It's funny, the HXDA is absolutely "my tone" distilled and put into physical form, and it's just a no-brainer for me to be comfortable on it, and to do the things I usually do.
But I wanted to talk a little about the DG30 again, because exploring what it can do is bringing out a different side in my playing - and dare I say it - helping me expand my musical vocabulary.
For sure, this is Grissom's amp, tailor made to his hybrid picking and musical style. But it is also an amp that's suited to any artistic playing if the player digs into what it's capable of - and I differentiate that from what I usually think of as "good" playing. There are lots of good and even great players, but there are few who have their own art form going, and Grissom is one of those artistic players, to my way of thinking.
You can hear the complex high frequency crunch and harmonic haze that the DG30 produces when overdriven especially well on his song "Flim-Flam," an instrumental on his How It Feels To Fly album. It's interesting to hear how he uses the amp to get both a rich and sustaining sound, and at the same time get crunchy haze right on top of the note. It's a sound that very few amps can produce.
In working with the amp with my own material, I'm beginning to peel back the layers of what he and Doug Sewell might have been after re: the amp's design. Strangely enough, though I do have an easier time playing through the HXDA, with its buttery fatness and facile sustain, there's a tone quality in the DG30 that makes me keep coming back to it.
The more I work with it, the more I think it's an interesting tool for artistic expression that's forcing me to stretch myself, and not only that, but in doing so, it also enables that expression. If that makes any sense...
But I wanted to talk a little about the DG30 again, because exploring what it can do is bringing out a different side in my playing - and dare I say it - helping me expand my musical vocabulary.
For sure, this is Grissom's amp, tailor made to his hybrid picking and musical style. But it is also an amp that's suited to any artistic playing if the player digs into what it's capable of - and I differentiate that from what I usually think of as "good" playing. There are lots of good and even great players, but there are few who have their own art form going, and Grissom is one of those artistic players, to my way of thinking.
You can hear the complex high frequency crunch and harmonic haze that the DG30 produces when overdriven especially well on his song "Flim-Flam," an instrumental on his How It Feels To Fly album. It's interesting to hear how he uses the amp to get both a rich and sustaining sound, and at the same time get crunchy haze right on top of the note. It's a sound that very few amps can produce.
In working with the amp with my own material, I'm beginning to peel back the layers of what he and Doug Sewell might have been after re: the amp's design. Strangely enough, though I do have an easier time playing through the HXDA, with its buttery fatness and facile sustain, there's a tone quality in the DG30 that makes me keep coming back to it.
The more I work with it, the more I think it's an interesting tool for artistic expression that's forcing me to stretch myself, and not only that, but in doing so, it also enables that expression. If that makes any sense...
