Hear how Chicago's Jonny Wator uses a Princeton 2399 IC digital chip to reproduce an analog-voiced echo machine dripping with pleasantly nasty repeats.
Joe Glaser has been a pillar of Nashville's guitar community for decades. He's a man that dreams in mechanical terms often coming up ideas while deep in a REM cycle. Through his various companies he's designed, developed, and released a handful of "blue water" solutions to age-old instrument problems making the tolerable terrific. In this comprehensive visit to Glaser's home base, we get up close and personal with several of these products that enhance intonation and playability without disrupting the guitar's integrity.
In addition, Music City Bridge CEO Joshua Rawlings introduces us to a couple software ventures. Shop Flow helps increase productivity and efficiency for guitar builders and repair shops, while Gear Check aims to help guitarist's keep track of their collection and its history. Join John Bohlinger as he goes inside this inconspicuous six-string sanctuary.
With both feet squarely in the rodent realm, the Bat spreads its wings to range outward to fuzz, lo-fi, and creamy OD zones.
A thousand shades of RAT, spanning lo-fi, fuzz, and creamy OD. Gets along with every kind of amp and guitar—as long as you like things a bit filthy and mysterious.
Not many, really. Maybe a little extra bass range is asking too much?
$199
Supercool Barstow Bat
supercoolpedals.com
One of the most visceral, thrilling sound baths I ever experienced came courtesy of a Turbo RAT. This roar was an amalgam of trashy punk spittle, string detail, Black Sabbath mass, and an imploding Fender tweed. I might have been even happier if the Supercool Barstow Bat was onstage that night instead.
The Bat, resplendent in Ralph Steadman-style acid-nightmare graphics, is unmistakably a RAT at its core. But with the inclusion of a “Turbo” button and a low/mid/high EQ stack in place of a RAT’s filter control, the Bat enables you to explore very specific tone spectra the original could only hint at. And when you factor in the Bat’s ability to work with virtually any guitar tone-and-volume combo, you’re sorta looking at a pedal that’s as different as a real rat is from real bat.
Okay, maybe the difference isn’t that extreme. As I said, RAT genetics are easy to hear here. But the very effective tone controls mean you can transform the RAT vocabulary—which spans low-gain overdrive and lacerating distortion—into 1960s buzz-fuzz realms, exploding lo-fi student-amp zones, and other extremes ranging from fat and blurry to laser-beam trebly. You’ll have to know this pedal well to cover all this ground on a stage—a path well worth pursuing. (It’s just five knobs for cryin’ out loud). And because it finds copious goodness as easily in a 6L6 Fender as an EL84 Vox, it’s the kind of pedal that you should try with any amp, in any musical situation—but especially in the studio, where its unique, rangeful RAT-related voice could be the best kind of chameleon.
Angus is plugged in and ready to go, so we get to hear some of the moves in action—including how loose, light gauge strings create the signature Sabbath sound, how it encouraged some parts of Iommi’s lead moves.
Angus Clark is an expert of all things Tony Iommi, and he has the gear to prove it! The Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Rock of Ages guitarist shows us a couple sweet Iommi tribute SGs as he walks us through Black Sabbath’s discography, breaking down Iommi’s vocabulary, sound, and gear, and how Iommi created some of the most identifiable riffs in all of rock. Angus is plugged in and ready to go, so we get to hear some of the moves in action—including how loose, light gauge strings create the signature Sabbath sound, how it encouraged some parts of Iommi’s lead moves.
Our columnist has journeyed through blizzards and hurricanes to scoop up rare, weird guitars, like this axe of unknown origin.
Collecting rare classic guitars isn’t for the faint of heart—a reality confirmed by the case of this Japanese axe of unknown provenance.
If you’ve been reading this column regularly, you’ll know that my kids are getting older and gearing up for life after high school. Cars, insurance, tuition, and independence are really giving me agita these days! As a result, I’ve been slowly selling off my large collection of guitars, amps, and effects. When I’m looking for things to sell, I often find stuff I forgot I had—it’s crazy town! Finding rare gear was such a passion of mine for so many years. I braved snowstorms, sketchy situations, shady characters, slimy shop owners, and even hurricane Sandy! If you think about it, it’s sort of easy to buy gear. All you have to do is be patient and search. Even payments nowadays are simple. I mean, when I got my first credit card…. Forget about it!
Now, selling, which is what I mainly do now, is a different story. Packing, shipping, and taking photos is time consuming. And man, potential buyers can be really exhausting. I’ve learned that shipping costs are way higher, but buyers are still the same. You have the happy buyer, the tire kicker, the endless questioner, the ghoster, and the grump. Sometimes there are even combinations of the above. It’s an interesting lesson in human psychology, if you’re so inclined. For me, vintage guitars are like vintage cars and have some quirks that a modern player might not appreciate. Like, can you play around buzzing or dead frets? How about really tiny frets? Or humps and bumps on a fretboard? What about controlling high feedback and squealing pickups by keeping your fingers on the metal parts of the guitar? Not everyone can be like Jack White, fighting his old, red, Valco-made fiberglass Airline. It had one working pickup and original frets! I guess my point is: Buyer beware!
“They all sound great—all made from the same type of wood and all wired similarly—but since real quality control didn’t really exist at that time, the fate of guitars was left up to chance.”
Take, for instance, the crazy-cool guitar presented here. It’s a total unknown as far as the maker goes, but it is Japanese and from the 1960s. I’ve had a few similar models and they all feature metal pickguards and interesting designs. I’ve also seen this same guitar with four pickups, which is a rare find. But here’s the rub: Every one of the guitars I’ve had from the unknown maker were all a bit different as far as playability. They all sound great—all made from the same type of wood and all wired similarly—but since real quality control didn’t exist at that time, the final state of guitars was left up to chance. Like, what if the person carving necks had a hangover that day? Or had a fight that morning? Seriously, each one of these guitars is like a fingerprint. It’s not like today where almost every guitar has a similar feel. It’s like the rare Teisco T-60, one of Glen Campbell’s favorite guitars. I have three, and one has a deep V-shaped neck, and the other two are more rounded and slim. Same guitars, all built in 1960 by just a few Teisco employees that worked there at the time.
When I got this guitar, I expected all the usual things, like a neck shim (to get a better break-over string angle), rewire, possible refret, neck planing, and other usual stuff that I or my great tech Dave D’Amelio have to deal with. Sometimes Dave dreads seeing me show up with problems I can’t handle, but just like a good mechanic, a good tech is hard to come by when it comes to vintage gear. Recently, I sold a guitar that I set up and Dave spent a few more hours getting it playable. When it arrived at the buyer’s home, he sent me an email saying the guitar wasn’t playable and the pickups kept cutting out. He took the guitar to his tech who also said the guitar was unplayable. So what can you do? Every sale has different circumstances.
Anyway, I still have this guitar and still enjoy playing it, but it does fight me a little, and that’s fine with me. The pickup switches get finicky and the volume and tone knobs have to be rolled back and forth to work out the dust, but it simply sounds great! It’s as unique as a snowflake—kinda like the ones I often braved back when I was searching for old gear!
