Every guitar player eventually embarks on a journey to find their personal sound. Most times this journey starts with the influence of various other player they admire. This process can definitely get expensive when you consider experimentation with guitar and amp combinations, not to mention effects pedals and even rack gear. There are however smaller, less expensive adjustments that are often overlooked but in the end can make a huge difference. I recently had one of these experiences that I would like to share with you.

My personal sound has been honed over the years to a select palette combination of clean tones, and warm, smooth overdriven lead sounds. Attaining the clean sounds has never been much of a problem, but I always seem to struggle with getting my overdrive to sound just right. I've certainly nailed down what I feel is satisfactory and passable, but I have always felt there was slightly too much edge no matter what I did.

That was until I stumbled onto a simple fix that was right in front of me the whole time. Recently D’Addario sent me a set of their “XL Pure Nickel Round Wound” strings to check out. I had seen these strings many times in the past, but they were a little more expensive than the “XL Nickel Round Wound” strings I had been using for years.

I can remember the days when buying an electronic guitar tuner was a fairly simple task since there were only a couple of decent ones on the market. Today, however, the tuner world is decidedly much more complicated. There are so many types, styles, and brands saturating the market making the selection process a little murky. Another huge factor is the price differences that can range from around ten dollars for a simple hand held unit and go up to several hundred dollars for a large rack mount version.

I have had the opportunity to try out many different tuners over the years, and the one factor that seems to remain a constant is accuracy. I have put every low and mid price tuner to the test against my expensive stage rack tuner. To be honest, with the digital technology available today, almost all electronic tuners will be accurate assuming you are getting a clean signal or sound from the guitar to the tuner. This takes one element out of the decision process and from here it becomes a choice based on application, options, features and ease of use. Some tuners have many extra features that drive up their price point and sometimes drive down their ease of use.

I recently received a brand new tuner design from our friends at Planet Waves. This tuner falls into the clip-on style which has become very popular in recent years. Simply called the “Headstock Tuner”, it is a compact and foolproof tuner that does not boast a lot of extra features, but comes in as a heavyweight in the ease of use department.

Recently my wife and I took the time to go through all of the musical instruments, and recording equipment in the GuitarGearHeads test facility with the purpose of creating a tracking system. We took pictures of each piece and wrote down model numbers and serial numbers, and compiled a detailed snapshot on paper. Once this project was finished, we sat back and went over the results. They were impressive to say the least. Perhaps the most staggering statistic was when I considered what it would cost to replace all of this equipment should an unforeseen incident should happen. It reached into many thousands of dollars, and this number did not include accessory items such as cables, picks, and tuners which can be a considerable investment in themselves.

The reason I am sharing this with you is twofold. First off, I want to recommend that every player takes such an inventory. I would bet that you too will be surprised at the replacement value of your musical assets. Secondly, I want to once again jump on my soap box and preach about the vital importance of protecting your investment.

Since the beginning of GuitarGearHeads.com, Gator Cases has been our company of choice to safeguard the equipment in our test facilities. It seems that no matter what we need to protect, Gator Cases has a product with innovative features to suit our needs. Recently I called Gator Cases with a problem, and they immediately suggested a great solution from their product line. Read on to learn more.

I do not need to tell you how important it is to keep your guitar in tune. No matter how good your equipment may be, or how talented of a guitar player you are, if your guitar in out of tune, you will sound dreadful. In most cases a player will need to tune several times in the course of a session as dynamics such as heat, humidity, and other relatively uncontrollable factors affect the guitar. The easiest way to do combat these issues is the use of an electronic tuner.

In today’s market, electronic tuners come in a variety of shapes sizes and styles. You can purchase tuners from rack mount sizes, to smaller units with the footprint of a guitar pick. Most of these tuners have one thing in common. They can be misplaced, or lost, leaving you in a dire situation at the worst possible moment.

In a trend that spans virtually every electronic market, technology advances make things smaller, and tuners are no exception. Acoustic guitar players have had the option of onboard tuners built into their preamps for many years. In fact, this is one of the rare occurrences when acoustic guitar players benefited from a technology before their electric guitar playing brothers. Today the playing field has been leveled because of a company out of the Seattle Washington area called “Zero Crossing”. Recently Zero Crossing released a new concept into the market place called the “N-Tune”. This is an easy way to incorporate a tuner into virtually any electric guitar with very little impact on the guitar itself.

It’s like a scene out of a movie. An hour before the show, I stroll in easily, wearing a backpack and carrying two black cases…and dark sunglasses. A backpack is just a backpack, and everyone can see that the big one holds my guitar, but I can see them staring and wondering what is inside the smaller case. It looks sort of, but not quite like a briefcase. With those thick hinges and chrome latches, they probably think it must be some sort of equipment case. Could it be a scene out of “Desperado”? Not hardly; it more serious than that – the case holds 1/3 of my tone so I treat it gently even though I know it was built to take abuse.

Stepping up onto the stage, I set down the backpack and the two cases. I start with the mysterious looking case and pop the latches. There’s a few people milling around and talking amongst themselves, but they stop to watch me pull off the lid to reveal my pedal board, one even nodding in appreciation. A few actually gasp when I flip the lid over, place it behind me, and pull out the hidden, 3-space guitar stand (it’s almost too bad that I only need one space for “Ruby”, my curvy Gibson DC Standard). Opening the backpack, I pull out my Weeping Demon wah and two instrument cables. I set the wah next to the pedal board at a slight angle. I look out over the room; it’s going to be a good night!

Then in four quick movements, I plug in all the cables – an easy feat since everything is pre-configured. In a final flourish, I take Ruby out of the case, plug in the guitar cable and set her on the stand. The crowd watching me applauds, and I take a bow without even playing a note. I plug my board into the power strip with satisfaction and head out to help the rest of the band.

Let me run down three scenarios for you to help you decide whether or not a direct box may be a necessary addition to your gear arsenal.

First, you as a busy working musician realize that you are really in the entertainment business...not just the music business. That is, you get gigs that month, that week, that even that evening, based on your ability to keep the crowd happy and the place “hoppin”! You are good at what you do, but hey – even Superman needed a break between sets! You whip out your shiny new iPod, and scroll to your “keep the party rolling” ultra-mix. You then dig out a mini-to-mini plug cable out of your guitar case and try to figure out where you should plug the iPod into the board.

Second, you run a worship service that weaves together live music, video, digital video and presentation software. The band luckily connects to its own sound board that, in turn, connects into the primary board that controls the house audio and other microphones. From time to time it is necessary to run computer audio and audio from a DVD feed into the main board, but you need to convert the signals from high-impedance, consumer grade, RCA signals to low impedance, balanced XLR signals suitable for professional equipment.

Third, you are an electronic musician that mixes live instrumentation from your band, looped sequences, and samples into a high energy non-stop show. For live performances you need to output your laptop’s signal to your mixing board which often requires running rather long cables to the back of the room. Besides, you’d rather have somebody trip over something other than the cable connected to your laptop!

If any of these situations speak to you – then perhaps you are in need of a nifty little device called the iFace from ProCo Sound.