So I've recently been more comfortable calling myself a recording engineer and mixer. I recently got some work via England to record a local band, the Slicks, all the way here in Fukuoka (although the members are spread out across Japan now). Funny enough, when I told other musicians around town that I was recording the Slicks, everyone said, "I used to listen to them in high school!" So unbeknownst to dumb me, I was in a cool opportunity to record an influential band. The Vinyl Ep is out now on Private Scandal and put out by Connor Dobson here:https://privatescandal.bigcartel.com/product/slicks The band sounds great even if they hadn't played in many years together. They didn't miss a beat. Very 70's punk sounding.
Rants of a crazy person with a guitar...
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
New Slicks Vinyl Ep I Recorded and Mixed
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Telecaster Mods to Make Them More Playable
The Telecaster. What some would call simple perfection or a blue collar working man’s guitar is a 74 year old design. While there have been many other iterations of it, the original standard modal has had very few changes to the design by the original company who launched it, Fender. As great as the guitar is, there are 3 major design flaws that really effect it’s playing ability and should have been modified on standards off the factory line many years ago. As much as I would like to blame “boomers” or the stubborn allergenic-to-change guitar community, truth is, most of us just want to emulate our heroes who owned the same old guitars with their flawed designs. So Fender keeps making them the same way. The good news is we can mod these changes fairly cheaply and easily. Here are three mods that should be standard on Teles to make them more playable.
1. Replacing the Jack Plug Dish Thingy
Worst ever. |
2. Intonating the Three Saddle Bridge.
While some newer models have the 6 saddle, fully intonatable bridges, the old style bridges are made for 3 saddles. Each sharing two strings and usually at a flat angle. This makes the higher positions on the guitar neck become out of tune. I know some people say this is part of the charm of a Tele, but I’d rather play in tune. No one listens to a record and hears an out of tune guitar and says, “gee, what a great Tele.” You can buy compensated angled saddles out of a variety of materials. They’re usually spot on with a little adjusting.
3. Angling the Selector Switch like a Stratocaster
This won’t bug everyone, but if you switch pickups in the middle of a song then the Tele will have you fumbling around trying. There is a reason the Stratocaster has an angled pickup selector switch. You can use it on the fly much quicker and easily. There are replacement control plates which do this plus moving the volume knob back a bit to allow for quick switching.
24 years of corrosion under the old plate |
Runner ups.
The neck pickup. I tried for years to like them. Tried many types of traditional styles. I don’t like them. Personally I think replacing them with anything is an improvement.
Top load strings on the bridge. You can bend the strings better and it seems to be less bright then the through body string option.
In Series wiring for the middle position. Despite playing a lot of funk, I hardy ever used the stock parallel wiring.
Until next time space cadets
Friday, November 17, 2023
New Release From Born Shit Stirrers!
We've come a long way. From shitty closet recordings to the first vinyl I fully mixed. I think it's our most eclectic album yet. My old college roommate even pitched in with a tune he used to play at drunken parties. Hopefully everyone enjoys it, or isn't too offend at the very least. First 100 orders get a limited poster. Available on 12 inch vinyl, CD, or digital download.
In other news, in the off chance your in Japan and near me, I'll be playing my first solo gig after at least a decade. OK, back to work. I'll be back with more to say on various subjects again soon I hope...
Love, Lum
Monday, December 12, 2022
Are all MXR Phase 90s the same?
Thursday, October 6, 2022
Lum's Gone Country!?!?
Well, here it is. 12 tracks of a genre I never thought I’d record.
Well kind of one genre. Really Americana I guess. But there is some genre bending with some heavy stuff, funk and even hip hop. Took me years to
appreciate country music and basically a lot of digging around in the
past dusting some stuff off. I think I came up with my own take on
it, although far from traditional. I really wanted an excuse to call
up old band mates as well as current and new ones, to make a kind of
time capsule of a bunch of people who I’ve enjoyed playing with
over the years. There are even some family contributions as well. If
you weren’t on this one I hope I can catch you again in the future.
This really was challenging and fun to make (even if I was getting
obsessive about it). I think I needed this. Big thanks to all of
the players on here. Couldn’t have done
it without you! Really! Sorry this blog has been quite this year. I do have tons of pedal stuff backed up to get to. I've just been in the studio a lot, which is a good thing. I'll try to get back to it soon.
Peace and Love
Thursday, June 9, 2022
New Godzilla Snacks Album Out Now!
Tuesday, November 9, 2021
Boss CH-1 (Digital Version) Mods
Ah the downtrodden Boss CH-1. It was a exciting pre-show purchase for me a 20 something circa winter 2003. Having grown up on a healthy dose of lush chorus from Nirvana to The Police, I was looking to recreate those tones. I'm sure my heart was set on a Electro Harmonix Small Clone or Poly Chorus, but the lowly Guitar Center at the time only had the Boss. It did the job, but as time went on (17 years now), as I read the bashing of it on various guitar forums, and as I played friends' Poly Choruses, I realized the damn thing didn't do all I wanted it to. I wanted the wacky quick modulation.
First mod attempt |
Here's the new schematic in case you can't find it. |
This guy changed the value or the R63 resistor to around 1.8K. He also had some other interesting mods which I will get into later. I didn't want to be too invasive to my pedal, so I opted to add a 8.2K resistor in parallel to the original 15K to cut the total resistance value to around 5.3K. Worked great! Wacky quick modulation galore! However, I got greedy and tried poking around at the circuit to find what controlled the delay time on the chip. I had some luck with the R43 resistor, but dropped the pedal in doing so. The modded, very small resistor pictured above snapped off. Upon many failed attempts, I finally settled on bridging the connection for 0 resistance. I got even quicker modulation up to 99% of the rate control knob. However it folds in on itself at the very last 1% maxed position to cancel out the movement.
So, here's the disclaimer* DON'T TRY TO MOD THESE SUPER SMALL COMPONENTS UNLESS YOU'RE WILLING TO DESTROY YOUR PEDAL OR UNLESS YOU HAVE THE PROPER TOOLS AND SKILLS. Seriously this was a pain to mod. I think bridging the resistor ended up being easier in the end. Maybe next time just a small dab of solder over the resistor.
Now another mod I see a lot of people attempt is adding vibrato to a chorus pedal. They are in fact the same circuits but with chorus, it adds the dry guitar signal. Where as vibrato is just the modulated signal only. So, if you have a stereo chorus (two outputs) like my CH-1, usually you can just add a jack plug connected to nothing into the output B or second output (usually) This will make the pedal send the second output dry signal to nothing. Muting it, turning your main output to the amp into vibrato. Hope this helps some people! If anyone figures out a safe why to mod the delay time to flanging and deeper chorus, let me know. Here's a quick video sample. (of the earlier mod plus vibrato)
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Replacing a Digitech Whammy Knob and Rotary Selector
DOH!!! Why a plastic shaft!?!?! |
So..... you knocked the knob off your Digitech Whammy? When I did, I thought it would be a cheap fix with a some sort of simple potentiometer. While the fix itself was easy, it was not super cheap. All and all it set me back at least $20 just for a little knob I probably kicked off during a show. You'll most likely need two things special ordered along with all your average soldering and pedal tools.
These are what you'll need and what will set you back the most. (Almost like Digitech wants you to spend more on repairs.)
- Rotary encoder with 24 pulses with a 15mm shaft. (ebay seems to be the only place to find these. Type those exact words into ebay. Probably $15 for a set of two. Might as well pick up an extra considering the shaft is plastic and it'll break again.
7/64" Allen wrench (Not a common size in most sets. As hard as I tried to buy locally, Amazon was the only place that had one)#4
You'll also need your basic soldering iron, solder, solder braid (to remove the old solder), a screwdriver, wrench and possibly wire cutters or pliers.
#2 |
#1 |
Tuesday, June 1, 2021
Volume Pedal Mod Revisited (Switchable Minimum Volume/Volume Off)
So with the prospects of once again being a supporting guitarist for Don Matsuo this July, I found myself pondering the volume pedal mod I did years ago where I physically stopped the minimum volume the pedal had to control the gain on my amp. I don't know what to expect with this gig, despite this being my second go around. Would I need a gain control, or a volume pedal? I also got tired of pulling out the screwdriver each time I wanted volume swells on my lap steel. So, the solution for me was clear. Create resistance to ground on a switch. I measured 1.55K on my multimeter as the resistance on my minimum volume with the previous mod. So the idea, was to put a combo of resistors to equal 1.55K that could be added between the volume pot of the pedal and ground, as well as to be taken away (switchable). After contemplating drilling a new switch hole, I realized I never used the tuner output. I actually really have no use for it. So that was my mounting hole. Also 100% reversible.
So, (1.)I de-soldered the tuner jack, and the ground wire (grey) from the board. (2.) Soldered the pot ground (same grey wire) to the middle switch lug. The tuner jack left me some holes to run wires through! (3.) Ran a new wire from one side of the switch to the original ground board connection. (4.) Ran my resistors (1.55K) from that same lug to the opposite lug on the switch.
After doing this, I found there are a few pedals on the market that do this same thing with a variable resistance pot, such as the new Ernie Ball MVP. I did my approach, because I didn't want the potential for the knob to get bumped or moved. I wanted a quick on-the-fly switch to change the function of my pedal. For me, this is the perfect volume pedal. (Also there's a treble bleed mod in there as well)
Here's a quick clip of it.
Sunday, April 11, 2021
New Split 7 Inch Out in July With Big Guest Stars