Pamparo in Toronto

I wasn’t feeling well today so I went home from work to get some sleep. Amazing what extra rest can do to a person. I was feeling much better when I woke up and had a chance to do a little bit of noodling. Here’s a very short demo of what I was doing …

Quicktake Short Demo

Some detailed info/settings:
- Fender Telecaster (Bridge pickup for rhythm, Neck for lead)
- Hermida Zendrive (Vol: 11, Gain: 12, Tone: 4, Voice: 9 o’clock)
- Seymour Duncan SFX-03 (Ch1 – Vol: 9, Bass: 12, Treble: 2, Gain: 2 o’clock)
- Fender Jaguar Bass
- drum loop from Beta Monkey
- 90 bpm, I-V-VI in the key of G

All tracks recorded using Logic Express with POD Farm for both guitar & bass tracks.

Hope you liked it …

I’ve been getting a lot of different answers as to what the voice knob for the Zendrive is supposed to do. So, to appease myself, I have plugged it in directly into Logic. I was watching the spectrum analyzer as I rotate the knob from left to right & right to left. I did that for a bit and I noticed that it seems to boost/cap the signal between 2Khz-6Khz region just before going into the gain circuit. So it’s then true, that the voice knob would affect the gain and the tone characteristics. The tone on the other hand is doing the same sort of thing but I think it is after the gain circuit.

DISCLAIMER: This is only my non-scientific observations!

What did I learn from all these? Nothing much really, but I did find a great setting for my Zen.

Gain – 2 o’clock
Voice – 2 o’clock
Tone – 11 o’clock
Volume – unity

So after I got bored, I realized that since I am already plugged-in, then I should be able to record! I was going to record the different settings of tone & voice combination but I did this instead:

My Pedals in action updated with AMP/Cab simulation

No post-processing and it’s really sloppy … my playing that is! So I only recorded less than a minute to somehow also lessen my shame

If you manage to survive listening to that, here are the settings for the following tracks …

Rhythm 1: Zendrive, Telecaster (Bridge PU)
Rhythm 2: Sparkle Drive, Empress Tremolo, Telecaster (Bridge PU)
Lead (wannabe): SFX-03 Channel 2, Diamond Delay, Telecaster (Neck PU)
Bass: I didn’t have my bass ready! Doh!
Drums: loop from betamonkey.com

of Winter Driving,

So I finally bought new set of winter tires (General Altimax Arctic). Now, I kept asking myself, “Why didn’t I buy these things before”? I am now a believer! I am now having so much fun confidently driving in snow & ice. I am looking forward to the places that we will go to this winter. I’m sure that it will be fun!

of Hermida Zendrive,

So far so good. I re-arranged my pedal board last night to fit the Zendrive in my chain. I am still unsure how I am going to use it in the band context as my SFX-03 is really making it hard for me. I will be using it at rehearsal volume on Thursday and live on Sunday. I will have to keep my judgment until then.