BlackNoiZe, Guitars and general noise making!

Awesome Carved Guitars

2010-03-18T22:09:00.004Z

I came across this amazing artist called Grey Van Kuilenburg who sculpts guitars. I've decided to feature him on my blog to show everyone his awesome work which must take weeks or even months to do. His designs are very organic, Gothic and even alien like. To me they make me think of autopsies and HR Giger. Take a look at the photos below and let me know what you think.

New series of lead guitar articles coming soon...

2010-03-14T02:45:00.003Z

I love to play guitar but I especially love to play lead guitar. I really love the arpeggio heavy and exotic styles of Jason Becker and Marty Friedman

When I first started to play lead guitar I struggled learning how to sweep pick, even now I'm no speed demon like Jason Becker or Rusty Cooley but I have the basic technique down, so I am planning a series of articles to help people starting out, or just to bounce some ideas around. I use a pattern based approach to aid learning different arpeggios and the notes involved, it also helps to simplify the amount of stuff you need to remember, my memory's quite bad so the less I have to remember the better!!

So look out for the first article coming soon, if you have any questions or suggestions on sweep picking or anything else let me know and Ill do my best to answer.

New Blackstar Club 40

2010-03-10T16:52:00.008Z

Well I finally got a new Blackstar Club 40 on Saturday, I went down to the music store again and gave it another try out. I played through some Megadeth, Alice in Chains, The Offspring, Nirvana, and Hendrix just to see how it performed. I was really happy with all the results and all tones I managed to get out of it, the reverb is excellent too!

To be honest I haven't managed to dial in a bad tone yet, I love everything!

At the moment I have all the setting around 12 o'clock with the gain on full, I can easily pull of stuff by Paul Gilbert or Megadeth just by tweaking the mid range a bit so I'm really happy, just wish I could play as good as them!!

Here's a few pics:

I definitely recommend trying one out if you want a versatile high gain amp.

Engraved Effects and Guitars

2010-03-07T19:25:00.010Z

I was recently browsing for an engraved fx pedal that I saw in my local music shop when I came across engraved plates for guitars and engraved fx pedals by a company called Moollon.

Look at these guitars:

And these pedals:

They make some amazing gorgeous stuff! have a look...
http://www.moollon.com/

New amp coming soon...

2010-03-03T20:57:00.004Z

I have been looking around for a new amp for the last few weeks. I just haven't been happy with my current amp and software plugins I have been using. I normally play through either my Peavey studio 112 or my IK StealthPedal via headphones and software on my laptop. I have become more and more frustrated with the range of options and manipulation you have to do on a software setup just to get a good sound going so I have just been playing direct with my combo, the range of sounds I can get is nowhere near as good as what I used to get with a 4x12 and decent head.

I used to have a Marshall Valvestate 8200 stereo chorus head, it didn't have any fancy digital stuff just a nice analogue chorus and reverb, the chorus was one of the best I have come across so I decided to have a look around on ebay to see if there was anything going.

Marshall Valvestate MkI series

Unfortunately there were only a few battered old 8100 and they were over priced too. After checking out about a million web sites I decided go down to my local music shop Steven James Guitars to see what they had in stock. I decided I liked the look of the Blackstar range amps that they had. I noticed that they have been getting good reviews lately so I though I would give them a try. I was going to try out the mini stack but its quite small and there wasn't a lot of weight behind it. I imagined that our naughty cats sitting on top of it fighting causing it to topple over so I discounted the mini stack and moved on to try out the combos.

Blackstar HT5-S mini stack

First I tried out a HT Studio 20 which is 20w and has two 12AX7's and two EL84s with two channels, two voicings per channel, reverb, and a serial fx loop. Although the sound was good its wasn't miles away from my transistor combo.

Blackstar Studio 20

Next I trued out the Club 40 which is 40w and also has two 12AX7's and two EL84, two channels, two voices per channel and two reverb voicing's(dark /bright), and a serial fx loop. The sound was noticibly better more defined more crunchy more bass an altogether better sound! My wife even commented on how much better it sounded compared to the 20. Although I could of walked out of the store with the amp there and then I though I would sleep on it and see how I felt the next day.

Blackstar Club 40

Before it even got to the next day I knew I wanted it, but it was Sunday and the store was closed. When I got back home I had a quick jam on my amp and that confirmed everything for me. Anyway this has turned out to be a longer post than I anticipated, I'm off to the store on Saturday to pick one up, I cant get down there during the week because by the time I finish work and get home the store is closed :(

Needless to say Ill have some posts ready once I've had a play around with it a bit...

My new TC Electronic PolyTune

2010-02-28T22:56:00.008Z

I saw the new Tc Electronic PolyTune advertised during the 2010 NAMM show this year and was suitably impressed, I thought I would have to have one after relying on my ancient pitch pipes for so long.

Its main selling point is that you can strum all the strings on your guitar and it will instantly show the tuning of all six strings at once, plucking a single string will let you tune in either strobe mode or meter mode which has an accuracy of 0.5 cent. The reference pitch can be shifted from 435-445 if you like slightly flat or sharp tuning.

The unit also supports dropped tunings too down to a B, it doesn't support alternative tuning like drop D or any open tunings which is a shame, although the user interface would of had to become more complex to support it. There is a service port on the back which looks like a mini USB connector, it would be cool if it could be used to upgraded in the future to support new tuning but I'm guessing that this is used in the factory for calibration and set-up.

I received the unit last week and took a couple of photos of it in use.

On this photo you can see the unit in poly tune mode, you strum all the strings and it immediately shows you the tuning of all six strings at one, the only thing similar to this I found was in software plug-ins.

Heres the unit in single string mode, this is activated if you only play a single string.

Here's another photo in poly tune mode with a Boss OS-2 next to it so you get an idea of its size.

Its a really nice unit, it works ultra fast and you can get instant feed back on the tuning of your instrument, I would definitely recommend it!

A Bridge too far?

2010-02-27T23:46:00.015Z

I bought a Graphtech nut a while ago and its been sitting in my bits box for ages. I decided to buy a Graphtech bridge to go with it and install in in my Deal ML79 as the bridge had a bit of a rattle and some of the chrome was wearing away where I rest my palm.

Here's a picture of the Resomax bridge

The idea behind it is that it is made out of a lightweight alloy that transmits the strings vibrations to the guitar body better, and the saddles are made of Teflon impregnated graphite that lubricates the string and help keep you in tune.

This is a picture of my existing bone nut compared to the new Graphtech one

Here's my guitar with the new bridge in place

Installation went pretty much to plan although the graphite nut was extremely wearing on my nut files, I think a couple of them are almost blunt now!! I thought graphite was supposed to be soft?

I noticed a couple of things after installation, firstly I seem to have a pretty bad rattle on the E and A strings between the 1st and 4th frets, I could swear that it wasn't there before but I cant be sure. I set my action up to my usual 1.35mm at the 12th fret thick E string and 1.14mm and the thin E string. Another thing was as much as I tried I couldn't get the intonation of my A string closer than about 2 cents flat, its not much out but I know its there and its bugging me!

Tone wise chord work seemed to be clearer and more smoothed out, it reminded me a little bit of using flat wound strings except it didn't sound dull in treble.

I will have to see how it goes and post on my progress, cant get past that rattle at the moment :(

2010-02-23T12:12:00.000Z

I haven't been posting for a while I have been meaning to honest!

I've not really been sure what to put up here, my moaning on about guitar playing, Guitar set-ups, Guitar fx, Guitar Amps, Software ...

I though I would quit the moaning part for the time being and focus on all the others :)

Starting next time with my adventures installing the Graphtec Resomax bridge and nut...

Dragonforce @ Middlesbrough Empire 07/12/09 dual guitar solo

2009-12-13T23:46:00.002Z

I went to see Dragonforce last Monday, here's a clip of one of their amazing dual guitar solos, this is off a song called Fields of Despair. Amazing stuff!!

Long time coming...

2009-11-08T22:23:00.005Z

Well its been a while since I last posted here, I'm not playing as much guitar as usual maybe a couple of times a week at the moment.

To tell you the truth I'm probably not as disheartened as usual but I still haven't been playing much. As I said before I prefer to play lead guitar but getting a decent backing track to play over can be tricky, especially with the sort of stuff that I like playing. I'm into a lot of the neoclassical speed metal stuff, things like Jason Becker and Marty Friedman's early stuff in Cacophony and their solo albums, but the sort of rhythm I play is a different style so things just don't mesh so well.

I did find a nice preset from the Altaire studio in Super drummer 2 that sounded good, I think it was called black beauty, but getting a good solid rhythm track still eludes me though :). I am enjoying playing lead though, I must admit I love playing lots of sweep picking stuff, I had a go at a couple of sections of Concerto from Speed Metal Symphony but its as hard as hell!! I have no idea how those guys could ever play like that, even remembering it is difficult! I can manage a few bars then I forget the beginning doh!

I have been listening to Alice in Chains new album "Black gives way to blue" a lot lately, its a really great album production production is spot on too. Also on my play list has been Megadeth's new album "Endgame", some of the tracks are good but others are boring and are very reminiscent of tracks from their last album. I think the albums production also sounds a bit thin too, there doesn't seem to be nearly enough bass. I suppose that's Megadeth's sound though, I listened to some of the albums from the early 90's and they seem a little lacking in bass too...

I will have to see if I can scrape a few snippets of playing and post them up here so you can hear what I'm trying to do...

Who needs rhythm and bass anyway :)

Until next time...

Me and my noise!

2009-09-29T13:01:00.038+01:00

I have been experimenting with my virtual guitar rig for the last few month and thought I would share my thoughts and findings.

First part of my setup is Softubes Acoustic feedback, this is as close to playing a loud over driven amp as you will get with a plugin, thanks to Jeff over at geareview for drawing my attention to this plug-in, fantastic squeals and feedback!

Next is a Tube Screamer set with level 100% tone on 50% to 100% gain set really low like 5-10 alternatively I sometimes use a Boss SD-1 with similar settings. I find that is has a nasally cocked wah quality that's hard to work with and the tube screamer sounds a pinch warmer, anyway I use BTE Audio's Tube screamers secret, the one skinned by requietus

After the booster I use one of these amp sims:

Nick Crows 8505

Poulin HyBrit

Poulin SoloC

Analog Sims JCM900

If the amp sim Im using doesn't have a cab simulator like Nicks 8505 then I use Poulin LeCab, normally with Mesa and Engl cabs, I use Alus decab impulse to remove the cab sim built into the JCM900 and use Poulins LeCab as usual.

Finally I use Overlouds Breverb to add a 'touch' of reverb to rhythm tracks and a big dollop for lead tracks, Im just sticking with presets from Breverb for now (Guitar room/lonely guitarist), I have the plugin 100% wet with only 20-25% applied to the signal.

If I want a thrash metal sound I will go for the 8515 or the SoloC, If I want a more natural tube type sound and also lead playing then lately I have been using the HyBrit with some success, still cant quite get the ultimate tone, guess I never will! getting closer though....

New amp head vst plugin C-15 Controlled Insanity

2009-09-23T13:27:00.000+01:00

Over at acmebargig there is a new plugin in the Preampus Metal Line: C-15 Controlled Insanity!

"Crank it up and let it cut loose, you will be rewarded with a high gain that delivers crisp over tones and rich soundscape"

The Preampus heads have been excellent so sar especially the the recent Series 60 metal version, head over and give it a blast!
http://www.acmebargig.com/c15

The rut zone

2009-09-22T09:09:00.003+01:00

After a week or two of moaning I managed to dig my way out of my rut. I finally managed to come up with a few riffs I actually liked!! although its not much its enough to give me a bit of motivation.
I had go at a rut busting workout that constrained you to work in a four fret area. I found that the article assumed you had a lot of knowledge of music theory and chord sequences, that didn't amount to anything because I was overcritical and had forgotten a lot of theory. Theory is good up to a point but once you are playing you don't tend to think of things too much in terms or which interval in a scale your playing, well I don't anyway! especially when I'm pummelling out power chords!

I found these things a helped me:

Just play as much as you feel like and not try to force anything.
Accept what you come with as valid music don't disregard everything.
Try to get what you come up with recorded, do an overdub or two, this helps you get things consistent.
Get some drums beating away first, this helps form the basic rhythm and helps you on the way. Finding the right drum patterns is another matter I seem to struggle with this but Ill save that discussion for another time...

I tend to come up with a riff and work with it for about 5 minutes them disregard it as something I don't like or not the style I was going for. To be honest anything you come up with may be potentially useful, you tend to be over critical and once you have bass, guitar, drums and melody things start to make more sense, you need to get top that point before you can make a proper judgement, even then a second opinion is wise.

I suppose a lot of this is obvious but is often forgotten when your in the rut zone...

Electric metal blues

2009-09-06T21:35:00.000+01:00

Bah! I had a blast on guitar tonight but couldnt come up with anything worthwhile, same old stuff again and again!

I know I mentioned creativity last time but this is one almighty rut. It seems like im bored of playing all the stuff that im good at, the only stuff I enjoy is Hendrix blues stuff and im not so good at that. My natural style or learned style is metal and grunge although if I just pick up a guitar and play it come out like 90's thrash metal rather than grunge. Even the lead stuff that I normally get a kick out of playing is tiresome. I look forward to picking up a guitar and having a jam but after every session I feel fed up and frustrated, dont know if I can bring myself to learn a whole new style, not with my attention span...

Creativity, or lack of ...

2009-09-05T21:34:00.000+01:00

Lately I seem to be churning the same old stuff over and over, the same sweep picking flashy licks the same palm muted gallops, the same extended power chords. I need something new or a new angle...

ABY switcher change of plan...

2009-09-01T21:31:00.000+01:00

To switch or not to switch...

I had a change of mind on the Aby switcher, I don't really need the ability to switch between anything so this is going to be a basic ground lift audio isolator, hopefully this will cure the noise issues I have been having using a laptop. I think the noise is coming from a typically noisy switch mode power supply in the laptops power brick.

Parts

The parts for this project are only minimal, the most important being the transformer for isolation, you can easily spend a lot of money on an audio quality transformer but as this is just for guitar hopefully I can get away with a cheaper one, the linear frequency range is 200Hz-15kHz, although the low frequency response is a low I'm hoping this will suffice although I'm not so sure now, might have a scout about see if I can get a better low frequency response...
Other parts of note are a TL072 JFET Op amp and a Intersil
ICL7660 voltage doubler to ensure we have enough headroom using a single 9v battery. Other than that there's just a handful of capacitors and a few resistors.
I see if I can get the parts list finalised and get the schematic and pcb layout on here shortly...
D.

Plectrums, plectrums, and more plectrums!

2009-09-01T21:28:00.000+01:00

have a bit of an obsession with plectrums, it seems there's a plectrum for every occasion but one for all uses seems to elude me...

I use mainly Jim Dunlop plectrums, theres a wide range of different thicknesses and materials, I seem to have at least one of each! I prefer thicker plectrums made of Tortex or Delrin with a thickness around 1 mm, I have used them down to 0.60 mm and as thick as 3mm :o

For grungy rhythms and even fast alternate picking a Tortex 0.60 is a good choice, it feels a bit flimsy for fast lead work although Paul Gilbert seems to get by just fine! The thicker Tortex ones seem to feel like they catch or scratch the strings more and I don't like the tone as much

For general lead work and metal rhythm a Delrin 1.16mm is a good choice, the tone seems to sound better than the thicker tortex ones.

For sweep picking and fast palm muting you cant beat a Jazztone, they have a kind of ceramic feel to them and seem to improve the tone, they take a bit of getting used to as they are about 2mm thick and have a smooth chamfered edge, the only problem is that the grip isn't as good as Tortext and Delrin and I usually score them with a knife.

Recently I have started using 1.16mm Ultex they seem to have a good grip but I'm not sure if I like the edge they have they seem to suffer the same tone loss as the ticker Tortex ones...
Hmm if only they made jazz tones with more grip or Ultex with a more chamfered edge, maybe when the Ultex beds in a bit they will grow on me...

Some of my stash of plectrums

First things first...

2009-08-27T21:25:00.000+01:00

The first projects I want to tackle are an Electro Harmonix small clone type chorus, a couple of amp in a box type fx, and an A,B,Y switching pedal that hopefully eliminates group loops.
The ABY switching unit is mainly to get rid of ground loops when recording with my laptop and the other projects are for fun and experimentation...

Chorus pedal

This will be based around the original Electro Harmonix Small Clone Chorus and the subsequent work done on TonePad. I have always loved the sound that was made famous by Kurt Cobain on the song Come as You are.

Amp in a box pedal

There has been some really good work been done in this area over the last few years I am planning on building a Marshall 100w Super Lead, and a Diezel VH4S. Based on the Thor project at Run Of Groove, and the DieFet project at techniguitare. I have always liked the sound a cranked 100w super lead for more mellow moments, and then theres the Diesel VH4 for when you want some fire in your face! I wouldn't mind a Marshall JCM800 with a Boss SD-1 all in one pedal so I will probably tackle that later on too...

A,B,Y switching pedal

I have been having loads of problems with noise when switching and connecting amps together or connecting to my laptop for recording so this project will hopefully address this.
All of that should keep me busy for a while :)
D.