muted strings, without getting muddy when I picked faster.

It wasn’t a dramatic difference, at least until I switched the compressor off, and it sounded weedy and anemic without it! It was reasonably subtle when switched on, but it made the Strat a lot easier to play, allowing me to tease more sustain out of single notes, and even helped my articulation since I didn’t have to pick as hard to get those notes to punch through.

- End of part 3 (of 4) -

Love this guitar (click to see the pic bigger).

Here’s part 2 of highlights from the legendary April 1980 Guitar Player cover interview of Edward Van Halen.

Do you do anything special to your pickups?

I usually use old Gibson PAFs, and I always pot them. I submerge the whole thing in paraffin wax, and this cuts out the high obnoxious feedback. It’s kind of a tricky thing because if you leave it in there too long. The pickup melts. I take a coffee can and melt down some wax — the same kind that you use for surfboards — and put the pickup in it. See, one of the reasons a pickup feeds back is that the coil windings vibrate, and when the wax soaks in there, it keeps them from vibrating as much. It will still feed back, but it’s controllable. After I dip the pickup in paraffin, I put copper tape around it. You have to be really careful if you do this to a pickup like a DiMarzio. You can throw an old PAF in there and let it soak [wax] up. It doesn’t melt. But with DiMarzio, if you blink, all of a sudden your pickup’s ruined.

How do you keep tuned while using a standard vibrato?

It’s a combination of a lot of things. For one, some manufacturers don’t keep in mind that the distance from the bridge to the machine heads has got to be straight line so the string windings won’t get caught anywhere. A lot of people drill the machine holes off center, and the strings get caught up. I have extra-wide notches in the nut, and string trees for only the high E and B strings. I also set the vibrato bar so I can only bring it down; you can’t pull back on it. See, I rest the palm of my hand on the bridge, so If I use a standard vibrato, I sound like a warped record. Sometimes I’ll bring the bar down before I hit a note and then let it up.

Do you own any stock factory-made guitars?

Yeah, I have a new Gibson ES-335, and two ‘58 Les Paul Jrs — a single-cutaway and a double-cutaway. I’ve got a whole load of Japanese Strat copies [= a lot of experimentation – who knows what parts were swapped where!]. I also just two vintage Les Pauls — a’59 flame top and a ‘58 gold top. These are pretty much in immaculate condition. I bought them as an investment; I don’t play them. My main stage guitars are the ones I build myself for under $200. I have an acoustic, too — the one I used on “Spanish Fly.” It’s an Ovation nylon-string, not the real expensive model. I’ve never owned a steel-string.

How do you hold your pick?

Between my thumb and middle finger. Sometimes when I play fast I’ll put the tip of my index finger on the corner of the pick. [I've come to believe that this is one key component to Ed's attack and rhythm.]

Do you put new strings on every night?

Yeah, Fender 150XLs [these are 9s!]. I stretch them to death. With that new Rose thing, I boil the strings so they stretch, because if you just put them on and clamp it down, the strings stretch out on the guitar. I just take a pack and let it boil for 20 minutes in the hot water. And then I dry them in the sun, because otherwise they rust. But I only use them one night anyway, so who cares if they rust?

Amps and Effects

What’s in [his pedalboard]?

It’s a piece of plywood with two controls for my Echoplex on it, an MXR Phase 90 that I’ve had for years, and an MXR Flanger. They’re all taped to a piece of board with black duct tape [that's the secret! LOL]. And like a lot of big name players laugh themselves silly when they see it, but after they hear me, then they go, “Can I plug in?” Some of these guys have got four out-of-phase switches, and a this and a that, and a biamp crossover, and blah, blah, blah. And I just go, “Is it on? Is it working? What’s it for? What’s it do?” I can’t tell! At least when I use an effect, you know I’m using it. My main tricks are in my amps.

What kind of amps are you now using?

Well, in the studio I use my old Marshall, my precious baby. It gets a slightly different sound. Live I use new Marshalls. I made the mistake of taking my main one out on the road last year and I lost it on the way back from Japan. It was flying around India somewhere and six months later, thank God, I got it back. This is the one I bought when I was a kid. I didn’t even know what I had until now. It’s very old; it has a Plexiglas front. It used to be the house amp at the Pasadena Rose Palace; whoever played there has played through it. It’s a real good amp – unbelievable balls!

How do you modify your amps?

Okay, I use a combination of two different kinds of amps. They’re both Marshalls, but one kind actually has less power than the other, which is boosted. I use them together. The ones that have less power have a giant capacitor in conjunction with the fuse; if anything happens, the fuse blows first. The capacitor has something to do with the computerized ignition system of a car. I can’t give you the exact specs, but it looks like a stick of dynamite, only fatter. What it does is suck juice. I hook it up to the fuse holder and the mains, and it lowers the voltage about ten volts so the amp lasts a little bit longer. It doesn’t really change the sound, but whatever I use, I use to the max. I just turn it all the way up. So this capacitor lowers the voltage and the amp lasts a little longer. I still have to retube them once a week. (Editor’s Note: This is not a recommended procedure for modifying amps and should not be attempted by anyone inexperienced in the field of electronics and amp modification.)

What is done to the other kind of amps?

I use a Variac, which is like a dimmer on a lighting system. It’s an autotransformer which goes all the way from 0 to 160. In the studio I crank it up to 140 and watch the tubes melt! (Editor’s Note: Again, this is not a recommended procedure for modifying amps, as Paul Rivera of Rivera Research and Development points out: “You can cause severe damage to the amp besides melting tubes. Since a Variac is an exposed transformer, by hooking it up incorrectly you could get the hot of the AC line on the chassis of the amp and electrocute yourself. Anyone wishing to attempt this sort of modification should go to a knowledgeable repairman.”) [Ed might have turned up the Variac here and there, but usually kept it at around 85-90.]

- End of part 2 (of 3) -

Fund Drive

Since everyone doesn’t read every post, appending posts with this for a bit. C’mon fellas!

Doing a “keep the lights on and do more cool sh*t” fund drive. If you dig and look forward to WoodyTone, and find the info fun and valuable, pleasedonate! Options for a one-time $20 or $10 below. Gracias!

$20 one-time

$10 one-time

by John Drenning

A particular tone obsession of mine started with David Gilmour. In fact, I’m pretty certain that at least 80% of tonal tail-chasing among Men Of A Certain Age involves British rock bands of ‘65-’75, a period more or less bracketing the Blues Breakers’ Beano album on one end, and “Dark Side Of The Moon” on the other. Or maybe 70%, when you factor in Hendrix being American, even though he had to go to to England to get famous. But as I said, in this case Gilmour’s to blame, in particular his solo on “Time.”

I had an experience a few years back that maybe some of you can relate to: I heard a classic rock warhorse for probably the 6,000th time, a song I thought I knew inside and out – but because I’d been obsessing over gear so much, I heard it with different ears. It felt like I was hearing “Time” for the first time.

What slayed me was that solo. Holy crap! I realized I’d never really listened to it. What killed me about that tone was the fact that it sounded huge – like he had 10 Strats plugged into 10 Big Muffs and 10 Hiwatt full stacks, all on, yes, 10.

But at the same time the tone was so dynamically flat. There’s almost no attack to the notes, and no decay – the opposite of the classic Marshall roar. Seemed like he could play a note, and go out for a bite, Nigel Tufnel-style, and come back and that note would still be hanging in the air, at the same volume as when he first picked it. (And while there are many fine qualities of Strats, massive sustain’s not generally one of them.)

The word I associated with the tone on that solo is one that sounds like it an insult, but is intended as the opposite:

Squashed.

So I went down the internet black hole, and discovered esoteric higher knowledge (who is Pete Cornish? What’s a VGA? Do I want my Knee to be Hard, or Soft?), which led me to – you guessed it – compressors. In particular, the guitarist’s workhorse comp pedal, the venerable MXR M-102 Dyna-Comp.

To Craigslist, and $35 later I was ready to rock – non-dynamically, of course. Maybe I’d even receive that telegram from Roger Waters, telling me that Dave Kilminster was fired, and the great gig in the sky was mine.

Here's Gilmour's Animals tour ('77) board. The MXR Dyna Comp is #9. (gilmourish.com photo)

Comp 101

The job compressors do is pretty simple. Think of your cringe-inducing voice, captured on a voicemail. Part of why your voice sounds so much less cool entering your head than it does leaving it is because when you’re hearing your voice, you realize how much the volume varies. Some words are too loud, some are too quiet – the whole thing’s a mess. But when you listen to the radio, the DJ sounds perfect. All the words are equally loud, so they’re easy to understand and pleasing to listen to.

Partly this is because they worked really hard on how to talk, but it’s also because behind every successful broadcast personality there’s an engineer, and that engineer’s nicotine-stained fingers are operating a very expensive rack-mounted compressor.”And that compressor is doing the exact same thing a Dyna Comp is: It’s making the quiet parts louder and the loud parts quieter, so that the overall volume is more or less even.  The main difference is that the rack mount processor goes about its business much more “transparently,” but we’ll get to that later.

The dynamic transience (those words work!) of a picked note can be a real challenge for an electric guitarist. If you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan (and who doesn’t), then the rise and fall of a note is an expressive tool. A good guitarist will exploit this to give their solos a more vocal quality.

But what if you’re playing clean arpeggios, and some notes are ringing more loudly than others? Or you’re playing a tricky multi-note passage, and some notes crap out on you, making that passage sound uneven? Or you’re quickly strumming a chorded funk progression, but instead of sounding like Nile Rodgers, the unevenness of your pick attack makes the volume of the chords rise and fall? Or you’re trying to wring a little more out of each note in a solo, trying to squeeze a little more grease out of them, preferably with your picking hand held high, raising your Goblet of Rock, but instead the notes fade off into obscurity?

Well, sir or m’am, what you need is a compressor.

You might not think you do, since unlike a distortion box, wah, chorus, etc., you don’t really hear a compressor. A compressor doesn’t especially make your guitar sound different – you don’t hear it like you hear an effect. Instead, a compressor just makes you sound better.

It’s a “cheater” pedal: It can make you sound like a better player than you are, by smoothing out some of the clams in your playing, and give you – as the craigslist posts say – “sustain for days.” So what particular things can a compressor do for you?

Find out tomorrow!

Coming soon:

Tomorrow
Comp Lit, Pt 2: Compressors – more awesome than you think.

Soon
Comp Lit, Pt 3: A review of the brand new Dunlop CSP202 Custom Comp Compressor Pedal.

Comp Lit, Pt 4: The Dunlop Custom Comp goes mano a mano with the Dyna Comp, Keeley and Diamond compressors.

During the day, John Drenning is a mild-mannered professional. But on his off hours he’s a tone fiend.

P.S.

Since everyone doesn’t read every post, will append posts with this for a bit. C’mon fellas!

Doing a “keep the lights on and do more cool sh*t” fund drive. If you dig and look forward to WoodyTone, and find the info fun and valuable, please frickin’ donate! Options for a one-time $20 or $5/mo below. Gracias amigos! Vamonos!

$20 one-time

$5/mo recurring

That’s what Bruce Kulick did for the recording of his BK3 CD, and if you’re at all a gear head – and what musician isn’t – after reading Bruce’s blog you’ll want to heard the CD because you want to hear what he talks about doing.

Bruce is a self-confessed gear-a-holic, and as you can see from his blog he used an impressive and pretty cool string of guitars on BK3, including: several Les Pauls, notably his ‘53 (his #1 guitar); a ‘79 Ibanez PS-10 (signature Paul Stanley model – I had one!); a Telecaster; a couple of PRSs; several ESPs including his signature ESP; an ’80s BC Rich koa Mockingbird (sweet!); and even more.

Then there are the amps – notably his favorite Marshall JCM900 – and the effects, some of which I’ve never heard of (always cool with effects) – like a Sears phaser. He even used a much-maligned MXR Distortion+ one one track!

Bottom line: It’s just fun to read. It’s fun to see what he’s into, what he’s got, what he tries, and how it works out. Here’s one example:

Bruce working on the "Hand of the King" solo - click to see it bigger (Kulick.net photo).

“Finally got some lead guitar work done on the song that Nick Simmons sang ["Hand of the King," which IMO has the best solo on the disc]. Guitar solos need to be added later on, when getting a tune finished. This way you compliment the vocals in a better fashion. Knowing this track had Nick [Gene Simmons' son] made me think of some different guitars. I brought out the KISS army in a way: my old LP Junior from the Revenge tour and the Carnival of Souls disc, my white ESP that is featured on Revenge and KISSology III, my ESP Signature prototype guitar that is on COS and the Union CDs, and my 1979 Ibanez PS-10 Paul Stanley Iceman model that I haven’t had a chance to record with.

“Jeremy [Rubolino, producer] and I set up some pedals and auditioned the various guitars. BTW, I broke out the old MXR distortion plus from Revenge! The wah was my Geek-modified Hendrix pedal. I plugged into my old Marshall [900] head. All of [the guitars] sounded awesome (though the strings on a few were really bad!), but Jeremy really loved the neck pickup sound of the PS-10. I agreed, and within about 30 minutes the solo was born. Then I added some cool riffs at the end of the song as well.

“I really was excited about playing the Iceman. I have owned if for two years, and now it finally has a voice on my BK3 disc.”

Cool, eh? And that’s only one out of 40 or so entries.

The ‘Review’

(Not a fan of that word “review.” Always thought that was for wanna-be wusses, like the ones who write for Rolling Stone. Need a new term. Any suggestions?)

Before getting into the track-by-track review, here are some overall impressions:

> Good variety of tunes, which is nice when it’s a solo album. Surprised that a couple of them are very poppy.

> Best solo on the album: “Hand of the King.”

> Cool that Bruce doesn’t rip through every solo.

> “No Friend of Mine,” sung by former Union bandmate John Corabi, is a hit single – if it was sung by a 20-something band-of-the-month. (Yes I said that to Bruce and he knew what I meant!)

> I think my favorite two tunes are the slower/softer ones sung by Bruce. As a diehard rocker, I’m surprised by that.

> I love the riffs (not fills) he throws in here and there. I miss riffs!

> I’d term his overall guitar tone as a little compressed, certainly not a raw old-school tone.

Now to the track-by-track. All quotes are Bruce’s form his studio blog.

Fate
> Heavy tune. Bruce: “The lyrics are fast and furious. The song is fun and aggressive, and that is an interesting combination.”
> A LOT of guitar – always good!
> Cool chord progression under the chorus.

Ain’t Gonna Die
> Sung and I believe co-written by Gene Simmons.
> Sounds like a KISS tune – a good one, meaning one you’d be stoked to hear on a new KISS album.
> Naturally Gene didn’t play bass (that’s tongue in cheek for all you KISS fans!), but the bass part was played on a Simmons Axe bass.

No Friend of Mine
> Bruce said he wanted this to be a great Union tune, and it is. And as I said above, this is a current “radio” (whatever that is anymore) single.
> Darker-sounding tune. Corabi kills on it, as he does on everything. Talented mofo.
> Really digging the harmony and octave lines in the solo.

Hand of the King
> This is going to be the single. Not one of my favorites on the disc, but a good rock tune.
> Nick Simmons sings – he has a low, dark voice with some dad-like growl to it.
> The solo is literally one of the best I’ve heard in a long time – how it’s constructed, tastefully played. Just great.

I’ll Survive
> Bruce: “This song has so much importance to me, as it is about my getting shot in 2003 [remember that?], and the music is very heartfelt.”
> One of my favorites on the album. Bruce sings it, and his vocals are what I’d call soulful. Not polished, not belted out. Just heartfelt.
> Has a Pink Floyd-like vibe.
> Love the break in this tune.

Dirty Girl
> When I first heard this I thought, That sounds like The Knack. Turns out it was sung by Doug Fieger from The Knack!
> Very poppy – sounds like a Rick Springfield tune to me. Didn’t know Bruce dug that stuff!

Final Mile
> I’d call this a poppy-ish tune too. Kind of an mid-’80s vibe to it.
> In parts of this I can hear KISS, for sure. Paul Stanley singing.
> Harmony leads again, which are cool.
> This description doesn’t do it justice: It’s a good tune.

I’m the Animal
> Heavier rock tune.
> Tobias Sammett from the band Edguy (cool band) sings, Eric Singer on drums (one of my favorite drummers). Tobias is a good singer and really gives this track an ’80s hard rock feel.
> Lead starts out Ace-like – or maybe Bob Kulick-like!

And I Know
> Definitely a poppy tune to my ears. Fits well with Dirty Girl.
> Bruce does a good job on vox.

Between the Lines

Yep, Luke's foot is on a Jemini distortion pedal! (click to see it bigger - Kulick.net photo)

> Instrumental with Steve Lukather.
> I have to say that I had to listen hard to pick out Luke, which is a compliment (intended that way!) to Bruce – he kept up!
> GREAT drumming on this tune. Skins are handled by Kenny Aronoff, who has played with a tone of famous folks.
> Here’s what Bruce wrote about recording it:

“What an amazing day in the studio! I asked Steve Lukather from Toto (anyone who knows guitarists knows he is a guitar legend) to do some dueling guitars…. He is simply hard to watch cause his fingers fly and the tone and ability that he has on the guitar is a wonderful to experience right in front of your own eyes. The song is in Eb tuning and his signature model guitar was in concert tuning so he told me he could play one of mine.

“My trusty red ESP vintage plus from ‘96 was the weapon of choice and as I have always told players, the tone is in the guitarist’s hands. Jeremy set up a cool sound from my Marshall head (which I love the most), and with nothing but a distortion pedal he brought along from Steve Vai that he occasionally stepped on, it was straight ahead, guitar into amp. If I play the set up it sounds like me. If he plays the same gear, it sounds like Lukather. So a lesson to all of you.”

Life
> Slow tune, soft tune, as Bruce said an unexpected way to end an album by a guitar-player. But cool in that way.
> Like “I’ll Survive,” soulful vox by Bruce.
> I’m hearing a little Pink Floyd in this tune as well. A little Beatles (Bruce is a big Beatles can).
> I really enjoy the BTO/Jethro Tull-sounding outro.

Notable

> If you missed the recent WoodyTone interview with Bruce, click here.

> The BK3 CD is slated for release on Feb. 2.

> The JCM900 has a bad rap and might be an odd head to favor, but here’s more about it, from Bruce’s blog: “That was the first prototype of the popular 900 series…. Much warmer sound then you would expect…I have done lots of recording with this particular head.” That goes into a Marshall 4×12 with Celestion Vintage 30s.

> Bruce’s influences, from this interview: “Jimi Hendrix was definitely my biggest influence I loved of course all the Beatles stuff. But guitar hero wise it was him and Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton with Cream. I mean, I was a huge Cream fan. That’s why I was out of my mind when I got to jam with Jack Bruce and I actually played ‘White Room’ and ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ with Simon Kirke on drums from Bad Company…. It was a thrill, a compete thrill.”

> Rock stars are people too! From Bruce’s studio blog: “Sadly our hard drive was acting up so we wisely took a break, double-checked our back-ups, and then even had a visit to the Apple store to get another drive…. So that took up 3 hours….”

Tommy with a few speakers!

…in PremierGuitar.com Articles

Lots has been written about KISS’s Sonic Boom album, but all of the interviews thus far have left info gaps. PremierGuitar.com recently posted a couple of new interviews – a little late to the party, but the info is good. A few gear details are still missing, but not many!

One PG interview is with Tommy Thayer, and the other is with co-producer Greg Collins, which is great because the album is well-produced. The articles are good (except for a few typos – Doug Aldridge?!) and are worth a full read, but the gear info is excerpted below.

Tommy On His Gear

All quotes are Tommy’s:

Studio

Tommy with his wine red Les Paul Deluxe.

“I used Les Pauls [including] my Gibson Wine Red Deluxe. It’s not a guitar I use on the road. I got it in the mid-’80s and it’s a good-sounding Les Paul for the studio and at home. I borrowed Paul’s Gibson ‘61 SG Reissue and used that more than the Les Paul for rhythm and solos because it has a nice midrange.

“I used an old Marshall, my H&K Tommy Thayer Duotone and Statesman combo amp, and an orange practice amp of Greg’s for the raspy edge on my solos.

“The only pedal I used in the studio to give my solos a nicer boost was an Ibanez Tube Screamer. It’s an original from the 1970s or ’80s that I borrowed from Doug Aldridge [Aldrich] of Whitesnake 24 years ago and never gave back. Every time I see him, he asks for it and I say, ‘I’ll give it right back!’ Doug gave me a really nice lead guitar sound on this album!”

Live

“My live set-up is very straightforward: four Hughes & Kettner Tommy Thayer Signature Edition Duotone amplifiers, plus four Hughes & Kettner 4×12 speaker cabinets. I use four Gibson Custom Shop ‘59 and ‘60 reissue Les Pauls in sunburst, black and silver-sparkle, one custom Les Paul with rocket/gerb firing system [pyrotechnics], and a Gibson Custom Shop Explorer in Silver Sparkle. I use no effects onstage besides an octave divider and an MXR digital delay, [both] used in my guitar solo.”

Greg Collins on Gear and Mics

All quotes are Greg’s:

“Tommy used a two-amp setup for rhythm guitar consisting of a mid-’70s Marshall JMP 100-watt head—we tried four or five before we found the right one—and his Hughes & Kettner Statesman combo amp. My intention was not to have a too modern, high-gain guitar sound. As a reference point I used the first KISS record, which is probably my favorite sounding of their early makeup era, and also, of course, Destroyer. Over the years KISS’ sound has evolved toward being a lot more aggressive and edgy than that, but I think we struck a good balance between the sound of the 1970s and something a bit bigger and more vivid.

The H&K combo (tommythayer.com photo)

“For rhythm tracks we went cable to amp. The only pedals in line were splitter boxes—Radial Tonebones—so that we could drive two amps at once, and no effects. We tried to find the sweet spot on the amp gain, where it sounded rich but you could still hear every note in the chord.

“For Paul’s amp setup we used a 1966 Fender Bassman head and a Randall MTS head. The Bassman is a great vintage amp, which is the majority of his tone. The Randall MTS is a modern amp but it has modular plug-in preamps based on older classic amp circuits. We used the one modeled after a Marshall Super Lead. All of Paul’s tracks were done with either a Gibson custom-shop Les Paul or SG into the Bassman/MTS rig.”

Guitar solos: “We had Tommy’s vintage Marshall and the H&K head that he uses onstage, as well as a couple of smaller amps, a Fender Pro Junior and a little toy Orange amplifier [Orange Micro Crush] that runs on AA batteries. You can buy it at Urban Outfitters! It blended in fairly prominently for edgy, buzzy solos that sound ’70s and fuzzy.

“On each of the guitar amps I used three mics. Tommy’s Marshall was running through a 4×12 cabinet, and the H&K combo amp is an open-back 2×12. I used a Heil PR30 on the 4×12. It’s a dynamic mic, somewhat similar to an SM57, with a frequency response that’s just great for distorted guitar. I find that it has more clarity and bite than the typical 57. I also used a Royer 121 ribbon mic…. It gives a ton of midrange, and when you boost mid- and high-frequency EQ it always sounds really good. You can really dig in and it never sounds too harsh. It fills things out and sounds thick and full. I also used an AKG 414 for a different flavor. With distorted guitars I don’t compress too much. I used a Neve 33609 compressor, but never more than –3 or 4dB of compression. I find it best to let the amp, and then the tape [Sonic Boom was recorded to tape], handle that. On Tommy’s combo amp I used an old RCA 77 ribbon mic and a Sennheiser 421.

“Paul’s Bassman was going through a 2×12 closed-back cabinet with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers. For the Randall it was a Colossus 4×12 cabinet and for both cabinets I used the same mics: the PR 30, the Royer and the 414.”

[The Randall Colossus cabinet was a companion to the solid-state Randall Colossus Paul Stanley head. I believe the cab came stock with V30s, but am not sure.]