either clapton or brian may use 6's , crazy

he looked mad when ginger baker got a big applause recently at a show

Play what feels right. Used to play 9-42 and went the other way.

One of my favorite players, Brett Garsed, plays 11-52.

Cool vid to me

https://youtu.be/jsCeSHAFoh4?si=hgGz8I5pstfhJDfG

whose tried a Tom Anderson, what are they like compared to Suhr?

Fender: Obviously looking to cash in on the Quad Cortex/Helix/Fractal FM3 thing. The rumoured price is comical.

Friedman: Two channel tube preamp + boost with power amp simulation and an IR loader built in.

You might say why not use a Tonex? Nothing wrong with that but why not use as much of the real thing as possible? There are a couple of 12AX7s in there running at what I'll assume is similar plate voltage to an amp.

That's because the Fender sound people get wood over comes from a loud amp. At lower volumes modeling does a capable job to my ears.

Tone King is built in the same warehouse as Friedman and Morgan (Boutique Amps Distribution). If I'm paying that kind of money for a Fender circuit I'd just find someone who builds a great clone.

Of course you can but I don't think anything is happening at low volume that can't be duplicated by a pedal that uses a similar tone stack (ideally with tubes) or modeling. The real magic is what happens when those circuits are pushed.

It's like when some Youtuber shill says their Fractal or some pedal does AC/DC. You're not getting anywhere near that early AC/DC sound with anything other than really loud 60s/70s Marshalls. You might think you're close but it's all in your head. I cringe every time someone says AC/DC is easy to play or that a band sounds like them. Show me a band who comes anywhere near this. People now pay to watch expensive karaoke at stage volumes where the audience could hear a stray fart. Sadly this kind of live performance will never happen again.

You could build a nice little pedalboard around that with maybe a Boss DD-3 for some delay.

Going into the amp is one thing, I'd rather avoid a buffer there, but running it after a preamp like that wouldn't concern me at all. Most of the newer Boss pedals have decent buffers in them. I have a Boss RV-6 at the end of my chain.

I'm using two delays on my board. One is analog with tap tempo, modulation, and presets that is there to thicken the sound with one repeat, and the other is a Strymon DIG. I've got two of those but I'm going to use one in kill dry to drive the wet side of a w/d/w rig and the other one will stay on my board for when I'm just playing through a 1x12. The DIG only has one downside — no presets (you can have one but you need the footswitch jack to select it which means no expression pedal). But the sound of it is so good I'll always use it. I don't think there is a better digital delay outside of old Lexicon and Korg rack gear.

Never understood the Strymon hate.A lot of pros use them.

The Andy Timmons Halo pedal by Keeley is another one worth considering. He used a Strymon Timeline for 10 years and basically captured his delay sound from that and took it up a notch.Running it in the loop or after the pedal before it goes into the power amp and cabinet. Honestly I'm not hearing anyone complain about "tone suck" with those pedals. Where it can be an issue is an the start of the chain. There is no reason to put it before a preamp or drive pedal anyway.

I appreciate your audiophilia, so what is your humble opinion on pedals V digital? Last time I actually owned some wood digital was fledgling technology. I follow Leon Todd too and am definitely impressed by his stuff on Axe Fx.


As it stands now, for me, digital has a wealth of pros such as the amazing sound and feel, both in the amp sims and effects. The reverb and delay etc. are in the same league as some of the best pedals. There's a good range that it can emulate. Routing and presets are phenomenal compared to what a pedalboard can do. Great for home recording.

Plus, the extreme and even autistic degrees of nuance WRT to tweakability.


The downside I see is that the pedals may not beyourpedals. If you want a particular pedal or tone and it ain't there, you're basically SOL.

Each has its pros and cons which is why I use a combination of the two. If you're starting from scratch and want bang for your buck, go digital. Look at all those Youtubers in their bedrooms with fruity lighting shredding it up in their shorts with album quality tones. Presets are like a giant circle jerk so they all sound the same. I mean 20 years ago with a can of bees Peavey practice amp no one might have cared for their opinion on anything. Digital makes a huge difference there.

I'm still a bit old school with this stuff. I like tweaking analog gear and trying various combinations until I find the sound I like but it's definitely the least cost effective route.I bought something similar to a Kingsley over 8 years ago. There was no wait list back then. How times have changed. I wanted a clean Fender style preamp pedal (Maiden) a couple of years ago and the prices were too stupid even for a cork sniffer. Ended up getting a Walrus ACS1 modeling pedal. No regrets. It can do some handy stereo stuff.No "amp" these days. Tube preamp > Delays > ACS1 (Fender Deluxe Reverb) > Small power amp > Fender 1x12 cabinet. The only recent change this past year is I added a loop switcher so I can switch between two different preamp pedals. I'm also going to bring back my wet/dry/wet setup with some rack gear which I'll blend in Petrucci style when I want the heavens to open in stereo with majestic sounding delay on tap.

That Friedman pedal has a boost built in. For just a simple clean boost pedal I like the Xotic RC Booster. My main boost which is always on is a Metropoulos Supa Boost. I love that thing.

This is true but it's nice to be able to tweak a couple of knobs to dial in your sound in a few seconds vs. deep diving through menus.

I could have saved a lot of time and money buying an Axe FX and a friend reminds me of that all the time. Would it be more enjoyable? Not sure.

George Metropoulos. He started out selling replicas and kits for building accurate clones of old Marshalls and then concentrated on his own models — Metro-plex, Super-plex, and DVL-1. If I ever get around to buying a 100W amp it will be one of his.

He used to make a boost pedal with the circuit from his Metro-plex amp. I got one 4 years ago.

Al Di Meola suffered a heart attack on stage in Romania. His wife said it was a close call because he was supposed to fly to the US the same day and if it happened on the plane... who knows.

Get well soon Al.