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RE: Stepping on silence, mojo and vintage gear



Doug, you wrote

In the world of electronic chips and processors, I own a Boss GT-3. I love it. BUT. It has no resonance around the pitch of G. Regardless of the patch, it kinda goes limp when I play a G. I can feel my guitar resonating, but I hear the unit just tossing a wet blanket over the note. Explain that one. “

 

Its possible that the electric guitar you own has a dead spot resonate to the pitch G, unless all your guitars are doing this, I’ve used a groove tubes fat finger to lower the resonate frequency on my guitar and move 9but not totally eliminate) dead spots.

But…….I think the problem you are encountering  may be inherent to modeling processors in general, I’ve owned stuff from Line 6 (a pod pro), Roland (VF-1), and a Vox tone lab se. Of the three, the vox sounds the best and feels the best to my ears and fingers, however, all of them exhibit a digital rasp or harshness, that is most apparent on clean tones, and open strings (the g string being the worst, but not the only offender), and hard playing only makes it worse and sound more harsh and hollow, with no bloom to the note. After my love affair with the vox started to wear off , I became more aware that this same phenomena had also occurred with my Line 6 Pod pro I had gotten rid of, and even worse on my VF-1, (that I no longer use for its modeling but still use for its massive effects). Now I may not have noticed it so much if I didn’t have real tube amps and analog effects to compare the modeling to, but now that I do it’s starting to irritate me, and make me long for an all tube direct recording amp that has speaker emulation, but is and all analogue signal path. Speaking of which, I got a chance to check out the new Princeton recording amp from fender. Holy Shit the thing is really good sounding with an excellent built in over drive and compressor. I spent about a half hour with it and I was very impressed. And then I got sticker shock!

Bill

 

 

 


From: Douglas Baldwin [mailto:coyotelk@optonline.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 5:06 AM
To: Richard Sales; Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: Stepping on silence, mojo and vintage gear

 

I simply must thank you all for this thread. It's the sharing of these ideas, feelings and observations that makes the Looping community my fave-rave e-place.

 

Since I review gear as part of my work, and since I own a good number of instruments (and play them all), I can say that mojo is absolutely what it's all about, with the understanding that a certain resonance exists between the player and the played. Per mentioned this. I think it can sometimes be understood in very practical terms: a guitarist might favor the key of G major. S/he picks up a guitar, strums some chords that revolve around G, and it just doesn't feel right. Next guitarist comes along, favoring the key of E, and the same guitar goes bonkers - strong E major resonance, weak G major resonance.

 

In the world of electronic chips and processors, I own a Boss GT-3. I love it. BUT. It has no resonance around the pitch of G. Regardless of the patch, it kinda goes limp when I play a G. I can feel my guitar resonating, but I hear the unit just tossing a wet blanket over the note. Explain that one.

 

I also believe that certain objects are filled with mojo, and can generate good/bad vibes accordingly. I believe that it's almost silly NOT to understand that a musical instrument will be altered by how it vibrates (someone must remember the "vibrating chamber" that Rick Turner checked out for use with guitars...?). And if an instrument is transformed by its use, and we are transformed by music, well, "there's magic in the music and the music's in me..."

 

This thread is my Looper's Christmas wish come true. Thank you all!

 

Douglas Baldwin, coyote-at-large
www.thecoyote.org
coyotelk@optonline.net

 

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