Recent content by Em7

I am an engineer and a computer scientist by training. For me, it was easier to look at intervals as mathematical relationships when dealing with triads. For example, a minor chord is a minor third + a major third, a major chord is a major third + a minor third, and diminished chord is a minor...

Guitar is one of the few musical instruments where one generally does not have to learn how to read music or learn music terminology to play. Do you believe it hurts or helps a guitarist over the long term? I personally believe that learning music and music theory is a must over the long term...

If I had designed that amp, it would have a B+ that is closer to 300VDC than 400VDC.

The amp I use depends if I am playing home alone or out with other musicians. I rarely use a tube amp at home. A tube amp played at bedroom levels sounds like it is being starved. I am currently using a Orange Crush RT-35 at home, but I used a Tech 21 Trademark 60 for years. I have a Mesa...

I do not get the Murphy Labs thing. I was pissed when I ordered a new non-reliced R7 and it came with aged hardware. That kind of stupid cannot be fixed. In my humble opinion, the pre-beatup guitar thing is for professional musicians who have a naturally reliced guitar that they no longer...

What is interesting about the Tone Zone is that it is one of DiMarzio's dual resonance designs. This take on pickup design was novel when DiMarzio applied for the patent in 1983. It differs from modern boutique pickups like the 57/08 that attempt to capture the magic of asymmetrically wound...

My Virginia Ave-built '95 Standard 24 shipped with the HFS/VB combo. I liked hat combo more than the Standard Treble/Standard Bass, but my Standard 24 was a dark sounding guitar. I swapped pickups several times to no avail before selling it. What people do not realize is that the Standard...

DiMarzio's Tone Zone is my favorite 80s metal pickup. This pickup was basically relabeled and packaged with a ceramic magnet by Ibanez as their F2 pickup during the shredder heyday. The Tone Zone sounds better than the F2, but they both have that amp with the tone controls turned up to 11 sound...

Nuno Bettencourt, Vito Bratta, and Paul Gilbert are prime examples of why a pure tube design does not work for truly high-speed, ariticulate 80s shred. All of these guys used an Ada MP-1 into a solid-state power amp. In the case of Nuno, it was a MacIntosh 2100 solid-state power amp. Listen...

I did not say that the Boogie graphic EQ was shelving the output. I previously explained that shelving was setting the -3db down point below which frequencies are attenuated at a rate of -6dB per octave. I was merely pointing out that the 750Hz slider is set the way it is when playing metal...

DreamTheateR is correct. JCM 800s are shelved off at 720Hz, which is roughly the mid-frequency on 22-fret guitar. Have you ever noticed that the bottom of the "V" when set on a Mesa graphic EQ is on the 750Hz slider? That is not a coincidence. The "V" shape is absolutely necessary to play...

I am an engineer. No guitar truly produces a pure sine wave. They all produce harmonic content, even one plays cleanly. A square wave is a multi-frequency wave. If you run it through an FFT, you will see the components that make up the signal A bass heavy square wave is more a function of...

Another weird thing about eighties hard rock/metal is that a lot of the guitar parts were not recorded by band members. Let's take Whitesnake's 1987 album. Adrian Vandenberg and Vivian Campbell appeared in the videos, but they had very little if any input to the album, which was mostly...

You can agree with Boogie as much as you want, but you are looking at things through a distorted lense. I did a lot of repair work in the eighties. Most gigging bands used solid-state amps. There is a reason why the first PRS amp was a solid-state design. What you are missing from a tube amp...

Even the Boogies from the 80s struggle to keep up with sixty-fourth notes while remaining articulate. One could not give away a BF or SF Fender in the 80s because only twin stands a chance of keeping up with high speed playing. Marshalls had to be completely re-voiced and they still blew up...