Thursday, June 26, 2014

Marshall ShredMaster Review



Despite being out of production for a number of years, the Marshall Shredmaster pedal has always enjoyed a rabid and enthusiastic following. It effectively emulates the sounds of overdriven Marshall amps, but it has great range and allows for subtle and nuanced changes to be made to the level of distortion a guitar player wants.

The Shredmaster is a high gain pedal. As its name indicates, it was aimed at the shredding audience but some of the famous guitarists to have used it are not exactly known for shredding, like Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, and Graham Coxon of Blur.

Controls

The Marshall Shredmaster has six controls: gain, bass, contour, treble, volume, and switch. The gain controls the intensity of the drive, allowing a player to achieve sustained lead sounds as well as strong crunch rhythms. With a full gain setting, you can achieve a more saturated attack, while dialing it down is great for bluesy rhythms. The bass is important to adding lower frequencies, crucial to tightening the response or allowing for deep rhythms.


On the other hand, the contour control is a little less obvious, but it is the real heart of the Shredmaster. It can add some weight for fat blues rock, or be increased to enhance the treble and bass simultaneously, which creates a ferocious attack that evokes the feeling of lightning striking – think the “K-chunk” sounds Greenwood makes in the song Creep. The treble control deals with high end response, while the volume acts as a boost. Then there is a switch that activates or bypasses the pedal.


Conclusion

The Shredmaster is truly one of the first “Marshall in a box” pedal. With proper setup and plugged in a good tube amp, it can really do wonders. It can cover almost any type of sound from blues to classic rock and 80s shredding alike while retaining a true Marshall color.

Watch the demo of Marshall Shredmaster below.


Here’s a video of Radiohead playing the song Creep live in 1994. Jonny Greenwood used a Marshall Shredmaster on this.


Thursday, June 19, 2014

The Spirit Carries On: A Documentary about Dream Theater’s Search for New Drummer


In September 2010, progressive rock titans Dream Theater were ready to work on their new album when the unexpected happened. Their drummer, Mike Portnoy, left the band. Floored, they invited 7 of the world’s greatest drummers to try out. They held three days of auditions in New York City and documented the whole process.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

The band played, jammed and spoke candidly with the seven infinitely capable and uniquely talented drummers, learning about them musically, personally and professionally, and assessing the fit of each drummer's incredible chops with the band's trademark prog-rock sound.

The following seven drummers took part in the Dream Theater audition process:

* Mike Mangini
Age: 48
Associated Acts: Steve Vai, Extreme, Annihilator

* Derek Roddy
Age: 38
            Associated Acts: Hate Eternal, Nile, Today is the Day

* Thomas Lang
Age: 43
Associated Acts: John Wetton, Robert Fripp, Glenn Hughes

* Virgil Donati
Age: 52
Associated Acts: Planet X, Seven the Hardway

* Marco Minnemann
Age: 40
            Associated Acts: Kreator, Necrophagist, Ephel Duath, Joe Satriani

* Aquiles Priester
Age: 39
Associated Acts: Angra, Paul Di’Anno

* Peter Wildoer
Age: 36
            Associated Act: Darkane

The members of Dream Theater have been extremely sensitive to the fact that choosing a new drummer is not only a monumental decision in their own lives, but also a critical moment in the lives of their fans around the world. And Dream Theater's new drummer is.... (drum roll please)…. Mike Mangini.

Meanwhile, here is the 30-minute documentary audition of Mike Mangini. This includes the footage of a lot of their improvisation jam, and also Mike's reaction to joining the band.


Line 6's POD XT Live Review


Here is a great demo of POD XT Live by Line 6.


As many guitar players use it as an ultimate multi-effects pedal, the POD XT Live can also be a direct recording miracle, a powerhouse preamp, or even a creative signal-processing tool. With it, you can have the tonal heritage of the past century all down on the floor from models of classic stompboxes, amps, cabs, and mics, to studio effects and synth filters. It combines pro features and tones in one rugged and stage-ready package.

Today, the POD XT Live is already discontinued in production. However, you can still find several secondhand units for this at a much lesser price. There are already newer models released by Line 6 nowadays.


Here are the specs of Line 6's POD XT Live:

* Over 80 Stompbox and Studio Effects
* 36 Legendary and Classic Amp Models
* 24 Cab & 4 Mic models
* 128 Channel Memories
* Stereo 1/4-inch analog Amp/Line Outs
* Variax Digital Input
* Routing Options
* Deep Editing
* Built-in Chromatic Tuner
* Large Backlit Display
* Dedicated Stompbox On/Off Switches
* Combination Wah/Volume/Tweak Pedal
* Tap Tempo/Tuner Switch
* Expression Pedal Input
* Headphone Out
* Aux Input for CD/MP3 players, drum machines, etc.
* Full MIDI Support
* USB Digital Recording I/O - Plus, Mac/PC editing with free Line 6 Edit or GuitarPort software
* Add Even More Amps with MODEL PACKS.
* Special Output Mode Optimized for the Bose Personalized Amplification System Cylindrical                    Radiator loudspeaker.