Blues Defined

"Blues, to me, comes from when a person can feel other peopl

"A guy will promise you the world and give you nothin', and that's the blues. "

--Otis Rush
e's pain and is able to articulate it." --Carlos Santana

Saturday, December 31, 2011

My Blue Strat - The New Year

Thank you to all who have taken time to visit and read my "My Blue Strat" blog. 

I am a long time blogger, having started out writing in 2006 about Parkinson's Plus syndrome.  Over the years, I became interested in expanding my topics and have found writing about my love of music quite enjoyable.  I certainly got more hits as a blogger on the topic of "Movement Disorders.'  My old blog received an average of 1,000 hits each month. I am now averaging 100 per week, up from 50 each week when I began this blog in the summer of 2011.  I am looking forward to getting more visitors and readers in the coming year.

The blues are a relatively new area of music for me.  I began to play the guitar at the age of 7 years with the instruction of my father, a great musician to this day at 82.   Over the years I played country, folk, rock, Contemporary Christian, pop and now BLUES.  The blues have taken hold on me due to the heartfelt lyrics, and particularly because of the soulfully played guitar style.  I work hard trying to master new techniques in the blues arena, while practicing both licks as well as learning to sing and play historic blues songs, such as "Texas Flood," "The Sky is Crying" and "Three O'clock Blues."  Most recently, I have been writing my own blues songs, including "Parkinson's Blues" (You Tube) and "How Time Does Slip Away," also available on You Tube.

I hope that you find my blog both informative and inspiring.  I plan to put even more energy into these pages in 2012.  Again, thanks for all of your visiting and reading-- December was my biggest month since I began, "My Blue Strat."  By the way, when you search for My Blue Strat, be sure you are using my address:  http://mybluestrat.blogspot.com/ .  There were other sites with a similar name that were already out there and I wasn't aware of that fact when I started.  I want to see the day my blog comes up first on a search.

Just think of this as the Blues Blog written by the Guitar Man with a form of Parkinson's Disease.   I plan to "bring it" in the coming year!  -- Guitar Man


Thursday, December 29, 2011

VOX AC4TV Enhanced by Boss Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Pedal



I have been enjoying my new VOX AC4TV amp with the single power and single preamp tubes.  Also, it has a 10-inch speaker which is very competent as a component of this little combo. Although the AC4TV is best as a home, practice amp, and with a little tweaking of the amp dials and the guitar knobs, you can utilize this amp in a live performance situation, provided it is a smaller coffee house type venue.

The BOSS FDR-1 Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Amp Pedal is a great pre-amp companion for this small and efficient, tube amp.  What I found is that the FDR-1 provides a smooth, creamier sound reminiscent of the Fender tube amps of the 1960's.  It takes the AC4TV's characteristic crisp tone (due to the 10 inch combo speaker) and warms it up, while reducing the brightness.  As it warms it up, the tone becomes larger than you would expect from this small, but brilliant VOX Amp. 

Initially, I was having trouble with the FDR-1 pedal causing springy sounding crashes, almost random pops, when the "reverb" setting was on.  I played with the controls and eventually found that by taking the gain (provided for the purpose of creating distortion-- which I prefer to get from the tubes in the VOX) and setting that "gain" at the lowest possible level (7-8 o'clock) to get rid of those unwanted sounds.  Next, turn the volume of the pedal up past 12 noon and it smooths things out nicely.  The pops/crashes went away, and the tone cleaned up like a true Fender tube amplifier!  Wow!! 

I suggest the VOX's 1 Watt setting for home, which is plenty loud, even with the VOX at less than "half" on the volume and half way up on the tone, you will still get a bit of crunch by turning the Strat's neck pickup up to 8 or 9.  I practice and enjoy the cleans at 4 or 5 with these settings.  I think the small, compact VOX AC4TV is a great amp and enjoyable to use at home, but adding the FDR-1 to this rig completes the picture.  -- Guitar Man