Strings and Things

I recently stringed up my Fender Stratocaster with 11's in an attempt to test out the myth surrounding different string gauges and its effect on tone. The myths do somewhat correspond logically; higher gauges mean more string mass, and more string mass means larger vibrations, which in turn, ultimately leads to beefier, heavier tone.

I tried it out and got myself really frustrated pretty quickly. Not that the tone was disappointing--in fact, I felt a rather pleasing change in tone. Somehow, the thicker strings EQ my tone from mid-rangy to something a little more round. Rounder is better in my tone book, but that's where the advantages of thicker strings ended. My strat isn't the easiest of guitars to set up, and with heavier strings, the tension applied to the bridge is a lot higher. It pulled my bridge clean off the body, which made it interesting considering I've never played a strat with a "floating bridge". Fun to pull up and down, but throws the whole guitar out of pitch, and intonates terribly.

The next disadvantage really threw in the towel for me. Part of the vibe of heavy gauge strings is that you can really dig in without worrying about the guitar flubbing out. Now, I don't have a strong right wrist anymore, and ever since my wrist injury I've had to modify my technique to accommodate it. I've developed a rather light touch, with very mild pick strokes, and using my other fingers to help pick.

How does playing style affect your tone with heavy strings? For one thing, my volume dropped drastically, and I sounded like a kid in the garage picking up the guitar for the first time. My pick attacks disappeared, and made the finger movement noises from my left hand a lot more prominent.

I did try to salvage the situation: down-tuning the guitar from standard in E to Eb so as to decrease the string tension (it returned the bridge to its neutral position which helped keep the strat in tune), increasing the gain on my overdrive pedals to compensate for the lighter pick attack, and setting my playing height to maximum so as to help my left hand play as precisely as possible.

It worked. Well, sort of.

It just didn't feel right. I couldn't solo with the confidence I had with lighter gauge strings. As you can tell, playability is a big factor for me when it comes to the guitar, and guitars that don't play well or feel well just don't sound good (to my ears, anyway). So a month went by with this ridiculously awkward setup on my strat, and before I knew it, I found myself finding an excuse to swing by Davis and get my DR 9's, a staple of mine for the past 6 years or so.

A few guitarists whom I listen to use heavier gauge strings: Phil Collen of Def Leppard (he mentioned in a rig-rundown on Premier Guitar that it's "easy" to bend 13's!), Kenny Wayne Sheppard, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jeff Beck. It's for them, and not for me.

Further reading:

Strings 101

Dave Walker's String Fundamentals 

Stratocaster Setup Tips

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"A Transformed Life" (Laity Sunday)

Laity Sunday Sermon: "A Transformed Life", Matthew 5:14-16

Light takes away darkness. It exposes hidden deeds. It brings truth to those in sin, and brings hope to those burdened (John 3:19-21)

As Christians, we must a life that shows the light of Jesus to an unbelieving world. There is no reason to hide our identity as Christians. If we as Christians wish to place our light under a basket, and are unwilling to allow our light to shine, we have failed in our duty to be God's light.

Paul writes in Ephesians 5:8-13 that once we have the light, we must be transformed, leading a life that God approves.

The fruits of light versus fruitless deeds of darkness: what is your life marked by?
-Self-centredness
-Sexual immorality
-Gossip
-A spiteful, loose tongue

We don't need better evangelistic methods; we need believers who live like believers. Can your friends/relatives/colleagues notice the difference?

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(Struggling to) Tithe

It's difficult to pin-point when it started, and even harder to decide where and when it must end. Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It's a disease rife amongst musicians, and particularly electric guitarists. I seem to have a need for 3 amps, 14 pedals, 2 multi-effects units, and 8 guitars. I seem to be able to justify the need for more gear; a Palmer DI speaker simulator for the gigs and sessions I don't use an amp, an A/B box to split between my AC15 and my THD UniValve, and another Xotic EP Booster to tame the overdrives (a great tech tip used by the great Allen Hinds).

Do I really need all this gear? If I were to be outright honest, I'll have to admit that I don't. The conviction came when I had to come clean before the Lord about my tithing practices since I began work. Why is it so difficult to tithe, but so easy to spend? Why is there a struggle to hold on to the material, if everything I have is a gift from God?

Clearly, the priorities of the heart are misplaced somehow.

I must remind myself that God is more interested in the heart than He is in the amount. He's interested in my attitude towards tithing than how much I put in the offering bag. Tithing is an outward and visible sign of my acknowledgment that it really belonged to Him all along. It teaches me that God wants to enjoy first priority in my life.

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The Evolution

13 years ago, I was in a class that wasn't working out well for me. I was practicing the same song for 4 months, and I threw the towel in, seeking to learn the guitar myself. This did not bode well in the ensuing months. None of the tab stuff made sense to me, my fingers were too chunky to be making those "insanely fast chord changes", and my calluses hadn't formed. I still remember telling myself that the guitar just wasn't my instrument.

Napster, fellow classmates and church mates introduced me to a whole new world of sonic pandemonium: Blink 182, Greenday and X Japan. Suddenly, the guitar was just so alive with distortion. A renewed resolve got me buying a cheap Yamaha strat copy and a 10W practice amp. Power chords made sense. Tabs made sense. As my basics improved, so did my ear (I wasn't big on transcribing, so I learnt everything by ear), and before I knew it, I was working out every MP3 to prepare for mindless noise-making at the jam studios, and every radio song to impress the opposite gender. I was so dichotomous. My fellow punk/metalheads knew me as the noise maker, the "down-stroke king", and the anti-pop. My female friends knew me as the serenader, the guy who was "in touch" with the emotional songs.

A few years later, with Dream Theater and Joe Satriani changing my musical world once more, I was convinced I could be one of the fastest shredders. I practiced every single day, sometimes clocking 6 hours at a go, and sometimes during the holidays, I managed 10-hour routines.

I happened to listen to my old recordings with my previous bands and projects. I became a shredder, launching a sonic barrage of 16th notes at 200bpm. I loved distortion, cranking the amp to eleven and keeping the guitar's volume and tone at max. I copied riffs, licks and solos from John Petrucci, Paul Gilbert, Joe Satriani, and pasted them into any and every musical situation, even if it didn't fit into the context. It didn't matter what amp or guitar or pedal I used; they were tools to connect my fingers to the guitar, and to connect my music to the crowd.

Those were fun days, but I was blissfully unaware of how to serve the needs of the song and the crowd. Everything was about how I wanted to sound like, enforcing my tone onto listeners in the name of my personal creative expression. It took me a long time to realize that the band doesn't revolve around me. I had to get my head around the fact that the listener was trying to make sense of the band as a whole, not just the guitarist.

Serving at Youth For Christ was a fairly recent milestone in my life, but it undid all the bad habits intrinsic to my self-indulgent electric guitarist ways. I began to enjoy interacting with the rest of the band, listening out to what each band member had to say, and reacting to it in turn. Victor Wooten said that performing music is a lot like having a conversation; everyone can't be talking at once, otherwise the message gets garbled, so everyone's got to take turns.

Scaling down, pulling back, letting others take the spotlight--these were concepts I came to integrate into my musical identity, which evolved from the "fastest-slinger" to the sideman, and from the show-off to the supporter.

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Why Did You Laugh?

Genesis 18:1-15

Theological comedy: When God surprises man with His methods, where we think they are ridiculous or silly.

God's ways are not for the amusement of the idle nor is it for the fascination of the curious. He works wonders an in unexpected ways
1. For people who wonder how they will survive
2. To challenge our common assumptions we have about Him

Example:
Noah and the ark, where the world then did not know rain, much less a flood

In our text, Sarah laughed because she never thought it was possible for her to have a son at such an old age.
-Note: Her laughter was probably dark, laced with sarcasm and cynicism.

4 assumptions we make about God:

1. We assume God will work within a certain time frame, like setting an alarm clock in our hearts
-When the alarm rings and the prayer request is not met, we may grow to become bitter

God appeared to Abraham and made the promise of the provision of a son when he was 75 years old. God's second appearing to remind him of the promise happened when Abraham was 99 years old, and when Sarah was 90 years old.

Sarah's laughter came from pain and disappointment that God had not yet fulfilled His promise. However, God demonstrated that despite His apparent delay, He accomplishes the seemingly impossible.

2. We assume that God's work is limited to our own abilities
-The bible often shows us that God uses the weak, the least talented, and those with physical limitations to accomplish His great work.
-Notable examples: Moses the stutterer, David the shepherd boy, Joseph the youngest (and later with a prison record).

3. We assume God must work according to our ways and understanding.
-Isaiah 55:8-9
-We are guilty of thinking, "My way is Yahweh." We must understand that God does not think like us. We must trust in God and surrender completely to Him.

4. We assume that God's work is limited to those who never fail Him.
-Genesis 21:1 "Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised"
-God's work is always personal and it goes far beyond us. It is gracious and He includes even those who failed or disappointed Him.

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All Things New

I pray that in Your good time,
You may reveal Your glory to these precious ones.

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Massive Unboxing!

A clearance sale is bound to strike a good chord in a guitarist. I've always dreamt of owning a THD amplifier for years, having seen small blurbs of it in guitar reviews, and hearing raves amongst my guitarist friends. Reading about the features was enough to convince me that this amp was worth the boutique price tag that it carries.

I finally found a place that sold THD products, and specifically, the combo version of the UniValve! Kudos to Chao for the great tip-off! I made my way from an external course at work, traveling from Science Park to Peninsula Plaza at peak hour, with ERP and parking, just for it. Yes, it's worth that amount of trouble.

The picture doesn't really show its size. It's a whopping 53lbs and I had to leave the box at the shop!

Unboxing...

The styrofoam in the box provides more of a psychological assurance than actual protection. This baby is built like a tank.

Installing the wheels. Who would have thought it would finally be available on an amp?

And finally, when I lugged it back home and set it up...

This amp delivers serious tone. Everything I threw at it, even my cheapest pedal and guitar, sounded gold. Here's a run-down on what I love about this amp:

The tubes and the Hot Plate

The UniValve is single-ended Class A amp (don't worry, I've provided links to other sites for those of us who don't know the geek lingo), which is my personal preference when it comes to amplification. I think I won't burn the tubes out as quickly as my other friends do, considering my drive section is completely dependent on my pedals and I run the amp pristine clean.

It has two 12AX7's in the preamp and one EL34 in the power amp. Like most tube amps, there are two channels for low or high gain input--which, I recently discovered, simply meant how many tubes were used in the preamp. In the UniValve's case, it's a choice between one or two tubes, and there's a serious jump in the amount of crankable gain between the two channels. The first preamp tube governs the gain and tone of the preamp, while the second preamp tube directly drives the power tube. By varying the gain of these two tubes, you can influence the mix of preamp distortion and power amp distortion, or run a decently clean tone at higher volume by reducing the gain of both.

The power amp tube makes a profound difference on your overall tone, and the EL34 is a favorite of mine.  It has a middy character to it, and has a ton of headroom and volume. A friend of mine joked that if you want to hear an EL34 break up, stand really far away.

My favorite setting so far is the volume at half and the Hot Plate at half. If you run your rig like mine, where your pedals are your main source of overdrive, playing your amp at a volume lower than its breaking point will sound over-compressed. However, if you run an attenuator, the more you attenuate the signal, the amp becomes less open and you lose some dynamic depth. It's a delicate balance that I've easily achieved with the UniValve.

The controls

With clean amps, I'm a follower of the fabled Fender Deluxe Reverb mojo settings: 6-6-3 (Bass, Middle, Treble respectively), which provide a woody body and a "blanket" warmth to the guitar tone. Instead of a middle control, the UniValve features an "Attitude" control, which I'll let the company describe: "The Attitude control determines how the driver stage responds to signal and how it drives the power tube." 

The general idea is that when turned fully counter-clockwise, it's more a Fender-like response, and fully clockwise is more like Marshall. THD says it's not a presence control, but the effect is in the same ballpark, in my opinion. Personally, I like it one-quarter up, to get that Fender character with a bit of Marshall bite.

At the rear, there are speaker output jacks for anything ranging from 2-ohms up to 16-ohms. There is also a fantastic isolated line out jack and control knob. You can actually use the UniValve as a preamp for other amps, or you can run it like stompbox in your signal chain. It also works great for direct recording., although you have to get a cabinet simulator, either from something like the Rock Bug by Carl Martin or the Palmer direct box. Alternatively, for the cheapskates like me, I record direct to my computer and use a free plugin. There is also a switch to toggle between instrument-level and line-level output. Its probably the best line-out feature set you'll see on a tube amp.

A few quirky noteworthy things about this amp to up the collector's value: it's signed by Andy Marshall himself, and every amp has a quote from philosophers, presidents, famous musicians, etc. My amp has George Harrison's quote, "All things must pass".  

The cabinet

It's a specially tuned-port bass-reflex cabinet that in their words, "significantly reduce standing-waves inside the cabinet, giving it a very deep, even, tight and punchy sound." To my ears, this sounds amazingly like a 2x12" cab. However, what really kicked up the cool factor for me is that the cabs are modular, meaning you can swap out the UniValve head from the cab for any of the THD amp heads. If I was crazy enough to get a BiValve or a Flexi head, it's possible to remove the metal grill, stick it into the cab, plug in the speaker cable, and it will fit!

In conclusion
I'm able to pull off tones ranging from Earth Wind and Fire to Dream Theater through this amp. I couldn't ask for more.

Further reading:

Class A versus Class AB amplifiers

Differences between push-pull and single-ended operation

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Pedals: The Essentials

Before rushing out to buy your ten distortion boxes, I hope to provide some insight on things that you'll need (and truthfully need, mind you). A few important points to note:

• Pedals require power, either from batteries or from an AC/DC adapter. Powering pedals is a huge topic in itself, so I'll be brief in this post.
• Every pedal you want to include in the effects chain needs at least two patch cables for input and output.
• Pedals with the option for external control (such as tap tempo, or a latched switch to change channels and presets) will need an extra patch cable. Did I mention you need to get the external controller too?

The take-home message here is that every pedal requires a condiment of accessories to function, so accommodate that in your budget for a pedalboard!

Power Supply

Batteries have an advantage of having no power cables that could end in a labyrinthine mess, but unless you're willing to dish out the money and time to replacing them, you're better off getting a dedicated power supply. If you're into playing the electric guitar for the long haul, you'll easily acquire more than 10 pedals (and that's a conservative estimate!), so get it right the first time and get a power supply.

Tuner

Please make an effort to get a tuner (really, it doesn't matter how much it costs). Regardless of how great your tone is, an out-of-tune guitar is an instant turn-off! If tone loss from using a tuner is an issue for you, put it in the Tuner Out of your volume pedal to remove it from the signal chain, or have a simple true bypass A/B box to split the signal from your effects chain.

Noise Gate

The more pedals you add to the chain, the noisier your signal will get when you stop playing. A gate does what it metaphorically describes; it will close at a certain preset level (threshold), and you can control how fast the gate will close (decay), varying from a fast shut-off to keep things real tight at the expense of sustain, to a slow decay which will let some noise in but keeps the guitar tone natural.

Volume Pedal

Rolling off the volume on your guitar will have the tonal effect of rolling off the high-end and scooping the mids, which could be undesirable as you may want your original signal intact. A volume pedal solves this problem, allowing you to retain your tone at a desired volume level. You can perform the volume swell effect with this by having a long delay set after it.

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Bleed and Open-back Combo Amps

I played for RBC's worship conference with Brian Felten (who is absolutely amazing as a teacher and as a musician; I was so honoured to work alongside him!), and the venue we played at was small and enclosed. The placement of the band right next to the audience meant that we were going to have big problems with bleed from the amps.

My amp was facing me, but had its back facing the audience. There were two things I needed to do: find a way to elevate the amp so that the bass frequencies won't travel, and find a baffle to block the sound coming from the open-back combo.

The solution we came up with was this:

 

You can't really see it, but it's a chair with a backing that fits very nicely over the open-back portion of the amp. It elevated the amp to a height (and an extra blessing was that it was cushioned) where the bass response was still favorable for me as a monitor, but it didn't affect the audience members sitting next to me. The backing was also large enough to prevent excessive bleed from the open-back.

This may seem to be ugly from an audience's point of view, but I am much more in favor of poor "aesthetics" than having the audience bear with a really loud guitar!

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BECK (2010)

 

I'm an avid fan of BECK, mostly because it's a manga that chronicles the struggles, trials and tribulations that a band goes through in their quest to "make it". Which aspiring musician hasn't thought of making it to a festival, to play for a massive crowd, playing your heart and soul out (in the rain, no less, which is a really cool idea but terrible for the instruments).

As much as I like the manga, unfortunately the movie didn't do it justice. The plot development felt squashed and rushed. Like the anime, the movie tried to squeeze too many story arcs together (the band's beginnings, Koyuki's troubles with the Hyodou Band, the band's first few gigs, the band's recording of their demo and subsequent CD distribution, the rivalry between BECK and Belle Ame, and their eventual gig at Greatful Sound). In fact, I felt that it would have been better to split the movie into two parts and develop the individual story arcs more. Maybe then we'd see their relationship with the Indie label, Koyuki's period of tutelage under Saitou, Ray's friendship with Eddie Lee and Dying Breed, just to name a few.

Harold (the manga author) did a great job of depicting how a great band sounds, which, to put it on a canvas, would mean to capture their expressions, their body movements, and their connection to the instruments. This translated well onto film, with the actors knowing how to "rock it out". It certainly resonated with me as a guitarist!

 

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