Your rig is only as good as it's weakest link...

So you've patiently saved up your coin to buy that killer amp or guitar you've wanted since forever, well maybe you should think about picking up a few killer guitar cables to go along with it.

The lowly guitar cable is probably the last piece of equipment that most players think about, after all it's just the wire that gets tangled up in your feet every time you move.

Believe it or not, that dirty cable your stepping on has one serious job! It has to clearly and precisely send all the frequency response and dynamic range you are producing, all the way from your fingers through your pedal board and on to your amp.

When you think about it – these cables are your sound!! If you have low quality cables they will most definitely suck the life out of every piece of gear you have plugged in.

Now before you go out and spend gobs of money on new high-end cables do as much research as you can before hand. There are several high-end cables available now, each brand may have it's own characteristics, some more transparent, some more bass, some more highs and some just right!

Don't take my word for it...

When possible do A/B comparisons. If your lucky and live near a good guitar shop that carries a variety of high-end and boutique cable brands ask them if you can test out some different cables. If they don't look at you like your a nutbar then your in the right store.

Always take the cable you are using now as a starting point for the comparison, you know what that one sounds like, whether you realize it or not.

When your testing, use your guitar or a guitar you are familiar with and set the amp to a clean sound. Adjust the tone and volume on the amp using your original cable, once you have it set, start the comparisons.

Be prepared to be shocked, the difference between cables is really incredible. Just remember I am not talking about comparing the normal factory made store type cables I mean high-end stuff.

Yeah but boutique cables are so expensive ...

You don't need to spend a fortune to get great cables, there are plenty of good ones in the 40 to 100 buck price range. Think of them as an investment, once you've got them you should never need to replace them.

One more tip...

You don't need to buy all new cables at once, as you can afford one you buy it, before long your whole rig will be wired right!

Hope that helps with your tone!

Jeff.W.

Pedal Placement... What goes where and why?!?!

I get asked this from time to time so I thought it would be a good idea to include it in the blog. BUT before I give you my take on this age old dilemma, I would like to mention that there are NO rules about this, it's really a personal choice of what sounds best to you. So having said that, here are some basic guidelines on what I would consider the most common way to go.

Let's start by setting up a relatively straight forward board with an A/B box, a wah, volume pedal, tuner, OD, distortion, chorus, delay. Assuming you are not going to be using the amps effects loop, here is what I would suggest.

Guitar to...

Pedal 1 - A/B box with A going to the effects and B going to the tuner. If your tuner is not True Bypass keep it out of your signal chain. The most common tuner pedals are great at tuning but they're also great at sucking the tone right out of your signal, they're some of the worst pedals to leave in your chain.

Pedal 2 - Possibly your Volume. Possibly because it depends on what you want it to do? If you have it first you are changing the volume that goes to your effects as well as your amp so when the volume is set below maximum the input signal going to the effects is not as hot and will change the way your dirt pedals sound and react. The volume pedal in this position will act like your changing the volume on your guitar. Having it first also allows you to create very sweet clean volume swells. Putting your volume pedal at the last of the signal chain does something completely different, I will touch on that when we get to the last pedal.

Pedal 3 - WAH, you want a relatively untouched signal going to the wah so it can cleanly do the cool thing that wah's do best, funk up your tones. If you send a distorted signal to a wah it will have a tough time outputting a signal that lets you hear the tonal changes, but hey that might be a cool thing to experiment with? Maybe think about the placement like this... Do I want to distort my wah or wah my distortion?

Pedal 4 and 5 - OD and Distortion, these are interchangeable depending on the sound you want. Personally I run a home made TS808 clone into a Keeley DS-1 Ultra so I'm pumping the Distortion with the OD and working the two pedals together to create a thicker, creamer distortion. You might wany to try this and also try it the opposite way. You may like to use the OD on its own and distortion on its own so you have two completely different sounding dirt pedals, this is probably the most common way they're used, so in this case it doesn't really matter which is first.

Pedal 6 and 7 (last) - Chorus and Delay most of the time you will want the modulation type effects at the end of the chain, just before the amp. Again these two are interchangeable depending on the sound you want, if you want to add a chorus swirl to your delay put the chorus at the end, if you what to add delay to the chorus put the delay at the end.

Possible Last Pedal - The Volume pedal, if you use the volume pedal at the end of the chain, you have a way to control the overall volume going to amp after the signal has gone through all the active effects. This is really good for maintaining your distorted sound at lower volumes.

Your guitar is screamin' through your dirt boxes and other goodies at full force and your pushing out lots of energy but your too loud, by putting the volume pedal at the end you can drop the output level while keeping your distortion and other effects powerful. There are certian sonic characterists to this that are difficult to discribe so if you haven't tried this you might what to test it out for yourself. Another cool thing is volume swells now have a more violin type sound.

Well that's my take on the whole pedal placement thing... But hey whatdoIknow!

Do whatever you think sounds the best to your ears!

More to come...

Just getting it all setup, should be up and running soon...