Dr. Gonzo

Oh I actually love the Gears games (even Judgment, which was a bit crap in comparison to the rest of the series) and I've been looking forward to the follow up to Gears 4. But to me it's pretty important they keep the gore in the game, it's a pretty dark game with a dark story and how violent it is plays a big part in the "feel" of the game and the world they've built for the stories. And imo they've got a great story campaign, so it'd be a shame for them to fuck that up. Looking forward to their "tech test" tomorrow for Gears 5, so I guess I'll see how gory it is in just over 24 hours.

Apparently this band's first album was produced by Deep Purple's Ian Gillian, so you might be into that @CaaC (John)

@Mel81x I’ll post a recording one day when I’m better at recording

I’ve always thought the Strymon stuff looks top of the line as far as pedals go. I’m clearly not the target market, but I think they make pedals that always compete as contenders of best pedals of their typed you’ve got the money. They’re sort of mythical to me, tbh. I’ve only heard of how great they are, I’ve never actually gotten to play one of their pedals. I’ve seen videos that pretty clearly demonstrate that they’re top class, but I’ve never even come close to one. Even at guitar shops with good selections. And even if I did... I probably wouldn’t pay that much for a pedal, but I wish I could without thinking about it (because who doesn’t want to be rich). So yeah, you get what you pay for - most definitely. There are some products where quality is almost just assured... but sometimes I’m not sure if the added quality is worth the premium. Obviously that’s not the case if you’re gigging though, because then you’re willing to pay a premium for consistency and durability.

I think every Strymon pedal is incredibly good quality, they look sturdy as fuck and they sound ridiculously good. But holy fuck the prices. I think the HoF is a much more reasonably priced pedal that does just about everything you'd want from the Strymon, tbh. Might not have the same exact sound characteristics as the Strymon… but in all honesty, I'm not sure if it's worth the premium compared to the HoF. Take, for instance, my dream amp: https://www.fortinamps.com/product/mesh-amp/ (not that I'm that into Meshuggah, but that amp can basically cover the full range of all Marshall sounds - from old school 60s rock to modern day extra heavy shit... in an old school single channel Plexi style amp). That is an absolutely insane price for it. I want it so badly, but I'm sure there's other amp manufacturers out there that have their own take on a hot rodded Plexi that are less fucking insane with the prices. It may not sound as good as an amp hand built by Mike Fortin himself (which I think is crazy that I can actually buy an amp Mike Fortin worked on)… but it'd get the job done probably in a substantially similar way to the Meshuggah amp. Having said that though, comparing pedals to amps is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. But apples and oranges are both fucking fruit, so why not compare them sometimes

Was there even smoking in the previous gears? I don't remember it. I guess now that I think about it, I think some people smoke cigars. I particularly don't give a fuck, but they better not tone down the gore.

I wouldn't be surprised if right-wing extremists were dealing with dodgy arms dealers.

You can see that things are this bad because they have

I'm a simple man when it comes to reverb, I like as few knobs as possible and if I'm using any reverb at all it's either one of two situations: 1.) I'm soloing, 2.) I'm playing out of my 6505 at low volumes and just a touch of reverb from the amp's built in reverb makes the low volume sound just a biiiit bigger. I used to have a Boss reverb pedal at some point in my life, when I was in a band and playing back home when I was younger. But generally, I prefer reverb that's built into an amp - although that's not idea if you want to kick it on for just a part of a song. I've always thought the EHX Holy Grail was very cool - but I've never owned or used one. What's your favourite type of reverb? Like Hall. plate, room, spring, etc? I quite like spring reverb (I feel like everyone does) when it's an actual spring reverb unit and it's not digital... and when it is digital, I'm quite partial to plate reverb.

Trying to figure out Logic has been like trying to figure out how to repair a space ship engine. No fucking clue what I'm doing - I can't imagine spending hours configuring a MIDI with any DAW, let alone Logic

I think that’s just the nature of developing young players. Even the ones that look really really good at the youth level might not be ready for regular first team football in the top flight. Some might be late bloomers as well - Connor Coady for example, when he left us after his loan spells it was because it looked like he found his level in the championship. It wasn’t until he was promoted with Wolves many years later that he’s looking like a genuine top flight defender. And kids that were higher rated than him at our youth team are still in the championship or below. Everton clearly have a very good academy with some very talented youth players. But I think the nature of developing young players for a side with ambition in the top flight means a lot of those players don’t break through into the first team unfortunately.

Yeah it's a bit annoying to not have more free time to play games. Lately I've been spending basically all of my free time playing guitar so I've cared less about games, I hadn't realised it had been so long since I even logged into my xbox.

There's almost always delays in large construction projects of that scale too. But it'll be coming within the next 5-6 years, I'd imagine.

Hope it ends up actually being good and not a let down like the final season of GOT.

Just received a text from one of my friends that I play with all the time saying the last time I logged into the Xbox was about a month ago. I knew it'd been a while since I'd last played a game... but that's actually fairly surprising for me. Better log on this weekend to get some use out of my Xbox Live/Game Pass.

Do the games run better docked than in handheld mode? The graphics and frame resolution seem to be much better in handheld mode than docked with my Switch.

No worries mate, it's not like this is WhatsApp and I sent you something days ago. You can always respond whenever - the beauty of a forum . The Maxon's basically just the original manufacturer of the Ibanez TS (because I think Ibanez contracted Maxon out for them). So it'll be like your standard 808 circuit... just made in Japan, rather than China like your Behringer. The Behringer uses the same exact circuit with almost the same exact parts (if not the exact same parts). I don't think it's worth the additional cost of the Maxon based on what I've seen from that guy who runs JHS. It's probably the most common pedal type ever used on guitar and so many brands have their "own take" on that circuitry - but the standard tubescreamer circuitry is generally the same for all of them... and then you consider that Behringer actually makes parts for most pedal manufacturers, I'm fairly confident your Tubescreamer clone is just as good as pretty much every other standard tubescreamer based off those original Ibanez/Maxon TS808 pedals. Some people say the Maxon and original Ibanez pedals are the only tubescreamers that sound like "real" tubescreamers. I think that's a load of bollocks tbh - I've seen so many people use various tubescreamers and their clones, they all sound substantially the same. There's a bit of variance between some of the pedals... but that's true even of the same model pedal from the same model manufacture. The only "clone" that I think sounds noticeably different is the Boss SD-1... and that's not even really a clone because it's got it's own unique circuitry (and has been cloned by other pedal companies itself). But yeah, I think the most traditional use for OD pedals (especially tubescreamers) in metal is as a boost to tighten up their sound. So try it out, I think you'll be pretty pleased with the results. On a side note, that orange Boss pedal - the Boss DS-1, was also my first standalone pedal. It's somewhere at my parents' house now, my dad and I modded the fuck out of it. He still uses it because he's just got an old Fender single channel amp. Good pedal, I love Boss stuff.

Can't play Mario Party with it though, which is a bit of a let down

That good? Maybe I'll stay there instead of at my parents' house the next time I go back home

Anyone seen the YouTube series put out by an account (and person) called Ben Eller, with the series called "this is why you suck at guitar" - going over common flaws in peoples' technique... and then practice routines on how to fix them? Some of them not everyone is going to need - because not everyone is bad at the same things (obviously). But pretty helpful tips (I finally was able to figure out sweep picking thanks to him a few months back, and I'd been trying to learn that for the better part of a decade) - and while the things he'll suggest you practice are "the boring kind of practice" that stuff is important if you want to fix sloppy technique and play better. So I recommend checking those out, if anyone's looking to improve their technique. Any other good YouTubers out there. I've heard good things about Steve Stine (Stein?... idk what his surname is exactly). But I've never checked out his videos.

I don't think we'll sell him just yet. Although it's probably not great for him that the one area of the pitch our reliable journos say we're looking to bring in a squad player is in his position - but I suspect he and the kids will get more chances in pre-season to impress. If the kids all play like the way they did yesterday, with visible hunger and desire to crack into the first team (with some kids looking far more ready than others, tbf) then he'll have a good chance of getting more time on the pitch with us.

I looked the Mod Factory up and it’s literally just what I described, so you might not be able to emulate that pedal but you can emulate a phaser/flanger/chorus/all the other modulation effects that are within that pedal... which is just what you’ve said there. Also what you’ve said about the Strymon pedal was well. By the way Strymon pedals are crazy. I could never justify spending that much on just one effect.

Haha sorry about making your money burn a hole in your pocket. One good thing is that I think now is the best time ever to buy guitar gear for cheap and get some pretty nice tones. One bad thing about guitar gear nowadays is I always see something and think “oh cool, I want that.” That’s why I like modelers, because you get to fuck around and experiment with stuff based off that’d be worth shitloads if you bought the all the amps/cabs/pedals, but all in one nice tidy box. I miss my stolen Helix that was a very nice little toy. Ah well... now I’m off to go drink beer and play guitar for a few hours and that’ll be fun

Sounds fun

Yeah, heard about the dog. Glad to see he got the cute little fucker back. Brewster looked good today, basically everyone did tbh. But it was Tranmere, so it's hard to say if he looks ready for first team football in the top flight. I will say all of the young kids looked very fucking hungry and looked like they all wanted to fight for at least a squad role in the side, which is encouraging - none of that "oh it's pre-season against a small club, let's put no effort in" mentality. Even the more established players looked hungry and up for it, which is good to see. I'd say Brewster was a highlight for the second half, and that Dutch kid Ki-Jana Hoever looked pretty fucking excellent - Clyne scored, but I thought Hoever had a better 45 minutes. Wouldn't be surprised if Hoever's our backup RB for the season. But again, it was only Tranmere so we have to take the performance with a pinch of salt. But the good thing is the kids looked well up for it. We'll be getting Henderson, Trent, Virgil and Gini back on Saturday.