TOP 5 Episodes of 2021 - Ask Zac 105

well hello friends and welcome to
0:40
another Ask Zac this is our end of year
0:43
2021 kind of uh recap viewer choice
0:47
awards uh top five videos you know just
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a
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kind of a 20 21 wrap-up video and I'm
0:53
going to talk about the importance of
0:55
amps
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i know that seems like a you know i just
0:58
fired a shotgun at you or something with
1:00
all these different things but it's all
1:02
going to come together i promise you so
1:05
yeah so uh we're going to end up talking
1:08
about amps and the importance of amps
1:10
and
1:11
why you guys have uh you know
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kind of uh
1:15
watched these amp videos and why they're
1:17
the most popular ones that I've
1:20
introduced especially over the last year
1:22
so
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of course while you're thinking about it
1:25
if you haven't subscribed already and if
1:27
you've been enjoying the show please go
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1:30
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1:56
which yes I've suffered through many of
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those in my touring days
2:00
uh yeah it's a good soft shirt
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Zac which is a way to support the
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without commercials and also you get
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sent some of these
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Ask Zac guitar picks which these are
2:21
celluloid medium heavy so i went back
2:23
and forth between medium and heavy picks
2:25
for a long time and then i found that
2:27
d'andria that made fenders picks back in
2:30
the
2:31
early days
2:32
through about the 90s or so
2:35
that they were still making this uh
2:37
interesting gauge of celluloid pick that
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was right in between a medium and a
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heavy
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friend of Ask Zac you'll uh you'll get
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you know hopefully filming some uh some
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exclusive content for friends of Ask
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a uh
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desirable thing so and thank you for
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everyone that's that's been supporting
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me all right
What happened to your top 5 videos
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let's dive in
3:10
all right so
3:12
what happened was is that i was i was
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looking at the the analytics for um you
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know for the year
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and i was looking at my top five videos
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and it was really interesting because
3:25
out of the top five four were about amps
3:28
and
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it made me think about you know i do a
3:31
variety of videos i you know i do
3:33
kind of videos on you know some amps and
3:36
gear and then you know kind of what i
3:38
would call
3:39
personality profiles
3:41
or and then you have things that might
3:42
be a little more philosophical or
3:44
hands-on and so i thought it was very
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interesting that four out of the five
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you know were amp videos and it made me
3:51
think about how important amps are
3:54
and how sometimes that gets really
3:57
overlooked
3:59
i think it has been bandied around a bit
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you know where let's say you have a
4:03
budget for a guitar and an amp
4:06
you should uh you know you should spend
4:08
more money on the amp than the guitar
4:09
and i'm a proponent of that because no
4:12
matter how good the guitar is it's not
4:15
going to sound good through
Amps are important
4:18
you know
4:19
an unsatisfactory amp
4:22
and the other thing that people have to
4:23
realize is that this by itself is not a
4:26
musical instrument
4:28
it's not
4:29
you know it has to be plugged into
4:31
something it does not make enough noise
4:32
to be heard at all above you know maybe
4:35
you practicing you know by your bed you
4:38
know while your babies are sleeping or
4:39
something like that
4:41
but this you know it can't really be
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heard at all you know i mean i guess you
4:45
could mic it up and get a bunch of
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radley sounds but an electric guitar
4:50
especially a solid body
4:52
i mean it has to have an amplifier and
4:56
you know that was something that Leo
4:58
fender you know certainly thought about
5:00
from the beginning but i think that
5:01
sometimes we don't think about that
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enough so
5:04
yeah
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so amps are important and uh
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allow me you know just the kind of the
5:10
uh
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the luxury of kind of going through the
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the top five videos of 2021 so uh
5:18
number one
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was actually released last year and it's
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just been such a popular video that it
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even it had enough views this year to
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still be number one
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uh so it's the why the deluxe reverb is
5:31
the best amp of course I'm playing
5:33
through mine today and i still believe
5:36
that uh released it march of 2020
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and it's just kind of
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been a video that just continues to get
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a lot of views i did get chastised for
5:46
not playing in the video and
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i don't know why i didn't play in the
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video at all but i had a lot of people
5:52
that had never seen any of my other
5:53
videos but they've watched that and
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they're like why don't you play do you
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even play the guitar so uh anyway i
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guess i i should have i should have
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played in the video but whenever people
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say that I'll link to another one or
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maybe a video of me just playing or
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something like that but uh
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yeah so and then just to recap
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you know
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the uh you know the really important
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bits of that video
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was you know of course i you know the to
6:20
me the deluxe is the right size it's the
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right wattage you know i if the deluxe
6:24
is not loud enough for that gig then i
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don't want to play it you know i don't
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want to play that loud i just have no
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desire to do that
6:31
uh then the mods i do i clipped the
6:34
bright cap
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on the vibrato channel
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um
6:39
i
6:40
put a vintage 30 in there i actually
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found out that i the vintage 30 i have
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is the mesa boogie version
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which is actually still made and you can
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buy it only from mesa boogie it's made
6:51
in the uk it's around 130 bucks
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uh here's the one problem is on your
6:56
deluxe reverb
6:58
you need to check to see how many bolts
7:00
you have to hold a speaker so a vintage
7:03
one has eight bolts
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so there's a problem there so you either
7:09
have to cut for the bolts which is not a
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good idea
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or you need to have
7:15
extra holes drilled on the speaker which
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that's somewhat difficult also
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or you just need to go to another
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speaker now warehouse wgs make some
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vintage 30 type speakers they're not the
7:27
exact same speaker but they're close
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enough that you could use one of those
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and those have eight holes in it uh the
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other thing that i do
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and i didn't talk about this in the
7:37
deluxe reverb video
7:39
is i pull v1 so that's the the tube that
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is all the way to this side of the amp
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when you're looking at the back of it i
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pull it and that has to do with this
7:48
channel because i don't use it and what
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that does is it hits v2 with more
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voltage okay and then i put a 5751 there
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and then i have kind of a mix of new and
8:00
old tubes and the rest of the preamp
8:04
and then i use tongue saw you know new
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tongue sole
8:07
6v6s
8:09
and you know i think that's a jj
8:12
gz34 rectifier so i have a mix
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of kind of you know i just have a couple
8:17
of new old stock tubes like the 5751 is
8:20
a new old stock tube and i think the 12a
8:22
t7 driver i use a new old stock but the
8:25
rest are new tubes and i
8:27
i do that because i just want to be able
8:30
to have some consistency it's hard when
8:32
you get reliant on new old stock tubes
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and then
8:35
you know then it's just
8:37
it's very hit or miss at times so anyway
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so yeah that's the deluxe reverb and i'm
8:43
glad that that's been such a popular
8:45
video because it's my favorite amp it's
8:47
my ground zero amp
8:49
if
8:50
you know all you know if i had to sell a
8:52
bunch of amps and had to raise a bunch
8:54
of money this would be the last one to
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go
8:56
all right
Tonemaster Revenge
8:58
video number two
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that was uh
9:02
you know
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the the second most popular video was
9:06
also on the deluxe reverb but this one
9:08
was on
9:09
the tone master the revenge of the
9:11
blonde tone master
9:13
and i have to say
9:15
i love this ant uh this is a great amp
9:18
and i highly recommend it to someone
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that's wanting to buy a deluxe why
9:23
because it already has most of the mods
9:26
that you would need to do to another
9:27
deluxe
9:28
so this already has the virtual bright
9:31
cap clipped because this is not a tube
9:33
amp this is a modeling amp it also
9:36
already has a celestion speaker
9:38
and
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it just sounds great doesn't have tubes
9:42
in it it's you know around a thousand
9:45
dollars
9:46
I've gigged with this thing I've used
9:48
the xlr out
9:50
um
9:51
it just really does a great job almost
9:53
scarily so so
9:55
uh this is the amp i usually take along
9:58
with this amp or with the vox amp that i
10:01
use at times
10:03
this is always kind of my backup or
10:05
stereo amp and
10:07
i think it's just stellar and i think
10:09
it's really funny because
10:11
how this all started was i asked to see
10:14
the blackface tonemaster and i didn't
10:16
like it at all
10:18
i tried to be as polite as possible but
10:21
i just didn't like the amp i didn't like
10:22
how bright it was
10:24
i didn't like the reverb circuit in it
10:27
and you know there was a number of
10:28
things i didn't like the jensen speaker
10:30
they put in there and then they ended up
10:33
every point that i didn't like about the
10:36
amp they corrected with this one
10:38
and uh yeah so i i highly recommend this
10:42
amp for you guys that are that are
10:43
gigging or want kind of a trouble
10:44
trouble-free
10:46
amp so
10:47
it's it's a good one
10:50
all right let's put that down
10:53
and another thing of course it's it's
10:54
light so I'm you know
10:56
i wouldn't be you know kind of
10:58
monkeying around with a
11:00
with that one
11:01
all right the next one was a was a
11:04
surprise and that's because this is you
11:06
know one of the biggest videos of the
11:07
whole year and it was just released a
11:08
couple weeks ago
11:10
and it was uh how small amps got big
11:13
which I'll admit that was kind of a
11:16
fun title and a fun topic because i
11:18
started thinking about
11:20
uh just how much pa systems had
11:23
influenced amps
11:25
uh guitarians and so basically as
11:29
pa systems were able to get more
11:31
powerful
11:33
and to actually reinforce which they
11:35
weren't capable of in the old days
11:37
the only way people heard your guitar
11:39
was your guitar amp
11:41
you know you didn't mic up your guitar
11:43
amp in the 50s 60s and even into the 70s
11:46
and then really into the 80s that you
11:48
see it regularly being where where amps
11:50
are mic'd up
11:51
so you were that's why showman amps you
11:54
know fender dual showmans and Marshall
11:56
stacks and
11:58
ampeg svts were what you saw a lot on
12:01
stages and a lot of times it was because
12:03
they weren't being mic'd up so i thought
12:05
that was a really fun episode and
12:08
also just looking at the reason why
12:10
small amps have gotten to be so much
12:12
more popular and it's because you really
12:14
don't need to have a huge amp anymore
12:16
unless you're just wanting now of course
12:19
a twin has a certain sound a Marshall
12:21
stack has a certain sound but yeah you
12:23
don't you don't need those
12:25
unless that's just what you what you got
12:27
to have
12:28
all right next up was the one
12:31
non
12:32
uh you know
12:34
amp video and that was my telecaster
12:37
setup hacks
12:38
and i just thought of course you know
12:41
I'm glad that that was uh of of interest
12:44
because basically in that video
12:46
I'm showing how
12:48
i do you know
12:49
a setup on a guitar without having a
12:52
bunch of tools around because these are
12:54
just techniques that i got
12:56
um you know being out on the road
12:59
without any you know without any real
13:01
gear besides the guitar itself and just
13:03
having like a screwdriver and something
13:04
else
Telecaster Setup Hacks
13:05
you learn these little hacks like
13:07
setting pickup height like
13:10
you know i'll just you know i would i
13:11
would press down on the last fret on the
13:14
high e string and make sure that this
13:16
pickup just cleared it you know so it
13:18
wasn't touching
13:19
and then i would set the rest to match
13:21
so then i would set the other side uh to
13:23
match the output there and then of
13:25
course you'd go over to the bridge
13:26
pickup and you know there's all these
13:28
just these little hacks and it's just
13:30
you know siding down the neck like this
13:33
checking for relief just you know
13:34
pressing down there and just eyeballing
13:36
it and such
13:37
but uh
13:39
yeah that's a a fun
13:42
video and uh glad people uh you know
13:44
took to that and and liked it because
13:46
I've you know certainly been handy for
13:48
me
13:49
so
13:51
all right
13:52
next and the
13:54
and the fifth
13:55
uh was the uh the fender vibra champ
13:58
reverb
14:00
so
14:01
here's this guy
14:03
and uh
14:04
yeah this was an amp that fender sent me
14:07
kind of uh
14:08
out of the blue i you know normally
14:12
you know i would ask for something from
14:14
fender
14:15
and most of the time you know i i send
14:17
it back now the the tone master and the
14:19
Chris Stapleton Princeton
14:21
are the the two amps that i you know
14:23
kind of i asked for and then they let me
14:26
and then i asked to keep them
14:28
but this one they just sent and at first
14:30
i was really afraid because i don't like
14:32
champs and the reason i don't like them
14:34
is because they don't really have good
14:36
clean sounds they kind of are
14:38
known more for getting a good distorted
14:40
sound at low volume i mean that's kind
14:42
of the reason why you play through a
14:43
tweed champ or even a blackface one most
14:45
of the time
14:46
so this one i didn't want to open up the
14:48
box
14:49
and finally i did
14:51
and
14:52
i hadn't read anything about him
14:54
but
14:55
then when i plugged in i found out well
14:57
it's got a 10 inch speaker
15:00
and it's got a digital reverb circuit
15:03
and it just has a nice
15:04
you know
15:06
very you know a wonderful clean sound
15:09
and so i highly recommend this amp for
15:10
the guy that's you know wants an amp to
15:13
just have at their house to play through
15:14
that they're not going to try to you
15:16
know gig with it and you can even take
15:17
this over to jam over to friend's house
15:19
and stuff like that and it just sounds
15:20
great it's got a really good tremolo
15:22
really good reverb
15:24
the reverb has a little bit of
15:25
modulation on it so
15:27
anyway this is a fun amp and this is the
15:29
amp i plug in you know most of time just
15:32
you know playing around the house
15:34
uh and I'll even you know I've even
15:36
taken it i played at my son's piano
15:39
recital along with him we did a duet
15:41
and uh and i took this you know with me
15:44
and it was it was perfect for uh playing
15:47
along with him because that way again it
15:48
could turn up to five
15:50
got uh you know just a touch of hair on
15:52
there and it was it was really nice so
15:55
yeah
15:58
all right well that's that's the top
16:00
five and again it was all about uh you
16:03
know except for the setup hacks it was
16:06
all about amps and i just thought that
16:08
was interesting of course i've done a
16:09
number of amp videos but the fact that
16:12
that's what y'all are drawn to was was
16:14
quite interesting
16:16
uh yeah
16:18
so again this is my last episode of the
16:21
year I'm going to be taking off you know
16:23
of course the week
16:25
of Christmas and
16:26
you know and then I'm going to be
16:28
playing some shows
16:29
with Paul bogart
16:31
around new year's so the December 30th
16:34
I'm going to be in Tulsa at the hard
16:36
rock cafe or hard rock casino i should
16:39
say
16:40
so if you're in Tulsa on the 30th I'll
16:43
be playing there if you want to come out
16:44
and visit that would be fun I'm going to
16:46
be playing in Wichita Kansas on the 31st
16:50
so that's a new year's eve show and
16:52
that's in yeah again in Wichita Kansas i
16:54
i don't know the venue but i find that
16:56
out and if you're around the area send
16:58
me an email
16:59
and then the first of January 2020 20 uh
17:04
the first of January 2022
17:08
I'll be uh back at the uh at a casino in
17:11
Tulsa so be playing these three shows at
17:14
the end of the year and uh you know if
17:16
you're in the area i would love to to
17:17
see you
17:18
uh yeah i just want to thank you all
17:20
again for uh for a great year uh for for
17:24
watching for coming up with great ideas
17:26
for for videos I've really enjoyed doing
17:28
the live streams where we uh you know i
17:30
actually get to answer questions
17:32
you know live i appreciate people
17:34
you know hitting the super chat and the
17:36
tip jar and all that stuff you know kind
17:38
of being kind so
17:41
i just want to wish you all uh happy
17:43
holidays you know merry Christmas uh you
17:47
know happy Hanukkah happy kwanza um you
17:50
know i hope this is a time that you can
17:52
be joyful and and grateful
17:55
and uh yeah and I'm grateful for y'all
17:57
so thank you so much bye