Fuzzy Memories and Day 45

In the fuzz world there's a big debate between fuzzes.  Originally the most popular was the Fuzz Face, a huge, weird, round pedal with one thing going for it; Jimi Hendrix used them.  Thing is, by the time they became a "known" and that there was a large enough market for them, the Fuzz Face "formula" was changed to using a different chip.

You see, the original used a Germanium chip in them.  They were switched to silicon.  It is said that silicon chips were more sterile and less "warm", and so for many people this seems like a crazy decision.  You know who did not think it was a crazy decision?  Jimi's pedal man, Roger Mayer.  Roger has said in many interviews that Jimi would buy dozens of Fuzz Faces, spend a day figuring out which ones were "good" and selling or dumping the rest.



You see, when chips are made, they are made in wafers and cooked in a furnace.  The chips closer to the middle are cooked differently than those closer to the walls.  Germanium chips vary wildly in this aspect, and to get a consistent product, you have to spend many man hours getting them correct.  The market was not large enough in the 60's to warrant that.  Silicon chips are much more consistent, the placement of them in the oven does not affect them nearly as much as Germanium.  So this is the reason for the switch.

Remember this if you ever get into collecting or even buying pedals that use Germanium.  You can not really base your experience on anyone else's pedal, you really should demo the pedal yourself before getting one, especially if you're going to be paying 100's on an original Fuzz Face.  Big brands like Electro Harmonix claim to put in the time to find the "good" chips, but that does not mean there is going to be no variation.


Day 45 

Ugh, I've got a seriously bad sore throat.  It would not be so bad for practicing, but coughing so much makes my brain slosh around and gives me a headache.  So I basically just practiced quiet chords and unplugged blues and rock stuff.

I did plug in to Rocksmith today though, I'm pretty sure that's a condition of the challenge lol.  I had it turned down while doing my practice tracks(chords 101, 301, the Hammer on practice track) and played Guitarcade(string skip, chordead, Scale Racer).  You know, you get used to playing so loud you can't really hear your own strings all that much... but nothing makes you sound like a "newb" to your own ear than doing all this stuff with the twang of an unplugged in guitar lol.

That's one of the things I figured they should have done better with in the 60 day success story adverts on Youtube.  They should have recorded the sound directly and not so much with a mic near the player.  I think the players were even better than they sounded because the string sound was twanging around in the background while they played, and that just messes with people's hearing and expectations.

The Wall... and Day 38

The legendary Wall of Marshalls.

You know, there was a time where lots of speaker cabs were a necessary thing.  The old amps in the old days were not 100 watt, the speakers were not very efficient, and bassists especially needed more.  The Who famously got in battles over who could have more on the stage, as Entwhistle tried very hard to be heard over Towsend.  It takes many many more watts and speakers to be heard at the equal level on bass than on guitar.

The truth is, and its been the truth for a long time, any gig that needs this many speakers usually has a house sound system.  At Woodstock, Hendrix didn't need a ton of amps on stage.  Modern venues typically have a house PA system, and bringing a loud ass amp is usually frowned upon by the establishment.  I know that if you have not experienced what a 100 watt amp and a 2x12, much less a 4x12 can do, then you probably do not understand that it is insane to bring more to a gathering of a couple hundred, maybe even a thousand or two people in the crowd.

This is a famous picture making the rounds on the net, and it really does hit this point home.  There are so many bands that use these configurations.  Two sets of 4x12's and a 100 watt tube between them and you're good for like a mile radius to need earplugs.  I watch a lot of "when I first new I made it big" interviews, and more than one story is buying their first 100 watt marshall and setting off parking lots full of car alarms by cranking it and seeing how far it will go.  I don't own a tube amp, but I have a 550 watt bass amp with super efficient designs(makes an ampeg SVT4's 900 watts sound like a toy), and I've yet to be brave enough to go past 1/4 turn on the volume.  I even sat it up outside the garage once and my windows were still rattling, and the amp was set up blasting away from the house.  This is nothing compared to tube wattage.  Marshall and Trace Elliott have both made 300 to 400 watt tube amps for bass, probably the equal of a 2-3,000 watts of solid state.  Some of these Metal guitarists are diming 200 watt guitar tube amps on stage.  Wall of Marshalls or not, that's some loud shiz.

What I'm basically saying is, use ear protection

Day 38

Looking at funk, there's a couple of things I'm going to find difficult.  The first is going to be getting used to keeping the timing.  I'm actually really good at keeping timing when it comes to rock, and if I have a backing track I'm good at it with blues as well.  I've never had to do the foot counting while playing thing.  In fact, much of my playing settles around keeping complex patterns in my timings and "bring it all back" together while I improv.  Funk though is using much more hard structure than I'm used to, especially when the basics is wrapped in 16th notes.

I know from funk base that you play on the one "and have fun".  What that means is you always play on the first beat, its funk 101.  Bootsy taught me this, and also Larry Grahm, both videos from youtube that I used to watch a lot for playing bass.  Bass funk is less restricted than guitar funk, at least from what I'm seeing in the lessons.

I am going to have to break out the metronome built into Rocksmith for practicing the strumming.  That "funk" guitar sound in most people's head(when they're not actually thinking about the bass, which is 90% of what people think of from my experience talking about funk songs) is a 16th note, 90ish bpm high twang strum.  I'm finding most of it is in E.  I've also found that there is a Hendrix chord that they used a lot, E7#9 and I see myself playing around with that chord outside of funk as well.

Anyways, I'm only here for the basics.  I'm not devoting my time to getting deep in the funk as of yet.  I just want to be able to do the strum pattern with a chord or two, so I can do basic funk rhythm when I'm asked to.  I can do a blues improv around this strumming and get by sounding funky.  I'm broadening my horizons, not switching my specialties.