Frankfurt Musikmesse 2009

 

Well, meeting up with all those wonderfull people is always the highlight but I had some serious gear highlights as well this year.

Guitarwise, very little tickled my fancy. The big companies were totally MEH, the Fender Roadworn series were awefull, Gibson had guitars on display with serious bad frets and dry fretboards etc. PRS had some cool things but I’m SO over all those blingbling tops.

After playing both Tylers at the Engl Booth and them kicking the ESP GL sig in the nuts, it was hard to find other guitars that I liked. At Pedaler.eu I was able to play a Xotic strat which was really good, quality is definitely up there with the best, very vintage feel and tone.

At Mad Professor I was handed an awesome Ruokangas LP that felt and played amazing, great tones coming from the MP101 as well. I was seriously digging that LP. The discovery for me were the Trussart guitars. I played a Steeltop tele for a while, wooden body with a steel inlay, big neck, humbucker at the neck, bridge single coil. Even with the shitty JVM-combo, this guitar sounded amazing. The control layout was a bit different but the feel and tone were stellar.

I also tried a bunch of FX, most of them at the pedaler.eu booth. Cool guy, when i asked to test some stuff, he handed both me and Sabine a cool Carlsberg

The Van-amps Sole-mate reverb sounded really good into the AC30. A real spring reverb in a pedal, very nice, add some analog delay from a Maxon pedal and you are good to go. Effectrode Tube-Vibe is definitely one of the 5 best vibes available, very thick and smooth sounding with enough clarity and a big movement in the vibe. Also worth mentioning were 2 newer Maxon ODs with a small tube build in. Both are in the TS-area but much more versatile and sounded great through the Vox.

Tried some of the Mad Professor pedals and loved them all hahaha, TCs Nova Drive was very nice sounding although that setup doesn’t tell you that much. You have to try them with an amp. I had a nice long chat with the guys from G-Lab, interesting ideas and some cool products. Their programmable/switchless wah sounded pretty cool, it has presets which can be selected by midi. Nice features were also to be found on their OD and delay pedal. Both were midi-switchable as well with more midi options. And they sounded very good.

Being an ampfreak, I concentrated more on amps and I heard and played some really good stuff. I liked the new Engl Fireball, bit less gain, lower mid voicing, good times. I kidnapped Bernie’s Tyler to try the Egnater Rebel30 and really liked it a lot. Very good clean channel and a thick and smooth OD channel, not everybodies cup of tea but I liked it. I also got to do a good test of the Diezel Schmidt (see below) thru the matching 2×12 with hempcone speakers. It was recorded and filmed for use on their website I thought the amp was a bit bright in their test room but the recording proved me otherwise. From clean to classic rock, less tight then the usual Diezel stuff so way more up my alley. To bad the tele was a struggle to play and out of tune because the tones were good. Listening back, the strat tones sound pretty darn fantastic to me.

The 2 winners in the amp department for me were the Mad Professor MP101

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and the TubeThomsen range. I plugged into the MP101 and must have played it for 30mins or more. Very responsive, wide range of tones from bell-like cleans to Dumble-style OD. There wasn’t a thing I did not love about it, well maybe the price Embarassed . Both the head and 5-watt combo from TubeThomsen sounded totally amazing. The head had pretty much everything you need: blackface clean, SRV-land edgy crunch, good rhythm crunch and fat lead, reverb onboard, loop…The sound was stellar anytime I heard that amp being played and even when I was playing it The little combo packed some good punch, great clean tones and very sweet OD sounds.

So here I am wanking with a slight hangover through the Diezel Schmidt.  Great sounding amp for those wo do not need the brutalz from the other amps in the Diezel range.

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Abunai2 Overdrive video demo

 

Here is a great video demo of the Abunai2 overdrive. Very nice playing, great tones and usefull infos:
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As good as it gets

 

If there is one man on this planet who has earned this honour, it`s Dave  Grohl.

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Lounge Metal

 

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M13 – Line 6 fails again to deliver a usable multi-fx pedal board.

 

I like Line 6 products, I really do. I own all pro-modeler rack units and played a Vetta II and PODxt Live on several tours and in the studio. Amp Farm was the first amp plug in that I used back in the late 90`s. I know that some other companies produce better modeling sounds and have more DSP power available. But the usability of Line 6 appeals me so much that I usually prefer them to others.

Failure 1: PODxt Live & POD X3

When I planned my new touring pedal board last year I really wanted to use the PODxt Live or the newer POD X3 Live. But, I couldn`t. A very simple but ultimately important function is simply missing: A standard channel switch for my amp. I was really wondering what on earth made Line 6 leaving out that function. In the end I had to go for the Boss GT8, which is good sounding but horrible to program.

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(The PODxt Live: Really nice unit but I had to kick it out due to lack of channel switching)

Failure 2: M13

This years NAMM saw the first presentation of the new M13 pedal board. A great concept but the same problem: No standard channel switching. I just don`t get it, do you?

(The M13: I really want it but it ignores my basic needs)

Now, the folks at Line 6 constantly claim to be musician themselves. But I really wonder what type of bands they play in. Maybe they rock the stage in the local kindergarten or maybe they spend their weekends playing on weddings and Bar Mitzwas. I, like many thousands of other guitarists, play in a 5-piece rock band. I, like thousands of other guitarists, use a 2-channel tube amp. And I, like thousands of others, would like to actually change the channels of my amp while switching my effects. Unfortunately, I can`t do that with a Line 6 pedal board.

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I don`t know how you feel about this but I really think this sucks. Life could be so easy if some guys would just think a little more. I can`t imagine that there are not enough players out there who request this function. Does Line 6 simple do not listen to their customers?

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Metal Puppets!

 

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Muse "Haarp" - Guitars for the 21th century.

 

Did you like Black Holes and Revelations, the latest studio record from British alternative-space-rockers Muse? Well, I really loved it and my girlfriend Kate liked it too. That means, I was able to hear it a lot (lately, I mostly listen to music in the car, so the records I hear must be “Kate-compatible”). As a long time Muse fan I also decided last year that it`s time to see the guys live, so I went to see them in Munich. It was a killer show and probably the second best gig I`ve seen that year (best was Nine Inch Nails in Circus Krone, also in Munich; killer location!). Now, with Haarp, Muse releases a live album covering their 2 shows in the London Wembley arena last year.

I really don`t want to talk about the production, which is of course great. The songs are well balanced between the new material and the obivous “greatest hits”. It`s the guitar sound that I want to discuss here a bit. 

Guitarist Matthew Bellamy is very well know for his modern, out-of-this-world playing style and sound. But what I hear on this record is probably one of the most innovative rock-guitar sound  I have heard recently! Away with all that vintage purism and 70`s addiction that is so popular these days. Haarp shows us how rock guitars shouls sound in the year 2008.

(Matthew Belamy of Muse live | Photo by Photo Rod | Le-HibOO.com

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For the crunch tones Bellamy starts from a very solid rhythm sound. I don`t know if he still uses Diezel amps but from what I hear this could be the fact. It`s a very thick tone and since he is the only guitar in the band he fills out the whole frequenzy range. What I really like is that he uses single-coil-pickups in many songs. This gives a certain clarity to the tone and prevents it from being too muddy.

The cleans are crystal clear and very “VOX AC-30″ like. You won`t hear too many dry cleans on the record since he uses many effects such as delays, modulations and pitch-shiftings on most tracks. But the effects are very well balanced and give the basic tone enough room to breath.

Let`s stay with the effects of Bellamy. He is known for using many weird sounds through all Muse records and it seems that he tries to find a signatur effect for each album. This time he had a Kaos Pad filter built into one of his axes. You can hear the effect on several tracks, especially on the first one.

Another little box that he seems to like is the Zvex FuzzFactory. This fuzz is very hard to control and very aggressive. Although this sound might not fit into most bands it does complement the style of Muse very much. In fact, I would even call this the Muse trademark sound. And I have to admit: It was one of the reasons I got myself on of those little weird pedals.

I highly recommend this album for everyone who is interested in modern and alternative rock and for those, like me, who are fed up with all those boring “The” bands. Haarp is one of the better live albums I`ve heard and Muse is probably the best live act from the UK at this very moment. I`m really looking forward to new material from Bellamy and the other boys.

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Danelectro Cool Cat pedals

 

Danelectro is soon launching a new line of pedals. Check them out on their website!!

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They have send out some of those pedals to beta-testers and I am one of the lucky guys to get a couple of these pedals. I got the Transparent Overdrive, Chorus and Metal. Here are some thoughts and comments:

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1st impressions are important and the pedals definitely did well, I love the look and feel. Sturdy boxes that will take a beating, cool blue led (we all know it sounds better then anything else), great feel on the switch. The placing of the controls is great, no danger of hitting them when stomping on the box. Working the dual controls is not easy but it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. Battery access couldn’t have been easier which is also a big plus.

When using the pedals, I noticed that the OD and Metal pedal have a LOT of output. This is great but also makes them a bit harder to dial in just right. I think the Metal could use a little less output as this would make the range more usefull and easier to dial in. The OD however sounds amazing to boost an already overdriven amp and any amount of boost works there.

My tests so far have been in different environments as well as with different other gear. I used them at home, for recording and in a band situation.

Although I’m more a rock/roots player, the Metal pedal was a pleasant surprise. The 3-band EQ works excellent, good range on the EQ. There’s obviously plenty of gain and a lot of output. After several tests I found that there’s a number of applications where this pedal is really useful. As a standalone distortion box, it excels in the gritty heavy tones, the low end is tight which can be a problem with high gain pedals. I’ll probably be using it more as a booster of even as an EQ pedal. I found it actually works great running to gain low and using the EQ to shape the tone of your amp. It was like having a seperate overdrive channel on the amp.

I had high expectations from the Chorus

. I used to own the original 18v-powered Danelectro Cool Cat Chorus untill some scu… stole it. I always loved that pedal. The new Cool Cat chorus definitely delivered the same excellent tones and plenty more. The mix and eq controls are fantastic features. I find that the EQ allows me to go from a smooth sound up to the 80s spanky LA Clean tone. The range of the pedal is great, it even does a nice faux-leslie tone. As it has a mix control, I tried it in my fx loop where I run some fx units in parallel through a mixer. Sadly though, the Chorus could not handle the line level and was distorting a little.

Finally, there is the Transparent Overdrive. I grew tired of hearing the word transparent when people are talking about OD pedals so what about a box that has THAT word in it’s name??? I’m not sure but I had the impression that the gold paint job could be a nod to the Klon Centaur. Short version: this pedal is FANTASTIC. Low gain crunch tones are pretty hard to nail in a pedal and I’m definitely very picky about these tones. The dual eq controls make this pedal the winner that it is. I have tried and I haven’t found a tone in the box that I did not like or couldn’t use. I keep the gain rather low and then it gives me the best of both worlds. It sounds excellent as a standalone od into a clean amp and it really rips when used to boost an already overdriven amp. It adds punch and dynamics. I can’t praise this enough and it is already part of my main gigging rig.

Fantastic value for money, the are going to sell boatloads of these pedals. I want the Fuzz, Vibe and Distortion and build a spare board with them. I’m not sure when they will be available, I’ll keep you posted about that!

ADDED INFO: It seems from the website from a major German shop, they will be available at the end of June, the most expensive pedal is the chorus at 42 euro.

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Accept it: You will never be as good as these guys!

 

Many young musicians who start to work with proper producers have exactly the same experience after a few days in the studio. You have that great song idea and you start to record the tracks. But somehow it doesn`t sound right. The guitars are not tight enough, the drums don`t groove enough and many other possible problems come up.

Producers tend to solve this problem often by telling a band that they want to use “special-guests” on certain songs. Like having a great studio-drummer for that groovy mid-tempo tune. Of course, most bands don`t like the fact that they are not good enough to play their parts in the studio. The truth is that this happens all the time. Even my band faces this from time to time (we have the luxury of having Mel Gaynor from Simple Minds producing us).

But, even if we don`t like it we have to accept that there are studio cats who are so good that it nearly hurts to watch them. Most of them might not be big rockstars but their playing abilities are over the top and we can all learn from them a lot.

I found this video of Toy Matinee playing around in the studio and you should really watch it. What you see are 4 tremendous musicians having a good time. The easiness of their playing is just unbelievable.

(Fast forward to 7:10 to go directly to the song)

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