Tuesday, February 26, 2008 4:01 PM
Ok, like many guitar players (both amateur and professional), I am on a constant search for the perfect tone. This is quite the quest considering tone is probably the most subjective thing on the planet you can search for; everyone hears everything differently.
Tone starts with good gear and good playing. It certainly helps to have quality gear; but, the fact is that two guitar players playing on the exact same equipment in the exact same room with the exact same setting can sound very different. This difference comes from the amount of pressure placed on the strings, picking/fretting technique, and the intangible "soul" the player transfers to the instrument.
That being said, I have some pretty decent gear - most of the time I play a 2002 American Stratocaster through a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive (early 80's Japanese model) > Ibanez TS-808 Tube Screamer Reissue > Boss MT-2 Metal Zone > Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi (NYC Reissue) > Fender '65 Twin Reverb Reissue amp; all of which I've accumulated at different points throughout the years. Surely, this gear combined with my decent talent for playing rhythm should give me something I can work with...or would it?
With this decent gear I was pretty disappointed that my overdriven sound often sounded cold and "tinny" (not much depth to the bass end of the spectrum and very thin sounding). Granted, I'm playing on single coil pickups and through a Fender amp that's notorious for being THE clean amp if you want to blow the fingernails off of neighbors 3 miles away without having it sound overdriven. But with the warmth of a tube amp and the quality effects I had, I was expecting more.
Enter Mr. Robert Keeley and the team at Keeley Electronics in Edmond, OK. These guys are guitar effect gurus that offer players unimpressed by their effects a chance to have them modified for a very reasonable price. I had heard many good things about Keeley's work on Tube Screamers and while visiting the site I also noticed they had a mod for the Boss MT-2. I figured, what the hell? With one of my associates heading through Edmond for business, I grabbed up my TS-808 and MT-2, called the guys at Keeley, and said "have at them".
Having had the pedals back for about a month now, I can honestly say that the TS-808 and the MT-2 are MUCH improved and are now my "go-to" pedals. The TS-808 now has some good bass response and gets a little dirtier than the stock pedal - a very good thing. The MT-2 no longer sounds like a swarm of hacked off killer bees in a coffee can - it sounds like thick, well-produced distorted bliss (nearly like a Les Paul through a Marshall stack).
Regardless, in upcoming posts I may go through the differences in each pedal and provide some insight on my experiences with them...for now, I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm back on my road of tone happiness.