April Showers, and a Few Flowers -- But Two Weeks Late!

Trees are finally greening out here, 2 weeks late.

As I write this, I have my window open. It is almost 8 p.m., and the sky is still light out. The past four to five days we've finally seen some Spring weather here in the Seattle area -- temperatures reaching 60 degrees F (around 12C), and the nights haven't been freezing for the past five nights in a row, which seems miraculous, in that just over a week and a half ago it just hit freezing (32F / 0C).

The hills around my little corner of Washington have just begun to turn a light green, and after what seems to be interminable cold, it's finally feeling like Spring.

A look down the highway, the light green of fresh leaves, and 15C / 60 degree temperatures feeling like Spring finally.\

While I was out on my bicycle and taking a few pics with the Nikon L32, a helicopter flew over a nearby hill. The electronic telephoto enhancement on the Nikon sometimes works really well for shots like this.

I have yet to get my corona shot, that is something I hope to do in a couple weeks. Things are opening up in my state a little -- which means the traffic on the roads is back. There still aren't many jet airliners in the sky, though, so at night it's a lot quieter at times than it was pre-pandemic.

Work has continued, fiction writing has halted, and I've been wrestling with two of my electric guitars, trying to make them better for slide playing -- which means you're jacking up the string tension, but not to the point where strings are popping. I increment up the bridge saddles, a thousandth of an inch at a time, play a little, let the guitar sit, try it again.... Closer and closer to 'perfect'.

A 110 year-old Trestle and green trees.

One of my guitars, my Ibanez Gio GRX40, is really good on slide. Being a longer scale length, the distances between the notes is greater, so you have less chance of overshooting a note with the slide. The Powersound humbucker also sounds very good with slide, much better than it does if you fret single notes.

And the saddles on the bridge go up, up, up -- by the thousandths of an inch.

Three Tremolo springs (instead of five, which is probably preferable) -- not exactly ideal for maximum tuning stability, but it's the way the guitar was delivered from the factory, and I don't feel like messing with it now. 

The tuners on my Ibby, however, need to be replaced -- mainly the top two. They work, but they do not have a positive feel, and when you're playing in Open G and trying to get the chords to sound totally balanced, you need more 'feel' from the tuners than I've been getting. So it's time to get out the tiny drill and the wood putty (to fill the previous tuners' holes in the headstock).

I've changed out tuners three times previous (once on my Daimaru Jaguar copy, and twice on my Lotus L520 Les Paul copy), so it's not something I haven't done before, but drilling into one of my guitars isn't something I really look forwards to.

The Cedar River at dusk. The river is low for this time of year, when it is usually two to three feet higher and really flowing fast.

All that said, I'm still working on a radio article (on the Grundig G2, a lesser known Grundig that came out in the 2010's and didn't sell well), an article on Shortwave radio, and a third article which is devoted to slide guitar.

Until then, I hope these photos will suffice.

Peace out to all of my readers, here in the U.S. and all over the world.

C.C., 4-22-2021

JOYO BRITISH SOUND -- A Great Guitar Pedal, And A Cure For Some Excess Hiss

My typical "pedal board" these days. Guitar into Boss DD-3, into the Joyo British Sound dirt box (dead center in the pic), into the Boss Super Overdrive SD-1, into the clean (or dirty) channel of my Fender solid state Tweed Bronco (a 20W amp with TL072s and several series of clipping diodes in it). The LED on the JOYO, you'll notice, is fairly bright. When the battery gets too week to operate the pedal 100%, the LED doesn't dim as much as LEDs do on other pedals. Where I have the controls set on the Joyo, in this picture, is where I usually have them -- although I often crank the bottom left control higher, and the bottom right control lower, depending on the guitar I use, and color of Marshall-like tone I want.

As many of my readers already know, I not only have a radio hobby, but I also am a musician. I am mainly a rhythm and slide guitarist, but I also sing, play bass guitar, some keyboards, bagpipes, and in the past I played a set of drums on my demo recordings. On top of that I have dabbled in blues harmonica, and also have played some mountain and Celtic tunes on fiddle and banjo from time to time.

But guitar is my main instrument of choice. It just feels natural in my hand, to make music with one. Consequently, like most guitarists, I have my share of 'stomp boxes' -- distortion units, choruses, phasers, flangers, echoes and delays (analog and digital), noise suppressors (sometimes needed in recording), compressors, etc.

My Bagpipes, a set of 1981 Lawries with 1982 Hardie chanter. I used to play them in a band, but after my dad passed, it wasn't fun anymore, and I now play at home -- not as often as I should.

Stomp boxes can add atmosphere to your guitar's sound (chorus, phase, echo), or extra expression (wah-wah -- something I used to use in the 1980's but grew tired of). They can also color your guitar's sound overall (EQ, Fuzz, Overdrive, Distortion, etc.).

This is similar to my average philosophy on pedals and 'guitar rigs': One guitar, three pedals, and a decent amplifier... It doesn't even have to be an expensive amp. There are some good sounding ones out there at affordable prices. The guitar is an old Ibby which I got at a thrift store -- I had to gut it because the original switches were unfixable and the pickups fell apart when I took the covers off to get more volume. A local music store had Japanese Strat-copy pickguards with pickups, probably Matao brand. Controls and switches came from Radio Shack, which no longer exists; and a grey piece of plastic -- to mount the jack -- came from a hobby shop that also no longer exists.

PEDALS = GOOD; OR PEDALS = OVERKILL

A lot of guitarists have massive pedal boards full of all sorts of unnecessary stuff. They even have pride in their pedal boards. There are YouTube videos where guys show off all their expensive boutique pedals and gizmos, with several pedals in a row that all do the same thing (only differently!); furthermore, they've got racks full of crap to process the signal; you will then sometimes see them with ten or twelve stacks of amplifiers lining the wall behind them, when you really only need one amp and maybe a backup.

Then you'll see some big name guitar player being interviewed about their rig, and it's all boutique stuff -- in other words, forget trying to sound like them, because they're playing a custom $5000 guitar plugged into a custom $5000 amplifier through $500 pedals and processors, none of which Average Joe or Jane Guitar Player can afford.

Jimi Hendrix played stock Strats into stock Marshalls. He had a wah-wah and a fuzz box. Sometimes he used other stomp boxes, too, but in this video (Stockholm, 1969) he's using two -- count 'em, two -- pedals.:

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live in Sweden 1969 - YouTube

Jimi wouldn't fit in today, I guess. No boutique pedals that one can't buy off the shelf. No signature or pre-aged, custom $5000 guitar.

And don't get me started on extensive guitar collections, where a guy is standing in front of a room full of guitars. You know what? You only need one or two (maybe a humbucker guitar and a single coil one) and a backup or two if you're thinking about playing in public, plus maybe an acoustic. Not fifty of them. 

But I digress...

It often becomes overkill, because face it: to make good music, you don't need that much! Eric Clapton changed rock and blues guitar music by just plugging one guitar (a 1960 Gibson Les Paul) into one amp (a Marshall Bluesbreaker combo), and when he went on to form Cream he only went up to a bigger Marshall amplifier because he was suddenly playing to bigger audiences and PA systems weren't all that loud back then. 

I've seen those popular "rigs of the stars" vids where these guys have six or seven guitars, banks of amps, all this processing crap -- all doted on by techs -- and meanwhile, Eric Clapton played entire tours using just one guitar (his 'Fool', painted Gibson SG). 

In 1967 he added a wah-wah pedal, which he used on two songs only (Tales of Brave Ulysses and White Room). In 1968 he added a second guitar as a backup.

That was it.

You don't need a boatload of pedals (and other equipment) to make decent music.

I only use three or four pedals max: a Delay, a Distortion, and an Overdrive (which replaces the gain channel of whatever amp I'm running my guitar into). Sometimes I put a chorus (Boss CE-5 or Ibanez CS-505) in front of the delay. Lately, I haven't -- so I have been just using three pedals, to save on batteries. The Boss DD-3 Delay gives the guitar enough 'atmosphere' that chorus really isn't needed.

I have a Boss TU-2 tuner handy in case I need to touch up the tuning -- my guitars rarely, if ever, go out of tune. But over a week they'll fall an eighth of a tone or so. When the strings start to feel a little mushy I'll plug the guitar into the tuner and tune the strings back up to pitch. So that makes four or five pedals, max, that I actually have plugged in between guitar and amp. And I get by O.K.

DIRT BOX MANIA

All that said, after playing with some people in December 2019 and having had the experience of a) not being able to hear myself because b) I was using a strange amplifier, and c) I wasn't satisfied with my sound (which I couldn't hear anyway), I decided to re-vamp my signal chain to make it more uniform sounding -- no matter what amp I was using.

So I added to my collection of distortion units -- or "dirt boxes" as we guitarists like to call them. I've had an old MXR Distortion Plus that I used on my CD demos long ago. I used to run a wah-wah, flat out, into the MXR, and with the small practice amp I was using at the time it gave me a very easy to record, slightly Marshally sound. Many of these recordings can be heard here.:

ChrisCampbellRock | Chris Campbell Rock | Free Listening on SoundCloud 

I got a Boss DS-1 in the mid 1990s and although I haven't used it on any recordings, I practice with it from time to time. I've found it has a really good slide guitar tone, and also works well to get Pearl Jam and Nirvana-like grunge guitar tones.

In 2000 or 2001 I got a Marshall Guv'nor Plus -- a terrific, dark sounding and Marshall-like pedal that sounds like a cranked, 1980's era Marshall (think JCM800 or 900). Built like a tank, it has served me well over the years. Unfortunately they no longer make them, and if you see one for sale online they go for as much as $400.

Last Spring, after I decided to update my guitar's signal chain, I purchased a Boss Super Overdrive SD-1, which I found very useful as a dirt box for slide and rhythm. The SD-1 has been around in various forms since the late 1970's, when Boss first introduced it. It was designed to imitate a tube gain section in a tube amplifier. The SD-1 gives my guitars a nice snarl, making them sound a lot like the tone Mick Ronson got on the early David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust era records.

I then got a Boss BD-2 Blues Driver, which I found works awesomely when placed in front of the SD-1. I get a British amp tone with that combination, and combining the two I don't really need an amp with a gain channel -- any clean channel seems to do.

ENTER THE JOYO BRITISH SOUND

My most recent purchase was a JOYO BRITISH SOUND pedal, which is a knock-off (apparently) of a Tech21 British Character pedal -- an analog amplifier simulator that is supposed to sound like a Marshall Bluesbreaker amp (JTM45), or a JCM100 / Plexi Super Lead amp. From what I've seen on YouTube, the JOYO is close to the Tech21 in sound.

I was looking for a backup or replacement for my Guv'nor, as I plan to find a band to play in, and don't want to take a pedal around with me that is now valued at $400 just because it's no longer made. I saw the Joyo advertised online, and -- after checking out some YouTube reviews -- decided to buy one. The price was reasonable -- around $35-$40 US.

I was pleasantly surprised. The JOYO British Sound pedal is very good at reproducing the Marshall-like tones it is supposed to produce. I can get a Malcolm Young tone, and if I turn up a couple of controls, I can get my guitar to sound more like Angus, or Eric Clapton when he was in Cream.

IT'S ALL IN THE CONTROLS

The JOYO British Sound pedal has six controls: Bass, Midrange and Treble on the top side, and Drive, Voice and Gain on the bottom.

They all seem to interact with each other a little bit; with the bottom row of controls definitely interacting with each other.

The JOYO's top controls (the tone controls) basically act like they do on your average guitar amp. I have the tone controls on my Joyo set low because #1, I don't like screaming midrange (Slash's tone is not for me), #2, my main amp is bassy enough as is, and #3 I don't like tons of treble in my guitar tone, and my guitars already have treble to burn.

So I have the tone controls set low -- ironically, close to where Angus Young has his tone controls set on his main amp.

Two dirt boxes designed to make your amp sound like a Marshall (or other, similar sounding British amplifier) -- the JOYO British Sound on the left, and the 2001 Marshall Guv'nor Plus on the right. To simplify the differences: the JOYO gets you closer to Paul Kossoff, Eric Clapton, or Angus and Malcolm Young on their first Australian albums, and the Guv'nor makes you sound more like Angus now. Oh, yeah: you can get a JOYO online, new, at a decent price. You can only get a Guv'nor online used, at $200 or more.

Now we get to the bottom row of the JOYO's controls, the row of controls that really make this box sound like a Marshall. The bottom controls are "Level", "Voice", and "Drive".:

The Level knob (the JOYO's overall 'volume' control) I usually have set high, so it will max the volume coming out of the amp, without making the guitar sound muddy or squishy.

This leaves the last two controls -- Voice and Drive -- which determine the 'color' of your overall sound. The Voice control, in the middle, determines how the pedal reacts to distortion and midrange. When you turn it to the left, it's more scooped, and the pedal will distort a bit less -- think Bluesbreaker amp (Clapton when he was with John Mayall) or Malcolm Young. Turn the Voice pedal past noon and you're entering into Marshall Super Lead / Super Bass and Plexi territory (Paul Kossoff, Angus Young, Eric Clapton in Cream). The "Drive" control is a gain control that determines your overall distortion level -- however, it interacts with the Voice control, so they both work off of each other.

I usually have my Voice control between 10 o'clock ad 2 o'clock, depending on the type of crunch I want to hear. I have my "Drive" control between 9 o'clock (for Malcolm Young like sounds with my humbucker guitars) and one o'clock (for my Daimaru Fender Jag knock-off, which has low output single coils), for more sizzle and crunch.

The only negative in the JOYO pedal that I experience is there is a ton of treble to spare. I have my JOYO's treble control cranked to zero, and even though the SD-1 cuts down some treble, I still have the treble reduced at the amplifier. It's not really a problem with the JOYO box, because no one on the internet complains about it -- but I just don't like really bright guitar sounds, so it's my own preference. I prefer a darker tone, and my ceramic-magnet pickup equipped guitars are bright enough to provide more than enough treble than I need.

A pic of the JOYO British Sound box with the battery so weak that the box is hissing very loudly. As you can see, the LED is still fairly bright -- even though my camera probably makes it a little bit brighter than it was to the human eye, it still is brighter than your typical Boss or Ibanez stomp box LED when the battery is next to dead.

Here is a pic of the JOYO British Sound pedal with a fresh battery. Same camera, same general lighting. The difference between the brightness of the LEDs in the pics is fairly apparent. The level of hiss in the JOYO with a fresh, or good battery isn't enough to bother me. It's more of a background hiss, that instantly gets covered by the guitar.

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I have found that battery life with the JOYO is really good. The first battery lasted me about five or six months. The LED has remained bright the entire time, and I noticed no weakening of signal from the box, either. Amazing.

However, a couple nights ago, things took a sudden turn for the worse.

Now, most dirt boxes put out a little hiss -- depending on the box, of course. Even some amps put out some hiss. I've heard Van Halen concerts on YouTube, where Eddie Van Halen's amps were hissing a little in between songs.

With a new battery, there was a little hiss with the JOYO, but not enough to worry about.

Two nights ago, suddenly I was hearing tons of hiss. If you've ever heard a steam train, or a pressure cooker releasing its steam -- it was almost to that level.

I also noticed that I also had to crank the gain higher than usual to get distortion. The clarity was still there, though. The pedal didn't sound muddy like other gain pedals do when the battery weakens. It just didn't distort as easily.

So I had a pedal that had lower distortion, still had clarity, but a lot of HISS.... and the LED was still bright. I was puzzled.

I did an online search. Some guy had once bought two JOYO pedals and they both had hiss. No one on that forum could give him any decent answers. Then I thought about the battery. What if the battery actually was LOW, even though the LED was still bright?

I took the back of the battery compartment and replaced the battery on the JOYO.

I plugged the JOYO back into my guitar signal chain (guitar > JOYO > Boss SD-1 > Fender Tweed Bronco clean channel).

Instantly, the excess hiss was GONE! More signal. More crunch and distortion! Normal operation!

The LED on the JOYO pedal was brighter with the new battery, but the difference wasn't as great as you have on other brands of guitar pedals. The LED on the JOYO British Sound darkens slightly as the battery weakens, but not like other brands of pedals. You will know you need a new battery when you hear a LOT of hiss.

So if you have a JOYO pedal, and you're experiencing excess hiss: CHANGE THE BATTERY!!!

My Hawthorn tree is just starting to bud. Usually by April 5th, the trees have already put out their new leaves, making the hillsides of the valley a bright shade of cheery green. Not this year. The past three years have seen the leaving of the trees occurring a week or so late, even with mild Winters. This year it looks like the trees may be two to three weeks late.

IN OTHER, NON-MUSICAL THINGS

Aside from the recent encounter with hiss on my Joyo pedal, nothing really is going on. 

Work is still happening, and our state is slowly opening up, but it's a slow process. I still haven't gotten a corona shot and still don't know when I will be able to. As my foreign readers are probably aware, we here in the U.S. have a mish-mash, hodgepodge, throw-together health care system that the government regulates, but doesn't run, so things like vaccination programs are left to the states, counties, and local health districts. It's times like these that the proponents of nationalized health care definitely have a point.

I know it's worse for some people in other areas of the world, where there are issues even getting vaccine to their country. I really feel for them, because right now I understand at least a little bit of what they face.

Near the end of the first week of April -- April 6th, in fact -- and the temperature at 6 in the morning is just below freezing: 29 degrees F / -1C. There was a light dusting of frost on my car as well. Horrible Spring weather. I took this photo about an hour or so before finally posting this article. The article describes cold temperatures, but not 29 degrees!

As for the season normally called Spring, it still sometimes feels like Winter. The weather here basically sucks. The rain has stopped, but it's COLD.

Last night it was a few degrees about freezing (37F, which is around 3 degrees C). Two nights before that it was 0 degrees C (32F -- FREEZING). And this is the last few days before April. In a normal March, the nights will be around 45F or so (7-8C?) and around 55-60F during the day (12-14C?).

The trees are still bare. You can't see any leaf buds. In normal years the trees are bright green by April 5th -- which means their leaves are out, but still just barely.

Not this year, probably, if our present weather is any indication.

A hillside which appears in one or two other photos I've placed in blog posts over the past few years (the August, 2017 Solar Eclipse article being one of them). The tall, conical shaped green trees on the hill are Douglas Firs and Spruces. The brown? That's bare tree branches of Cottonwoods and Oregon Big Leaf Maples. On normal years, those trees are always a light green by April 5th. It's been that way as long as I can remember. Back in 2003 and 2004 I started marking it down on the calendar, and April 5th was always the day the trees were leaved and green. Not this year -- and 2018, 2019, and 2020 weren't any better.

My radio hobby is about the same as last time. I tune around the MW/AM band about once an evening, generally hearing the same 300 or so stations. Some nights and mornings are more blah, DX-wise, than others. A few early mornings 1600 AM will be cluttered with stations, but nothing will stick out (I listen to KVRI 1600 a lot because of the Sikh and Punjabi music they play). I heard a heterodyne on 1590 the other morning (possibly the 1593 khz station in China that is 400 KW?) but there was no audio.

In the location where I live, surrounded by hills, heterodynes (signals from across the Pacific) rarely turn into audio. The last time I heard a heterodyne turn into audio was three or four years ago, when the powerhouse station in Korea on 1566 Khz was just audible, in the Korean language. That was pretty cool to hear on my Sangean PR-D5!

TO THOSE OF YOU OVERSEAS

I have been reading about the situation in Europe, and really feel for the people over there. I've mentioned before, I have a few online friends in Germany, Austria and Norway, and although they're doing O.K. personally, they're stressed out because of the vaccine situation and the lockdowns.

My prayers go out to all of you overseas.

I hope to post a new radio-hobby article before mid-April. It just needs some good photos.

Until then,

Stay safe, everyone, and thank you for reading my blog. I check my stats periodically, and almost half of my readers are from outside the United States. I appreciate each and every one of you.

C.C. March 31st, 2021, with photos added on April 6th.