You might not know his name, but you know Jim DeCola's work. The longtime luthier and influential industry staple sits down with John Bohlinger to discuss his repairman beginings (including an impactful fix for Randy Rhoads), to designing the Peavey EVH Wolfgang for Eddie Van Halen, and his lengthy career that includes both guitar giants -- Fender and Gibson. Plus, DeCola shares how his first love of skateboarding is a parallel to guitar building and explains why dropping into half pipes and empty pools fill his heart as much as working on guitars and play music.
The Power of 3, the powerhouse new trio featuring acclaimed singer-guitarist Orianthi, drummer Cindy Blackman Santana, and bassist Rhonda Smith, announce their self-titled debut album today along with the release of their debut double single, “War In The Streets”b/w“Treat Me Like A Lady,” available now on all streaming platforms. The album is due out December 11th via She2Music, was produced by legendary producer Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, KISS, The Rolling Stones), and features a special guest appearance from Carlos Santana. Recorded entirely in analog, the album captures the raw chemistry of three world-class musicians whose collective careers have included collaborations with Michael Jackson, Prince, Jeff Beck, Alice Cooper, Beyoncé, Lenny Kravitz, Santana, and Pharoah Sanders.
Legendary musician, guitarist and songwriter Tom Morello has unveiled his latest full-length project, and first solo rock album, *Everyone Gets Everything They Want*, arriving September 25th via Mom + Pop Music. Further cementing his reputation for fusing high-octane rock with unwavering activism, the new collection confronts issues of fascism, immigrant rights, and global political turmoil. The record is anchored by Morello’s revolutionary fretwork, blending thunderous riffs, otherworldly solos, and an uncompromising lyrical vision. Production credits include Tyler Smyth, Carl Restivo, Zakk Cervini, Dan Carey, and Sam Nelson Harris.
When I was 15, I played my first “paying” gig. The event was a pool party at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach, hosted by a classmate from school. We had a three-piece band, and we were paid $100. We had to rent a PA, which was $70. We equally divided up that last 30 bucks and smiled, as we could finally say we were getting a return on all the time and expense we put into our craft. Who am I kidding? At 15, $10 was like a pan of gold. I did feel a sense of real accomplishment, though, knowing I could make (some) money playing music.
I’ve been very lucky to have some great mentors. I was advised on many aspects of my musical journey, except for one thing: money. It seems that salaries and pay scales in the music world are akin to CIA secrets, known to only a privileged few. There is a delicate balance between the gig vs. the paycheck, and sadly, as musicians, I feel we routinely fall short in sticking up for ourselves.
Why is that? Why do we feel we can’t ask for what we need? We worry we’ll lose the gig, and we see a small fee as better than no fee at all. Then the cycle starts.
Before we start to break that cycle, let’s talk about reality vs. expectations. I understand there’s a wide range in pay and types of gigs, so let’s grab some basics. The local “bar” gig pay hasn’t changed in 50 years. One-hundred dollars per player has been some kind of standard for half a century, and bar owners are still hanging on to it. (Can we see this go up, please?) Some gigs, of course, pay more—and a lot pay less.
For these gigs (and any gigs), you must ask yourself what your goals are. Are you trying to make this a regular gig? Are you here for networking? Are you doing it for the love of the game? Once you figure these things out, you can set your personal goals and manage your expectations.
Now, the reality. Money in our business is difficult to gauge. We think we have a pretty good paycheck, then we hear of another band with less audience draw being paid more. The same happens on artist gigs. Every artist is different, but knowing the playing field is a great way to level it. Bar owners, managers, and promoters won’t just throw money at you because you have great hair. You have to ask for that raise, and have good data to back up that ask. And remember, you always have the option to leave if the situation doesn’t work for you.
“Management, venues, and artists are in business to make money. So are you.”
Let’s say you want to take the show on the road. What does that pay reallylook like? Again, this is that CIA-level anomaly with a wide variation of pay. Here in Nashville, expect different compensation levels when you tour, and decide what you’re comfortable accepting. A new artist can earn from $150-$300 a show, and a more established one can start at $300 and go up from there. Legacy acts can push to $600-$800 or more. It all depends on the number and size of the shows, as well as travel day pay, per diem, and hotel accommodations.
Something to remember is that you are not the artist. You’re a hired gun and paid to do your job. There will be financial disconnect, which for some is difficult—especially if the artist is making $2 million gross a night and the player $1,500 (these numbers are from a true story). Again, your name is not on the marquee, so manage your expectations and proceed.
Even though Nashville is the country music “hub,” a lot of people that tour in the rock world live here as well. Some have said they won’t go back to playing country music again, simply because of the general approach and difference in pay. Again, that all depends on the artist or act. I’ve heard of “legacy” rock acts paying below country new artist wages. Remember, the grass is always greener, but it’s just as hard to mow.
Management, venues, and artists are in business to make money. So are you. Remember that. I’m not trying to scare you away from being a musician; there are entities out there that will treat you fairly and pay you well. If you have a proven track record and real experience under your belt, you’re worth more than you think. You just have to remember that nobody loves you like you. Stand up for yourself.
If you’ve never played a Beetronics pedal, the company’s extroverted design ethos might seem like a style-before-substance exercise. Nothing could be further from the truth. For starters, Beetronics’ wares are genuinely substantial in terms of quality. The brand is also inventive—and more than a little irreverent at times—when it comes to sonics.
The Seabee Lite (the “lite” most likely refers to its relatively low weight rather than any reduced functionality) is an analog chorus/vibe and occasionally mutant flange-oid modulator. It might not be the company’s most radical offering, and in many respects, it's downright conventional and accessible. But it finds a unique way to walk that path, using an interesting basic chorus voice as a foundation—and in classic Beetronics fashion, offering many enticing ways to mangle it.
Arcade Acumen
While there are more complex modulators out there, the Seabee Lite is nevertheless not for minimalists or the faint of heart. None of the functions here are terribly esoteric. And the three knobs, three toggles, and two footswitches are, by some standards, positively streamlined. But their interactivity, which is a real creative asset here, can mean it’s easy to get a little lost at times.
The pedal’s preset capacity helps address the problem of a porous user memory, to some extent. There are eight factory presets and eight blank ones to make your own, which opens up all kinds of possibilities for texture shifts from song to song. (Presets can also be managed via MIDI.) But the preset functionality can be a minefield of its own if you tend to prioritize other facets of your performance. Because the Seabee Lite’s footswitches are the responsive soft-relay type, their placement makes it easy to accidentally move from live to preset mode. And if you then activate a preset, you’ll need to scroll through all of your presets to get back to live mode. Your results may differ based on your balletic capacity, concentration, and ease with dancing the preset two-step. Me? Well, I messed up a lot.
“Woblee and vibeee modes mixed together might inhabit pedal’s weirdest, most-seasick depths.”
The good news, of course, is that these complexities are the product of cool options. The Seabee Lite expands on a basic chorus’ usual rate-and-depth control set with a feedback control, which is typically seen on a flanger. It lends a given chorus setting a “vowellier,” more wobbly voice. But you can also alter the basic feel of the chorus by switching to flange or wobble mode. In the former, the sinewave that makes up the chorus is more angular and trapezoidal, and extra delay is added. The resulting tones don’t have the jet-phase intensity of a real flanger, but they can still be deeply strange, and some of the most authentically 1980s-style textures live in this hybrid mode. Wobblee utilizes an even greater delay time range—around 25ms—and features a drifting LFO that randomizes the wave peaks within that range, evoking a less-steady-on-your-feet sensation.
The flangee and wobblee voices also sound awesome with the vibee vibrato mode. Flangee can give the vibrato oscillations an almost tremolo-like pulse, which sounds extra cool in stereo. Woblee and vibee modes mixed together might conjure the pedal’s weirdest, most-seasick sounds. In both mode mixes there are lots of subtle shades to use, too.
Chorus Lane
Perhaps because the Seabee Lite’s basic voice has to accommodate so many accents and inflections, that voice is a little more open than some standard-bearing analog choruses. It’s not as syrupy, chewy, or deep as a Blue Hippo or CE-2, but there’s a lot of upside to that. Again, the airier voice allows more room for detail in the pedal’s more intense modulations. But those older analog choruses can be thick and watery to the point of dark, which doesn’t work for every guitar or amplifier voice. If the Seabee Lite’s voice is comparatively thin and toppy, it sure makes a good fit for a burly PAF’s output. And with the high-pass, bandpass, and flat frequency response toggle settings, you can tailor these sounds in even more specific ways.
The Verdict How you relate to the Seabee Lite’s video-game riot of color and sound will probably depend on how much need for weird there is in your expression. But the Seabee Lite isn’t all bizarro indulgences. The fundamental analog voice is solid and versatile, even if some might find it lacking a touch of body. And while some features can seem clumsy and cluttered, the pedal also inhabits a real sweet spot between a modulator that creates decision fatigue and a 2-knob vintage-style unit. It’s a place you can live creatively without getting too bogged down, and that might be the Seabee Lite’s real magic.