What Is Perfection?

I spend too much time on Reddit. A lot of what I look at is guitar and pedal related. Some of the types of posts that you see there seem to be cyclical. And I’ve noticed a certain type of post is taking its turn again. And I hate them.

Occasionally, I’m sure some of these posts are troll posts, but most often, they’re not. And, no. I am not talking about the posts where folks are asking if the guitar they just bought is a fake. Those aren’t cyclical. They’re always there.

The ones I’m talking about are the ones where someone has gotten a new guitar, and they take pictures of things on it that they think are problems, and then they ask if they should send it back or not. And the stuff that they are asking about is usually dumb. For instance, today there was one where they had taken a picture of an inlay, and they were asking if it was a problem that the inlay was made from more than more one piece. “For the money I paid, should this be two pieces?” It was a budget guitar brand. Granted, it was one of the higher end gujitars of that brand, but it was still a budget brand.

I could have understood them asking the question if the inlay had a gap between it and the wood. Or maybe if a piece of the inlay was lifted on one side. But this inlay was perfect. It was just made from two pieces. Two pieces that fit perfectly together and perfectly in the guitar.

They also had two other pictures. One was a picture of the binding right next to the neck where it was slightly discolored. Like 1/8″ of binding that should’ve been cream colored that was slightly yellower than cream. The other one was a very small dent on the edge of neck right next to a fret. Looked like a slight tooling mark that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.

My thought is that, if the problem is small enough that you have to find it, then don’t worry about it. Especially on a budget brand. If you buy a custom shop guitar, then all bets are off; they should be perfect. You’re paying 10% or less of that on a guitar that comes off an assembly line, and it may not be technically perfect. Does it affect the playability? What about the feel of it? If it does, is it something you can easily fix? If the answer to either of the first two questions is no, then you should probably keep it. If the answer to the all three questions is yes, then you should probably keep it.

Problem is that few guitars that come off an assembly line from the budget brands are going to be perfect. They do things to make those guitars more affordable. That includes using multiple pieces of wood for the bodies and multiple pieces of mother of pearl or mother of toilet seat for the inlays. That means that, if you decide to send your guitar back for these minimal imho non-issues, honestly, the odds that you’re actually going to get a better guitar are pretty slim.

So order your guitar. Play your guitar. Be happy with your guitar. If you’re paying under a grand for a guitar, I’m not saying that you need to settle for just good enough, but I’m also saying to set your expectation before it arrives. And your expectation shouldn’t be perfection.

That said, I’ll also say that I’ve got a couple of budget guitars that are killer guitars and a couple of my main players. I’ve also got a couple of budget guitars that were definitely budget guitars. Because they’re budget brands, I set my expectations up front. And part of those expectations were to expect some slight imperfections.

Green Bananas?

So I did my workout earlier today, and, about half way through, I realized I had heartburn. Which doesn’t happen often. So I started looking at what I ate.

Didn’t take long for me to put the numbers together and realize that everytime I eat bananas (which isn’t often) I get heartburn. And that’s just weird to me. So I googled it.

I googled “why do I get heartburn when I eat a banana.” Surprisingly, it had the answer right there in the AI search result at the top of the page. It basically said, “you eat green bananas.” Which isn’t wrong.

I like bananas. With some caveats.

If the banana is old enough to have spots on it, it’s too old. If they’re like that, they’re too sweet. They’re also too mushy. I’m not eating those.

If they’re all yellow, although yellow is my favorite color, they’re still a bit mushy for my taste and a little too sweet. But I’ll eat them if I’m desperate for a banana.

But, if they’re green, I’ll grab one every time. The greener the better. As I told Mrs Snarf earlier today, they’re the best when they’re so green that they have a bit of a snap when you bite into them. That’s, also, when they’re still so green that they don’t easily peel. That’s when they’re perfect!

Today’s was green, but it wasn’t so green that it had that snap. Well, all of it except the last couple of bites. And those last couple of bites were the best banana I’ve had since the last green banana I ate.

Also, Mrs Snarf says I eat bananas backwards. I eat them from the bottom to the top. I saw a vid of a monkey eating one that way, and that’s how they ate. It just kind of made sense to me. The stem is kind of a handle. You peel it backwards so toss that little bit at the bottom that no one eats up front. And it’s easier to peel it starting with that bottom end…you just kind of pinch it and it splits open. It’s just the better way to do it.

Bananas. Not my absolute favorite fruit, but definitely my top 3. At least they are when they’re green.

More Reverb Silliness

More dumb stuff on Reverb this week. And, yes, I get that this is an old man yelling at the clouds moment. Neeways…

There’s a pedal that I have been trolling on Reverb. I want one. For the right price. I’m not paying new prices for a used pedal. Honestly, it’s not that popular of a pedal, and it’s still in production. Also, Josh Scott hasn’t talked about it. So, I would expect that prices on it should be not too crazy.

I’ve been watching them. I’ve also been keeping up with what the product page shows the sales have been the last few months. Most of the used listings that are on Reverb as of this moment are between $150 and $200. Looking at the pedal page, the ones that have been selling have gone for $110 to $130. All the ones that have sold, I’ve just missed. By the time I see the new listings that are reasonable, they’ve already sold.

I decided to try a different approach than usual. I found the 2 lowest priced used listings that said they accepted offers, and I made them an offer.

The first one was $150. I offered $130, which is the high selling price from the last 4 months. It was also the asking price minus shipping and $4. At $150, that’s a total of around 15% off. The seller didn’t counter. They just declined the offer. No muss, no fuss, no worries. It’s all good. They didn’t like the offer.

Then there was the other one. Asking was $155. I made the same offer, $130. Again, my take was that was the highest actual selling price on Reverb in the last 4 months. My thought wasn’t to low-ball the seller. I’m also not paying more than $130 for one because, by the time you add in tax and shipping, it’s going to be somewhere over $150. I’m not looking to negotiate higher. Not that they know that or care. Almost immediately, I got a counter. They dropped from $155 to $153.

Now they probably think I’m a jerk and would say I low-balled them. And I want to send them an actual low-ball offer because…seriously, a whole 1% discount? So, we both think the other is a jerk. I believe my offer was fair. They could’ve just hit the decline button.

Reverb sellers, if you’re not interested in entertaining offers, then don’t say you accept them. Also, take a look at what things are actually selling for before you list an item. Gear isn’t nearly as much of a seller’s market as it was a couple years ago.

Ode to a Telecaster

When I got off work today, I wandered into my little music room and realized I had sat down and was playing my Telecaster.

Telecasters are iconic. Because of that, I always thought I should have one. And like it enough that I, at the very least, occasionally played it. So, in like 2013, I finally bought one. I had always thought I’d get a butterscotch blonde one, but the one I got was just blonde. It was a 2010 50s Road Worn. I had played a couple of them in the store and really liked them. I bought this one used from a guy. I met him at a Starbucks on the west side of town and took it home.

I really tried to like it. It just never did much for me. Although I don’t really have a problem with a relic-ed guitar, I was just never into the look. And it sounded kind of…boring. Nothing about it stood out. I changed the pickguard from the stock aged and reliced white (which I thought looked kind of dumb) to a black one. I never changed anything else. When it came time for the great gear purge of 2020, it was one of the guitars that got traded/sold.

Then I saw one of Anderton’s vids and that purple Tele that Danish Pete plays. I loved the look of that one! But, knowing I wasn’t really sold on Teles, I just admired it from afar. Then one day I saw Fender came out with a special run of 50s Road Worn Teles in purple. I liked the look, but resisted temptation. Then Anderton’s announced that they were doing a run purple Classic Vibe Teles.

Since the Classic Vibes were half the price of the Road Worn, I decided I’d get one. Figured, if nothing else, since it had a Squier price tag, it might make a good mod platform if I didn’t like it. It made it all the way over here from jolly old England. And, in my opinion, it was a lemon. I contacted Anderton’s, and, as you can imagine, they weren’t super interested in having to pay shipping to get it back to them.

Since it wasn’t sold in the US, it had no warranty. Instead, they paid the bill for me to carry it to a local luthier. I had the neck reset, the nut recut, and the guitar setup. It still really wasn’t a player. So it became my travel guitar…that guitar that you take on trips because you don’t care if it gets stolen or busted. If it disappeared, it wouldn’t be a loss and I wouldn’t replace it.

Honestly, that Squier kind of ruined that brand for me. I had bought a couple of others that were ok. Not great, but not bad. This one was bad enough I don’t think I’ll ever buy another one.

But I was itching to try a Tele again after that. So, I scoured the internet in search of one of those purple Road Worns. I think I got the last new one available in the country. Out of all the online retailers, Musicians Friend listed them as in stock (and $100 off). I ordered one. After I placed my order, I went back to check the listing, and it showed as no longer in stock. Oddly enough, the guitar came from a Guitar Center a couple of hours south of me.

When I pulled it out of the box, I wasn’t real happy with it. It had a pretty good case of hanger rash. It had fret sprout. The neck pickup was sitting crooked. You could look at it and tell that it was the last one on the wall because nobody wanted to bother having to fix it. So I figured I was going to return it. Then I went online, and I couldn’t find a single one available anywhere. Nobody had a new one in stock anymore. The couple of used ones I had spotted were no longer available. So I kept it.

Over the course of the next year or so, every now and again I’d pull it out of the gig bag I had put it in, and I’d work on cleaning up the hanger rash and trying to file the sharp fret ends down. Then I’d play it for a while. Lo and behold, it sounded just as boring and generic as that other 50s Road Worn I had gotten rid of.

I eventually got the sharp fret ends mostly gone. The hanger rash was eventually gone. I really, really liked the look of it, so I didn’t want to get rid of it if I didn’t have to. It was playing a lot better than it did when I first got it. It was the sound that I wasn’t happy with. So I started looking at pickups.

In my search, I went back to Danish Pete’s Tele since I liked the look and sound of it. I found a set that was supposed to be his set or endorsed by him or something. But they were (1) $300 and (2) shipped from England. That was more than I really wanted to spend just in hopes that I liked them, and I had learned my lesson ordering stuff from across the pond. From what I found, it seemed that the neck pickup was a Twisted Tele pickup. Or inspired by that one. Or similar to it. And the bridge pickup was a Nocaster pickup. So I went in search of those.

I found out pretty quickly that those weren’t that popular on the used market. Or at least nobody was selling them where I was looking. I could get them new, but I’d have to buy 2 sets of pickups to get the 2 pickups I wanted. And that was going to cost me $500. So I started looking for alternatives.

I finally found a Telecaster Guitar Forum. On that, I found that quite a few folks had gotten Bootstrap pickups and really liked them. So I kept looking and found that they made ones that were supposed to be similar to the ones I wanted. I still had to order 2 sets to get what I wanted, but both sets only set me back $100. Thinking back, the neck pickup similar to the Twisted Tele was called the Pretzel and the bridge pickup similar to the Nocaster was the Palo Duro.

Had to wait nearly 2 months for them. While I waited, since my soldering skills suck, I ordered one of those Mojotone solderless harnesses. Once everything came in, I got it all put into the Tele. At first, I wasn’t blown away, but I was a LOT happier with it than I was with it stock. The pickups had more clarity, the neck pickup is actually interesting sounding, and the bridge pickup sounds like what a Tele should sound like in my head.

It still went back into the closet. Mostly because my ES-355 and Les Paul were the go-to guitars on the wall. A couple of months ago I decided to pull it out just because I was doing some stuff where I wanted that single coil sound. The Les Paul got put up. That Tele has been out ever since.

I still like the feel of the neck on the 355 and LP a lot better, but I’m really digging the sound of the Tele. Despite having a super thin neck compared to the other two, the sound keeps pulling me back. I have finally found a Tele that I enjoy playing.

My Fender 50s Road Worn Telecaster with Bootstrap pickups.

What Makes a Ford a Chevy

I was cruising the interwebs today, and I saw something that made me laugh out loud. Some person, somewhere, was talking about their 2007 Fender Standard Stratocaster. They were wanting to sell it, and they were asking how much folks thought they could get for it. Thing is, right there in their first line, it said that it was a 2007 Standard Strat that they had replaced the body on about 5 years ago.

Now they didn’t say anything about why they had replaced the body. Maybe it was damaged. Maybe they tried to mod it and screwed it up. Maybe they didn’t like the color and got another body, painted, for cheaper than they could’ve painted it themselves. But the fact remains that they body had been replaced.

Those that were answering were completely overlooking that line about “replaced the body,” and they were trying to ballpark a price for what the guitar would cost. But, especially with a guitar, how much can you change out and replace and swap around before it is no longer the guitar that you bought?

I bit my tongue because I would’ve been the jackwagon that told the person that, contrary to what they thought, they do not have a 2007 Standard Strat. They have a 2007 Standard Strat neck. And that neck is attached to some other body.

Kind of reminds me of my 2012 American Design Experience Strat. Got it when I visited the Fender factory out in Corona. They had this room over to the side where you got to pick out the components to the guitar you wanted. So I did that. I got to talk to the guy that was going to build it. He gave me a couple ideas on what I could do to it.Then I watched him put all the pieces I selected in a box along with notes on the pieces that weren’t in the room (like the CS ’69 pickups I wanted in it), and 2 months later, my new Strat showed up at my door. It’s as close to a custom shop Strat as I’m sure I’ll ever get.

To me, it’s my almost-Custom Shop guitar. It was somewhere between an American Standard and an American Deluxe back when they were making those models. It’s definitely my nicest Strat. Problem is, there’s no serial number on it anywhere. Nothing really that shows it was actually made in Corona except for the heel plate they put on it that says something about “Made in Corona especially for me” or something along those lines. To anyone else, it’s just a partscaster. So, if I ever decided to sell it, I wouldn’t get nearly what I paid for it. No where close.

And that’s what that person has. They no longer have a Standard Strat. They have a partscaster. Swapping out the body, in my mind, makes it less than original. Not that it has to be all original. But you can’t take a Ford, stick a Chevy body on it, and still call it a Ford. Somewhere it ceases to be what it was, and it becomes an assembly of parts.

I feel bad for the person if they try to sell it and the buyer finds out that the body is a parts body. They’ll never get what they’re asking for it. I, also, feel bad for the buyer if they find out after they buy it what it is. They’ll never be able to sell it. Either way, the guitar isn’t what they think it is.

What makes it big?

I had an old-man-yelling-at-clouds moment this morning. That said, I’ve had this same thought, in the same situation, for years. This one was a little different though.

The thought over the years is that I laugh at folks posting pics of their pedal board that will have 10 or 12 of the small, nano-sized pedals on it and call it their small board. While not entirely inaccurate, imho, it’s not really accurate either. I guess it comes down to perspective, and here’s mine.

Looking at those “small boards,” they’ll sometimes have a fuzz or two, several drive pedals, a delay or two, maybe a tremolo, a reverb, a tuner, and maybe a couple of others. Yes, the pedals are smaller and they fit on a smaller board than they would if they were full-size pedals, so it’s a “smaller” board. But, if you think about it, you’re still having to do a complicated tap dance to get your sounds.

A smaller board, to me, is one that is maybe 4 or 5 pedals total, and it all fits on a board small enough to fit in your backpack with the rest of your gear. If it’s big enough that it needs its own bag, then it’s probably not a small board. Granted, I know (and even have) a small board that came with its own bag. The bag is small enough that I strap it to my gig bag without worrying that it’s going to damage my guitar.

10 or 12 years ago, when I first noticed this phenomenon, what got me laughing at it is is this. There were several of these folks that would post a pic of their regular board and their smaller board. The only difference was the size of the pedals. Their big board had 10 or 12 pedals, and their small board had 10 or 12 pedals. The boards had the same types of pedals on them in the same numbers. It’s just the big boards had regular size pedals, and the small boards had the nano-size pedals. So, again, perspective, they weren’t really smaller.

Now that brings me to the board I saw this morning. The person posting it was calling it their small board. There were 15 pedals on the board. Not only were they all full-size pedals, but probably a third of them were multi-pedals. The board was huge! My big board wasn’t even as big as it was. I didn’t look closely enough to see what the pedals actually were beyond noticing that most of them appeared to be expensive, high dollar pedals. So, honestly, it may’ve just been the poster wanting to brag about his board.

To me, small boards should be small and as minimal as possible. If it’s got representation of all the pedal types, it’s not a small board. If it won’t fit in your backpack, it’s not small. If it’s big enough, or has enough pedals, that you’re constantly stepping on something, it’s not small. And, if your small board has 15 pedals on it, I don’t care if it’s smaller than something else, it’s not a small board.

And that makes me think, I’ve been meaning to update my small board. It’s currently a tuner, a couple of drives, a delay, and a reverb/trem pedal. I realized that I don’t really use the delay anymore, so I’m going to pull it off. Then I’m going to take off the reverb/trem pedal and replace it with a reverb and a trem. So, once I’m done, it’ll be a tuner > klone > D-type drive > trem > reverb. And it’ll fit in my backpack.

I’ve got another one that I consider a small board. When I put it together, it was with the express purpose of getting something that would fit in my backpack and that I could use for casual jams. It’s a tuner > multi (comp > drive > reverb) > vibe. This one is a LOT of fun to play with.

Neeways, that’s my old-man-moment for today. If your board requires its own zip code, then it’s not a small board.

Using the PodGo

Two or three years ago I took in a box full of pedals to my local GC to trade. I don’t guess it was quite a box full, but it was 7 or 8. It was by and large a bunch of Klones and TS-type that I had never used after I tried them out the first time. I ended up trading them straight up for a Line 6 Pod Go.

Prior to the Pod Go, I had two multi-effect pedals. I had a Vox Tone Lab ST and a Fender Mustang Floor. Both of them still worked well for what I wanted, but I wanted to try something that wasn’t 10+ years old. The Tone Lab was based on the same tech that was in the Valevetronix amp I had bought in like 2008, and that Fender Mustang line that included the Floor had come out in 2010 (I think). So the tech in the new one was like 12 years old, and the tech in the other was 14 or 15. I figured that guitar gear had moved forward a LOT in that amount of time, so I wanted to see what was new. I think the Pod Go had come out in 2020, so the tech was only a couple years old when I got it.

Way back when, I had one of the Digitech RP50 pedals. I never was a big fan of it. Then, at some point, I had bought one of the Line 6 Mini Pods. You know the one. Not the big, red, bean-shaped one. It was the little one that was the same thing. I actually liked it. I just never found the right place to use it, so I eventually got rid of it.

Neeways, I knew somebody that gigged with one of the HX series, and I knew someone else that played a Helix at church every week. And both seemed happy with what and how they did. So, not needing the super robust Helix or really needing the HX, I went looking for the Pod Go. Trading the pedals for it seemed like a no-brainer for it.

Since I’ve gotten it, I have also gotten several IRs and presets for it. But, as I was sitting here playing it a few minutes ago, I realized that the couple that I use the most are ones that I’ve made. They’re also really similar to the actual pedal board I use most often. Tuner > TS-type > klone > vibe > reverb. And, on the Pod Go, I have them run into a Dumble amp emulation. The difference in that and my actual board is that the actual board has a delay on it, and I could never rationalize mortgaging the house to buy a real Dumble.

Now, I’ve made a bunch of presets. Looking through the list of them, I have one made specifically for my Les Paul, one specifically for my Tele, one specifically for my 339, etc. Then I have one that is made specifically for practice (it has the looper in it). Then I have one that is based on the AC30 model and another based on the JCM model and different amps like that. All total, I probably have 20 or so presets that I have made. Weirdly, or maybe not weirdly, most of them are really similar. The differences generally seem to be pretty small. For instance, the LP preset uses a klone and a TS-type where the Tele uses a klone and a Timmy-clone. Although, I have a couple that have the Prince of Tone with the SD-1 or Rat copies in them.

And even with those small differences, and having the different presets for each guitar, I typically end up using one of a couple of the presets. There’s the practice-room preset. I use that one a LOT. In fact, even if I’m not using it in my little practice room, I tend to fall on that one. I’ve actually got two versions of it. One has the looper, and the other has the 10-band EQ instead of the looper. Outside of that, it’s exactly what I describe a couple of paragraphs up. Doesn’t matter what guitar I’m using, that seems to be the one I grab. Even though I have a preset a couple of banks away that says “TeleTimKVRDum” I grab the one that says “PR no loop.”

I think I mentioned further up that the signal chain in that seems to follow my big boards. On the smaller one I use a bunch, it’s a tuner into a Lovepedal Kalamazoo or TS-9 (it seems like I’m swapping back and forth between those two pretty regularly) into a Wampler Germanium Tumnus (klone) into a Keely Verb o’ Trem. My bigger board (that gets used less than the smaller one) is an MXR Uni-Vibe into a Visual Sound Open Road (ODR clone) or Visual Sound Route 808 (TS-type) (I seem to swap these two pretty often too) into a KTR (depending on your perspective it’s a Klone made by Klon) into a Wampler The Doctor delay into a Boss TR-2 into a reverb. I have a reverb on both because my amp doesn’t have one. The key differences being the vibe and the delay in the bigger board.

Funny how we tend to do that. I guess there’s truth in the fact that we each have a “sound” in our head, and that’s kind of what we migrate to when we set our rig up. That seems to be what I have done with my actual boards. And it’s what I seem to have done with the Pod Go.

In fact, several years ago, I ended up laughing about that. I had sat down with that Tone Lab to setup some different tones. I spent several hours one Saturday afternoon setting up a couple of Vox models and a couple of Marshall models and Fender Twin models and Bassman models. I wanted to be able to easily switch between each of the amp sounds because they all sound pretty different. A couple days later, I sat down to go back and play through several of the models I had setup just so I could hear and compare them. When I did, I realized that, although they did sound a little different, by and large, I had dialed them all in pretty close to each other. The AC30 sounded kind of like the JCM sounded kind of like the Twin sounded kind of like all the others.

Which reminds me of a video I saw way back in the early days of the tube of you. It was probably 2006 or 2007. I’ve looked for it several times the last 10 years and been unsuccessful in finding it. Apparently, at some point, SRV and Brian Setzer played a show together. The vid was a point in the show where they were both on stage and swapped rigs. They unstrapped and gave the other their guitar, and they spent 5 or so minutes just swapping licks and having a good time. The thing that stood out to me was that SRV still sounded like SRV playing through a Gretsch and Setzer’s rig, and Setzer still sounded like Setzer playing through a Strat and SRV’s rig.

I’m not going to start a “tone is in the hands” debate because I think that’s right, and I think that’s wrong. But it struck me that day how it didn’t seem like the rig mattered.

That sound in each of our heads is what we want to hear, and no matter what gear we have, we’re going to end up as close to that sound as we can get. Funny how it seems to work out that way.

Lego Advent Calender – 2024 Edition

So the 2024 Star Wars Lego Advent Calendar has reached its end today. And, in my humble, but most accurate, opinion, it is…

THE BEST ONE YET!!!

The advent calendars always seem to have some sort of theme. This year, it seemed to me to be a throwback to a lot of the original Lego Star Wars sets. The mini-builds this year were primarily ships. There was just one location build. There was one Lego Star Wars game build. Ane there were six mini-figs.

I’ll start with the thing I thought was the weak point, and this weak point made for a pretty anti-climactic conclusion because it was Day 24. I actually had to look up what this one was. It was the Crimson Hawk. It’s a ship from the Young Jedi series. I’ve seen the set at the store, but never given it more than a glance. It’s one of the sets that is made specifically for the youngest kids that Lego, specifying it’s for ages 4 and up.

Then there’s the highlights. At least the highlights for me. In no particular order.

The TIE fighter. With the blue trim, you can tell it’s a throwback to the original Lego Tie, set 7146. I’ve got one of those.

The Land Speeder. They’ve done several Land Speeders. I’ve got 2 or 3. The first one they did (I think) is set 7110. The mini-build is almost as big as that one (I jest, but 7110 wasn’t that big). I’ve got that one. I think the others that I have all came as part of another set. I think the mini-build is a nod to the UCS version. They’ve done this one in at least a couple of advent calendars, but this is easily the best one.

Luke and Leia. I absolutely LOVE their Christmas sweaters!!

It’s got Ghost, Razor Crest, a Venator class cruiser, and a cool T-6. Out of those, I have the second Ghost (75357), the first Razor Crest (75292), Ahsoka’s T-6 (75362), but I don’t have a Venator class.

And that brings me to the final highlight. No weapons racks. Again, for kids, those are probably because they give you more to play with with the mini-figs. But, for me, the older collector, they’re always kind of meh.

All in all, my verdict is this is the best Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar. Like I mentioned, Day 24 was a bit of a let down to end on, but I, also, know that I’m not the target demographic for these. I get them every year because I think they’re fun. But it’s Lego. They’re aiming at kids. But, best calendar yet. Most every day, was an “oh cool!” moment. Good job Lego! Looking forward to next year’s already.

Image below was stolen from A to the Z.

I WON!!

So I won the lottery this year. But it’s not like I get to retire.

Every year since whenever it was they started them (like 2012 or whenever it was), I have tried to get in on the Premier Guitar Mystery Stocking deal. For me, it’s a fun little thing to do. I send them whatever the cost is for that year, and they send me that much in random guitar-related gear.

The first few years, I think it was $30. Out of those first 5 years, I think I got 2 pedals out of the deal. Back then, I think they’d stick the pedal in with whatever the basic box was because when I got those pedals, I’d also get strings and picks and whatever else. The years that I didn’t win and just got the basic box, it never was too bad. I’d still end up with strings and picks and some other guitar related gear that would be fun. And there was always one thing in the box that was kind of the “premium” item. So the years that you’d get the basic box, there’d be several little things and one something that would’ve been worth 2/3s the cost of the box. You could easily tell what that “premium” thing was.

Truth is, in those first few years, I found several things in the basic box that became my go-to. For instance, if it weren’t for the PG Mystery Stocking, I wouldn’t be using the picks I’ve been using the last 10 years or so. I also got a strap in the one in like 2019 that is the strap I use when I play out now. It’s one of those with the self-locking connector that makes it so I don’t have to use the rubber washers I had been using for years. And, no, I don’t use the Fender or Dunlop or whichever straplocks. Mostly I don’t because I don’t want to end up grabbing a guitar that I forgot to put them on, getting out somewhere to play, and then realizing I can’t use my strap because it doesn’t have the right straplocks. Anyways, up until the last couple years, there was always something in the box that I could use.

And here, I am going to pause and mention that I know the deal has always been that you send in whatever the price is, and they send you at least that much worth of gear. No promises that it’s going to be something that you want or anything that you might need. Just you send us $30 and we’ll send you $30 worth of something.

Now I didn’t get in every year from the start until this year. There have been 2 or 3 years that I was just late, and didn’t get my name in quick enough before they ran out. Seriously, they would sell out in a matter of a couple of minutes some years. I did find the last two years that, if you missed the initial rush, you could wait a couple of hours, refresh the page, and they would be available again for a little while. And, if you tried to get one during those initial few minutes, the website was always super laggy and not able to handle the traffic.

From that traffic and order perspective, the last couple years were no different. In fact, despite my best efforts, I missed the initial rush because I couldn’t get the order page to load. So I got mine ordered those years an hour or so after things settled down and a few would show up as available. Both years, I ended up getting what has very un-affectionately become known as the box of sad. The basic box. In fact, I think last year’s box was whatever was left when they were cleaning out the room.

Between the 2022 and 2023 PG Mystery Stockings, I didn’t keep anything in them. Everything I got either went in the trash or into my give-away box that I keep so that if I hear someone say “I need a strap,” I can grab one out of the box and give them one to use and not worry about getting it back. Also, in the 2022 box I got a guitar strap. In the 2023 box, I got the exact same strap. And in the 2023 box, I got a second strap. Two straps in one box.

Those two years really made me question if I was going to do it again this year. Two years in a row where everything in the box seemed like an afterthought. Two years in a row where it felt like PG was just throwing a bunch of cheap stuff in a box and sending it out. Both years, if you added up the MSRP (which is how they determine the box value minimum), it barely hit the $35 or $40 (whatever it cost those years), but, if you added up the actual street value, it didn’t hit the total. The box of sad. There’s a reason folks were calling it that online.

This year, I wasn’t really planning on trying to get in on one, but I woke up that Monday morning and decided that, if I was sitting at my computer at the release time, I’d give it a shot. But I was not going to do the try-again thing an hour later if I missed the initial rush.

I was sitting at my computer at the time, so I refreshed the order page. Surprisingly, it came right up with zero delay or lag. I ordered one. Then, out of curiosity, I kept the page up and occasionally refreshed it. I finally closed it 2 days later when I got the email from PG that they still had them available. Apparently, the last 2 years of bad press caused people to stay away from it this year.

The basic boxes always come USPS. So I was more than a little bit happy when I got the UPS ship notification. The back of my mind was still a little concerned because the shipment said 2 pounds and that’s about what the basic box always came in at.

When it finally came in, I WON!! Unlike those early years where they sent the pedal in a box with the strings and picks and other non-premium stuff, I opened the box and there was just a pedal in it. But I had gotten a pedal out of the deal.

It’s a Maestro Fuzz pedal. I’m not a fuzz person. And plugging this one in and playing with it some this weekend, I’m still not a fuzz person. But I thought it was really cool that I got a pedal. New toys are always fun! So I’ve played around with it, and I’ll probably toss it in the box o’ pedals that I keep on the side that will eventually go back to GC or the local MusicGoRound. But I still think it was really cool that I didn’t get the basic box again this year.

Although, I haven’t seen the absolute furor online this year with complaining about what they did (or didn’t) get in the box. So I’m really curious what the basic box was this year. My theory is that the initial few years of the box was a fairly small run with things that were a little more curated. By the last couple of years, the Mystery Stockings had just become a big, unwieldy event that was not easily managed and even less easily curated and distributed. So it went from a good time to a box of sad.

With the apparent slow sales this year, and PG even having to send out an email after a couple of days telling folks they were still available, I’m hoping they don’t stop doing it. For the $40 it cost this year, it’ll still be my annual lottery ticket if it continues. I’m just hoping that they’re able to get the scale under control where they’re able to get back to it being fun and not just a way to send junk to a bunch of people like it had turned into the last couple years.

Black Friday Deals

There are a LOT of Black Friday deals out there. And, since T-day isn’t even until next week, there are more of them coming. I almost always end up picking something new up between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Most of the time, it’s the Cyber Monday deals that get me.

This year, I’ve already spent my Black Friday budget. Well, not that I really had a budget. So no budget, but I bought a pedal from one of the Black Friday deals. It has already come in. I’ve already been playing with it. And I love it!

I saw an email from JHS Pedals that they were selling everything for 25% off. I immediately thought that I should get a Morning Glory. That would price those at $150. I’m not sure I could get a used one for that. But I couldn’t really rationalize spending that much on a pedal right now. Besides, I have several BluesBreaker clones, and, as much as I like them, both my boards end up with a klone a screamer of some sort. I always end up pulling the BB clones off eventually and going back to the other. So, I guess most of it was that I didn’t want to spend $150 on a pedal that was probably going to end up in the drawer.

Then I remembered that I’ve been trolling Reverb lately for a 3-series Harmonic Trem. I wanted to pay $70 or less for one shipped. All of the used ones I was seeing were running about $75 + $15 shipping. I’m not spending $90 on a pedal that I can get a brand spankin’ one for $100. There’s no sense in that. In my humble opinion, something used should be at least 25% off if not more like 40% off.

So, I laughed all the way to my cart as I got my new pedal for $75. Which was cheaper than the vast majority of the used ones on Reverb. I was going to get it directly from JHS, but they had that big banner up that said to add up to 2 weeks extra for shipping during this sale. So I hit Amazon, and I ordered the pedal at like 9pm and it was dropped off on my porch by 9am the next morning.

Wasn’t really sure what a Harmonic Trem was when I got it, but I’m a big fan of trem pedals in general, and I had read that this pedal could do the univibe thing. Which a univibe is my all time fave pedal. Got it in, and I’ve been playing with it since.

I like that it has a Vol knob. I really wish my other similar pedals had that because most don’t. With the toggle switch up in the trem position, it sounds like a trem. It’s good, but I’m not sure that it would knock my Boss trem off my one board or my Keely trem off my other board. It’s good, but it’s not that good.

But flip that toggle switch down to the harmonic trem setting, and I think I’m in love. It’s not quite that full swirly sound that you get from a univibe, but it goes from being a regular tremolo sound to this warbly, curvy sound that’s not the regular trem sound an not quite the sound of a univibe sound, but oh my gosh I like it!

The big board has a univibe at the front and that trem on the end. The little board just has a trem on the end with no vibe. So it’s probably going to kick the trem on the little board off and replace that one.

By my own admission, I’ve only had it a few days now, so I’m still in the honeymoon phase with it. But, so far, I have been enjoying it enough and like the sounds I’m getting from it enough that I think this one is a winner.

Also, I’m scratching my head, but I think this is the first JHS pedal that I’ve owned. I do have a couple of the the IRs that they made loaded in my PodGo, but I don’t think I’ve had any of their pedals. Wait, that’s not entirely correct.

I just remembered that I picked up a Notaklon when they were released, but it’s buried in a drawer somewhere. It sounds like…a klone. But, doing a couple of different tests where I tried to be as objective as possible, my KTR is actually the best sounding Klon/e that I own. And, I got one of those Wampler Germanium Tumnus pedals, and it sounds absolutely amazing to my ear. So that are what I run on my boards.

I, also, picked up one of the Lizard Queen fuzz pedals (the EHX pedal), but it is also buried in a drawer somewhere. I got it on a whim a couple months after they were released because I was trying to be on a fuzz kick at that point. It’s a fuzz. I got it more because it was EHX’s new fuzz and not because it JHS had a hand in designing it. I don’t really use fuzz, and, when I do, I either grab my Wrought Iron Kaibur Fuzz or another one-off fuzz that a forum-buddy had made and sold.

Neeways, the JHS Harmonic Trem pedal. I’m a fan. It’s going on the little board probably before the weekend is over.