Blues Jam with the Joyo Pedals

I ran the Joyo Pedals thru some more tests yesterday, and came up with a simple blues jam using the pedals.

The guitar is all recorded with my old Yamaha SJ-550 with Dimarzio Pickups (Super Distortion in the Bridge, Humbucker From Hell in the Neck) through my POD XTLive set on a "clean" Hiwatt 100 amp simulation.  Rhythm guitars are the Joyo Vintage Overdrive, first guitar solo is the Ultimate Drive with Vinatge Overdrive boosting it, second guitar solo is the US Dream with Vintage Overdrive.

Overall, these pedals work very well with single-note solos, and the rhythm guitar chords here that are just slightly broken up retain a great, tubey sound.

But … I find that these pedals do NOT sound good for a nice tight metal crunch rhythm guitar, like you would use for precise 16th riffs in Slayer or Metallica-style songs.  It just "feels" like there's a slight "tube sag" when I play this style of rhythm.  Thick, slow riffs like you would hear in heavy blues-rock or sludgy stoner rock and metal would sound great with these pedals.  They're very full and thick sounding.  The Ultimate Drive would especially match up well with old Black Sabbath, Sleep, Sunn O))), High On Fire, and the like.

The US Dream is a more "modern" sounding distortion, but I still can't quite get that tighter crunch with it.  When I run the Vintage Drive into it (the Andy Sneap trick), it sounds better, but there's a lot of hiss and noise when I stop playing, so sudden stops don't sound so great unless I'm also running a good noise gate after the pedals.

So I'm still working on my new sounds with these pedals.  When I record, I run thru the POD XTLive, which does have a very effective Noise Gate, but running live into an amp still produces a bunch of hiss, which I would guess you wouldn't really even notice playing loud with a full band in a club.

So anyway, here's the track I recorded, which also includes some rather sloppy Hammond Organ playing.

Mental Toss Flycoon

Finally uploaded my tribute To Frank Zappa (and a few more). This is a collection of Zappa cover tunes I've done over the years.  It was time to get them all in one place.  I hope I do the Maestro Zappa justice.

I also include a tribute the the Buffy/Angel TV Theme songs, Focus, and Beethoven.

My two personal favorites are Ink Ero Des and Orange County Lumbertruck Runs Over a Weasel. Ink Ero Des (Zappa's Inca Roads) is almost sad sounding, and OC Lumber truck has such a great, downright "uplifting" melody. Yeah, that's pretty weird for me, but there, I said it.


Here's to you, Frank. You are missed.

To go to the Download page, click HERE.

Please note that NO MONEY is to be exchanged at all for my versions of these songs.  Please buy the original Frank Zappa albums, and support the Zappa Family Trust to keep the music alive.