Stickers, Decals & Graphics

I'm in a minor quandary; my Telecaster looks a bit "naked". The upper rear bout space looks like it should have something there. So it got me thinking of a decal or some sort of graphic to put on it.

Now throwing stickers on a guitar is nothing new. Pretty much any genre of music has a guitar player has thrown some stickers on their guitars:

Stevie Ray Vaughn had a 1970's BMX prizm "custom" sticker behind the bridge, as well as his SRV in mailbox letters

Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day's blue Strat can barely be called blue.

Rivers Quomo of Weezer's strats look the the underside of a skateboard.

Now Im not looking at going this severe, I happen to have a Stickered up First act guitar that I used as a travel guitar, meaning any gigs my band did out of the Boston area. Back then we did a few gigs in New York, Maine New Hampshire and Rhode Island. I had a Seymour Duncan custom in the bridge position, and it sounded great. Overall it's still a great guitar, and I would rather lost this one, rather than my PRS or the Les Paul I used to have at an out of town gig.

I don't need to go this crazy.

To go a bit more subdued, Marty Stuart's "Clarence White" Tele has an American AM sticker

I've seen this cool firebird with the old North American Aviation graphic on it, and it just looks "right" on it:

I'd like it to look a bit weathered too, and recently I found a fellow on the internet that does alot of cool Star Wars models and props. He also has a talent for making things have that used universe look, like this hard shell motorcycle backpack:

Maybe a "Red 5" feel to it would be interesting. Perhaps incorporating some elements from the X wing pilots Helmets and some text in that crazy Aurabuesh font. The Rebel Alliance symbol has some great features and design, as well as having some nice subtle meaning of rebellion and resistance that means a lot outside of the Star Wars universe these days. Might be interesting to blend those concepts with the idea of a "competition stripe" that Fender used to have on their Mustangs and other guitars:

I don't know if I'm going to go with a decal or full hog on a paintjob, but I'm open to suggestions.

Coming through in Stereo

So with all the effects I've had, and all the configurations I've never run anything in true stereo. Admittedly, I did have a Fender Stereo Chorus, and that did have a stereo effects send/return. However I really didn't have any gear that was stereo to utilize.

About a year ago, I acquired one of Hotone's Nano Legacy Diamond mojo head, and did a review of it for Performer magazine. HERE is a link to the article. It's very fender ish. I paired it up with an Enginater 1x12 extension cab I got off of craigslist for $150. I really like this lil head, and have even used it for a gig for my cover band, and recording wise it's really nice, and reacts well with pedals.

This past year TC electronic came out with their Mimiq Doubler pedal, It's pretty awesome. Using an algorithm that combines delays, reverb, modulation and pitch adjusting, it can mimic the sound of multiple tracked guitars, and works really well in stereo mode. Again, I did a review of it in Performer and the review is HERE.

Hotone makes a few versions of their Nano Legacy head, and this time I got to check out their Vox-ish version, The British Invasion. It does that vox sound oh so well..Yep, I did a review of it in Performer too, click HERE for more info!

So with all these neat little pieces of gear, I decided to combine them, and make a lil stereo rig.  To give an idea of what I'm trying to do, here's a little diagram:

I'm still in the process of finding another 1x12 cabinet. Now, Ideally I'd like these to match aesthetically, so I am on the search on craigslist/facebook/reverb for a matching enginater 1x12 cabinet. Hopefully I could grab one for around $200 used.

Ideally if I can get a slightly smaller pedalboard, and forego an ATA case for it, using a gigbag, a pair of 1x12's could fit in the trunk of my mini, along with along with my pedalboard. Add 2 guitars in thin gigbags, and I should be able to gig with it. Those little nano heads can deliver plenty of volume for most gigs that I do. Now for loud volume applications, I may have to go to my Fender Hot rod deluxe, and run in mono (boo!). But in those louder volume situations, the nuances of a stereo rig might get overlooked. In the studio I'd love to be able to run the Fender and Vox flavours of the Hotone heads, Alot of bands in the 90's used this kind of deal, 2 different amps in stereo, blending the two tones. I'm hoping it'll be the biggest lil stereo rig ever.

Adapting

So have I mentioned I am a pedal junkie? Yes.

My first real pro pedal board was a Pedaltrain PT that was HUGE, coming in at 36" wide. My idea at the time was since I was fully committing to switching to pedals, I would put ALL of my pedals on it, and if I need that Boss BD2 sound, it's there, among the other 6 different distortions and overdrives I had. The stumbling block that prevented this came from My Voodoo labs power supply, which tops out at 8 outputs, and since decent power power supplies aren't cheap, I somehow had a hard time finding money for additional ones. Plus it was almost obnoxious, and most stages we were playing were getting a bit smaller. Oh as well as getting more cables, never mind about signal loss or needing a buffer. So I switched to a Pedaltrain Pt-2. It's a more sensible size, but since it's an older one, the power connection for the Voodoo labs is limited because of the Porthole's in the front of the pedal board. I could in theory fit alot more pedals on it, but the power supply situation is a bottleneck. I've been looking into a way of getting a slightly smaller board, and yet fit more on it recently.

My cover band, The In-betweeners booked a show at a place that has bands play in it's lounge area. This means no stage, just an area where the tables, and some ottoman cushions get moved out of the way and we set up there. We borrowed a Bose L1 system from a friend of ours, so that made the PA system alot smaller. We ran vocals and acoustic guitars through it for simplicity's sake.

Our singer and bass player had shows there in the past, and they both knew the small area that we would have to work with. I mentioned using my PT 2 and my singer wasn't too thrilled on that idea. Our drummer, played a neat hybrid percussion type kit, with a Cajon as a kick drum, a snare and floor tom, a couple of cymbals, high hat, and a set of bongos. Since it's a small place, sound travels quickly, and this kit seems to deliver the pulse and rhythm, without the big sound of a regular drum kit, while being unique on its own. Our bassist ran a Hotone Nano bass head into a small mark bass cabinet. So we were all downsizing in a sense.

I planned on using my regular Pedaltrain board, but while taking a break on running through the sets at home, I realized I might have enough pedals that are lying around to make a mini board. A few years ago I tried Ikea's Gorm pedal board hack, and went even further, shortening it to fit in a shelf of an Ikea Expedit bookcase. I used it for a bit around the house, but that was about it. I started to think of the pedals I like to have, but really wouldn't use for this gig, and if I could assemble a smaller board for this gig. I needed the following:

1-Tuner

2-Distortion/overdrive

3-boost

4-Chorus

5-Delay

6-power supply

I had a spare Boss Tu2, so that was a no brainer. Distortion wise, I just got a Vertex Dynamic Distortion for review, and I had been using it for a couple of days so I thought that would be a good way to try this one out. I had been using a TC spark boost on my PT2, so I pulled that one for this mini board. The TC Chorus Dreamscape is my go to chorus these days, and I pulled that from my board as well. Delay wise I've been using the Caynon delay from Electro harmonix. I found one a Sanyo Oneloop lithium Ion battery pack, that's meant to run pedalboards, and charged that up. I did pack a 1 spot wall wart power supply tho jus in case. Getting power wasn't a problem with a 8 way Daisy chain cable. To keep things from shorting out, I put electrical tape on unused connections. If they touched the metal of a pedal's casing it could damage the pedals or even worse start a fire. I had plenty of small monster cables, So Audio wise it all worked. I even found an old laptop bag that all this could fit into easily. Here's a pic of the process, I did try using the Electro harmonix Soul food, but opted for the TC for this gig. Nothing against the soul food, The TC works a bit better with my acoustic.

I went with using my ZT mini stack. It's a ZT lunchbox amp, with a matching cabinet. The speakers are 6.5" but 2 together gives 13" of speaker overall, and at 200 watts I think I had enough headroom for this venue.

Our gig went well, I played about 1/2 the set running my Mitchell Acoustic through this rig. I did a review on this guitar for performer magazine awhile back, and while I don't covet acoustics like the way I adore electric guitars, this guitar is fantastic! The other 1/2 I used my Strat.

I could possibly drop the chorus pedal, and even the boost pedal. The electro harmonix delay has a modulation function in one mode, that would probably work fine. and the vertex could easily be used as a boost, as I ride the volume knob alot. I don't really have to compete with another electric guitar for this configuration, as our singer only plays acoustic. As of now we already have another gig at this place within a month, so this was a nice start. I'm happy I was able to downscale things somewhat easily using stuff I had sitting around already. Part of doing gigs like this is modifying how you you approach the songs but the gear you actually need to do it.

So for the next gig in this venue I'll run a Tuner, A distortion (possibly the vertex), and a delay. The only Item I think I'll need to get is a 3 way daisy chain power cable. I could possibly use my MXR Carbon Copy delay for this gig instead of the Canyon. I'll have to do some experimenting. Thankfully I have a lot of options. I could even drop the tuner, and go with a clip on. The tuner does act as a mute though, so it's something to consider.

We also have a full on electric gig coming up for the cover band, but I plan on bringing my regular pedal board for that, as I'll need some more functionality. I do love having pedals that do odd things like filters and synth emulation, but I'm trying to be realistic as to what works, and what I will actually need for a gig.