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Featuring the DMCA-Free Rock of KCWM & Cold the Winter

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      • 197x Session Les Paul Custom Copy
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      • 2018 Fender P-Bass Special FSR
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  • New and Sold Guitars Guitars
  • The Hondo H-737: Are “Bad” Guitars Actually Bad? Gear Talk
  • Two New Songs On the Horizon KCWM
  • Goodbye Pedalboard Currently Owned Pedals
  • Goodbye, Pedalboard…maybe Currently Owned Pedals
  • The Release Plan for Volume Four KCWM
  • “It Feels Familiar” Volume Four
  • “Go On” Volume Four

Pedals

Once a guitarist is bitten by the pedal bug, it’s already too late. They are doomed to a nearly unending quest to find just the right tone. My pedal journey started with a Zvex Box of Rock back in 2007 and, man, has it been a wild ride.

My main board is a 24″ by 12″ custom board made by a company called Solid Rock Customs. Unfortunately, shortly after finishing my board, Solid Rock Customs indicated they were leaving the business, which is unfortunate.

Since starting the process of recording Skylines and the Horizon in 2017 the pedals I’ve used have changed considerably, with very few staying the same. Due to the way my collection has grown over the years, and wanting to incorporate as many options as I can, my pedal chain is set up in three stages.

My Current Pedals

When one is putting together a pedal board, there is an order that gear heads would agree on

  • A compressor or wah pedal is at the front
  • Pitch bending pedals
  • Overdrive, distortion, and fuzz pedals
  • Modulation
  • Delay and reverb pedals are the caboose to the pedal train.You can always play with the order, and let’s not get into stacking drive pedals together to get all sorts of interesting sounds.

To be honest, there’s not really a need for me to have a traditional pedal board. I could just pull out what I need when I need it. I just like the convenience of turning everything on at once and having a board with the pedals as neatly arranged as I could get them.

Let’s group these pedals by maker, in ABC order. Colors are explained a bit further below

    • Blackout Effectors: Musket (Whiteout Edition)
    • Danelectro:  CF-1 Fuzz (Peachfuzz clone)
    • Disaster Area: Micro Clock
    • Dunlop: MC404 CAE Wah
    • Electro Harmonix (EHX): POG 2
    • EQD: Dunes and Black Ash
    • Keeley: SuperMOD Workstation
    • Line 6: M5 Modeler
    • Loophole Pedals: Grey Matter
    • Lovepedal: Jubilee, Plexi Pro 100, and Purple Plexi Plus
    • Mooer: Black Secret
    • Mosky: Plexi-M
    • MXR: Timmy
    • Strymon: El Capistan
    • Tapestry Audio: Fab Suisse
    • TC Electronic: Ditto X2, Nova Delay, Polytune 3, and T2
    • Wampler: Ego Compressor, Sovereign, and Tumnus Deluxe
    • Zvex: Double Rock

These are powered by a Voodoo Labs ISO 5, a Trutone CS12, and a few adapters. There might be a couple of y-cables in there to allow for extra pedals to get plugged in.

The Benchwarmers

I have the following pedals sitting up on a shelf either waiting to be used, or a couple potentially on the chopping block to be sold:

    • Diamond Pedals: Memory Lane Jr.
    • Digitech: Mosaic
    • DOD: Rubberneck
    • Donner: White Wizard
    • Kokko: Compressor and Distortion
    • Loophole Pedals: Zvex Wooly Mammoth clone

What the Colors Mean

    • Fuzz – Drive effect that is generally very saturated. Billy Corgan helped make this even more famous via the first Smashing Pumpkins albums
    • Overdrive – Overloads the signal to replicate the sound of a tube amp breaking up. Overdrive is generally a less saturated sound
    • Distortion – Similar to overdrive but is more distorted/saturated. Think of 80s metal, 90s grunge, and 00s post-grunge rock
    • Modulation – Changes the texture of the signal. Examples from famous songs include “Come As You Are” for chorus, “Lightning Crashes” for phaser, “Unchained” for flanger, and “Black Hole Sun” for a rotary effect.
    • Delay/Reverb – Delay takes the notes you’ve played and repeats them. Reverb is like an echo in a room, only more complicated.
    • Utility – Other things, like pitching shifting, compression, wah, etc.

Why so many overdrive and distortion pedals!?!?

If we count them up all of the sky blue names above, I have a whopping FIFTEEN different drive pedals. One might be inclined to ask, “Why in the world would you need fifteen different pedals that do the same thing?”  and that’s a fair question. At the beginning of 2022, interestingly enough while in the middle of a stint in the ICU, I read what is probably the best comparison: Is one type of chocolate sufficient for someone that enjoys chocolate?  I’m not even a chocolate lover and I can think of at least four different chocolates that I enjoy, even more if you add in toffee, nougat, caramel, or rice crisps to the mix. Let’s do a quick Q&A of things I’ve been asked before.

Do I NEED all of them?
No. Even I cannot deny that I do not need all of them. I have a lot of them because I’m a sucker for 48 month 0% financing that costs me $4 or $5 a month each.

Do I know which ones I’d keep if I had to start selling them off?
Yes.

Do I have favorites that I tend to use more than the others?
Absolutely.

Why so many pedals then?
In a situation where all I do is record music, and not just for myself, I want to have the right tool for the job. I compare drive pedals to chocolate. There’s not just one type of chocolate and not all chocolate is meant to fill the same role. The same goes for drive pedals

Let’s take a deeper dive into that last question and point. These are not arranged favorites, rather by order they are on my board.

Light Overdrive

These are the pedals that you use to recreate the sound of a tube amp that’s loud enough that the clean signal is starting to break up and add a bit of distortion to the signal. If you play the guitar right, you can even keep the sound clean and then really dig into your playing to bring that overdriven sound back into focus…you can add some really cool dynamics with this kind of pedal. When I think of recognizable songs to reference, I immediately think of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Free Fallin'” ,  Genesis’ “The Way I Walk”,  or Joe Cochran’s “Life is a Highway” as three examples of songs that, in my opinion, incorporate light overdrive.

    • The Loophole Pedals Grey Matter is actually a really cool pedal made by a local pedal maker. I believe I have #3 ever produced. It is a clone of the grey DOD Preamp 250. It’s been a while since I’ve tinkered with it, but there’s a lot of flexibility within the pedal and even after owning it for some time now, I still go back to it. It was actually a primary reason I made the smaller board and stuck it on the floor
    • I picked up the Tapestry Audio Fab Suisse after my old BPM pedal, the Time Traveler, stopped working right. The folks at Tapestry Audio were pretty awesome and I’d been interested in the pedal. After talking back and forth with the rep, they cut me a good deal and I picked it up. It’s based on a Marshall Bluesbreaker, a pedal based on an older Marshall amp, but I’m not familiar with either one. As of 2/25/22 I’ve added this to the signal chain to replace the Subdecay Vector I had in that place
    • The MXR Timmy is a mini version of one of the best light overdrive pedals ever made. It’s considered a “transparent overdrive” in that it doesn’t really add it’s own “color” to what your amp sounds like. It just amplifies it. The tone controls let you cut frequencies, so it gets really interesting to use. I used it on the kcwm albums a lot. It’s one that was SO popular that a big pedal maker like Danelectro actually cloned the pedal (the CTO-1) and sold it for something like $35, Heck, in fact, it was so much of a clone that the president of Danelectro reached out to the creator of the Timmy, had a conversation, and Danelectro paid the man. This comes from the dude’s own words on The Gear Page, though you’d have to spend a few minutes finding the post where he talked about it
    • The Wampler Tumnus Delxue is another pedal. It’s Wampler’s take on the legendary Klon pedal. There’s a toggle that you can use to add some extra gain and push this into an almost medium overdrive sound, but I have other tools for that sound. It’s similar to the Timmy, but yet it’s different. Can most people hear those differences? Probably not. Can I? Maybe not…probably not
    • The EQD Dunes is a take on the classic Ibanez Tubescreamer pedal. A few years back, EQD made this large pedal called a Palisades which had all of these different settings. The Dunes is the most popular of those settings in a smaller enclosure. I actually owned a clone of this pedal that I ended up selling to a friend because I bought this. I have a demo I made of the clone floating around somewhere. Very solid pedal, though one I don’t use as often as I thought I would
    • I picked up the Lovepedal Plexi 100 because I had some gift certificates to Guitar Center after buying our youngest child an electronic drum set. I think I paid $40 out of pocket for it. I saw it for sale at the local Guitar Center and did some reading, liked what I read, and went and bought it. When I got it home, it just didn’t have the gain I thought I’d read it had. Then I realized I’d read about the Purple Plexi. It sound good so I didn’t take it back. I mean, $40 for a pedal that runs $200 on Reverb?

Medium Overdrive

To me, this is the meat of rock songs. The Who, Led Zepplin, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden…all great examples of the range of what I think is the sweet spot. Sure, did the latter two swing into harder rock sounds? Yeah, probably, but Pearl Jam has stayed in this realm for most of their studio releases.

This is the realm of overdriven Marshall sounds, which is why “Marshall-in-a-box” pedals are so popular. Hell, I have five MIABs on my board. Having never owned a proper Marshall amp, and I’ll never be in a real position to push a Marshall amp to get those tones, these pedals are a godsend to me.

Honestly, for as much as I love the idea of a thick, heavy distortion, it doesn’t translate well to a recording. Even Nirvana’s Nevermind sounds heavier than it is because of how the producer, Butch Vig, layered four or five guitar tracks. Think about their follow up album In Utero. It doesn’t sound nearly as heavy. Raw, maybe, but raw doesn’t equal heavy.

    • The Mosky Plexi-M cost me a whopping $30 on Amazon new. It and the Kokko Distortion are actually REALLY good sounding pedals for an incredibly low price. After buying the Purple Plexi Plus I bought this to see how it compared. While it’s a bit noisier (the hiss and hum that comes through when you’re not playing anything), for $200 less, it gets pretty close. At the same time, you get what you pay for. My particular pedal doesn’t have the most useful gain knob…it seems to go from 0-60 at the briefest of turns, but I get what I want out of it…a solid, medium overdrive
    • The Mooer Black Secret is a Proco Rat clone that has a switch that turns it into a clone of the Turbo Rat. The Rat style pedal is a classic sound. It’s one of my newer pedals and was only used at the end of the Volume Three album as a lead part
    • While some people love the Lovepedal Purple Plexi Plus for how much gain it has, it’s most useful settings fit well within the medium overdrive description. It’s that classic rock sound of a roaring Marshall. To me, it’s the sound I’ve been chasing for a long time. Before it, I’d used a Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe which replaced a JHS Sweet Tea v3 (which contains the JHS Angry Charlie v3 on one side). I even bought the Plexi 100 thinking it was the Purple Plexi Plus. Each time, I got a little closer to what I wanted, but both the Pinnacle Deluxe and Sweet Tea just felt off. Then I found the Purple Plexi Plus. It is the pedal I reach for most often. Add the boost it has built in and it’s really hard to beat
    • The Lovepedal Jubilee is a pedal I picked up because a) my Purple Plexi was lost in transit and b) I’d read that it was very similar to the aforementioned Purple Plexi but had less gain. “Great! I don’t need all that gain!” I thought. Yeah…it’s nowhere close to the same sound. Similar? Yes. Same? Nope. It would also be the first drive pedal on my board I’d get rid of. If it weren’t for the idea of having all three Lovepedal pedals lined up, I’d likely have moved it now. That probably means I should sell it. This is the one of two pedals that I have not used on any recording
    • OK. So the Zvex Double Rock should PROBABLY be on the light overdrive section, but I use it as a light-medium drive most of the time. I’m telling you, when I first bought the Box of Rock I was in love with it. Sure, it’s known for having a bassier sound, and I love Les Paul style guitars which are, you guessed it, known for a bassier sound.I eventually had to sell my Box of Rock, but years later I was able to buy a Distortron, which was the drive side of the Box of Rock with a couple of switches to a) cut the bass and b) boost the drive. Then I learned about the Double Rock. I was immediately sold. Two Box of Rocks in one enclosure with a bass cut? Score!
    • The Wampler Sovereign doesn’t appear to be styled after any particular pedal in general. It’s a good, solid classic rock tone (so maybe a Marshall-in-a-box?). I’ve used it for a number of lead parts. With the addition of the Purple Plexi Plus, I see this getting used less, but it’s been a dependable pedal that’s never let me down when I’ve used it, so it’s a keeper fpr now

Fuzz

While not the originators of the sound, it’s hard to talk about fuzz and not mention Smashing Pumpkins, especially their Siamese Dream album. The way that “Cherub Rock” or “Today” blast off (not to mention “Rocket”), the sound of the EHX Big Muff is all over that album. I own three different fuzzes and they are all very different from one another.

    • The Danelectro CF-1 Fuzz is a clone of the Frantone Peachfuzz. Like the CTO-1 mentioned above, the CF-1 sold for about $35 and was, and still is, a fraction of the cost of the pedal it was ripped from. Like the CTO-1 (and CO-1 that was a clone of the Fulltone OCD), the CF-1 was discontinued and redesigned under the CF-2 model number. While I’ve sold two CTO-1 and the CO-1 I bought, the CF-1 has remained. It is a thick fuzz sound. Some people think it’s along the same lines as the Big Muff. Either way, for the $35 I spent on it
    • The EQD Black Ash was a limited edition pedal where I think 1500 were produced. It cost $150 and I see them going for something like $450 now on Reverb. It’s a Bender-style fuzz that has a brighter sound to it. You can turn the gain down and get some gnarly overdriven sounds out of it. It’s a super flexible pedal. I believe I used it on “All the Feels” from Volume Three
    • The Musket Fuzz (the white one in the corner) is close to that classing Smashing Pumpkins fuzz sound (the Big Muff) but with a few extra controls to adjust some of the shortcomings of that type of pedal

So, as you can see, each drive has its own story…its own flavor. There is definitely SOME crossover and there are some I could definitely see myself getting rid of, but it’s also fun to figure out which sound I want for which part, especially as I move into a more permanent area of having 3 separate guitar parts in the songs I record.

I”m always happy to talk gear, especially if someone has questions on a pedal I currently own. The pedal world has gotten HUGE and, frankly, a bit complicated for my feeble old man brain. I’m actually quite happy with the collection I have, though I am tempted to sell most of them and just get a Line 6 Helix.

All the best!

Cold the Winter · Skylines and the Horizon

Latest Instagram Posts

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I have a number of minis I’m working on at the m I have a number of minis I’m working on at the moment. Here’s my table of things in different stages of #tabletopquality for use in my #dnd campaign, some of which haven’t been started or might not be used. The kobolds you see will be painted green.

When I started the genie, I didn’t realized my pre-painted one was also blue. It still works though. 

I’m still not sold on the idea of a steel dragon but it could be cool and I already have a “large” silver dragon. I used magnets on the bottom of the dragon, the large and huge bases, and I can stack them if I need it to be an adult-sized dragon. I just need to decorate them in complimentary ways. 

 I have an idea for mini painting streams and these are some of the things I’ll be painting on there.
I have a soft spot for kobolds in my DnD campaigns I have a soft spot for kobolds in my DnD campaigns. My players have met one that has hinted at future quests, they fought some green-scaled kobolds, and I foresee more in their future. 

I pulled the old minion old rule from #dnd 4e…enemies that have 1 hp and auto fail most saves. Kobolds (and goblins) make great minions. 

 I have quite a few, so I foresee more red (two of them are pre painted), green, and blue scales in my future. They might be #tabletopquality but I’m ok with that. I have fun and painting is relaxing for me. 

The red plastic minis came from a D&D board game, and tall but one of the gray and white ones are from @reaperminiatures #bones4 and #bones5
In March of 2021, I discovered the Lovepedal Purpl In March of 2021, I discovered the Lovepedal Purple Plexi and it was finally the closest I’ve come to getting that Marshall-in-a-Box pedal sound. 

Earlier this year, I picked up a Lovepedal Vintage/Modern, which is a Purple Plexi and Church of Tone in one enclosure. 

Not too long ago, I came across a post @cklabofficial posted of their take on a Purple Plexi/Jubilee, two pedals I owned at the time. I really like CKLab pedals and would have loved to have it, but, alas, I missed out. 

I reached out and asked about the possibility of a 2-in-1 from CKLAB. This is the result. 

I am beyond stoked. This will make my 3rd CKLab pedal and I hope to own more. I love the idea of support local makers and, seeing as how the Vintage/Modern is my go to drive, this will be my #1. 

Visit their store on Reverb and buy their pedals so I’m not tempted to. Seriously. The LSDelay I bought is so damned cool. 

#supportlocalpedals #cklab #miabpedals #gooddudes #newpedalday
A couple of #WIP #dndminiatures projects from this A couple of #WIP #dndminiatures projects from this weekend. I intend to use both in the #dnd campaign im running, but it will be a while before I do. 

I need to add some white lines to the texture around the iris and add something to the black section of the base. 

The mold lines on the pumpkin dude are bugging me now that I see how clear they are in the picture. Will cut those down and fix the color. 

I intend to prime up some of these #reaper #bones5 minis I have sitting on my shelves and paint them on stream. I might only paint to a #tabletopquality but it’s still fun and relaxing to do.
After picking up almost all the paints in the thir After picking up almost all the paints in the third picture, I’ve taken up mini painting again. I decided to start with a treant to work into my #dnd campaign. 

This is still a work in progress. I started with some normal paints and then added some contrast paint on the beard and to accent some of the wood. I need to make some adjustments to the paint. 

I plan to add leaves to the top but my foliage is too crumbly so I need to get some bigger chunks. 

It’s been fun. I’m likely going to stream some #minipainting on stream. I have minis to paint to get on the #tabletop, which is also the level that I paint at but it works for my table.
This kid. This past Saturday marked 10 years with This kid. This past Saturday marked 10 years with our wonderful child…a blend of her mother and I in so many ways. 

I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years bring us. She has a good head on her shoulders. 

I’m a proud parent. She’s weird AF but I wouldn’t have her any other way.
Cross post from Twitter, but I have more room here Cross post from Twitter, but I have more room here. 

This is my current stable of electric guitars, minus my Epiphone ES339.

PRS S2 McCarty 594: “Fat” rhythm. This guitar has “coil tap” which  changes the sound of the respective pickups giving me a lot of flexibility. 

Fender Telecaster (sunburst): Lead/rhythm. I do 90% of my 2nd guitar and lead work on this. It’s on every track I’ve recorded since 2018. 

Squier Classic Vibe ‘60s Stratocaster: General rhythm. Newest addition. Everyone needs a strat, even if I rarely grab one. 

Fender Road-worn ‘50s Telecaster (purple): Bright rhythm. 

Gibson Les Paul Classic: “Fat” rhythm. My #1 guitar. It’s crunchy compared to the smoother sound of the PRS

PRS SC245 Ted McCarty: Bright rhythm. 

Squier ‘51 (modified): Lead

Yes, some guitars overlap but they sound different than their role-siblings. Wood, pickups, etc. I compare guitars to chocolate…yes, they’re all guitars but they do things differently. Hersheys doesn’t taste the same as Toblerone or Ritter Sport. Milk chocolate differs from dark chocolate. Heck, I even threw a peanut butter comparison up there. 

I have two basses and an acoustic. One of those basses is new so I’m not sure of the roles just yet. 

#kcwmmusic #dmcafreemusic #guitarsarelikechocolate #gearaddiction #guitar
Bought a new caddy from Michaels and was able to s Bought a new caddy from Michaels and was able to stack my unopened #nolzursmarvelousminiatures and #reaperbonesminiatures to better see what I have. 

Left row is full of player mini and humanoids, the middle row is made up of monstrous humanoids and undead, and the right row consists of elementals and fiendish things. 

I have a lot of minis to paint, but this helps me visualize what I have left between the shelves and this caddy.
Well… Well…
Ever since having COVID last month, she’s been a Ever since having COVID last month, she’s been a constant by my side when she can get in. She will lay with me or on the other pillow. She might be ornery, but she’s the bestest of friends. 

#tortiesofinstagram #tortitude #tortie #catsofinstagram #imakittycat #frausafriend #cat
Hey, uh @walmart, this isn’t how rollbacks work. Hey, uh @walmart, this isn’t how rollbacks work. #rollback
Not too long ago, we picked up a KALLAX shelf syst Not too long ago, we picked up a KALLAX shelf system from IKEA to store my #dnd minis on. It’s been handy for sorting the minis by “collection” like my Bones 4 and Bones 5 minis, but, as you can see in the 2nd picture, I lost plenty of vertical space. 

A few weeks ago, I saw a video on TikTok where a guy used KVISSLE letter trays to store his minis on. They are easy to assemble and the trays simply slide in and out without rollers. 

For most minis on a 1” or smaller base, it’s absolutely perfect AND there’s room at the bottom for the box sets like the Essentials Kit or Starter Set. For larger minis, you can see I removed one of the trays and that shelf has plenty of giants on it and the KVISSLE still has two shelves out of the picture (Ellie took it and sent it to me). 

He used spray paint to paint the shelves black but I’m opting for the white on black look. You can also buy magnets to install on the bottoms of the minis but I’ve yet to do that. 

It’s easy to amass a big collection of DnD #miniatures through the #reaperbones collections or the #nolzursmarvelousminiatures packs and having an easy way to organize them is incredibly useful. 

Now it’s just a matter of painting them. Oof.
My newest single, “Go On”, is live on Spotify My newest single, “Go On”, is live on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/album/0bTGahUMwQnPrIECWapOby?si=aGrl3wvhQAOugU3Yo07EeQ for your DMCA-free listening needs. 

#Distrokid put this image together and I dig it. Check it, and the other 90s-infuenced instrumental rock music on Spotify and other streaming platforms!

#dmcafreemusic #dmcafreerock #streammusic #music #guitarrock #guitar #kcwmmusic
He’s a good #pickle @teresa.aldaco @moriaheliz He’s a good #pickle 

@teresa.aldaco @moriahelizabethofficial
Started on 6/7/21, shelved due to significant burn Started on 6/7/21, shelved due to significant burnout, and delayed due to health reasons, "Go On", the 1st song of #kcwmmusic Volume Four is moving along. 

The EZKeys you see plays a more front & center role on this song than the last time I used keys on "Sometimes It Works Out" on Volume One. I might end up going with a more traditional piano, but so far I'm digging the setting you see pictured. 

As with my previous KCWM releases, I'm using Superior Drummer 3, though I plan to dig more into some of the presets and expansions to vary the drums, especially on some of the more laid back songs.

This album is the first of mine to feature acoustic guitar on numerous tracks thanks to a pair of Rode M5 mics, another significant shift. 

I'm definitely looking to add some more songs to the more relaxed playlist on Spotify. Acoustic guitar and piano definite help keep me in that headspace. 

I have two days off and I'm hoping to get the 2nd, and maybe a 3rd guitar, recorded. Then it's just a matter of spacing things out before getting this up on Spotify as a single for people to use. 

I'll keep you posted

#dmcafreemusic #dmcafreerock #songwriting #ezkeys @toontrack @rodemic
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6h

My wife & youngest kid did @23andMe kits. We finally got the results & our kid shares 50% of my DNA, but only 49.6% of my wife's. Also, looking at all of our percentages & seeing how that turned out is fascinating. My wife is 52% Italian, I'm .2%, but Ellie is 30%. Interesting!

31 Jan

Ep3 of #TLOU might be one of my absolute favorite episodes of television ever. That better win some kind of award.

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