Exotic Wood Picks - Iron Age Guitar Accessories

Part three of this feature on Iron Age Guitar Accessories looks at the exotic wood set. This features picks made from tone woods such as padouk and peachwood, as well as Macassar ebony and coconut shell as we saw in the last feature. Each of these picks is a Jazz III XL kind of shape, with the coconut shell pick being slightly smaller and thinner.

Padouk is a naturally coloured red wood, not often used in guitar manufacturing due to it's colour, however it is increasing in popularity often as a rosewood substitute. The tone of this pick is very low-mid prominent with a soft attack - it is very unique sounding and works great for soulful, dynamic playing. To me it feels like playing with compression - there is a threshold where it begins to feel like no matter how hard I dig in with the pick it doesn't get louder. The shape of the pick is very comfortable, with a recessed bowl shape in the thumb grip area of the pick and the signature Iron Age engravings on the reverse which aid in stability, however as I've commented on before with wooden picks, slipping doesn't seem to be an issue, especially when open pored wood like padouk is used. I also really enjoy the look of this pick - the subtle red seems to suit the tonal nature of this pick. It is worth noting that the redness of the wood will turn to a light brown colour when left in sunlight.

Compared to the padouk pick, the peachwood is lighter in both colour and weight. Feel is very similar between these two picks, but this one feels slightly more oily and the wood is less open-pored. The tone of this pick is very balanced, with a really nice top end, and is very responsive to dynamic playing without losing the clean attack of the tone. I really enjoyed the tone and feel of this pick when playing chords - open chord strumming and muted barre chords were both clear with a very balance string volume.

The Macassar ebony pick is the last XL shaped, 2-3mm thick pick of this bunch. The tone of this pick is very interestingly scooped, with a crisp top end and a present warmth which would work well for distorted electric guitar playing, however I feel like the shape of this pick limits it's scope for playing in this area. I'm sure some will be very comfortable using this pick for heavy rock and metal, however I found it a bit cumbersome and clumsy at times - perhaps it could benefit from having the vets starting further in. If you like the sound of this pick, you should check out the spearhead pick made from the same wood (check out my review here).

Finally we have the coconut shell pick. This is about 2mm thick and 10-20% smaller than the previous three. The wood of this pick feels the most dense, and this is reflected in the tone, which is a bit top-heavy with a very clean, short attack. This pick enhances the frequencies of your guitar which really help to cut through a full band mix, and the reduced size means speedy licks feel a lot more comfortable to play.

I've really enjoyed trying out these exotic wood picks - as you may have realised by now I really enjoy playing with wooden picks, the tonal variety which is possible can be really inspiring. My favourite pick of this review and the one I'd suggest you go out and try is definitely the padouk. The feel and tone of this pick was just so unique and inspired me to actually write melodies when testing it out. If you have a large collection of plectrums but never tried a padouk pick, why not give the Iron Age Guitar Accessories exotic wood set a try - check out their website.

As usual remember to follow me on social media, links are down the side, and I've put links to the other reviews in the Iron Age Guitar Accessories series below, if you haven't yet, give them a read!

Coconut Shell & Macassar Ebony Spearheads

Carbon Fibre?!

Stone Picks!

True Bypass, Buffers and Long Cables - Nerd Talk

Pedals are such a useful tool and creative aid for guitarists. With unique and interesting pedals being developed constantly as well as upgrades to existing effects, it's no surprise that guitarist's signal chains are getting longer, which no doubt has an effect on the overall tone. Whether your pedals are "true bypass" or not, the fact that you are not only increasing the length of cable your signal has to travel through, and also making it go through a plethora of extra electrical components and trusting the cable connectors are transferring the signal accurately, there is bound to be degradation in audio quality.

A good place to start is to define what a buffer is. In basic terms, a buffer is an amplifier which does not affect the output volume but changes the output impedance of the signal. All components of your signal chain have elements of capacitance, impedance and resistance, but what does this mean?

Capacitance can be demonstrated by a tone control on an electric guitar. It is basically a high pass filter, letting high frequencies pass through. Depending on how it’s used in the circuit, the capacitor does different things. In the tone circuit the pot, which is a variable resistor, varies the amount of resistance for that capacitor to send the signal to ground. The less resistance it has the more top end frequency goes to ground, making the sound get duller.

Capacitance in cables is the same, except on a much smaller scale. Cables have resistance because of the relationship between the core of the cable, which carries the signal, and the outer shield. The higher the distance between the core and the shield the lower the capacitance, and many high end cable companies quote the capacitance of the cables in their marketing. Every time the cable length is doubled, the capacitance is doubled. Basically there's a natural relationship between the length of the cable and how dull the guitar sounds.

Onto impedance; different pickups have different output impedance. Single coil pickups tend to have lower output impedance than humbuckers. The lower the output impedance of the guitar pickups, the more it drives the capacitance of the signal, meaning the sound you get out of your amplifier is brighter. If you have a high output humbucker it could sound quite dark, but a low output pickup, such as the gold foil pickups which are quite popular at the moment and have a very low output impedance have a very bright top end.

The effects can be easily tested by increasing the length of your cable and putting a few inactive true bypass pedals in the signal chain - if you A/B this tone with direct into the amplifier, you should notice a duller sound through the longer signal chain.

A buffer takes the output impedance of the guitar's pickups and changes that to a much lower impedance which will drive the capacitance of the cable. A good buffer will mean that using an 100m cable through all your true bypass pedals into your amplifier will sound the same as plugging directly into your amplifier with a sensibly short cable.

Some pedals have built in buffers. Obviously these are of varying standards depending on the pedal, but these do a similar thing in reducing the output impedance whether the pedal is active or not. A true bypass pedal, when inactive, completely bypasses all circuitry in the pedal, but turning on a true bypass pedal will reduce the output impedance, bringing some top end back in compared to the inactive sound. Even with the tone of the pedal down low there is a top end to the tone which you almost feel more than you hear (although it is audible).

Buffers are amplifiers which have a signal to noise ratio. If going guitar direct into amplifier is your desired tone, a really good buffer will retain that, even if you wanted an 100m cable. If you have 6 buffered bypass pedals in a row, you will have good capacitance but there will be other problems. You’re effectively stacking amplifiers into each other.

Placing a buffer in different areas of your pedalboard will affect the tone differently. If you have a buffer at the start of your pedalboard, it helps maintain the signal going through all of your pedals, meaning they all receive exactly the same signal. A lot of people like to place the buffer after the overdrives and distortions, using the mindset that the designer of the pedal designed it using guitar plugged straight into the pedal. When you use a germanium transistor overdrive/ or fuzz pedal, having the buffer before the pedal introduces a very harsh treble to the sound - you might want that sound, but it does alter the tone drastically. Germanium fuzz pedals especially can be sent into unusable territory with a buffer preceding it.

It is worth saying to end on, you can choose to use or not use buffers or long cables to alter your tone according to what you like. Brian May's signal chain uses a guitar with very bright single coil pickups through a treble booster into Vox AC30s, a very bright rig, however he uses long coil-y cables which by their nature roll some of the top end off. It retains a naturally bright sound, but tames the harshness. The same applies for if you had a muddy sounding Les Paul, try out a buffer and see if it makes your tone more clear and glassy.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this nerd talk about true bypass, buffers and long cables! Do you use a buffer in your signal path? Let me know in the comments! As usual remember to follow The Pick on social media, links are down the side.

Wedgie Picks Spotlight - Part 1

Last week I received a huge package of Wedgie Picks from California. They sent me a wide range of picks, each in all the variations of gauge, and today I'm checking out the Clear XLs, Clear XTs and the Nylon XTs.

First up is the Clear XLs. Made from a blend of polycarbonate, this picks are translucent and come in a variety of colours based on the gauge of the pick. I'm going to try out the 1.14mm first. These picks have a recessed bowl shape as a thumb grip on the plectrum, helping the grip, which is useful as the material isn't the most grippy. For a fairly thin pick I was pleased with the brightness to the tone and the crisp attack. Moving through the gauges of picks to the thinnest, the brightness of the tone is retained, but the crisp attack turns into more of a scratchy pick noise on the strings, as is usually the case with thinner picks. It is apparent, however, that these are a higher quality thin pick than your 10-for-£1 music shop picks. I would recommend this picks to players who mainly strum, as complex articulated rhythms and lead parts don't come naturally with the amount of bend these picks have in them.

Next is the Clear XTs. These are very similar to the Clear XLs, however they have a later etched texture on the recessed grip. This helps with grip further. As far as I can tell, there is no tonal difference between these and the XLs. Unfortunately these picks don't come in the heavier 1.14mm gauge which I would have preferred, but if you liked the sound of the Clear XL picks I would recommend the Clear XT picks, as holding onto them without them slipping about is considerably easier!

Thirdly is the Nylon XT pick. These come in a gradient from white to black from thinnest gauge to thickest, and range from 0.4mm to 1mm in thickness. These picks are advertised as being preferable to aggressive hard-rock guitarists, and I can understand why. Tonally these picks exhibit less of the brightness of the clear picks, something which isn't always desirable in a full rock band mix. A brighter tone is on tap if you really dig into the strings, but in general there is a warmer, quieter sound using these picks. Unfortunately these picks have quite an audible attack on the strings, something which I'm not particularly keen on, however as with everything I'm sure some will enjoy that. The 0.4mm gauge pick was an interesting one for me, seeing as my custom v-pick is over 10 times thicker, and I found that using this pick was like having a hard limiter on my guitar - no matter how hard or soft I played the tone and volume was the same, just with varying scrapey noises - this ones definitely not for me!

Out of these three types of Wedgie Pick I preferred the Clear XTs - the brightness of tone from the Clear material paired with the extra grip from the lazer-etching made this the best of the bunch. I would like to see a thicker gauge of pick using this material, and interested to try it out and see how it compared. Part two of the Wedgie Picks spotlight takes a look at a couple of the Delrin pick models, and will be out soon!

As usual remember to follow The Pick on social media - links are down the side.

The Commute - Sonification of the Victoria tube line

As part of the second year of my degree I began development of a piece of software which sonifies data collected from Transport for London about the Victoria underground tube line. Using Pure Data, a "real-time graphical dataflow programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing", The Commute uses these data collections to create MIDI information, which is currently routed through my Macbook's IAC driver into Logic Pro X where some preprogrammed MIDI instruments listen to each channel and produce the audio output.

The Commute uses a variety of data sets to inform and alter the musical content of the piece. The process begins with a Markov chain process, which generates the root notes of each chord by analysing a MIDI file of single notes in the key of C major. These root notes are used to create the harmony in the music; using the Western key system, appropriate major and minor chords are produced based on the scale degree of the root note produced.

Each train station has assigned to it a key signature, using the circle of fifths to ensure variety in key as the piece progresses but to reduce dissonance. Depending on the number of overground or underground connections, the root note is doubled various number of octaves up or down.

The rate at which a new note is triggered is controlled by the clock. If it is close to, or during, rush hour times, there is a higher probability a note will be triggered. At less busy times, for example between midnight and 4am, there is a lower probability a note will be triggered. The clock can be manually altered and doesn't have to be accurate.

The length of the piece of music directly correlates to the amount of time the journey would take, therefore when taking the train from Walthamstow Central to Brixton, The Commute creates music to last the entire journey. This is demonstrated by the use of actual video footage recorded from the front of the train in the direction of travel, which accompanies the journey.

If using The Commute in 'normal speed', i.e. the time for the music to finish is the time it actually takes to get between two stations, there is accompanying video from the cab of a tube train going through the Victoria line. There are currently some issues with syncing the video to the music generation, but it's pretty close. This feature also causes a bit of lag due to having to load a large video file, however it is turned off if the speed is increased.

This area of music and sound technology isn't one which I would have said I was particularly interesting when I started my degree, mainly because I didn't know it existed, but I have really enjoyed working on this project - it has fulfilled my creative and musical side as well as my nerdy geeky side. I'd be very interested in developing this project to increase it's size and capabilities, such as to include more underground lines and more data sonification. I will keep you updated as I continue to work on it! And if anyone from Transport for London is reading this, please get in touch!

As usual remember to check out The Pick on social media, links are down the side!

Why Is Delay So Cool? - Nerd Talk

Delay is such a regular effect found on many guitarists pedalboards and effect racks. As well as the standard 'echo' effect, delay can be used to create a range of effects. By delaying a source signal by varying amounts and combining it with the unprocessed, dry signal you can hear these effects.

A typical digital delay unit sees a signal be delayed by a set time then fed back into the original signal. Most useful delays allow you to control the amount of the original signal there is in the final sound, also known as wet/dry controls.

Analogue delays are often favoured by guitarists for their warmth in tone due to the way the high frequencies die quicker than the lows. This effect can be emulated in digital delays by featuring a low pass filter in the feedback loop, removing more high frequencies each time they pass through.

Things start to get interesting when looking at crossover, also known as ping pong, delays. These feature a delay unit for each stereo channel, which each feedback into the other delay unit. This causes delays which jump between left and right channels, and can be used very effectively in stereo guitar rigs to create very large sounds.

The first effect created using delay which isn't an echo effect is chorus. Many people don't know that most modulation effects are created using delay, and the chorus is a good example of this. A simple chorus effect uses a delay time of 10-40 milliseconds (ms), which is then modulated using a low frequency oscillator. When this signal is summed with the original unprocessed signal, the effect created is chorus.

The flanger takes the basis of the chorus effect, except with a shorter delay time of 0-10ms, and introduces a feedback loop. This creates the signature "swoosh" sound of the flanger effect. By increasing the delay time in a flanger you decrease the pitch of the effect, and decreasing the delay time increases the pitch.

Typically the chorus uses the same design as the flanger but with different ranges. For example, a flanger uses delay times of 0-10ms where a chorus would use delay times from 10-40ms (these delay times are approximate). Chorus effects also generally feature no feedback, which means creating an effect which is both a chorus and a flanger is fairly simple, as they just use different delay times and one has a feedback loop in it.

I hope you enjoyed this little nerd talk about delay, chorus and flanger effects and how they all work. If you want to see more posts like this let me know in the comments or on one of my social media pages.

Iron Age Guitar Picks - Coconut Shell & Macassar Ebony Spearheads

The third part of the feature on Iron Age guitar picks looks at the handcrafted spearhead picks made from coconut shell and macassar ebony. These materials are very hard exotic woods, and designed for precision and speed. Check out the video below to listen to some tones using these picks with my Strat into my Blackstar HT20 and Marshall Valvestate 8080, using an Ibanez TubeScreamer for the lead tones.

These picks are shaped like a sharpened J3 type pick, and feature Iron Age's signature double sided engravings, which really aid in the grip of the plectrum, making these things very easily controlled. The sharp point makes these things great for speedy articulated parts, both rhythm and lead, but also for more relaxed open-chord strumming, as seen at the end of the video. These picks are all handcrafted, and taper in gauge from 2.75mm thick down to 1mm at the picking edge.

The tone of the coconut shell pick has a really nice brightness to it, which works well for the type of playing the shape of the pick suggests. The ebony pick is less bright, with a warmer tone and audibly softer attack.

These picks are great examples of why wooden picks are so interesting. The natural finish of wood means holding onto these things is really easy, and the variation in tone when playing expressively is genuinely inspiring. Whilst both picks have their own sound, they react similar for varying dynamics, with more attack and crisp to the sound when you really dig in to the strings and a really pleasant warm tone which retains it's clarity when you back off a bit, hence why I decided to use my Strat in the video review - I love how the single coils can clean up really nicely but with with the help of the TubeScreamer can really get quite crunchy when you play hard.

These wooden picks are really unique in their design, and are aimed to a type of player which you wouldn't usually expect to use a wooden pick, however in my opinion these work great for distorted playing, and feel great in the hand. As usual, remember to check out the Iron Age website and follow The Pick on social media.

Vintage Guitar Gear - To update or to leave ft. Watkins Rapier & Dallas Scala

When I was younger I inherited my granddad's electric guitar and amplifier - a Watkins Rapier guitar and a Dallas 6 watt combo. Both the guitar and the amp look great - the guitar is finished in scarlet red, with a black pick guard which just about has the remnants of gold script writing on it, three mini humbucker shaped pickups (I'm not sure if they are actually humbuckers or not) and an interesting pickup selection method. The amp is housed in a mottled grey casing which angles the speaker slightly upwards. The front frame of the amp is a turquoise-blue colour, and the grill cloth is again a mottled grey colour. Whilst they look great, neither the guitar or the amplifier work very well, however I do not know whether to get both repaired (which might involve replacing parts which are original), to leave them both as they are and not use them, or to upgrade them with new, modern pickups, new pots and new wiring.

The guitar has on/off switches for the bridge and neck pickups, allowing the standard two-pickup type guitar combinations with the extra both-off position. There is then a separate on/off switch for the middle pickup. There is also three control pots although these are very temperamental. Unfortunately the high E string is very close to the edge of the neck, meaning that whilst fretting a note on this string it is likely you will slip off the edge of the fretboard. The tuning pegs vary from being very stiff to very loose, and the pickups themselves rattle around a bit in the body. In use, the tuning would rarely return to correct pitch after using the tremolo bar, so I have since blocked it off using a piece of wood.

I doubt this guitar could be brought up to a playable standard using 100% the original parts. The nut seems to be the reason why you tend to slip off the fretboard, so would almost certainly need replacing. The wiring would need to be repaired and the pots cleaned or replaced, and the tuning pegs looked at, but after all these repairs would it be playable and would the quality be good?

Being a gigging guitarist rather than a guitar collector, I'd love to be able to play this guitar live, but to do that it would need some serious work. Starting at the top, I'd get the tuning pegs replaced with something a lot more stable like a set go Gotohs, maybe even locking ones. I'd definitely get the nut replaced and the guitar refretted, maybe get the fingerboard edges rolled but that's just personal preference. I'd replace the pickups with a set of mini humbuckers like the Seymour Duncan Antiquity Firebird set or the vintage mini humbuckers, although I'd have to measure the cavities to ensure they'd fit. I'm almost certain all the wiring would need replacing, with switches and pots being cleaned and replaced if needed. I'd also like to replace the bridge with something more stable and probably no vibrato.

All these improvements and modifications could turn the guitar into one which would be gigable, however there would be little of the original guitar left. The other option is keeping it as original as possible and maybe not use it as much. It's a difficult dilemma, and one I don't yet know the answer to!

Have you ever upgraded an old guitar? Do you think I should spec this one out with new parts or try and get it repaired? Let me know in the comments and on social media.

Pedalboard Build - The Un-Handyman's Guide

A couple of years ago I was looking at pedalboards like the Pedaltrain models which seem to be slightly dominating the market at the moment trying to work out why they are so expensive. I could see that it makes sense to have an angled board so you can easily reach the pedals at the back of your board, plus the gaps between the rows leaves ample room for cabling to look tidy and discreet, but being a student I couldn't afford to pay over £100 for these luxuries, so I planned a way of making my own!

The only material I used was one long piece of wood cut to different lengths. I measured out the amount of space I'd need to occupy my current pedal selection, plus enough room for expansion, then ensured this would fit in my existing flight case (which it just about did), then did my initial sketches. I wanted to have four horizontal rows of wood spread equal distances apart, leaving plenty of room for cables but not too large a gap so that smaller "micro" pedals would not fall through the gaps. These four horizontal rows would be supported by three vertical columns, one at each side and one in the middle. Finally, the last piece of wood would be divided into two equal lengths and placed perpendicular to the top of the pedalboard to angle the pedalboard up slightly.

I worked out the length of wood I would require and what dimensions I wanted the wood to be, then went to my local wood shop and bought a piece. I then used my plan to cut this length of wood to the pre-calculated measurements - four long pieces, three slightly shorter pieces, and two shorter pieces.

Next I laid out all the pieces minus the two supporting bits and used a pencil to mark out where the screws would go. It wouldn't matter if I screwed into the wood from the top of the pedalboard, as I would be covering each row with velcro. After marking out where each screw would go, I measured the depth of the two parts of wood together and found screws which would be long enough to join the two pieces without coming out the bottom of the lower piece of wood. I then drilled holes into each of the screw markings, and finally screwed all the pieces together, including the two supporting pieces to the reader of the board.

I didn't immediately put any finishing on the pedalboard, I was quite happy with the unfinished wooden look at the time, however I have since finished it in a darker wood stain in a matte finish, which I think looks a bit better and doesn't stand out as much on stage. Of course everyone will have their own preferences about colour and finishing, but I would recommend attaching the velcro to the pedalboard before painting it or anything. This is because the strength of the velcro could pull off the paint and come attached. You will just have to be careful when painting it that you don't go over the edges of the velcro!

Hopefully you've enjoyed this little how-to piece about building a pedalboard. Please let me know if you choose to build a pedalboard similar to mine, and show me pictures! Make sure to be following The Pick on social media and remember a new review comes out every Wednesday.

Iron Age Guitar Picks - Carbon Fibre?!

This week is the second review from a large package of Iron Age picks which I received a few weeks ago. Today I'm checking out the carbon fibre picks. I have here two shapes, regular and J3, both 0.60mm thick and made out of 100% carbon fibre.

Being used to a thicker plectrum, I was surprised how tough these picks are. They're by no means solid, but feel more like a pick with a gauge over 1mm. Having a larger surface area, the regular shaped carbon fibre pick has a bit more give to it, which seems to produce a bit of a scratchy feel on the strings when playing lead, but this doesn't happen on the J3 pick, which is good as that's the pick I'm more likely to use when playing fast lead runs.

Both of these plectrums have a bright tone with a clear attack which works very well for solos and articulating rhythmic chord parts, but is sometimes a bit harsh strumming chords. Much like the Iron Age stone picks, the carbon fibre material means the brightness is retained when playing dynamically, enabling expressive playing without losing clarity in a full band mix.

Due to the tightly woven graphite fibres, Iron Age warn on their website that aggressive use may cause dust to come from these picks, and I have too noticed this feature - on both picks there is visible wear on the playing tips after just a short while of playing, but not so much that would alter the tone of the pick. These things are really tough, and no matter how hard I tried I could not break these picks (a pleasant surprise after last weeks pick review, one of which I snapped by accident!).

I have been really impressed by the Iron Age carbon fibre plectrums. Despite being considerably thinner than I like in my plectrums (my custom pick being 5mm thick!), I enjoyed the clarity and brightness that came with these picks. I think that these would word great for guitarists who play heavy rock and metal and perhaps extended range players as they play really fast an will help in cutting your guitar tone through a full rock band mix.

Remember to check out the Iron Age Guitar Accessories website, follow my social medias, and let me know what you think in the comments!