Tag: fender

The Electric: Amp In A Box

On By adamdolhanykIn electric guitar, reviews, thoughtsLeave a comment

 

Amp In A Box Style overdrive pedals are a slightly controversial concept. Some feel that they are pointless. Others think they are a waste of money and time. Still many more think they are a welcomed addition to our guitar effect arsenals. Today we’ll look behind to the current to find out just what an Amp In A Box OD is, If they make sense as a pedal genre, and if they make sense for us as worship guitarists.

WHAT ARE THEY?
As the name implies, an Amp In A Box pedal is trying to emulate or capture the sound and feel of a guitar amplifier in stompbox form. Some pedals like the Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive have a generalized, non-descript “amp” feel to them. While others, like the Wampler Black ’65 (Fender Blackface Amp), the Catalinbread CB30 (Vox AC30) or the JHS Superbolt (Supro tube amp) have a very specific sound in mind.

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The Electric: Best Amp For A Worship Band?

On By adamdolhanykIn church band, electric guitar, worship2 Comments

In this series I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music. This week we’ll talk about amplifiers, which ones are good for a worship band, and which ones should be avoided.

KNOW WHAT AN AMP IS

An amp isn’t just the speaker that produces your guitars sound. In many way, the amplifier is an instrument in it’s own right. An acoustic guitar is just an acoustic guitar, but an electric guitar rig (guitar, amp, effects) is a group of instruments being used together to produce a sound or tone. My point is that it doesn’t make any sense to put money into a nice guitar or effects pedals and then have an amp that is sub par. An amp is an instrument. It has to sound good in its own right. To that end, if the amp doesn’t sound good on it’s own, without effects, and without a high quality guitar then it’s the wrong amp.

NOTE: This is why I DO NOT advise buying digital amps or amps with built in DSP effects. Your tone will be better off with just your guitar and a Fender Blues Jr than with an amp that has 15 poor quality onboard effects.

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The Electric: Knobs, Switches, and Settings

On By adamdolhanykIn Arrangment, band practice, church band, thoughts2 Comments

In this series I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music. This week we’ll talk about playing without effects or pedals.

 I’m a little hesitant to write this post. When I write in general it just about my experience and things I’ve picked up over the years. But I’ll fully admit that I’m still learning more and more about how the guitar and amp work on their own. Effects pedals are great, but they can do us a disservice by letting us cut corners and thus not forcing us to learn about the relationship of the guitar and the tube amplifier.

Younger players often rip on older player who seem to only want to relive the classic rock glory days of the 70’s and 80’s (and if that’s you it’s time to learn some new tricks 😉 ) but I’ve gained an invaluable amount of insight from those older players who can do more with just a guitar and amp than you or I could with 12 pedals. So here’s some thoughts on what happens when you choose to or are forced to play with out effects in your rig.

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The Electric: Setting up a Guitar Rig for Worship. Part 2- Amplifiers

On By adamdolhanykIn blog, electric guitar, thoughts, worship16 Comments

I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music.

This week we’ll talk about setting up your electric rig for the first time or upgrading it to something better, specifically amplifiers. This is part 2 of a 4 part series. Part 1 can be found HERE. Part 3 can be found HERE. Part 4 can be found HERE. 

The Most Important Thing

As I said in the last post, I believe the amplifier is the most important part of the guitar rig. I didn’t always think so, I used to think that the most important thing was to get the right guitar. This thinking stemmed from years of acoustic guitar playing where the guitar is everything in getting a good sound. For years I barely gave the amplifier a second thought beyond how loud it could get. Then one day I was in a guitar shop trying out a reverb pedal when it struck me that this pedal will never sound as good in my rig because my amp wasn’t as good. It wasn’t a bad amp, but it just wasn’t able to compete. So I sold some gear and bought a very good mid-priced amp, and switched my long term gear savings plan from a high end guitar to a high end amplifier which I hope to get in a few years. Since that time I have not regretted that decision. A great amp can make so/so guitars and effects sound much better, while a great guitar will be hamstrung by a low quality amp.

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The Electric: Redial

On By adamdolhanykIn blog, blogs, electric guitar, thoughts, worshipLeave a comment

 I try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music.

This week we’ll talk about dialing in and re-dialing your sound and settings for Sunday Morning.

Whether you’re playing Sunday Morning or at any other church service, I believe that everyone needs to dial in or re-dial their rigs and equipment for the worship service ahead.

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The Electric: Getting “That Sound”

On By adamdolhanykIn electric guitar, worshipLeave a comment

Each Week I’ll try and address different aspects of the practical side of playing electric guitar in church music.

This week we’ll talk about getting “That Sound”

 

Have you ever wondered how your favorite guitarist or band gets “that sound”? Maybe you’ve looked up all their gear on the internet. Then maybe you’ve done the math and realized that their gear would cost you what you make in a 5 year period or more. Can you get “that sound” as a normal guy trying to put a rig together on a budget?

What Do You Want?

If you just bought a Boss Metal Zone distortion but want to do country you may be on the wrong track. Define the sound or sounds you want. What do you like? What does your church band play? Do you play other stuff outside of church? My rig has purposely been set up for country (Buddy Miller, Johnny Cash, Ryan Adams), U2/Coldplay (which means i can do any Christian worship band that rips off those bands cough. cough. Hillsong. cough.), and  rock (Death Cab For Cutie, Arcade Fire, Daniel Lanois) and REM (I rip off Peter Buck a lot)

Do Your Homework

There is no way around it. You have to do the research to know what you want, what musical and technical terms mean, and what gear is right for you.

Let’s say you’re an acoustic guitar player who wants to branch out. You’ve had an old Stratocaster lying around and you’ve decided to play more. Start with something as simple as reading the Wikipedia page on Effects Pedals. Learn the difference.

After you’ve learned what kinds of pedals there are and what they do, you’ll have to figure out what you need. Read up. If you like a certain style of music and you find that a lot of the bands you like use the same pedals (Boss DD-3 Delay or Line 6 DL4 Delay for examples) then that would be a starting place.

Versatility

Let’s say you love August Burns Red and Metallica before the Black album and love to jam at home to those riffs, but the church band you play with wants really bad to sound like David Crowder band. A “metal zone” or similar pedal will pretty much only get you one sound. A Tube Screamer into a tube amp that’s cranked on the “hot” channel with it’s Mids scooped will give you Metallica’s Ride the Lightening, and then if you set the amp to clean it can give you 20 other bands from U2 to Stevie Ray Vaughn. Metallica, U2, SRV all use some version of the Ibanez tube screamer. 1 pedal 3 sounds is a much better value than a single genre pedal.

Most of us are on a budget. Putting a rig together will take time. If you can buy 1 pedal to do the job of two or three then you’ll be better off 9 times out of 10.

Boutique is Not Always Better

Speaking of the Ibanez Tube Screamer. Everyone has one. Brad Paisley, the Edge, SRV. Another pedal that I constantly read about on pro guitar players boards is the Boss DD-3 (or DD-5,6, or 7) or the Boss RV-5 reverb. What I’m saying is that if you read gear forums or blogs or talk to the guy in the Guitar Center trying to upsell you, they’ll for the best sound you really need this [insert more expensive pedal here]. The reality is that a stock TS9 and a lower end TC Electronics Reverb are my go to pedals.

It’s Not Always Pedals.

I was talking to a guy who was asking me how to get the sound and tone from some Hillsong guitar player. I jokingly told him to just rip off the Edge 🙂 But then I looked at the Youtube clip he had sent. The reality was that for all the different pedals he had at his disposal 80% of what was going on was because he was playing through a nice Amp. U2 uses VOX AC-30’s. Coldplay uses Fender Deville’s. Brad Paisley uses Dr. Z. Buddy Miller uses Swart. Metallica used Marshalls and later Messa Boogie’s. The point is that if you have an electric guitar and you have money you’ve saved up you would often be better off getting a good amp than a bunch of effects pedals.

What’s the Point?

It’s worship all about Jesus and not about gear? Yes. but if you look at your pastor’s office you’ll probably find a lot of books (commentaries, maps, histories, dictionaries). Maybe he has a computer with bible software or an ipad with all his notes. These are all tools to preach the gospel and teach the bible. Musical gear are tools make music to praise Jesus, serve His church, and share the gospel or respond to Bible teaching in song. Just as a pastor needs to learn to put a message together, musical servants in the church need to learn how to put a song together. All for the Glory of Jesus.

The Electric: Be Versatile.

On By adamdolhanykIn electric guitar, worshipLeave a comment

One Trick Ponies & Swiss Army Knives

I saw a really good blues/rock band the other day. They were really good and looked like they were having a lot of fun doing it. I noticed how simple the guitar set up was: Fender Stratocaster into an Orange Tube amp. No effects besides a compressor and the amps gain or “dirty” channel. I was really impressed and kind of ashamed at the size of my rig, until I realized… He’s only set up to do one thing. Church bands don’t work that way.

Even if your church is solely CCM (Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, David Crowder, Mercy Me, etc) that is a wide range of sound. Playing electric guitar would be a little bit different for each of those bands.

The point I’m making is that we don’t have the luxury of being set up for one thing like the blues band. If we want to serve better we need to be set up for variety both short term and long term.

The Short Term

This is nothing more than being aware of versatility. I’ve got more than one guitar playing friend who say they can only do one thing. I know thats not true. I know they are immensely talented and gifted by God.

The issue for my friends is to mentally move past being a one trick pony and become a Swiss army knife: yes I can rock, but I also know how to fill in or learn a new chord past AC/DC power chords.

The short term answer is nothing more than a mental decision to see the world in a little bit bigger way

The Long Term

In an earlier edition of “The Electric” I talked about the 3 overdrive pedals I use. But the truth is that for a long time, I only had 1: the Fulltone Plimsoul. The Plimsoul is by far one of the most versatile pedals I’ve ever owned. It represents my desire for versatility. I want to be set up to play country, modern rock, classic rock, indie rock, pop, U2, and ambient/experimental. I want to be able to come in a create whatever sound is needed by the song and by the worship leader.

This is a long term thing. I’ve built up my rig over the years. That’s why you start short term and work long term.

Working It Out

Guitar
One of the great myths is that you have to have a Fender Telecaster to play country. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great. I have a ’98 American Standard Tele as my primary guitar. But I’ve gotten country tone out of Gretsch’s, Les Paul, and Strats. What a lot of folks don’t realize about the Tele is what a great blues/jazz guitar it is. That being said, for jazz, a Rickenbacker or Jackson might not work out for you so well.

The point I’m making is that some guitars are very specific (Rickenbackers, metal/shredders, etc) in their sound. Some guitars are very versatile. When picking your guitar, look for one that can pull off a lot of sounds. For my money this would be a Telecaster, Les Paul or Stratocaster type guitar. You can get a Tele or Strat with hum-buckers or a Les Paul with tap coils so it can be single coil as well or a Tele or Strat with humbuckers installed.

Pedals

You know the needs of your band and church, but some pedals do one thing really well, some can do a lot of things. I use the TC Electronics Toneprint series for my reverb and delay and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of the sounds I can get. I have 3 OD pedals for 3 different “levels” of gain/overdrive. Other great options: The DL4 delay from Line6. The GT-500 distortion/clean boost from Fulltone. King of Tone OD by Analogman (if you can get it). The point isn’t for me to have more toys, but for me to have more tools.

Amps
Most of the tube amps out there have their own sounds but will all work. Fender, Vox, Orange, Marshall, they are all used by musicians in all different genres. I’ve used Ashdown, Marshall, Fender and Vox amps. As a general rule I always go with tube amps, although I’ve seen some solid state amps that sounded just fine. currently I use a Egnater Tweaker 15 that is capable of getting Marshall, Fender, and Vox voicings while being all analog.

Digital
If you want to be versatile, then there is no easier way than going digital. I used a POD XT Live and Variax digital modeling guitar for several years, and it was VERY versatile. It also didn’t sound right. It was 70% at best. Digital can be a great short term solution. You can get a lot of sounds and options for a great price. But in the long run (with a few exceptions, mostly delay) you will get better quality and flexibility by staying analog.

The Point

As electric guitar players in a church band, we are musical servants. If we show up just doing “our thing”, we aren’t serving. learning about these different aspects of guitar playing help us Serve better. Have any thoughts? Better ideas? Disagreements? Chime in down in the comments section.