Support Yer Local Fuzz!
I’m adding this as a bonus to the “So You Wanna Join a Band” series – I picked one of the Korg G1 units up (a loooong time ago) for about $40, and it’s…….about $40 worth of 90’s effects processing. 🙂
I can’t find the power supply anywhere, but trust me, I’m unconcerned. LOL
Really cool ad though.
Ahhh crap.
Because I didn’t pull my guitar apart myself first, and relied only on a quick question/answer, I got the wrong part.
I’m upgrading the block inside the Ibanez on the Floyd Rose.
Sustain = good.
The gaping wound:
Side by side comparison (somewhat – since it’s the wrong block. The correct block will be on it’s way once I mail this one back):
Floyd Roses are complicated? What? What do you mean? (Humpty Dumpty Pt 12):
Ow. Ow. Ow.
I’m not really in that much pain, but my lower legs are definitely sore. Yesterday, in my “Concepts of Physical Fitness” class, we were baselining our VO2max and had to walk (1mile) or run (1.5miles) to get this baseline. Of the thirty person class, two of us chose to run. I was supposed to only run around the building about five and a half times, but I think I ran six and a half. Oops. Lost track. Even so, with the time I ran, my fitness is considered “good” – of which I’m pretty glad. I haven’t been running at all, so to be able to complete this I felt good about my physical fitness (for my age *cough* *cough*).
That being said, I was more or less stoned from exhaustion yesterday. I didn’t realize it until I made it over to Guitar Center to buy more strings. When I had gotten home, I had immediately tried to complete stringing up the J. I quickly realized that I had cut three of the strings wrong, and that is what was causing my intonation problems. But, I had no strings left. So, to Guitar Center I went. One of the GC guys attempted to strike up a conversation about Reverend Horton Heat (I was wearing a RHH shirt) but I was so exhausted that I could barely do more than nod and shrug my shoulders. From there I went to Whole Foods around the corner and found this:
Came home and finished stringing up the J. Around seven thirty, I laid down and attempted to sleep. So I slept until about eight forty five this morning. That’s a lot of sleep for me.
Oddly, this will be the first true holiday weekend that I’ve had in about five years. My Saturday class is cancelled, and so are my Monday classes. Time for more coffee. Need to read some Chemistry – maybe later.
Forgot – I’m supposed to be getting a *free* treadmill tomorrow from my ex-mother-in-law.
I had my Endoscopy (follow up) today – the Dr says that there’s no inflammation, and didn’t even stretch (dilate) my esophagus. He said there’s enough room, and things are looking good.
Still have to puff on Flovent twice daily and still taking Nexium. Feeling good. The anesthesiologist gave me propofol, so of course I was obliged to make jokes about touching small boys and being able to do the moonwalk. That’s pretty trippy. It burns, then you sleep. Then you wake up in another room.
You’re not supposed to drive after you’ve taken it and while I can’t say that I was foggy, things would slip my memory. Like what I said last to the anesthesiologist before passing out….
The Iceman is just an absolute killer guitar. It’s an all around player. I’m not even afraid to mess with the Floyd – I understand it now (and have a book to help me out) so I need to change the strings on the guitar. Need to study first.
This school thing is turning out well. It’s nice to have Labor Day weekend off – I’ve got a quiz tomorrow in Government. We’ll see how that goes……
One of these things is not like the other –
One of these things is not the same –
As I am slowing recovering from my two hour nap – and waking up, I’m going to update this page rather than clean my desk, do homework, practice guitar, feed the cats or any of the other mindless things I “should” be doing. Tuesdays are the only days that I have that I don’t have to wake up early to do anything – so essentially, Monday night is my Friday night. I can study late tonight (should I choose) and sleep late tomorrow…..and study tomorrow.
School is going well. Until the first test anyway….then we’ll see how well I’m understanding my commitment to the process.
My Iceman is on its way – and technically I should receive it tomorrow, but there was a shipping error, so it may be another day. I’m not sure how I always manage to fall into these “pay well below market” situations. It’s always “right place right time” with me and guitars. I have too many, way, waaaay too many now. I’d feel bad, but I’m not going to. I’ve paid the price in other ways. >wicked<
I’m supposed to get my upper GI scoped on Thursday (again) and it’s going to be expensive without insurance. I set up COBRA, but the gears of bureaucracy turn sloooowly. I’ll have to pay out-of-pocket and then be re-imbursed for it.
I picked up my Chemistry book today – again, I’m relieved that I made the right choice.
Reading through it, it’s more “interesting” and I don’t have that sinking feeling.
I’m still waiting for three books that were ordered from a separate campus last week – and have yet to be delivered. I’ve already ordered them at textbooks.com, so I should get the remainder in tomorrow.
My guitar shipped today, and I should be getting it in a few days. Hopefully I can request a pickup at the UPS hub on Tuesday. *crosses fingers*
I need to update my guitar page – I’ve acquired a bit of gear.
SO – How was the first day at school?
Not as nerve wracking as I expected it to be. While it is assumed that I’m some punk “kid” because of my green hair (which did go over very well by the way) I know that I’m a little less than twice the age of most of these kids. It’s definitely nice to have this kind of perspective – every single class had a “get to meet you” and the majority of the kids in there sounded just like me when I was their age: “I don’t know what I want to do/be”
[UNDECIDED]
So it’s nice to at least kind of know what it is I’m going to do.
Current plan: Xfer to UTA and get a degree in music production/recording. Couldn’t hurt.
My classes seem pretty straight forward. The “Concepts of Physical Education” I’m kind of looking forward to. It’s being taught by a track teacher and he said we can work out however we want to. I’m already working out four times a week – so this should bump it up a bit. Not sure how the information is being graded though in his class. The other two classes are pretty self explanatory.
Sooooo…..I probably need to be practicing guitar right now, but unfortunately, I’m not. I made a semi-mistake on eBay and ended up snagging a J Yuenger sig model Ibanez…..that will be pretty much like the guitar that I’m having custom painted right now….to look like a sig model J Yuenger guitar. My “custom” won’t have a floyd rose, but the sig model probably needs to be repainted anyway. Apparently it was damaged when being shipped to the current owner and he had it airbrushed. You can see it in the photo which looks a little blue/green right by the knobs and the stars are a little more shiny – which is probably why I got such a good deal on it. Depending on how well my “custom” is coming out, I may send the sig model to him to redo the entire front. We’ll see when it comes in.
*sigh*
Astro Ink XXI ~ more on “More Human than Human” and pedals, plus some listening advice
In my last column, I answered a question from Curt Pazz, who asked me how to play “More Human Than Human,” but I didn’t have enough space to finish showing you all the riffs. So here they are…..
Apart from the main slide riff we covered, the rest of the song is basically one chord (the E5 power chord shape near the nut) played in a few different ways. FIGURE 1 is verses 1 and 2; FIGURE 2 is verse 3; FIGURE 3 is the bridge (the “…Yeah…Yeah…Yeah” part) and FIGURE 4 is the chorus. That just leaves the outro section which combines the E5 chord with an ascending slide part, as shown in FIGURE 5. Once again, I doubled all the guitars to make everything sound as fat as possible.
J.,White Zombie is my favorite band in the world. You guys are great, and I’ve been listening to you every day for years. My question is: what brands of pedals do you use? I find that the guitar part at the beginning of “Welcome to Planet Motherfucker” sounds good with an MXR Phase 90 pedal, but what are you using?
-David Yourk,
Seattle, WA
I’ve been getting a ton of gear questions lately, so next month we’ll look at my guitar gear. For now, let me say that it’s interesting that you bring up the Phase 90 (more on this in a second), but you’re way off base. To get the phased, chugging sound that starts off the song (at about 0:57 on the CD counter), I used a Dunlop Crybaby wah pedal. Actually, the only things I had at the time to create effects with were my wah and the whammy bar on my guitar, so I tended to use them a lot-I guess you could say that poverty is the mother of invention! Anyway, to play that part, I strum a three-note E octave (see Figure 6) using all downstrokes while rocking the wah pedal back and forth to slowly sweep through all the frequencies. As with the slide riff in “More Human…,” I doubled the part almost exactly to give it that kind of phased, throbbing sound.
Don’t get me wrong here-doubling a part sloppily may be good for getting weird sounds, but being able to double rhythm parts as precisely as possible is a skill you’re going to want to develop, especially if you play heavier music. Sound simple? It’s not-even if you don’t have a four- track recorder, you can get a feel for how good you are at it by taping yourself playing a riff (try a low chordy one), then playing along with what you just recorded. Does it sound like you playing along with yourself, or can you get it to blend into one big, fat sound?
Another cool trick is to try to double solos. This can produce a distinctive chorusy sound that you can’t really get with a pedal or effects processor. Check out Randy Rhoads’ work with Ozzy (the solo from “Crazy Train” is a big favorite of mine) to hear what I mean.
Getting back to your question, I have an old MXR Phase 90 pedal from the Seventies. It breaks all the time, and I haven’t taken it on the road in years, but I’ve used been using it on every White Zombie session since we recorded La Sexorcisto. I have lots of phasers, most notably an Electro Harmonix Small Stone which has a really good sound. But I always go back to the MXR. For another demonstration of why I love this pedal, check out the verses to “Blur the Technicolor” on Astro Creep 2000.
I don’t use any one brand of effects exclusively. My advice to you is to listen for what sounds good (and that doesn’t necessarily mean the most expensive thing), and make the most of what you have. If you can only afford one pedal, I’d say get a wah (I like the ones Dunlop makes, and the Vox reissue is pretty nice too). Not only will you be able to play some of the coolest riffs ever (I’m talking about “Voodoo Chile” and the “Theme from Shaft,” of course), but you can produce a wide range of effects and tones in time with the song you’re playing, which is something not a lot of other pedals can do.
Well, that’s all the space we have this time. More on gear next month!
Astro Ink XX ~ More questions and the end of the “I am Legend” intro
Last month I promised you that we’d get to the final eight bars of the “I Am Legend” intro, so here we go
The six bars that go from 1:29 to 1:40 involve a circular picking pattern and the always-spooky E(b5) tritone chord (see Figure 1). For the final two bars, stomp on your distortion box or channel-switcher and start chugging away on the E5 power chord shown in FIGURE 2.
It seems like we spent a year on that little piece of music. Now we can finally move on to some more of your questions. We’re tight on space this month, so I’m only going to be able to get to one this time. But that vacation I thought I had coming is nowhere in sight: I’ve already gotten way more questions than I thought I would (good ones, too!), so it looks like we’re going to have to keep Astro Ink going for a while!
J., How do you play the rhythm and chorus to “More Human Than Human” and what effects are you using?
– Curt Pazz via the Internet
The tablature for this song has been published a couple of times (in the June ’95 Guitar World and in the Warner Bros. Authentic Guitar-Tab Edition of White Zombie: Astro-Creep: 2000), and the main parts are shown below. There aren’t really any effects on the guitar in this song, just a lot of amps turned up really loud. I’m playing an Ibanez Iceman guitar detuned a minor third (low to high: C# F# B E G# C#), and I use a chrome slide for the main riff (see Figure 3). I prefer metal slides over glass ones because I’m able to get more of a slashing, in-your-face kind of sound with them.
As for those loud amps I was talking about, I played through four different half-stacks at the same time. When you use more than one amp, you can get huge sounds by blending the different tones. To do this, you need some kind of splitter box-I like the four-output one that Mesa-Boogie makes. Anyway, the amps I used are: a Randall solid-state head through a Randall 4×12 cabinet, a Randall head through a Mesa 4×12 cabinet, a Mesa Triple-Rectifier head through a Mesa cab and a Marshall Valvestate head [VS100RH] through a Randall cab. Each speaker cabinet was close miked with a single Shure SM57.
The slide part sounds like it may have an effect on it because it was doubled-i.e. the guitar performance was recorded twice and then those two tracks were panned left and right for a stereo image. To duplicate the thick sound of this part, try using a chorus pedal (in stereo if possible) or a short delay.
Crap, we’re out of space! We’ll cover the outro-chorus riff to “More Human” and answer more of your questions next month.
