hehe Hey don't hate us just because we eat, sleep and breathe football in the burgh and won the Super Bowl 6 times, just embrace it and enjoy the greatness!  

One thing I do like about Minnesota though is Jesse Ventura! Gotta love Jesse!

OMG are you a Brett Favre fan? lol I am a Favre/Vikings fan now...well any team Favre is on rather I'm a fan of LOL. Ex Packer fan and proud to say it!.

Gotta say the Vikings will be ready to roll this next year and we'll be Super Bowl Bound if the offensive line can actually run and pass block.

Man oh man! Now would YOU TWO just go get a room at the Senior's home along with Favre!  

Favre man love, ya baby! Man I totally agree about the offensive line, if they could block the Vikings will roll. I don't know how they address that as the draft won't cut it. Besides this is the last year if the Minnesota Vikings as they are going to LA.

Now back to Erikks studio

Ha haaaaaaaaaaa!!  You guys are hilarious!

Glad to see a fellow Steelers fan in here Frank, that's awesome!  My Dad was born in New Kensington and all his family is up there, I love Pittsburgh man I knock back Iron Citys at local Steelers bars down here almost every Sunday during the season, hell even the guy who replaced me in my last cover band is from Pitt.  Ben had better come out of this one clean, it sounds like another BS she-said type deal again... young, rich, single athlete has to go around randomly raping women to get pootie?  Yeah, whatever, I ain't buyin' it These gold-diggers need to get called out and prosecuted for libel, slander, defamation and everything else so that all the clever c*nts out there learn their lesson.  Ben is practically still a kid, almost dies twice, shouldn't have to deal with this kind of stress.

You're right, I so do love taking guitars apart and revamping them to how I personally think they should be optimized, I'd way rather take a $500 fiddle and modify it to a one-of-a-kind that kills than drop $2,000 on a guitar that's supposed to kick ass but still needs attention... picking up a $2,500 PRS guitar in Houston years ago is what sold me, I put it right back on the wall and laughed "I would rather have two grand's worth of beer than be stuck with that thing!"  I got some looks but didn't care, pompous-ass music store people   

Surf, I am a huge Favre fan bro, I was so royally pissed that they lost to 'Nawlins I couldn't see straight!  LET'S GEAUX!!!!    That guy had a great year and played over most QB's nearly half his age so I blame Peterson and his sorry fumbling ass, the O-line for allowing how many QB hits? and all the receivers for dropping passes b/c Brett couldn't have tried any harder.  Favre is awesome, he's the f*#king John Wayne of the NFL

Part III of last Saturday's session coming up today.

Erikk, thanks for posting those videos.  You're starting to make me rethink my dislike of EMG humbuckers (gotta say I like the EMG-81's though).  Also it was a kick to see I'm not the only guy in NC with a Yamaha T-100!!  Did you mod that amp, or did someone mod it for you?  Also, if yours won't put out the full 100W, there is a mod I made that will fix the problem.  It has to do with the paralleled triode sections of V4 fighting each other and restricting the power output.  I also have copies of the suggested mods sent from Soldano if you're interested.

Usually when I try an amp in a store the EMG-81s are weirdly enough always in the best playing guitar they got...so I end up using that to try amps out when I'm too lazy to bring my own guitar... now that I have the VM no need to try amps out anymore...just guitars!.

-- Wed Mar 10, 2010 12:57 pm --



Man that game against the Saints was probably the most heart & inspiring play by a quarterback I've ever seen and I've been watching Brett play since he became a starting QB in 1992 for my team that sadly died in early 2008 the Green Bay Packers (They are dead to me NOW). His play in that loss actually has to be one of Bretts top performances due to his injurys and constant abuse he took let alone being 40 and taking it!. Brett nearly brought em back then the stupid 12 man on the field call killed their momentum and forced a quick make shift play that caused the interception.

Hey MKB.  No prob on the vids man, I hope they at least give a good perspective on how a VM can be used in the hard rock arena and how fun recording can be... glad anybody even enjoys watching them

That's a trip you have a T-100!  I called Soldano to get their straight dope on what the suggested mods were to revert back to Mike's intended specs, they gave me the filter cap values that would be required to accompany the choke (which they said was the most vital difference), then got the prescribed choke direct from Mercury Magnetics and handed over the head, choke and e-mail notes to Steve Stockel here in Charlotte or thw rok... also converted to EL-34's.  The size of the caps made the guts fatter than the damn chassis so spacer washers had to be placed on the mounting bolts to make the head taller.  Between that and the taller 34 tubes now the amp wouldn't fit back into the motherf$#!*ng cabinet so I had the custom wood head you see in the vids made to fit.  

I'd be very interested in knowing more about the power scene you mentioned, even when it's nearly full-tilt this head has almost no blast power compared to my Marshalls.  I've been told all Soldanos are that way and playing through my buddy's SLO-100 is almost identical so it'd be nice to unleash it if you've got the recipe!  I'll have it tested to see what she's officially putting out.

-- Wed Mar 10, 2010 8:16 pm --



Yeah Slash, I've been into my EMGs for a while but honestly have to say that Seymour Duncan pretty much romped all over their asses with their 'Blackouts' series.  Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely keeping my 81/85 and 'SA' strat systems but maaaaaan, everything I ever read about the Blackouts proved to be true...  and then some.  Those pickups are amazing.  More headroom, less noise, better tone, no hi-fi 'click' when speed picking, organic and big/open sounding, and cheaper than comparable EMGs.  The 2 guys I've recommended them to and everybody who has heard mine love them, it's just crazy how good they really are.

I wonder if EMG will do some R&D and come back with an answer?

-- Wed Mar 10, 2010 8:25 pm --

Oh snap, part III is up!  I'm done now for a little while fellas, gotta' move to a new pad this weekend and get settled in so maybe another week or so until I get my solos wrapped and we move on to bass and vox.  
You guys are probably as tired of seeing these now as I am of editing the damn things

Thanks a ton for all of your feedback and comments guys, I have a blast on here and sincerely appreciate it

Fucking Insane VIDEO ERIKK!.

As you probably know Erikk I use Seymore Duncan Alnico 2's, I'm happier than a cat eating shit with these :) They feel the most organic and natural to me out of all the pickups I've tried, plus they really compliment the VM as a 1 channel amplifier.

I haven't tried many newer pickups but I did recently try the Dimebuckers on a Sinister Gates Signature guitar (lol he has one? haha) through the Vintage Modern and they didn't seem to do much more than my Alnicos did in metal sounding stuff, tho the Alnicos were sweeter sounding for sure with a little more character.

Sample of me & the VM with the Dimebuckers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usgwErWktk8

The EMG-81s are probably the most common pickup in the stores in my area...man you could walk in with a blind fold on and randomly grab an EMG equiped guitar here.

That's a pretty mean tone you got cookin' with those Dimebuckers dude!  I like the heavy 'slice' they have.

Dude, is that a pc case to the right of your halfstack??  I kept doing doubletakes going "WTF is that?!?!  That a pimped-out pc tower???" ha ha ha

A buddy of mine is trading his Yngwie signature strat and some bread for a new Slash 'Paul this weekend, I'm going to have to try it out and see how those Alnico II's sound through his BadCat and 'Boogie Mark V!  No matter how hard I try I just can't convince the guy to get a Marshall.  He says every one he's ever tried just didn't do it for him, blows me away every time he says it.  BLASPHEMY!!!

Hey Erikk,

Yeah I hung around New Ken back in the 70s for a little bit with some of the bad guys LOL Another life....

They sure are bad rappin't Ben now. I sure hope he can pull out of this one clean but it ain't good for his rep that's for sure whether he's innocent or not.

I'm the same way about guitars. I built a Robin Trower signature Strat from scratch because they wanted like $2800 for it and I said sheee-it! I can build that for about 1/3rd that and better. So I waited and found all the parts that went into it and it sounds almost dead on to his tone.

Hey I double checked the Q3 and tried adjusting the volume and it still sounds kind of muffled with a hum and I had to do a Boost 11 patch on it in Cakewalk to get it up to normal level even though we were jamming loudly and I had it set on auto. I'll post before and after clips shortly so you can see what I mean.

Man im lovin these vids!! looks like a lot of fun!

wah breaks . . . "ya know whats cool about that tho? . . .NOTHING!!" "see thats why ya have TWO FUCKIN WAHS!!!"
fuckin hilarious!! lol

and the radio thing comin thru the amp! thats crazy! i was in a band one time and the rhythm guitarists amp did the same thing! we stopped n wer sittin down takin a brake n he was sittin on his amp n didnt even notice till some said "Dude, what the fucks that!!" but ya know what would be cool? get some of that into a track! itd be kinda like Metallica - One video!!

so yeah man iv been followin the thread n watchin the vids! tis kickin ass! cant wait to hear the end results! i was a big pantera fan at one stage and yer like. . . jakk and Dime's secret love child!! hahahaha!!

-- Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:19 pm --

but even tho yer pumpin out those kick ass riffs and tearin it up, its really cool that sometimes between takes ya just roll back the volume and play somethin a little bluesy or somethin!

Yo Erikk,

Here's part of one of the videos I recorded using the Zoom Q3 like yours. The audio was muffled so I had to use Cakewalk Sonar 6 and the plugin Boost 11 to boost it up 24db and it's still not optimal quality having originally set the Q3 on Auto level and the level never jumped into the red zone, but stayed at around 75% in what appeared to be optimal range. Let me know what y'all think...

I'm using my home made Trower Sig Strat, VM 2466 on HDR + Marshall Mode IV cab 4xG12K-100s & a Bugera 1960 Plexi clone into a 4x12 Greenback cab + Fulltone Deja 2, Fulldrive II, Robin Trower Overdrive, Fat Boost and OCD.

Right on Frank. Very respectable Trower tone and I don't say that lightly.   Man, never get tired of playing that, so much improv you can do with it.

Hey thanks surf! Much appreciated and I know you don't throw around compliments lightly which is a good thing for us all! I have a couple others better than that from the session. There was some repetition but just working on staying in the groove and honing it in to stage level, so till a ways to go but getting there slow but sure! I just wish I could set that  darn Q3 correctly! Wish you had one too so you could give me some hints!

My bass player wants me to pull the clip because he was out of tune and we need to do something to make the vocals sound better with some effects.