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My second amp – a Silvertone Sears modell 26122

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I can’t believe what you can find out there online.

I was writing a post today and as usual, drifted into la la land. Or should I say down memory lane.

I came across this guys site and he had the same amp that I had when I was in grade 7, I think. It was called a Sears-Simpson 12-watt head .

This amp was purely for looks. It had a huge cabinet that was very impressive to look at for the uninitiated guitar player wanna be. I do believe it only had a 12 inch speaker but the big black box made it look like many more were hiding in there.

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I just kept this thing around and used it to play through until I was given my HIWATT. After a while I had a great idea on what to do with this under utilized big black box. I just to put it underneath my HIWATT to make it look even bigger. Boy was I the cat’s meow back in the day.

The speaker box was very light but durable. I never tried to hook it to the HIWATT because I thought that the speaker cones (the little round things in the middle of speakers) would end up being shot out it to the other side of a room.

This is the amp that I had to use my BOSS Distortion DS-1 with because it had no distortion on it at all. Now I know why it didn’t, because it was a bass guitar amp! This was a true case of size over substance.

Keep on Jammin’




TestFreaks reviews Television brands and models

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A couple of years ago, the wife and I, decided to get a new TV. Well it wasn’t so much as decided to get a new TV, our Sony was dying! We’d turn it on and it would take 15 to 30 minutes to warm up and show us what was on the television screen. We thought about getting it fixed, but getting it fixed would cost about the same amount as buying a brand new regular TV of the same size. That’s when we decided to not only get a new TV, but to get one that was HDTV ready.

I only wish that I’d discovered the Testfreaks.com website before we went hunting for a new television. The TestFreaks site has LCD and Plasma TV articles. Reading the articles of the various television brands and models would have made picking out a new TV so much easier since it has so many TV ratings.

Well, I’ve found the site now, and I’m bookmarking it. When we get around to renovating our basement the DLP TV that we did end up purchasing may get moved to the basement, or we might end up getting another new TV for either the living room or renovated basement. The TestFreaks site will come in handy the next time I’m doing research on the different types of televisions and brands.

If you’re shopping for a new television set be sure to look at the articles on TestFreaks before you make your final decision.

My Medal Pedal – Boss Distortion DS-1

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I honestly did not use this pedal much after obtaining my 50 watt, HIWATT 1/2 stack, but it was invaluable until I did. This was the first pedal that I got when I was like the kid that Jerry Doucette sang about in his greatest song ever, “Mamma let that boy, play some Rock & Roll”.

It was overpowering at first, for a young kid. That was in the pre-metal/experimental years.

Eventually I learned to tame it, or was it the other way around, interesting? I had dropped that thing so many times I can’t remember but as they say, “takes a beating”!

Some of my friends used the Over Drive pedal. I just thought that it was not what I wanted my music to sound like. It was too rough and not well defined, honest – that is what I said when I was a kid!

Which one do you like?

Keep on Jammin’

Learn about promoting your site at the Apogee Search Blog

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My wife is the person that set up this site and does all the maintenance on it – like adding new features and promoting the site when she finds new directories to list our sites in. However, I’m slowly learning a bit about promoting sites.

Not everyone has time to work on promoting and optimizing their own sites – especially if you are running a small to large business. That’s were Search engine marketing firms such as Apogee Search come in. Apogee has been in business since 2001 and in that time it has grown to become one of the largest search engine marketing firms in the world.

Apogee works hard to promote their clients websites using proven marketing methods – paid search, affiliate marketing, natural search, and pay-per-call. They even have a Search engine marketing service that set completely sets up and customizes Pay Per Click accounts for your business or website.

I personally enjoy reading the Apogee Search Blog from time to time. There’s always great information about marketing and optimizing resources.

Their most recent post “Why I’m not a fan of Google Sitemaps” was full of helpful information. We use Google sitemaps on our sites to help get new posts and pages indexed faster. I didn’t realize how important it was to have good internal linking on your site to help promote new pages though. Read the article for more information on how to use Google sitemaps to your best advantage.

Anyone working on promoting their own site should bookmark the Apogee Search blog. Every time I visit the blog I learn something new.

My first Chorus pedal

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It was the Boss CE-2. Boy, those were simpler days.

This was my 2nd peddle that my great parents bought for me. I was the first in my direct and indirect circle of Brantford musicians to have this one.

I thought that it was a peddle that Alex Lifeson used. It was that good at reproducing the songs and effects that he used!

I almost died when the one of the knobs broke off this baby when I was going from a friend of mine to back home for the night. I thought that it was broken beyond repair. Yes, I very naive back then, electronically challenged you might say.

Here is The Illustrated History of Boss products that will make you become nostalgic or laugh your butt off! I was doing both.

In a Musician.com article, it says it all. A very simple pedal for a simple guitar player.

Keep on Jammin’

APEX 420 Home or Studio Mic

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The APEX 420 microphone is just fabulous for anyone who uses it for home, professional settings, or even live settings. The greatest upside in my eyes is it’s durable construction. Remember, when some closet superstar singer comes over to your house/studio to see this thing, you won’t have to worry about them damaging it when the get their curious fingers all over it. It’s nice to have a scratch resistant finish as well.

I was first introduced to it by Rick Jones, of the Toronto renowned G-Force Media Productions Team. It’s a great product that they use with stunning results. Rick has used this item to capture the voice qualities of soft, hushed tones of his customers to the aggressive Rock/Hip Hop extremes, effortlessly. He has even used it for some of my cuts using my Larrivee L-03 acoustic. The G-Force Media Production page is in the redesign stage now, but when the redesigned site is up you’ll be able to listen to music and audio samples and hear for yourself how nice the Apex 420 microphone’s sound really is.

It is used for various jobs. It is basically a pressure condensed mic. If you have the time, research this type of mic, it’s impressive. You will be able to make it switch from a directional or omni-directional mic. In live gigs it offers excellent feedback rejection and better isolation of the sound that you want, not the sounds that just show up for the hell of it.

So if you get the chance to use this mic then do it, it’s worth the drive. If anyone is in the Toronto Area, give Rick a call and listen for yourself.

Keep on Jammin’

Finger picks?

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Has anyone ever tried these things? The last time I tried them was when I was trying to figure out the banjo! They are silver coloured picks that are used to pluck the strings from bottom of the string upwards. They can be sized to any finger. One size pretty much fits all I think.

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They are fine for this finger style technique but my style has my fingers moving both upwards and downwards as well.

This is where the problem begins. The tip of the pick tends to go under the string when I move in an upwards motion on the strings. No matter how careful I am at a fast picking, I still run into this problem.

Does anyone have an idea to this problem?

Keep on jammin’

My old trusty Roland BOSS Flanger BF-1

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This unit is a vintage pedal to be used with guitar and keyboards. The effects with this pedal is just awesome! It works like a dream when I play Spirit of Radio, Lime Light or Red Barchetta. It phases in and out with mind blowing effects.

If you are a keyboard player, you might want to take a very close looks at this pedal. It can give you a sound similar Leslie Amplifier. The closest to it that is out there. Many other accomplished keyboardist have similar views.

When I was jamming with Tony F., the best keyboardist I’ve ever had the honour to play with live, he wanted to give my pedal a try. To our amazement, it was the best sound that we had ever heard. Tony had the foresight and ear to know that a Leslie Amp. is the best thing going for the serious keyboardist. So he actively was searching for a pedal to give him that desired effect. Little did he know, he had the answer that he was looking for all the time, literally right in front of him!

If you are not aware, Leslie Speakers/Cabinets are speakers inside the cabinet that rotate, yes rotate to give you that natural whirling sound. They are those big wooden boxes that you see in church choir lofts. This will make you think twice when looking up at the band upstairs thinking that there are no undiscovered secrets in a church!

When the old band got together for a re-union show a couple of years ago, Tony told me that he still had that old pedal and that it still had the box and manual with it. It’s really nice to know that there are still very decent people roaming around the planet like him, a real throw back to gentler days.

On this Boss Flanger site you can hear the sound that you get from it. Check it out you vintage sound seekers. It also has a great picture at the bottom of the page.

Use the PaidByCash card online just like a credit card

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Don’t have a credit card, but want to purchase services or products online? Now you can with the new PaidByCash virtual Mastercard.

For the longest time we didn’t have a credit card. We’d misused ours in the past and had poor credit from being behind in payments. When our credit was finally ok again we still didn’t rush to get a credit card because we were afraid we’d fall into the trap of using it for things we didn’t have the money to pay for on our own.

As a result of this we missed out on opportunities to purchase items online at lower prices than in retail stores, and we couldn’t sign up for various internet related services like online games easily either. Now we have a credit card, but I still like the idea of a Virtual Mastercard as I can pay for items online right away with cash that I’ve already deposited into the cards account.

That’s right. With the new PaidbyCash service you can add money to your account and use the card online just like you would a credit card. The only major difference is, as I said, that you are paying for your purchases right away rather than on credit because you are using cash that you already put into the card.

This service will come in handy for those that like to play online games but couldn’t in the past because of a lack of credit card, and for those that want to purchase items at lower online prices too.

The PaidByCash card is accepted by pretty much every internet retailer, so you don’t have to worry that you’ll only be able to use it in a few places.

Check it out for yourself and see if you think this is great idea too.

Listen to great new musical artists at Unsigned.com

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A couple of months ago my wife introduced me to this great new site called Unsigned.com. It’s a site dedicated to giving independent music and vocal artists an outlet to be heard on the internet.

The site is a great place for unsigned artists to create a profile and upload their music. The website now has over 4000 artists and listeners using the site on a regular basis. When visiting the site you can find musicians that play in a variety of genres such as Rock, grunge, hip hop, metal, country, jazz, and New-Wave Artists. The variety is fantastic, and I’m sure anyone who loves music and enjoys discovering new bands will like Unsigned.com.

I mentioned New Wave artists because, believe it or not, I used to really enjoy new wave music. New wave has changed since it first came out in the 80’s but it’s still a great genre. At this time there’s 13 different artists listed in the New Wave category. You should visit and have a listen, or if New Wave isn’t your thing check out some of the other types of music that the independent artists have uploaded. You’ll be hooked on Unsigned.com before you realize what’s happening.

When I get my act together I’m going to have to upload some of my work onto the site. Then you’ll be able to hear some of my music too. Come to think of it, I’ve got a few friends that would probably be interested in Unsigned.com. If they upload their music I’ll be sure to let you know.

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