Distressed Guitars Versus Vintage Originals

Every guitar player wants to rock and look good while doing it; but not every guitar player has the time, energy, commitment, or playing prowess, to allow their instrument to reflect years of love and abuse. The prized instruments of famous rock guitar gods like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and others, are weather-beaten and worn from many years and many miles of touring and playing. These instruments, nearly as famous as their owners, have retained their mojo, their spirit or soul, the intangible prowess and feel that has allowed them to spawn some of the singularly memorable riffs and grooves that have made their owners famous and wealthy. In the last decade, a new phenomenon has become a major player in the worldwide guitar market. An idea originated in Fender Musical Instrument’s Fullerton, California, Custom Shop, has really taken off. Newly manufactured guitars are intentionally distressed, stripped, and weathered, or broken in, in order to (hopefully) look like and play like the original vintage instruments they are modeled after. While the amounts paid for these instruments are high, $2000 and more for some, their prices are nowhere near the amount one would shell out for the original vintage instruments they are patterned after, with true vintage instruments often fetching $250,000 or more.

Who buys these guitars that have been artificially aged? The same people who enjoy retro-styled motorcycles, broken in jeans, and other similarly antiqued items. What could be better than a guitar that looks and feels like it has been played and loved for many years, but is essentially new, possessing the electronic advances that make newer instruments less prone to unwanted electronic buzzes, hums, or feedback, that often plague their vintage counterparts. Many rock stars have actually purchased these relic imitations to take on tour, allowing them to leave their original treasured instruments at home, protected and safe.

The distressing process entails everything from whipping the instrument’s bodies with belt buckles, administering industrial solvents to the paint, and taking sandpaper to the fretboards. Some, like the replica of Clapton’s “Blackie”, are even burned to replicate cigarette burns from the original. The value of these artificially distressed replicas keep going up, with collectors buying them as quickly as they are produced. Whether a vintage original or a replica is what you desire, local guitar shops like Austin’s Strait Music Company stock many options for those looking for a new or “new-to-you” axe that will provide years of enjoyment and opportunity to add one’s own “mojo” into to the mix.

About the Author: Clint Strait is a third generation owner and assistant manager of the Strait Music, Austin Music Stores, providing the best selection of electric guitars and accessories to Austin and the surrounding area for over forty years. For more information please visit www.straitmusic.com.

Bass Drum Adjustments for Best Sound

Perhaps the most important part of a drum set or drummer’s unique sound is the thunderous boom (or not) from his or her kick drum. The kick drum lays the foundation upon which all other drum hits are based. It provides the basest (bassest) part of the rhythmic structure, delineating and driving the syncopation that is set up initially by the high-hat’s 8th or 16th rhythms. Most often, a drummer desires a well-articulated attack with minimal, but sure decay, and utilizing the right tools, beginning with the musician’s ears, a booming bass is sure to be achieved.

Getting the correct sound from your bass begins with tuning of the heads. Uniform tension across the head is key, always turn your drum key the same amount of times at all lugs in order to avoid annoying overtones. As a rule, the bass drum batter head (the head that receives the strike, nearest the drummer) should possess a looser tension than the other heads of the kit. A too loose situation could result in the batter puncturing the skin, so moderately loose, of course. The other side (resonant side) does not need as much attention, but to make sure that the skin is uniformly tightened around the circumference.

An unappealing sound from the bass can often be as simple as improper bass drum pedal placement. To get the best sound from your drum, it needs to be struck in the very center, to allow for maximum air flow throughout the drum and increased reverberation and resonance throughout the bass frequency range.

The last check on achieving the best sound from your bass drum entails muffling. With an empty bass drum, the sound can reverberate too wildly, often stepping on frequencies of fellow musicians, especially the bass player’s. Specifically designed pillows can be placed within the bass drum’s cavity, helping to control the sound waves and increase the punch and bite of the initial attack. A beater patch is also instrumental in achieving just the right amount of muffling on the beater side of your bass drum. Place this adhesive patch right where your pedal strikes the head (in the middle). The benefit is two-fold as the patch increases the skin’s strength and helps wrangle in those unwieldy vibrations from each strike, allowing for more “punch” to your tone. On the resonant side, you could place a head with a ported hole that allows for better and punchier bass response while also allowing easy access for pillow or microphone placement in the studio or on the stage.

Local music stores like Austin’s Strait Music Company stock a wide selection of accessories to help each drummer achieve proper tone from their entire kit, not just the kick drum. Knowledgeable salespersons can point you in the right direction and provide helpful information and options to help find the distinct sound you desire.

About the Author: Clint Strait is a third generation owner and assistant manager of the Strait Music, Austin Music Stores, providing the best selection of drums and cymbals to Austin and the surrounding area for over forty years. For more information please visit www.straitmusic.com.

Electronic Drum Advances

In the 1970’s, guitarists were becoming inundated with effect and pedal technology allowing them to experiment and explore new sounds and frequencies never available before. Percussionists, seemingly, had to resign themselves to different sized cymbals, drums, and assorted sound effect cymbals to build their orchestra of effects. Not only was this a costly endeavor, lugging around an arsenal of assorted pieces was impractical, unwieldy, and impossible. Change was coming. With the introduction of the first commercially available electronic drum by Pollard Industries in the mid-seventies, drummers’ eyes and ears were opened to new horizons and possibilities that had previously only been afforded to electric guitarists.

The original electronic drum sets were definitely rudimentary experimentations, and their response curve and performance applications were quite limited. Yet, as research and development continued throughout the eighties and into today, electronic drums progressed and evolved into an accepted medium, with an inordinate amount of recording and performance possibilities.

The original technology of electronic drums has remained constant, though improved upon over the last three decades. As in the original prototypes, an electronic pad houses one (or many) piezoelectric transducer microphones that allow a voltage change to be captured when the pad is struck. This signal is transmitted through an instrument cable to a drum “brain” or module that then translates the kinetic energy into sound. The resultant sound produced is determined by the drummer’s programming of an individual effect to the pad being struck. While early drum modules were limited in their processing possibilities, today’s electronic advances have allowed modules to contain dozens upon dozens of true acoustic samples, recorded digitally with such high quality from the original sources, that only a highly trained ear is able to differentiate between an acoustic drum and the advanced sounds produced by electronic kits today.

The possibilities of today’s kits are seemingly endless. More sensitive pads have been introduced, possessing transducers that are able to pick up every nuance, every ghost roll, every precise rudiment, allowing for different zones of the drum “head” to have different timbre and textures just as its acoustic “skinned” cousin possesses. Effects such as reverb, delay, and chorus are only the beginning, with the ability to add effects directly at the source of the strike, processors within today’s modules can accurately reproduce different performance hall situations and microphone techniques without a room, hall, or microphone being present. This allows for drummers of all levels to experience superb sound in the comfort of their own home or studio, whether through expensive monitoring speakers or personal headphones utilized for private, silent practice. No more is it necessary for a passel of microphones when recording since drum modules possess stereo line outs that can be connected directly to the recording device being used. As new innovations are developed, music retailers like Austin’s Strait Music Company keep their knowledge and equipment up to date in order to give local drummers the most options and highest quality available.

About the Author: Clint Strait is a third generation owner and assistant manager of the Strait Music, Austin Music Stores, providing the best selection of electronic drums and accessories to Austin and the surrounding area for over forty years. For more information please visit www.straitmusic.com.

Analog Stompboxes Versus Multi-Effects Processors

Gone are the days of guitarists plugging their guitar into their amplifiers and just playing. While clean or high-gain distortion playing used to be the norm, most guitarists rely upon sophisticated gear in order to achieve the “drill through your face” distortion or “cloudy dreamy” chorus that makes their listeners beg for more. While a decade or two ago, most artists brought along one or two analog stompboxes to augment their tone, more often today, artists have custom pedalboards chock full of expensive boutique pedals or all-in-one multi-effects units, floor or rack-mounted, on their (or their soundguy’s) person for every gig.

Most stompboxes have a dedicated, single feature. An individual box might add chorus, distortion, flange, or any such effect to a guitarist’s tone. The amount of the effect added with a stompbox is easily regulated with simple twists of a couple of knobs, being very user friendly, but only just so adjustable. Most stompboxes run on 9 volt battery power, but many manufacturers offer AC powered “pedalboards” that allow often up to ten or twenty individual boxes to be placed within its friendly confines, all powered by one single outlet, saving batteries and hassle. The advantage of the individual stompboxes is that you can “chain” them together, and only use the effects you want in that chain by simply “stomping” the effect you would like to employ. Moving boxes to different locations in that “chain” can affect the sound by one effect being employed first, second, third, etc, with many possibilities for tone creation. Disadvantages for using stomboxes chained in a pedalboard are mostly expense. Individual pedals cost between $75 to $200 each, depending on their rarity or vintage production, and pedalboards themselves start at well over $150 for a reputable one. Many musicians have taken to building their own pedalboards, to save some cash. Just think how horrible it would be if your custom pedalboard, with nearly or over a $1000 of effects pedals housed inside, was stolen or lost. Finding all of those individual pedals again might be impossible, and definitely costly.

Multi-effects units have become an attractive option for musicians. They sound, react, and are manipulated differently of course because they employ silicone chips to produce sounds digitally instead of the analog transistors used in stompboxes. A multi-effects unit is a good way to get all the sounds you want (and some unnecessary ones of course) and house them within one easy to carry unit. Disadvantages of these units include the tedious knob turning and button pushing necessary to modify effects in order to employ a single effect. Usually, effects are paired together within these units to make their signature sounds, and this could be a deal breaker for the sound purists out there. Another disadvantage is that some modules will lose the presets you’ve created if there is a power outage or battery failure; imagine that happening in front of 1000 spectators! A guitarist can purchase these units for often around $100 to $500, so they are definitely the “more bang for your buck” option.

As always, guitarists should scoot on down to their local guitar shop for hands-on experience. Respectable stores like Austin’s Strait Music Company have employees with so much knowledge and experience with all sorts of guitar accessories and are happy to give advice, as well as provide opportunities for trying out all the equipment.

About the Author: Clint Strait is a third generation owner and assistant manager of the Strait Music, Austin Music Stores, providing the best selection of electric guitars and guitar accessories to Austin and the surrounding area for over forty years. For more information please visit www.straitmusic.com.