A Little Love for the Les Paul Tribute Plus
After nearly a year, I’m still loving my Epiphone Les Paul 1960 Tribute Plus. I‘ve played a number of gigs with it and it has proven itself absolutely reliable and roadworthy. It has really excelled in every situation – loud indoor gigs, scorchin hot outdoor summer gigs, and of course my everyday practice, both unplugged and amplified.
This model seems to be a diamond in the rough at Epiphone- a truly great collection of features, including the awesome Gibson ‘57 Classic pickups, for a very competitive price.
I’ve often wondered why I haven’t seen Epiphone really promoting this model as much as it deserves. Well today, I noticed that it’s currently featured on the front page of Epiphone’s website, as part of their 140 years (1873-2013) anniversary. There’s a nice write up with a few choice quotes from Les Paul, and some gorgeous pictures.
Maybe they’ve finally decided to seriously promote this gem of a guitar!
New Amplitube iRig HD interface
In my series on building your own iDevice Guitar Interface, I demonstrated an interface which connects through the headphone/microphone jack. This is similar to the commercial products like IK Multimedia Amplitube iRig, Peavey AmpKit Link, Griffin GuitarConnect. And like all those, it works well, but it is not the most high-fidelity solution.
There are also a number of products that instead connect using the dock connector on the bottom of the iDevice, for example the Apogee Jam, Sonoma GuitarJack, Alesis iO Dock and Line 6 Mobile In. These interfaces have their own A/D converters, and pass the signal digitally to the iDevice providing higher quality audio. The downside is that you can’t charge the iDevice on battery while using the interface, which may be an issue for live performance and recording.
There’s a new contender in the dock-connected interfaces, and it looks pretty nice: the IK Multimedia iRig HD. In appearance, it looks very similar to the Apogee Jam. I prefer this style of interface, rather than the Sonoma, and Line 6 approach which have the entire unit hanging off the dock – that seems very precarious and likely to break the dock.
Also, at $99 the iRig HD is cheaper than the $129 Apogee Jam. If you have a newer iDevice with the lighting connector, the iRig HD is an even better deal, as it includes the lightning adapter cables as well as the older-style 30-pin connecter, and also a USB connector for use with a computer.
All that said, I’m perfectly happy with my DIY interface for practice, but if I was using it for recording or live performance, I might consider buying this iRig HD.
Alternative Pedal Enclosures from Rixen
In pedal building, we almost exclusively see the Hammond-style diecast aluminum enclosures. You know their names- the ubiquitous 1590B (aka 1290NS) and its plus-size cousin the 125B. Then there’s the larger 1590BB, and the tiny and temperamental 1590A. What these all have in common is the simple generic rectangular shape.
But what if you’re a fan of the spring-loaded foot-pedal enclosures made famous by the BOSS and Ibanez pedals?
Typically, the only way for DIY pedal builders to achieve that look was to buy an old pedal and gut it- but then you’re stuck with the original pedal’s drilling layout.
Now there’s a new option- I just came across these new enclosures from Rixen Pedals.
When is 9V not 9V?
Answer: when it’s 13V!
As I mentioned previously, my pedal board’s power supply died, so I’ve been temporarily using an old Korg 9V power supply.
I’ve been getting some hum from Ryan’s Fulltone Fat-Boost, and finally decided to do some sleuthing to figure out why.
Fortunately, before I even cracked open the Fat-Boost, I hooked up a multimeter to measure the voltage output of the Korg supply, and it turns out that this little guy is really putting out 13V, not 9V. Well, that’s annoying. Is it mislabeled, or just over-compensating for something?More
Pedal Power Fiasco
The night before my St Patrick’s Day gig with the Drop Daddies, we were setting up at a rehearsal space for a last minute practice. I powered up my gear, and none of my pedals were working!
After a bit of trial and error, it was clear that my ancient SKB PS-25 pedalboard power supply had finally keeled over. I never use batteries, but fortunately a couple of the pedals had old 9V batteries still in them, so it was enough to scrape by for the rehearsal.
The following morning, just a few hours before the gig, I went through my box of old guitar gear to try to find a replacement 9V DC negative-tip power supply.
Hey, here’s the power supply for my Digitech Jamman Delay which I’m not currently using in my live rig. It says 9V, 1.3A. Strange, it doesn’t show a polarity, but it’s a power supply for a guitar pedal, and the plug barrel fits, so it must be good, right? What could possibly go wrong?