EliasMooseblaster

Possibly better known these days as the theme from Peaky Blinders, this track originally came from Let Love In, which is, at least to mind, one of the Bad Seeds’ finest albums. Arranged for acoustic guitar and voice:

I remain very pleased with mine: it's still making all the right sounds (as far as I can tell), and its 9V DC socket works as well, which is the only issue I've had with cheap pedals previously! I'm no stranger to the cheaper end of the market as I also own a couple of Joyo guitar pedals, and only recently moved on my Behringer BDI21 for bass (issues with the aforementioned 9V DC, among other things). I know what you mean - there is a slightly liberating feeling of "well, this only cost me £30; if I don't like it, I haven't lost very much" - not to mention the spirit of "well, of course I'll try it with all the controls maxed...if it bursts into flames, I've only lost £30..."

Yeah, I'd second that, actually. If I've gone into guitar shops to try an amp or pedal, I usually grab an Epi SG off the wall as it's the closest thing they have - so I've tried a few! - but it's never made me feel like I was missing out with my VS6. (If anything, I've come away thinking it played better than some of them...)

I went all-valve on my bass gear a few years ago (Ashdown), but I've only got halfway there with the guitar setup - got a Blackstar HT-1 for practise and recording. I know it's a hybrid, but I wasn't gigging enough on guitar to warrant a bigger amp. If that does change, I'm tempted by the Laney Cub series - anyone else had a play around with those?

Ah yes, Gibson/Epiphone style bridges are great fun - you should see their infamous "three-point" bass bridge, which literally falls to pieces if you turn it over with the strings off! In the case of the Les Paul, the actual "bridge" part is the bit in the middle (so closest to the pickup), and the bit that goes right at the back is usually called the tail-piece, or stop-tail. The break angle is the angle that the string makes between the two - basically you want the tail-piece to sit lower than the bridge, so that it's pulling the ends of the strings down towards the body.

My experience of Vox amps is that they're bloody loud for their rated wattage, so I imagine it would have enough juice for small gigs and rehearsals! I had a Pathfinder 15R for a few years, and the few gigs I did with it, I certainly wasn't struggling to be heard. Afraid I can't comment on the ins and outs of the model you've got in mind, but I think as long as you like their "baked-in" tone, Vox are a pretty safe bet.

I might have to buy one of your signature models! I'm a sucker for a good-looking SG, and there is something wonderfully aggressive about the ones with P90s. I might be tempted to have a trem retro-fitted to mine, though. Maybe one of those Bigsby ones, like Robby Krieger had on one of his SGs.

I've been using a Seymour Duncan Woody to connect my acoustic guitar to various amplifiers over the years. More recently, I've grown increasingly concerned about its low output (another thread on this sub-forum, incidentally!) and wondered whether to replace it. At my last gig it failed on me completely - the sound guy couldn't appear to get any output, and a short trawl of the internet has led me to a forum full of other disgruntled users opining that the Woody's construction isn't very robust, and when it does work, its low output has left them relying on an outboard preamp in a lot of circumstances. So: what would the acoustic enthusiasts on here recommend? I want something which: - is easily removable OR doesn't obstruct the soundhole. The pickup is for live use only; in the studio I prefer to mic the body. - sounds good for folk-blues fingerpicking - doesn't cost an arm and a leg. The guitar is an Epi AJ-10 with a few modest upgrades - it would seem silly to spend more than a couple of hundred quid on a pickup for it! Over to you...

How about an SG? Very similar beast to the Les Paul - two humbuckers, Gibson scale length, etc., but a *much* thinner and lighter body. The Epiphone SGs are pretty good, and I've been bashing away on a Vintage VS6 (https://www.jhs.co.uk/vintage-vs6-reissued-electric-guitar-cherry-red-gold-hardware) for years now - great value for money, especially with all the Wilkinson hardware! Plus I've always thought they look more badass than LPs...

The classic Black Sabbath guitar sound is a Gibson SG into a Laney valve amp - obviously that would be quite an investment, but one of the key differences in the tone will be the fact that the SG has two humbucking pickups*, and those do sound quite fundamentally different from the single-coil pickups in a Telecaster. It's a thicker, more bass-heavy sound, but you can approximate it by using the neck pickup, turning the tone down a little, and keeping the guitar's volume up. Now to your amp: does it have a "Gain", "Drive", or "Input Volume" control? Getting the overdrive under control can often be key to these things - in my experience, you can usually get a decent overdrive tone out of smaller practice amps, but they can also sound quite "fizzy" if you set the drive too high. Have a play with the overdrive at lower gain/drive/input vol settings - you want plenty of crunch, but you also don't want to lose the definition in your sound (if you don't have gain/drive/input on the amp, you can turn down the guitar's volume to tame the overdrive). As for the amp's EQ, I'd probably start by backing off the treble a bit, and experiment with the bass and mids to see how it sounds - I'm afraid it's hard to be specific without knowing the amp myself! Hope that's of some help - let us know how you get on! *well, probably P-90s when they recorded Paranoid, but those sound more like humbuckers than Fender-style single coils!

Not one of the better-known blues players, but I love his tone and playing style. One of my favourite examples: Now, the little information I can find suggests a Guild Starfire, possibly going into some kind of Bassman, and probably laying into his strings like a p!55ed-off cage fighter. Can anyone with a better ear suggest what kind of settings I might be looking for (with an SG running into a Blackstar combo)...or am I going to have to bite the bullet and buy a Guild?

A friend of mine did perform some extensive surgery on his Squier Strat to enable him to select the Neck + Bridge positions together (I couldn't swear blind, but I think he used that setting on this song). I'm inclined to agree with you about the bridge pickups, though - most Teles have a very particular "snarl" to them, which just seems to be more of a "quack" on a Strat.

Potentially a good band name, but more to the point: if you have a tremolo pedal, where's your preferred spot for it in your signal path? I expect this to come down to experimentation and personal preference, but I've always used the following sequence as a starting point: Guitar -> Dynamic pedals (volume, compressor, wah, etc) -> Distortions and Overdrives -> Modulators (chorus, flange, etc) -> Amp Trouble with the above is, tremolo is an amplitude modulator, so I'm not sure whether to see it as a dynamic effect, or as a modulation effect. And I'm aware that the above is far from a hard-and-fast rule. So, save me using my brain and tell me what you do.

UPDATE 16-09-2019: this item has likely found a buyer elsewhere, pending payment Danelectro DJ-2 "T-Bone" Distortion Pedal for guitar I've had this pedal for something like 15 years now, and the sad fact is that, for most of that time, it's been gathering dust. I originally bought it as a cheaper alternative to dedicated bass distortion effects, where I found it worked surprisingly well, and it offers a nice, warm distortion sound when paired, as intended, with an electric guitar. As you'll see from the photos, I managed to knock the shaft off the Distortion knob. It still turns perfectly well under a bit of pressure from a fingertip, and besides this damage the pedal appears to still work perfectly well. Includes a 9V battery, and the original box, which has seen better days! I work in London and live in Surrey, if anybody wants to meet up to collect, or I'm happy to arrange postage, which should only cost a few quid on top of the sale price.

It's definitely more pronounced on the bass version! I've never found it to be a deal-breaker myself, though friends who've borrowed an SG for a gig in place of their normal Strat or Les Paul have commented on it. I'm sure the degree to which it bothers a player will depend on their playing style.

The question popped into to my head as I was once advise against buying a Bass VI to adapt to a Baritone, because the pickups are (unsurprisingly) tuned for bass frequencies, so I would have struggled to get the sound I was after. So I assumed that Baris probably used "regular" guitar pickups, but then started to wonder whether there was any market for a pickup that favoured that "in-between" range!

I've heard this mentality from some Strat and LP players - the notion that the Tele and SG were "supposed to be cheaper, mass-produced guitars," and that there's no point in investing in the expensive, high-end American versions, you may as well save your pennies and get the MiM / Epiphone versions. Granted, the SG is a far simpler construction than a properly chambered, curved-top Les Paul, but I still think it's a thing of beauty in its own right. Yes, it's got that rough-and-readiness about it through association with groups like The Who and AC/DC, and indeed some punk bands, but it's worth remembering that Cream-era Clapton and Santana's early work showed how they could really sing.

A little update to announce that my quest is at an end. My dilemma began with the choice of TS9 vs TS808, and it ended on that theme without me having to make a decision. I was fortunate enough to stumble across a (very cheap) Chinese clone called the "Tubescreamer Demon" - same controls as a regular TS (Drive, Tone, Level) plus a toggle switch to flick betwen TS9 and TS808 modes. In short, both circuits in one pedal, for a fraction of the price. I'm sure the audiophiles will be able to play with it and tell me where it's lacking over the original Ibanez pedal(s), but it does the job as far as my ear can tell. The only drawback is that they labelled all the controls in Comic Sans...

Daft question alert: do manufacturers make/recommend specialised pickups for baris? Or are they regular guitar pickups?

I'm glad it's not just me - I think you've described the difference in their tones far better than I could, and it's good to know the difference wasn't just in my own head. There's definitely something a bit less grandiose but more aggressive in the SGs I've tried.

I suppose the key thing is that it's optional. The biggest pitfall would be to create something which has so many options, it's impossible to find the "classic" sound(s) that you expect, e.g., a Les Paul to produce. As long as the core tone is all present and correct, you have a simple, usable option, without being forced to explore the additional bells and whistles...but if they can't get that right, then they're really in trouble!

Quite. I shopped around for a Telecaster because I wanted a SC guitar; when I found one with two HBs and a coil tap it seemed like the best of both worlds! I do believe the Wilkinsons I popped into my SG copy could also be tapped if I were to buy some switches or push/pull pots to connect the extra wires, and I am tempted every now and then.

(...vs Explorer vs Flying V vs Firebird, etc...) Is there, fundamentally, a difference in tone? Obviously a Les Paul Standard has a very different body construction from an SG Standard, and different players have their preferences. Personally I've always felt there's something a bit too "bombastic" about the tone of a LP, which I don't hear so much in SGs. But then, if you take a more reductionist view of these Gibson designs, the pickup placements and wirings are the same. Ditto the Flying V, Explorer, Firebird - all their twin humbucker designs, basically. And there's no denying that there's a vague and generic "Gibson sound" which they all produce. So: can anyone with more experience tell me whether a Les Paul will sound fundamentally different from an SG, all other variables being equal? Or is it (a) my imagination? (b) something about their build/weight/feel which inspires one to play them differently? (c) something else entirely?

Well, they certainly sound like Les Pauls! Guess it's hard to tell without actually playing one, but I would have thought the coil-tapping/phase-switching would be useful features to include on a modern range. Anyone care to clarify what exactly the "blowout" switch is that they kept referring to on one of the models?

I've never been particularly fussy (though I found quite early on that I wasn't too keen on Ernies) - usually I've stuck to Rotosound and D'Addario, and sometimes Martin for acoustic strings. (One limitation has been finding companies who make a .16 set for the resonator!) Though recently, I did give a set of Martin Monel strings a punt on my regular acoustic - a very different feel from most modern phosphor bronze sets, and I have to admit I've found myself warming to the sound of them (no pun intended).