The Contagion Factor

The Contagion Factor


By PT

Since Pappy wrote about a Tesla-inspired pedal on Monday and a Mad Scientist-inspired stage show on Wednesday, I think it is safe to unofficially declare this Science Week here on the Fret.  I thought this would be a good time to delve into a scientific problem that has been bugging me for a while now.

How much of the gear I love and long to aquire is simply a result of the Contagion Factor?

This idea was introduced to me by a March 2011 New York Times article about a then upcoming auction for several of Eric Clapton’s guitars. John Tierney, the author of the article, raised the question of why a guitar should be worth more money simply because it has been owned by a celebrity.  Tierney then cited a number of studies that point to a scientific reason for this phenomenon.  We humans possess a survival instinct we’ll call the Contagion Factor.

The basic idea is simple: We are naturally drawn to emulate those whose qualities we wish to possess.

Let’s say you were lucky enough to have been born during the Dark Ages, and you saw a group of people drink out of a pond. Then that group came down with a mild case of, say, the Black Death. You would avoid drinking out of that pond even if the logical part of your brain didn’t suspect a contaminated water source. By the same token, if you came across a group of healthy people, you would instinctively try to emulate their actions, even if it was not on a conscience level.

In a similar way, we are subconsciously drawn to the gear of players that we admire.  We can’t help it. It’s science!

While this might be another arrow to add to our excuse quivers (“I couldn’t help buying the Les Paul, honey. It’s science!”), it is mildly disturbing when you stop to think about it.

Do so many great guitarists play Strats and Les Pauls because they are the most iconic models of all time? Or, are they considered the most iconic models of all time because so many great guitarists play them? Do I really love the Fender Deluxe because of how it sounds, or is it because my hero Neil Young plays one? Do I play Strats because of the tone and playability or because of Jimi and Stevie.

These are impossible questions to answer. In the end, it doesn’t really matter.  But for those of us who spend a stupefying amount of time reading, writing, talking and thinking about gear, it is worth considering why we spend our energy obsessing over an Ibanez JEM rather than the guitar played by that guy from the Wiggles.

PT is the co-host of the guitar talk podcast Six-String Bliss and the co-publisher of The Guitar Note. He is now hungry for fruit salad (yummy,yummy).


FROM PAPPY: "Oh, you mean like THIS, PT?!"





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Mad Scientist

The Mad Scientist

By Pappy

You know what's awesome about the guitar?  It's art no matter how you look at it.  It feels like art, it sounds like art, it looks like art, it is, unarguably, undeniably, art.  You even perform art with it when you play.

So I think it's only natural to look at playing guitar on stage as performance art.

I know... some performance artists are just plain weird.  There was one girl, for instance, that would stand almost nude in a public place and somehow fill a plastic bag that's on top of her head with water, "drowning" herself before ripping the bag open.

That's all.

TA DAAAAAAAAAA

So I can understand the hesitation to lump playing a gig with this kind of stuff.  But putting on a show is fun and fun for the crowd as well!  Come on, who doesn't like getting dressed up for an occasion?

I hear a lot of people were upset when real stage shows were popular because they felt that the music took a backseat to the show and to them I say "so what?"  Who is going to go to a show, regardless of the greatness of it, if the music isn't at LEAST tolerable?  And if they go to the show, what harm is it if the band doesn't blow your mind musically?  You're there to have fun, they're there to have fun (and hopefully make some money), where's the harm?

Personally, I only hope to one day take mediocre music out to the public and put on as good of a show as I can.  Because the show is easily controlled.  You can get your gear in order, set it up, turn it on, and then rock out and put all the sweat and energy into it that you can.  This doesn't really require skill and once you get the routine down, it seems like it would be pretty quick and easy.

Also, you can buy it all.  Well, I mean you can put money into the show and purchase things to improve the quality of it.

For instance: I would like to do a whole mad scientist thing on stage.  I would wear slacks (no jeans), a white button up, maybe a tie over an unbuttoned collar, pocket protector, lab coat (perhaps with the 5th Fret logo???) crazy goggles and I would just rock out with that on.  

And that would just be what I'm wearing.  All purchasable.  Not much skill involved in not grabbing jeans from your closet or putting on a lab coat.  

After you get it on, viola, you have an excuse to go CRAZY on stage.  Because now it's Halloween!  You are no longer your everyday, humdrum self.  You are the mad scientist.  You exist to try out crazy stuff and if this involves putting so much energy into the show that you sweat through your lab coat, then so be it!

But what about what's AROUND you?

See, this all started with God Box and their Tesla pedal.  There are so many quirks to my Tesla pedal that I feel a bit like a mad scientist using it and I wanted a lab coat.  I even wrote to God Box telling them that (and then I discovered that they cost something like 13.00 which is pretty awesome).  But this slid to the back burner pretty quickly until Fano Guitars unveiled their insanely good-looking Psonisphear.  A mixture of plexi, aluminum, acrylic, crazy colors and great looks, it seems to fit perfectly with a lab coat.  Fano himself is wearing a lab coat in the design page of the Sphear series (and I thought about the coat with that guitar before finding that little fact out).

So I started thinking.  The Tesla Pedal, the Fano Psonicsphear, the lab coat and goggles... Yes... This is a good idea.  But it needs an amp for it all to go through.

But who's nuts enough to make a mad scientist amp that sounds good?

My obvious and immediate conclusion was Satellite Amplifiers.  I bet Adam would love to spare himself the task of wrapping an amp in cloth, instead painting it with glow-in-the-dark paint.  

Have you seen the modern glow paints?  Their brightness and brilliance is out of this world!  This isn't the crappy plastic stars you had on your ceiling as a child, this is mind blowing in brightness!

Add some LEDs (Adam has experience with this) and you are SET.  I bet the light or glow from the amp would shine through the edges of the guitar and give it a look like it's being lit up itself.

Factor in some dry ice and you are given liberty to go nuts AND sound good (as I'm sure this sonic mixture would).

That would be an awesome show before you even hit the first chord, but if you happen to hit even CLOSE to the right chord, I bet the crowd will be there right with you.

I don't mind shows that are really SHOWS.  I love it in fact.  I hate that David Lee Roth is quoted as saying that music needs to look like it sounds because I just don't buy it.  And I don't buy the importance of presenting yourself as a normal person, just one of the crowd, you just tripped on your way to get another beer and fell on stage where a guitar magically fell out of the sky and, well, since you're here and all, you might as well play a song or two.  

It's not that I'm against this, I just think it's lazy.  And boring.  If I wanted to see a group of people playing their music and not doing anything visually, I could stay home and save myself a ton of money by listening to the CD.

One day I'll have my mad scientist get-up.  And one day I will leave the house to rock out as a completely different person.  To cut the chains and let it all go and give the audience something to accompany their ears' sensations.  I'll give their eyeballs something to behold as well.

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God Box FX Tesla Review

God Box FX Tesla Review

by Pappy

God Box Effects is a unique company.  Carl Updegraff is the leader of God Box and his goal is to offer the best pedals possible (a familiar statement) but isn’t really wanting to be the company that sells you a pedal and wishes you well as you go on your merry way.  They want to be involved in your tone and help out.  They want to get feedback from you, answer any questions, consider your advice and let you build them up.  Basically they want to make you happy and they want to stay in touch.

They also have one of the coolest pedals I’ve ever stepped on.

The pedal’s name is Tesla and it is a silicone/germanium hybrid fuzz.  The artwork is Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower, the pedal name is written in Tesla’s own handwriting and it features a Tesla transistor in it.

You don’t know who Nikola Tesla is?  Well, suffice it to say he was considered a “mad scientist” by his peers (when really he was so brilliant he didn’t HAVE any peers) and he came up with alternating current or AC.  He had radical ideas that people considered more “science fiction” than “science” but they have usually turned out right.  When someone says “he was before his time” I usually find it to be an exaggeration but in Tesla’s case, that hits the nail on the head.  The flipside of that coin is if he was from a later time, his ideas may have been more accepted, but the world we live in would have been much worse without his inputs when he was really alive.  Oh, he also apparently had an arch-nemesis name Thomas Edison.  Largely because of Edison’s ins with the government, a lot of Tesla’s work was dissuaded, slandered, scoffed-at and he even tried to say that AC was more dangerous than his Direct Current (DC) which proved COMPLETELY false.  Largely because of Edison, Tesla died poor and without the respect that fit with his ideas.

You should read up on him.  Even if you aren’t into science or history, his is still an amazingly interesting story.  It also really makes you look at Edison in a different light.

That jerk.

Anyway, I’m a fan of Tesla.  When I picture him in my head I see this:

"Stand back!  I'm committing SCIENCE!"

Outcast with radical ideas, wearing a labcoat, possibly with a talking monkey friend.  In short: awesome.

So when I saw that there was a Tesla pedal, I instantly wanted to know more.  The geek in me squeeled and God Box sent me one to review.  Unfortunately, I pulled it out of its box and saw some things that concerned me: one knob was noticably larger than the others (plugged in I discovered that six of the twelve positions were dead), there was a hole in the casing that had no feature, and the labels for the knobs were tucked UNDER the knobs meaning I had to tilt the pedal to see what they were. 

I emailed God Box and found out that the labels had been moved further down so a player could see them while standing, but had originally been placed slightly under the knobs to make for a cleaner top-down appearance.  Giving it some thought, you only need to monkey with a pedal for a little while before learning which knob does what (unless you have a ton of knobs on your pedal), so after a while, they are just taking up space.  He says he had given some thought to removing them altogether to inspire experimentation and knob-tweaking.  For now though, they’ve just been moved into plain sight.

The larger knobs is because the pot is tight and if the knob was the same size as the others, it would lead to a stripped thread quickly and that would lead to repair-work at God Box HQ and potentially customers thinking it was an unreliable pedal.  The reason six positions were dead was because they sent me a pedal with a 12-way rotary knob instead of the 6-way rotary knob that is shipped on everyone else’s, so no-one else has to worry about it.  We’ll come back to this knob though later on in the review.

The extra hole is also not on everyone else’s pedals.

All of my concerns were addressed, so I felt better about going into the review.

The pedal features four knobs: Input, output, drive, and the 6-way rotary knob.  The 6-way knob’s function is to increase the fuzz level.  As you turn it up the signal is thickened and the fuzz gets crazier, your notes becoming more synth-like.  The progress is gradual so there are a lot of usable tones in between position 1 and 6, but the difference in sound with 1 compared to 6 is drastic.  I maxed out the three smaller knobs and then used the rotary and in position 1, my sound was bright, jangly, and had a tone that was almost more overdrive than fuzz.  In this position, I wouldn’t need an overdrive on my board.  It doesn’t sound like a cranked Marshall or anything, but it sounds like it’s in the same vein.  Different, but certainly not bad.

Here’s a sound sample of it being used in a classic rock kind of setting:

 God Box FX Tesla Classic Rock by Fifth Fret

In position 6, the fuzz is heavy (again, every other knob was maxed out) and synth-like, but not as bright as, say Jack White’s usual insane fuzz.  Because it’s not very trebly, I stayed off of the low E because it tended to overpower other notes in chords, but when playing single-note runs, it’s a really great tone.  Positions 5 and 6 are more for lead runs with positions 1 through 4 much more suited for chords and less fuzzy leads.  With a Gretsch 6118T, I stayed around position 1 for the most part because it was just so much fun to use, but using a Tele, it may prove to be TOO bright and you have the option of backing off the input and darkening up the signal a bit or moving the rotary to a different position, making your Tele less bright and thickening up the sound.  There’s a good sound for every guitar, it’s just not the same position number.

Here is a sample of position 6 being played in a single-note run with some overlaps in notes:

 God Box FX Tesla Fuzzy Lead by Fifth Fret

Here is a sample of the same riff being played through the different positions:

 Tesla Tone Presets by Fifth Fret 

And, because I was really having a good time with it in position 1, I recorded this clip of normal chords being played on the high strings:

 God Box FX Tesla High String Chords by Fifth Fret 

The way I ended up using the pedal was setting up a good base tone with the three smaller knobs and the rotary in position 1.  After that the only knob I touched was the rotary knob and I just adjusted it to fit the tone I was after (I need more fuzz, I need less fuzz, etc).  Because of this, I found another use for that larger knob: it’s easy to see and even in the dark, you’ll know which knob you’re touching and adjustments will be easier.

The input knob is one of the pedal’s quirks too as it works in reverse so turning it counter-clockwise means you’re turning it UP.  That’s a fun fact that I learned only when reading the literature that comes with the pedal.

Versaitility is huge with this pedal too.  When I backed the input to about 9:00 and the drive to about 3:00 in position 1 I had a great amount of drive or hair to play rockabilly or add just a little bit of craziness to jazz (I love my jazz dirty).  Carl says you can use the Tesla to find your favorite fuzz tones, but there’s more to it than finding someone else’s pedal’s tone.  It’s got its own as well.

The pedal also features a switch called the Narcissistic Personality Disorder and it is a VERY interesting switch.  When disengaged, you get the standard tone from the pedal, but when engaged you get MORE.  Not more drive, fuzz or the pedal’s tone, but more stuff on the outside of your signal.  You hear more of your own playing and characteristics from your guitar and amp.  You hear more of you.  The tone of the pedal stays largely the same, but the fringes of the signal, the little things that are largely disregarded, shine through.  It’s kind of like the difference between single coils and hum-cancelling single coils.  Walter Broes says it’s impossible to cut out JUST the hum and you always lose some frequencies.  I believe him.  So adding this fringe that is basically the YOU part of the signal made me feel great.  Playing was more fun, and while I couldn’t nail down exactly what was gained, I knew I liked it and I left it engaged from then on.

So it looks great and it sounds great, there’s only a couple more things to talk about.

One is price.  The Tesla retails for $219 but God Box also offers their pedals in kit form both with graphics and without (though honestly, buying a Tesla without Tesla graphics seems like a waste to me) but these prices haven't been set just yet. I would definitely keep an eye out (follow God Box on Twitter or Facebook) for any news of the kits if you're short on cash and long on time or think a kit is up your alley.

Do I recommend this pedal?  YES.  It’s an amazing fuzz, it works as an overdrive, when I plug into it I feel like a mad scientist (something that may have something to do with the sciency feel of the pedal with the different-sized knobs and Tesla’s graphics) and feel like I need to buy a labcoat when I play.  That feels right somehow.

I love this pedal.  I love it so much that I didn’t want to send it back, contacted God Box and traded ad space (because I only advertise companies and shops that I like) for the pedal.  I love this pedal so much that I bought it in a time when I am literally saving every penny I find for a custom Taylor.  It’s a great buy.

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Is There Such A Thing As Terrible Tone?

Is There Such A Thing As Terrible Tone?


By PT

Last week I came before you with an admittedly odd proposal: What if we, just for a moment, stopped trying to achieve great tone and put our efforts into concocting some hideous sounds.

Seven soul-searching days later, I have emerged from the depths of my laboratory with a truly terrible tone. It is so awful, so gut-wrenchingly harsh and unpleasant, that I hesitate to share it. Against my better judgment, here it is in all its shrill glory.

I recommend those with small children leave the listening area immediately. You have been warned.

Bad, right? To my ears, it is a brittle and fizzled mess, and I doubt that any guitarist would consider it a desirable tone.

But, it did get me thinking.  Is it really a bad tone? Is there even such a thing as a bad tone?  Or could it be that ever tone we produce with our instruments is a potentially usable tone given the appropriate setting and piece of music.

By itself, this is a terrible tone, but could it be worked into a song? Could it sound cool in the right mix?

The ‘perfect tone’ isn’t perfect in every setting. So can we also say that a terrible tone could be a ‘perfect for this song’ tone?

I honestly don’t know, but I intend to find out. I am going to take the above piece of rubbish and see if I can make it work in a song. It might take me a few weeks (or months) to get it right. When I do, I will bring it back here and let you be the judges or my success or failure.

I believe the guitar is a brush with which we can paint an endless palette of tones. This tone might look like a glob of puke-yellow paint by itself. Keep your eye on it though. Maybe like the 'Happy Little Trees' painting guy on PBS back in the day, I will be able to make the picture may pop into focus with my final brushstroke.

That’s the plan anyway. It’ll be fun to see how it turns out.

PT is the co-host of the guitar talk podcast Six-String Bliss. He is wildly delighted that he was able to work Bob Ross, the Happy Little Trees guy, into this post.


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Stealth Pedal Review

IK Multimedia's Stealth Pedal Review
By Pappy

I think interfaces are probably the most interesting part of any recording setup, mainly because it's the pice that no-one pays attention to.  Similar to a cable, players will go out of their way to make the most of the things that can see - the guitars, amps, and pedals, and then look at the things that connect them and think "cheapest is the way to go" even after expert after expert says that this is just not the case.

Cables matter.  Interfaces matter.  You can spend a fortune on physical and virtual gear, but if you connect your expensive gear to your slew of expensive virtual set-ups with a cheap interface, you'll run into serious issues like latency or poor communication between A (your guitar) and B (your computer).

Now, this being said, there are a LOT of interfaces out there to choose from and they don't all either fall into the category of "just plain cheap" or "ridiculously expensive."  There are interfaces that toe the line and allow even the most budget-minded person access to the recording world without demanding an arm and a leg in return (because then what would you play with?).

Case in point: IK Multimedia's Stealth Pedal.

The Stealth Pedal goes for about $200.00 from places like Amazon.  It's a weighty, solid device that looks deceptively simple.  You look at it and think "wah" or "volume pedal."  Who would look at a device like this and think "interface?"  But honestly, why hasn't this been made before?  Was IK Multimedia the only people to think that MAYBE an interface that can control everything within a program like AmpliTube would be appreciated among the players?  After all, most interfaces let you play with your sims of choice, but offer you zero assistance in controlling things like volume pedals or wahs within the sim.  Their job is to get the signal there, not to help you after that.  The Stealth Pedal is different in that it gets the signal to your computer and then helps you with those devices.  It's part interface, part expression pedal.

That's a pretty unique offering in today's market and, while you can get a really great interface for $200 or under, there's few if any that can match the versatility of this one.

Like I said before, this pedal is deceptively simple.  On the right side of the pedal is three cable jacks and a knob.  One the left is FOUR cable jacks, a port obviously for USB and three LED lights.

That's a lot of stuff just on the sides.  Flip the pedal over and you can see that the knob is a volume knob, with the three jacks being dedicated to two instrument inputs and one input for an additional expression pedal.  On the other side of the pedal there are dedicated left and right jacks (you can also use mono if you're connecting to something like an amplifier), a dual footswitch, the USB port and the headphone jack.

Unlike other interfaces that offer headphone jacks, this one features a jack that is 1/8" instead of 1/4".  Why is this a good thing?  Because most headphones have a 1/8" jack and require a 1/4" adapter.  Who wants to keep track of yet another thing that could VERY easily go missing when you'll never lose the 1/8" jack that IS the end of your headphone cord?

That's just silly and I applaud IK for using a 1/8" jack.

The pedal has a metal casing and big, solid rubber feet that won't go anywhere on a smooth surface like tile.

So how easy is it to use?

Pretty easy.  There's an included software CD that features the install programs and manual.  Once you load the software, and authorize it, you can start plugging it in.  I would advise checking out the manual to make sure everything is plugged in correctly though.  There are a lot of jacks and, while it's easy enough to fumble your way through it, I think it's preferable to take the first time slowly, learning what goes where.  You're building good habits AND learning the Stealth Pedal's capabilities.  It's a well-equipped pedal and can do more than just do the talking between strings and hard drives.

The lights, for instance, let you know the signal strength, if the pedal or your settings need a closer look or if there's trouble.  It's easy to look down and quickly see if everything is going the way it's supposed to which is a great touch.

The input isn't just for guitars either, but anything that can be plugged into it.  On the bottom of the pedal, IK tried to make it as easy to figure out as possible by including pictures and next to the inputs, it has a picture of a guitar and some piano keys.  Next to the "out" jacks it features a speaker sign and audio monitors.  The headphones jack has a picture of headphones, the USB a USB logo.  Everything is labelled and most things have pictures.

The Stealth Pedal is a great interface and monitoring the signal from the pedal instead of your computer has been shown to reduce latency and, let me tell you, there are few things more annoying than latency.  You respond as a guitarist to the sound you're hearing and if the sound you're hearing behind what you're actually playing, your playing WILL suffer.  There's just no way around that fact.  In the past, when latency was bad, I would stop monitoring the signal.  Instead I would take off my headphones and listen to my guitar acoustically and hope that it translates well.  This is not recommended.  There's a lot of extra things you don't notice when you're playing unless you hear the amplified signal.  Reducing latency is a huge task that everyone should be trying their hardest to reduce.

The weight and fact that the case is metal makes me feel secure in the idea of transporting it from place to place.  Other interfaces favor the idea of reducing weight vs increasing stability, probably because they think that an interface is probably going to remain fairly stationary.  It will move to someplace near your computer and there it will stay.

Not true.

The Stealth Pedal wasn't just made for recording.  The pedal was made for gigging as well.  You can bridge your laptop to a PA with the stealth pedal and have access to your virtual amps and reduce the amount of stuff you lug into the gig by a gargantuan amount.  The manual included on the CD documents how to do this successfully and it's just one more thing that puts this interface above competitors in the same price range.

The only bad thing I can think of regarding the Stealth Pedal is that all the jacks mean there's a strong possibility for a lot of wires and cords at your feet.  If they aren't hidden they are at best an eyesore and at worst a tripping hazard (which would be super embarrassing anywhere, but especially on stage).  A little forethought on what you plan to do with the wires will probably pay off huge in the end.

Would I recommend this interface?  I think it depends on what you're looking for as a player.  If you're looking for a simple, clean-looking interface that will stay on the shelf near your computer, this may not be the best option as it is just begging to be stepped on.  But if you're looking for a versatile interface that you can bring to a gig as a bridge to a PA and use your laptop instead of a heavy amplifier, as well as a fully-featured interface for recording at home, this is pretty tough to beat.

For more information about the Stealth Pedal, you can look HERE.

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