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Greetings and salutations to all in Shred Nation!

HELLO ALL happy June and congrats to all the new graduates out there. Or anyone like me who's on the Van Wilder plan where you just stay in community college for an extra 8 years thats cool too, keep on truckin.

Four shows this week, two new songs out, and played some real ORIGINAL music for once which unfortunately has changed the game yet again for me gear wise so I've been experimenting to try and recreate some of the weirder sounds on our record live. Dropped a guit at shop today to replace some pickups and put on a rubber bridge. Also tried wrapping some strings with grout sealing tube, and I'm even back to using real guitar pedals instead of my MX-5. Next thing you know I'm gonna practice consistently and get my edits done on time. It's a whole new world! Seriously fucking click that hyper link you'll thank me. And then read these:

• Mic Your Amp Better Without a Mic
• My Favorite Pedalboards CURRENTLY For Sale
• Learn These Western Swing Licks to Dip Your Jazz in BBQ Sauce

Mic Your Amp Better Without a Mic

Yep you read it here twice already. Did it make more sense the second time? So like I said I had original shows for Better Twin and The Gromble in Santa Barbara this week and they are both definitely more a loud ass garagey sounding amp and pedalboard vibe. One of the shows was at a cool venue in downtown called Soho and the other was a house show in Isla Vista. Both were super fun and honestly it was fucking rad to play music that I wrote for the first time since pre-Covid besides supporting artists I've co-written or co-produced.
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OK so at the house show we brought our whole PA system, and everybody shared a backline. Typically for mic'ing guitar amps I use a Sennheiser 906 for my amp, and we have a couple of the cheaper 609's for extra amps. The 609s are super super common and really nice to have for a gigging guitarist to keep in your case or pedalboard, and they're the flat pancake style so they can hang right off the handle of your amp so you don't need a mic stand with them. The 609 sounds a lot like a 57. Nothing crazy here, standard stuff. Well in my excitement of course I forgot to grab all those fucking mics so once we got there the option we had was to just hang Shure 58s (which works but kinda sucks and stage was realllly tight to use stands) when I discovered a real old friend in our SKB accessory case. It was my Palmer JB Guitar DI. Yipeee! I totally forgot I used to use this all the time with my amp. Palmer is a German company that makes this DI box that goes in between your head and speaker cabinet, or in a combo amp it goes between the head portion of the amp and the speaker. Currently I have the JB "Joe Bonnamossa" Version which has a couple extra switches and some bullshit you don't need on it, but these things are actually fucking awesome. For a few reasons:
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1) Absolutely no bleed from other instruments. Completely clean signal from amp head to front of house and you'll have total control. To my ear it actually sounds better.
2) Has a significant db pad as well as bright, normal, or mellow switch if your guitar sounds harsh going to FOH

3) Rugged as shit
4) Unit is passive so no power needed
5) Consistent sound every night, the room reflections and everything else onstage won't change your situation.

I have owned their old school green one with the palm tree on it and then bought this JB one, but I just ordered a pair from their new River Series. $125 each on B&H Photo. I used to use this every night with my Fender Pro Jr. and I velcro'ed the DI box into the back of the amp and left everything plugged in so whenever we went to a venue I just needed an XLR to get to the mixing board. Everything else was set up normally. Pretty cool shit and I don't see these too often / I forgot about it myself but thank god I still had it cuz we actually needed it on Saturday.
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My Favorite Pedalboards Currently For Sale

OK so again, man I feel like I just got in touch with some high school friends who offered me a cigarette again. Haven't thought about pedalboards in so long since going digital but we're BACK baby. Anyway, my FAVORITE pedalboard of all time is made by FIX Pedalboards, I own two different sizes of their boards and convinced a bunch of my students and friends to get their boards while they were available. A few years after I wanted to purchase their third largest size pedalboard and was having trouble finding it so I emailed and asked if they had any or were still in business etc. They stopped producing them but still had a few in stock and I was able to order one in this cool sparkly magenta. They made the coolest colors too, fuck FIX was so rad.

Anyway so the owner of FIX was telling me that instead of producing their own brand they now use their facility to make boards for a few other companies that pretty much use the same design. What's so rad about FIX Boards is the two tier design, so you can actually use every single spot on your board and nothing is blocked. Sure I've owned my fair share of PedalTrains in various sizes and they're cool and you can get pedal risers and whatever but it is way more convenient to have two tiers so you are sure to not accidentally hit something you don't mean to. PLUS there is a space built for your Pedal Power to be mounted underneath the second tier, and holes for all your barrel plugs and cabling. Everything can be really clean. I love em.

Ok anyway so huge bummer they don't make them anymore, you can still find a couple on eBay right now but like I said, they're making very similar ones for new brands so here are the three PRODUCTION MODEL boards that I think are great right now. I'm not including crazy custom stuff like Trailer Trash Boards, even though those are awesome.
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3) D'Addario Xpand ​

This is a cool idea, obviously there aren't a lot of expanding pedalboards on the market. Doesn't make sense for everyone but if you're a guitarist that plays with multiple groups and you use different pedal setups for different groups or maybe you do a lot of sessions and like to change your pedal setup based on what you're working on this is really cool since the board can expand and contract.
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2) Holeyboard

This one is rad and I've always had my eye on Holeyboards. So they're really affordable and have a couple different modular options. The gimmick here is that the whole pedalboard itself has holes cut out of it like swiss cheese, and you attach your pedals just by using zip ties, no velcro necessary. Pretty rad cuz nothing is permanent and then you don't need to take the feet off of your pedals or get any gunky shit on the bottom from velcro if you're someone that likes to keep your stuff minty fresh.
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1) Friedman Pedalboards​

This is my favorite one currently because it most closely resembles the beloved FIX Pedalboards of yore. Wonder if they're made in the same factory, out of the same airplane grade steel? These are heavy duty and best of all they have the full two tier system like the FIX boards. Also they have a pretty rad adjustable ramp you can use with a volume or wah pedal. Friedman also makes a package that has a built in pedal power and a buffer/patch bay. I've mentioned the two-tier pedalboard system a lot here and I swear it is a massive game changer. I'm almost always singing and playing guitar and I like to keep my boards fucking Herbie Fully Loaded ya know what I mean? So anything I can do to make sure I'm accurate with my pedal switches is a welcome addition.

Anyway check those out if you're in the market for a new pedalboard and let me know which one you buy

Learn These Western Swing Licks to Dip Your Jazz In BBQ Sauce

I feel like western swing doesn't get the credit it deserves. Some of these guitar players just absolutely fucking rip and you don't have to have a giant ass guitar and a beret to be taken seriously while playing it. You can still drink beer and dress like a professional wrestler while playing fast chromatic licks and altered dominant stuff. That's fucking cool!

I got some request for a Flying Burrito Brothers solo on Patreon this week and it made me think about taking on some western swing licks. I sifted through and found a few great ones from this 2018 article in Guitar Player. and I'm filming a video teaching these and some choice others this week so stay tuned:
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​Example 3​

​Example 4​

​Example 5​

Anyway I love this stuff because it is fast and follows the changes but it has the melodic sensibility of someone like Charlie Christian or Django. It feels much closer to gypsy jazz to me than a solo on a Luke Bryan song or whatever the fuck is at Stagecoach ya know? Anyway check it out it's worth learning and adding in a little chromaticism is a cool idea to break you out of a pentatonic rut whether you're playing jazz, western swing, country, nu-metal, or you happened to play rhythm guitar on that Shakira theme song for the World Cup. Anyway make sure to practice super hard and don't stop - the safe word this week is "LEVI" (iykyk).

Alrighty that's it! You've made it yet again and that's an exciting achievement. I have some really cool new gear discoveries and developments to share with you guys but I'm waiting until I get everything back in hand so I can show some demos of the new stuff. It's gonna be cool. Some WEIRD guitar shit getting installed right now that I'm super excited about.

- If you want to support me as a musician you can go stream The Gromble's new single "Saturday" and Better Twin's new single "Swim"​

- Shamelessly reminding everybody that there is a Shreducation Patreon. I can't speak for the subscribers but I can tell you that I'm having a lot of fun with it and am already taking requests for videos, podcasts etc. I love getting direct feedback from people and being able to film content that's gonna be helpful and relevant to you guys. New podcast out this week too answering a question that just got asked a day or two ago. wooh00000

OK BYE

Spencer Askin Musician & Guitar Coach The Papa of Pinches

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