Leaderboard

A while ago, I started a band devoted to paying homage to the British Blues phenomenon, a movement that, quite simply, gave the world Rock(!) as we know it. It started with Eric Clapton essentially inventing "the Rock" sound in APril 1966 by plugging a Les Paul into a cranked Marshall and proceeding to let loose playing long, articulate, screaming and and soulful lead guitar, something that had never been done before, not to that extent and which spawned a myriad of bands that we all know and love in the process. For the record, this band's not a "tribute" as it's generally intended, I have absolutely zero desire to mimic someone else and/or reproduce someone else's solos note-for-note, no matter how famous, great, cool and historically important the player is; in truth ("Truth", great album!!!) I have been offered the position in 3 or 4 of such outfit and even though the players in question were among my main influences, I love 'em dearly, I graciously declined, it just goes against what I believe, which is to pay respetful homage to such cats by capturing the spirit, not the notes. By doing that you take your chances, of course, but that's excatly what those guys did in the first place, right?. Anyway, the band has played a handful of gigs in the Lndon area and next month we'll have the official launch in a specialised, highly respected top London club and this, my Heritage H150 will be the guitar I'll be using. A wonderful Custom Shop Les Paul Custom, which I love, will be there too but only as a spare in case I break a string or something, which very rarely happens! Yesterday we had a reharsal, just to finalise the set while next week a dress rehearsal is in the cards, but let me tell you that this guitar plugged straight into a valve 1/2 stack with just a Tube Screamer in between (an Ibanez TS808 DX, to be precise) didn't even sound close to perfection...it was actually perfect!!! The sound, the feel, oh my God, I hadn't played this guitar for few months and I was actually contemplating getting a XXX McCarty 594, an amazing guitar for sure, but once you have an Heritage H150 set up to perfection, and on this one I also replaced the original pups with a set of OX4 "Beano" pups (yeah, Beano, I know....!) frankly if you want a righteous Les Paul tone you don't need anything else. And my wife agrees.... For the record, according to the serial number this guitar was made on Nov. 13th 2000. I was also born in November, good month indeed...

Finally was able to get signed up, keep running into problems but now all is good. Really love my 2 Heritages (pics below) also had a CC H150, H-530 and a H-150 but like a dope I traded them in.

This post immediately brought back that intense internal pleasure feeling my White 555 brings me every time I fire her up!

I really love my H-535, the Seymour Duncan 59s sound great and the build quality is just fantastic.

Would have to be my 2019 DLB with ReWind Electric '58 PAFs and a pair of NOS black beauties. Gives that Tele on steroids vibe!

The set list mainly mid/late 60s-early 70s stuff, with few tracks from the Jeff Beck Group's Truth & Beck Ola albums and John Mayall's feat. Eric Clapton's "Beano" album, plus B sides and tracks from obscure but killer bands of the same period. I already play guitar in a Jeff Beck tribute/homage show so for me it's just an extension of the same thing! Once you start playing that stuff you realise where a lot of bands that later became world famous, not mentioning names but 4 or 5 came to mind straight away, got the idea and inspiration from! Even bands that later branched into different slightly styles and sounds, but the musical DNA...."remains the same"! I remember Lemmy of Motorhead saying that a lot of Heavy Metal bands actually left him cold as he somehow needed to "feel some Blues in there", which according to him those bands totally lacked, and I can see what he meant... Goin back to the gear I use, apart from all out Rock/Hard Rock I've used my Heritage in a lot of different situations like Funk, C&W, Soul, Jazz, Pop session and even Irish Folk(!) but I think that this guitar, and probably Heritage guitars in general, really comes to life and kinda makes sense especially when playing a certain kind of stuff; set the amp up for a kind of "AC/DC plus a bit" kind of tone, step on a quality OD pedal so it'll push the sound a bit more over the edge, crank up and let your soul hang out!!!! I LUV it!

I have never owned a Klon but have heard and played many. I have always liked them, just never owned one. I was watching the Anderton guys do a clone shootout. What hit me was that the Behringer Zentara was pretty much indistinguishable from a "real" Klon and every bit as good or better that all of the other clones out there. So I figured I would try one. The Zentara is by Behringer and is currently $62.97 US at Sweetwater so I could not pass it up. It is well built and sounds really great. I had read that the build quality was good and it certainly is. What a great pedal! Most of the other Klon clones start at $200 and go up from there. Granted, I am not a pedal collecter and use either the Line 6 or Quad Cortex versions that are on board their units. This is just a nice pedal to have around for going into a tube amp. I have no affiliation with Sweetwater or Behringer.

Tonight‘s rearrangement of the pedals in the next few days, I may swap out my tremolo and echo for slightly smaller versions of the same thing.

Some great sounds in there!

Yes, a push-pull turns it off and on plus adjusts the volume. Every time I strap this bad boy on it takes a minute to reorient. I remember this guitar well from when I saw it at the factory. Stunning!

You could just learn all the licks in "Steppin Out" on the Beano album and make a career out of just that.

Good sounds, playing and demo. Thanks for that.

This is a really great sounding pedal for emulating a variety of keyboard/organ, etc. sounds, but I use it mostly for its excellent vibrato and Hammond organ effects.

I'm going to try a Demeter Tremulator for a simpler and smaller 2 button tremolo. I only use tremolo on two songs, and neither song requires anything more than a good amp like trem. And that's where the Tremulator shines. My brother had one in his studio, I used it on a few songs, and it sounded great. https://demeteramps.com/product/trm-1-tremulator/ Next I'm going to audition the NuX NDD-7 Tape Echo, which is kind of similiar to my Space Echo but smaller, lighter, and easier to adjust on the fly. It gets great reviews. One thing I like, is that you can make deeper adjustments (saturation, wow, flutter, etc) using a computer and it's PC/Mac editor, the kind of adjustments I wouldn't want want to do on stage. https://www.nux.us/products/tape-echo?srsltid=AU7gw4XKnxvRRFVV_Hr6FDB6psS7mBdNJ7RSCa3zRtv9BGufVSiQkJhm

Excellent choice, Mugsy. The red semi hollow is like the very definition of Rock and Roll.

If I used analog effects, I would need a 3' x 4' pedal board. So I had to go digital. I bought a Boss GX-10 and it worked well. But it was confusing. On a whim, I bought a Soran Tiny Stomp from Amazon for $50. It has 125 effects and more amp modeling than I need. It also has a built-in looper and drum machine. It sounds really good. It's much easier to use. I can use an external expression pedal for wah or volume. I program in the set list, and just go down the list of songs. And the Bluetooth actually works with my cell phone so I can make changes on the fly. It's about the size of 2 packs of cigarettes and has a built-in rechargeable battery. It's worth buying one just to screw around with. The same unit is marketed under a few different brand names. I'm never going back to analog. And I sold the GX-10.

@MartyGrass...Your H157 'triple pickup' has the most mesmerizing top!!! I'd love to hear what the middle Duncan Phat Cat pickup brings to its tonal pallet. Also, is it engaged via 'push-pull' pot? That's how Ren wired mine.

Try to rotate them all but, this one the most. H-575 Custom with Seth's

Multiple favorites for different reasons, but here’s one (if i have to pick just one):

My band pedalboard has 3 drives and a fuzz! Origin Effects Revival Druve Custom - my basic tone always on!!! Origin Effects MidEQ Driver - adds thicker mids and gain for solos! Sex Drive - Clean Boost when I need it to punch through! Analog Man BC108 Sunface - for Fuzz - for getting fuzzy!

These are being discontinued so I grabbed one for $179 ($20 off).