00:00I don't know. I've been into phaser lately. I have no idea why. I've never had a phaser pedal
00:04until like six months ago. I was just like, dude, phaser's dope. I love the phaser. Where
00:10has this been? It's like, yeah, it's been here the whole time, you know?
00:20Yes. So the first thing I'm running through is the Shure DLX16 wireless. This one works
00:26really great. I've noticed that it has great range, especially there was some shows with
00:31Wolfpack where I was like going into the balcony and just doing like this Phantom of the Opera
00:35sort of like gimmick, which was fun. And other wireless units didn't work that far. This
00:42one did. I keep it. It's got a tuner built into it, which is wonderful. Great wireless rig.
00:50That goes right into my Quad Cortex. In the Quad Cortex, I am using the Archetype Corey
00:58Wong plugin that I made with Neural DSP. Now, as of the day that we're recording this, it's
01:04not available on the Quad Cortex because it's going to be in a later update, but I'm just
01:10kind of working on tweaking it. They had to recode all the stuff to make it work from the
01:15plugin to the Quad Cortex. I don't know. They're on different platforms or something, but
01:20I've been dialing this in. Sounds fantastic. Honestly, for like the last 18 months,
01:26all I've been using is this. And I'll be honest, I tried to use some of the other stuff.
01:35I loaded in some other IRs and it's great. It's cool. Fantastic. I mean, the thing about modeling
01:40is it's come so far that, I mean, all the companies are killing it right now in that realm, but
01:48I am very, very, very particular about clean tone and the roundness of the top end and the
01:57punchiness of the top end and just how it all responds. Clean tone seems to be one of the things
02:03that has been really hard for the modeling stuff to get. Like it definitely sounds right,
02:10but it doesn't always feel right. I don't know how to describe it other than that. I'm sure you've
02:16probably played through stuff. And then after like an hour, you're like, ah, I don't, I'd rather play
02:20through an amp, you know, but if you have the right gear, it's just like, I don't really care.
02:24It sounds and feels great. It does the thing. So when I finally got that on here, it's all I've
02:32ever
02:33used. I don't know. There's just certain things about clean tone that I still have not really felt
02:40anything the same other than this, um, than my plugin. It's, it's all I've used on my recordings
02:45for the last couple of years also. So my plugin on here in the effects loop, I'm running into the
02:51Wampler Wong compressor, go figure. Uh, it's a compressor boost that also has a DL, DI out on it,
03:00an XLR out. I wanted that because a lot of times when I'm recording at home, I'm recording direct.
03:06And a lot of times when I'm, uh, when I'm playing bass, I just want to use a compressor with
03:12a little
03:12bit of a boost and then have that as an out, which is great. That runs into the Hotone Wong
03:22Press, which is a volume wah. And that can also be an expression pedal. Now, some people have been
03:28like, Oh, it's just the same thing as a Soul Press 2, you know, just more expensive. Kind of,
03:35but is a Squier Strat the same as a Fender Strat? No. Is an Apiphone Les Paul the same as
03:40a Les Paul,
03:40a Gibson Les Paul? No. Similar thing here. Basically the Soul Press 2 that they make is
03:47a very affordable, pretty good sounding volume wah, uh, in the same looking package. But what I found
03:55using it is I always needed to bring a backup on tour just because of flying and getting thrown
04:02around in the trailer on the bus and all that. So I asked them, Hey, can you make one with
04:06like a
04:06metal chassis and up like really just road worthy? And then can you make it so the, the lights are
04:15different when it's volume or when it's wah? And can you change the cue a little bit? And can you,
04:21they're like, Hey, hold on a minute. Let's, let's do this thing together. I'm like, yes,
04:27absolutely. Great. I just want to do it because this is what I want out of my volume wah. I
04:31found
04:32a lot of volume wahs. Well, I didn't find actually many volume wah pedals other than things that I
04:38could program into digital. Um, but volume pedal wise, there was ones that were either way too big
04:46and by too big that not actually, but I have a pretty compact pedal board. I like this to be
04:51able to fit in my suitcase if I want. So I wanted a smaller one, but the mini volume pedals,
04:56I just
04:57felt like the fulcrum was just, it's just not enough to hang on to, to feel comfortable in the
05:02sweep. So this one felt great to me. Um, it's a great volume. And then I kick on the front.
05:30Great wah. So this has a classic and a modern setting on the wah and there's a cue switch. So
05:36I have it set like the, when it's all at noon, it's just my preferences, but I also know not
05:42everybody has the same taste in wah as me. So I wanted to make sure that they had something
05:46different. Um, but it's cool. Cause it can also be an expression pedal. Um, then this goes into
05:54the optimist overdrive, which I helped design with Jackson audio. So it's two overdrives
06:02and it's got an EQ. If you press on this, are you noticing a trend? I like multiple things out
06:08of
06:08my pedals. You know, it's like, if it's going to take up space on the board, man, it better really
06:12do
06:13it's job. You know, it better have multi tuner and wireless boost and compressor to two drives and a
06:22EQ, a volume and a wah. Yeah. And then this is like everything else, but, um, fantastic overdrives.
06:30One of them is more in the, in the tube screamer family, but not trying to be a tube screamer.
06:36And
06:37one of them's in the clon-ish family, but not necessarily trying to be a clon. Uh, and the EQ
06:42is cool because it kind of gives me different types of mid range in my guitars. So the Stratocaster,
06:49obviously it's very much, it's its own thing, but, um, there's a, the boost on the Wong compressor,
06:57you can either be a flat boost or a mid bump that kind of emulates the Clapton mid boost circuit
07:03out
07:03of his Strat. So if I turn on the mid side of that with the boost, it kind of gives
07:09me, it leans me
07:11towards Clapton, that sort of Strat sound. And on this one, I have it set. So the mids are just
07:17bumped
07:17up a little. When I turn on that EQ, it kind of leans my Strat tone. It just like goes
07:23right into
07:23John Mayer land. So it's, it's very interesting that different bumps in the mid range can kind of
07:31get your same instrument, a little voice, voiced a little bit differently. Um, yeah, I don't know.
07:40I mean, in, yeah, in a similar way, I've, I've said this in other things before. It's, it's like almost
07:44to me, like, um, you could kind of say that in a certain way that James Taylor and Paul Simon
07:51have
07:52similar voices, but they're very different, you know, in, in certain songs, I'm like, yeah,
07:56it kind of sounds similar, but it's like, there's Paul Simon. There's James Taylor.
08:05Not that I can, uh, reduce them down to a button switch on my pedal board, but that's how I
08:10imagine
08:11in my head is like, there, there's certain things that they can accomplish in their vocal delivery
08:16and style, but, um, obviously tone affects so much. So yeah, on my pedal board in the quad cortex,
08:24you know, so this goes, yeah, back in on the effects loop. And within this, I have a couple
08:28overdrives here. I have an envelope filter, phaser, Leslie, octaver, uh, stereo delay and a stereo
08:40reverb. Would you like to hear them? We would. So, uh, the overdrives on here, I mean, it's nice to
08:49just be able to have basically four different types of drive from this. So on the quad cortex
08:53one, these are the ones from my plugin. So if I play, you know, and I stack them, they stack
09:11really nice. Stack, great. The octaver's cool.
09:49You can kind of do some cool stuff with that. Um, phaser, it's fun. I don't know. I've been
09:56into phaser lately. I have no idea why I've never had a phaser pedal until like six months
10:02ago. It's just like two phasers dope. I love the phaser. Where's this been? It's like, it's
10:07been here the whole time, you know? Cool. Phaser. Who knew? Everybody else. But, uh, that's
10:36the fun thing about guitar bells. Like I, I wasn't really into something like, oh, I just
10:39start pulling stuff up on here. And all of a sudden I'm like, oh man, I like this. This
10:44is cool. I got to start using it in, um, in my recipes, you know, but not overdo it. Leslie's
10:50fun to have. It's cool. Nice Leslie on here. It's a stereo Leslie too. Um, stereo delay.
11:11This is basically the same patch, but just different. Um, stereo delay is cool to have for...
11:17this is in again.
11:46This is a stereo!
11:47This is a stereo!
12:06So that sort of thing, it really kind of adds this undercurrent thing to it, which is fun.
12:13And it's nice for soloing too sometimes.
12:37You know, widens me up.
12:39But the reverbs on this are also really fantastic.
12:43The one, sometimes I'll use one, I mean, most of the time when I'm playing my driving funk
12:47thing, I'm going to have it as dry as can be because I want it to be that.
12:52Oh, sorry.
13:03I just want it to be right in your face sort of thing.
13:06But sometimes if I'm playing a line, you know, you want a little bit of something in there.
13:14So this is just kind of a plate that I add.
13:17But then they have these really, really beautiful long verbs.
13:20There's the...
13:49And it's just kind of a plate that I'm playing and it's just kind of a plate that I can't
13:50have.
13:50And it's just kind of a plate that I want it to be.
13:50So this is just kind of a plate that I want to see.
14:01nice long verbs and I kind of with a lot of these reverbs the default settings they still keep in
14:09a little more low end and a little more top end and one of the things that I like to
14:15do with these
14:15sort of verbs that especially are going to last for a while is I'll cut the lows so that way
14:21stuff
14:21that's ringing over doesn't kind of build up I've noticed that a lot of a lot of long reverbs and
14:29things like this module modulation reverbs stuff that's going to last more than one second if
14:34there's a lot of low end in the verb itself it just starts to get really muddy and um yeah
14:42it starts
14:43to sound it's hard to comprehend what's happening in the in any of the transients so I take out a
14:51lot of the low end in the reverb and I actually take out some of the high end too so
14:55that way
14:56what I'm actually playing shines through a little bit more and the reverb is just this kind of warmer
15:03thing that you know blossoms around it but really what I was trying to emulate with this is the big
15:12sky the big sky bloom and cloud reverbs are insane they're so beautiful and the Valhalla
15:19uh reverb plugins are also just my my absolute favorite um the vintage verb and the shimmer verb
15:28but I was able to recreate some of those in this this one is the modulated reverb yeah I'm doing
15:36a high
15:37high pass at 214 honestly my gut I would if I if you were like what did you put your
15:44high pass at I
15:44would have thought it was like 400 but I guess I let a little more low in cool whatever um
15:50that's the
15:51interesting thing though is that I've been road testing this stuff for like a year so I just make
15:56these tiny tweaks like oh last night it felt like the reverb was a little too muddy make a little
16:01adjustment
16:02then the next day oh no it wasn't you know playing all these different rooms and all these different
16:07settings with different in-ears in a studio into monitors so um it's just like mixing an album you
16:14just kind of make little adjustments to compromise for whatever settings you're in to make sure it
16:19you know is the most universally accepted and best sounding so yeah
16:32you know
16:40so
16:42so
16:42so
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