Gear demo: USA Fender Strat Plus, Electro-Harmonix Freedom Amp, Danelectro Fab Distortion, EH Holy Grail reverb, Gibson Les Paul Studio Plus, lots more...click "more info" for complete list.

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Musical equipment demonstration. I have no connection with these companies, I just love these particular products. The only clip I could find of the discontinued Electro-Harmonix Freedom Amp when I was shopping for one was Yngwie Malmsteen busking on an Amsterdam street, and that disappeared from youtube shortly thereafter. Great little portable rechargeable amp...this demo may drive up the used price, possibly to my own detriment if it ever craps out and I have to find another one, but it's just too good for there not to be a demo of it somewhere.

You can hear me play actual songs on my record--visit my youtube page for details.


Guitars:

1991 Fender USA Strat Plus
Fender-Lace Sensor pickups: neck/middle: gold
bridge: silver

2001 Gibson Les Paul Studio Plus
neck pickup: Gibson '57 Classic
bridge: '57 Classic Plus


Bass:

1977 Fender Precision with active Alembic pickup.


Guitar amps:

Electro-Harmonix Freedom Amp
15 watt 1x8 closed back combo

In production starting 2000; discontinued around '06. This is nothing like the larger black 1x10 open back Mike Matthews Freedom Amp of the '70's that ran on either A/C or FORTY D-cell batteries. This one has a rechargeable 12-volt battery inside, and does not run on A/C.

Vol is on 1, a good strong living room volume...say loud enough to jam with a stand-up bass and piano. This amp is just stupid loud for its size. At about 0.5 it's conversation volume. Apparent volume about doubles from 1-7, gets as loud as most 30w solid state amps I've heard. Around 8 it starts distorting in that fizzy solid state way, but up to there it just goes from loud to louder. Tone on about 4, Bite (presence or high treble) about 4.

In the blues backing track on the left side is a clean rhythm guitar...it's the same Strat (neck pickup) and Freedom Amp; but instead of Holy Grail reverb, I recorded dry and added reverb with Cool Edit Pro plugin.


Vox Cambridge 30
1990s 30 watt 1x10 open back solid state combo

On the blues backing track on the right side you hear a muddy warbly-sounding thing playing chords and bits of chords mostly in upper registers, which I intended to function like an organ part. It's the Strat bridge pickup with the tone turned all the way down, running into a Morley Bad Horsie wah pedal, then into the Vox clean channel, with the treble turned all the way down on the amp, and all remaining high end rolled off at mixdown. I jiggled my foot on the wah pedal to phony up a rotating leslie speaker. The commenter on my '07 gear demo who thinks I wah on too many notes should really hate this one. I also used a big hall reverb plugin to push this part further into its strange place. So not at all a fair/straight demo of this very good amp. Incidentally it's a great living room bass amp too believe it or not.


Effects:

Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb pedal, 'spring' setting, on about 4.

Danelectro Fab Distortion pedal: for blues track, tone about 4, distortion about 3-4; for the hard rock bits I just turned the distortion up to 10.

Morley Bad Horsie wah pedal:
see "Vox Cambridge 30" above for description.


Bass amps:

For the blues backing track I'm using an SWR Interstellar Overdrive as a stand alone 5 watt EL84 tube amp, into an Aguilar GS112 1x12 bass cabinet with the piezo tweeter turned all the way down. Simultaneously tracked the bass DI .

For the hard rock moments at the end, I ran the bass into a Line 6 Bass PODxt then straight to sound card—behind the Strat hard rock part I used the "Huge 360" preset (models the '70's era Acoustic Control Corporation 360 with 1x18); with the Les Paul part I used the "Eden 112" preset.


Drums:

The snare, cymbals, and toms are single hit samples from the Bun E. In A Box sample/loop collection. I don't use loops, I manually copy and string together dozens of single-hit samples—e.g. a snare drum being hit once—to create my own beats/fills. The kick drum is a secret found sound I recorded at home which I will reveal to the world someday, can you guess what it is?


Recording chain:

Guitar: Shure SM57 dynamic mic to M-Audio DMP-3 dual channel mic preamp, to M-Audio Audiophile 2496 sound card to PC hard drive.

Bass: For the blues track I mic'd the Aguilar cabinet with a Studio Projects C1 large diaphragm condenser mic, about 10" out from the speaker and closer to the edge of the speaker than the middle; tracked DI simultaneously and mixed the two later. For the hard rock bits at the end I recorded direct using Bass PODxt, see above.

Tracked/mixed with Cool Edit Pro 2.0.

Event ASP8 Studio Precision monitors.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Electro-harmonix
• freedom
• amp
• danelectro
• fab
• distortion
• holy
• grail
• fender
• precision
• les
• paul
• strat
• DMP-3
• Kenny
• Gott

[Wadivo]

What amp?

[MissingLincolnK]

@Wadivo The little square wooden thing to my left with the mic on it!

[stewiebrutha]

at 5:38 is that riff raff by ac/dc? i LOVE that song! :D

[MissingLincolnK]

@stewiebrutha yes that's "Riff Raff", great song by AC/DC. Good ear!

[1983platypus]

just curious...are your frets scalloped? it appears so especially by the way youre doing your vibratos and bends

[MissingLincolnK]

@1983platypus No they're not scalloped, but the strings are set relatively high off the fretboard so maybe I get away with more extreme bending than would be possible with super low action. I hadn't really thought about it.

[TheJonOhBoy]

I have an 87 strat plus with the Strat Plus Deluxe pickup config. I will marry my guitar.

[TheViewFromUpThere]

More Cowbell.

[Timmy4pawz]

@Timmy4pawz Black hole sun! Parts of your backing track sound like Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden

[Timmy4pawz]

0:46 nice key change! The wobbly sound in the backing reminds me of a song...

[Frip36]

The drum on your backing track is too prominent.

[tangnatalaga]

nice job