I always eat at the same restaurants

In a former life, I was GM of a mom and pop burger joint. Burgers and fries were our big sellers and what folks knew us for, but we also sold chicken fried steak and a couple things like that. While I was there, I read a couple of industry mags every month. I remember reading several articles that talked about how most people went to go to the same 5 to 7 restaurants the vast majority of the time. Even today, all these years later, I’m reminded of how accurate that is when I swing through one of the same 4 or 5 places that I seem to go to all the time. We’re creatures of habit.

This week I was catching up on some of the podcasts that I listen to. Like a lot of guitar players, I enjoy listeing to the Chasing Tone podcast. I’ve enjoyed Brian and the boys since it was Brian, Max, and Travis. Max and Travis have been gone for quite some time now, but I still enjoy Brian and the new guys (that aren’t really new anymore).

One of the epis that I heard this week had Tim Pierce on it. I’ve always liked his stuff on the tube of you, so I thought I’d listen in. Kind of like Brian, Tim has always struck me as someone that really knows his stuff and is a genuinely nice guy. And, in this interview, my opinion of him didn’t change. He seems like a class act.

Somewhere during the podcast, he made a comment that struck me. I was at work, so didn’t make a note of where in the podcast it was, and, since I went through like 3 epis that day, I have no idea where in the podcast it was. So you’ll just have to listen to it to hear all of his comments. It really was an interesting interview.

Somewhere in the episode, Tim got to talking about using modelers and some of the newer tech like the Helix, Fractal, and Tone Master Pro. He said that most folks find 3 to 5 sounds on modelers and stick with those.

In my experience, he’s not wrong.

I know that I’ve got my pedal boards, but I’ve been trying to use my Pod Go more. Mostly because it’s been a while since I’ve used it playing out, and I don’t want to pull it out a gig sometime and realize that I don’t remember how to change something I need to change. So I’ve actually been looking at my presets lately. And I’ve got 3 banks of 4 presets, with each bank being based on a different amp.

The first bank is using Line 6’s Litigator amp, the second is using a Fender Twin, and the third is using a Bassman in 2 spots and an AC30 in 2 spots. Each bank has 4 presets. Each preset is setup for a different guitar. The first two banks are setup for my LP/335, my PRS, a Tele, and a Strat. The third bank is setup for humbuckers for one and single coils for the other. Other than that, they’re all pretty dang similar. And the vast majority of the time, I’m playing the Litigator bank. Just kind of proving what Tim said.

That’s not to say that I don’t have other banks with other settings. I do. I’ve got probably half the banks filled with different things. Marshall, Matchless, Dr Z, and various other IRs that I’ve picked up here and there. In fact, I’ve got one really interesting IR of a Fender Excelsior amp. It sounds a LOT different from any of the other amps. I like it, but it’s not something that I would use on a regular basis. That Litigator model is my go-to.

Thinking back to my Fender Mustang Floor, I had a very similar setup. I think i had a total of 20 presets, and I primarily used only one. It’s one that I had setup with a Fender Twin. It’s been long enough I don’t remember the other specifics of that one, but it was that same preset most of the time. Again, kind of proving what Tim said.

So, 3 to 5 presets most of the time. Anecdotally, I kind of prove that. I’m sure lots of others do to. After all, we are all human, and, as such, we are all creatures of habit. That’s also why, if you look at my both my pedal boards, you’ll see that they’re pretty similar; the names on the pedals may be different, but, by and large, they sound pretty similar.

Speaking of the big board, I still need to do a SOTB post about that one. I just use the smaller one most of the time, so I need to pull that one out of its case.

SOTB – March ’25 Edition

Who doesn’t like talking about gear?!? It’s one of those things that those of us that consider ourselves gearheads can do for hours without even stopping for breath sometimes. I know I can. Heck, I’ve done it. And I’ll do it right now. So, fair warning, this post is probably going to be way too long. Or maybe I’ll break it up into pieces so it’ll be long, but not as long as it could be. lol

So the little board. The one I use at the casa. It’s also the one that I grab if I just need the basics. Sometimes I’ll call it my practice board even though I use it for more than that. It’s pretty similar to the big board. Just with smaller pedals on it.

First, we have the board. It’s a Guitto board off Amazon. It’s one of those rail types. I saw it on the cheap one day a few years ago, and I grabbed it. It’s the small one. I can fit 6 pedals on it so long as most of them are the mini-pedal size. I like the fact that I don’t have to have velcro on anything or use zipties. Weirdly, in the 3 or 4 years I’ve had it, the price hasn’t gone up. I paid $100 for it, and that’s what it still costs.

The board is powered by a Donner power supply I got on the cheap off Amazon when I bought the board. It’s advertised as an isolated power supply. No idea if it actually is, but I haven’t had any problems with it, and it was small enough to stick under the board. So I got it.

First pedal in the mix is my Nux Flow Tuner. In pink. That was half the reason I got it. It’s pink. I like pink. It does the job, and I haven’t had any issues with it. So it stays there. In my experience, headstock tuners don’t always work well. I had a regular church gig for a while where I stood not 2 feet from the loud end of a 9′ grand piano that never stopped playing. My headstock tuner would give me fits because my guitar was always resonating with whatever the piano was playing. It had trouble latching and hanging onto what I would play. So I prefer a pedal. This one does the trick.

The tuner goes into a Tone City Durple. I picked it up on a whim from Anderton’s a few years ago. I like the pedal. It’s a tube screamer without being a tube screamer. I’ve been told that it’s not a tube screamer, and is, in fact, Tone City’s take on the Lovepedal Kalamazoo. I’ve also read that the Kalamazoo is a take on specific amp that Gibson made when they were in Kalamazoo. No idea. I just know that I like the sound of the Durple, so it’s the first OD on this board.

That goes into my Wampler Tumnus. If you clicked that link, yes, it goes into the “alien silver” germanium Tumnus. I bought this one on a whim as well. Well after they were reporting that they had sold out of that pedal, I hit the page, it didn’t say it was sold out, so I clicked Buy. Seriously, it was late afternoon the day they were accidentally released early. Two months later (or whatever it was) one showed up on my doorstep. I figured, at worst, I could flip it if I didn’t like it or had buyer’s remorse.

Once it came in, I did a shootout between it and my other klones (inlcluding a v1 Tumnus and a KTR), and it won the shootout. Had it been a blind shootout, I don’t know what would’ve won because they all sounded super similar. But, playing that afternoon with them all, it sounded really, stinkin’ good!

The Tumnus goes into a Nux Steel Singer. It’s a Dumble-type OD that I really like. I got it off Reverb because I was trolling for an OD that wasn’t the usual TS, klone, or anything I already had. Came across the listing, made an offer that got it shipped to me for like $30. So I got it.

This one was originally part of the board when it was intended to be an afford-a-board, but I’ve liked it so well it has stayed. Especially for when I’m the house playing into a quiet amp, it’s my always-on pedal that gives just a little character to the tone. I tend to play pretty clean, and this pedal will drive just a touch when I dig in.

The newest pedal on the board, and it took me a while to get there, is my JHS 3-Series Harmonic Tremolo. I like a vibe-y pedal, and this board has been through several. Pedals I’ve had on it at some point: the MXR Univibe, the Lovepedal Pickle Vibe, the Kokko Vibe, the Mooer Shaky Jimi, and the Effects Bakery Japanese Butter Roll Vibe. All of them were ok pedals. The Kokko pedal added a real dark sound, but was otherwise ok.

It was my Black Friday purchase last year, so I got it for 25% off plus free shipping since I got it off Amazon. I’ve got the JHS pedal setup so it gives a swirly, swishy sound kind of similar to a vibe. At least it’s more vibe-y than it is trem-y to my ear. I really like it. It may eventually get swapped back to one of the others, but for now it’s staying.

Finally, the trem goes into the last pedal. It’s a Shark Chili Reverb. It could probably qualify as an afford-a-board pedal, but I got it after I had kind of moved on from that experiment. For the most part, to me, one reverb is as good as another. I can hear the difference in spring and hall reverbs, but outside that, I couldn’t tell you. It was cheap. It was small. It’s a reverb. That said, I really want to try one of those new Danelectro Spring Kings. I’ve got one of the big ones, and I’ve always liked it. So I want to try the mini-version of it. I just haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

So that’s it. The small board. Next week maybe I’ll do the big board. There’s a lot on it that’s really similar to what I have on the small board. It’s not identical by any stretch, but it probably just goes to show that we each hear a certain sound in our head, and that’s what we tend to navigate toward.

I Love Tube Screamers?

So I have a pedal on my board that I really like. It’s not a Tube Screamer. I’ve been told it’s a D-type. If you look at the ad-copy on the company website, it never mentions the word Dumble, but it, also, gives the impression that it was modeled after that type of amp. It’s the Nux Steel Singer. Heck, just the name of it makes you think it’s a D-type.

It’s my always-on pedal. You know the one. Since I primarily play at home, I can’t (or won’t) turn up the amp enough to get any good drive from it, so I have to use a pedal to get that basic grit. And that’s the pedal that I use for that. I like the way it sounds. It definitely would NOT be considered a transparent OD. It puts a definite color on the sound. But I like it. On my home rig (which I may talk about in the next post or so), it sits behind 2 other drive pedals. Weirdly, looking at the title of this post, neither or which are Tube Screamers.

But I have a thing for Tube Screamers. The first OD pedal that I got was a TS808 clone. I didn’t know it at the time. I just knew that I liked it. Then I got a couple of other ODs that were just kind of ok, but not the sound in my head. Then I got a TS9. And I liked it better than the TS808 clone. Then I found out about the same time that there were bunches of TS-type pedals out there and that SRV used one.

Now, being a fan of SRV, I decided I needed to start trying out all the TS-type pedals I could find. I think, at my peak, I had 15 of them. Expensive ones. Cheap ones. Ones that actually said “Tube Screamer” on them. I ended up getting rid of some of them. I’ve even bought others since then. And you know what? They all sound like Tube Screamers at the end of the day.

So back to the Nux Steel Singer. Like I said, I dig it! I like the sound. I can’t say that it sounds like a Dumble because I’ve never had a Dumble so that I could compare. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. I just know that I like the sound of it in the way that I use it.

So I thought it was really interesting when I saw the video below from the chaps at Anderton’s that came out a few weeks ago. Danish Pete has better ears than me. And, in a blind test, about 2:30 into the vid, he says that it has kind of a “Tube Screamery vibe.”

It’s not a Tube Screamer. It doesn’t have that super-pronounced mid-hump thing that they have, but he says it has that vibe. So maybe that’s why I like it. I don’t know. I’m going to have to go back in there and sit down and do a side by side and see. Maybe it’s just close enough to doing the TS-thing without actually doing it that it catches my ear.

Now as for the Tube Screamer love. I’m not sure if I love them or not. The weird thing is, if someone asked me what single OD pedal I would pick if I had to go with just one, I’d probably say either a TS or some TS-type pedal that I like. But both of my boards (the big one and the little one) have the same drives (or types of drives on them), and neither has a Tube Screamer.

Since I’ve been talking about the Nux Steel Singer, I’ll mention the little board first. I have 3 drives on both boards. I have a Tone City Durple (similar to the Lovepedal Kalamazoo), a Wampler Germanium Tumnus (a klone), and the Nux Steel Singer. On the big board, I have a Lovepedal Kalamazoo (the gold one), a Klon KTR (can’t get more klone than that), and a Warm Audio Warmdrive. The patch I use most with my Pod Go isn’t anything like either board. Go figure.

So, love them or hate them, I still have a bunch of TS-type pedals along with a TS9 and a TS-mini. I’ve never owned an actual TS808. But that’s fine because it seems all the clones are derived from that pedal. Maybe some day, if I haven’t already, I’ll talk about some of my favorite TS-types and why I like them.

What’s your favorite OD pedal?

Teach Me What?

A while back I saw a question on the big R, and I thought it was interesting. In fact, it was a question I didn’t realize I had several years ago. If I had known to ask it, I would’ve saved myself about a year of frustration and some money.

The question the poster asked was “what are guitar teachers supposed to teach you?”

I think it was 6 years ago now, I decided to take a few guitar lessons. I’m mostly self taught, and I knew that I had gaps in what I know. Since I didn’t know anything about getting a teacher, I found someone pretty close to me that was cheaper than the rest, and I hired him.

When I got there, he handed me a notebook. He had a curriculum he used that he had made. But it was geared towards beginners, and that wasn’t me. So he asked me what I wanted to work on, and I wasn’t sure. So we spent a year, once every couple of weeks, working on pretty much whatever came to mind at the moment. Which ended up being unfocused and really hit or miss.

Granted, over the course of the year, I can’t say that I really learned much new, but by the time we ghosted each other, a couple of the things he showed me helped to cement a couple of other things I already knew. They were kind of a-ha moments. “That’s why we do it that way” kind of things.

Fast forward a couple of years and someone I knew that is a killer player (and also a really good teacher) moved to the other side of the Metroplex from another state. So I decided to give some lessons a try.

First lesson we had he asked me that question. “What would you like to learn?” I hadn’t really thought about it. Just like with the previous guy, my thought was that there was some magical curriculum that a teacher would pull out and use. So that first lesson, we talked a lot, he showed me a couple of cool blues licks, and I went home to think about what I wanted to learn.

Before I left, he told me to come up with a concept on which I wanted to focus for the next few lessons. Don’t be general and say “I want to learn to play the blues.” I could kind of already do that, and that concept was a little broad because the blues is so big. He said, also, if I’d like to learn a song, that was fine, but it was too specific, and it was something I could probably do on my own. Instead, he said to come up with a concept that we could look at. He gave a couple of examples. One was to get to the point that I could get up and play at a blues jam. Or learn when and where to play in a specific mode. Both of those are a little more specific without being so broad as to be meaningless.

So that’s what I did. I think the concept that I gave him was to learn to incorporate some outside kinds of sounds into my playing. So that’s what we worked on for the next year or so that I made the drive over to see him. Not only did I learn some cool concepts and things I could add to my playing, but I also learned about some cool players I hadn’t listened to before that.

And I think that’s the role of a good teacher. If you’re brand new to a subject, they’ll have a curriculum to get you started. They’ll get you on your way. If you’re beyond the basics, they may see some of your deficiencies and work on those, but, as often as that, they take what interests you, and then they teach you what you need to be able to get there. And, often, what you need to get there may be just be a push in the right direction and an availability to answer questions when you have them.

I’m not knocking that first teacher. He was a good guy. I, also, think he was fairly new as a teacher. He was a good player, but I just don’t think he had taught long enough to know what to do when the student wasn’t sure where they wanted to go. I think he was, also, still trying things out to see what worked and what didn’t. I sometimes thought that he was trying to stay ahead of me. Like I’d ask a question this week, and he’d google the answer at some point before the next lesson.

The second one had been teaching for years, and he had seen enough students at all levels that he knew what worked, what didn’t, and how to easily pivot when I threw him a curve. He has, also, played for long enough at a high enough level that he always knew the answer.

Teachers come in all shapes and sizes and skill levels. The key is finding the one that works for your method of learning and making sure that they can get you where you want to go. The key is, you’ve gotta know where you want to go first. As we learned from that snarky 8th grade teacher and I was reminded with that first teacher, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll get there faster than you realize.

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.