n.c. state defeats wake forest

The subject line about sums it up. My Wolfpack pulled out a win against no. 7 Wake Forest today. It’s crazy but it dosen’t surprise me either. They always manage to pull of some crazy upsets. If State can find a way to play like they can play all of the time instead of playing to the level of their competition there is no telling how far they could go. That goes for the football too. It’s all good. We’ll get back to the glory days that I remember.  Anyway, GO STATE!

mocking a tube tone with a solid state amp

     Okay, check this out. We’ve all heard the debate about which is better, solid state or tube. Well, it depends what you need the amp for.  I practice with a solid state because I can make it sound good enough and I don’t have to worry about spending money buying tubes on a practice amp. Also, I don’t have to crank the thing all the way up and blow my ears out even more than I already have, or get a little 5 watter which is okay but just doesn’t have the headroom to get the tube tone.  

     I’ve owned a few amps in my day.  I try to buy what’s best for the situation.  I almost made a mistake recently when I played a line 6 spider 3 15 watt at Guitar Center. It sounded good and I ended up buying it.  For a practice amp, it sounds good and it’s reliable, but it has an 8 inch speaker which just doesn’t do it for me.  It has built in effects and it has separate channels but there is no foot-switch connection so you have to switch the effects by hand.  I didn’t mind because I just wanted it for the clean sound anyway because I use stomp boxes.  However, that little 8 inch speaker can’t handle my boss metal zone.  It’s all good though. Being it has a good clean tone I hook up mic into it and use it for my vocals.  You can pull stuff like that at home.  Just set the tone neutral with some reverb and if you want you can add a touch of chorus.  

     My axe, which is an ESP LTD EC-1000, is plugged into a crate gfx-120t. It’s a piece of crap amp that I bought when they first came out and I didn’t know any better so I figured the biggest amp I could afford was the best.  Crate solid states suck but their tube amps are alright.  Anyway, I hadn’t played it in years. I’d been playing a Peavy trans-tube for a long time.  I gave the trans-tube away to someone in need and on a whim one day, pulled out the ol’ Crate to see how it would handle my pedal board.  Here’s the thing.  You’ve gotta try out different crap.  The gain channels on the Crate suck so that’s not an option. I though to myself, “self, I have a 120 watt amp with a good clean sound at low volume and nothing else. ” I played a multi effects pedal through it for a few years but being I hate multi effects pedals, I wasn’t satisfied with that either. It took me awhile, but I’ve finally put together a good pedal board and that’s all that my Crate needed.  I use a Boss noise suppressor, a Boss tuner, An MXR super comp, an ibanez tube screamer for a boost( the crappy silver ones, not the ts9),a Boss metal zone, a dunlop 10 band EQ, and a boss loop station( the new one that comes in a stombox. Can’t remember the number. Got it yesterday) I don’t have any choruses or delays on my pedal board because I don’t need them yet. The built in effects on the Amp suck but the delay and chorus are okay because I only use a touch of them anyway.  Just so you know, that’s how the Spider was too. Delay was alright, chorus was alright, all the other effects sucked.  

     Anyway, I take my crappy crate and this is what I do. I experiment all the time but this is always what I’m going for.  I put about 6 guitar picks under my wah to give it that cocked wah kind of sound.  I don’t rock it that much. Only to accentuate. If somebody steps on a wah every single note that’s a good indicator that they don’t know what the heck they’re doing.  Then comes compressor.  I turn the volume way up to drive the tubescreamer(which is next in line) a little more.  I set the attack pretty high because I like to hear my pick attack. I don’t like it to get to muddy unless I’m doing some faux acoustic thing and I’m too lazy to plug my acoustic in.  If I’m playing cleans i vary where I keep my compression but it’s always at least halfway. If I’m playing with distortion and doing lead work, I’ll crank it and it gives me awesome sustain.  That compression knob is one of the responsible parties for me having to get the noise suppressor. Crank it and you’ll get noise if you use lots of gain. My compressor goes into my ibanez tubescreamer. It’s turned all the way up and the drive is turned all the way down. Then I set the tone so it dosen’t affect my signal when it comes on. It’s only a boost for me. The only time I use it differently is when I play blues I flip the switch on the top of it. I forget what the switch says but it’s basically a boost. Then I’ll crank the compression level and my crappy crate gfx 120 t becomes the closest thing I’ve ever witnessed to tube tone from a solid state. It even feels a little different. It’s neat. My tubescreamer goes into my metal zone.  I change the settings on this all the time depending on what type of music I’m playing. It’s good for stuff other that Metal regardless of what the name says.  Sometimes I use the compressor with it to tighten my pick attack. Then when it’s my time to shine, I step on that tubescreamer I told you about and my solo is boosted.  Almost done. I promise. My metal zone runs to a dunlop 10 band eq. I place it after the distortion because afterwards it shapes the harmonic content of the distortion and it just sounds better to me. I can get more from it. That loops back to my noise suppressor. so all of the pedals I mentioned are looped with the noise supressor.  It shuts them up pretty good. The suppressor then runs to the return jack on the pedalboard.  Then from the send jack on my pedalboard, or maybe the return jack after, the suppressor, (dosen’t matter just keep it out of the loop) I run my boss loop pedal. It’s out of the loop becuase if  you record something, while it plays back your supressor thinks it’s just noise if you’re not playing so it cuts it off until you start playing.  Run the loop pedal out to the amp and your done.  Mess around with volumes but keep the gain on the eq as high as you can without clipping and push the tubescreamer with it’s volume control and with the compressor as much as you can as long as you can stand the volume.  The more you push it, the more it sings, and the more you need that noise supressor.  Since the Crate I have is a solid state, I don’t have to crank it like a tube.  I keep it on about 2. After that I have to turn down my effects to much and I lose gain and tone. Also, I get to play through a 12 inch speaker at a decent volume so there is more headroom. Just don’t turn the Crate up to high. The cleans will start to distort. You want your distortion pedals to distort but you want everything running through a clean channel that’s as clean as possible unless you want to pile distortion on top of distortion but that’s another topic for another day. Try stuff out. There are guidelines, but there are no rules.  Keep on rockin’ and Bleed Black Label.

Quitting smoking!

     So, I’m quitting smoking.  I’ve been smoke free for 3 days.  To be honest, I thought I’d struggle alot more than I am but I’ve actually been alright. That’s not to say that it won’t get harder. However, withdrawal usually reaches it’s peak somewhere between 24 and 72 hours after your last cigarette and then slowly declines over a period of about two weeks on average but in unlucky people it can last a few months. That’s rare though.  I do realize that it’s only been three days but when you’re a smoker and you don’t smoke in three days, it’s a big deal.  Here’s what I’m doing to get through it. 

     First of, and most important, is my wonderful support network.  My wife has encouraged me the whole time, and gave me the strength to try to quit even though I was scared of failing.  I guess as long as you try to quit, the worst that can happen is that you go back to smoking and you save a few bucks from however long you were able to stop smoking.  My mom and all of my siblings have also shown alot of support.  At first I wasn’t going to tell them because I was scared to let them down but then I look into what I’ve overcome before and I know that I can do it.  Another thing in the category of most important tools to help me quit is god.  Let’s just say that in the past i’ve overcome things that I could not do on my own. I tried, but failed until I asked for his help. When I get a craving to smoke, I pray for the strength to get through it.

     Another thing I did was get a bunch of junkfood.  I don’t eat alot of junkfood because Heather shops and she is very health conscious.  I love junkfood but I agree with her that alot of it is a waste of money. Don’t think we’re vegans or anything. We always have chips and snacks and stuff. We just don’t buy them everytime we go out.  We wait until we go to sharpshopper so we don’t have to pay full price.  Anyway, when you quit smoking, you need to eat healthy because without cigs, the heart dosen’t have to work as hard so you burn fewer calories. That is one reason that some people gain weight. Also, many people, such as me just eat because it’s something to do with your hands.  With that in mind.  I’m in excellent shape and I have a high metabolism so I got a bunch of bad for ya stuff. It’s awesome.  

     I’m also using the patch.  My wife’s job has a program for employee’s and their spouses to help them quit smoking and they’ll send you the qutting method of your choice for free if you so choose one. I recommend it. It not only helps with withdrawal but it doubles your chances of qutting permanantly.  You can use up to 4 pieces of gum a day with the patch if you get a strong craving. I also procured some free gum but I haven’t had to use it yet. There are many methods out there. If one dosen’t work. Try another one.  

     In conclusion, the reason that I’m writing this is to encourage anybody that is qutting to examine your options. I think you’ll find that it’s not nearly as impossible as it seems.  If  I can answer any questions feel free to get at me.  Also, if you’re a believer, throw up a little prayer for me if you don’t mind.  I’d appreciate that.

     We’ll if your in the same boat as me right now, stay busy but take it easy.  Cigarrettes suck. All the money that I spent on cigarrettes could of bought alot of guitars.

pumpkin pie eggnog

Hey. I’ve been wanted to check out the pumpkin pie and sugar cookie eggnog at food lion for awhile now.  Today I got some of the pumpking pie and it’s freakin awesome. I love those pumpkin pie shakes at McDonalds and this eggnog is way better than that. After I finish off the eggnog that I have now, I’m gonna try the sugar cookie. Anyway, if you like eggnog, give it a go. It’s worth it.

Review of the new macbook

     I’ll never go windows again.  First of all, Apple has the best customer service of all. The people are nice, easy to understand and if anything happens, their is a very quick response time. We also have an officially licensed mac store in Harrisonburg that sells Macs and does repairs so that very convenient.

     The new operating system ( Leopard ) is freakin sweet. First of all, all of your main icons are lined up neatly on the bottom of your screen.  There is also a new feature called stacks which is cool and helps cut down on desktop clutter.  Their is an icon for downads  and one for anything you save  i.e. a word document.  These documents automatically go into the stack column and all you have to do is click on the column and all of the documents will pop up for you to pick one. 

     When Heather and I bought our Mac we were wondering if our printer would work with it. The Apple personnel told us the truth and said that it might not work being it is 5 years old. To my surprise however, I plugged the printer in and clicked add printer. There were no drivers to download or anything. Macs come pre-loaded with thousands of drivers so if you have one of those printers you just plug it in and your good.

     I haven’t messed around too much yet with iwork which is the apple version of office. However, from what I’ve read and seen it allows you to do so much more in the way of presentation and with media. Basically it’s office on steroids but MUCH cheaper.  

     I’ll get off my soapbox now. I just got the computer recently so I still have alot to discover but overall I give it 6 stars out of 5. It completely exceeded my expectations.  If you’re looking for a new computer look no further. It’s the Apple age.