Iron Hawk

The Boss products GT-6, GT-8 both have a send and Return loop. This makes it very easy to add extra effects, and allows you to change their positions within the effects on the GT-8 chain. I imagine some of the other processors do the same. Thats a cool idea, but i see one potential problem. Doing it this way would kinda require you to make the order in which the effects are connected permanent. Back when I had many pedals I would always be pulling them apart and connecting them in different orders. Thats one thing I like about the Boss processor, I can change the location of any effect on the chain with a few button presses. And once I have a configuration I like, i can save it to a patch and call it up any time I like. Useful for live playing because you dont want to have to re-wire all of your pedals between songs (not cool), and you dont have to rewire your pedals mid-song (very not cool). The use of the Boss Line Selector might add some flexability, but nothing beats a processor. Oh, and with this method there is still individual pedals within your one enclosure, so there are still more areas for things to go wrong and/or introduce noise.

Well, the swirl part was done before the move, but it really wasnt hard. I first attempted to do swirls like the Jem DNAs, minus the blood. I couldnt ever get a nice smooth blend. How i did it: 1. Paint guitar orange. 2. Using bursting technique, bursted red around it and painted the back red. 3. Fill big tub with water and and plenty of boarx soap. 4. dip plastic spoon into black oil paint and drizzle it over the surface of the water. it will float and spread out. 5. if the image on the surface of the water looks good, plunge the guitar down in, hold it in, and blow on the surface of the water to create a hole in the paint to pull the guitar back up through. (now the fun part) 6. wet paint will be all over your guitar, as well as some water. We need to get the paint to dry without it running. I walked all around my garage for about 20 minutes, constantly changing the orientation of the body, so that if any run was starting, gravity would constantly be pulling it back in a new direction. This worked well. 7. Lots of clear coat, then some sanding, then lots of clear coat then sanding and fine sanding. In my experimentation, getting more than once color on the surface of the water to look good is difficult. Different colors tend to be different consistancies, and even the temperatures of the water and paints changes the way they sit on the water. sometimes the paint doesnt spread out, and that causes a glob on the guitar, which will run while drying, which looks bad in my opinion. I found that by only placing one color on the surface of the water, i could control the paint better. If you put paint on the water, and it doesnt look the way you want, clear it off with some pieces of newspaper. and try again. Took me almost 20 trys before i was happy with the guitar, and quite honestly I think i got lucky because its nearly flawless. Dipping the guitar is not easy, wood floats and you have to fight to keep it under water while you clear the surface, i recomend having a friend help you with this part. also to get a smooth look, you want to pass the guitar into the water and a close to constant speed, and you dont want it to bob, if it bobs, part will get coated twice and doesnt look too good. this is also why you have to clear off the surface of the water before pulling it back out. I screwed a temporary neck made from a 2x4 to hold whil i diped it. also used the temp. neck to clamp in a vice for drying. I needed to use alot of clear coat to raise the surface enough so that when I sanded down the raised black parts would still be under the clear, I wanted a smooth surface, not a textured one. How abused was it? well the neck was in good shape, got lucky on that one, the body had some chips and cracks, the only part of the electronics that was usable was the 5-way switch, needed tuners and some parts to the floyd rose. you can see some pictures here: http://www.gregzenger.com/hosted/ProjectGuitar/ It was a guitar sitting in the basement under a pile of other dead guitars being used for parts. Most of the usable parts were gone, though Im sure I could have sold the neck on ebay for atleast $60 and maybe $20 for the body. I have gotten to know the guys at the store pretty well, and im kinda known for not buying anything at the sticker price, always got to talk it down.

The top two pictures were taken before the clear coat. I do plan to buff it out a bit more, I just dont have the time or place to do it right now. When I am at school, its hard to find the tools, and right now my folks just moved so the workshop is a complete mess. Whats important is that the guitar plays beautifully, a few light surface scratches that can only be seen when the light is right isnt concerning me too much. When I take it apart to buff I think I am going to scallop the high frets too.

I used to have a pedal board with 8 Boss pedals and a Morley wah. Looked cool, but was a bit cumbersome to setup and cary from place to place. I have sold all but the Morley Bad Horsie 2 and purchased a Boss GT-8. The GT-8 is a bit costly, though it did cost less than what I sold my other pedals for. And at first the GT-8 is a bit tricky to use, though once you understand how it works it couldnt be any easier. The idea with the GT-8 is that you setup different effects 'patches' for your different songs, so when you are playing live you can simply step on a button and change all of your effects settings. It can also be used in manual mode where you can turn effects on and off as if you had individual pedals. The GT-8 can model 2 amps simultaneously, and by combining the different types of preamps, overdrive, distortion, and speaker emulation, there will definately be the tone you are looking for. I like it because if i want to play late at night, I can turn my power amp off and use my headphones on the GT-8. Because it does amp modeling, it still sounds great. The GT-8 might be more than you are looking for, but its all I really have experience with. So to answer your question, most processors offer a few different effects, and work like having a small daisy chain. the drawback is that not all processors have all effects, and usually you cant run more than a certain number of effects at a time. Some processors let you change the order of the effects, because as you know, if you put your wah before your distortion, it will sound much different than if you put your wah after your distortion. Another thing to consider is the quality of the effect. Just because it has a Phaser effect, or a Flanger, doesnt mean that the effect actually sounds good, or sounds the way you want it to. -greg

If you have a bit of change in your pocket, Invest in the Guitar Grimoire series of books by Carl Fischer. I have seen them in Guitar Centers. They contain fingerings for every scale and mode, so just pick a scale that fits your piece, (If you have Guitar Pro 4 or 5, you can tab your rhythm section and use the scale finder tool to tell you what scales your piece is in) Then its just a matter of experimentation, playing different notes from the scale in different order, start slow first, and once you have something that flows, apply rhythem and 'effects' to it, like bends and slides, harmonics, whammy bar tricks, etc. Also, find a tape recorder and a kitchen timer, start your recorder and timer (counting up) at the same time, and just sorta play around, trying different things. If you end up playing something cool, write down the time you played it so you can find it at a later time. If you are computer savey, you might be able to record on your computer. You could invest in a midi pickup for your guitar, they make them that just slide under the strings, no need to mod your guitar any. you could use this hooked up to your computer with Guitar Pro software and it will actually tab the music as you play, though it wont be perfectly acurate. Writing solos is an art, and unfortunately we are not all as gifted as we want to be. but like with anything, the more time you spend with it, the better you will become. Learn some music theory if you dont allready know some, taking a course at a local college might be a good way to expand your horizons, or find a guitar teacher who can guide you through music theory applied to the guitar. Or read the first few pages to the Guitar Grimoire. But a good foundation is important to any solo, and that is selecting the correct scale to build off of. Good luck, Greg

Here is a project I worked on over christmas while I was stuck at home (college > home). I picked up an abused RG 270 DX at the local guitar shop for $20 and then had some fun with it, take a look: http://www.gregzenger.com/hosted/ProjectGuitar/1.jpg http://www.gregzenger.com/hosted/ProjectGuitar/2.jpg http://www.gregzenger.com/hosted/ProjectGuitar/3.jpg http://www.gregzenger.com/hosted/ProjectGuitar/4.jpg http://www.gregzenger.com/hosted/ProjectGuitar/5.jpg