Gilmour Gurls

I have a new idea. When the girls are a few years older, I'm going to get all Murry Wilson and form them into an all-girl Pink Floyd and Big Star cover band called Gilmour Gurls. It. Will. Be. Brilliant.

VFE White Horse Junior Review

I’ve been rocking a VFE White Horse Junior Optical Compressor for a few weeks and it’s without a doubt my favorite compressor. I’d call it the best compressor I’ve ever used, but pedals are subjective and I’m sure someone will feel differently.

What I love most about the White Horse Junior is that it’s simple, versatile, and transparent (if you want it to be). Sure, it will squash with the best of them, but it will also apply the perfect amount of compression to sweeten your tone, even out your playing dynamics, and just make you sound better. You can set it where you don’t hear it when you turn it on, but you feel it when you turn it off.

With just three controls, the White Horse Junior is super easy to dial in:

SUSTAIN: Controls the gain/sustain of the optical compressor
BLEND: Blends between the uncompressed and compressed signals
LEVEL: Controls the output volume of the White Horse Junior

The White Horse has a ton of compression available, so resist the urge to crank the sustain knob (or at least experiment with different levels). I’ve been running mine with the Blend control at 11 o’clock and sustain at 10 o’clock. This setting is great for clean and consistent rhythm playing (especially jangly and sustaining arpeggios).

And while I normally only have a comp on when I’m playing clean, I can leave the White Horse Junior on when I kick on the fuzz and/or overdrive and it’s quiet enough that the noise floor doesn’t go through the roof. And paired with some dirt, the White Horse Junior makes it really easy to get sweet, controllable feedback at lower volumes.

I have one of the plain metal box juniors with hand written labeling. But VFE is preparing to take the Junior pedals mainstream and are running a Kickstarter campaign as we speak. In fact, if you act quickly, you can get a White Horse Junior for $80 by supporting the campaign.

Cusack Goblin

Photo courtesy of Nathan Sousa

Goblin - A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous creature; a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom. They are attributed with various abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin.

Goblin - An insanely good 15 watt 6V6-powered guitar amp originally manufactured by Reverend Guitars. The Reverend Goblin was produced in small numbers (roughly 200) and I'm lucky to own one of those. Thanks to our friends at Cusack Music, the Goblin is back, and better than ever. The Cusack amps are hand-made in the US and built to withstand the rigors of the road.

If you haven't had the pleasure of playing a Goblin, start saving now. With wattage switchable between 5 and 15 watts and the brilliant 3-way Schizo switch, the Goblin is an amazing recording amp that has enough power on tap to keep up with a pounding drummer.

This Goblin isn't a grotesque creature. But it does offer various temperaments and abilities and delivers everything from pristine cleans to glorious power-tube distortion at less than ear-bleeding levels. I can't wait to try one out.

IM Wine and Wine Bin to Start Growler Programs for Beer

Beginning on Friday, February 1st, 2013, IM Wine will begin filling growlers. And beginning this Friday (the 25th) Wine Bin in Ellicott City will start.

I've been patiently waiting for IM Wine to offer growlers. I know they've been trying for a while to get this going and I'm thrilled that they finally are.

It sounds like they will launch with a six-tap system. I can't wait to see what they have on tap!

IM doesn't say what size growlers they will offer, but they state that by law, they must be branded as IM Wine. I'm hopeful that they will offer 32 and 64 oz, but I'll be happy with anything.

Thanks to a commenter I've been alerted that the Wine Bin in Ellicott City is rolling out Growlers as well. The picture above shows what's on tap and prices. And note that they are offering 32 oz and 64 oz. The prices are pretty good as well. hocoblogs@@@

Coolest. Amp. Ever!

I think I've already made abundantly clear in this blog, that I pray at the alter of Reverend when it comes to guitars and amps. But about two years ago, I came across someone selling a custom made Mojotone 1x12 cabinet designed for a Reverend Goblin. I loved my Goblin as is, and I certainly loved the light weight of the 1x10 cab with the Jensen Neo. But I was eager to push a little more air.

I got the cab, loaded my head, switched the Mojo greenback-style speaker for an Eminences Wizard that I had lying around and had my mind blown. Words can't describe how much I love this new setup.

More recently, I switched to an Eminence Cannabis Rex, and I'm in love all over again.

Faded Sticker - Track By Track Gear Run Down

Over the summer, my band recorded our debut album. You can find it on iTunes and Amazon. Or feel free to comment if you want an actual CD.

Being the gear head that I am, I took pretty meticulous notes on what we used for each track. For some overdubs, we did so many takes that we lost track, but here's the bulk of it.

We were lucky to record at Invisible Sound Studios in Baltimore, MD where we had a ton of vintage and boutique amps to choose from.And of course, thanks to my pedal addiction, we had plenty of options on that front as well.


GSRS - Reverend Roundhouse HB, into HBE Germania44, into Tweed Deluxe.

The highlight of the sessions was slamming a '58 Tweed Deluxe with an HBE Germania44 Treble Booster. Grunge is the only way to describe it. It's how we got the main rhythm tone used on GSRS.The lead guitar is a home-made 25.5 scale bolt-neck with filtertrons into the "Marshall" side of a 65 Amps London. 

Mercy


For this one, the rhythm part was a Malden Mozak, into a Fulltone '69 MKII (with the volume rolled off), into a vintage Blackface Deluxe Reverb. The lead part was a 25.5 scale bolt-neck with filtertrons into one of the hand-wired AC30 reissues. The echo is a Cusack Tap-a-Delay. Even crazier, the synth and piano sounds are all from the iPad version of GarageBand.

Fireworks


I covered part of recording this song in a previous post. I discussed how I used the Cusack Tap-A-Scream to transition into the noisy coda. But the tools used for the main rhythm part were also pretty cool. Live, I've been using a Micro POG and the Leslie setting on a Line 6 M9 to do a faux B3 kind of thing. When Dave (our engineer) heard it, he said "Are you doing a rotating speaker thing there? We have a Chord-a-Vox, you know!" So we grabbed the Chord-a-Vox a fed the signal from my Reverend Goblin into it. Swirly-wirly goodness. The lead parts are the custom guitar into the '65 London.

And then the outro is a whole lot of tracks of oscillating Fuzz Factory, a theremin app, etc. 

Interview with Brian Wampler

Interview with Brian Wampler, Wampler Pedals

A few weeks ago I sent some interview questions over to Brian Wampler with the plan that he would answer via e-mail, and I would post to this blog. Brian had the great idea of doing a video interview. So Brian and his colleague, Travis sat down with the video camera and Travis asked Brian my questions.

The interview is embedded below. I don't want to spoil the fun, but I will say that I asked about his general thoughts on pedals and pedal making, what got him into it, his favorite classic (or contemporary) circuits, designs he's most proud of, and what's on the horizon. And for those of us awaiting the return of the Cranked AC, be sure to tune into the full video.