A Vintage Amp Snob Goes Direct - Ask Zac 104

well hello friends and welcome to
0:50
another Ask Zac today we're going to
0:52
talk about going direct uh specifically
0:56
a guy like me that's kind of a
0:58
a bit of a vintage hand i do use some
1:00
new stuff too but you know i use a lot
1:02
of old stuff and i like using amps and
1:05
such and
1:06
and just uh the process of me actually
1:09
playing my very first gig
1:11
going direct so
1:13
and then of course I've got my uh my rig
1:15
right here that i used for the
1:18
show i just played in Vegas last week so
1:21
yeah that's what we're going to talk
1:22
about today
1:23
and
1:24
yeah so while you're thinking about it
1:26
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1:58
personalized Ask Zac guitar picks
2:01
and these are some uh special d'andria
2:05
picks that d'andrea made fenders picks
2:08
in the 50s 60s 70s and 80s
2:11
and this is a special medium-heavy
2:13
celluloid pick so it's right in between
2:15
a medium pick and a heavy pick and and
2:17
this is my favorite so i had some made
2:20
up and then i sent them out to the
2:21
friends of ask Ask Zac so
2:25
let's dive in
2:27
all right so uh
2:30
let's talk about how i got to uh you
2:32
know
2:33
end up going direct
2:35
so a little history of going direct i
2:38
mean it goes back to
2:40
you know
2:41
people would would record direct even
2:42
like les Paul recorded direct some in
2:45
like in the 40s and 50s
2:47
just for the ease of it
2:49
because he was recording a lot in his
2:51
hotel room with Mary ford
2:53
and so so they wouldn't make noise he
2:56
would you know he had a way to plug in
2:58
direct into the tape machine
3:00
all right so then probably some of the
3:02
most
3:03
famous direct recordings uh would be in
3:06
the 60s all the Motown guitar parts
3:09
because the the Motown studio was so
3:11
small and they had horns and voices and
3:13
everything else going on all the guitars
3:15
were recorded direct
3:17
so all those great Motown hits of the
3:19
60s before Motown
3:21
moved to la
3:23
all that stuff was was direct then
3:26
of course famously you have all those
3:27
direct guitar parts that were done in la
3:30
and Nashville
3:31
in la you had that really really clean
3:34
direct guitar that usually had a lot of
3:36
chorus and compression on it
3:38
and in Nashville
3:40
you had somewhat of a similar thing but
3:41
it was a little bigger sounding they
3:43
were kind of still trying to make it
3:45
sound like an amp except they just
3:46
wanted to get rid of the the noise and
3:48
such so
3:51
but then you kind of get into
3:53
what i would call
3:54
somewhat the modern age of going direct
3:57
where you're actually trying to make it
3:58
sound like an amp and that kind of
4:00
starts in the 90s with the pod you know
4:02
the the kidney bean original pod and
4:05
those are pretty good sounding and i
4:06
used some of those for doing some basic
4:08
recording
4:10
maybe i played on a demo or something
4:12
with one
4:13
but since then that was kind of it
4:17
and I've kind of resisted going direct
4:20
I've always tried to use an amp as much
4:22
as possible
4:24
then what happened was
4:26
is that uh
4:28
you know i
4:29
played a couple shows with Paul bogart a
4:31
month or two ago and then he asked me to
4:33
play another show with him but this is a
4:34
fly date
4:36
and i was like okay
4:38
and i immediately thought okay we're
4:39
going to have back line and such and i
4:41
saw i started talking with
4:44
talking with the backline company
4:46
and we had this funny Abbott and
4:48
Costello routine going on where i would
4:50
ask the question
4:52
what do you have and the backline
4:54
company would say well what do you want
4:56
and then I'd say well how about a blonde
4:59
tone master you know fender and they
5:01
said
5:03
we don't have that
5:04
and then I'd say well what do you have
5:07
and then they'd say again well what do
5:08
you want well we did that about three or
5:10
four times and finally
5:13
i started talking to some of my pro
5:15
friends
5:16
and
5:19
i started realizing that going direct is
5:21
a lot more
5:23
is happening a lot more than even maybe
5:25
i wanted to accept
5:27
so i talked to my buddy Austin who plays
5:29
downtown Nashville a lot and also does a
5:31
lot of fly dates
5:33
and he goes direct
5:35
a lot
5:36
and he was even saying that there are at
5:38
least 12 clubs downtown Nashville that
5:41
they don't allow amps at all and so you
5:43
have to go direct now you might be
5:45
thinking 12 clubs is a lot and it is a
5:47
lot but downtown Nashville has like 800
5:49
000
5:50
clubs I'm exaggerating there but there
5:52
are a lot but but the fact that 12 of
5:54
them don't allow amps at all that's
5:56
actually a big deal
5:57
shows how things are shifting
6:00
okay so then i talked to uh you know i
6:02
interviewed jimmy Olander you know from
6:04
diamond Rio who Chris of course is one
6:07
of the great you know telecaster stylist
6:09
and
6:09
someone i really respect uh both his
6:12
playing and his tone and just a guy with
6:14
a lot of integrity
6:15
and uh he is switched over completely
6:18
using a kemper with diamond rio and he
6:21
was one of the guys that helped
6:23
popularize matchless amps
6:25
in in nashville in the 90s and that's
6:28
what he used a lot on the records
6:30
and
6:31
you know
6:32
he let me play through his uh kemper
6:34
setup at his at his home studio and
6:37
i was like wow this is amazing
6:40
also i checked out like the uh the line
6:41
six hx and such
6:44
and uh
6:46
yeah and you know i started kind of
6:47
finding out you know what i liked and
6:51
all of them sounded good but also there
6:52
was part of the user interface part of
6:54
it which we'll talk more about later so
6:57
also i talked to carl ridland who does
6:59
guitar work for hans zimmer and does a
7:02
lot of soundtrack work and he had said
7:03
that he had used both the kemper and the
7:05
strymon iridium a bunch
7:07
and had really great results with that
7:08
so
7:10
i finally decided with the backline
7:12
situation being kind of funny
7:14
and uh you know i decided to make the
7:17
jump now
7:19
here's the even funnier part i bought
7:21
this strymon iridium almost two years
7:23
ago
7:25
so
7:26
the reason i got it was
7:29
down at true tone
7:31
you know of course we do guitar shows
7:33
and things like that
7:34
and we always have a uh you know a
7:37
little demo station where guys can try
7:39
out you know true tone pedals
7:42
well in the past you know you'd use an
7:43
amp but then more and more you know
7:45
guitar shows are pretty loud and
7:46
obnoxious and you can't hear you know
7:49
what you're you know what you're trying
7:50
out so they started using a pod and you
7:53
know and headphones and such
7:55
and then they wanted to do something
7:57
that was better and so they tried out
7:59
all these different examples and the
8:00
best thing they found was the strymon
8:02
iridium and in
8:05
me getting to witness their
8:07
you know kind of uh experimentation with
8:10
all these amp simulator things i was
8:12
very impressed with the iridium enough
8:14
that i went ahead and bought one two
8:16
years ago
8:17
so but then of course i never would make
8:20
the jump to using it live
8:23
and so what it ended up being was a
8:24
glorified headphone amp so i'd plug in
8:27
my pedals and then plug in the iridium
8:29
at the end and put headphones on so that
8:31
i could mess with settings of my pedals
8:33
and stuff like that and i'd use of
8:34
course the deluxe reverb
8:37
preset
8:39
so
8:40
then fast forward a couple months and
8:43
fender
8:44
gave me one of the mustang micro
8:47
headphone amp things that has bluetooth
8:49
on it and everything and it's
8:51
much easier to use much easier to set up
8:53
and stuff and of course it's not trying
8:54
to do this it's just a hit and so as far
8:57
as being a headphone amp it was much
8:59
better at that
9:01
and so this just got put in the box and
9:03
was just you know kind of
9:05
collecting dust
9:08
well then came this situation and so i
9:10
decided to bust out the iridium
9:13
and uh
9:14
i found out you know it sounds good and
9:16
so today i'm using these uh jbl powered
9:19
speakers that i borrowed from the the
9:21
true tone studio
9:23
and so i would use these monitors
9:27
and use
9:28
my in-ear monitors plugged straight into
9:30
the iridium it has a headphone jack at
9:31
the bottom
9:32
and i would kind of go back and forth in
9:34
checking sounds and kind of dialing
9:36
things in and so i kind of dialed things
9:39
in i had to change up my pedal board up
9:41
a little bit to uh to go with this
9:44
mainly because
9:46
um
9:48
i didn't have reverb anymore so i really
9:50
like having spring reverb and normally i
9:52
use a boss tremolo pedal but uh
9:56
but because of of the uh
9:58
the lack of verb now it does have this
10:00
nice room knob on there that does add a
10:02
little bit of air to it but still i
10:04
wanted actual reverb
10:06
so i borrowed a flint from my buddy adam
10:09
and
10:11
he he's another guy that goes direct he
10:12
uses the hx stomp and
10:15
yeah
10:16
so i put the put the flint on there so
10:18
that way i'd have reverb and and tremolo
10:21
and so this is kind of normally what i
10:23
use so i've got a turbo tuner up there
10:25
at top got a mirage compressor
10:29
got the karma
10:30
which i either use that or an or a most
10:33
torsion the karma is a copy of a moss
10:35
torsion it's a great pedal that's what i
10:37
was
10:39
using for the intro and that's one of
10:41
the tests for me of going direct is that
10:44
does it sound okay does it sound good
10:47
you know with it with an overdrive
10:57
[Music]
11:10
so
11:11
i had the karma on there uh then the uh
11:14
the dm3 for just a quick slap back and
11:17
let's
11:18
turn that on
11:37
so that that works well then of course
11:39
the flint for reverb and tremolo then
11:42
the good old line six echo park uh on
11:45
the tape setting and i use it on the
11:47
dotted eighth so that the repeats will
11:49
tend to come in between the notes that
11:51
i'm playing
11:52
and that's going stereo into the iridium
11:56
and to do that
11:57
you have this special trs cable that's
12:00
you know dual mono to trs because the
12:02
the iridium takes a
12:04
tip ring sleeve
12:06
input to go stereo and then of course
12:09
going out to these two powered speakers
12:11
but otherwise of course live you know
12:13
going to two direct boxes
12:15
uh on the iridium
12:17
i did make a modification and that's
12:19
because i really like the vintage 30 in
12:21
a deluxe reverb so i bought from tone
12:24
junkies i bought the um
12:27
the vintage 30 ir package and so it was
12:30
about eight bucks
12:32
and that way i was able to upload
12:34
onto the the iridium some some vintage
12:37
30 with the with the mic in different
12:40
places either closer to the edge or
12:42
closer to the middle
12:43
of the cone
12:45
and uh yeah and so that's what i used
12:48
of course on the deluxe reverb setting
12:49
and so i had three different vintage 30s
12:52
put into the cab
12:54
options so that i could just switch
12:55
between instead of completely different
12:57
cabinets i just had you know three
12:59
different vintage 30 uh options with the
13:01
with the mic in different positions so
13:04
yeah
13:05
so uh you know it was it was really nice
13:09
to show up with this
13:11
and uh
13:12
you know because you know of course it's
13:14
a fly date
13:15
and i took took my esquire and i had no
13:18
backup to this and of course i was you
13:21
know taking this on the plane and just
13:23
note to self and to others make sure
13:25
you're in the a or b group if you're
13:27
flying southwest
13:28
uh some of the airlines are really rough
13:30
on guitars
13:31
but the southwest uh people are are
13:34
pretty pretty nice about that and uh
13:36
yeah so i just had this guitar in a gig
13:38
bag and then i had this in my luggage
13:40
that i checked
13:42
and uh yeah but it was nice to show up
13:44
with this
13:45
and not have to worry about rental amp
13:47
wondering if it was healthier or having
13:49
to dial it in having to do mic placement
13:51
and stuff like that it was just
13:53
let's just get plugged in because also
13:55
because we're not you know pulling our
13:57
own product carrying our own production
14:00
with this you know we've got to get
14:02
monitor mixes and everything so
14:04
you know that just that takes time and
14:07
it's it's problematic when you're you
14:09
know having to dial in an amp and
14:12
dial in you know monitor mixes and stuff
14:14
like that and you know play a
14:16
corporate show
14:18
so
14:19
it ended up
14:20
going really well and
14:23
i found that it was like what why didn't
14:25
i do this earlier this is actually
14:27
pretty cool and
14:29
now would i rather play through an amp
14:31
absolutely if it's
14:33
my amp or an amp that i know that i'm
14:35
comfortable with
14:36
then i would much rather use my own amp
14:40
you know and amps you can get great
14:42
sounds out of but you have to work more
14:44
you know moving the microphone around
14:45
and things like that
14:47
this
14:48
gets a really good sound and it's kind
14:51
of foolproof
14:52
and that's that's the advantage of this
14:55
you know you just show up you know just
14:57
show up with this pedalboard plop it
14:58
down plug it into two you know direct
15:00
boxes and you're and you're there
15:02
and it sounds really good
15:04
does it sound amazing
15:07
maybe but i bet no one in the audience
15:09
could tell the difference and i even
15:11
have some footage that uh
15:14
i might you know tag onto this video
15:16
where you can hear a little bit of me uh
15:19
playing with the with the direct rig
15:22
so yeah
15:23
so i really really enjoyed the show i
15:26
want to say that i had a number of you
15:28
guys that offered their amps that lived
15:30
in the in the vegas area
15:32
and i appreciate that and uh the other
15:34
thing was a number of you guys wanted to
15:36
come to the show and i didn't realize it
15:38
was a private private thing and so
15:41
yeah it was it was a uh it was kind of a
15:43
kickoff party for the big wigs at the
15:45
rodeo you know association so it was in
15:48
in las vegas
15:50
and so it was a it was a private show
15:52
and uh we got to sit with the rodeo
15:55
queens so they sat the band with the uh
15:58
miss
15:59
miss rodeo america and miss rodeo canada
16:03
and so you know we felt like we were
16:05
royalty sitting there with the with the
16:07
beauty queens uh
16:09
so that was uh that was fun and
16:11
entertaining so
16:13
all right well yeah i think uh
16:17
to get to the user interface part of
16:19
things um
16:22
checking out the kemper
16:24
and also the line six hx and some of the
16:26
other units out there
16:28
i found with a lot of those that they
16:30
were just
16:32
they were overly complex for my needs
16:34
and i was going to be much more
16:36
comfortable instead of trying to replace
16:37
my whole rig with a kemper i was much
16:40
more comfortable with using my standard
16:42
pedalboard setup
16:44
and then having something
16:46
that could you know that had knobs on it
16:49
and was just easy to use so that on the
16:51
fly i could make changes instead of
16:53
having to go through presets and
16:56
algorithms and
16:57
and different things like that and
16:58
program something and that's i really
17:00
can't do that on the gig i mean that's
17:03
you know it's like
17:05
you know that's just you're trying to
17:07
remember words you're trying to remember
17:09
licks and arrangements and all sorts of
17:10
things so
17:12
i i didn't need that additional issue so
17:14
because of that i i really like the
17:16
iridium i mean there's a bunch of
17:18
different options and you know some
17:19
people go kemper some go the line you
17:21
know the hx and
17:23
but i uh i found the iridium the uh the
17:26
easiest to use especially for an old
17:27
school guy like myself i'll say one
17:30
other thing is that
17:31
you know when you are going this route
17:33
the direct box that you use makes a big
17:35
difference
17:37
so uh
17:38
you know if you can get something like a
17:41
radial jdi with the jensen transformers
17:43
that's gonna sound really nice and it's
17:45
gonna be smooth sounding if you get
17:48
something like a countryman di or
17:49
something like that it's gonna be a
17:51
little harder and harsher sounding and
17:53
it's gonna be hard to smooth things out
17:55
so
17:56
just be aware of that and then as far as
17:59
feedback to strymon i wish they would
18:01
make a deluxe version that had um xlr
18:05
out so you wouldn't have to have a di or
18:07
anything that was just
18:09
you know or balanced outputs or
18:11
something
18:12
but yeah
18:14
all right
18:15
well i hope you've enjoyed today's
18:17
episode and you know the look at you
18:20
know a guy that was really
18:22
slow
18:23
to uh to get on the on the direct wagon
18:26
but now i would absolutely go direct
18:28
again it's just
18:30
you know it's it's easy and uh and it
18:33
just makes it you know more stress-free
18:37
you know if you if you can't take your
18:38
own amps now we are going to play a
18:40
couple more shows with i'm going to play
18:43
a couple more shows with paul bogart and
18:45
they're going to be in uh in tulsa and
18:47
wichita
18:49
and they're going to be right at the end
18:50
of the year around new year's eve so
18:52
you know reach out to me if you live
18:54
near there and you'd like to come out
18:55
because i i love meeting you know fellow
18:58
players and uh and chatting and i'll
19:00
have my esquire and i'll probably you
19:02
know have some of my old amps with me
19:04
and stuff for for that because those
19:05
aren't fly dates so all right guys well
19:08
thank you so much and i'll see you next
19:09
time bye