DEMO Shut up and play yer guitar.....

This post contains an audio or video demo
MichaelW

MichaelW

Well-known member
Cuz sometimes you just gotta walk away from the bench.

I've had two back to back extremely frustrating builds this week. What should have been fairly easy and quick builds have had me pulling my hair out. (Kliche and Paragon) They are both shelved for now until I can approach them with a better frame of mind. I wound up starting from scratch with a new Paragon PCB that one turned out fine, like the last few I built. Sent that off to a friend of mine who just got it today.

Anyway, I needed to step away from the bench and just go play some guitar, so I decided to put together the demo I'd been meaning to for a few weeks now. The idea was to showcase my Paragon Family of pedal builds documented here in this post.

These have really become my favorite overdrive pedals lately and I'm absolutely loving how they play.
So versatile, everything from clean boost to distortion.

In this clip all the guitars are using either the Paragon (MA858/1S1588), Paragon Mini (BA282/1SS133) or Pauper (BA282) pedals I've recently built.
I've tried to showcase some of the different low to medium gain flavors in this video as opposed to my last video of the Paragon that was more high gain.

Signal chain: Guitars->TC Polytune 3 (buffer on)->Pauper/Paragon Mini/Paragon->UAD Apollo Twin X->Clean 6L6 amp model->Reverb and Delay plugins. I used a Keely Compressor in front of the Paragon on the slide solo.

There's a mixture of clean boost, low gain, medium gain, fuzzy tones with all different combination of clipping settings on the track.

Guitars:
M-Line Thinline Tele with Lollars
Nash T-63 with Lollars
PRS S2 Vela Semi Hollow
PRS McArty 594
PRS S2 Starla

Oh and I totally suck at video creation/editing, somehow the audio seems to get out of sync whenever I upload something to YouTube.

 
That sounded really good and was really well done. That Trip the Witch album is really something else, isn't it?

How do you like that Starla guitar? I have been eyeing one for years and can't make up my mind on the Bigsby.
 
jjjimi84 said:
That sounded really good and was really well done. That Trip the Witch album is really something else, isn't it?

How do you like that Starla guitar? I have been eyeing one for years and can't make up my mind on the Bigsby.
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I've been listening to that album a lot lately. Probably the most satisfying guitar music I've heard in a long long time.
Just really resonates with me. Listening to Tom Bukovac talk about his early musical influences and guitar influences sounds like we shared a lot of the same early loves, like the 70's British progessive rock.

I love the Starla, really cool guitar, although I am very tempted to swap out the pickups for a pair of Lollartrons. The PRS D02 pickups have a good bit of jangle and filtertron vibe but sometimes feels like they lack a little "oomph".

I almost bought the SE version with the stop tail, when I found an NOS S2 version at original selling price. The bigsby is cool but honestly, I don't use it much. I used it for the rhythm guitar track on my "Kid Charlemagne" video and I used it very lightly on the chords during the coda section of the solo. As you can probably guess, I'm a bit of a PRS fanboy (long story, I met Paul when he was just starting out, probably right around when he was selling Santana his first guitars, I was still in high school). The S2 line is just such a great value, really well chosen woods, nitro finishes, they all play like a dream and the neck carves suit me really well.
 
I know a bunch of people that are not PRS fans but i think they make some fine guitars. Some of them get a little over the top in gaudiness but they make stuff that works great and plays great.

You ever play a studio? That is my dream guitar, harder than heck to find one around me.
 
jjjimi84 said:
I know a bunch of people that are not PRS fans but i think they make some fine guitars. Some of them get a little over the top in gaudiness but they make stuff that works great and plays great.

You ever play a studio? That is my dream guitar, harder than heck to find one around me.
Click to expand...

Yah, I know that PRS can rub some people the wrong way with many of their "over-the-top" finishes. I personally tend to like simpler guitars but I do have that one Core Mcarty 594. I bought that because I couldn't afford an R9 at the time haha! But seriously, it's the best sounding and playing "vintage Les Paul" that I've ever played or owned. None of the inconsistent Gibson quality tomfoolery, gnats ass perfect build quality and playability and an "'59 burst vibe" to the tone, the 58/15 Low Turn pickups are some of the best vintage PAF's I've heard. The only way I could get real Les Paul at that level would be the Gibson Custom shop and that's just too rich for me.

There's been a lot of iterations of the PRS Studio over the years and tbh none of them have really interested me. I tend to play a Strat if I want a Strat sound, and Humbuckers if I want a humbucker sound. I kinda like the S2 Studio though, but they stopped making those and only available on the used market. The Core model Studio currently uses those "narrow field" pickups and they don't sound very convincingly single coil to me. Having said that I do really like that neck position Type-D single coil in my Vela. (I used that for this video). It's like a big fat warm single coil with a bit of a Dynasonic vibe to it.
 
MichaelW said:
Yah, I know that PRS can rub some people the wrong way with many of their "over-the-top" finishes. I personally tend to like simpler guitars but I do have that one Core Mcarty 594. I bought that because I couldn't afford an R9 at the time haha! But seriously, it's the best sounding and playing "vintage Les Paul" that I've ever played or owned. None of the inconsistent Gibson quality tomfoolery, gnats ass perfect build quality and playability and an "'59 burst vibe" to the tone, the 58/15 Low Turn pickups are some of the best vintage PAF's I've heard. The only way I could get real Les Paul at that level would be the Gibson Custom shop and that's just too rich for me.

There's been a lot of iterations of the PRS Studio over the years and tbh none of them have really interested me. I tend to play a Strat if I want a Strat sound, and Humbuckers if I want a humbucker sound. I kinda like the S2 Studio though, but they stopped making those and only available on the used market. The Core model Studio currently uses those "narrow field" pickups and they don't sound very convincingly single coil to me. Having said that I do really like that neck position Type-D single coil in my Vela. (I used that for this video). It's like a big fat warm single coil with a bit of a Dynasonic vibe to it.
Click to expand...
I feel the same way about my PRS SC-58, it has 57/08 pickups in it and they are incredible. I believe they are in the same vein as the 58/15s.

The studios I have played are from the limited run they had around 2011 ish. 57/08 in the bridge with the narrow fields, it is like a meaty strat that can clean up really well.

From one PRS fan to another, love your guitars and videos! You got a new subscriber today.
 
jjjimi84 said:
From one PRS fan to another, love your guitars and videos! You got a new subscriber today.
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Hahaha, all my video's are "unlisted" and very few and far in between. I only use my Youtube channel for various forum demo projects from time to time. Don't expect a lot of content from me....:)
 
swelchy said:
Damn.. Man excellent sounding. The opener sounds so warm and clear.
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Thank you!

Yah, that's the Paragon Clean Boost at work. It just adds a bit of sumpin sumpin that my dedicated boosts don't. It's probably just low level opamp clipping but it sounds a bit like an EP booster. Fatness, warmth, but clear as a bell.
 
jjjimi84 said:
I feel the same way about my PRS SC-58, it has 57/08 pickups in it and they are incredible. I believe they are in the same vein as the 58/15s.

The studios I have played are from the limited run they had around 2011 ish. 57/08 in the bridge with the narrow fields, it is like a meaty strat that can clean up really well.

From one PRS fan to another, love your guitars and videos! You got a new subscriber today.
Click to expand...
One other thing that occurred to me, the "Bird" in the song refers to Tom Bukovac's Gibson Firebird. There was an episode of his "Home Skoolin" YouTube channel where he was talking about it. I used my PRS Vela Type-D neck pickup single coil, and while it's not as hot as a Mini-Humbucker on the "Bird" it had that fatness to it that just sounded right to me.
 
Dan M said:
The Vela sounds great. I’ve been arguing with myself about buying one for years. I don’t need more guitars. I don’t need more guitars. I don’t …
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Hahah, I’m trying to keep myself from buying a second. The one in the vid has been modified with a blender pot and some trick wiring to split the rear HB. Now I’m wanting a stock one at times…..sheesh, I’m such a gear nut…..
 
MichaelW said:
I've been listening to that album a lot lately. Probably the most satisfying guitar music I've heard in a long long time.
Just really resonates with me. Listening to Tom Bukovac talk about his early musical influences and guitar influences sounds like we shared a lot of the same early loves, like the 70's British progessive rock.

I love the Starla, really cool guitar, although I am very tempted to swap out the pickups for a pair of Lollartrons. The PRS D02 pickups have a good bit of jangle and filtertron vibe but sometimes feels like they lack a little "oomph".

I almost bought the SE version with the stop tail, when I found an NOS S2 version at original selling price. The bigsby is cool but honestly, I don't use it much. I used it for the rhythm guitar track on my "Kid Charlemagne" video and I used it very lightly on the chords during the coda section of the solo. As you can probably guess, I'm a bit of a PRS fanboy (long story, I met Paul when he was just starting out, probably right around when he was selling Santana his first guitars, I was still in high school). The S2 line is just such a great value, really well chosen woods, nitro finishes, they all play like a dream and the neck carves suit me really well.
Click to expand...
Big fan of the S2 series myself, but I also have a SE Chris Robertson that has a P90 in the bridge and it's a great guitar as well.
 
Barry said:
Big fan of the S2 series myself, but I also have a SE Chris Robertson that has a P90 in the bridge and it's a great guitar as well.
Click to expand...
Whoa whaaaaaa.....I didn't know that guitar existed. That one's right up my alley! Are they still making them?

I've been toying with the idea of building another "M-Line Guitars" (my tongue in cheek brand for my partscasters) Tele with a P90 in the neck and HB in the bridge. Ideally, I'd like to find a Spanish Cedar tele body for that project. The only other thing I'm working out is how to space the bridge HB with a tele "1/2-tray" bridge and not have to use a Strat hardtail. Most parts bodies don't have room for a 1/2 tele bridge and a humbucker ring the way they're spaced.
 
MichaelW said:
Whoa whaaaaaa.....I didn't know that guitar existed. That one's right up my alley! Are they still making them?

I've been toying with the idea of building another "M-Line Guitars" (my tongue in cheek brand for my partscasters) Tele with a P90 in the neck and HB in the bridge. Ideally, I'd like to find a Spanish Cedar tele body for that project. The only other thing I'm working out is how to space the bridge HB with a tele "1/2-tray" bridge and not have to use a Strat hardtail. Most parts bodies don't have room for a 1/2 tele bridge and a humbucker ring the way they're spaced.
Click to expand...
It's not in their current lineup, but you can find them on Reverb (and they hold their value, they're selling for pretty much what mine cost at $895.00 new)
 
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