The Dumbler Overdrive Pedal

Dumble amps are the things of legend. Handcrafted and owned by only the elite of the guitar world these elusive amps are extremely desirable.

For the common man the unobtainable nature puts these amplifiers well out of our reach.  There have been many clones as well as pedals that claim to capture that elusive sound.

The Dumbler Overdrive Pedal does not make any claims although the name alone would suggest m this pedal is inspired by the rare and expensive Dumble amps.

Since I've never played a Dumble amp I can't speak to whether or not this pedal sounds like a Dumble so you tell me, what do you think.

DIY Screamer boost pedal

The Ibanez Tube Screamer is undoubtedly the most ubiquitous and famous overdrive pedal ever.  It has been used by countless guitar hero's as well as being in the arsenal of a huge number of working musicians.

A number of years ago I decided to take a stab at building my own pedals. The Tube Screamer type circuit has so many iterations and variations that it is almost mandatory that one tweak the circuit and put their own twist on it.

Below is a video demoing my take on a TS type circuit with plenty of mods to satisfy my own needs.

Bouquet Falls Hike

If you live in the Santa Clarita Valley there is no doubt you've heard of the Bouquet Falls. In this time of extreme drought you may think that these stories date back to the olden days and there is no way there are active waterfalls in Southern California.

I recently decided to venture out the this mystical location to check it out for myself. What I found was what appeared to be an abandoned recreational area that at one time appeared to have been the place of many family picnics and barbecues.  Unfortunately these days it is accessible only by foot and no longer appears to be the family friendly area of yesteryear.  The below photos and videos document my findings.

Joyo Tremolo

Tremolo is one of the earliest effects guitarists had at their disposal.  Whether Optical or Bias based tremolo the warbling throb of the volume fluctuation in he guitar signal conjours a hypnotic feeling.

While most of us don't have a use for tremolo frequently, it is something the working guitarist should have in their
arsenal.

The Joyo tremolo is an inexpensive decent sounding tremolo that won't break the bank, yet give you that swampy throbbing goodness when you need it.

Check out my demo of the Joyo Tremolo.

Abandnoned Roadside Rest Stop

As I travel round Southern California I'm always looking for something interesting.  While I've been up and down Bouquet Canyon many times over the years it was only recently that I found this place.

The Los Cantiles Handicapped Picnic Ground was established in 1972. On my visit recently it was blocked off but looked to have been refurbished in the last 10 or so year.  I am not sure why this day use area is currently closed but it is an interesting place.

Check out my video of my exploration of this now abandoned day use/roadside rest stop in Santa Clarita.

Cheap Analog Delay

Guitarists in general are mostly gear hounds. We love new gear whether it's a new guitar, amp, or stomp-box. Some of us are complete gear snobs and will not even consider anything that isn't top of the line or boutique. Some of us simply look at what the best tool for the job is.  I'm not judging here, i'm just stating facts.

I recently stumbled upon a budget friendly analog delay on Ebay that I simply couldn't pass up.  Now I own several delays from a Roland SDE1000 rack unit to a Zoom multi effect, and my favorite, the TC electronics flashback.  While I didn't need this delay I felt compelled to buy it based on the price and the very diminutive size.

This analog delay from Mosky Audio was less than $30 on ebay, but how does it sound. You decide.

Abandoned Structure in Bouquet Canyon

While driving up Bouquet Canyon in Santa Clarita looking for a certain abandoned roadside stop I stumbled across another abandoned roadside structure.

This structure appeared to be, at least my best guess, a stable. I'm not sure how long it has been abandoned or what it's purpose was but I was very intrigued by this when I saw it.

I have driven this section of Bouquet Canyon numerous times but this particular day while looking for something else all together I stumbled across this abandoned structure.

Come with me as I investigate and tell me what you think this was.

Will it slide

Slide guitar is a staple for the blues guitarist.  Legends like Robert Johnson, Ry Cooder, and Dwayne Allman took slide guitar to amazing heights.  While I'm by far nowhere near proficient in slide guitar I got to thinking, what else could you use a slide on.

Join me as I investigate the musical and not so musical instruments that a slide can or cannot be played on in my quest to find out, "Will It slide?"

Zoom Choir

Back in the mid 90's Zoom released a few pedals that had some really cool functionality.  The pedals had a number of different types of sounds as well as the ability to set a preset and a current setting that was foot switchable.

I was fortunate enough to purchase the Zoom Choir 5050.  This pedal offered chorus,chorus and reverb,chorus and delay, delay, aura, and dimension.  While I mostly used this  pedal for chours and delay the other sounds came in handy at times.

Below is a video demo of my Zoom Choir 5050

Point Reyes Lighthouse

A few years ago my wife took a trip to San Francisco.  While up there she decided to fulfill one of her bucket list items, visit a lighthouse.

She made the trek down to the Point Reyes Lighthouse.  Established in 1870 it is approximately 300 steps down to this magnificent building.  Below is a video montage of the photographs she took on her trip.

Scott's Superdrive

As you may know I've dabbled in the DIY pedal scene for a while.  I love the smell of melting solder and the fly by the seat of your pants "will it work?" feeling when making a pedal.

A number of years ago I started trying my hand at creating something different by mashing different pedal designs together. Some of these were non starters and others were OK.  This particular experiment came out quite well.

Scott's Superdrive took the Tube Screamer type circuit and married it to a Big Muff type tone stack. Of course each of these parts of the pedal received their own tweaking and modifications.  At the end of it all was a Mosfet output stage to recover some of the signal loss from the tone stack.

The result was an overdrive with more drive than a Tube Screamer, less buzz than a Big Muff, and an overall interesting characteristic all it's own.

Digitech CF-7 Chorus Factory

Let it be known, well I guess you already know, I like chorus.  The lush deep swirly sounds, the subtle slow doubling sounds, even the over the top 80's over modulated chorus.

Back in the mid 2000's Digitech introduced the CF-7 Chorus factory.  This pedal was s modeling pedal with a remarkably good sound. It included models of Boss, Digitech, Fulltone, Electro Harmonix, and TC electronic pedals.

With a multitude of controls and all these models it was a chorus junkies dream.

I purchased one of these pedals and used it extensively for years.  Below is a demo of the pedal, which can still be had on ebay for not a lot of money. If you like chorus, you should check out this pedal.

Rivendale....gone but not forgotten

Rivendale started as a family home in Towsley canyon in the Santa Claerita Valley back in the mid seveties. At first just a home for a family looking to carve out a life for themselves it soon grew in to more than that.

 An equestrian center and stables which hosted many events over the course of many years were also built. First built to satisfy the desire for a little girl to have a horse it soon became a place where many could enjoy the beauty and serenity of the then quaint and quiet Santa Clarita Valley.

  While the equestrian center had laid abandoned for many years the house is still used by the park. I had long seen the abandoned Equestrian Center from The Old Road and finally, in 2013, I decided to visit this location. 

I'm glad I took that opportunity as well as my camera. Little did I know that I would document for myself a place that only a few years later would be torn down and gone forever, 

Below are the photographs I took on that December day in 2013.  Enjoy and share. 

If at first you don't succeed...walk away?

Have you ever had one of those days where you just couldn't get it right. You're trying to learn a part but you keep running into a wall. You try to get a track down, but you keep flubbing the take. So you keep trying. You don't quit right?...or do you.

Sometimes walking away is the best thing. Clear you head. Let your body relax. Give yourself time to rethink the process. I know it's hard when you are so focused on getting it right, but that focus may be misleading. You may not be focusing on the part but rather the need to get the part done.

It's amazing how the mind and body can come together when they need to, but sometimes you need to give them space.  Sometimes all you need is a reset button.  It's a hard thing to do when you have a deadline, a gig tomorrow night, or you are one track away from finishing the next big song.

Remember, music is made up of sounds and spaces where there is no sound. Allow yourself the spaces so that the sound that you make is spectacular.

Got gas?

America lives on fossil fuels.  While we are all leaning towards hybrids and fuel efficient cars, back in Detroit's heyday the gasoline was the the liquid that fueled our travels. 

Times have changed and gas stations now have multiples of pumps, mini marts, and even fast food restaurants built in. These one stop shops may service our needs but they lack the style that the gas stations of yesteryear had.

I am fortunate that I have been able to document some vintage gas stations that, while no longer in service,

still exist in one form or another.  These buildings remind us of the days of the family road trip, Route 66, roadside attractions, and in general, a simpler way of life. 

The Shtizu Fuzz

The fuzz pedal has been around for a long time. It has come and gone and come again in popularity. Sometimes you just get it until you get it.  But once you get it, it's magical.

I have been building my own pedals for 10 years.  I took all the readily available information from the interwebz and built the Shitzu fuzz.  It's small, hairy, and loud.

Essentially it's a Fuzz Face circuit with a few tweaks.  The first transistor is a lower gain transistor and the second is higher gain. Also, it has a potentiometer on the power supply so you can reduce the voltage starving it and creating those great sputtery fuzz sounds. It also has a poteniometer on the input

to reduce the signal to the first transistor to tailor the amount of signal hitting the first gain stage.  Lastly, I just omitted the fuzz control since I like it dimed anyways.  The volume control on your guitar or the control to limit the signal on the first gain stage more than give you enough control over the amount of fuzz

It's a simple build and a great sounding and versatile pedal.  Check out this demo below.

Fuzz, I just never got it, until I got it.

The below post is a re-post from one of my old blogs, enjoy.

Fuzz pedals have been around for more than 40 years now. They were the first attempt to get the sound of a cranked amplifier without having to crank the amplifier. They were/are crude, and dare I say, sometimes not very pleasant sounding. Now if you were a guitar player in the late 60's, this was all you had at your disposal. Technology has advanced, amplifiers are capable of ridiculous gain at moderate volumes, and there are a million other distortion devices. So why does the fuzz pedal still prevail.

I came up in the era of the shred guitarist. Van Halen, Randy Rhoades, Ygwie Malmsteen. The requirements for this type of playing was a high gain yet articulate and clear sound to allow all the fast picked notes to be heard. There was no room for the woolly, unpredictable sound of a fuzz pedal so I just never gave them much thought. They were yesterdays technology.

Fast forward 20 years. Shred is less prevalent. Grunge hit us all in the face. And the wall of sound was being driven by fuzz pedals. All of a sudden, the Big Muff, Fuzz Face, Tone Bender etc... were all over the place. I couldn't believe it. Why were these guys using old technology? Of course grunge has since passed but the fuzz pedal is still here. Holy crap.

I finally decided to look into this a little. As I was learning to build my own stompboxes I decided that I needed to dive head first into a fuzz pedal. I build a fuzz face variant. After i got it working, I plugged in and let it rip. What an experience (no pun intended). I realized that while crude and somewhat odd sounding at times, the overtones and singing qualities of the pedal made me take notice.

 There is a great range of sounds in a good fuzz pedal. Rolling back the volume yields a sweet overdrive with a hint of grit. Running it full out gets you a tone reminiscent of hell on a bad day. I finally got it.

If you have wondered about what all the fuss about fuzz is, go to your local music store and check one out. You may be surprised.

Scott

Fort Tejon Civil War Re-enactment

Fort Tejon hosted an authentic Civil War re-enactment over the Memorial Day weekend.  All participants were in full period authentic outfits and had complete Confederate and Union camps set up.

Fort Tejon on it's own is an awesome historic place and a great experience. Add all the dedicated re-en actors and vendors participating in this event and it made an great day for everyone.

Below are some pictures and video from my visit to this historic site on this day of remembrance.

 

Mesa Engineering Bottle Rocket Tube Overdrive

Mesa Engineering is famous for the Boogie branded Mark series amps as well as the massive sound of the Rectifier series.  The company has also recently released several pedals to compliment the various amplifiers they produce.

This is not Mesa's first foray into the pedal market.  In the 1990's and early 2000's Mesa released two tube driven pedals. The well known V-twin preamp pedal and the little brother and lesser known Bottle Rocket overdrive.

The V-1 Bottle Rocket is driven by two 12AX7 preamp tubes that create a wide range of overdrive and distortion tones.  This pedal is quite different than the high gain tones of the Mark series amps and crushing distortion of the Rectifier series.  This pedal thrives in the low to medium gain blues, rock, and classic heavy rock tones.

Below is a quick demo of the Bottle Rocket being run through a Fender Blues Jr.

Enjoy

Walker Homestead

I'm fortunate that the Santa Clarita Valley still has some history to be found. While it has built up over the past 20 years you can still find some remnants of what it used to be.

The Walker Family lived in Placerita Canyon in the early to mid 1900's. Frank walker built several homes there throughout the years and the remnants of a few as well as an entire cabin still exists.

I decided to take a trek down to what is left of what is referred to as the "Homestead" to see what was there.  It's a mild hike with some beautiful scenery as well as a really cool historical site.

The site today                             The site in 1910 




Enjoy the video...
















For more information on the Walker family as well as the entire history of the Santa Clarita Valley visit http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/scvhistory.htm

Danelectro Pepperoni Phasor

Danelectro has had some great success with their pedals in the past decade.  Their small food themed pedals while not the sturdiest enclosures they are packed with sound.  I have purchased a few of these little gems and I think you get a lot of pedal for not a lot of money.

I decided to break out the Pepperoni Phasor and run it through it's paces. Its controls are super simple, just a speed knob.  Even I can handle that. Even if you only need this thing to get the EVH vibe going it's well worth it. Boba Fett says "Get one of these or I'll encase you in corbonite"

Check out the demo...

.

Random Roadside

Throughout my various adventures I stumble upon some intersting things. Some of these things warrant an entire post or video and some are just an interesting side note on the adventure.  The video below documents some of these unique roadside oddities over the past few months

Enjoy

Musician pet peeves

I try not to be a judgmental person. Live and let live. But as a guitarist, I can’t help but have pet peeves about fellow guitarists. I’m not bagging on anyone personally and I’m sure I have some qualities that my rub others the wrong way but this is my blog so I’m gonna let my pet peeves be known.

1) ” Don’t touch my guitar” Ok… I know a man’s guitar can be like his woman but c’mon. Do you really think I’m gonna mess it up. I’m a guitar player too. Get over it, it’s just a guitar.

2)” I need to drink to play my best” I can totally relate to having a beer or two to loosen up. A few beers throughout the course of a gig is fine. If you need to get drunk before you go on stage, you will never play your best, regardless of what you think.

3)” I only know it in the key on the record” Ok, this is where the boys are separated from the men. Yes, you learn a song from the record. Maybe most bands play it in the same key. But occasionally, you will find yourself in a situation where you have to play it in another key. Learn to transpose, it’s part of being a professional musician.

4)“My amp sounds best when it’s this loud” I know we all want to be heard. Trust me, it’s a fruitless effort. While you may not be hearing yourself as well as you like two feet from your amp, the audience is getting more than enough volume twenty feet away. Maybe your amp does sound best at that volume but the band as a whole needs to sound like a unit, not a guitar player with a backing track.

5)” I just can’t get my tone” Translate to: “I’m playing like crap”. I know we all have an ideal tone and yes, there are times where things just don’t seem right with our rigs. This should not diminish your playing ability. You should be able to play just as well on a rented back line as you do on your own rig. Tone is secondary, capability is primary.

OK….I’m not trying to offend but after playing for many many years I have practiced a few of these and endured playing with people who practice some of these.

Scott