The Best Deal I've Seen...

... might be something that is easy to over look.

I also stop by the dollar (or thrift) sections with my wife at the stores we shop at. Well, one day I noticed that Target had batteries in the dollar section. I don't have very many battery powered devices, but I never seem to have one when I need it. This is never more true when I am playing music. There is a certain DI Box that you can only power by 9 volt batterie. The only problem is that 9 volts are not cheap. A 2-pack of energizer is going to run you 5 bucks. So when I saw a 2-pack of 9 volts for a buck I stocked up. I have a large and growing pedal board and although I prefer to power it with a 1Spot from Visual Sound, a run of batteries is sometimes necessary. It would set me back 15 dollar to power the set board on 9Vs, but with this little find I can do it for three.

This is a great find for anyone powering your board or just a single pedal and don't want to invest in a power supply.

Bad Monkey Mod

As far as I can tell the only modding that is really done to this pedal is switching out some capacitors for higher or lower value to effect the tone. I'm totally new at the whole modding ball game but this is what I've found out so far.

If you remove the Capacitor at C5 and replace it with one rated at .1uf then you can flatten the EQ of the pedal. Cutting the mid will give the pedal a transparent sound. If you want to cut the mids even more you can use a Cap with a rating of .15uf.

I pointed out the C5 Cap. It was a little of a wheres waldo. It is right between the knobs and the input jack.

Her are the solder points for C5. Not that hard to find, but its worth pointing out. Just under the knobs there.

There is also a mod for more bass. I'm not sure that this one is as popular as the mid-cut but I'll show it anyways in case you may want to add some bass to you Bad Monkey. Basicly you just follow the same routine. In this case you are changing the Cap at C11 with (again) a .1uf (or .15uf if you like) Cap and then you have bass boost. So Much Bass...

Pictures!

This one is much easier to find. Its basic the lowest thing on the right side.

Flip it over and there you go. The solder points. Pretty easy to find this time.

I haven't actually done this yet, but this is a common mod. You see this mod in the Humphrey Audio "badder monkey" on ebay for 100+ dollars. I bought mine a number of years ago for 40 From Musicians Friend. I't been kicked off the Pedal board because I don't need another "green" style OD when I have my Visual Sound Rout 66. But I may do the mod and use it for a boost or just as another color OD.

Like mods? Try one of these: Boss GE-7, Boss BD-2, Boss TR-2

GIMP 2

... I know it isn't musical but I would like to share my frustrations with you.

I don't know if there are any of you out there that like the little program, but it is driving my up a freaking wall. I though Photoshop was a tough cookie to crack. I would love to be able to run PS on the computer but sadly Adobe is pretty smart and they only let you put the software of 2 computers. I'd love to disable whatever it is that lets them know that you are running it on more computer than to...

I bet I could do most things that I use PS for in GIMP 2 but I really don't want to take the time to learn. The program really is gimpy. The feature that you are used to in PS don't exist in GIMP 2. Crap, some of the features you are used to in Paint aren't in GIMP. I started using GIMP 2 when Adobe got wise and I wanted to do a little editing of a picture for a website. I ran into GIMP years ago when my father, I Lynx fan, showed me a program that was just as good as Photoshop. I didn't know a thing about PS back then so i was starring at greek. Most recently, I though  I might use GIMP 2 to do what Adobe won't let me on this computer. Frustration, frustration, frustration is just about all I get out of this crap. Lynx is great at putting together programs, but the limited features make it seem like they do half the job.

GIMP 2 Leaves me completely unsatisfied.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It's main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming. According to http://www.hydrogen-music.org/.

Its free, or at least it was free when I downloaded it a couple years ago. Recording acoustic drums in a room-studio is a pain. I have no budget for mic kits and stands and a mixer to handle all the mics. (not to mention the fact that room it's self is not at all acoustically designed for this) So a good drum machine is the best thing for getting tracks together in a days time. If done right, all you notices is that your drummer isn't all that creative. Don't get me wrong. I'd rather have live drums played by a pro than a segments of drum loops, but you gotta do what you gotta do. There are some free DMs out there on the web, and some that you pay out the but for. Obviously Hydrogen is not the top of the line be-all to end all, but it does make for a good starting point. I've had a little trouble getting new kits to load, so that means I'm stuck with the stock sounds. For stock sounds, they aren't that bad. With a little work this program could be a powerful little tool for the artist with more creativity than funds. The controls are intuitive, and pretty in depth. You can Eq and adjust levels (and other variants) for each sound. There are lots of nerdy/tweaky things, but I leave that alone for the most part. I give this program my seal of approval. Not bad for free!

Audacity

So I came about this program about five years ago, that tells you how up-to-date it is, and it actually does quite well. It is a recording program. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that some of the expensive, fancy programs, but for a piece of freeware it does the job. It's called Audacity and I've used it with great success. Recording and basic editing can be done very intuitively with it's simple interface. Selecting, Cutting, Pasting, Deleting, Adding silence, and tons of other operations are quick and painless. It even has tools like Eq, reverb, noise canceling, and others. I use it for the simple editing of multiple tracks and easy to understand interface. I'm a big fan of simple. Check them out: http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Do you have a word for your fans? Astronaut.

I'm not sure if that is a factual quote, but it is a line in the movie "I'm Not There". A film about the life of Bob Dylan. I'm not sure if I can really recommend this film. I frankly didn't enjoy the movie, but it was artfully filmed and edited to be a quandary or riddle. I don't mind movies that make me think, I enjoy then actually, but this one was a little more bent to the bizarre. Dylan is played for 6 actors, none of them are actually named Bob Dylan. and they each represent a phase of persona of Dylan. To make things worse, the film has no feeling of timeline or structure. Consecutive scene can display portions of Dylan life that are decades apart. In short, it was a head trip. To make things worse, I'm not even that big of a Dylan fan, and maybe less of one now. Although I may do some light reading on the life and times of the man for kick and grins. Maybe listen to some of his songs as a whole and, if I feel a little folky, I may pick up an acoustic and play a song of his.

As a film go, I'd give it 3 of 5 Stars. But Dylan wouldn't care anyways...

My Pedal Rigg

So, here it is. The key to my sound. I bet you are just dying to know. I look at it now and personally, I'm not that impressed. I mean, I just transferred my pedals to a larger board and it looks way to big for the few pedals I have. See for your self.

As you can see. Pretty Simple. Going right to left: Modtone Wah, Modetone Chorus, Visual Sound Rout 66 OD and Compression, Modtone Volume Pedal, Boss DD-20 Delay, Boss TU-2 Tuner. I like to keep the effects simple. I don't like putting anything on my board that I could see my self using in nearly every set I play. Its just too much of a hassle to put everything you own on one board and haul it around with you. I have a single Power supply (visual sound 1Spot) I've used it for the last five year and its still running strong. I plan on looking into getting a couple of pedals to help flesh out the board; boost, tremolo, and maybe another OD to place post volume pedal.

So if you have any suggestion, I'd love to hear them.

The Telecaster

Many years ago there was a man named Leo Fender. He was a man's man. He made things when his hands. There was a vast fascination with music and music in those days was live and acoustic. Any type us amplification of instrument was crude and mostly ineffective in a live setting. Loud volumes were accomplished by multiples of the same instrument playing the same note at the same time. The face of the modern "band" was changing and Leo was greatly aware.

The first guitar the Fender musical instrument company ever produced was called the esquire. The Shape and line are that of the present day telecaster. The instrument was a hit and many musician flocked the the sturdy, reliable, and cheap new instrument. The popularity gave Leo the latitude that he needed to move forward with the two pick-up version of the esquire, The Broadcaster. I know what your thinking. An Esquire with two pick-ups is a Telecaster. Well, the broadcaster's realise got a lot of attention, even the attention of the established Gretsch instruments. They already had trademark a line called Broadkaster. The claimed that the Broadcaster guitar infringed upon that. So the name was changed to "Telecaster".

So the Telecaster was born. Thank goodness, because I would have no idea what I would spend all my money on if it weren't for Leo Fender and his amazing instrument. But since the induction of the Telecaster there has been many models and changes made the guitar. The original Telecaster came with three saddle. The adjustable intonation was relative. Later model changed to six saddles for a more precise set-up. Many combinations of woods, and hollow bodied models have been produced. The Telecaster has worn just about every hat in the book, which adds to the reason I love this particular piece of gear. My Tele.

My First Telecaster was a standard model (made in Mexico) and I still play it. I've owed it over 12 years now. It has seen many places and has been through it all with me. I've replace pick-ups, input jacks, pots, wires, and strap buttons. Its been slung across a room and into a wall. I think toothpicks and wood-glue hold it together and I wouldn't trade it for the world. It still plays like a dream.

My next Tele was a gift from my wife. A Tele Deluxe. Double humbuckers in a Tele, its like awesomeness in awesomeness. I was given that guitar about a year ago now. It seems like a long time but it's just now getting broken in. It has gotten its first sticker (and that was a 6+ month process). Now its just a matter of time before I find the right gauge of string and peg the set-up.

My last Tele (actually belongs to my wife) is a Tele Custom with P-90's. I haven't really had that much to do with P-90 Pick-ups but I thought this would be a good way to learn, plus the guitar looked good and it was a Tele. When my wife picked it out at the store and told me she wanted it I just had to let her have it.

The Telecaster is an amazing instrument worthy of the praise given here, but it is far from the perfect guitar. I would rather play a Tele but other swear by there axes just I do mine. The best thing is to get out there and play them. See what feels right to you. I own, and have owned, many types of guitars and there's just no getting around it. I'm a Tele player.


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