True. Geartrading can be a nice form of income. It can get you to try out some gear that you never would have tried normally. I have a couple of pieces that I never would have bought unless I was planning to unload them, then decided to keep them after all.

One thing I can say on craigslist find you can usually get the price down on stuff when holding cash in front of them. I have always done well by bying on craigslist and selling on either Ebay or now Reverb. Recently was that little Mesa I had, I was not going to buy it, but a guy offered a trad for the Egnater Rebel 20 which was only going for about $300. I took an even trade and resold the Mesa for $425 then bought the little Classic 30 I wanted. with a nice little profit.

What are you getting vs. what are you looking for?

And what mics have you used, how, so far?

I have been known to brutalize things with EQ, but it is supposedly not the "right" way to do it. I mean, it makes sense not to do it, because you can quite quickly get yourself into the zone of "oh boy, does that guitar sound weird?" and "why the fuck can't i mix the guitar/bass/kick in this thing?"

But, i use a lot of EQ anyhow, mainly because i run shitty speakers in my cabs, and only have a couple, not-amazing, mics anyhow. And i don't mind ruining the sound/mix of something by making EQ blunders.

I think I actually managed to figure out my issue last night recording at bedroom jamming levels. I had the mics too far away from one another from what I can tell, they are now actually touching. The sound I had been getting with the previous positions was unfocused sounding and woofy/shitty when I combined the two mics together. Now it is sounding nice and percussive, so I will jam it loud here in a few and see how much of a difference it made.

It makes sense that I was fucking up now that I think about it, really. I am using the KSM27 because I really dig the way it was sounding, and it's size prevents you from having the two capsules as close without the body of the mics touching versus the Oktava SDC I had used for the other guitar tone I was referencing.

Ended up with the Oktava on axis on the edge of the speaker cone with my Beta 57 at 45 degree angle next to it. Sounds pretty fucking righteous, dude.

Excellent, Mr. Cam. I've found sort of placement and mic choice works really well for capturing tones that sound, on playback, more-or-less like the amp. Glad it's working out for you. I've found it doesn't have the same effect if you switch the positions of the condenser and the dynamic. Oddly, it's more-or-less where I'd be likely to place the mics on their own. Go figure, it works in combination. Are you doubling up the Les Paul tracks with the Tele?



I got to play a ZVex Box Of Rock today. I was jamming with Chris from Garda this evening, and he'd just traded his Fulltone Fulldrive for the Box Of Rock. He never really got on with the Fulldrive and wanted something a little meaner- this works. It's gainier than I'd expected, and the boost side has a pretty monstrous amount of, well, boost. Clean gain, in excessive amounts. Of note: I really like the tone control on this thing. Unlike many other pedals, cranking up the tone doesn't thin out the sound, just makes it brighter. It's more a treble/"presence" (in the frequency sense, not the negative feedback sense) control, from what I can tell. Nice, aggressive gain. He also picked up a Mesa Electra-Dyne combo recently, which I'm looking forward to spending some time with.

Oh, and we opened up my Silvermachine. The issue is mechanical, not electronic. The treadle is connected to an internal fader by means of... Fishing line. Seriously, fishing line. Which I suppose makes sense given the application, but it's odd to think of an expensive boutique pedal using something that's more associated with jury-rigging brokenstuff as an an important component. Sorta like finding duct tape in there. Anyhoo, I need to get some fishing line, as it was broken internally.

That is most interesting. Is it viable to substitute something a bit more durable in the fishing line's stead?

The Box of Rock does seem super cool, I've not tried one, though.

For the first time in my life I bought a lower gain OD (a Rawkworks Light OD) and it actually sounds pretty fantastic and yields some nice, pretty heavy toan.

Them graphics with the multiple LEDs are cool as shit.

I won't pretend that wasn't pretty much my sole reason for wanting it.

Thing looks fucking amazing. I rarely have the patience to do that sort of involved purely visual pedal bittery. But i love it when other foalks do it.

I love the BOR. I actually need to fix mine, or build a new one. The tone control, if i recall correctly, is actually just a big muff tone circuit with more carefully chosen values. I agree, it does the trick. My only problem with the pedal as a whole is that it has, for my tastes, slightly too much low end for lower wattage amps at high volume. The more recent Distortron basically rectifies this with a cap switch though, being otherwise the same pedal, minus the boost.

Aslo, essentially, the boost side of the thing is just a Zvex Super Hard On. A fine boosty sort of thing. Into a lower wattage amp where you can really crank it, it loses its "clean" boost qualities at the top end of the knob in a very pleasant way.

An expensive wah pedal controlled by fishing line is a fucking classic. Why not just use a piece of baling wire? Or a bent up bit of cut coat hanger. Or like, anything designed to last a reasonable amount of time?

Did they at least use a really heavy test fishing line?

that pedal looks amazing. fuck

That really is a rad pedal

If I was going to keep it for personal use, yes, but I'm of a mind to sell the thing. So I'd like to keep it as accurate as possible.



Totally valid- it's pretty awesome visually.



I should take some shots of the inside. It has to be able to flex, the way it's laid out. It's not the worst choice of material, but not the best, either. And yeah, it seems to be heavyweight stuff. It's a monofilament line of pretty noticeable thickness and somewhat stiff- 100 lb. test, maybe.

On an unrelated note, I got to say "sic semper Tyrannosaurus" to a US history class today. My apologies to John Wilkes Booth. I could get along with this teaching thing just fine, methinks. I don't know if any of the students picked up on it (we were talking about the Civil War period; one of the students was mispronouncing the beginning of "tyranny" to sound like "tyrant"; we were giving examples of its pronunciation) but the teacher I was working with snickered.

Actually, taking a look at some fishing line on teh intarwebs, it may be 200-lb. test for saltwater whatnots. It's pretty thick.

Are you Professor Snaxie now? Do you wear a large and/or purple hat or coat while lecturing?

Not yet, though I was wearing a dark purple pinstriped shirt and a black jacket that's more old-fashioned English than modern. I went back to school in the recent past to finish up the whole history teaching thing I'd started but never finished some years ago.

Oh, congrats! You'd make an excellent 'cool professor'.

Taylor is paying for me to fly out to their factory in Cali and become "Taylor Certified". Really don't care much for their guitars but they are paying airfare, hotel and food/drinks so I'll take a free vacation. I could buy a cheap ass Taylor while I am there, so if anyone were looking to get one let me know I can get the hook-up.

Darn Devin, you are one important dude. I want to go on guitar missions too, even if they are grandpa's guitars.

The weather was stupidly pleasant today, and i think, we might just win this season thing. There is just something positively decent about being able to operate with one's house's windows laid open to the outside environment.