Black Cat pedals are back!

In the early 90s Black Cat pedals were well known by guitarists seeking unique fuzz tones. They were originally built in Texas by Fred Bonte, who also designed and built some of the Custom Audio Electronics (CAE) products sold by Tom Bradshaw. When he stopping making Black Cat pedals in 2007, the demand never went away. Tom Hughes (author of Analog Man's Guide To Vintage Effects) recently brought the brand back to life and actually improved it. I was skeptical to say the least when my demo unit arrived. Before even plugging it up I looked inside and my jaw dropped at the clean wiring and high quality parts. More importantly, when put side by side with its 90s predacessor, it was a mirror image of that fantastic fuzz tone. Its a rare thing for a company to change owners and things actually get better. I'm happy to say that is the case with Black Cat... a flashy new look, better build quality, same great sound!

Guitar Store Etiquette

1) Avoid showing off - Can you really shred it down? Me too! Lets all agree to not to it in guitar stores OK? Think of the salesman and their tender ears... do you really want to force them to listen to Metallica's Enter Sandman one more time? Haven't they heard enough Creed for today? Also, you never know who is in the store with you. Perhaps the gentleman standing to the side, reading a guitar magazine is a graduate of the Musicians Institute? Chances are he can play everything you can... but faster, better, and in several different keys. So keep it simple when you try out new gear. Strum a few chords, then buy it or put it back while you think it over.

2) Do not brag - It all starts the same way, "what kind of guitar do you have?" and then its a downward spiral into a war of words as each person name drops what cool gear they own. Its harmless banter right? No... first off, it makes you look like a horses rear end. Secondly, there may be a quiet fellow standing in the corner, listening and chuckling on inside because he owns more gear than both of you. Then again, perhaps that quiet fellow in the corner is listening to your conversation with the intent of following you home and robbing you blind? Modesty is the best policy when it comes to what gear you own, no matter how proud you may be of it.

3) Know when to barter - On the retail side, its expected. In fact, some stores often mark up their prices so they can appear to give an even bigger discount. The salesmen are usually paid an hourly wage plus a small commission based on the profit made from each sale. This is done to motivate them as salesmen, but also to keep food on the table when business is slow. On the repair side, don't even think about it. You're no longer asking for a discount done by a simple click of the mouse... your asking for time spent working for free. Would you agree not to be paid for an hour or more of work each day at your job?

4) Its sad to hear a grown man whine - I've got a gig tonight! This is my only guitar, I can't be without it! Enough already! I mean really, if you want to be treated as a profession musician, you've got to man up and act like one. First, get a backup guitar, amp, or whatever you rely on to make your sound. Second, maintain your gear whether you have a gig or not. If something is broken, fix it, or have it fixed by a qualified technician as soon as possible. The night before a gig is not the time to call and whine to your local guitar tech. Being a profession musician requires more than just skill. Being responsible and having a humble attitude will help others to take you seriously. To summarize: Professional + No backup guitar = Novice

5) Emergencies - If you've got an emergency situation that requires a repair technician to work outside of their normal business hours or provide "same day" repair services... expect to pay extra! In fact, you should offer that up front if you really expect a call back. Think about it. Your asking someone to give up their free time for you. That's time normally spent with family and friends. Can you really put a price on that?

The big Yellow Book you just threw away!

Its that time of year again and families everywhere are opening their doors to find a heavy yellow book inside a plastic bag which is often wet and smells of mildew by the time you find it. Lets get right to the point... What is this book? Why do I need it? Why does it keep appearing every year in my driveway?

The simple answers... This is a phone book. Its what people used to look up phone numbers before Google came along. You don't need it now. I advise throwing it away. AT&T's Yellow Book and The Talking Phone Book are what we call obsolete, a dinosaur, or dead media. Yearly updates are not enough for today's fast paced world. Also, any business worth doing business with has a website, even if its just a single page with services and contact info. It keeps showing up each year because they don't want to loose ad sales, so they blindly pretend that the phone book is some how relevant for today's consumer. OK, another question... How did this happen?

The simple answer is greed. AT&T and The Talking Phone Book have salesmen who call local businesses each year with the same failing sales pitch: A slightly bigger ad for a much higher price or the same ad as last year for a slightly higher price. Its a lose / lose scenario. So the final question, why Google?

Google is free! Searching with your home computer or cellphone is easy and fast! You don't just get the phone number and business name like in the phone book... You get maps, directions, information about business, phone numbers, and so much more!

So where is my proof? Just look at the Talking Phone Book for the last few years. I've never paid them a dime, yet Guitar Lab in clearly listed in there each year along with many other businesses who also pay nothing. Why give us ads for free? Its simple. They don't want their book to be empty...

Tuning Machines! Upgrade or Waste of Money?

High quality tuners are one of the best upgrades for improving the tuning stability of most guitars. They are also one of the biggest marketing gimmicks out there. Companies like Sperzel, Grover, Gotoh, and Schaller do indeed make very nice, high quality tuners. However, its important to remember that they are in the business of sales, NOT service. They portray their tuners as something that will "magically" solve all of your tuning problems. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are three reasons why...

Imagine a Ferrari racing around the track... its time for a pit stop and new tires are put on... but the pit crew only fills them up half way with air! How well will the car handle the curves? Poorly! Its the same basic idea with the tuning machines on your guitar. They must be installed correctly for your instrument to truly benefit from them.

The way you string your guitar also affects how well it stays in tune. If you use too many wraps, your strings may keep stretching and you'll have to retune constantly. Using too few wraps can make your strings slowly slip out of tune as you play. With locking tuners its best to have almost no wrap at all or you defeat the whole purpose of the locking mechanism.

Finally its important to mention that all of the information above is useless if your guitar is not professionally setup. Picture a man using a rope and pulley system to lift a heavy box. As he pulls on the rope, the box raises smoothly by use of the pulley. What if the pulley was too small and the rope kept rubbing up against it? The man would have a hard time raising and lowing the box wouldn't he? The man is your tuner. The pulley is your nut. The heavy box is your pitch. The string must be able to move smoothly thru the nut slot. It must not bind in a nut slot that is too narrow. If that happens it won't matter what tuners you have because you'll never stay in tune for long. Intonation is also very important. If the bridge and its saddles are not in the right spot, you can't even be in tune to begin with. Some chords will sound fine, others won't and it gets even worse as you go up the neck.

So in conclusion, high quality tuners (locking or otherwise) are not a magic cure for the out of tune virus. Make sure your guitar is set up to get the most out of them. Locate a trusted professional to install them if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself. New tuners can either be a godsend for your instrument or a complete waste of money... the choice is yours!

The myth of the FREE Setup.

Its time to expose a lie that retail musical instrument stores have been enjoying for far too long... the free setup! How many guitar stores offer a free setup with the purchase of a guitar? Exactly! Its quicker to try and think of a store that does not offer this service isn't it? This brings up many questions. Whats included in this so called free setup? How exactly do shops like Guitar Lab stay in business if every single guitar sold is setup and ready to go? The answer is simple. Most stores consider a fresh set of strings and turning two screws that raise or lower the bridge to be a setup. As someone who takes pride in their work, I find this pretty insulting. I don't have a name for what they're doing, but its most certainly not a professional setup. For example, when I do a setup on an American Series Fender Stratocaster, I'll be adjusting the neck pitch, bridge tilt, bridge height, individual saddle height and radius, individual nut slot height and width, neck relief, pickup height, intonation, etc... I also go over the guitar and make sure all the hardware is installed correctly and that the electronics work properly. Now what are the chances someone is doing all that for free? How about for an hourly wage of $8.50 like the guys at Guitar Center make? Not bloody likely! Now I'd like to end this blog on a positive note and mention that there are indeed some stores out there who hire skilled guitar techs to setup every new guitar sold. That price may then be added into the purchase price to appear as free. My hat goes off to those stores and I say, old chap, good show!

Why Boutique?

Over the past few years we've seen smaller high priced boutique guitar and amplifier companies popping up everywhere! Why is this? There was a hole in the market place ready to be filled and the big guys missed it! Big companies like Fender stopped making amps the way they used to... the way that made them one of the largest most respected amplifier companies around today! Why? The use of PC Board made things cheaper. It didn't have to be that way. Companies like Bogner and Diezel use PC Board thats high quality to build amazing amplifiers with channel switching, insane high gain distortion, and many more features that you just can't effectively provide with point to point wiring. Sadly companies like Fender and Marshall only use PC Board to make their amps faster and cheaper. They are also farming out the work to other countries as well. It may say its made in the USA, but many of the important parts such as the transformers could be made in China! So with most vintage amps being very hard to afford or even find, many small amp builders stepped in and the cloning began. The irony of this is that Fender is now in competition with many older versions of itself under different names. The Victoria amp company is a good example of this with their great sounding line of point to point "Tweed" Fender clones. Guitar making has taken a similar turn with companies like the japanese based Ibanez who now puts their name on guitars that are made for them by companies like Cort in Korea. Yes, if your Ibanez is made in Korea, its not really an Ibanez. So what happened? Once again small builders stepped in with their own creations. Small companies like Suhr guitars stepped in to make some of the finest instruments i've ever laid my hands on. An odd thing happened with the guitar surge of small builders though... One big company really gave itself a makeover. Gibson invested in several PLEK machines (computer fret leveling and nut making machines that cost about $120,000 each) which can level frets better and faster than any human. Now their custom shop puts out the finest Gibson guitars ever made. The playability is just outstanding and I dare say they are truly mirror images of their vintage counterparts. My hat goes off to Gibson for that. I hope more larger companies like Ibanez and Fender follow in Gibson's footsteps and get a clue! Its time for them to bring their quality up to justify the high prices being asked for them at local guitar stores.

Chinese Guitars

I was working at a local music store many years ago when the first few Chinese made electric guitars started showing up. They were a new level of poorly crafted crap, the likes of which I'd never seen before. Sharp fret ends, poorly seated frets, truss rods that just don't work etc. Fast forward until now and everything is pretty much the same. There are a few exceptions now though. One is from Ibanez called the Artcore Custom. Actually i shouldn't say its from Ibanez really. Its from whatever factory Ibanez contracted with in China since the only real Ibanez guitars come from the Fuji-Gen Gakki factory in Japan. That's probably a subject for another post, but as most people know, Korean Ibanez guitars are actually made by Cort or Samick. OK I'm getting off track... These Artcore Customs are just superb and i can't believe I'm saying that about a Chinese made guitar. They have excellent construction, fantastic finishing, rounded smooth fret ends, and level frets. Even the hardware such as the tuners, pickups, and bridge are OK. Maybe this will be a new trend? Will China become the new Japan? (Japanese guitars were hidden gems few people knew about years ago... all common knowledge now though) We shall see! As a general rule though, i still say buyer beware if its made it China.