Learning To Love Fuzz & Electric Guitar Capo Tips - Ask Zac 87

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac hope you're doing well
1:36
today
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today we're going to talk about fuzz in
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my journey with fuzz pedals and how it's
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been something
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a type of circuit that I've hated
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through the years and
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and probably never really understood
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properly until more recently
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and also we're going to touch a little
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bit at the end we're going to touch a
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little bit more on using a capo
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an electric guitar so that's
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that's today's topics so
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all right thanks well let's let's let's
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dive into fuzz
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so you know for most guys that learn how
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to play guitar in the 80s
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you know the only time you really heard
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about fuzz was
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like guitar world you know or guitar
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player art especially guitar world it
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seemed like they had Jimi Hendrix on the
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cover
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you know every uh every year or two and
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there would be some type of
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retrospective on Jimi Hendrix
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and you'd hear about fuzz pedals or
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perhaps you know Stevie ray Vaughan
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would do kind of he would do voodoo
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child or things like that and sometimes
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he would use a fuzz
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face and you'd hear about his kind of uh
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you know playing and using that
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equipment as an
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homage to jimmy and then of course
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eric johnson so those were kind of the
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examples that i heard about the most at
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that point but
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being exposed to a fuzz pedal was was
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not common
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they just weren't around and when you
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did see them
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you know they looked weird you know
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there was a you know you'd see like an
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original fuzz face maybe at a vintage
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guitar show or maybe that was
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in a uh a glass case at a music store
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and it'd be like you know
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what what is that you know it just looks
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so weird you know it didn't look like a
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boss or an ibanez pedal you know because
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it was way
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way before it and uh i think it was just
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it was just kind of a
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turn off and then later on
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companies like full tone and others
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started making
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fuzz petals in the 90s you had like the
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69 pedal
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and you had like some fuzz octave pedals
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and and different things like that
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and you know then you started hearing
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about things like the black crows or
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or the fact that maybe the stones had
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used you know fuzz besides just like
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satisfaction but in other ways
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and you'd i would try them out and they
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would just seem
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so over the top um
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there there was hard to get uh subtlety
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out of it and and i know
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you know part of it is the guitar and
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you know and also
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the the pot your volume pot and
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and how the taper is on it um
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but i just never connected with fuzz
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petals
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and uh just never cared for one i don't
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think i've ever
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had a fuzz pedal on my pedal board or
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really even been horribly curious about
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them if i heard about someone using one
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i'll be
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like oh that's just some kind of shtick
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so
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fast forward many many years and my
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buddy austin
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skinner who you you know about from the
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uh playing downtown nashville
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episode and again he's the guy that if
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it weren't for him i wouldn't be
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doing the ask zach show and he's a good
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friend
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again i've known him since he was 10 and
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i was 20 and
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now we're older than that and
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i was recently over at his place
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and he uh he had to play that night we
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went went to supper and then he was
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having to play
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like 10 to 2 or something like that and
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he said plug into my pedal board and let
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me make sure i got everything working
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right because he was you know
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like you do at times you're taking one
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pedal board
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and you're shifting it into other stuff
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because he had been doing he had done a
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fly date
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and he had to have stuff where he was
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using like a modeling amp and then he
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was doing something where he was using
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an amp and he was moving some stuff
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around
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so i had this guitar with me because i
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was showing it to him because he hadn't
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seen it yet
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and he uh he you know was plugging into
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some different things and showing off
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his
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echoes and different things he had and
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then i was like wait wait wait
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what what am i hearing right now i said
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turn the echo off i said
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what's on right now and he said oh
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that's a that's a
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sun line i said what's that he said well
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it's an analog man it's a boost and it's
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also their
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their sun face fuzz
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i said well what part of it is on he
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said well just just the fuzz
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i said real i said that's fuzz because
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what it sounded like was it sounded like
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my guitar
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but with just a little bit of this kind
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of fuzzy head on it it
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sounded like uh i kind of likened it to
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uh my guitar tone got like a guinness
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style you know uh head on it like a like
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a beer with you know like a dark beer
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with a big uh
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big head on it and uh i really liked the
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sound of it
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but now the boost was fine but of course
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the fuzz that i really cared about
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i was like well what is it why does this
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sound so
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different than other fuzzes and he said
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well it's got this
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nkt 275
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you know germanium transistor and then
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also
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the sun faces have a clean mix
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control and i've got the clean mix set
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pretty high
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like okay so i thought well i'm just
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going to go home and i'm going to buy
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one of these things
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well i get online and of course
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turns out that the nkt 275
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uh germanium transistor is
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horribly expensive uh been knocked off a
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bunch and so all the
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sun face pedals that have those and
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they're crazy expensive
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you know going 800 to 2 000
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depending on which version of it they
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had
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so i looked at those for a while and
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then i just decided i
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i you know yes i know i've got a
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a blackface fender and a 50s
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you know esquire and stuff but i just
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couldn't i couldn't fathom
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paying that much money for uh for a fuzz
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pedal
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yet so i contacted analog
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man uh mike there and i told him
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you know that i had played through a
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friend's uh
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you know sun line and i just wanted the
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fuzz and i wanted it
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for something where i could kind of you
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know for basically a clean tone with
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kind of like a little bit of fuzz on the
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on the on the top
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like the head on on a beer so
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he recommended a 2n
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germanium and uh
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and yeah so that's what i i ordered
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so this is it
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uh and yeah so now i've you know paid
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full bang for it you know i didn't
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uh you know mike didn't offer a discount
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i didn't ask for one
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uh and yeah so this is this is a really
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a really fun and cool pedal and i
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finally kind of get
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fuzz and it's because of the clean blend
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so internally
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it has a trim pot and i have it set
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pretty high where it's like
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uh you know about 60 to 70 percent clean
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and then the rest is fuzz and that's why
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i have the fuzz kind of turned up you
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know higher
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and then of course this is the sun dial
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which
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um you know that controls the the bias
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of the transistor so yeah
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i just really love the sound of this
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thing
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and uh it's really great for going you
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know
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straight into an amp and just giving you
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different sounds and you know of course
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you have the thing that i played kind of
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at the beginning where i was playing
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you know kind of some dirty chicago
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style blues
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on the neck pickup
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actually played on the neck pickup
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[Music]
10:26
sounds pretty good on the bridge
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[Music]
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and of course you know what's nice about
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a fuzz is if you have a good
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you know good taper on your volume
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control you can just turn it down a
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little bit it starts
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so
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yeah so it's a really nice um
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you know ability to to clean up a lot
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better than a lot of overdrive pedals do
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and uh yeah and you have kind of those
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famous
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uh you know kind of neck pickup sounds
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[Music]
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just a lot of uh really really nice
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sounds at tap i i really you know it's a
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really good
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match for this guitar and this amp it uh
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yeah it kind of you can kind of you know
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leave it on
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all the time and just kind of bring it
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in and out and of course if you probably
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if you want to go
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bakersfield or something like that you
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probably would want to you know turn it
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off
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but uh yeah and and of course you can
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get a lot
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more fuzz out of that you know of course
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because
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like i said before i've got the uh
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the clean mix up pretty high where
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there's a lot of
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of dry signal coming through so
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really cool pedal they're uh i don't
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know i think they're around 230 bucks or
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something like that
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uh i got it to where it has the the pot
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where it can turn off um
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let's see i'll put it in bypass so it
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won't make a big bunking sound but you
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can uh
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you can come around here and it has a
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little detent on it so when you hit that
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and that's to save the battery and this
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has no uh
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dc jack on it and you really need to put
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a
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carbon style uh battery in here which
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you can get those
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like i mean a lot of like you know
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your walgreens or dollar generals or
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even guitar center has them they're the
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dan electro branded
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guys are our carbon and you can put them
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in here and they do make a big
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difference
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in the sound of these things and uh yeah
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very happy with the
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two in sun face here a couple
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pointers for the uh for fuzz pedals
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in general um they don't really do well
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with uh fragile vintage speakers
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so like i probably wouldn't play i
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haven't experimented yet with the
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harvard with it but i'm i'm not real
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excited about that because i
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fuzz just kind of can be hard on old
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speakers especially if it has like the
14:11
original paper on it and such
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so it works really well with this amp
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because again it's you know
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22 watts and it's got a vintage 30 in it
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and uh
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and you know with the bright clip being
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uh the bright cap being clipped
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really helps it to have a really you
14:26
know smooth sound with it
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and such but yeah yeah uh really
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really happy with the with the with the
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pedal and it's been a a lot of fun to
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fool with so thanks austin for uh
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you know getting me on the trail of
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something else to pick up
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all right last episode i uh you know i
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talked about john leventhal
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and i talked about uh one of the things
14:52
that i stole from him was using a capo
14:54
on electric guitar which is just a
14:56
fantastic thing you know because of
14:57
course
14:58
you change the scale length of the
15:00
guitar you move the
15:01
you know you move it kind of out of the
15:03
range of some of the other instruments
15:05
and so it's just a really really great
15:08
thing
15:08
here uh here's a pointer or two
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one is that you really need to have
15:16
a capo that has the radia the proper
15:19
radius for the
15:20
guitar that you're using it with so
15:24
a lot of guitars kind of have that 10 12
15:25
radius and that's not a big deal
15:27
you don't have to get it like a specific
15:29
10 or a specific 12
15:31
but it is a big deal on vintage fenders
15:33
because being that it's
15:35
7.25 or 7 and a quarter that's a very
15:38
curved radius versus anything else and
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so you really need to get
15:42
the right capo for this and so this is
15:45
a sub c4
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and that's you know one of the few
15:50
models that that really has that
15:52
super curvy you know radius so it will
15:56
go on there well
15:57
and keep the guitar in tune one of the
16:00
problems you'll have
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if you use a capo that's too flat
16:05
on a vintage radiused guitar is some of
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the strings will move around when you're
16:10
bending and all of a sudden you'll have
16:11
a string that's like
16:12
caught up over here and that's not good
16:16
and it just matches things funny and
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it's hard enough to keep a guitar in
16:20
tune when
16:21
kind of going from open to a capo but
16:23
then when you add having the wrong
16:25
radius on there and of course you know
16:29
you know there's classical guitar capos
16:31
that are completely flat and they're
16:32
and they're wider you have 12 string
16:34
capos that are just wider but still
16:36
slightly curved
16:37
you have mandolin you have all those
16:39
other things and i like a variety of
16:40
capos but the shub has just always been
16:42
a
16:43
one that i've trusted and used for a
16:45
long time
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and uh i love the fact that they have
16:48
this c4
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model for uh for old fenders
16:53
or old style fenders so that you can you
16:56
can get it right
16:57
and uh yeah then uh
17:02
let's see if i have the fuzz on
17:06
uh the thing i played at the beginning
17:08
was just uh me
17:09
again trying to play some you know
17:11
chicago style blues
17:13
you know think about you know howlin
17:14
wolf and things like that
17:16
and that's just
17:18
[Music]
17:29
[Music]
17:44
so
17:47
[Music]
17:52
all right guys hope you've enjoyed
17:53
today's episode kind of with my
17:56
fuzz journey and a little bit about capo
17:59
and i hope you all have a great week and
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i'll see you next time