Le Faux Leslie - The Chain Gang #9

No Hammond or Leslie within my reach so a makeshift will have to do.

Of course it's not the real thing but it's good enough to inspire my playing.

The "Highway Man" is ment to simulate the tube drive of the Leslie cabinet, it also allows me to cut highs and boost the bass to my liking.

The "Super Chorus" gives various warbles and worbles.

The "Pulsar" tremolo simulates the volume changes of the rotating speakers inside the Leslie cabinet.

Everything is set to pretty fast, there is no way to simulate the slow setting on the Leslie with this set up.

I use my B.C. Rich Mockingbird on the bridge pickup.

With the volume almost all the way back clean chords sound quite nice to my ear.

I turn up the volume or switch to the middle position when I want more drive out of the Highwayman.

Two Overdrives for Clean Tone - The Chain Gang #7

The clean tone of the Crate Palomino can be a bit bass heavy and the highs of the cheap tube amp are piercing my eras in certain situations.
The amp's EQ can only do so much, but with this two overdrive pedals in front, I am able to enhance the clean sound and tailor it to my liking.

The guitar's volume is dialed back a bit which filters out some of the highs already.
I use the neck pickup for single notes and the middle position for strumming chords.

The signal then goes into the "Orange Burst", a medium overdrive / booster.
The volume of the pedal is almost all the way up, gain is turned down completely.

The "Pure Sky" is a low gain overdrive which is set up with the gain all the way down and the volume is set to unity level when both pedals are on, compared to the pure signal of amp and guitar.

Both pedals provide a treble and bass knob to reign in the harsh highs and booming lows.
So two overdrives provide quite an effective way to eq the guitar signal before it meets my amp.

There are a multiple of ways to achieve the same goal, you could of course use a dedicated EQ pedal, some sort of booster or filter and every combination will yield different tonal results.
This variant worked for me, so I post it before it vanishes into the obscurity of my fleeting mind.

Electro Harmonix Double Muff & Soul Preacher - The Chain Gang #6

Many people are left irritated and confused by the Double Muff. Me too.
It is one of those very sensitive effects and its sound is highly dependant on where you put it and what you choose to put into it.
It likes to be first in the signal chain, getting a high impedance signal (1 Mohm) from your guitar.
So there seems to be only one way of using it - as an overdrive in front of your already dirty amp, giving you more drive (Works nicely with some bass guitars actually).
And that's pretty much what it was intended for too.
Not very versatile.
I like to combine it with a compressor - and behold - the classic compressor into overdrive combination opens new doors.
Let's see:

I set my amp to slightly dirty, the volume of the guitar drives the preamp. With the Crate Palomino I use the Overdrive channel, setting the gain knob and the volume knob of the guitar so that I hear some crunch and setting the master volume as loud as I dare.
One might use the clean channel too but the Double muff gives such a huge volume boost when engaged that my amp simply gets too loud before I can reach the tone I am looking for.

Settings on the B.C.Rich Mockingbird - I like it with the neck pickup, the middle and bridge position gives me more treble if I want it. Tones are rolled back slightly, volume is set so that the pure guitar signal pushes the amp into overdrive. When I find "the spot" I prefer to leave it where it is at.

On to the pedals.
Setting the Double Muff is simple - just switch it to "single" and turn the "Muff 1" knob all the way up.
With that your amp receives additional volume and clipping and gets pushed further into overdrive.

Putting the Soul Preacher in front of the Double muff enables you to "overdrive the overdrive", tricking the double muff into thinking it's a distortion pedal.
The sustain knob of the compressor is all the way down, I just need the volume boost of the Soul Preacher to push the input of the Double Muff.

So with just two pedals I am able to cover the "core sounds" I am after:

Switch on the Soul Preacher into the dirty amp and play kind of clean.
Switch on the Double Muff without the Soul Preacher into the dirty amp and play crunchy rhythm.
Switch on both the Double Muff and the Soul Preacher for distorted lead sounds.

As I like to keep unity gain between my switching options, the hardest thing was to get the volumes at an even level.
The treble changes too when switching things on and off but once I found the right balance between amp, guitar and pedals, I was very happy.
As always, this is a mere reminder for myself, I tend to forget things and settings, so don't take this as a guarantee for great tone.

Electro Harmonix Soul Food & Soul Preacher - The Chain Gang #5

Praise the healer!
EHX allowed me to enhane the sound of my old Vietnamese amp so much, I might never switch off those two pedals anymore. Soul Preacher into Soul Food, what a lovely combination.

I have to post this "Chain Gang", lest I forget.
But keep in mind - these aren't any kind of recommended settings, just what sounds best with my setup.

So guitar goes into the Preacher, which goes into the Soul Food, which goes into the amp's intput.
The levels of the pedals are set at about unity gain, the pedals are both on all the time.
The Preacher gives me an even signal from the guitar, the different strings and pickup combinations.
The Soul Food provides a little bit of drive for the slighty dirty clean channel of the amp.

The amp is not set totally clean, the level is high enough to make the clean channel brake up when hit hard by the guitar signal alone.

Settings on the B.C.Rich Mockingbird, playing in the middle position, master volume rolled off a bit, as well as the two tone controls.
Now, if I changed to another guitar, the settings on the rest of the signal chain will of course change accordingly.

But as it is now, this combination just works great for me.

B. C. Rich Mockingbird - The Art Of Doomina In Spiro Lights

My second B.C. Rich - I'm sure you can guess my preferred design by this builder now.

Called "Spiro Light", out of the "Body Art Collection" - would love to have them all actually... ah well, sweet dreams.

The previous owner is a really nice fellow by the way and maybe some of you might even recognise this fine instrument of heavy psychedelia.

B. C. Rich Mockingbird Masterpiece

Finally found the time to grab the soldering iron - the wiring was shot on this one and the bridge pickup was dying too, so I replaced it with a brand new Epiphone SG pickup.

B.C. Rich Mockingbird in "Dragon Blood" (ha!).

Mahogany body with a quilted maple veneer - "only for the show" one might say.
Creme binding around the curved body.

Maple bolt-on neck with rosewood fretboard and nice cloud inlays.

Looks hot and best of all - sounds great too! Not quite a dragon's roar but appropriately heavy.

I altered the switching, B.C. Rich likes to do the controls in a rather unorthodox way and at least for me it's quite hard to remember in "the heat of a dragon battle".

Originally it goes like this: There's the volume for the bridge pickup up front, followed by the toggle switch, then the volume for the neck pup and the a master tone pot.

I changed it to a master volume for both pickups, then toggle, then tone controls for each pickup.
I like to use the middle position on the toggle switch and this configuration simply made more sense to me personally.

Tuning is Drop - D.