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Saturday evening I visited Instrumental Music here in Thousand Oaks to pick up a new set of guitar strings.  After I picked them out, Jenn was very patient and waited while I played around like a kid in a toyshop.  My gaze had fixed on a gorgeous black Les Paul, and I pulled it down and plugged it in.  When I first started picking through a chord I heard one of the worst mis-tunings I have ever encountered, made worse by the (intentional) distortion on the amp.  I’m going to see if I can give this explanation in a few sentences rather than my normal multi-paragraphs.  A guitar, as you may know, is usually tuned E-A-D-G-B-E, low to high.  This means that on a tempered scale the dashes in the previous list represent 5, 5, 5, 4, and 5 half steps, respectively.  Someone, presumably a beginner shopping at the store, had tuned the guitar with 5, 5, 5, 5, and 5 half steps, leaving the final tuning E-A-D-G-C-F.  This makes an E Major-shaped chord resolve as E-B-E-G#-C-F, giving us E-F dissonance (twice) as well as B-C dissonance, and generating what is surely one of the most revolting sounds known to man.  After I fixed the tuning it out sounded great.

I’m still thinking about it; this guitar is a beauty.  It lists for $1K, the shop carried it for $800, and I am now waiting on Guitar Center’s next “blowout sale”.  If I can get the price under $500 I can probably rationalize the purchase (Jenn, who will eventually read this post, might not agree that $500 is rationalizable.)

I have been surfing around reading more about these guitars, including a return visit to the indispensable Pearl Jam Rumor Pit, a site that is far more than its name would suggest.  Part of its role is apparently to give patronizing and dismissive non-answers to banal questions, as well as to questions that, while not banal, seem to suggest sarcastic answers.  Thus this rather amusing exchange from 3 August 1997:

Q: What type of strings does Stone [Gossard] use on his Les Paul?

A: Metal ones

While I’m on the topic, I want to share this passage from Ed’s gear page:

Q: I’m curious about Ed’s guitar setup and was wondering if you would mind
assisting me.  It’s widely reported that Ed doesn’t use effects pedals.  How does
he switch between clean and dirty tones in songs like “Not For You” and
“Corduroy”? …

A: You are correct that Ed typically does not use guitar effect pedals … At times [he] has experimented with using various distortion pedals, but one has never stuck - either because he wasn’t happy with the distortion, or because he doesn’t want to fuss with a foot pedal by his microphone stand.  On top of that, Ed’s really interested in guitars with distortion and/or effects built on-board the guitar, such as in the vintage, Italian-made Vox guitars that he owns.  With those guitars he can turn the distortion, and/or other effects, on and off at the flip of a switch right on the guitar itself.  It’s a pretty neat concept, but whereas the Vox guitars naturally sound O.K., they don’t sound great.  So far though, Ed’s never taken one of the Vox’s out on tour with him….

So if he uses no effect pedals live, and no Vox guitars live, then how does he get his distortion??  Well, it’s actually a little bit purer approach.  First of all, most of the time Ed plays his guitars using only the front (neck) pickup.  This pickup typically has a thicker, muddier tone due to its position along the length of the string.  And so with the positioning of that pickup, it’s a little easier to “overdrive” your amp with your strumming/picking technique.  Second, Ed sets his amp tone by first dialing in a loud, clean, full tone.  (Clean being the important word there.)  He adjusts his input gain right to the point where the “clean” tone is on the verge of distorting slightly.  Once this is set, his sound (clean or dirty) is controlled purely with his hands, changing with the intensity he chooses to strum the strings with.  If he picks more delicately, he can achieve a cleaner tone.  If he picks harder and more aggressively, he can achieve a distorted tone.  Cool, huh?

Sun, 11 Nov 2001 02:41:27 -0600
Under music, pearl jam
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