Mini-rig

So now I have built my mini-rig,  rehearsed with it and gigged with It a couple of times. It is based on the ToneX One and it sounds awsome, is really small and has everything I need. 

I use a couple of different riggs in the ToneX One for distorted rytm sounds with different level of chug and sound. I also have a clean rig. I don't switch distorted riggs during a rehearsal or gig. I use the dual mode in ToneX One to switch between the clean and one of the dirty riggs. 

The dirty riggs have a slight touch of reverb and the clean one has compressor, chorus and reverb. This gives me a good base. 

For solos I always increase the volume and add delay. This is now done with the Tech 21 Boost DLA pedal. It has a adjustable boost, a volume increase - not a gain increase, a tape delay simulation with flutter control, trails and tap tempo. I have not seen a delay pedal that has all that before. I sounds really good and the fact that it has trails is abolutely wonderful as it makes the end of the solos more smooth.

Sometimes I need delay during rythm or melody lines and for that I use the TC Electronic Flashback mini. Very small but sounds as good as the bigger ones. Sadly it does not have trails but that does not matter that much since there will be no change in volume when I turn this one off. 

I am also testing a mini wha-wha, Joyo Multifunctional Wah. It doubles as a volume pedal and has a lot of settings that I have not tested fully yet. I think it has a little too step volume curve in the heal area. But maybe it can be fixed or I can get used to it, we'll see.

As guitar wireless I use the NUX B-8 system. I have had this for quite a while. It was on my previous lager pedal board. After I used it during a couple of gigs I realized that it dropped the connection between the sender and receiver every now and then. It occured randomly but it could easily drop it 2-3 times a gig and it took about 10 seconds or so before it connected again. That is a really long time when you try to deliver rock n roll. I returned it to Thomann and I got it back after some weeks. It seemed like they replaced the sender with a newer version because it does not look the same. After that it has worked flawlessly. I really like it because it has a charger for the sender built in, runs on 9 V and has a tuner. It has a boost function also but I don't use that since it is placed first in the signal chain. 

In the first version of this mini pedalboard I did not have the HX One. The board was only intended to be used for rehearsals but it sounded so good so I tried it in a gig and it was super. I use special effects every now and then, like octaver, phaser, octavia and digital capos. If I would purchase mini pedals for each of these, if they exist, I would not have a mini pedal board anymore. Then I stumbled on the TC Electronics Plethora X1. It contains all the TC pedals but you can only use one at a time and it has the normal one-effect-pedal-size. What a perfect idea! I never use these special effects together, it is always one at a time and only one per song. This would really save space on the board. One thing I must have working welll is the digital capo function, both up and down, and I could not seem to figure out if the X1 could do it in a good way. So I started looking for alternatives and found the Line 6 HX One. It has all the effects that Helix has, but only one at a time. It seems like it does a really good job as a digital capo. Another thing that got me to choose it was the fact that it has an effect loop that makes it possible to place the HX One effect before or after the amplifier and it is configurable per patch. Wonderful!

I have made the board so depending on the HX One patch the order of the effects will be:

Wireless - HX One - Wah - ToneX One - Flashback - Boost DLA. 

                                        

                                            or

Wireless - Wah - ToneX One - HX One - Flashback - Boost DLA. 

I have not tried out everything in the HX One yet but the digital capo works fine. 

After rehearsing a couple of times and gigging with the mini board one time I realize that the damn thing is just too small. When I try to use my not so big feet to turn things on and off other things happens at the same time if I'm not careful, and who can be that on stage? When I use the wha or volume pedal then really everything else happens :-( I never thought that that would be a problem. It always becomes lager than expected. But okay, back to the drawing table. I will move all pedals to the old bigger board. 

To be continued...

Rock on!!

ToneX One

I have purchased a used ToneX One pedal. I have seen many convincing videos online and my plan is to try it out and if it works well I will build a mini pedalboard based on it. I have seen that the pedal is small but when I got it I was amazed how small it actually is. And it contains 20 guitar riggs!! But let's see if it delivers the gods in reallity as well. 

Since I am playing in many bands I have several rehearsal riggs in the different rehearsal spaces. Right now I own three BOSS GT-100 and if I should continue with this setup I need two more. So I was thinkning that I should try to build a really small rigg that I can easily carry with me instead and sell my GT-100s and maybe my live mini-rigg based on the MOOER GE 300. 

Regarding my live mini-rigg. I bought the GE 300 since I've heard so much good about it. But when I first tried it out I could not get a single usable tone out of it. I had bought some cab IRs from Ownhammer which I was going to use in my Axe-FX and as a last attempt I added one to the GE 300 and suddenly it started to sing. Not like the Axe but good enough. I have a couple of other pedals on the board and from start there was an anoying noise which I found out was because I shared the power supply with the pedals. So now I have to use one power supply for the GE 300 and another separate one for the rest of the pedals. That takes up space on the board. Never mind, it is much smaller then my Axe setup that's for sure. But it is not as flexible and does not sound as good but I don't need that in the band that I use it in currently. My hope is that the ToneX One sounds much better and that it will replace the GE 300. We'll see. 

New strings arrived

 Hi! 

I got the strings but I have not been able to try it out. Mostly because I've been busy with recordings with my band The Mörkret. In the recordings I use two 7-strings and my 8-string for the rhythem tracks and my Charvel model 6 for the solo work. I'm not sure that I will change the setup in the middle of the recordings. I have not decided yet, we'll see. 

New string gauges ordered

I have now ordered a couple of string sets for the string gauge test. My seven strings are tuned down a whole step so for them I found a 09 set that I think will work fine. 

It is 09 to 62. I use 70 for the seventh string today so this will be almost the same. 

For the six strings in normal tuning I selected these strings.

08 to 46. I use 46 for the sixth today so this set will only make the top lighter. I will also use this set for the six top strings. For string seven and eight I will use the strings from the eight string sets I use today, 64 and 80. That will work for the test. If I go for this gauges I will buy single strings for the bottom two. 

String gauge

Hi! 

Long time no hear! Sorry but I totally forgot about this blog. I guess blogging is not part of my DNA :-) 

I got a problem the other day. I have had my Charvel model 6 tuned down a half step for a project a while ago. Since then I have used it for solos in The Mörkret and to simplify things I decided to take it down to standard D tuning, i.e. the same tuning, down one step, as on my 7-strings I play in The Mörkret. When I set it up I was unable to do it in a good way. The problem was that the distance from the tremolo block to the spring holder became so short with three springs mounted that the Tremmory did not fit. The first attempt to fix it was to remove one of the springs but then I was not able to get it in tune without tilting the Floyd Rose forward way too much. The spring tension was not enough. The only solution I came up with to solve this was to change the string guage from 010-052, which I normally use when downtuning a whole step, to 009-046, which I use for standard tunings. Since this reduces the string tension I was able to use two springs and setup a normal angle for the bridge. 

I thought this setup would be very loose to play but it felt supricingly nice. I really liked it so I decided that I should try to go down a step in string gauge on one of my 7-strings, the 8-string and one of my standard tuned 6-string. For the downtuned 7-string that means going down to a 009-set. For the 8-string which is tuned E-B-E-A-D-F#-B-E and the normal tuned 6-string this means to go down to a 008-set. I used an Yngwie Malmsteen 008-set in Dusch once when I tuned the guitar up a whole step, but not in a normal situation. But everything should be tested in the quest for the best guitar experience. Next step is to find suitable strings to order. 

Bye for now! I'll be back this time, I promise :-) 

Lundgren pickups

I have for a long time now been using EMG pickups in all my guitars. Since my very first test with an 81-85 setup I was totally floored. I just loved the punch and power that they created through a distorted amp. I have during the years replaced all other pickups in my guitar except for a couple of DiMarzio D Acti­vators. I am currently using EMG SA, 81, 85, 81X, 85X, 81/7, 707 and 808 pickups.

During the last couple of years I have begun to hear some things that I do not like in my sound. Small things, but still annoying. And I think my newest pickups, 808, sound a little unclear. It is time to testdrive something else.

I have seen that there has been a lot of very good things said about the Swedish Lundgren pickups everywhere. I visited their web page, https://lundgren.se, and found out that they have many different pickups. I have read a lot about the different pickups they make and listened to a lot of audio clips. For me the audio clips did not tell me much of interest about the different aspects of the pickups. But I know one thing, I like EMG and EMG sounds modern metal. The most modern metal pickup  they make is the M-series. But I also like things a little more classic sounding, so something like the new Black Heaven seemed like the perfects choice for me. At least according to the description of the pickup: "The Black Heaven combines the power, aggression and tight response of the legendary M6, but with more refined, organic character that lends itself to more diverse tonal applications".

For the testdrive I got hold of a used M6. Now I needed to select a guitar. I decided to use my old trusted workhorse, my Charvel Model 6. The pickup combination in this guitar is H-S-S. Since I never use the middle pickup I decided to leave that empty and try to find a single coil for the neck position. So what model to choose? The problem with the EMG 81 and SA combination is that the output from the 81 is much higher that from the SA. Since the M6 is a high output metal pickup I wanted to have a really high output single coil pickup as the neck pickup. I emailed Lundgren pickups and got a suggestion from Johan Lundgren himself to go for the Strat-90. Luckily I ended up finding a used Strat-90 neck pickup. So time for testing :-D

To be able to compare the pickups I did some recordings with the old and the new setup. Excuse me for the casual dressing and sloppy playing :-P

Charvel mod 6 with EMGs:

Charvel mod 6 with EMGs, solo:

Unfortunately the Strat-90 did not fit into the whole of the Charvel. So I skipped mounting that.

Charvel mod 6 with Lundgren M6 in brigde.

Charvel mod 6 with Lundgren M6 in bridge, solo:

As I mentioned before I like the power in the EMGs. This is the first time I have tried something else that gives me the same power. The M6 has more bottom end. Normally I would have rolled it back on the amp a bit, but now I wanted everything to be the same to show off the differences of the pickups. The bottom end is nice a tight though, so it does not disturb me. The high end of the M6 is warmer and it is a much warmer sounding the the EMG 81 when used clean.


Verdict:
I really like the sound of the Lundgren M6. It has a much warmer and nicer tone than the EMG 81 with almost the same power. I can't wait to have the Strat-90 put in so I can do the full comparison. There will be more Lundgren pickups in my guitars, that's for sure!!

Rock on! 

Guitar picks 2

I have used the new picks for a while now. I like the grip of The Dunlop Flow 3.0 but somehow I do not feel 100% comfortable with it. I have not figured out what the problem is yet, but I have to struggle with the playing position of it. I have therefore started to use the Gravity 4 mm more and more again. It might be the thickness, I don't know but it just feels more natural and it disturbs me less. We'll see what happens in the future. The struggle goes on... 

Rock on!

Guitar Picks

Back in history I did not really care what guitar picks I used. I started with really thin Sharkfins and Dunlop picks just because I thought that was the way to go. I read somewhere in Guitar Player or so that it was better with thicker picks so I tried it but it really felt awkward. But somehow I continued trying with thicker picks. I don't recall any dimensions or so, but it was more normal picks for rock guitar. During those days I was navigating towards the unobtainable perfect sound by the help of pedals and amplifiers.

In the modern age I stumbled on some guy on YouTube doing a review of an frightful guitar pick. It was big in size and was 1 cm thick!!! Unbelievable, who would even think about playing with such a monster. The guy meant that after just playing some weeks with this pick the right hand technique would really improve. The pick was the Insanity pick from V-Pick. After looking at several other YouTube-videos reviewing the V-Picks which came in many different sizes and thicknesses i got really curious. The reviews mentioned that the V-picks was made of a special glass material that reacted with the heat of the fingers and thus stayed firmly between the fingers without twisting. That alone sounded really good since I sometimes had really big problems with twisting picks. They also talked about a much more distinct sound that with regular picks. So I had to try it out. I bought a set of different picks and to my surprise they were right. They stayed in place between the fingers much better than any other picks I have tried and the they also produced a louder pick sound. I ended up using the Dimension V-pick as a standard pick for all my guitar playing for years. It is about 4 mm thick so I though playing funky rhythm stuff would be hard, but to my surprise it was not at all.

The only thing that was disturbing was that playing without distortion produced a clicking sound that I did not like. Since I do not play that much without distortion I lived with that problem. I tried normal Dunlop picks every now and then and now I really did not like the feel of them.

I read on internet that someone compared V-Picks with Gravity Picks and he thought that the Gravity Picks was almost the same as V-Picks, with the difference that the Gravity Picks did not create the clicking sound. I bought a couple of different picks to try them out. The clicking was not there, but they did not stick to the fingers as good as the V-picks. After playing a while they did, but not in the beginning of playing sessions so that was not really a problem. I have now used Gravity Picks for about a year. I tend to change between a 4 mm and a 3 mm thick pick.

I saw that John Petrucci had discoverd the power of the thicker pic and released a signature pick with Dunlop. It is a special version of the Flow Picks from Dunlop. I ordered a set of John's picks (2 mm) and also a thicker Flow Pick (3 mm) since 2 mm sounded really thin with my standards ;-)

 

The Petrucci pick was really too thin for me and it was too slippery. I cannot play with it at all.
But the Dunlop Flow 3.00 pick was really amazing. The grip was just amazing. The logo is 3D and that makes the grip really good. It has no clicking either. This pick became my default just after playing 10 minutes with it. Let's see if I still have the same opinion after a year.

As seven is not enough

So it happened! I bought my first 8-string. My god! Strings everywhere :-P
It is a beautiful Schecter  Hellraiser C-8 FR. A really properly built guitar with neck trough design and a really nice look and feel.

From factory it is tuned as a normal six stringed guitar on the top six strings. The seventh string is tuned to B and the eighth to F#. A little strange I thought at first, the 8:th string should of cause have been tuned to G. But then I realized that that should not have been a good idea since that would have meant an additional one band shift as between 3:d and 2:d string. That would have messed everything up two times. So F# it is.

I bought this guitar used as all the other guitars I buy nowadays. Since the seller lived in the same town as an old guitar player friend and of mine, he helped me to fetch the guitar. Thank you Classe, you rock!

At the same time I was looking at 8-string guitar videos on YouTube and came across one dude that talked about alternative tunings for 8- and 7-strings. He talked about lowering the third string from G to F# and therefore making a 7-string functioning the same way as a 6-string. I.e. the guitar becomes like a 6-string with start from the 7:th string. It's a little hard to describe but if you want to grip a B chord you do it with an normal E-shape starting on the 7:th string. The guitar then follows the chord all the way down to the 2:nd string since you have removed the 3:d to 2:nd string shift. That means that you without thinking can play AC/DC tunes in B. All the open chords will work. But an E-shape makes an B chord and an A-shape makes an E chord etc. Confusing? Not if you plan to play songs in B :-D. I decided to try that.

So what to do with the 8:th string? Well the most common choices are to leave it at F# or tune it down to E to create a drop tuning between the 8:th and 7:th string. I have never had a dropped tuning on any of my guitars so my first plan was to leave the 8:th string at F#.

When I got the guitar it was not tuned at all and the strings was way to thin. I looked up what strings where mounted on on delivery and they suited me perfect since it was an Ernie Ball skinny top heavy bottom set, i.e. the same type of set I use for all my guitars nowadays. I ordered a set and got it.

I did a full setup of the guitar as I always do, but when I tried to adjust the intonation on the 8:th string it was impossible. I got an octave at about the 10:th fret!!! :-O I e-mailed the Schecter technical support a couple of times and they were really helpful. Finally they asked me to check if the string was damaged in some way since that would be a logical explanation they said. I checked and I discovered this:

If you look closely you will see that the 8:th string has two different thicknesses. I complained and got a new set.  I told the story in a Facebook group and someone informed me that from the thickness 80 and up the string has a thinner end towards the tuning pegs so that it would go through the whole in the peg. I did not know that, so the error here was me mounting the string in the wrong direction. Since the guitar have a double locking system I always start with cutting off the balls and then you don't see any difference on the string ends. Embarrassing...   Well at least now I know :-) With the new set everything worked like a charm and the guitar was ready for the maiden journey.

A lot of strings for sure, but tuning the 3:d string down a half step really changed the usability of the guitar chord wise, but panic broke out when trying to improvise a solo or a fill. What the?? Then I realized that everything is really like on a normal 6-string but shifted one string up to the 7:th string. If I did not think about what actual chords I was playing the scales over it worked fine, for a while. Then it suddenly kicked in automatically and I got lost. So I was in for a challenge, i.e. fun :-) Then I deiced, why not also do a drop on the 8:th string when I'm at it. So I did, and it did not complicate things more than has already been done. And that's how I kept it. The tuning is now from 1 - 8: E, B, F#, D, A, E, B, E.

I have a short sample, but with the 8:th string still in F#. So now it goes even further down in the basement ;-)

Me and Ez Drummer goin' deep

After using the guitar some 5 times or so at rehearsals it started to make really nasty sounds. It behaved like bad connection in the output jack or the volume pot. It was hard to diagnose. After opening the stomach I noticed that one of the cables close to the pickup selector was really badly peeled. There where parts of the wire sticking out in all directions and it was probably short circuiting the signal sometimes. I tidied  it up and put everything together and than it worked fine again. Problem solved. I don't know if this was the doings of the former owner or if it was done in the factory. Never mind it is solved now.

I have also finally bought some really usable things from Music Nomad to create a better workbench for my guitar works. A Premium Work Mat and a Cradle Cube. Nice products.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that I equipped this guitar with the Super-Vee Mag-Lok also. But this time I actually got a little disappointed. When I tried to install the device I found out that it was broken. There was a crack in the plastic cylinder that should keep the magnet in place. So what happened is that the magnet got stuck on the magnet in the metal pipe and stayed there when I did a dive with the whammy. So there was no functionality. Also the pin was very loosely mounted in the metal pipe so it easily wiggled side to side during mounting. Bad quality! I have several of these units and I have not seen this before. I sure hope it was a one-time thing. Anyway some strong glue fixed the whole problem so now it is working fine. I was actually a little worried how it should work with an 8-string guitar but it worked fine. Since it is working in the balanced resting point my guess is that it is fairly independent of the total string tension. A plus for that, but a big minus for the quality this time :-(

The Flower Kings

I did a new musical discovery today :-D
I have listened to Transatlantic for a while now, mostly on some live concerts on YouTube, but I have also seen them perform on Sweden Rock Festival. I discovered Transatlantic because the former drummer of Dream Theater, Mike Portnoy, plays drums in the band. When looking at the line-up I realized that there was a Swede playing the guitar, Roine Stolt. Interesting, but I never got the idea to follow up on what bands he plays in. Today I did this. He is the founder of the Swedish progressive rock band The Flower Kings. Since Transatlantic is a so called super group it is probably a mixture of the styles from the different members and since Portnoy represents the heavier style I did not expect Roine's bands to be of the heavy type. But today I found out that The Flower Kings almost have the same heavy sound as Transatlantic. Well they do not really, but they have it in another way that I really like. I watched a live concert on YouTube today and it was really captivating. Some new sounds for  me and som old familiar ones at the same time. It was a step towards a more gentler and elegant music with sudden bursts of typical progressive passages. I liked it very much today, but as I've mentioned before I have to listen to music many times before I can really judge it. The future will tell...   Now I'm going to lookup if they have any shows planned in Sweden for this year. :-)

Tremolo stabilizers 2

I have now tried the Van Rosa Stay Tuned Tremolo Claw for a while. I think I get the idea with the construction, but I just cannot seem to get it to work the way I want. 

As you can see in the picture below there are 5 claws to hold springs. Three of them are fixed on the claw and the other two can be adjusted with the two screws. I think the idea here is to adjust it so that the tremolo's resting point is determined mainly by the tension of the three fixed springs. Since the two adjustable claws makes the springs attached to them shorter, the tension from these springs will therefore be much less than from the fixed ones. Now when you bend a note for example and therefore increases the string tension, the bridge will move from the resting point to the right in the picture. When it does, the tension from the three fixed springs will be higher of cause. But as it moves the tension from the two adjustable springs will more and more effect the total spring tension. The move of the bridge to the right will therefore be shorter compared with just having the three springs. And since the bridge moves a shorter distance, the pitch also changes less then with just the three fixed springs. 

But, when I try to adjust the system I end up with the two screws fully screwed in, i.e. the adjustable springs as long as possible. That is the only setting that I am satisfied with the amount of pitch change I get when I bend a note. So it works fine you might say. But if you watch the picture you will realize that this setting is almost the same as having 5 fixed springs there. The drawback with this setup is that maneuvering the bride will require a lot of muscle force, and you will still get a change in pitch. 

I will change this to the Super Vee Mag-Lok instead. It works much better. It gives me much less pitch change and it requires much less muscle force to do a dive. 

Verdict: Do not use!

Dream Theater

Every now and then I tend to forget how absolutely wonderful Dream Theater can be. When it comes to music I’m really a moody dude. And it is not everyday I cope with the sometimes, even to the listener, demanding progressive metal that they deliver with perfect precision and elite musical skill. But it strikes me every now and then that despite the advance and nasty sections there is a melodical and attractive side that grabbs you and pulls you in (not under ;) Today I discovered them again. I stumbeled on this on YouTube

Absolutely phenomenal! And it reminded me. I visited a concert at Circus, Stockholm, on The Astonishing tour. That was so good and I hope to god that they release a DVD from that tour, but I have not seen anything about that. Still praying.....

Recording 2

Hi!
Long time, no say..

I mentioned before that I was going to create new sounds for the recording and that I planned to use the ENGL amp in my Axe Fx II straight into the computer. I actually abandoned the ENGL simulation in favor for the Diezel Herbert simulation. It liked it much better because of it's slightly fuzzy sound. I remembered tying out a Diezel at Thomann when I was there trying out stacks and even then I liked the Diezel better then the ENGL. Unfortunately the Diezel was way out of my budget so I bought the ENGL Powerball instead. That was not a bad choice, I really liked the ENGL and it served me well until I decided to save my back and swith to the Axe Fx II.

I also tried the Metallica Mesa Boogie Mk II+ simulation that I saw a review of on Youtube. It sounded really good on Youtube but I could not get it to work for me. The Diezel did a much better job. But I eventually ended up with a Mesa simulation for second guitar after all. It worked good together with the Diezel.

As I have realized a crucial part of a simulation is the cab simulation and I tried a lot of cabs in the Cab Pack 19. Fortunately the pack had a really good structure so it was really quite easy to narrow down the cabs that were of interest. I ended up with 20 or so cabs that sounded like I wanted it, but they sounded so close that I could not decide on one of them. So the recording engineer helped me to select one and he also tweaked the sound of it so that it sounded much better.

The recording is still in progress. For the heavy distorted rhythm parts I am recording three tracks. One with the Diezel panned to one side, one with the Mesa panned to the other side and another with the Diezel panned to center. On the panned tracks I am playing almost the same thing but the center track I am complementing the other tracks. I used the 7-string a lot on the center track. The result so far sounds massive and heavy :-D

I have recorded other guitar tracks as well like totally clean, soft crunch, harder crunch and a couple of phaser versions of them. I'll skip the details about them and head for my pillow instead.

Rock on!

Tremolo stabilizers

I'm still in the hunt for the best tremolo stabilizer available. The key factors are as low as possible slack of the strings when a string is bent and a natural feel around the resting point.

I discovered the Hipshot Tremsetter somewhere 80/90. I started to use them and found myself tighten the extra spring really hard to reduce slacking during bends. It worked really good but you really needed muscles to operate the whammy and that setup had a really nonlinear spring tension around the resting point. I used this solution for many years.

Some years ago I saw someone mentioning The Göldo Back Box. It was easier to install except that it had too little space for the screw driver when fastening it to the body of the guitar. I also found it a little bit more cumbersome to adjust. The test installation ended up with a problem. When I moved the whammy up and released it it did not manage to move the bridge to the same resting point as if I did a dive and released it. I therefore replaced it with the Tremsetter and I have not tested it since. Later I got the same problem, but less severe, with a Tremsetter, so it might not have been the Back Box after all. I still have two in possession so, who knows. I might give it a try again sometime.

The next discovery was the SuperVee Mag-Lok. It used magnets instead of springs. It did a really good job stabilizing the tremolo during bends and since the magnets only did it's magic in the resting position it did not require big muscles to operate during dives. It also was much more linear around the resting point. But after a while I discovered that I have gotten tuning problems. It seemed like it switched between the "correct" tuning and a slightly sharp one. It happened sometimes during dives and after some more investigation I realize that it was during really deep dives. You could also here a strange sound during these deep dives. I realized that the Mag-Lok tube hit the guitar body and forced the pin mounted in the sustain block to move up out of the hole. After release of the whammy it did not manage go down fully in the hole again. It therefore moved the resting point. I will redo the installation and put something under the mounting plate so that it never touches the guitar body. I think this be a small fix, I hope ;-)

Just a couple of days ago I found the Van Rosa Stay Tuned Tremolo Claw. After reading about it and seen some tests I got really interested. So I ordered a couple to try them out. It is said to be really easy to install and that it does the stabilizing job really well. Since it uses only normal springs mounted differently I guess that this setup will be really linear around the resting point as well. But we'll see :-)

Can't wait :-)

Rock on!

New Metallica

I just heard the second song made public from the new Metallica album "Hardwired... To Self-Destruct".

The first song they published, Hardwired, was a short thrash right-in-your-face song. I loved both the song and the sound. It was not crushed by a limiter as most of the songs was on the "Death Magnetic" album. The new album seems to have an overall fatter and bigger sound. The only thing I noticed was a just too clicky sound on the base drum, but that I can live with. I really good introduction to the new album!!

The second song "Moth into Flame" shows a slightly different Metallica I think. Okay, as soon as you here the riffs and the drums, wah-solo and the vocals, you unmistakably know it's Metallica. But there are some new spices in the mix. For example the harmonic guitar part before the pre-chorus and the harmony vocals in the same.  Some new spices, but it tastes good!

I am really in waiting now for the release of the full 2 CD album. If the rest of the songs have this hight quality this will be a full on thrash fest. Uahhh!! Yeahh!!

More cleaning

I thought my Agile Hornet Pro 725 volume pot was mended by the electronic cleaning spray, but when I started to do the recording for the Hybridia record I discovered that this was the case at all. Just before full volume the connection was not dependable at all. It really made things painful when performing the guitar tracks since I change the volume every now and between softer and harder parts. When I got home I removed the cover and did another heavy spraying of it. Since then it has worked just perfect so it must have been some dirt or oxide or something. It even survived a gig last Friday. :-)

Rock on!

Rewiring of the Agile Hornet Pro 725

I just wanted you to know that the rewiring of the Agile Hornet Pro 725 went really well. The only thing I discovered was that the pot that I wired in as the volume pot got a bad connection at almost full volume. I discovered the exact same thing once before when I rewired my BC Rich Mocking bird, and that time it went away after some weeks of usage. This time I drowned the pots in electronic cleaning spray and let it do it's thing during the night. That solved the problem. It may have something to do with the soldering procedure, but that's just a guess. Maybe I have to keep the temperature down the next time.

I've installed the Super Vee Mag-Lok on this guitar and a while after the installation I noticed some problems with the tuning. Somehow it changed a lot from time to time. After some investigation I found out that it was due to the fact that the Mag-Lok pin moved up and down the hole in the sustain block. When it had moved up and gotten stuck in a higher position the balance point of the bridge got altered which resulted in a higher pitch. But when the pin somehow got back to it's normal position the pitch dropped again. I tried to jam the pin shut in different ways and I almost succeeded with some sticky tape mounted on the pin and some plastic foam mounted between the Mag-Lok and the hatch. But it still moved slightly. I just did not get what the problem was until I really looked at the Mag-Lok while doing a full dive with the bridge. Then I realized what was causing the Mag-Lok pin to move. When the bridge was in full dive position, the sustain block not only had moved to the back of the cavity, it had also moved down towards the strings because of the turning motion. The bottom of the cavity is horizontal with the body, but the Mag-Lok now needs to lean back into the cavity to keep it's place in the sustain block. Halfway through the dive the Mag-Lok therefore hits the bottom of the cavity and that forces the pin to rice up the hole during the rest of the dive. So the next project will be a change of the installation of the Mag-Lok.



Rock on!

Some fixin'

I finally got some time to fix some issues with some of my guitars. It was not anything big, just a bad connection in the output jack in my BC Rich Mocking Bird that needed fixing. And when the soldering iron was hot I also adjusted the Agile Hornet to my liking, i.e. changed the wiring from two volume and one tone to one volume and one tone. I've never got it in to my head (fingers) which volume to use when, so one is better for me :-)

I also added another battery, so now it runs on 18 V as most of my other guitars. Some years ago I read about running EMGs on 18 V and after watching a demo on youtube I decided to try it out. I made a coupling that allowed for quick switching between 9 V and 18 V so that I could easy hear the difference, if any. And to my big surprise 18 V really made a difference. It increased the headroom and therefore reduced the compressed sound a bit without really removing the sound that I love with EMG pickups.

Since this guitar has a separate battery compartment I had to squeeze in the additional battery beneath the volume pots. There was not really room for this so now the pick guard does not fully rest on the body of the guitar. But hey, It's only rock 'n roll, so who cares. :-) It is impossible to spot anyways if you are not playing the guitar and looking specifically for this.

Rock on!

Recording

Hi!

I've been asleep for a long time now :-D  No, I've been fully occupied but I have not taken time to write something here due to the fact that I think I'm talking to myself. I.e. the number of followers equals absolute zero :-( But I get a lot of page hits all the time so someone must, at least accidentally, have seen my posts. :-) Wtf, who cares!!

I have now entered the studio with one of my bands, Hybridia. We recorded drums today. Since we are an unknown local band we used no real studio. We recorded the drums in our rehearsal room. Our drummer's performance was excellent as usual, so the result sounded really good. I can't wait to here the result after our sound engineer Jonas Fagerlund has put his magic fingers into play.

Sammy Lindberg doing his thing

To prepare myself for the recording I will change the amp I use in my Axe-Fx to a more aggressive one. I had an ENGL Powerball before I changed to the Axe-Fx and I loved it. I will therefore start with that amp and see what happens. I also bought Cab Pack 19 from Fractal Audio just to get some nice ENGL cab impulses. But what really scared me after download was that the cab pack included 728 cab IRs :-O How the .... will I find time and patience to try out all of these to find the best??

To be continued...

Sweden Rock Festival 2015

Hi again!

So here is my quick review of Sweden Rock 2015. I will just quickly mention what bands I saw and what my feelings were about it.

Wednesday

Abramis Brama: I really like what they are doing and they really did not disappoint live either. A good start of the festival for me.

Lillasyster: I have not heard much of Lillasyster, but I like some of the songs Lok did back in the days so I figured this would be interesting. This was not my thing at all I discovered. I stayed for three songs or so. I had no expectations, so it did not matter.

Hell: My festival soul mate said that Hell was good. I had never heard them, but I joined. This should have been my thing, but I did not like the musical performance and the songs was not good. I could have done it better myself ;-)

Evergrey: This is a band that I really like and their newest release is very good. But the show was not good at all sadly. The guitars were really too low and the background samples way too high in the mix. There were a lot of playing errors as well. It is okay for some bands when it's live to make errors every now and then, but not for this band. They are normally very good and competent musicians so this must have been a bad day for them. Pity :-(

D.A.D: I have seen them a couple of times before and they get better and better every time. This was no exception. This was the best concert I've ever seen with D.A.D. A really funny stage decor, the band performed at it's max, even though the base player was replaced by the guitarist Soren Andersen. They even burned down a complete drumkit :-O. Just watch here. Rock 'n Roll!!! This was the best of Wednesday.

Thursday

Steve Grimmet's Grim Reaper, with founder Nick Bowcott on guitar. This was a real treat!! I never thought that I would see this band live and it was as good as I guessed it would be. Steve's voice was amazing, they played good songs, and the the rest of the band delivered. Heaven was near ;-) The only problem was that Slash was on at the same time. :-( Halfway though the show I wandered off to Slash.

SLASH featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators: Well, what can I say? Very good! They totally delivered. Enough said...

Airbourne: I did not like these guys in the beginning, but now I think they rock. They deliver violent rock 'n roll at high tempo with a lot of energy. No finesse, just raw three chord power rock.

Toto: For me Toto has always been too soft, but something has happened during the years. Okay it has always been interesting as a guitar player to listen to what Mr Lukather is up to, but that is not everything I need. I think they are much better live, and maybe I have changed during the years. This concert contained everything that they are known for, good fm-rock with a tooth. Really good.

Def Leppard: I saw them a couple of years ago on Sweden Rock and I was totally surprised how good it was. There songs are really great, that I did know, but they really performed the songs with a lot more rock edge. This show was no exception. Really good with a lot of good songs performed really well.

Ghost: I have seen them a couple of times before and I'm really liking them. Their first release was good, but I think the second one should have had more guitars on it. When I heard the new single I was really thrilled because it was much heavier than anything else they have released. The last time I saw them I thought that the pope (nr two) was not singing well at all. Now they had a new pope and new songs. The show, the music and the vocals was much better than before. It was somewhat of an surprise and a really good one. I can't wait to here the new CD.

The best of Thursday is way harder to decide and I think I'll pass on that.

The other two days will come in the next post. Now it's definitely time to sleep...

Rock on!