Tuesday 23 February 2010

Happy Birthday to me


I'm 43 tomorrow. Bit of a crap age, 43.

However, to make up for it, after working at the school for three or four hours and then picking up my daughter from school, we will be rendezvous-ing with my wife for a birthday burger and chips at The Diner in Camden. (Stylish - Ed). After that, I'm off out to rehearse with Mike and the Phantom Limb.

As I am making some money again, I recently treated myself to a couple of new Boss guitar effects pedal to add to my Boss collection of Chorus, Flanger, Digital Delay, Compressor, Overdrive, Distortion and Acoustic Simulator. So I am looking forward to trying out my new Dyna Drive and a Phaser pedals, both purchased on E-bay for 60 quid a piece. (Not bad - Ed)


Being that it's just me and Mike again for a while, I recently dug out my old pedal board in a flight case that my mum and dad bought me 25 years ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work. It use to hold and power 6 pedals. Shame. I could have got it fixed - probably still will - but in the meantime, and as I am making some money again, I bought a new 6-way power supply, and a canvas pedal bag/board thing (See below), which is great for stage use and for transporting in my bicycle pannier when I cycle off to rehearsal with my guitar on my back.

When I discovered the Boss Dyna Drive, I had to have it. Basically, it's the overdrive pedal I should have invented. It's one which reacts to the intensity of your performance. It will perfectly suit my playing, I am sure. I tend to need a clean sound when I pick and strum through verses moderately hardly, and a over-driven sound when I strum harder through choruses and so on. I want this, without the glaringly obvious switch from clean to fuzz which sounds so clumsy, even when Cobain did it.


I bought the Phaser, just cos I've always fancied one.

To add to this, I dug out an old Zoom multi-effects pedal unit that I had stored away, and I've stuck that in the mix so I can utilise it's wah and volume pedal, and tuner, and whatever else isn't covered by the Boss department.

Expect to see my pedal set up in Pedal Power next week.

I have also done a bit of admin. on the Phantom Limb's drum tracks and deleted any obsolete patterns and songs, to make way for new ones. In the process, I have also reminded myself how to use the blasted thing. This is fits in pannier number two.

8 comments:

Peter Blair said...

You can never have enough effects units!

Happy (belated) birthday!

DILLIGAF said...

At some point you will...with a bit of luck and a following wind...arrive at 52.

You wanna talk crap ages????

Nice effects units. Don't let me near. Technology blows up if it even sees me...;-)

Happy Birthday old bean

4D

Axe Victim said...

Happy birthday mate. I'm looking forward ot introducing you to Andy who is also a Boss pedal nut. He's got the lot!

And get that pedal board mended eh? Put it in a shop such as Chandlers where they can sort it all out in the workshop. That should be a priority. Let's plan to do that together real soon.

Istvanski said...

So that's what a Boss Dynamo does?
Remind me to buy you a belated birthday drink at The Fiddler's in March.

Furtheron said...

Happy birthday Toby.

I'm with Dinners - any age less than mine isn't crap :-)

I've got the Boss Phaser - Mrs F got me it for Christmas. Just great when I dig out my early 1980s prog rock catalogue ;-)

I'm thinking of getting everything on a board - although I'm not gigging electric at the moment seems a bit pointless.

Ken Skinner said...

Happy Birthday!

Just getting back around to doing blog-circuits!

Hopefully make it to the Libertine again soon.

stephenmcaines said...

Belated happy birthday, Toby - I like the sound of the Dyna Drive. My birthday was on Tuesday, but I treated myself to a couple of new pedals (echo and chorus) a bit earlier than that...

Tox said...

Well Toby it was my birthday last friday (26th Feb) I'm a little older than you (not much though).
The guys in the Grapefruits DID NOT BUY ME A GUITAR PEDAL (they think I have too many) but they did buy me a FLYING V Ukulele ... whey hey! & I love it!

So happy birthday to you.