Two Short Clips

[Ayton(e)]

You sure know crunch. Great texture.

The slightly less angry QR seems to handle the Custom better than the Comp does. I tried an old Custom of mine a couple of years ago when they were popular here and it was just too hard sounding. I can't get away with any ceramic bridge pickup, they have no "give" and the bright, angry Comp offers them up like surgical steel. The DC is probably old enough to have wooden spacers etc that people pay a premium for now, I should sell it for something else. Keen to try a Custom Custom.

The tone here seems like a good match for the Shovel. You happy?

You add anything besides reverb? It's a very nice recorded tone. Long live nipple-ringing.

[kabala]

Thanks man! You'll have to fill me in on the shovel thing, not sure what that means (now we're even, lol!)

I wonder, isn't there a popular mod that can be done to either of these pickups? Where the magnet from one is stacked with the other? That would be cool if I happened to have the right two pups to try that with now!! I'm not a handyman but I'd give it a shot.

I definitely like the more open and raw tone in the first clip. I was liking it so much in fact that I wanted to get the same thing happening for leads (first clip is OD 2 and gain full - couldn't quite solo the way I'd like to there), only thicker, and without leaving 1st gear. I figured the pedal would do that. But as you noted, it's more squishy and compressed, which is not really a bad thing though for leads I reckon, not sure why forgot that and mostly played random chords. I guess I'm still trying to justify having this pedal at my feet and am looking to find some place to use it, lol, because that thicker variation of tone I'm after is you know, in those other gear thingys.

I have the MXR 10 Band in the loop, almost always on....the settings are highly classified however.

[splawndude]

nice

I heard these clips on RT today and commented. I wish I could play like that.

PS: I do have a Custom Custom in my Strat but I don't use that git as much anymore sadly.

[Ayton(e)]

Shovel/Charvel. Friend of mine had one back in the 90s and always called it "the Shovel" instead of the Charvel. I guess it stuck. It's probably not a common term for them but I like it. It conveys the no-nonsense, no frills, workin' man's nature of the simple superstrat.

I too liked the open sound of the first clip much more, but kept quiet about it because I know I'm an anti-pedal snob and didn't want to be that guy. I can solo happily in 1st/OD2, but I know what you mean: it's Splawn's happy place and sometimes it would be nice if the gain would just keep going past 10. People want three channels and MIDI switching and automatic Facebook status updates from the next Splawn, but I'd be much more interested in a Plexi focused model; it'd only have 1st Gear, but that gear would go twice as far.

I think the most popular pickup mod uses a '59 and the Custom 5 — the alnico V version of your pup. Checked into it a while ago. Wanted to build it too.

[kabala]

Hehe, now I get it. Shovel sounds cool. I still call my US Pro Mod my "CharvALE" (pronounced Charv - ale) because they called the color "Red Ale").

Ahh, thanks for the pickup info...too bad, that would've been a fun experiment.

I just realized a minor 'oops' I made when recording the second clip - the freakin' tone knob on the Fulldrive was set at 9 o'clock! Not sure what I was doing whenever I did that, but I should've at least took a peek at the pedal before stomping on it, lol! It definitely sounds snappier now with the tone at noon! At 9 it's too dull, especially with my current settings. I think I must've been using it with my much brighter Ibanez guitar (Alder with true maple top and DiMarzio's).

edit: I saw that over there, splawndude - thanks for the comment!