But I also remember the first time I walked into Mars Music and tried to buy strings for that guitar. Before I purchased it, my guitar had been sitting a long time and the strings were beyond dead. As a cello player I had the experience to know to put new strings on it. There was no doubt about that. I could hear how completely lifeless they were. Not to mention rusty.
So I walk up to the guitar string counter at Mars Music. There were over 200 types of strings hanging on the wall. I ask the salesman "What strings do I need to put on this guitar?"
He said, "He didn't know. They were all good."
I just looked at him, and thought, "Um, isn't this your job?"
For the record my guitar was/is a 1998 Paragon Music Center (PMC) copy of a Joe Pass hollow-body guitar. It was built in the same factory as the Epiphones at that time. It's only difference was the headstock design. It actually came stock with Epiphone pickups.
So I ask the salesman, "Well, I see the sets come in different sizes. What size do I need?"
He asked if he could check out my guitar. I said, "Sure."
He replied, "Yeah, those are 10's on there."
"So I guess I should buy some 10's?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Okay, what brand do you recommend?"
"I dunno."
I started to get a little perturbed. "I just bought this guitar a few days ago. I need to put some strings on it. What should I do? I don't know jack squat about any of the brands."
So he ended up handing me a pack of GHS 10's. In some weird way I'm glad he did. After playing for 20 years I like GHS strings the best. They have the best bite to them, and they work for my style of playing.
But then a month goes by, and I decide I need a distortion pedal. Again, I go up to the Mars Music counter, and see hundreds of pedals. What am I to do? Where do I start? This time I asked a different salesman. Might I say this was also before YouTube and websites that would let you hear what a pedal sounded like before you went to the store.
I tell him what I want, and he says, "Why not try out the DOD Grunge pedal?" Long story short, I ended up trying it out, and buying it. I'll say this, it was a good starter pedal. But also looking back there were much better choices out there.
Now I think of today's new guitarists. They have ten times the choices that I had! That goes from guitars, pedals, pickups, amps, picks, cables, mods, etc. Where does a new guitarist start? The good news is they have YouTube and guitar forums. That's a huge help. I personally have learned a lot about electronics from the internet.
One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome was music's "marketing language." You see, a brand can't really say, "This is our take on Marshall's blah, blah, blah." No, that's trademark infringement. So companies have these code words they use to describe when their gear has a similar sound to another companies' product.
It goes like this:
American Rock Sound = Fender.
British Rock Sound = Marshall.
California Sound = Mesa Boogie.
When they can't say "Les Paul" or "Les Paul style" guitar, they say, "LP" or "Single Cutaway."
When they can't say "Stratocaster" they say, "Double Cutaway."
If you read study enough and look around the internet you'll start to pick up the lingo. And why is that important? Because like I said earlier, todays' musician has more choices than ever before.
When I started the very first distortion pedal everyone usually bought was the Boss DS-1 Distortion.
It's a simple circuit and has been used by many famous guitarists despite being a relatively cheap pedal. For years you could buy one new for $39.99. Heck, Kurt Cobain used this pedal on a lot of Nirvana's songs, especially on the their first release "Bleach."
Today, the pedal market is at an all time high for the sheer number of pedals on the market. You have the brands that have been there for a while, "Boss, Digitech, and Electro Harmonix." You have also more custom builders now than there ever has been. And then you have everyone at every price point in-between.
Lately TC Electronics has been making some great pedals at a dang good price point. During a holiday sale two years ago they had a special going at Guitar Center. Three pedals for $99. You have to remember back when I bought that DOD Grunge pedal, it cost $54.99 in 1998.
With inflation think of what that pedal would cost today. The CPI Inflation Calculator says that would be $87.85 in today's money. And those were the cheap pedals! So this leads to the question, "Well, how good can TC Electronics' pedals be if they are that inexpensive?"
To be honest, I have found them shockingly good. I love their Choka Tremolo pedal. The Nether Octave is a great octave for it's price point. The El Mocambo is one of the best Tubescreamer clones I have heard. I'll say it this way, it works for me. It may not be for everyone, but it works for me.
So when I saw that TC Electronic had a pedal called the Grand Magus I was immediately interested.
What surprised me was how many I found on the used market. Unlike a lot of TC Electronics' products this one didn't have as many good reviews. I listened to a few clips of it on the internet, and was really on the fence about it. It sold new for $50, and used for $25 plus shipping.
I ended up pulling the trigger on one, and couldn't wait to plug it in when it arrived. I immediately loved it. So what changed my mind? There are quite a few reasons. Let me start at the beginning.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give any beginning metal guitarists, is that, there are two main ways of EQing your amp. I'm going to keep it overly simple because again, I want to speak to a beginner. First up is what I'll call, "The Metallica way." On your EQ knobs you turn up your treble and bass, and turn down or (scoop) the mids. Dimebag Darrell's signature sound was also like this.
Next up, we have what I'll call, "The Slayer way." Think of Slayer's song, "Seasons in the Abyss." That first really heavy cord you hear? That's mids baby. Slayer uses what they call the "frowny face" EQ. They turn town the bass and treble and crank up the mids.
So the "overly simple" explanation is there are two main EQ's when playing metal. #1. Scooped mids, or #2. Lots of mids. Players tend to be in one camp or or the other with no in-between. The scooped sound is all the rage, but your bass can be lost when playing with an actual bass player. I'm in the camp that says, "Mids are where the angry lives."
Marshall's sound is known for their full midrange sound. This is due to their use of EL-34 tubes. The Grand Magus pedal has a lot of mids. When you go to the Grand Magus webpage they use every bit of musician lingo to try to let you know this is a Marshall type of sound.
There are a few reasons I didn't care for the reviews online. First, recording and making mids sound right is tough. It tends to come through as buzzy. Then, when that same clip is played through computer speakers it sounds even worse.
The other reason I didn't care for the reviews online is for something you wouldn't think of. The tone control on the Grand Magus pedal is extremely wide. It's so wide you can get a bad sound out of it. Think of it this way. The doom/stoner metal crowd is a big fan of Orange amps. To me they always sounded muddy with no harmonics, but to each their own.
Well, the tone control on the Grand Magus is so wide that you can get into that doom/stoner metal territory. But if you turn the tone control up, you can get that classic Marshall sound. I also want to give TC Electronic props for having the gain control have such a wide distortion. You can use this pedal for slight blues breakup to full blown Marshall stack. One thing you'll learn is a lot of pedals' gain knob maxes out of 12 O'clock. The Grand Magus makes full use of the gain control.
I realize I may get a lot of hack on this post. I'm sure a lot of more experienced musicians will say, "So you think a $25 pedal is good?" I'm saying I wish when I started it was the first pedal I bought. It would have been a lot more useful to me than the DOD Grunge.
And for the record, my "good" pedal is a Hughes and Kettner Tube Factor pedal.
But I'm not going to tell a new player they should buy a $279 pedal right out of the starting gate. I'm saying if a new player wants that mid heavy Marshall sound at a decent price, buy a used TC Electronic Grand Magus. It will be a great decision. Also if they hate it, they can get their money back on it by selling on Craigslist.
So to my beginner guitar players. You have many choices out there. Remember this. You vote with your dollars. That goes for anything in life. My small amount of advice to you is this. If I was the salesman at Mars Music, and I had a first time pedal buyer asking me about the first pedal I should buy, it would be the TC Electronic Grand Magus. (Note: Yes, I realize they didn't exist back in 1998.)
For those players who say, "No man! I want that mid-scooped sound!" Well, you can always buy a Biyang Tonefancier Metal End King. That will sure scoop the hell out of your mids.
