Useful Stuff Vol. 2

[@LeonTodd]

What useful stuff got you through 2021? What do you want to pick up in 2022?

[@n0nyabznss]

The P-Split has me intrigued....

[@lyleanderson5407]

Three things come to mind 1.) Small backup amp pedal or head. I would highly suggest the back up have a line out. 2.) longer speaker cable hooked up to combo's speaker for use in the event a main amp tanks you can still use the combo's speaker powered by a backup head 3) Backup dirt pedal or small effects unit in event the the main does not function.

[@jjmackey3101]

Not a piece of gear, but I'd say joining your Discord server was just as impactful as any gear that I acquired this year (if not more). Being able to ask and answer questions, share and review recordings and practice material, work towards goals with like-minded individuals - among many other things - has been huge for me. Easily the best guitar/music community I've been a part of.

[@JeffHendricks]

100%.

[@LeonTodd]

You've been crushing it, the inspiration is rubbing off here too dude!

[@paulgiannamore-guitar9195]

The piece of gear that really helps out in my studio is a rack mount power supply. There are pieces of gear that do not have a power switch and I can plug them into this and turn them on and off as needed. I can also have lighting setup to turn on when I need it. It helps me keep thing very neat and organized and makes the workflow a lot easier when I am working on projects. The piece of gear I am most looking for is a solution to easily switch from my different modelers, preamps and amps without having to plug and unplug cords all the time. I was looking at a patch bay, but this video turned me onto a line mixer. Wondering if that is the solution. Thanks for the video.

[@psychoshredder4139]

A tip for your axe fx case. Spray the foam with rubber vehicle undercoat paint. The foam flakes off over time but if you spray ut with the rubber undercoat paint or rubber spray paint they are both sold at walmart or your local vehicle part store. Put 2 to 3 coats and you will never replace it again. Try it on a small peice of foam and trust me you'll thank me later. The light coat of rubber makes the foam last a lifetime!

[@LeonTodd]

Brilliant!

[@AHGrayLensman]

Perhaps the best US$35 I spent on gear in 2021 was for a Happy Valley Analog "Pickup Simulator" in an Altoids tin. This is a simple transformer-based box (likely based on a Jack Orman design) that takes a buffered signal and turns it into a low impedance signal acceptable for pedals like Fuzz Faces and treble boosters. I use it between an EHX Silencer and a treble booster to run the Normal channel of a Vox AC15 dimed as God and Dr. May intended without obnoxious amounts of hiss or harshness.

[@sayhuhhhh]

That compressed air gun is awesome! You deserve a commission because I just bought one! I hate the waste associated with those pressurized cans and I use compressed air all the time. Thanks!

[@AlanW]

1:46 - no dip switch, but there's a jumper for a set of 3 pins he's pointing to!

[@AlanW]

1:54 are exposed DIP switches!

[@LeonTodd]

My bad, that's indeed a jumper!

[@kylehowdy]

two pickups over the past year or so that were just amazingly useful: 1) A Roc n Soc drum throne specifically for playing guitar. I work at the same desk I play at, and I couldn't stand an office chair without arms, so now this little amazing drum throne is the best thing to move over and play on. 2) A Coleman Audio LS3, which then allowed me to plug my interface and axe fx to my monitors without having to unplug and plug in the cables when I wanted to change the audio source. Really didn't want to mess with an added passive volume, so the LS3 was literally perfect.

[@LeonTodd]

Drum throne is a great idea for a guitar seat!

[@Scott__C]

Cool list! The Boss cables look great, they just need a silent plug.

[@mickbuffalo]

I got my first Fractal FM3 in August and it’s occupied me everyday just getting my own tones and setting up live/ recording/full FRFR and using valve power amp scenarios. As money was limited and the FC6 on a wish list I got a Behringer FCB 1010 midi board and what a great set up now for two expression pedals and 10 banks of 10 patch changes. It might not be the FC6 but it does a great job and these are my two best gear buys of the year . Oh and I must mention Leon for the great Fractal tips and how to’s this year👍

[@luminousswan560]

The MIDI Solve products provide great solutions for connecting various MIDI gear together that are otherwise incompatible. Like Leon, I consider a line mixer to be well worth the money. The ultimate "Swiss Army Knife" is the Poly Bebo (or Digit) and it is also an excellent effects processor; the future form factor of guitar stomp boxes IMHO.

[@LeonTodd]

Plus Beebo has all those amazing synth modules!

[@constantinosmavroyannis9409]

i find those little pick holders that have double sided sticky tape on the back particularly handy . i have one stuck to the back of the headstock on each of my guitars with 2-3 picks each inside and i never have to worry about pick availability when out of my house

[@LeonTodd]

That's handy!

[@danrao3707]

SKB makes an ATA golf bag case with wheels. One of the mot useful items I’ve used when gigging with multiple mic stands, speaker poles and other hardware.

[@shorerocks]

Yeah, I love my Lehle(s). Splitting galore. No loss.

[@justcantshred]

I have that same air duster lol. I use it at least once a day to keep my guitars and amps and pedalboard dust free. It's fast and keeps the dust from building up.

[@nicdee316]

I have a Lehle P-Split 2 on my big board and a P-Iso (the smaller one) on my small board, great for breaking ground loops when running stereo. And yeah, massively over-engineered, which is cool.

[@LeonTodd]

I really should grab a P-Iso as well, very handy little tool.

[@nicdee316]

@@LeonTodd I currently use my P-Iso 2 as a reamp box btw (yeah, it can do that too).

[@yanossnicklefritz7064]

A lot of stuff players don't talk about much. Thanks Leon. I need to get some of those string wraps.

[@skelapop]

Hey Leon, a big thank you for the info on the Opalor blower mine arrived today and is the best thing I've bought in years.🎸🎸🎸

[@wearethewinterband]

The GruvGear fret wedges work really well for dampening noise behind the nut too. I got a Peper's Pedals Dirty Tree and that has been great for tightening up the Dual Rectifier in the Axe III.

[@ericolson326]

I own that same electric air blower and *have* used it to style my hair in a pinch. 😄

[@TuckRob]

Recording a DI track alongside the processed track will be just perfect when Steinberg finally incorporate multitrack audio warp into Cubase. I forget how many years now that I've been asking for this. Not had much experience with RX8 but I have Spectralayers. It should suit a visual thinker but I find it's also a bit unintuitive in how to get to things. I can't believe how incredible it is with the vocal separation tool. It's so clean. Gets the reverb and all the harmonics and everything. I realise that with both of these things I've mentioned it makes me look like I'm a sloppy guitar player. Which sounds accurate.

[@RickBonanno]

You rock brother! Happy New Year!

[@bradspaulding]

Yessss slipping in a little Landau niceee. 🤘🏼 You might have answered elsewhere but can you link to that tool case? I’m also curious what that board is you’ve got the FM3 on in there? Thanks!

[@Supergrunged]

Useful for me has been a Maxon ST9 Pro+. A standard tube screamer, because it is boosting the mids, you loose the lower frequencies. Having that reintroduced is helpful in many ways for down tuned metal. A boost pedal in general is quite useful in unlocking tones from an amp, you might not get typically otherwise. Puts my 1979 Mesa Mark IIA more in modern gain territory.

[@LeonTodd]

Sweeet rig :D

[@LeviBulger]

I love the izotope stuff. I don't know how it's so good at isolating individual instruments, but it's incredibly useful.

[@LeonTodd]

It really is! Basically magic.

[@danec1384]

Great tip for the Jaycar cases, will be sure to check them out. I just bought an SM10 and have been using it in my rack but it would be great if you did a vid just on what the SM10 can do. I'm sure all the rack guys would appreciate it alot!

[@ianfurqueron5850]

Agreed. I have a bunch of old rack gear I've collected over the decades and while I have no plans to use them in a live situation, being able to easily route them around would be helpful.

[@LeonTodd]

Got one in the works!

[@amonster8mymother]

Try a patch bay on the line mixer and a bay f9r the fx too. I want to chain the fx so a bay would be good.

[@bobjoe7508]

Hey Leon, I've gotten into the whole rack thing recently, but I have a question. I've got a Digitech GSP-1101 and a Yamaha SPX-90 at the moment, but I'm wondering if I should get one of these line mixers. How would you recommend I hook these up? I'd like to use them simultaneously, but because I don't have a switching system or a mixer like this one, I've been using one at a time. As you know with the SPX-90 it's got two outputs, but so does the GSP-1101, and man they sound great when run with both outputs, but super rough when using only output at a time. Running into the difficulty of having four outputs and not enough inputs lol. Oh, also how do you go about integrating pedals into this? (Got a bunch of pedals too). Thanks for any advise you can offer.

[@TheAlpineProject]

I can't say I have used them yet but I think something like the Pedal Python would be great for my rig and maybe some others could benefit from one as well.

[@matthewenglund3502]

Happy New Year Leon! Dude, thanks for the tip on that Lele! I bought a splitter but when I used it, I lost a lot of top end. You didn't find this to be a problem with this unit? Thanks for all the great content last year!

[@LeonTodd]

Sounds spot on to me!

[@ROKZLEON]

De-click!!! amazing. Thanks for sharing.

[@LeonTodd]

You're welcome!

[@cliftonwright7081]

Here I am. *duh nuh, NUH NUH* watch you like hurricane. *duh nuh NUH NUH*

[@LeonTodd]

The Clif is hungry, he needs to tell So give him 19 inches racks, feed him well

[@cliftonwright7081]

@@LeonTodd haha that could have gone sideways quick!

[@MikeSalopek]

Ohhh, I'd love to get a nice carry case for my fc-12. Any recommendations on this? I did a gig and had mine sitting on my rack with wheels rolling into a gig, hit a rock, and the fc-12 came tumbling. Suffice it to say, stomp pins broke and bent on board once it landed on stairs. I was sick..lol

[@CarlosKTCosta]

Hey Leon, I have multiple Preamps and I use a patchbay to patch into the preamp(s) I want to use and then patch from the preamps to my interface. This not only means I'm always having to plug and unplug cables but also makes it a bit hard to use multiple preamps in parallel and i'm also having some noise issues. You think the line mixer could be useful for this use case ? Thanks

[@lyleanderson5407]

D'Addario Dual-Lock Strap Lock or Dunlop 7000 Lok Strap

[@pskemster]

Hi ya Leon, Wondering if you have had a chance to jam through a Pal 800 gold pedal yet. In my humble opinion It is the closest pedal I have heard to this day that has truly nailed a Marshall JCM sound with crisp precision. Now getting one to try out is the trick mate..Good luck. But if you do. I highly encourage you to give it a stomp! Great New Year to ya, Cheers

[@LeonTodd]

Not even heard of it! Thanks for putting it on the radar.

[@peterharvin2775]

I love izotope as well, and would add Neoverb and Ozone to the list. Their AI's do a remarkable job of creating great starting points for mixes.

[@LeonTodd]

Anything that helps you work faster is gold!

[@lasv155]

Hi Leon! what size fret wrap do you use? I prefer medium fret wrap on my 6 strings. I find the recommended small for 6 string to be a bit too small., because of some extra padding in the middle of the wrap, the 6th and 1st string feel a little more unwrapped unless i make it really tight. I prefer medium fret wrap on my 6 strings or am I mistaken on this?

[@LeonTodd]

The 6 but you do have a point that it could be a liiiiitle bigger

[@Greg-rd8qr]

Great stuff! Useful ideas and products

[@LeonTodd]

Glad it was helpful!

[@amonster8mymother]

I have a bunch of rack gear that I got hooked up but I found out I cant have hooked together so I can turn bypass on/off with midi??? Also I cant midi them together??? Got any ideas???

[@stephenchow5161]

fantastic. can u explain how u patch the sm10? where i am confused is that you have stereo effects that patch into the mixer and you can blend and etc. but how do you get the dry signal to effects and keep parallel signal going at the same time. i have a synergy rig that i want to use old rack gear like my intellifex and roland rsp. currently have them routed into a patch bay which obviously inly can go in series. thanks. steve. fantastic video as always and very helpful

[@LeonTodd]

Yes indeed, working on it atm!

[@IlMaga84]

Have you got a TRS cables Y for connection aux sends to efx processors?

[@amonster8mymother]

When he says yea is he saying yeah?? Or something else? Like yea. ??

[@uneasypeace4416]

Hi Leon, Could you show how to do a 4CM preset on the Axe FX III that switches between a real amp and an Axe FX amp? Maybe scene 1) real amp with pre and post effects Scene 2) just Axe Fx amp cab and effects. Thanks.

[@LeonTodd]

Try this but ignore the XLR/TRS cable thing and just use in/out3 kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJK8l5mGhrekhLM&ab_channel=LeonTodd

[@BrandonBames]

Vibrato Bar…whoa, do Australians actually refer to it by its proper designation?

[@LeonTodd]

Hahaha I may be an aberration, but I am glad you noticed that.

[@amonster8mymother]

I've got a roland m120 line mixer. It's weird. It's doing stereo. Mono 8nput 8nto stereo. ???

[@RL10]

I like so much when you play Michael Landau 🙂

[@LeonTodd]

That riff is everything

[@RL10]

@@LeonTodd And you play it awesome!

[@scottpeters4401]

So the Line Mixer….I could run my stereo rack FX into it,then send the mixer output to a “loop”on the AxeFXIII??…..I also sometimes run my amp into the Fractal X-Load,then send that line out to FX and into a Marshall 9005 power amp….problem is,the 9005 wants a crazy hot input signal,more than with the line out level on full…so with the mixer I assume I could set the output(s) as hot as I needed?….

[@LeonTodd]

Yeah that'll do it!

[@amonster8mymother]

Is he saying line mixer?

[@TheCyberMantis]

No "Finger Ease" guitar string lubricant? ;-)

[@LeonTodd]

I use the Duck's Deluxe Ax Wax but I covered that in "Useful Stuff Vol 1". Love it!

[@relaxingelectronicmusic775]

cool

[@danosoprano5853]

Yo leon check out the earthquaker device's swiss things it changed my life!!!! Shout out from abq nm the nuke city!!!!!

[@LeonTodd]

Thanks for the tip, that looks rad! Played one of the best shows of my life in ABQ, love that place.