Effect Pedal Tones

My ears are ringing.  It’s a good kind of ringing, but they are still ringing.

We just got done recording a bunch of great guitar tones with many of our effect pedals.

Keeley Electronics

Barber Electronics

Greedtone

BMF Effects

What I am learning is that my ears (when they stop ringing) are getting better.  I’m now able to discern more of the subtleties inherent in the tones produced by many of the effect pedals in our shop.   In fact, I greatly enjoyed the Barber Burn Unit and the BMF Liquid Sky Chorus.

I also really enjoyed the playing of Jimmy Ceja of the Bad Honky Tonkers.  He can really lay down the blues and rock grooves.

Check back with Fat Tone Guitars often as we are in the process of adding to our library of tones.

Fat Tone Library of Tones

Fine Line Between Ripoff and Flattery

The boutique pedal industry has been expanding quite a bit in the last few years.  I constantly compare it to the craft beer industry–both in the creativity of the participants and in the breadth of product offerings.  Like the beer industry, where there are lagers, ales, porters and stouts (among others); in the guitar effect pedal world there are overdrives, fuzzes, delays and distortion boxes (and lots more of course).

As you can guess, there is a lot of cloning going on which I think is great.  There is also a ton of “inspired by” building and brewing occuring as well.  All of this makes for some great drinking and some great jamming.

Recently, rumor had it that the Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive pedal was an exact ripoff of a certain hard to find boutique pedal called the Timmy.  Danelectro caught a lot of flack for this possible breach of morality and in trying to appease the market and increase sales, reissued the pedal in question.

Now available for the first time is the re-issued Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive with the new circuit.

Danelectro Cool Cat V2

If you are still interested in the tone that caused all the fuss the first time around, Fat Tone Guitars has a few of the original  Trans Overdrives in stock.  And at $41.95, you won’t find a better deal on a dirt pedal.  And when they are gone, they are gone.

ORIGINAL Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive Pedal

So keep drinking and keep playing.

Eastwood Airline 59 Guitar

One of my favorite guitars is the Eastwood Airline 2P guitar.  These retro-styled Airline guitars have great tone, great looks and lots of players are discovering that there are better and greater medium priced guitars on the market than simply Fender and Gibson.

Recently, Eastwood put out a limited edition Airline guitar called the Airline ‘59 Custom guitar.  This guitar features the same cool styling as the standard Eastwood Airline but includes vintage voiced single coil pickups, a rubber binding stripe, custom white headstock, a custom case and an Airline guitar strap.

Also, for a limited time, you can WIN a free Eastwood Airline ‘59 Custom guitar by visiting the Eastwood site and entering their contest.  When entering, don’t forget to reference Fat Tone Guitars in the “Dealer” box.

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Guitar

Vintage Butterscotch Blonde

What could be better than a slab of swamp ash bolted to a long piece of maple?  Seriously, in what other industry is it so difficult to improve upon the original design than electric guitars?

Leo Fender got so much more right when he came out with the Fender Broadcaster in 1949 than he could have ever dreamed.  It’s not so much the assembly line process of making guitars, but the tonal qualities and pure simplistic perfection that came about by screwing that maple neck onto that slab swamp ash body.

Here’s one contemporary builders foray into recreating the masterpiece.

Nash T-52 in Butterscotch Blonde

and its bigger brother the bass

Nash PB-52 in Butterscotch Blonde

And for something completely different, this Fano Satellite guitar takes the timeless design to new creative heights.

Fano Alt De Facto Satellite in Butterscotch Blonde

What sets these guitars apart from lots of others you might come across is the builders–Nash Guitars for the T and PB, and Fano for the Satellite–makes these guitars by hand and have complete creative control and oversite on their build.  They also use top of the line components and Lollar and Fralin pickups to nail that vintage sound.

You should check them out.

Effect Pedal Sound Clips

What’s that overdrive pedal sound like?  They all sound alike, correct?

Wrong.

As a resource to you, our fair customer, Fat Tone Guitars will be slowly but surely recording and posting demo files of all of our effect pedals.  We’ll record a clean, bypassed sound, and then crank it up and record the pedal in all it’s overdriven, or wet delayed (or what have you) glory.

When you visit our website and view a pedal, just choose the “Product Demos” tab and enjoy.  We’ll be adding more and more as the days go on.

ToneCandy Sweet Drive Overdrive Pedal

ToneCandy Sweet Drive Overdrive Pedal

rock star parking

rock star parking

Originally uploaded by zeelje

More fun and games from I Was A King. This is Anne Lise, second guitarist and vocalist at our shop.

I Love Rock n Roll (and jazz and blues, etc.)

I really do.  It’s the music of electric guitars and basses and drums.  Loud and raunchy like Neil Young and Crazy Horse.  I also like loud and dreamy like Teenage Fanclub or the Norwegian band that I was recently turned on to, I Was A King.

I was a King stopped by Fat Tone Guitars recently and picked up up a very cool Fano Alt De Facto JM6 in Shell Pink.

I Was A King with Fano Guitar

They are great live and have an ethereal sound–dreamy vocals with a wall of guitars.  Check them out here.

What Sounds Good

Being in the guitar store business, I spend a lot of time listening to music and guitars, and a lot of time listening to people playing guitars.  I also spend a lot of time talking to customers.  More importantly, I spend a lot of time LISTENING to customers.  What is striking me as ironic is that a lot of customers are spending less time listening and more time “researching”.

There are tons of guitar effect pedals out there and it seems that there are more and more each week.  I’m going to go on record right now and say that there are almost no “bad” effect pedals.  What sounds good to you, the player, is subjective and never wrong.  What gets me is that people seem to be spending too much time on the web reading about pedals ad nauseum.  I think that time should be spent listening to the sounds.  Even better, get out a record and listen to it.  Even better than that-go to a concert and listen to that!

We had a customer in the shop this week who was in the market for a chorus pedal.  He brought his guitar with him to the shop and proceeded to play about 6 chorus pedals over the course of about 30 minutes.  When he was done, he packed up his stuff, turned to me and said “I’ve got to do more reading”.

Huh?  This is a guitar shop not a bookshop.

MJM Effects, out of Canada is becoming one of my favorite boutique pedal companies.  Great lineup of pedals–from fuzz to distortion to vibe.  Here’s one of my favorites…the MJM China Fuzz.

MJM China Fuzz Pedal

Catch Short Punks in Love at the next After-Hours at Fat Tone on Saturday June 27th at 8pm.

After-Hours at Fat Tone Guitars

On some Saturday nights, Fat Tone Guitars transforms from a guitar shop to a small performance venue.  We’ve been providing a spot where local artists can perform their tunes to a small intimate audience–without worrying about pleasing a bar owner or drawing a crowd.

Last week, Fat Tone had the Super Mini Trio, which isn’t a trio and they aren’t mini either.  What they are is a rockin’, twangin’ country-rock band that sandwiches their catchy original tunes between some very well chosen covers.

Super Mini Trio is also quite versatile.  About 2 hours before showtime, their drummer called in sick.  Rather than worry, the 4 piece became a 3 piece and put the trio back into their name.  They sounded great, Steve Mend played some fluid leads, Barb Hale sang like a trubadour, and Deb Altman kept things moving on the low end.

Super Mini Trio at Fat Tone Guitars

Before the Super Mini Trio Show at Fat Tone Guitars

After-Hours at Fat Tone will be featuring The Imperials on April 11th, and The Bill McCrory Band on May 16th.

Local Rock

Fat Tone Guitars hosted another edition of its After-Hours performances last Friday night.  After-Hours at Fat Tone is a performance series that highlights local artists on the Fat Tone stage–an alternative to the suburban Chicago bar scene that is not always “happening”.  Last Friday, Rebeltone took the stage and really rocked the house.

Rebeltone, a three piece band that plays it’s unique brand of “Midwest Rock N Twang” is fronted by Tom Foutris on guitar and lap steel guitar and Deborah Altman on bass.  They have written a bunch of original tunes that are memorable and catchy without pandering to the commercial.  Their set was fun and the sound wasn’t half bad either.

Fat Tone will be continuing it’s series of After-Hours events in March with Super Mini Trio.

Rebeltone rocking at Fat Tone

Tom Foutris, Rick Smith and Deb Altman of Rebeltone

Rebeltone getting their twang on at Fat Tone Guitars