Jax Music Supply Top 10 products of 2011

It has been awhile since we posted on our blog. We will try to make 2012 a little more consistent. Thanks to all for making our 2011 a success for Jax Music Supply!  Let's take a look at the most popular products of 2011.  While we introduced a lot of new products this year, for the most part our top selling products consisted old favorites.

Number 10: MXR M-133 Micro Amp
This pedal has been around for over 30 years now. The Micro-Amp is a clean boost designed to push your tube amp into the overdriven sweet spot! Simple to use and inexpensive.

Number 9: MXR M-102 Dyna Comp Compressor.
After 30 years this is still one the most popular compressors on the market. Like all MXR products it is super tough and inexpensive.

Number 8:  MXR M-169 Carbon Copy Delay

A relatively new entry for the MXR company, it is a true “bucket brigade” delay.

Number 7:  Fulltone OCD Overdrive

One of the original boutique overdrives.   Next to the Tubescreamer this is probably the most cloned overdrive in the world, but the original still rules!

Number 6:  SN-2 Snark Tuner.

One of two Snarks on our list, the Snarks are the definite New product of the year.  Simple and cheap, people buy two or three so that one is always available.  Amazing that this type of product can be built for almost nothing!

Number 5:  Wampler Ego Compressor

The second boutique builder on our list built the most popular compressor we sell.  High quality components and superior design make this compressor a winner.

 
Number 4:   Qwik Tune Guitar Professor

The GP-1 is another old favorite of our customers.  It is a tuner with a built in complete chord library. 

Number 3:  Snark SN-5Tuner

The second of the Snark products on our list. 

Number 2:   WamplerPaisley Drive

Boutique tonemeister Brian Wampler’s second entry on our list and the his first “signature” effect pedal.  One of the finest overdrive’s available. 

Number  1:  Planet Waves Pedal Board Kit

Our number one product this year.  We find that many people order more than one for to assemble their pedal boards.  Includes cable and connectors.  Lifetime warranty and low price.  No wonder it is so popular. 

Guitar Pedal Review: ModTone Mini-Mod Guitar Effects

After a long wait we received the new Mod Tone mini-mod effects pedals. These pedals feature true bypass and low prices, all priced at under $50. All of the mini-mods are constructed very well. We found that the jacks lived up to the marketing being very solid and the metal cases are super tough. The true bypass switches seem to be high quality too. One thing we noticed with all these pedals is how quiet they are. Even the distortion and overdrive pedals, which usually have a lot of extra noise, are quieter than normal, even using single coil pick ups.

The big impact of these pedals is their small footprint. These pedals are about 2/3rds the size of the standard “bud box” size pedal with a tapered end forming a wedge shaped pedals that allows for fitting in tightly packed pedal boards. After playing for a few minutes, this is what we found out:

Mod Tone Mini-Mod Delay: Nice slap back echo sound and very adjustable. Warm echo sounds out of this digital delay. The only drawback is that the delay time is very short, maybe 500ms at the top end. This limits is use in certain situations but, tough construction, true bypass, and $49.95 price, you can find some good uses for it.

Mod Tone Mini-Mod Chorus: Some tone thickening but generally found this pedal lacking in any type of rich chorus sounds, just some slight modulation. You won’t be able to do any Johnny Marr imitations with this pedal and we recommend that unless you need just a little chorus and hard up for space that you pony up a little more mullah for a MXR Micro Chorus or an Electro Harmonix Nano Clone.

Mod Tone Mini-Mod Flanger: This was by far our favorite of the Mini-Mods. Excellent flange tones from Van Halen thickening to 60’s psychedelic. You cannot find a better flange tone, with true bypass, in this price range.

Mod Tone Mini-Mod Overdrive: The standard overdrive model painted yellow instead of green. No surprises – just good basic overdrive with the traditional mid-range hump expected from most overdrives. The tone was warm and the tough construction and true bypass puts it a notch up for most overdrives in this price range.

Mod Tone Mini-Mod Distortion: We found the clipping to be quite harsh on the ears using P-90s. It just sounded very artificial with no warmth. To be fair, I am not a big hard distortion fan and have found few distortion sounds that pleases in pedals that were priced below $150. Old ears perhaps!

Mod Tone Mini-Mod Fuzz: Excellent old school fuzz. Everything from Satisfaction to Kinks buzzing. This was our second favorite pedal of the bunch. Cool thing about it is that there are few fuzzes with this build quality, footprint and price out there. Go ahead and put one in the gig bag just in case – perhaps when you are playing that club that requires the China Strat instead of an American standard.

There are some definite tone keepers here – especially for the small footprint and price with these pedals. They are tough and you should feel confident in gigging situations. If nothing else, these pedals are perfect for that smaller pedal board as well as situations that you do not want to expose your boutique pedals to the wilds of the gigging world.

Peace and Joy,

Jack

Web: http://www.JaxMusicSupply.com 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JaxMusic

Twitter: http://twitter.com/JaxMusic

Blog is back baby!

Hi All. We haven't posted on our blog(s) in awhile. We have been in the process of launching our new version of our website. This, combined with various troubles with Wordpress, resulted in our decision to move the blog back to Blogspot, which most people like in any case. For continuity purposes, we have re-published all of our original blogs on this site. Unfortunately, we could find no way to add back the comments.

Thanks for visiting and feel free to subscribe. We will be posting more gear reviews and observations in the coming weeks and month. Thanks!

Jack / Ed / Josh

Jax Music Supply

Effect Pedal Review – Guyatone Mighty Micro Torrid Fuzz (TZm5)

Originally posted on January 2, 2011 by admin

Happy New Year! I took the Guyatone Mighty Micro Fuzz for a spin over the holidays. I was mighty impressed! This has got to be the quietest fuzz pedal I have had the pleasure of playing. I do not know if they built in some type of gate (I couldn’t hear any gate delay) but even with my Rickenbacker it was passing hardly any noise. With humbuckers it was whisper quiet.

The Torrid Fuzz delivers up awseome fuzz tones. I was easily able to classic fuzz sounds from The Rolling Stones to the Kinks. However, this baby was not a one trick pony. Highly shapable, I was able to dial in some gnarly fuzz options that bring out your inner punk rocker! You can even shift the phase of the fuzz with a flick of a switch. This can make your fuzz sound really wild and generate unique harmonics in your tone.

One thing about this fuzz, as well as all of the Guyatone Mighty Micro Series is that they are all small footprint and very light. These are not pedal board hog. Although I am not a zealot for these things the pedals feature true bypass so if you are so inclined this is a major plus.

If fuzz is part of your tone stack, I highly recommend this pedal.

Jack

Review – Snark SN-3 and SN-4 instrument tuners

Originally posted on December 25, 2010 by admin

We just got in the Snark SN-3 Guitar and Bass Tuner and the Snark SN-4 instrument tuner this week. These tuners feature relatively easy to read displays, built in metronomes, pitch pipe, and built in microphone to tune acoustic instruments.

The SN-3 tuner although chromatic, is meant primarily for guitar and basses. It a bright color display and very fast tuning. I found the tuner very fast and accurate with no problems tuning the guitar. Hard to believe but you can actually pitch calibrate this tuner. This is not something I use often but you never see this feature in a tuner in this price range.

The display is really nice and shows just how far you are from being in tune with a nice graduated display. However, not all is gold in Snark land. You have to be looking at the display directly to be able to read it. Looking at it at an angle made it look like the display was completely on and impossible to read.

The metronome is very basic with a little heart beat display and a basic “beep” like tone. It is tap generated which is a nice feature for a tuner/metronome combination . The metronome would have been much nicer if you could have silenced the beep and just use the visual cue. Without the metronome silencer, it makes it impossible to use for practice without disturbing others who may not enjoy the beep!

One last thing I liked was the finish. It is made of plastic but it has a metallic look to it. Better yet, it feel like it has been infused with something – almost a slightly rubbery feeling, that keeps the tuner from sliding around.

Overall, pretty good for $12.99 or so. If you are a pro, a good pedal tuner might be better. If you just need an easy to use and inexpensive tuner/metronome combination, this should work well for you.

Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays!

Jack

Web: http://www.Jax-Music.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jax-Music-Supply/141868042681

Twitter: http://twitter.com/JaxMusic

My Space: http://www.myspace.com/jaxmusicsupply

Snark SN-3 Chromatic Tuner

Snark SN-4 all instrument tuners

Quick Review – Danelectro 56 Reissue Electric Guitar- Aqua – Humbuckers

Originally Posted on November 17, 2010 by admin

Spent a few minutes tonight playing the new 56 Dano reissues from Danelectro. Chose to play the aqua colored model with the lipstick humbucker pickup in the bridge position and “dolphin” headstick.

The build quality seems to be first rate on these reissues. None of the guitars we got in had any quality issues – even with the tape which has been a traditional issue with Danelectro. I found the tuners to be first rate and the guitar’s intonation was fine right out of the box.

The neck was smooth and not very deep in the back. However, the fingerboard seemed wider than on previous reissues but was no problem to play. The tone was typical Dano with the twang and treble overtones. This guitar was very low noise and did not notice any excessive hum, even in the neck position pickup. The lipstock humbucker, unlike traditional humbuckers, did not product a lot of drive; just provided a little warmth to the tone rather than any type of severe clipping of the signal.

Played it through a Visual Sound Route 66 pedal (with compressor and overdrive) and that is where this guitar really came through. I was able to get very good bluesy notes out of it and then with a little echo (again, Visual Sound H2O) it was surf city.

Danelectro has worked hard over the last couple of years to increase the quality of there guitars as well as keep the price steady. With this guitar, they have really succeeded. Excellent playability, cool looks (love the clear “D” pickguard) and classic tone, you cannot really go wrong for this price!

Guitar Pedal Review – Tech 21 Boost R.V.B. Reveb pedal

Originally Posted on November 3, 2010

Took the lovely Tech 21 Boost R.V.B. for an enjoyable spin this evening. This not your normal reverb pedal. No fake sounding “room” or “cathedral” sounds here. Somehow, Andrew Barta and the folks at Tech 21 have managed to put a plate and spring reverb, along with a shower room echo chamber, in small package. This puppy nails the spring reverb sound for sure, it sounds better than the actual spring reverb in the Danelectro Spring Reverb pedal. In fact, it is much more flexible than most amplifier reverbs.
The reverb has several ways to adjust your tone:

1. Time – controls the decay time (length) of the reverb.
2. Tone – like a tone knob of the guitar it effects the high end of the reverb (wet) signal.
3. Feedback – This is really cool. It feeds back the reverb signal to the input to increase the amount of reverb. I was able to get some really cool sound right at the edge of oscillation. Letting it go over produced some neat feedback but I wouldn’t recommend doing this much.
4. Mix – 100% dry to 100% wet. Really cool feature I have not seen on other reverbs. Using the 100% wet signal sounded like you were listening to a guitar player in the distance. An interesting effect that could be put to good use.
5. Rumble- basically a tone control for the low end. Crank it up for baritone guitar like sounds.
6. Level/Boost signal – adjusts the overall output of the signal up to 9db.
7. Trails- this is a cool feature. If the “trails” button is engaged, it will put in natural reverb decay when you switch out of the effect. Avoids the abrupt effected signal loss common with most effects.
I ran through various surf (think Dick Dale) type riffs as well as Buddy Holly song. This baby was made for 50’s and surf music. This reverb is highly shapeable, which allows you to dial in various spring and plate reverb type sounds along with the shower room echos.

If you are a surf music nut, it is a must have. If you like digital reverb with lots of room options, look elsewhere.

Jack

Jax Music Supply

Pricing: eBay, Amazon, and a website

Originally Posted on October 22, 2010

Happy Friday! I know a lot of you all are out gigging tonight but I thought I would add a quick post. I’ve noticed lately a lot of questions about our pricing on our website versus eBay and Amazon. Some sellers will offer lower prices on their website to offset the fees (12% for eBay) for selling on these large marketplaces. Here at Jax, we do not adjust our prices for these costs. We try to keep a consistent pricing model across all marketplaces.

For Jax, the big difference on many of our products is due to shipping being “free” on our eBay listings and Amazon versus a calculated shipping model on our website. Of course, there is no true free shipping. The cost has to be made up somewhere so it is included in our prices when on Ebay and Amazon. Ebay gives preference to those listing with Free Shipping so that is our default shipping model for eBay. On our website, we want to be able to show the lowest prices possible and our customers are given the choice of how to ship their items. What do you all think? Should we offer free shipping (included in the price on our website) as we do on Amazon and Ebay?

Quick Review of the Danelectro Cool Cat Tremolo

Originally Posted on October 19, 2010

Tonight, looking to see if I could get close to Johnny Marr’s sound on The Smiths “How Soon Is Now”, I picked up the Danelectro Cool Cat Tremolo. Fiddling around with it, I found that I could approximate the trem sounds on The Smith’s song, but it feel short in a number of ways. Marr is clearly using a more modern sound on his tremolo, not to mention a delay and probably layers of guitars. The Danelectro gave much more of a vintage tremolo sound, think “Mona” by Bo Diddley or the bridge on the original version (Tommy James’) of Crimson and Clover. Very much more of a vibrato sound rather than the choppy tremolo sound, even when set at on the “square wave” hard tremolo sound. Having played a Tuna Melt in the past, I believe it would be better suited to the less classic tremolo than the Cool Cat. Bottom line, if you are looking for a classic, “Fender Sounding” tremolo, the Cool Cat will meet your needs. If you need hard core tremolo sounds, I would look elsewhere. We will review the Visual Sound Garage Tone Tremolo soon, using the same characteristics, to see how it stacks up.

Keep Rockin!

Jack – Jax Music Supply

True Bypass or Not True Bypass, that is the question!

Originally Posted on October 4, 2010

There has been a lot of controversy in the effects world about the benefits of true bypass and the alleged tone sucking properties of non-true bypass pedals. For those who do not know, True bypass means that the dry (non effected) signal is passed through the pedal without passing through the circuitry. Non-true bypass pedals pass through the circuitry.

Tone suck. You hear that term associated with non-true bypass pedals. What people are referring to is the frequency loss associated with a non-effected signal going through the circuit. Back in the old days (think 1960s to 1980s) this was a common problem. In fact, you could sometimes hear a whisper of the effected sound when in bypass mode! I can remember having some cheap chorus pedals that sounded almost full effect when in bypass mode.


Since starting Jax Music Supply in 2007, I have had the opportunity to try a lot of different effects pedals. Many had true bypass, some did not. Generally speaking, I didn’t notice that much of a difference. I did notice some tone loss on lower priced pedals, such as the Danelectro DJ series, but it wasn’t what I called significant. In fact, I’m not sure the newer guitar player would even notice the difference.



Many more expensive pedals that use non-true bypass, such as Visual Sound products, I doubt anyone could tell the difference except that they may sound better than true bypass pedals. Visual Sound’s tone buffer is amazing, especially when you compare a true bypass pedal and a Visual Sound pedal using a longer (20 foot) instrument cable. The buffer circuit they are using really keeps the tone loss to a minimum.


Many popular pedals do not use true bypass – Boss, Ibanez, Visual Sound, and some MXR, to name just a few. The fact that these companies are successful says something about the mythology of True Bypass. Having played lots of pedals over the years, I can say that very few pedals really benefit from a True Bypass switch. Can anyone give an opinion about True Bypass?

Are, Echo, Reverb, and Delay the same thing?

Originally Posted on September 29, 2010

This question in the music world is like talking about religion or politics anywhere else. We have debated this question a couple of times at Jax with neither argument winning out. I personally believe that they are all related with minor differences in timing.

Wikipedia defines reverb as “A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air”
Echoes are defined as “…echo (plural echoes) is a reflection of sound, arriving at the listener some time after the direct sound.”

Delay “…is an audio effect which records an input signal to an audio storage medium, and then plays it back after a period of time.[1] The delayed signal may either be played back multiple times, or played back into the recording again, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo.

I see a lot of similarities here. The words echo and decay are mentioned several times in the definitions. Looking at them, and thinking about how they each sound, I fervently believe they are all manifestations of the same phenomena. The only real difference is the timing of each effect.

Reverb, when listening, sounds to me like a lot of fast echoes with an accelerated decay time. You can debate the variances of how the echoes are produced (spring, plate, digital, etc.) but they all share the same features – high number of echoes and rapid decay. Echoes are reflected sound and play a role in reverb and delay. Delay (in an audio sense) is a reflected sound with time in between. Sounds (pun intended) a lot like reverb.

Why all the debate? They are the same thing. You can use a delay pedal as reverb by adjusting the number of echoes and decay time. You could also use a reverb pedal as a basic delay but usually you cannot adjust a reverb pedal’s speed enough to make a true delay sound. Can anyone really debate that echo, reverb, and delay are really different takes on the same thing?

Jack
Jax Music Supply

Delay and Echo Pedals
Reverb Pedals

Guitar Pedal Review: Danelectro FAB Fuzz

Originally Posted on July 23, 2010 by admin

The Danelectro FAB Fuzz is another addition to the FAB series of pedals. As is the norm for the FAB series, the FAB Fuzz is designed to be an inexpensive solution for the beginning guitatrist or something to mess around with for the more advanced player.

The Danelectro D-7 FAB Fuzz is advertised as “A Fistful of Fuzzy Fun!” (although admittedly I’m not really sure what that means.) The FAB Fuzz features three control knobs: one for tone, one for the amount of fuzz to apply to the signal, and a third which determines the level at which the fuzz mixes is with the original signal. The FAB Fuzz is powered by a standard 9V DC input, as well as he option of using a 9V battery for power.

The FAB Fuzz is housed in a plastic case and features a stomp button that is the same as the other FAB Pedals, and also features an LED to signify whether the pedal is on or off.

Overall I feel that the FAB Fuzz could best be described as “ok.” The FAB Fuzz certainly did not exceed my expectations (in the same sense that the movie “Snakes on a Plane” was exactly what it said it was going to be – a movie about snakes on a plane) but after playing it I found the FAB Fuzz to be a bit lacking in the tone department. Guitarists who are looking for a fuzz pedal to mess around with or beginning guitarists will probably not notice this too much. Guitarists which are a bit more picky will certainly not feel lied to in any way with this pedal. After all, it’s hard to argue with the FAB Fuzz’s price tag of $23.99.

For the price point that the FAB Fuzz is designed for it does the job and does it well.

Click here to check out the FAB Fuzz at Jax-Music.com!

Guitar Pedal Review: Danelectro FAB Delay

Originally Posted on July 23, 2010

The Danelectro FAB Delay is the newest addition to the FAB series of pedals. Like the other pedals in the FAB series, the FAB Delay is designed to be an inexpensive solution that gets the job done.

The Danelectro FAB D-8 Delay is advertised as a “Thick and Rich Delay” featuring a maximum of 600ms of delay time. The FAB Delay is your pretty standard FAB pedal, featuring three knobs protruding from the back of the pedal along with the standard 9V power input. The three adjustable knobs alow for controlling the amount of delay (which from my testing seems to control the mix of delay with the original signal), a knob for controlling the overall time of the delay, and finally a knob for controlling the number of repeats. The FAB Delay can either be powered using a power supply (we used a Visual Sound 1-Spot for testing) or simply a 9V battery.

The FAB Delay is housed in a plastic case and features a stomp button that is the same as the other FAB Pedals, and also feautures an LED to signify whether the pedal is on or off.
Overall some interesting sounds can be achieved using the FAB Delay. During testing I played my standard fair of U2 songs while testing a delay pedal, and was satisfied with the results. The knobs allow you to adjust the delay to taste and after a bit of time fiddling with the controls, you can achieve some interesting tones to mess about with. At $29.99 list, one can only be satisfied with the sounds the FAB Delay provides.

For the guitarist with more demanding delay pedal tastes, I would recommend something more along the lines of the Line 6 DL4 Modeler Delay, the MXR Carbon Copy, or possibly the Wampler Faux Tape Echo.

All in all the Danelectro FAB Delay is a great pedal for the price. I would recommended it for those guitarists who have never really used a delay pedal and would like to try one out at an extremely affordable price.

Click here to check it out at Jax-Music.com!

MUSIC LESSONS

The world record for the worst rendition of a National Anthem probably goes to sprinter Carl Lewis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJLvCM4j2mg) with Roseanne Barr (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrFW2aYHVR8) finishing a close second. The difference between their 'interpretations' is Roseanne Barr intended to sing it badly, thinking it 'funny.' Carl Lewis was really trying to sing it well, he just cannot sing. Barr's version angered people: Lewis' was just embarrassing.

There are a couple of music lessons in this...

1. There are certain songs that one mocks at one's own peril. If you
are going to make a political statement by mocking anyone's
national anthem, you have that right under our laws. However,
others have equal right to respond in like manner.
2. There are certain songs that one performs at one's own peril. The
Star Spangled Banner is such a song. It's an odd melody, with a
big range. Great singers sing it with fear and trembling. The
history of music is filled with such pieces. Classical works by
Liszt, Brahms, and Rachmaninoff seem to top the difficult piano
pieces. My kids listen to the guitar work of the band, Dragon
Force, which others play only at their peril
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jgrCKhxE1s)

So...before you mock, count the cost. And before you perform a song in public, be sure you're up to it. The rule of thumb is until you can play it flawlessly seven times in a row, you are not ready.

Buyer Beware!

by Jack Phillips


October 10, 2008


Believe it or not, I sometimes shop at the local Walmart. Not always the most fun experience, but they do have really good prices, especially on staples we need each week. Recently, after selecting my purchases, I headed over to the toy section to find one of my children (I'm sure you parents out there are familiar with this task). To my dismay, I saw a couple that had selected a low quality acoustic guitar for I assume their child. Obviously being in the store I could not approach them about their purchase. However, as I continued to look for my son, I saw how much this "discount" store was charging for these, bluntly, crappy instruments!

We often assume that these large discount stores can always beat the little guy on price. I can testify that what I have seen at the local discount stores is not low priced nor good quality. What they are selling for $60 was worth maybe $20, with profit. Now, I have no problem with Walmart getting as much as possible, but what are the customers thinking? Do they shop around? Why are they paying more for a piece of junk when they could pay less for something that is at least playable? I would encourage people who are considering a musical instrument for themselves or a child to check out their local music store. Maybe even Jax Music Supply :-)!

You will find the local store, even chains such as Guitar Center, very helpful and can provide guidance to a quality instrument within your budget. Don't assume that the discount chains are the least expensive or offer the best value. Do the research. Shop around. I know most dealers, Jax included, gladly give free advice. We have people that email us all the time for information and never make a purchase. We are happy to provide this service. We know that in the long run the world is better served by providing friendly service and creating more music in the world.

What do you think?

Website: http://www.JaxMusicSupply.com

Monthly Giveaway:

http://www.jaxmusicsupply.com/monthly-contest.aspx

What’s your favorite song?

by Charles Long

What’s your favorite…er…album…er…CD…er…project?

What makes great music great? This is a fundamental philosophical question. Why do we like what we like? Why are our brains wired in such a way as to find some sounds appealing (we call these music) and other sound revolting (we call these ‘debates’)?

I recently discovered www.acclaimedmusic.net which is sort of a meta-list of all-time greatest songs and CD’s. For example, the top ten most recommended songs of ALL-TIME are…

1 Bob Dylan Like a Rolling Stone

2 The Rolling Stones (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

3 The Beach Boys Good Vibrations

4 Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit

5 Aretha Franklin Respect

6 Chuck Berry Johnny B. Goode

7 Otis Redding Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

8 Marvin Gaye I Heard It Through the Grapevine

9 Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven

10. Sex Pistols Anarchy in the U.K.

Hardly the list I would have come up with! There are two songs on the last I am not sure I have ever listened to all the way through. This says more about my age than the songs (Nirvana and Sex Pistols). I’d have added a Beatles song and probably some Springsteen.

That being said, here’s what’s cool about the acclaimed music list. It is strictly based on a statistical analysis of what the CRITICS write. (Imagine getting paid to listen to and comment on music! Nice work if you can get it…o wait…that’s what I’m doing…well, except without the paid part, but I digress). Back the list. Acclaimed music’s creator (Henrik Franzon) compiles critics’ lists from around the world and across the decades and then, after weighting the lists in a fair way, generates the top three thousand songs and albums. Pretty cool! The author of the site also publishes his PERSONAL top 100, so you can judge if he’s biased or not.

He must be biased…my favorite artist, Bruce Cockburn, isn’t anywhere to be found. Sigh.

Improving your tone

September 23^rd 1949…Freehold, NJ…Bruce Springsteen is born (in the U.S.A.).

THE BOSS IS NEARLY 60! Dude puts on a very athletic show for his age. I recently had the pleasure of seeing THE BOSS at the Richmond Coliseum, here in Virginia. Unfortunately, the pleasure was mostly visual. This is was THE WORST LIVE SOUND I have ever experienced from a professional artist. I have heard a lot of bands in a lot of weird venues large and small, but this was FAR AND AWAY THE WORST. YIKES! EVEN IF YOU ARE A ROCK ICON: SOUND MATTERS. So what does this mean to you and me (other than avoid Bruce at the Richmond Coliseum)?

First, good equipment makes a difference in every facet of your rig. Since we at JAX deal with a lot of guitar products, let me give you a guitar example. If you own a vintage Strat and play it through a vintage Fender Twin, but use old worn-out strings, you won’t sound good (or at least not as good as you should).

Second, there are things that even the best equipment cannot fix. A million dollar sound system can’t fix the bad acoustics of an out of date venue. I think that this is what happened to THE BOSS at his Richmond ‘show.’ Similarly, great equipment won’t give you great (any?) talent (Jessica and/or Ashlee Simpson, i.e.). A corollary to all this: LOUDER ISN’T THE SAME AS BETTER (Springsteen might take note of this…just a thought).

Third, little things make a big difference in sound. New strings make a huge difference in how your guitar sounds! Change ‘em often! Also, use decent guitar cables…they matter, too! Even the picks you use change the way your guitar sounds.

The good news is that sometimes little changes (picks, strings, and cables) can make a BIG DIFFERENCE! You’d be surprised how much better your rig will sound with NEW STRINGS, BETTER CABLES, and a change of PICKAGE!

The Beauty of the Beat

By Jack Phillips

September 5, 2008

At this moment, I can here the sound of some music playing in my son’s room; only the drums and bass are coming through. The ceiling fan is on, providing a steady white noise in the background along with the steady click of the chain hitting the light fixture. Somehow it is not annoying, merely comforting. The steady drip of the rain is similar (thank you Hanna). As I think about these things, the reason these sound are not annoying is that they are a steady, regular, rhythm. I feel the human mind craves rhythm, leading to my next point.

Have you ever listened to someone play an instrument that couldn’t get the rhythm right? No matter how precise the notes they play are, it just plain sounds weird. Having a sense of rhythm is essential to quality playing. A guitar player that only knows 3 open chords can sound awesome if their timing is good. How do you learn good timing? PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! If you don’t purposely practice your rhythm, you will always sound bad.

To practice, you need a steady beat to practice with. Many people use metronomes. Metronomes are electronic or mechanical devices that provide a steady sound at an adjustable interval. Many inexpensive metronomes are available that include both an aural and visual cues and are highly adjustable. In addition to a metronome, you can use a drum machine. Drum machines are really cool in that they sound like a real drummer without the fills and you can jam and practice with them. Practicing with other musicians, hopefully including a drummer, is a great way to solidify your rhythm skills and discover the beauty of the beat.

Top 10 songs of presidentail candidates

by Charles Long

I was watching Rachel Ray's show 'Tasty Travels' proving once again that I have no life. RR was in Little Rock, Arkansas visiting the W.J. Clinton presidential library and eatery...I kid you not... it has a restaurant named 42. What was WAY COOL about the W. J. Clinton's library was his collection of saxophones. The man played. This got me to thinking...what does this current crop of candidates listen to? According to Blender.com, here are the candidates top ten songs...

BARACK OBAMA
1. Ready or Not Fugees
2. What's Going On Marvin Gaye
3. I'm On Fire Bruce Springsteen
4. Gimme Shelter Rolling Stones
5. Sinnerman Nina Simone
6. Touch the Sky Kanye West
7. You'd Be So Easy to Love Frank Sinatra
8. Think Aretha Franklin
9. City of Blinding Lights U2
10. Yes We Can will.i.am

JOHN McCAIN
1. Dancing Queen ABBA
2. Blue Bayou Roy Orbison
3. Take a Chance On Me ABBA
4. If We Make It Through December Merle Haggard
5. As Time Goes By Dooley Wilson
6. Good Vibrations The Beach Boys
7. What A Wonderful World Louis Armstrong
8. I've Got You Under My Skin Frank Sinatra
9. Sweet Caroline Neil Diamond1
0. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes The Platters

The only thing these guys have in common is Sinatra! Well, that about sums the election up!

Olymping Along

by Charles Long

We have all heard about the little Chinese girl (Yang Peiye) who was not allowed to be seen singing the Chinese national anthem because she was considered not pretty enough! Another girl, Lin Miaoke lip synced the anthem. Of course, American’s shouldn't be too self-righteous about this. We gave Grammy’s to Milli Vanilli as Best New Artist 1990 after all and they lip synced to beat the band. Then there was the classic play and film ‘My Fair Lady.’ On Broadway, Eliza Doolittle was sung by Julie Andrews (you know, Mary Poppins). The film version featured Katherine Hepburn: a great actress, but no singer. All the songs have Hepburn lip syncing. According to Wikipedia, the real singer was Marni Nixon. So before we cast stones at the Chinese…we ought to consider our glass housing!

All this says more about Man than it does Music. Music doesn’t care about the singer’s looks. What matters to music is the singer’s craft. I am personally so sick of singers who look like models. Give me Mama Cass over Mamma Mia! Give me Janice Joplin over Janet Jackson! Give me Pavarotti over Groben! Man makes everything look great but sound sterile. Music give us a vital sound and peasant looks. Give me music.

And as long as I am on a rant…can we please have some LESS produced music. In the pre-digital era, the music had an edge. The edge was the little imperfections that couldn’t be fixed. In the digital age, those little imperfections are fixed. We get perfect pitch in perfect time…and no soul. And in addition to less produced music can we please have some DISSONANCE, too? When every chord blends perfectly, we have consonant music that is dull! Can I get a clash now and again? Little grind? Its not the consonances that give music real beauty: it’s the dissonances.

So… China …I know you’re reading this…let the singer sing…on camera…the world will love her…she’s a seven year old girl. No one rejects a singing seven year old! So… America …let’s get off the over produced music band wagon and let’s get some real music. Finally, there is hope; the word is that a remake of My Fair Lady is in the works. Columbia Pictures…I know you’re reading this…let’s get some real singers…so don’t keep olymping along.