Stunning tube tone from this pedal
Wow – this pedal wails. The Burriss Boostiest 2.5 pedal is a combined boost and overdrive pedal with drive and tone controls for each setting. It’s built by Bob Burriss and his team in Lexington Kentucky USA where they also build boutique guitar amps.
The pedal arrived last week and I’ve been trying it out with a single coil Telecaster and a humbucker Gibson ES137 – it’s been hard to stop playing because the sound is totally awesome with either guitar. It sounds cool through the Mesa Lonestar Special but I went for a harder test in the end – it played just as well through a small Fender Super Champ XD (just the clean channel 1 without the built in effects). This pedal on clean boost stays glassy and the overdrive setting sounds like a vintage tube amp at it’s very best. It makes the built in drive sounds on channel 2 sound distinctly average.
A very high class pedal – so much so that my standard, and very good old Award Session Jerry Donahue JD10 is now relegated out of the pedal board and the fall back Boss overdrive is heading for Ebay. The Burriss Boostiest 2.5 is that good. Totally recommended.
Stunning tube tone from this pedal
Hi visitor – welcome to Guitars of Heroes by Guitarman.
Although I’m very far from being a noob (newby) playing guitar – I am new to blogging. I hope you can forgive a slightly clunky site – it will improve over time.
I aim to significantly increase the content on the site to become your web resource about Guitar Heroes, Guitars, Guitar Amps and Effects Pedals and to pass on a few ideas I wish I’d been told when I was 18.
I know what it’s like to have no one around to give advice about guitars in the family. I knew from an early age that I wanted to play guitar but didn’t know how to start. There was no web back then. There was a 60s Kellogs Cornflakes competition pic that got me drooling over electric guitars! It showed a guy playing a Burns Bison guitar to his girlfriend. There were tow of these Burns Bisons with the SG like double horn body. Of course Burns guitars were played by The Shadows, including Hank Marvin, who backed Cliff Richards. That was before Cliff brought back the first Fender Strat in England for Hank Marvin.
I was so young – I didn’t know what was electric about these guitars! I wanted to know if you plugged them directly into the mains power socket – dangerous! My systems thinking was developing so I needed to hear about amps and speakers but no one in my family could tell me anything – not even how the sound was made.
So, I hope that you will visit Guitars of Heroes frequently to see how it develops. I will try to demystify the guitar for those that need it. You are very special people to me right now – according to Google Analytics I have just passed 250 unique readers. Next target 1000 readers. Cheers everyone – happy guitar playing!
Dave Pulkingham and his Royal Bluesman amp
I’m currently reviewing my collection of guitars and amps to focus more on the sort of music I like – blues rock – and less on being able to cover all sorts of musical styles. So a few pedals and a guitar and bass have gone up on Ebay. I also want to improve my kit for that genre – and one of the first improvements would be to buy a head amp to use with my Lonestar Special extension cab to give me the option of not carrying the very heavy Mesa Boogie Lonestar Special to smaller gigs and jam nights.
So I’ve been checking out the mini amp head or lunchbox amp competition.
My shortlist was: Orange Tiny Terror, Vox Night Train, Egnater Rebel 20 Head or Tweaker Head and thought that I had settled on the Night Train. Why the Vox? Because it has the chimey clean sounds typical of a Vox – and not surprisingly somewhat similar to my main amp – the Lonestar Special by Mesa. Use of the same EL84 valves has a lot to do with that coincidence.
But, I also like some reverb on my guitar sound. How does that work out on lunchbox amps? You see the idea behind these amps is that they are low watt – low power amps where you can overdrive the power amp stage to get smooth break up for home use, studio and small gigs. So, not really designed as a superb clean channel as a basis for pedals to provide all of your sounds. The amp is supposed to be your sound. But these little amps don’t have effects loops or even reverb built in do they ?
Wrong ! Take a look on the web for Burriss amps at NAMM 2011. Wow – The Royal Bluesman has everything you need to play blues/rock except the speaker.
The best lunchbox amp for blues yet?
18 watts, low power/headphone option, effects loop, reverb, tremolo and the coolest design in one of these highly portable mini amp heads I have seen. If the sounds it produces are half as good as the sound clips on the website then it will be superb. Take a look – a real boutique offering that’s bound to be bought by some existing guitar heroes and may help a few new ones along the way.
Blues rock guitar hero Joe Bonamassa has had lots of press comment recently for his own recordings and concerts, and also for his work with Black Country Reunion. This exposure has broughtJoe signature guitars from Gibson and Epiphone giving the keen fan a choice of price points to have a Joe B Gibson Les Paul.
Even if you aren’t a Joe B fan, or you just don’t want a guitar with an artist signature on the headstock these guitars are so special that they are worth reconsidering. The JB Les Pauls are Goldtop LPs with an attractive black back rather than the common natural finish. The JB ‘signature’ mismatched controls are accurately represented on all three guitars. Take a look at the images and links – definitely worth a look.
I recently had the opportunity to return to my first instrument – the electric bass – with a local dance band. I still had a rather rare Martin EB-18 electric bass built in the early 1980s but was keen to have a back up instrument for the gigs as I do when doing six string guitar gigs. I looked around the options and was drawn to the Fender heritage dating back to the 1950s when Leo Fender produced the first electric bass guitar. The deservedly popular Jazz Bass had a slim neck and didn’t feel quite right in my larger than average hands. So, I concluded that I am a P-Bass man. That original early 50s slab bodied Precision bass (P-bass) had a telecaster, or possibly a ‘Broadcaster’ still headstock and a single pickup and had been re-issued by Fender in the 70s as a Telecaster bass and more recently as the ‘Sting’ bass and a Fender Japan ’51 P-Bass. Then I noticed the recent range of Squier Classic Vibe guitars – the basses looked really interesting and I bought a Classic Vibe ’50s bass in Lake Placid Blue. I was stunned at how it well made it felt and how punchy the sound was. The Chinese made P-Bass was strong competition for the 1980s US made Martin bass and I honestly prefer to play the new Classic Vibe 50s P-Bass so much that I am selling the Martin on EBay!
So wow, hat’s off to the designers and the Chinese factory that make these instruments – just beautiful – thanks.
When would you say was the best year for guitars? 1959 for a Gibson Les Paul sunburst? Early 50s when the early classic Fenders were designed and sold for the first time – Telecaster, Precision Bass and Stratocaster?
I want to make the case for 2008 – pre recession as prices/exchange rates have moved up in the last couple of years . Modern computer controlled manufacturing techniques mean that we enjoy very high quality instruments at relatively low cost in recent years. The options open to the new guitarist have never been better or more interesting. You may not be able to afford a vintage Les Paul but the options for a new one are better than ever.
On balance I would rather gig a competent new guitar than a potentially troublesome vintage axe with well worn machine heads, poor tuning stability and crackly pots. in the electrics.
Recent experiences with the mexican made Fender Baja Telecaster show that it’s not necessary for a good performance to pay high prices for custom shop or vintage axes. Another example is the very capable Gretsch 5120 made in Korea – classic rockabilly tones on fifth of the cost of a top of the range Gretsch. My friendly local guitar tech, Andy Warnock, said that the Gretsch 5120 was better made than the original 50s Gretschs because of large variability in the then manufacturing process.
So – 2008 was the best year for guitar variety on sale and for price/quality. The prices may have gone up recently but I can’t honestly see them going down again. Energy and materials costs fir the manufacturers aren’t going down any time soon. So, my recommendation, if you are serious about guitars, is to buy your axe(s) as soon as possible to take advantage of the highest quality, greatest variety and probably the lowest prices we’ll ever see again!
Take a look at these guitars which are cool and capable of any gig – only vintage snobs with more money than sense shouldn’t bother:
Vox 55/75
Fender Classic Player Baja Telecaster
2011 PRS SE Santana
Gibson Les Paul Studio 60s Tribute
Godin xTSa
Gretsch 5120
Epiphone Worn Wilshire
Posted in Epiphone, Gibson, Godin, Gretsch, Guitar, Les Paul guitar, Santana, Wilshire
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Tagged Baja, buying guitars, epiphone, fender, Godin, gretsch, guitar, guitar sales, Vox
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It’s in the news that Eric Clapton is selling off more guitars to raise money for his Crossroads drugs rehabilitation charity. Amongst the Clapton Strats is an unusual Casio guitar synth – the PG380. This was a super strat like triple pickup, clamped strings guitar with built in synthesiser module.
The guitar was a million miles from the plastic efforts by Casio being made at the same Fuji Gen Gakki factory as Ibanez guitars and boasting an ebony neck which is thought to improve note definition and thus ease note tracking for the synth. I played one in a folk rock band through the 90s to give other instrument sounds ( flute, whistle, organ, bells, strings etc) as an alternative to electric guitar. When it worked it was very competent but I sold it and went with a Roland Ready Fender and a Roland GR 33 synth because of problems with intermittent synth sounds and explosive noises through the PA. This was caused by the poorly designed interface between the sockets and the internal PCB which were held only by the solder joints which regularly failed.
Unfortunately, despite good sounds and great tracking the GR 33 was an awkward thing to gig with and although competent, I didn’t enjoy playing the Mexican made RR Strat as much as my Clapton Signature Strat. The end of the line for the RR Strat came after I tried a Godin ACS nylon string guitar with the GR 33 – a match made in heaven – a perfect combination. Something to do with the way I use the synth to play other instrument sounds as I am a poor keys player.
This January saw the NAMM launch of the new Roland GR-55 – wow – EBay is the likely home of the GR-33 very soon.
Don’t get me wrong, I have gigged with a guitar synth and used a few since they appeared to be usable. I’m also a keen enthusiast for gadgets and technology. But it seems to me that the key thing that draws us to the guitar and guitar music is the link with past eras and past heroes. So, a Darth Vaderesque hi-tech futuristic axe doesn’t impress as much as Clapton’s well used Blackie Stratocaster or Peter Green’s Les Paul.
Given the innovation in the early electric guitars, especially the novel Fender Broadcaster/Telecaster I find it odd that the long term guitar craze is for old guitars.
At the O2 venue in London tonight and the previously mentioned red Firebird VII was played on stage by Phil Manzanera at the Roxy Music gig! Phil also played a red Les Paul (Robot Studio perhaps), Custom black Les Paul and what looked like a Dave Gilmour Strat in black with white control knobs. A great gig with stunning layered sound, video graphics and dancers. A spectacular show.
Next Monday I am going to see Roxy Music at the London O2 (the Dome) and thoughts turned to the unmistakable guitar work of Phil Manzanera. 
Phil may be more familiar to younger readers with Strat or acoustic guitar in hand helping out Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd guitarist) on solo gigs. However, his signature axe was a Cardinal Red ’64 Firebird VII with gold-plated hardware (not sure if they made a Phil M signature instrument – let me know if you’ve seen one on sale).
Let’s hope he brings it to the gig! More after the gig.
