WAH, TELE, & STRING TALK with JD SIMO - Ask Zac 152 @JDSimoMusic

Hello friends and welcome to Ask Zac today we're taking a trip down to JD simo's basement Studio the house of
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Greece and we are going to have some War talk he is going to give us some history he's going to cling you in on the best
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bang for your buck vintage wall it's uh you gotta watch for it but he's gonna give you all the info you need to find a
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killer one a killer price he's also going to calibrate my old 70s Wawa to
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make it where it it has the the best vocal sound on it so you're really going
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to enjoy this on top of that JD is going to show you
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his new pedal board that he just put together for fly dates and it's a really cool little board that's very versatile
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and he's going to talk a bit about string Joy strings that he's been using and also a headstrong amps it's a it's a
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fun kind of little uh rundown of his uh of his rig that he's using now
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while you're thinking about it please hit subscribe if you've already done that and think about supporting the show
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in some way there's tip jar information also there's information for patreon and
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well here we are we're down at the house of Greece with our our buddy JD you know it and look what
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he's got I've got Zach's Sepulveda
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Sepulveda California crybaby now these mine's over here I'll show you mine in a
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minute but people are going to be upset at me
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friends of mine um because these are like the last good
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deal and vintage was um you can get these for I'm not going
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to say how much but they're cheap um because people kind of align them they
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you know Hendrix didn't use one so you know but a lot of other notable people used
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this era you know mid 70s into late 70s so the big thing about a Sepulveda is
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it's got this big Square um plastic inductor okay but as you see the
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rest of the board is all old Allen Bradley's you know um
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and um the inductor makes a difference but I
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don't mind the sound of these I like the sound of of of these plastic inductors
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um so the ones before this are the stack of Dimes ones there's a there's a stack of Dimes there's there's a um
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uh I'm drawing a blank right now a trash can it looks it's a bit it's a little
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silver one I had a really nice trash can box 10 years ago it was one of my
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favorites but then it went microphonic and when the when when the inductors go
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microphonic there's really nothing you can do I've tried doing crazy things like trying to trying to flash pod it and stuff like
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that and save them but meaning when they go microphonic like literally you can just hit the side of it with your foot
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and you can hear it through your amp like it just gets to the point where it just is unusable unfortunately it's
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really loud yeah but uh yeah no there's stack of Dimes trash can
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and the original Halo inductors um and there's probably some more I'm not I
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have friends that are authorities on this stuff I I know enough to get myself in trouble
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so don't hold anything to me but one of the main things you do with these is
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um uh I like to True bypass Zach is already true bypass this
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um it it definitely it's it's it's not a bad thing to do to these
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um hopefully it still has the icar pot but as long as it's a good pot or get a pot
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from Chase tone I'm a big fan of the chase tone pot they're like 15 bucks on
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eBay um and they're as good as an old I car as far as I'm concerned so that's
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nothing to get wound up over it's really just you want a good board
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um so what we're going to do is um I listen to this
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and you set the treadle of the uh of the arm of the pot
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by this set screw here and you just I'm going to loosen it so that I can
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pull back this and I'm going to
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just Notch just a little bit more trying to get a little bit more
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just trying to get a little bit more of the sort of wakawaka sound out of it and now I'm gonna listen
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to it before I completely tighten it down and it's all preference but
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these were all set random and a lot of people nowadays with capacitors
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and stuff will have switches on Wawas where oh it's brighter and it sounds more like Shaft or
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um it's more mid-rangey so it sounds like Hendrix or it's real Bassy so it sounds like white room but really it's
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just you just the set screw in there just set it how you want it and you don't have to
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you know you don't have to worry about it I mean listen let's see usually a turn
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or took you know it doesn't take much
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[Music]
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it's getting there a minute so did it go to to Bright or
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which which direction I'm wanting to get it brighter
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um but it's still a little too dark yeah um
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but you know as with most things a little goes a long way
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so I'm just going gradual because hopefully you can
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accomplish it relatively quickly and not have to mess with this for an hour
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so I have friends that are you know really into this and we'll
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spend long periods of time doing this but um of the mindset of
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let's accomplish what we're trying to accomplish and be done with it
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really you just want enough so that you're getting that sort of and it's easier to
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hear like if you're looking I like that sort of r b
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70s r b Memphis kind of Wawa sound and so
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putting it on the neck pickup there we go laughs
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[Music]
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I'm gonna do just one tiny one literally one click more and I think we're in
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there it's fun when you hear it
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Zach and I've been talking about Wawa in general
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and um of course my way into Wawa was not unlike
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many others in that you know Hendricks and Stevie Ray Vaughan and all that kind of
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stuff but now it's very different in that uh
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to me the the sound of the r b guys like skip pits
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and Michael toles and most of the guys in Memphis whoops
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so we just had a fun time uh you know we couldn't find the screw and then you
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know luckily JD had a there it is ah then we found it yes yeah now so we've
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got it back together so I'm gonna listen to this now because it should be right right where I want it
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but we will see and a lot of this stuff
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um I'll mention people ask me about pickup height a lot
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there is a method to the madness but as you're seeing with this it's you just
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listen to it you know and you tweak until it sounds good you know it's it's pretty
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good [Music]
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foreign foreign so that
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is exactly sort of what I'm looking for that sort of teeny Hodges
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[Music]
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[Music] and then also using it like like a
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filter so for like uh Leo no centelli
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[Music]
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[Laughter] [Music]
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A little sloppy or for like Curtis Mayfield sort of
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[Music]
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so um anyway I could go on and on about it but I think you got a good one here and Mr
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Mr Childs and uh never thought I'd see the day where you got a Wawa pedal this is
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wonderful well it's it's all because of you and it's all because of you helping me out and and
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I had no idea that the travel changed on them that it's like why why in the world
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did they do that I mean I don't know I still don't know the because you have the space on the
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old ones is relatively short and if you're used to modern ones that have kind of a wide throw it takes some
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getting used to because if you can turn the Wawa off real easily especially in
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the toe up position but you sort of get used to [Music]
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foreign
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there's a song on the first no it's not the first I think it's the second or third Al
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Green record um it's called right now right now and
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Michael toles is playing guitar and it's uh
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laughs [Music]
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but anyway playing telecasters or whatever you play
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really you know and clean yeah any idea when they changed that or does it just seem to be like in the 80s that they got
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the longer travel definitely by the 80s okay but certainly 60s and 70s they're
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always short like this and um yeah I don't know I think you know
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like I said you know I got into using Wawa pedals like anybody else would you know you hear Led Zeppelin or something
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you know um but definitely as I've gotten older
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um fallen in love with the like Funkadelic and um Isaac Hayes and the the r b stuff
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um the use of it I think is real cool and uh I dig the uh
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you guys like skip Pitts who is literally the guy from Shaft you know the guy who did
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[Music] skip
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and then I mentioned Michael toles who played on
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um if you play it on Walk On By so
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[Music]
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[Music] foreign
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[Music]
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[Music]
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for Isaac Hayes which is you know [Music]
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[Music] and um
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a whole bunch of others but we've discussed Zach and I have discussed how
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most of those Memphis guys are actually using Boomerang Wawas which I've had some boomerangs in my time
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as well um and boomerangs they're they've never skyrocketed in price I
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haven't looked lately you might still be able to get them boomerangs for decent I
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would recommend that with a little bit of work you can make a boomerang similar make a boomerang really cool
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um and and this kind of you know you you talking about that hits on the whole fact that so much of what gear people
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used back in the day had to do with what the local music store had right and that's why you know all the Memphis guys
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were using the boomerang wall and such and they were because OC how which is a
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is a music store that doesn't exist anymore unfortunately but that's where Scotty Moore got his all his guitars
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they played with Elvis um including like you know Scotty had a Telecaster it may have even been a
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broadcaster I'm not sure but he had a Telecaster in really or before he met
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Elvis right but anyway every guitar he had uh was uh was all purchased at OC how
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Phil black space and his basement amps and all that were bought at OC how all
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of Elvis's guitars were bought at OC Hawk his d18 his j200 that he got from
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Gibson was I don't know if it was purchase it might have been given to I don't know there's you know there's probably stuff online
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where you can find out for sure but I know it was shipped to OC how because Scotty picked it up for him
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um but anyway OC Hawk was a Gibson dealer so they didn't carry Vox amps so
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therefore they didn't have Vox Wawa pedals but because they were Gibson dealer They Carried Maestro so they had
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they didn't have fuzz faces they didn't have Vox Wawas but they had Boomerang laws and they had uh fz1a uh Maestro
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fuzz tones so yeah consequently um when
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all these guys in the late 60s went to get a fuzz tone or a Wawa pedal that's all they could get you know and the
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boomerang wad does sound a little different it's um uh it's a different type of inductor
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it's a different slightly different layout um but definitely worth they're going to
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be a little bit more expensive than the Sepulveda um but definitely worth uh messing
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around with you asked Zach folks out there
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so anyway this this you know I don't want to steal from from your show or
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anything no you want to just tell it tell us about this little board that you just got because it's it's fun it's
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little and I'm I'm not you know there's there's no there's no no no but I called Zach uh because I'm doing a lot of um
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I have already this year flown way more than I want to
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um and I'm I'm doing a lot more live and Studio stuff out of town that isn't mine like
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that I'm doing for other people in addition to my own touring and stuff so consequently my rig is shrinking
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both by necessity and also I'm just tired of it like I just don't I just
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want to be able to play and do what I'm supposed to do and so um I actually watched Zach's uh Vegas
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episode and when he showed his board I went man that thing's nice and Tiny it
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would fit in my suitcase and as you see I don't really use a lot of stuff you
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know so this is the stuff I pretty much use all the time really when it comes down to it I use the freeze pedal a lot
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that's sort of something I've gotten in the habit of using and then I love this
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uh Jam I love everything Jam makes but this is their delay llama and it's the
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earliest one which doesn't have the subdivision switch and I like this better because
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um it's it's analog so I've got it set up for like a room
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thing now and I like it
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[Music]
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but the thing I like about this is I can get it to glitch out on itself
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[Music]
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foreign I didn't really succeed in doing it there because it is kind of
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temperamental but anyway the point I'm making is this is a really great analog [Music]
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not that really different than a dm3 really
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[Music] sort of sit underneath they don't really
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[Music]
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because I play a bunch of dissonance but um so anyway I dig that and then I
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always whatever amp right now I'm playing through my headstrong uh Little King
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Reverb which is my favorite amp really I use it all the time we're set up for a
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session in here tomorrow that we're doing for somebody but um I always have a Reverb and tremolo
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switch for whatever Fender amp I'm using so I can turn the Reverb
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[Music]
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so there's that and then I got really uh actually Zach was with me
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I don't use OverDrive at all except for when I'm playing slide and I'm playing
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soft so to to explain that so like if I'm
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playing um like there's a tune I do
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called mortgage on my soul which I usually put a drone like this under
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and then I'm really far back on my volume control I'll turn the the J
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rocket Archer icon foreign
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[Music]
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[Music] so I'll use it
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basically like like almost as a compressor I don't use it when I'm full
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up I just use it when I'm plain soft and I want just a little bit more to hold up
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the slide and Zach was with me and I tried out a bunch of
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overdrives for this purpose and I like that one the best and I also like the
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broadcast um they're both very different from one another but I tend I'm intended to favor
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the the Archer icon for that purpose and then other than that I have my own Wawa pedal that I use that I just keep off
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the board because it doesn't need to be on one and then I've really gotten into this is a weird fuzz pedal made by kogoy
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music devices which is this guy in North Carolina a fellow friend a session guy
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Robbie crowl turned me on to this um and it's it's hard to describe
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um because it can do it's kind of a Swiss army knife of fuzz pedals where
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it I've got it set kind of radical where it where it Gates a lot where
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[Music]
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that kind of thing where it Gates really or if I go all the way up
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it's like almost infinite and the amount of sustain it can have so it can kind of do both things but I've got it set where
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it's kind of Rizzy for that sort of maestro sound you know
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um that old r b you know with a lot of Reverb you know [Music]
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like almost sitar sounding at times yeah
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um and I just really like it that's become like the favorite and then of course the the anacaster that I have
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because of Zach Zach told me to good Dan strain's house
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well you know that's that's the friendly kind of uh you know peer pressure where
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you just keep saying you need to get another Telly you need to play a Telly you need to play a Telly again even if
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it's not permanent just you know give us a spell of some Telly just a little bit and I fell in love with that this is my
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favorite I play it all the time and uh it's uh
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um another thing Zach and I talk about a lot are strings these are string Joy which is a company here in Nashville
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these are their uh Broadways which are around core right round cord nickel pure nickel
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round core which is the old school um type of wind
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um and it's certainly like this guitar in particular in the middle position does is Cornell real well I think
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and I really like what you say about pure nickel strings you say mix sound
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like a record it does it does make it sound like especially when you're playing clean yeah uh you know
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[Music]
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[Music]
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that's my favorite lick of Bookers all you people out there know that
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Booker T Jones playing that right you've talked about that I'm sure yeah because that's my favorite intro in history and
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everybody plays it different I play it different you play it differently than thought plays it different who knows how
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quicker played it but that's one of the things where I would love to interview Booker T to talk about I mean of course
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his keyboard work but just his his guitar work would just be a lot of fun to talk about just because it's like
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it's great I thought yeah I mean my whole life I thought it was proper yeah and it's
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and up until maybe 10 years ago and I'm just going to say it I mean it's more sophisticated it is it's slightly more
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sophisticated but you think to yourself oh you know you could have worked it out right you know it's a beautiful it's
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definitely more in the vein of something Reggie would have played but yeah but it's my favorite but no but playing
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um and I also have my tone control here's the other thing about this guitar so the
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tone control is only wired to the bridge pickup so this the neck humbucker is
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always wide open but that's cool because I have a really wide range in the middle
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um so even like when I'm playing like more jazz
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[Music] it's
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[Music]
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it's a it's it's not like a traditionally like just dark neck pickup sound but the cool thing
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that I like is like playing r b kind of guitar
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like I can get it to be pointy but it's never like pointy you know
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and and if people want to uh to wire their guitars up that way I have a
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schematic on my website where you take the the tone control off the neck pickup and it's really
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super handy like it's always going to make the neck pickup sound better regardless of what it is
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but I don't know I've just kind of when when Dan was because Dan was really
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sweet about this guitar and that he was like take it and make sure that it's like that you're really into it like
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don't just like jump into it he's like make sure and he's like I don't know he's like
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he's like you might not like the way it's wired you might not you know it's and the difference in volume between
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this and this are pretty vast and he's like it might throw you off kilter
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and it doesn't actually actually where this has stayed height wise the neck
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pickup I set and this is something I've never done before but I would suggest to
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Telecaster players in general is like set your Bridge pickup like set your
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brick brick up first and get it where that sounded awesome and then instead of
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like flipping back and forth set the height of the neck pickup in the
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in between position yeah because then you can make the in-between position kick ass okay that's
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my suggestion which is what I did on this guitar and it just makes this in
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between position
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it's just a killer and then I can make it super bright too
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but again uh the strings make a big difference with just making it not sound
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I know it's kind of gacky is the term I use yeah most new strings these string joists
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sound they just they do they sound like a record they don't have this like bump
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and again like once you start playing with Distortion or um
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or fuzz or or even like a lot of wetness like a lot of delay or a lot of Reverb or something like that it kind of clouds
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all that but when you're playing like super clean like this like sortini Hodges you know [Music]
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um this kind of thing
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or love and happiness you know [Music]
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it just I don't know just I like it makes me makes me happy
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so anyway buddy thank you thank you for uh you know for you know fix fixing my
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wall I didn't fix nothing or you know getting it uh getting it dialed in and uh man
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you know just for the hang and we we had tacos before this that were just amazing and uh yeah it's a good day you need to
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know if you need to know where the best tacos in Nashville are like message Zach and Zach will tell you
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because we can't have this we can't have the information just out there out there but if you must know if you must know if
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you're because it hasn't been overtaken by by the by the multitudes it's still
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funky and off the beaten path you know so all right we've we've teased them enough indeed all right thank you JD
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thank you and thank you guys thank you so much for watching today again I need to thank TruFire for sponsoring today's
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episode and again you can use the code ask Zach 30 to get 30 off and use the
32:28
link in the description thanks bye-bye