Guitar rig VI: overlooking the obvious

Now, in my on going quest for the ultimate guitar setup,I have tried and used a lot of gear.Many were new to me. However, I named this one over looking the obvious because I found that is exactly what I did and it cost me in tone/sound.

Boomerang I+

I love Boomerang phrase samplers. I was an early user of the first boomerangs when they came out. The boomerang phrase sampler is a pedalboard which allows you to record some of your playing and then plays it back and repeats. you can then add additional layers on top of it to create a symphony of guitar sounds.Now, the boomerang I was fairly simple, but limited to mono and quite noisy.

Boomerang III 

The boomerang III is the latest of the boomerang phrase samplers and it boasted noise free 48k stereo looping and 4 loops at one time. Well, I got one and it is fairly complicated.Well, hell, I was using it and noticed that  I was getting some extra noise even when not playing. I had the boomerang III in a Mackie  mixer with some other looping gear and f/x.Hell, "noise free my ass" I thought. I took down each fader until the noise was gone and to my dismay it was the boomerang III.It was giving out a kind of hiss and amp noise. I love the silent no noise effects and amps. I love plugging into my albion amp and getting this crystal clear sound with no noise.So, this was really disappointing.I thought it was a limitation of the hardware.

While playing, I noticed that I was getting lights lighting on my mixer that showed there was a signal passing through it. I thought it was one of my 20 year old jamman loopers, taking the fader down didn't help. the sound was coming from the boomerang III. Then it donned on me, that  I never set the levels on the boomerang III . I recall that the boomerang I had a big switch that allowed the original guitar signal to pass through as well as the loop signal. this would explain why I was seeing levels on my mixer when there should have been none.

boomerang I kill dry signal switch

Now, I had to get the boomerang III manual as choosing to kill the dry sound is not as obvious as the old boomerang I. Instead of a big switch, it was a series of holding down 2 buttons. so I did and voila, all of a sudden the room became silent, no amp hum,no hiss ,nothing. I thought this cant be. I almost thought the boomerang III would not put out any sound as it was so silent. but I played a chord and recorded it and played it back and amazingly it played back at a healthy volume with no noise.

I felt like a numb nut, a boob, you mean this whole time I had been playing with my dry signal passing through the boomerang II causing a lot of extra noise. Lesson learned: know your gear and pay attention to the small details which may seem too obvious at first.

The hybrid amp: tube vs solid state

The hybrid amp: tube vs solid state

ok, well, its no secret that guitarist covet real tube amps for their glorious sound and I must say that being in a room and playing one of thee amps is spectacular especially when you stop plying and the amp goes deadly silent with no hiss as if not even on and then roars to life even with clean sounds.

Now, tubes present a set of problems. all tube amps are heavy as hell and you have to replace the tubes and they are expensive and fragile.  So, for years, companies have put out solid state amps without these limitations but the tone is usually compromised. So, they come up with these schemes to try to duplicate the tube: modeling, solid state preamps and so on and today i ran into the hybrid amp. A real tube preamp with a solid state power amp. that way you get the tone but not the headache and only 1 tube to deal with instead of 6-9 tubes.

 I was in a local music store trying out a super expensive fender twin reverb and it sounded good, but was freakin heavy as heck. and at almost a grand,wasn't going to happen. but I loved its clean tone. I then went through and tried almost every amp including a cybertwin, some other fenders, a couple of crates and they all paled into comparison. then as a last minute thing, I looked and hidden behind the fender twin ,obviously neglected, was this amp.It looked like a 2x12 combo amp. I just thought ok last amp, why not. I could tell the knobs were dusty and then it finally kicked in and I was stunned. here was that fender twin clean sound again and even at loud settings it still sounded clean like a twin. I mean it has that tube bass thump the solid state amps lacked. it reminded me of the Texas made Alamo amps (old and pretty rare).I then dialed in some of the effects,perfectly clean,not over the top. then the overdrive ch and it was pretty close to a  jcm800 sound ,better than a jcm900 anyway.it nailed a jtm-45 without even trying. not enough to do modern metal, but more like that jcm800 ac/dc tone. I couldn't believe a solid state could sound like a tube amp, this time for real. Best part was the price.I could buy 4 of these for the price of the fender twin.It was a hybrid amp, a tube preamp (1 tube) and a solid state power amp. I am on the hunt for a second one.Its the closest thing to being a full tube amp.The company is obscure and worse, they have discontinued that series of amps sadly. I wont tell you what they are just yet or they will be scoooped up before I can get a few lol..but hearing is believing.