I'd put trust in a pedal builder who clearly knows so much about electronics, circuits etc. He's not just copying a vintage pedal design and adding a cool graphic...
There are some wonderful tracks of the band Simon Jarrett is playing in on Soundcloud; great tunes, and amazing (and so musical!) playing: soundcloud.com/user-171472096
Guitar Yoda! I've never learned more about anything before, in such a short space of time. I'm buying a notebook and re-watching. Probably a lot. Cheers Kelvin
I've had the honor of playing a few gigs with Simon here in Vancouver, and he has such an understanding of feel, tone, and chord structure that i'd almost forget what I was playing as I was just taken away from listening to him. Such a humble guy too, that you'd never know his greatness from just chatting with him. Great show guys!
To me, this episode is an example of the best of That Pedal Show. Anything that demystifies signal chain and facilitates understanding toward creation of inspiring sounds in primarily in the live setting - win, win, win!
Genuinely the most enlightening episode of TPS ever; all of a sudden the tone possibilities seem 2 or 3 times more endless than they did before... This is what TPS is all about, for me
I know I'm so late to the party, I realize. This is one of the most valuable episodes ever - and there are so many. He is just such a master. As others have pointed out, his understanding is deep and powerful. His playing is beyond words. That touch is astounding. Massive thanks for doing this episode. Keep that kind of depth coming. Most of us will hang on with you. It matters and it helps to know - especially when recording, IMO, where every little thing makes such a difference - and that is before all the roll off happening in the mixing process. . . Bravo!
What a great show! I realized in the last 4 or 5 years that I only love the existing pedals that explore the same idea of pushing the boundaries of impedance/filtering/signal amplification. The most expressive circuits. The good old FF, Rangemaster, Okko Diablo, Mad Professor Sky Blue, and my modest preamp brainfart circuit. :-) Thanks a lot for this episode! I finally had the impression someone would really understand what I am talking about when I start my ramblings around this topic.
This is a really interesting episode. Simon seems to have a deep understanding of how all these components work together and I think he's quite good at explaining it to someone with more limited knowledge, like me. I've played (mainly electric) guitar for over 15 years and it was only in the past year and a half or so - much thanks to TPS - that I came to the realization that our instrument isn't the guitar. Rather, it's every part of the chain, from the strings to speakers and the air around them. Every pot, transistor, tube, transformer and wire that is a part of that chain is part of our instrument. We're not playing just a piece of wood... we're bending and hitting metal to generate electricity which we use to manipulate the air around us. We're basically playing the elements.
I got lucky here. Almost bypassed this video because Simon's name was cut off the end of the title in the thumbnail view.... Thought it was all circuitry.... Fortunately, i'm insanely loyal to this channel and felt compelled to open it anyway. Over a year since Simon's last video. I'm also "astounded" by his playing and tone(s). This vid just started playing, and already i'm geeking.
This is a show to bookmark and keep coming back to. Simon's explanations are a rich resource. I've cheekily nicknamed the Architect as 'The Does Nothing, Does Everything' pedal. I'd buy one for sure.
I just bought an mxr uni-vibe and told my guitar playing brother about it and said, “what’s a uni-vibe?” I told him he needs to watch tps immediately! Seriously though, this show has been instrumental in my knowledge and growth about guitar effects and playing in general, every single person who plays an electric guitar should be watching this show. Absolutely great job boys!
Great to see the clarification of fuzz roll-off relating to relative impedance rather than something voodoo in a Germanium transistor/diode. I now have some great ideas for a tweakable input to a drive pedal. Many thanks Simon. PS please get some Jouster enclosures in, desperate to get hold of one. Cheers
Simon mentioned the Tonestyler, I would suggest looking into the ToneShaper. It allows you to choose various capacitor values, along with treble bleed options, pot control options, and comes with quality pots, and is solder less. I installed one in my strat w/ Fat 50s pickups and it made an amazing improvement.
This was a very interesting show. It gave me a theoretical basis for a lot of what goes on with my own rig. After years and years of playing (all of it poor and amateurish and for very little money), I have discovered that I can only play my guitars with volume pots wide open and tone no less then eight I've tried treble bleeds and they effect the midrange too much. I've tried bypassing the pots altogether and that has far too much high end. I tried cranking my high EQ in the amp, bright boost, and negative feedback to boost highs that could be modulated with volume or tone, and the EQ difference as you change the pots is just too much. So I play wide open all the time, If I need less volume, I lighten up my pick attack. If I need more volume, I boost with a pedal. You know what? It sounds great. It helps me be more musical because it forces me to listen more and respond quicker. The sound guys like it b/c I stay within a predictable range. Changing topics, the architect as a Kingsley product is interesting, but I wonder if it would be more useful if you could switch back and forth between a couple of settings. I figured you'd want different settings with different pedals or pedal combinations.
Wow. So much to unpack in this episode. It definitely brings up things that I haven’t really considered before and what a difference those things make. I certainly didn’t understand everything in this video, but blimey I could listen to Simon all day. Cheers to a great video!
Any time I have a gear related question, you already have a video on your channel. Love your content. Thank you for helping me achieve my tone quest thru your endless content. 💪
Good God Mick! That description is top shelf! It's so cool to debut the room with Simon..it sounds and looks ace. Simon, like you dudes, is such a great human, I have you guys to thank for introducing me to him and all of the deep-dive-guitar-tone-goodness that comes from knowing his products. As with videos like this or the time it takes to get a Kingsley pedal, it's well worth the time investment. #becausetone
I have been exploring the magical tones of treble booster and Fuzz Face type pedals. What a timely video. Definitely going to watch Professor Simon on this video several times. If Kingsley releases that tweakers paradise pedal....In keeping with the naming conventions he already uses... Id call it either "The Wizard" or "Merlin," because of all the magical recipes of tone.
VCQ: Fantastic episode... probably perfect balance of techy vs clear (though I still had trouble keeping up - I am sure that is me and not you guys). Can you briefly describe the difference between a buffer and just less capacitance (as in on the pots in the guitar spoken of) and why the one effects a Fuzz pedal so much more than the other... trying to understand where in the chain to have a buffer and still trying to grasp the Fuzz pedal phenomenon... also, if Simon makes that pedal, personally think the live gigging guys would appreciate those incremental type knobs to recall for specific guitars... I thought this would be great for Alnico vs Ceramic pickup changes... take care...
There is also a ton of harmonic content from overdrive clipping which gives a square wave. A Fourier transformation of a square (or squarish) wave reveals a complex construct of frequencies of varying amplitudes. I think certain tubes tend to select for certain musically pleasing combinations of these. I could be wrong...
This is exactly the information I need to know before buying my first Strat. Also, crickey-blimey-o-riley what an amazing guitar player. Brilliant episode. Just need to watch it another 48 times to get the gist of all that technical wizardry.
Wow, so much info in this episode, the 'interesting bits and go-to sections' is really very useful here (thanks Mick!) Gonna have to watch this multiple times to let it all sink in, but what an interesting episode and what a great guest. Thanks!
Oh man... this has me thinking about rewiring my strat... 2 tone controls - each controls all 3 pickups and each has a different cap; they could be "stacked" or switched with a mini toggle. Or, adding a mini toggle for the neck tone pot that switches between different caps. I've been playing more with the tone rolled off recently, and I love how different this sounds with the different caps. Awesome show!
This is great. For quite some time now, I have this inkling (call it a „twitch“) that the tone control on a guitar is just a traditional component / convenience thing. Really, I think it is not only unnecessary, as we‘ve come a long way from the early days of electric guitar amplification, but basically it just drains part of your signal. Take that tone control away completely, and you‘re a lot more flexible on the backend.
I use a Toneshaper circuit in my strat and LP, they have adjustable circuits with dip switches, they sound great and I can’t say I miss the expensive caps I’d tried previously.
This episode is like a good reference book that I watched it twice so far and still taking different notes. I am designing a pedal with a 8 point selection switch to try different tone capacitor in a baxandall tone control.
This video combined with my analyzing how Frank Zappa built his tone have really helped me understand what is necessary to have a guitar to have total control of the timbre of your guitar: the way it feedbacks, "brightness," how to drive certain pedals with respect to different frequency accentuations, etc.
The Varitone also uses a choke/inductor, making it a variable notch filter rather than a high- (or low-) pass filter with variable cut-off frequencies.
Extremely educational. Learned a great deal from Simon. Suggestion, though, for a new show. Would love to learn from Mick's experience playing Hendrix and capturing his tone. How about some tips and tricks on playing like Jimi and gear for sounding like the legend.
Generalistation rebuttle incoming (ducks for cover...) Mick, i really don't think that most people who buy a Kemper, Helix or AxeFX does it because they want 300 amps. They just want a convenient way to get the sound that they are hearing in their heads... And as you well know, if you're going to do that with amps, cabs and pedals - it quickly turns into a very expensive hobby! ;) I own a Kemper, because it gives me the ability to record, rehearse or just simply play along to my favorite songs whenever i want, without bothering my girlfriend or neighbours (that's important). But most important of all: It gives me the opportunity to test the concepts that i learn about on That Pedal Show each week, without me having to have a serious chat with my bank manager! I can test if i prefer my vibe before or after my fuzz. Or if i dig putting a tremolo after my delays. Or using an octave fuzz with the volume turned down a bit... And i can do it right away, when the inspiration hits! Does it give me the same bubbly warm feeling that i get when i plug my pedalboard into a nice big amp and jam with friends? No, obviously not. It does something completely different, but both things are equally brilliant. It's horses for courses :)
I read this and I enjoyed it. Mick here. I guess my point isn’t really about 300 amps. It’s that the sound and feel of digital modelling is just so incredibly far removed from the sound of feel of analogue circuits by people who really know what they’re doing, it’s baffling to me. Yet. Average analogue circuits and so-so amps... sure. I can see the appeal of modelling in that scenario. I wish I could teach the world to hear. Or at least give them the opportunity. With respect.
@@ThatPedalShow I would love the opportunity to gun a Two Rock Classic Reverb and have schwang - but i can't - practically. Or rather, i won't make the sacrifices in order to do it... Maybe it's because i grew up with digital gear being the norm? My first "amp" was a Line 6 POD... And i remember the first time i played through a loud tube amp - it wasn't a very pleasant experience. It felt alien. Way to loud and harsh, and the loudness actually "scared" me a bit. Now, that's over 10 years ago, and since i started following your channel, i have come to know how to get the tones i want from valve amps (thank you!). So now i have great experiences playing valve amps, but it definitely was a big learning curve, and i imagine that your experience with the digital stuff is much the same. I imagine that i feels a bit alien, and not "right" - and i totally get that, because it's a very different thing, and it requires a completely different approach and mindset. I actually think that it would be a fun experiment to "swap rigs" for a day. I set up a Kemper rig, and show how i get it to work for me, and you set up a traditional rig, and show how you get it to work for you. Because i could actually imagine me feeling that the volume you play at, is way too much for me, and vice versa for you. I think it would be both enlightening and interesting :)
@@MagnusGuldbrandsen That's a really interesting point. A lot of people are physically scared when they play our rigs. It's so alive and loud and visceral - people brought up on low volume digital stuff often physically can't play them. I'm the same with digital stuff. I've got to the point where I physically can't play it.... or indeed anything when it's quiet. It's a different instrument at that point. Now then, people assume that I've never spent time with modelling gear. Remember I worked on guitar magazines for almost 20 years. I played every new version of every new digital modelling device out there. Recorded with them, gigged them. It's not a manifesto that I hate them; it's just a personal preference. I think everybody should be comfortable with their own preference and not be worried about trying to defend it. I prefer valve amps and analogue pedals. Always have, always will unless they manage to process digital stuff with the kind of power that eliminates latency and solves the high frequency cutoff. Until then, analogue all the way!
With all the different things I use and situations I see in playing, the 'architect' is something I could get seriously addicted to. No more having to have a bunch of different pedals/amps/guitars to tune the sound as I like...and with out soldering! I wonder if it would help voice something like a Lace Alumitone...?
That intro just wow. I am not sure if Simon’s playing makes me want to play more because the possibility of producing those sounds out of a guitar, or give up because of the impossibility of me doing so.
I recently bought a strat with active pickups (single coils), and it sounds lovely (and dynamic) straight into my amp, but it doesn't seem to get along with my pedalboard at all. Having heard Simon in this video talk about how active pickups are a totally different world in terms of how they interact with the overall signal, I'd be really interested in a video about how to get the most from them, especially at low-mid gain.
I go to admit.. this is really interesting. I love to play the guitar but I have way more fun with the technical side rather than the "music" side. I like playing with the sound more than making the sound
Gents, my head is exploding. Whilst forwarding to my dear friends. And considering new cables. Dan, could you please talk about the interaction of evidence audio patch cables, patch cables in general and the instrument cables from guitar to board through QuartermasterX, for example, and from there to amp? There's obviously a multitude of factors influencing the overall path, apart from that array of sometimes very expensive pedals! Thank you!
Off topic. When the boss 200 series pedals are available, could you guys please do a show with them? The pedal world needs you guys to explore them for us. Thanks.
Absolutely brilliant! What an insight! Must watch again, as I seemed to only follow "in the moment" (i.e. a moment later ... all forgotten!). So much going on PS I want the Archtect to sculpt my tone
Brilliant topic, cuts to the core of what a lot of guitarists are trying to do when they change pickups around. But if you don't know what underlies that, you're basically faffing around in the dark. Maybe it's not your pickups but the terrible amp you're using! Or your tone circuit for that matter. Worth watching several times to fully get it.
Brilliant episode fellas very very interesting, what a very interesting bloke great guitarist and very clear on his explanation totally , as a simple guitarist i completely understood him, i love and use Treble boosters, he just made sense on his description of their use 👍 Awesome 👏
I have 22 OD's that I actually use and I am amused that many are likely nearly the same except for small tweaks in the circuit. I also got rid of as many pedals because of perhaps just a tweak or two. OUCH!
Starting at about 20:50 Simon says he has a device with basically a guitar tone circuit in it and later in the video he says it has a 12ax7 with one gain stage and a cathode follower. I'm wondering if someone can post a schematic of this device. The main thing I'm curious about is how the impedance is changed. I can figure out the rest of the circuit from the description. I was thinking that the impedance changer might be a potentiometer wired as a variable resistor across the input or maybe its in series. I'd like to see a schematic if possible.
This is rather unrelated to this video, but have you guys heard of the BBE Sonic Maximizer? It seems interesting enough to warrant an episode of its own!
That’s an interesting point about the tone cap type. As far as I understand the tone knob is effectively a low pass filter that rolls off the high end as you back it off, but does the cap type have an influence on the filter shape at it’s corner frequency and the severity of the slope as it drops off?
