A note about nitrocellulose

So avid readers may already have noticed a casual mention here and there to the wonderful stuff that is nitrocellulose lacquer. You must be asking yourself 'how can the same thing that makes gunpowder be so important to the overall tone of a freakin' guitar!' Well I'll tell you...

As important as the pickups and the choice of woods are in making a guitar sound good the wood needs to resonate when the strings are played and it's the different characteristics of different woods produce a myriad of wonderful tones. The majority of guitar makers now choose to lacquer their guitars using polyurethane and if you look at the figures it makes sense... It's cheaper, it takes much less time to apply, its tougher than an old dog with no face and its easier to apply. Great stuff except that you effectively seal the guitar in an airtight casing that inhibits the natural vibrations of the wood! Sure applying nitrocellulose is expensive, time consuming (applying several coats of this stuff takes weeks) and fiddly but if you're buying (or indeed making) a guitar that's made of endangered tone woods such as mahogany or swamp ash then surely you not only want it to resonate naturally but also allow it to age and breathe properly?

Another property of nitrocellulose lacquer is that it's porous and this is what allows the wood breathe and age as it should. You may have heard the term 'opening up' used when talking about guitars, particularly when referring to Spruce tops on acoustic guitars however all woods will in fact open up as they age. It's been claimed by some science types that if wood resonates a particular way regularly then it will 'learn' the best way to resonate which will in time give a guitar a louder and fuller sound. This is perhaps why some of the old Fenders, Gibsons, Martins etc sound superb, all of these companies used (and still use) nitrocellulose lacquer and as it thins over time these guitars are effectively resonating closer to their maximum potential. Also how good is the word 'resonance' say it out loud, brilliant, eh?

If you'd like to find out more about Nitrocellulose then you could check out this Wikipedia entry but it mostly talks about gunpowder (which is also great as explosions are cool in a non war context) and you should also read the Gibson blurb which you can find in the finishes section for every guitar because they admirably still use it on every guitar that leaves their factory.

True Vintage?

Now I'm quite aware that I enthusiastically kicked started this blog by gushing about Gibson, it could be said that I am on a Gibson trip at the moment probably due to the superb stock that arrives fresh from the States to my shop on a weekly basis and mostly because I WANT ONE. However when it comes down to the brass tacks I am at heart a Fender devotee.

Ever since I first, if you'll excuse the phrase, grasped an axe I wanted a Telecaster and eventually in 2005 my wish was granted and I became the proud owner of a 1972 Telecaster Deluxe Reissue, not your typical Tele I'll admit but I tried every tele-esque guitar that my local guitar store had to offer and that was the one that came up trumps. Shortly after this I would move to London, start working in a guitar shop myself and join a band, through this I started to meet the gear obsessed individuals I call friends and the world of the vintage and the boutique opened up to me.

I clearly remember the first time I picked up a Custom Shop Fender Strat, I had been working at my old store Sound Control for a few weeks and I was mocking what I then though were outrageous price tags for such an instrument. However when I played it I heard what a Fender was MEANT to sound like, the tone was open, fat and dynamic. It was like the guitar responded to every pulse of BLOOD through my veins and at the same time it dawned on me that what Fender were passing off as the American 'Standard' was nothing but a great falsehood.

Returning to one of their so called 'Standard' instruments I found myself to be incredibly disappointed. What I once respected now sounded dull and lifeless... what was even more shocking is that I found their made in Mexico reissues, such as my own, were superior in sound and feel to what should be the mainstay of the Fender product lineup. In short I wanted a Custom Shop Tele but the £2500 price tag was something that even my huge sales assistant salary just couldn't handle... It was then I was introduced to Fenders undervalued and often misunderstood 'American Vintage' series. The features I wanted were all there; it was built as close as possible to Leo Fenders original specifications, had a super thin nitrocellulose lacquer, and glorius sounding vintage reissue pickups... just like the Custom Shop guitars that I so yearned to own! Shortly after this I would purchase my much loved '62 Telecaster reissue and it was at this point that I finally felt like I owned a 'real' Fender.

Now I'm not saying that the other guitars in Fenders HUGE product lineup aren't the genuine article, of course they are but they are not what Fender WERE about and to me they lack heart and soul. If Gibson can put out guitars under £1000 such as the SG Special and Les Paul Studio which still have classically voiced pickups and are made by hand then why can't Fender? It probably costs Fender around $50-100 to put together one of their American standard guitars judging by the way they are made and what they are made from but seems to be the Fender name that commands the price tag. In short, Fender need sort it out and potential Fender buyers make sure you check out the American Vintage and Vintage Hot Rod Series as well as some of the fantastic Artist Models such as the Eric Johnson Strat before you splash your cash. If that kind of price tag is unreasonable then you'd be better off looking to the made in Mexico Classic Player series such as the Classic Player 60's Strat and the Baja Telecaster as you get a lot more bang for your buck.

This is just my opinion by the way but feel free to get your flame on...

You Little Gem

Well, it would appear that I'm only two weeks into my blog and I'm already behind on my blogging. Anyone who knows me would simply shrug and say that it's a typical sign of my laziness and well, I'd agree!

Truth is I've been genuinely busy of late partly doing the rock and roll thing and going on a small tour with my band and also spending what feels like an eternity installing the epic amount of music software I've amassed over the last few years onto my new laptop.

While scrabbling for a story to satisfy my guitar itch it became clear that I should pay homage to the glorious orange box that exudes the sweet sweet sound of ROCK whenever I connect my guitar to it, my lovely Orange Rocker 30 combo.

Now you might read this and think I'm stupid and well, you'd be right but I don't always use my own amp at gigs despite me spending more money than is sensible on it in the first place. You see I live in London and I don't drive and I've lost count of the times I've borrowed another bands amp because it's been more convinient and above all cheaper than getting a cab. I remember wincing at the sound of my Big Muff through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, being electrocuted by a battered old Line 6 Flextone 2 and having my ear drums shredded by the machete like treble of a Marshall JCM900. This tour was different, we had a VAN and everything, and at every gig I played I made a point of proudly carrying my rocker 30 inside each venue.

One of the first things I learnt as a guitarist is just how important a decent amp is and when it was time to choose mine I set myself the following criteria; it had to be loud, compact, produce that sweet bell like valve tone, be as basic as possible and love to be driven with pedals in a similar way Michael Vaughan might cover drive a cricket ball to the long boundary. (Sport pun there, apologies.)

The rocker 30 is as simple as it is brilliant, although you can switch between a 'natural' and 'dirty' channels it really is just a one channel amp. Running at 30 watts in class 'A' (this means that when its been switched on for a while you can cook your breakfast on it) the natural channel provides you with nothing but a volume knob and bypasses the pre amp stage completely running your signal directly into it's pair of (I prefer electro harmonix) EL-34 power valves. This allows you to go from a ringing clean sound to classic valve break up easily but it provides a surprisingly useful amount of clean headroom even for a 30 watt amp! The Dirty channel is where things get interesting and is the channel I use. Engaging this channel switches in a set of 12AX7 pre amp valves and allows you to control the input gain as well as the output volume which, combined with a very musical 3 band EQ allows you to easily dial in your desired sound with no fuss whatsoever. I like to set the gain to around 11 o'clock just before the signal starts to break up, just high enough to add a little grit to beef up the clean sound, I then leave the bass and the mids flat adding just enough treble to help cut through the mix.

I remember the first time I tried one of these amps and it literally sang to me and I knew it was the amp for me. In fact all of the Orange Rockerverb series comes highly recommended, forget any preconceptions you may have about how Orange amps sound because the higher wattage amps have gain for decades that will impress even those of us who sit in very dark rooms and have unfeasibly long beards.

I just wish people would stop telling me to turn it down...

A Distortion Dilemma

Now when it comes to overdrive and distortion I think it's safe to say that I'm an obsessive. I've been searching for THAT sound in my head ever since I first flicked the channel switch on my first ever practice amp and made sweet (well not so sweet if I am being honest) distortion for the first time.

I've owned several overdrive and distortion pedals over the years and the first one that I bought was an Ibanez DS-7 which was recommended to me by an assistant in a guitar shop when I didn't really know what I was looking for. I was pretty content with it when I tried it in store but the more I played with it the more disappointed I got with it. To be honest I still use it occasionally when I am after a horrible filthy bass distortion but if you are looking for Ibanez pedals stick with their much better reissue series.

The second pedal I bought was an Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi (The made in NYC version) purely because I wanted to sound like I was in Smashing Pumpkins. This is still one of my favourite all time pedals, it generates a harmonically rich, creamy distortion that is superb for single note lines and power chords but lacks a little clarity with normal chord work. When I started gigging I paired it with a trusty Boss SD-1 which provided me with a cleaner, more natural and dynamic sounding overdrive and allowed me to cut through the mix when playing rhythm parts. My bands Sound Engineer Joe tells me at the end of every gig to get rid of the SD-1 because he is sick of the sound of Boss pedals (and who can blame him when over 10 million of them have been sold since they were first released!)

After a few gigs though I soon realised the great flaw of my beloved big muff, the rich, deep sound might have sounded great on its own but I'm not in a three piece grunge band, I'm in an 8 piece where my guitar needs to be relatively low in the mix a lot of the time and the muff just wasn't cutting the mustard. While looking for a solution I saw a guitar player using a Pro Co Rat reissue and thought it sounded great and there was soon one winging its way to me in the post.

Here I learned a valuable lesson... I ordered the pedal online without even trying one first based purely on the assumption that it would work with my set up. Yes I'm young, foolish and above all too lazy to take a 20 minute train ride into the centre of London where a PLETHORA of albeit quite average (vintage and rare and Macari's excused) guitar stores are waiting for me to come and test their wares. Although the Rat cut through the mix, it just wasn't the sound I was after. Never mind, maybe one day I'll get it modified by Robert Keeley and maximise it's true face melting potential.

I've been working in guitar shops for a few years now and I'll admit that I've become a bit of a gear snob. Anything labelled as 'boutique' or 'hand wired' gets me all excited and high price tags seem insignificant when all you can focus on is pure, unadulterated TONE. I've decided that my setup requires a twin distortion pedal so that I can have my rhythm channel and a lead channel and easily switch between the two. I found that trying to use two separate pedals to achieve the same effect just causes one pedal to compress the hell out of the other which is just no good at all.

As previously mentioned I had already pretty much made my mind up on the superb sounding Fulltone Full Drive 2 Mosfet but then this time I decided that I wasn't going to be made a fool of and started researching the market. I found a great article on the Gibson Website where they compare some of the most respected boutique pedals on the market to the new range of Visual Sound pedals and this turned me on to the potential of their Jekyll and Hyde (as used by the Strokes but don't let that put you off...) Following this I started talking to a few of the many sales reps that visit my shop and was turned on to the new Bones series by Tonebone (none of the three really cut it for me after trying them all in series) and now I've been told to check out T-Rex pedals (the distributor is kindly lending me a few next week!) and after checking out their superb website and listening to some demos I have high hopes that their Dr. Swamp pedal may just take the title of being my go to overdrive.

What I have discovered is that almost every guitar company and its mum and churning out overdrive and distortion pedals like it's nobodies business... None of them seem content with just making ONE damn good overdrive and ONE damn good distortion and then maybe putting both of them in the same box for folks like me! Be warned that if you are looking to upgrade your pedal board that it's not going to be an easy ride.

Going Bare Knuckle: Part 2

On Friday night my bandmates in Brontosaurus Chorus and I jumped into our trusty driver come sound engineers brand-new second-hand tour bus/van and headed to a pub called The Hobbit in Southampton to peddle our Indie Pop wares. The gig went as well as could be expected my only complaint being the lack of an audience but when you play in a band doing original material in a town that hasn't really heard of you this is considered the Norm.

What excited me most was that two days previously my friend Nick replaced the stock pickups in my '62 Reissue Telecaster with a set of Bare Knuckle 'The Boss' pickups. The blurb on the box promised 'Classic Tele sound with extra weight in the mid range for driving rhythm and cutting lead' and it wasn't wrong. Earlier in the day I set up all my pedals and amp the same as how I usually have them at a gig so that I could get used to the new sound and dynamic response of my guitar. I feared that I may have chosen a set of pickups with too high an output for my tastes despite the fact that it was a higher output that I so desired but I was frightened that I would loose the vintage characteristics that made my Tele a Tele.

In the end it turns out there was no need for it, when clean the dynamics and response had improved no end although to my ears the overall sound of the instrument seemed darker, which was probably to do with the more distinguished mids and fatter low end. The real icing on the cake came when I kicked on my overdrive (for the record I'm currently using a Boss SD-1 and a Pro-Co Rat II but I'm currently in the market for both a new overdrive and a distortion unit so all suggestions are welcome!) and found that the lacklustre sound that once plagued me was no more and instead the overdrive was not only thicker and richer but the tonal characteristics of my pickups shone through much more than before. Satisfied I packed up my gear and headed off to the gig.

After the gig I chatted with our sound engineer Joe about whether or not he noticed any difference and he said that the sound seemed instantly more open and full but he also noticed a lot more top end cut that lent itself to the mix. In my band I have a string section a keyboard and a trumpet to compete with so I can never be quite as loud as I would like but now with my new pickups I can be a little bit more confident that I'll be heard playing at a slightly lower volume than usual.

So, am I one step closer in my never ending quest for the ultimate guitar tone? Probably, but the search for that perfect guitar sound is an eternal one and the next step for me is to replace my overdrive pedal and I'm currently thinking that a Fulltone Full Drive II MOSFET is the way to go.

The photo in this post was taken by my friend Di and used with her permission, you can see more of her photos at her Flickr.