Burlap and Blues, The Blues Blog

Good day to everyone. This is the official announcement of Burlap and Blues contest #8. This is our eighth on line contest (hence the name) and we again will be offering cash as prizes. As an entrant in our last contest Chuckinator 5K has developed the topic for this contest.

The topic for this contest is Acoustic or Clean guitar:

Here is an explanation of the topic.

Acoustic guitar, no backing tracks, drums and percussion are acceptable. Original or cover tunes accepted. Song can't be more than 5 minutes long. Entrant can lay down as many tracks as they want, multi tracking is acceptable. Vocals accepted. Any style accepted except "easy listening". Uh... that's about all I can think of. Electric guitar is also OK if not distorted at all. The use of unnatural sounding effects will detract from your final score.

These are the submission type rules. Here is how scoring will work:

Burlap and Blues active member will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite tunes and score all of the tunes in 3 categories:

1. Favorite tunes
2. Compliance with rules (the best entry may not be the best "complier" with the rules)
3. Natural sounding effects (the best entry may not have the most natural sounding effects)

Each voter will get the opportunity to vote for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each category. In category #1 each first place vote will get 10 points, each 2nd 5, and each 3rd, 2.

An anonymous panel of 2 judges not associated with Burlap and Blues will also listen to each entry and rate in each category first, second and third. The panel's score will be weighted to be equal of that of all of the points submitted by members of Burlap and Blues.

The members of Burlap and Blues will have 7 days (until midnight on the last day) to submit a ranking, any ranking submitted after this time will not be allowed.

The panel has also agreed to have their decision to me within 7 days of receipt of the music.

PRIZES:

First place $30
Second Place $20
Third Place $10

The fine print

Legal Crapola:

Only those who are current and active members of BAB with more than 1 post as of February 14, 2010 and 1 Song Submission are eligible to enter. Again, the decision of the individual judges are final. If you don’t like it, or think you might not, don’t enter. On February 28, 2009, the contest will close. If there are not more than 8 entries, the contest will be prolonged for 1 week to ensure that there are 8 entries. Once the final tracks are uploaded, they will be posted. All community members with 1 post as of February 14, 2010 will be eligible to cast a vote as long as their IP or other identifying feature of their profile does not match that of another member.

In the event of a tie for first with 2 tracks, the first and second place winner will split the first and second place prize total. In the event there is a tie for the second place, the two tied will split the second and third place prize.

By entering this contest you agree to hold Burlapandblues.com, and its business partners harmless. What this means is that you agree if you enter and loose you have no legal whine ability or other legal action etc…..

Anyone found cheating in the voting whatsoever will be disqualified and prohibited from entering contests for the next year.

The next pedal that I would like to give a good review for is the Danelectro Fab Overdrive. This pedal was bought to round out an online order. My order was 91.00 and I was getting hit with $18.00 in shipping charges, and if I purchased $9.00 more I would be eligible for free shipping with my order. So with this in mind I just picked up this Overdrive pedal to round out the order to give it a shot.

For a $15 pedal, this pedal is actually a good buy for the price. It is a pretty good tube screamer clone. The biggest problem that I experienced with this pedal is that it is extremely sensitive to generating noise, even at lower distortion levels. Although with a good amp (A Fender Hot Rod Deville) and this as the only pedal in the chain, I would be very wary in gigging with it. The outer shell is made of a plastic and does not look like it would handle even a guitar being dropped on it. Even with these downfalls, this pedal seems to have found a following and has gotten a great deal of good reviews across the internet. As with most of my overdrive pedals, I also let this one go, but I am not that sad because it was not hard to find a better overdrive.

The next od pedal that I had for a very short time is the DOD Overdrive Fx-50B

Honestly, I never found a spot for this pedal either. I put this in my chain a few times, but ended up giving this pedal away after a few weeks. This is really just a place holder review because I played it more at the store trying it out than I played at home...

In my quest to find the best overdrive and distortion pedal for my tone, I found that the Visual Sound Jekyl and Hyde was a fairly good pedal. Being a double pedal, I found myself only using the TS clone side of the pedal and very rarely if ever stomping on the distortion side. When I found out the Visual Sound was releasing a pedal with 2 TS-808 clones side by side I thought this could be one of the elusive pedals that I have been looking for.

What makes this pedal more useful is the ability to stack two vintage chip model tube screamers. I have liked setting the first in the series at more of a slightly gainy clean signal boost with some added high end, and the second one full gain with the bass boost circuit on. What this gives me is the ability to have a slightly clipped signal that works good with my strat tones without loss of picking styles, and one that is a real creamy distorted sound that has good sustain. If I need more sustain or more sustain with more high end I will kick both of the sides of the pedal on to get that.

Read more

Another distortion pedal that I owned for quite some time that I never really found a place for is the Pro-Co Rat. I had one of the original models and owned this one for the early 90's. One of the bigger problems, is during that time I was playing in a 60's and 70's band that used a mostly all clean tone, so I never really used any distortion at all.

The rat is more of a fuzz distortion with more sustain than the normal distortion of the day. I never found much use for this because at the time I was using a solid state amplifier, so as the ts-9 it disappeared and I don't remember where it went.

As I continue to reflect on all of the different overdrives that I have owned over the years, at some point I will have to post one of the overdrive pedals that I do use and have found a great deal of use for so these blog entries do not seem like a whine-fest.

The first distortion/overdrive pedal that I ever owned was an original Ibanez TS-9. I purchased this in 1988 and never knew what I had. I purchased from a pawn shop and rigged headphones into it to make a small practice amp with a cheap guitar that I owned at the time.

I owned this overdrive pedal and never really played it through an amp and it disappeared somewhere around 1990-1991. I have tried the reissue pedals and they are reported not to be comparable and I am not sure that I like the tone that comes from the reissue...So there really is no review for the original TS-9, but it made for one real vintage crappy sounding practice amp.

One of the best selling distortion pedals in the world is the Boss DS-1. This pedal is a good starting point for many guitarists looking for a distorted sound.

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In my musical life I have searched high and low for the ultimate overdrive pedal. Looking for something with a creamy sustain that allows my picking style to come through has been very difficult. Some have come close, but I have never really gotten there. I also have been searching for that ultimate distortion pedal too, but as close as I can get, I just don't seem to ever find something that has everything that I want.

Without going to some digital effect that sounds grainy, I will spend the next few blogs talking about distortion and overdrive pedals that I have had and that I have previously had.

Burlap and Blues has some of the best funny band names that you will find anywhere. Now our Funny band names are on youtube

The Campbell Soup Co. executive who was behind the enduring brands SpaghettiOs and Chunky Soup has died.

Donald Goerke was 83. A Campbell spokesman confirmed that Goerke died of heart failure Sunday at his home in Delran in southern New Jersey.

Goerke was marketing research director of Campbell's Franco-American line in the early 1960s when his group started dreaming up pasta in shapes that would appeal to kids. He chose the o's. They were marketed with the unforgettable tagline, "Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs."

One of my favorite things growing up was my grandmother gave me cold spagettios with potato chips when I was not feeling well. It has turned out to be one of my favorite comfort foods.

Rest in little circles in meat sauce.

Our BAB radio has been not functioning properly do to some changes in the player. Well, I finally decided to get off my duff and fix the player. The new BAB radio player will randomly play from the latest 50 submitted tunes. Just select the BAB radio and allow the popup or go to http://burlapandblues.com/babradio.html

I keep hearing people talking about blowing their new years resolutions in the first week. I have always been a fan of setting realistic short term goals, but why set your self up.

Make a good list.

Don't gargle with peanut butter
Don't be upset when your wife buys you a new guitar
and Smile when you get invited to go on tour with BB King.

All resolutions you can keep