I always struggle with the strings of my acoustic guitar because Im so used to playing an electric guitar. So I've looked online on where to buy a super light tension acoustic guitar strings and I've found one. It's the D'Addario EZ890 Super Light Acoustic Strings.
It's really nice, made a big difference to the tension of my Fender DG60CE and the sound is also very good. You will find it a bit odd though that the third string is also steel and not round wound. Also it's super light that you think you are using an electric guitar. It might sound a bit thin if you are use to gauge 10 strings. But apart from that, it's a lovely set of strings.
Things you need to know about Digitech RP55 before you buy
Here's the quick overview of the pedal. It's a very simple-to-use multieffects pedal. Just two pedals; up and down to change effects. Editing is straight forward, using the edit button which are left and right. Then another set of buttons left and right to change values and also acts as your master volume. Then a store button to save patches. Use up and down foot pedals to scroll location on where you'd like to save your patch. It has built-in tuner and you can activate it by simultaneously pressing the two foot pedals and hold for 2 seconds. To activate bypass mode, just press the two foot pedals simultaneously, like a quick tap only. Just watch the videos below for a quick run through of the pedal.
This pedal has 80 patches in total, 40 presets which you can't edit and 40 user patches for you to edit and save. Here's the first 20 preset patches:
Here's the second batch of the video. Preset patches from 21-40. Just to have an idea of what it sounds:
This pedal has a built-in drum machine for practise. You an turn it on by pressing drums. Then you can change the patterns as well as the tempo and level by pressing the Edit button to highlight Pattern, Tempo or Level. Then you can adjust by pressing the button (Values/Master). Just watch the video below to see how to do it and hear the drum patterns so you got some ideas before you buy this pedal
Amp Sim list and corresponding sound copied
Blackface (b): based on the ‘65 Fender Blackface Deluxe Reverb amp (Fender 2×12 Twin Reverb Cabinet)
Boutique (o): based on the ‘01 Mesa/Boogie Mark II amp (Mesa/Boogie Vintage 30s Cabinet)
We've been playing this song for a while now. It was about 5 years ago I think when I joined Crossedwind (a band from Norwich) and we played this song. I was using Digitech RP55 that time and I just improvised by connecting an expression pedal on the unit. I think I wrote a blog about my Digitech RP55. So, just have a look on that one.
Now back on this Zoom G1xOn quest for Tom Morello's patch setting on the song Like A Stone by Audioslave. I looked online actually on what effects he was using and then try and copy it using my Zoom G1xOn. It didn't work. I looked on YouTube and found Chris Benton, check him out guys he's got loads of patches using Zoom G1On. Having said that, I copied his settings but because he was using Zoom G1On, it doesn't have an expression pedal to act as a Whammy pedal. But still the intro, verse and chorus were all great patches so I copied it.
Now on the guitar solo part, that was the most difficult one. I continue to search for the patch setting via YouTube and even online community and for some reason when I go started again to really get Tom Morello's tone, I accidentally used my Slash tone patch and just added the Whammy which is PdlMnPit effects by Zoom and edit the parameters and play around with the effect chain. Plus I added delay which I already knew about it because on my previous settings where I covered this song Like A Stone, I have always used the delay for the guitar solo. And yes, jackpot, I found that tone.
Note: I did a video about Effects Pedal Chain on my YouTube and also a blog about Quest for Slash Tone. Please watch it because it might help you as well to learn and know more on how I customize or setup my Zoom G1xOn.
Here's my simplified version of Like A Stone, the first settings that I did. This might help as well for you to understand or use on other effects pedal that you might have.
Our quest for Slash tone doesn't stop by using only Zoom G1xOn, there's loads of factors and obstacles to consider. First is the guitar Im using. Although, it has humbucker pickups but it's totally different guitar from Slash. It's a Silvertone SRK1 SG copy guitar. Pickups were changed to Warman Zebra humbuckers. I don't have an amp so we are using the Zoom G1xOn amp simulator for our Marshall amp, which is MS Drive so that there's a bit of distortion. Then I added Plate reverb to it so that it will have like a delay/echo for doing some lead stuff. That's all that there is in terms of gear. Now on the guitar, I mainly use the neck pickup and put volume all the way up and then tone between 1-2.
Oh by the way, the MS Drive settings are Gain: all the way up, Tube: 40 and Level: 103. Then the Plate reverb was just added as an effects and did not change any of the parameters. Now, let's put this patch to the test.
Now, that we know it's working and it did sounded great. We will add some more effects to it and save some more patches on our Zoom G1xOn as Slash's patch.
Our clean patch is going to be same amp simulator but this time just the MS 1959 so that it has less gain. Then, will add some chorus effects and Hall reverb. Will save it as Slash Chorus.
Then, we will save our Slash lead as our second patch. So that from clean tone and we want to jump to lead, it's just the next patch. But this time, we will add Wah effects on our previously saved patch. We will use Wah100 which is copied from an Ibanez wah pedal.
Our last patch is our crunch patch with a bit of delay. Slash used this on the intro of Welcome to the Jungle. And that's it, that completed our quest for Slash's tone. Hope you like it. Here's the video for detailed settings of the patches we made.
