Low Cost Guitar Clone (Klon?) Pedals and You - Saving Dollars on Accurate Sound

Guitar pedals cost a pretty penny. Sites like Cheaperpedals.com seek to remedy this by stocked Chinese knockoffs (and semi original ideas). We'll sketch out the recommended copies and the original undefeated champions.

RECOMMENDED CLONES:

My horror surf fuzz rock pedalboard, as it stands today

For my current surf, horrorpunk, and lo-fi garage needs.

VFE Triumvirate Distortion
VFE Bumble Bee Compressor
Coldcraft Harmonic Tremolo V2

Fairfield Circuitry Four Eyes
Catalinbread Topanga Reverb
Catalinbread Echorec Delay (and clean boost!)

Voodoo Labs ISO-5

Cusack 5/15 Goblin Amp

The Best of...Guitar Pedal Oddities - The Unique The Strange

A round-up of the unique (truly unique - not hyperbole) and different.

This list avoids the usual (EH B9, Sitar).

Solving Hum and other Noises in your Guitar Effects and Signal Path

60mhz hum getting you down?

Digital or solid state"cycling sound" keeping you up at night?

The solution is herein.

Twang Fuzz - Getting that Spaghetti Western Sound

Spaghetti Western guitar is a combination of 

twangy pickups (the character)
warm, gritty fuzz (the chill up your spine)
and a smattering of spring reverb (open range soul)

A tiny slapback delay gives plucked notes more resonance. A western theme on the box also helps.

P90s and the catalog of TV Jones can get you the pickup character.

The best fuzzes are 60's style Fuzzrite clones.

See my reverb post for recommendations on that.

Now lets discuss the fuzz!

Kreteks, Cloves, and the Joy of Indonesian Smokes

The crackle and the alluring aroma of the clove cigar (kretek) is worth a try. Here is a rundown on the brand remaining in the US - Djarum.

 So what happened to clove cigarettes in the United States? In 2009, Congress banned flavored cigarettes, except for menthol. The big manufacturers knew tighter regulations were coming and their gambit enabled the smaller importers to be effectively out of business in the US. Well played.

Shelf space was freed up to the (always profitable) pure tobacco and menthol cigarettes. Djarum quickly changed their wrapper to meet the cigar designation. The pack size was reduced from 20 to 12. Tobacconists continue to carry them today for around $5-$7 a pack.

Internet ordering is generally cheaper and limits steep taxes.

The Best Fuzz Pedals

The greatest fuzz pedals on the market * ^ # %

* As experienced and researched by tone heads

^ That do darn-near-everything reeeaallly well

# Make war widows feint and are technically complex (quality design = quality outputs)
% And are available (sorry, Spaceman Sputnik)

The Industry Hates You - Getting Started or Restarted with Guitar

I boiled down the guitar industry to get you (re)started on the guitar and get the best value.

1. The industry has eaten itself. Sellers and producers are one step up from mattress salesmen.

2. Background
2.A. Fender owns Ovation and essentially owns Gretsch.

2.A.1. Gibson owns Epiphone and has sued darn-near everyone else at some point.

2.A.2. G+L, PRS guitars, Martin, and Ibanez (and many others) are private but essentially produce the same product with the latest window dressing.

The Best Tattoo Aftercare Lotions and Creams

So you are about to get a tattoo and you want to care for it. Doesn't matter whether it is a small ladybug or a dragon that mounts the world - you want the ink to stay in the skin and minimal pain during the healing process. As a proud graduate of the 6x Tattoo School (medium and large) here is the best answer on the internet:

 1. Do NOT use a petroleum based product. Why? Because the AAD says so. Note, this isn't your cousin Ted. This is the dermatological doctors' body of knowledge.

 1.A. So DO NOT use Vaseline, most of the Aquaphor sub-brands (read the labels and see the paraffin), and any other derivative of petroleum jelly.
 1.B. Do NOT use products with various alcohols and numbing solutions. These burn quite mightily! The AAD doesn't say anything about them, but for goodness sake - why suffer?!

 2. That leaves us with two big options:

 2.A. The half-hour search at the grocery store for something that isn't mentioned in 1...OR...

The Best Shoes for High Arches, Plantar Facitis, Painful Feet

The problem: You have diagnosed Plantar Facitis, high arches, or lingering pain in your ankles, knees, and lower back. I had to figure out my foibles alone and will give you the Cliff's Notes for a pain free life.

 This is difficult to solve for Americans since the big manufacturers are 95% focused on window dressing minimally supported footwear.

1. Shoes are all different. The most important component is the "last". This is the shape of the footbed in three dimensions. They can be pointy, squared, rounded at toe. Footbeds vary in width and height at key points.
1.A. The best features and buzzwords to look for are:

• Deep Heel (settles the base of the your foot for stability)
• Firm Arch (a floppy or flat arch is destabilizing and causes joint tenderness)
• Orthotic (this isn't a bad word!)
• Support (and some Neutral) lasts

1.B. Avoid the following

• Flat "Pillow insoles"
• Dr. Scholls (Gel and the multicolored "zones" are hype)
• Motion Control

2. The easiest solution to adjust existing (or desired footwear) is the SOLE Brand inserts (NOT Sof Sole or Superfeet as they are inferior, based on experience). This will fix around 90% of your problems.

The Best Guitar Reverb Pedals and Units

The greatest REVERB pedals and units on the market * ^ # %

* As experienced and researched by tone heads

^ That cover dry to drippy sounds

# Make winos woozy and are technically complex (quality design = quality outputs)

% And are available

Let's Get Started!

The Best Tremolo Pedals

Tremolo is typically classified as

• Harmonic (Brownface Tones - early 60's)
• Bias (Blackface Tones - late 60's, 70's)
• Optical (Modern Sound)

Let me save you many hours - get with one of the following (you can't miss...really)

Guitar Pedal Manufacturers With Discounts / Codes / Coupons

Pedals are a pricey, fun, and maddening experience. Save some cash by buying direct from the folks that discount - blemishs (blems), sales, and so on.

Let's Get Started!

Copies / Copies - Decoding the Mooer Guitar Pedal Line

Let's Decode the Mooer plethora of pedals

Buy Mooer at Amazon or Cheaperpedals

ABY (Micro) Channel Switch = EHX Switchblade

ABY MK2 Channel Switch = Morley ABY Selector

Acoustikar Acoustic Guitar Simulator = Boss AC-2/3

Ana Echo Delay = Boss DM-2 (and Waza)

Zero Latency Recording in Windows 7/8/8.1

Let's Make this Simple! The internet is full of well-wishers and half-baked ideas, but here is what you need to record at zero latency.

 Why do you want this? Say you are a guitarist, keyboardist, keytarist, or another form of awesome home-studio musician. You have the vibe, groove, and inclination to record, but are stuck with Windows (7, 8, 8.1) latency in recording. There is no escaping it. Windows sucks for recording.

Why? Because the operating system takes the microphone (or other) input, converts it to a digital signal, then sends it to the output. That takes milliseconds of time, causing every guitar twang and key pressed to arrive late. It is disorienting.

 The solution is to use a USB input system. Don't worry, you don't need a 64 channel mixer spanning a foam block and wood-paneled studio. Here are the steps:

1. Buy a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 ($250)- 6 Inputs and 6 outputs. Sweet! Below I have a USB going to my computer, two inputs (1 guitar, and 1 synthesizer), and one headphone output. My condenser microphone goes into one of the front inputs. That leaves me with midi and SPDIF inputs and a full 6 channels of output any way I see fit (+1 more headphone output)!