Life after the site closes regarding demonstration of gear

[dave robinson]

As many of you know I post demos of stuff related to our music, mainly because the questions are frequently asked if any random piece of kit can do a job in relation to Shadows sounds, so I always try and investigate and let people know by doing a demo or a review and I often have folk letting me know that what I did helped them make a choice or a satisfying purchase, which is very rewarding. So, to keep this going I would advise folk to keep a check on my YouTube page where all the stuff can be viewed and I will be adding to it as and when new kit is revealed to me. I'm a great believer in keeping costs down these days and I recently discovered some excellent modestly priced guitars that I've already spoken about, the Harley Benton range from Thomann, but my personal favourite and 'go to' guitars at the moment are my two G&L S-500 models that give me great ease of playing and a very easily achievable early Hank tone, as well as all of his later tones, due to the excellent tone circuit and MFD pickups, which I'm going to show in a video demo on YouTube, along with the Strymon Iridium amplifier pedal that offers a perfect impression of a Vox AC30 Shadows sound As well as Fender and Marshall, should you want those. It allows me to play my guitar directly into our PA mixing desk and achieve that lovely sound that a Vox amp provides when miked up. I intend to blow the trumpet also for the Zoom G5n and the Strymon Volante, who's echoes are nothing short of glorious for Shadows sounds, but needs skill in setting it up, as people have discovered.
So there's lots to look forward to and I'm open to suggestions if anyone has a piece of kit they may want to know about, if I can get hold of it, I'll try to check it out.
Below is a link to my YouTube page where you can find all the stuff I've done, I have used our band 'demo' for this purpose.
My band Past Masters https://youtu.be/_tqYCnuzX2Q?si=ohZfoM3Tyy0mNSfx

Me doing a demo of a tiny Vox Amp & Tonelab https://youtu.be/Tcjc9pRnwdI?si=u8ugGXDScrirXeIu

[Teflon]

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Cliff

[dave robinson]

After comparing my various guitars over the recent months and being vocal about the G&L S-500 lately, I have come to the conclusion that the most influential contribution that Leo Fender featured on his S-500 is the tone circuit. The reason I say this is because I obtained the same pots and capacitors/resistors and got my friend Peter Richardson to make up the same tone-stack for a couple of my Strats and they perform very much in the way my S-500 does, even though the pickups are Alnicos on the Strats opposed to the MFD type on the G&L. I can tell you that the main benefit of the G&L style tone circuit is its ability to give the Strat an excellent early Hank tone that we hear on those early recordings, with the use of the Hi Pass filter or in the case of the Strat, the bass cut knob. I do prefer the MFD pickups to the Alnico type, but the difference in sound is marginal and I suspect easily equalised at the amplifier tone controls. Many people scoff at not insisting on Alnico magnets, but the ceramic magnets can sound just as good, if not better, when controlled correctly. That goes for the magnets on speakers also. For too long we have been brainwashed over all of this 'Vintage' rubbish, which has only resulted in folks paying extortionate amounts of money for alleged 'proper' gear, choosing to ignore the options. For decades we were brainwashed into believing Vox/Celestion Blue speakers were the only option to 'get it right' by so called 'experts'', who failed to realise that the speakers that Hank recorded those early 'Holy Grail' hits with, were actually Goodmans, not Celestion Blues. The only reason the critics go mad over those is because they 'break up' easily for todays 'grunge' sounds that everyone and their grandmothers' think sound good. In truth, there are many other speakers that reproduce that early Hank tone perfectly, if only people will try them - and they are more budget friendly. The fact is, it's all about money as probed by the cost of Celestion Blues prices. Through my perseverance and understanding amplifier GAIN and distortion, chatting with guys like Paul Rossiter, Roberto Pistolesi and one or two others, I broadened my outlook and allowed myself to try the options, which resulted in saving me a lot of cash.