You're too old to play gigs when.....

1. It becomes more important to find a place on stage for your fan than for your amp.

2. Your gig clothes make you look like George Burns out for a round of golf.

3. All your fans leave by 9:30 p.m.

4. All you want from groupies is a foot massage and back rub.

5. You love taking the elevator because you can sing along with most of your play list.

6. Instead of a fifth member, your band wants to spring for a roadie.

7. You don't know (or care) who any of the new bands are.

8. You need your glasses to see the amp settings.

9. You've thrown out your back jumping off the stage.

10. You feel like hell before the gig even starts.

11. The waitress is your daughter.

12. You stop the set because your ibuprofen fell behind the speakers.

13. Most of your crowd just sways in their seats.

14. You find your drink tokens from last month's gig in your guitar case.

15. You refuse to play without earplugs.

16. You ask the club owner if you can start at 8:30 instead of 9:30.

17. You check the TV schedule before booking a gig.

18. Your gig stool has a back.

19. You're related to at least one member in the band.

20. You don't let any one sit in.

21. You need a nap before the gig.

22. After the third set, you bug the club owner to let you quit early.

23. During the breaks, you now go to the van to lay down.

24. You prefer a music stand with a light.

25. You don't recover from a Saturday night gig until Tuesday afternoon.

26. You hope the host's speech lasts forever.....

27. You buy amps considering their weight and not their tone or cool factor.

28. Feeling guilty looking at hot women at the bar 'cause they're younger than your daughter.

29. You can remember seven different club names for the same location ...

30. You have a hazy memory of the days when you could work 10 gigs in 7 days and could physically do it

31. Your set list is dance able.

32. You think "homey" means cozy and warm

33. You have to look over your glasses to check your PA connections.

34. You're playing the same venue in three months and you ask the club owner if you can leave your amp!

35. Most of the band members are a lot younger than you.

36. Your son is waiting for the gig to end to drive you and your stuff home, then go back out and party...

37. Your date couldn't make it because she couldn't find a sitter for the grandkids...

38. In consideration of your age, the audience requests some British invasion.

39. On all out of town gigs you draw straws to see who the driver will be coming home.

40. You start listing your truss as a "business expense".

41. You forget to take your Flowmax so all sets that night are only 15 minutes long.

42. When you get a "Cease and Desist" letter from the Spandex co.

43. When you play 2 nights in a row, and the next day your body aches like you played in the Super Bowl!

44. Or, you play a Wednesday night gig and call into work sick on Thursday and Friday..

45. When the only "Stones" you care about are in your gallbladder or kidney.

46. You have to charge extra money if there are any steps to climb.

47. Your hearing has deteriorated so badly that you actually ask the guitar player to "turn himself up.

48. You call out the next song only to have someone remind you played it 10 minutes earlier.

49. Your drugs are keeping you alive rather than killing you.

50. You worry more about breaking a hip than being hip.

52. Musicians half your age are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or have appeared on postage stamps.

53. The only white powder to be found amongst the band members is foot talc.

GAS - Death By Audio - Fuzz War

I just wanted to introduce my next fuzz ;-)

Fuzz War - Tone Factor Product Details



Two knobs on the outside control LEVEL and SHAPE and there is an internal DRIVE control to create a multitude of ultimate fuzz sounds.

Tone Factor demo video of the Fuzz War:

Philosophy Part I

What's the difference between a fiddle and a violin ?
Who cares - neither one's a guitar

How many guitar players does it take to cover a Stevie Ray Vaughn tune ?
Evidently all of them.

"Mommy! Mommy! When I grow up I want to be a guitar player!"
"Now Johnny, you can't do both!"

How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?
Twelve. One to change the bulb and eleven to say they could do it better.

Jazz guitarists are never very happy. Deep inside they want to
be rock stars, but they're old and overweight. In protest, they wear
their hair long, prowl for groupies, drink a lot, and play too loud.

Why are so many guitarists jokes one liners?
So the rest of the band can understand them.

Update on Keeler Designs Shove Incoming

This is an update on the article Keeler Designs Shove Incoming

Keeler Designs Shove - Tone Factor Product Details

Tone Factor demo video of the Keeler Designs Shove:

Nebula - Review

Nebula Phaser - Tone Factor Product Details



The Nebula is a two stage phaser based on similar pedals of days gone by (MXR Phase 45, DOD 201), with modern upgrades that today's player demands.

The Nebula is subtle and watery, and not overpowering at all. No over the top space ahip sounds to be found, but if you need a nice musical phaser in a small package the Nebula is the way to go.

The tone is beautifully warm and not overpowering. Just a lovely vibe feel that sounds great. It is not too subtle, but it's actually fairly thick, just not overdone. It's a nice marriage with your clean signal. There's no bad sound in it and there's no annoying volume drop.

Tone Factor demo video of the Nebula:



Here are some additional sound clips:

Nebula1
Nebula2
Nebula3
Nebula4
Nebula5
Nebula6

Effects Explained: Modulation—Phasing, Flanging, and Chorus

Here is another installment of Gibson.com's "Effects Explained" series.

Effects Explained: Modulation—Phasing, Flanging, and Chorus

The Phaser

A phaser is an audio signal processing technique used to filter a signal by creating a series of peaks and troughs in the frequency spectrum. The position of the peaks and troughs is typically modulated so that they vary over time, creating a sweeping effect. For this purpose, phasers usually include a low frequency oscillator.

The electronic phasing effect is created by splitting an audio signal into two paths. One path treats the signal with an all-pass filter, which preserves the amplitude of the original signal and alters the phase. The amount of change in phase depends on the frequency. When signals from the two paths are mixed, the frequencies that are out of phase will cancel each other out, creating the phaser's characteristic notches. Changing the mix ratio changes the depth of the notches; the deepest notches occur when the mix ratio is 50%.

The definition of phaser typically excludes such devices where the all-pass section is a delay line; such a device is called a flanger. Using a delay line creates an unlimited series of equally spaced notches and peaks. It is possible to cascade a delay line with another type of all-pass filter as in, this combines the unlimited number of notches from the flanger with the uneven spacing of the phaser.

Phasing is a popular effect for electric guitar. The term was often used[citation needed] to refer the original tape flanging effect heard on many psychedelic records of the late 1960s, notably "Itchycoo Park" by the Small Faces, and "Pictures of Matchstick Men" by Status Quo. Eddie Van Halen often used a phaser as part of his signal chain, after his distortion effects, including the amplifier itself: Van Halen used a power attenuator to bring the amp's output down to line level so he could put effect boxes after it. Phasing is primarily responsible for the soaring and unique guitar sounds Brian May achieved with the band Queen in such songs as Bohemian Rhapsody.

Many electronic keyboard instruments like the Rhodes and the Clavinet are commonly treated with a phaser to "sweeten" their sounds. Examples can be heard in Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are", Styx's "Babe" and Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years."

In motion picture or television production, the effect created by a phaser is often used to imply that the sound is synthetically generated, like turning a natural human voice into a computer or robot voice.