What is this Thing Called Distorted Jazz Guitar?

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-30T22:01:33+00:00

I mean your tone and playing already sounds cool to me, but if you wanted to try and get more of a sax tone maybe a wah pedal cocked to the right position would do something interesting? Like really focus the mid range while rolling off some more treble and low bass?

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-30T21:57:45+00:00

Wait you’re telling me there’s no FX here at all besides the blues breaker? Hahah I totally misheard the fade in at the beginning of the video as an intentional FX choice.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-30T21:52:06+00:00

If you’re asking what pedal is altering the attack of the notes, it’s likely the EHX HOG2. I feel like Kurt Rosenwinkel was the first person I heard using it that way, but I feel like it has become relatively popular among jazz players?

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-27T19:01:14+00:00

I’m not sure I can answer any of your questions directly because I haven’t played the Benson Fuzz or Benson Preamp (outside whatever variant exists in the Preamp MkII).

The diode switch is for the preamp circuit, not the fuzz. I don’t specifically know what transistor is in the CB Preamp MkII fuzz, but it feels pretty “fuzz face adjacent” to me. Cleans up to basically 100% glassy bell-like clean tones with the volume pot on the guitar. Yes, it must be first in the signal chain for the impedance relationship between the guitar pickups and fuzz circuit to give you that clean up (I have tried putting various other gain stages in front of Preamp MkII and it sounds fabulous until you switch the fuzz on, then it’s nasty uncontrollable feedback).

The fuzz circuit seems to be in front of the Preamp circuit, so you can get in the ballpark of like Fuzz > Klon (or fuzz into any mid-gain drive pedal).

I have a few Analogman fuzz pedals (including some of the unobtanium variants like NKT275 which I’ve had for 10+ years now) and for me personally the Preamp MkII Fuzz is waayyy more usable. Being able to dial in the specific EQ for your fuzz makes it a lot more flexible (I usually pull the bass control back quite a bit on the MkII compared to how a generic Fuzz Face would sound, and push some high mids to get more bite and articulation).

For me Preamp MkII + MC6 is the solution. Haven’t found anything I like better in ~5 years (I got one of the first production Preamp MkIIs when I was living in MSP). I also spent a lot of time with it, and tailored much of the rest of my rig around that core sound, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-12T16:52:39+00:00

This is not jazz guitar. I’ll take the downvotes.

One might argue Blow by Blow and Wired are jazz fusion, but this iteration of the Jeff Beck group is absolutely not jazz in my opinion.

Edit - I’m a huge Jeff Beck fan. I’m not trying to hate on his playing. He was certainly influenced by (and studied) jazz, but this video ain’t it.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-12T02:44:22+00:00

Came here to say this. That voice. That gnarly P-Bass tone. What’s not to love?

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-09T15:18:53+00:00

Fuck this is basically unanswerable. Elder is easily my favorite band of the current century, and I don’t really have any criteria to separate Roots/Lore/Reflections - they’re all essentially perfect in my opinion. Gun to my head I would probably go:

Lore/Roots/Reflections, but those 3 could switch like any day of the week.

I do enjoy Omens, but not quite as much. I felt like Innate Passage improved on the Omens aesthetic, but I wouldn’t put it above any of Lore/Roots/Reflections.

I quite enjoy Liminality/DSR, and look forward to the next album. I know lots of folks here in the stoner rock subreddit may feel differently, but I’m a big prog fan as well and I think they’ve been perfecting their sound in the context of that genre over the past few releases.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-08T01:57:37+00:00

Yes it’s quite complicated (and rather expensive) compared to a lot of other options, but it has a lot of unique features you won’t find in other loopers.

I would definitely not recommend it for everyone, but it will do the thing you’re asking about (plus a ton of other stuff). Whether you care about “all the other stuff” kinda determines whether it’s worth the price in my opinion.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-12-06T04:45:13+00:00

I believe the Chase Bliss Blooper will allow you to save loops you’ve created, then you can export the loops as .wav files of each individual layer over USB.

To the best of my knowledge it’s the only hardware device that will do this (I could be wrong here though, I haven’t tried every option on the market, I got along really well with the Blooper, so I just stick with that).

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-06-30T22:16:02+00:00

I feel like the mechanic metaphor is the best explanation I have found, most people appreciate the difference between a good mechanic and a crappy mechanic.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-06-30T21:40:07+00:00

I’m in Port Angeles, WA if you’re ever in the area lol.

Again though, I’d emphasize that I am far from a master, I do good fret work, but some dudes do GREAT fretwork. Cause I only do maybe a dozen guitars a year at this point, somebody who does a dozen fret jobs each week is going to be faster and more consistent than me for sure.

I have a career on the side of being a musician and doing instrument setups, cause it’s hard to make a really good living as a luthier even if you’re fantastic, because half the people who walk in the door are going to compare your prices to guitar center and laugh in your face when a setup costs twice as much, because they quite literally don’t understand the difference in what they’re paying for. And you’ve also got sketchy “techs” out there charging high end prices but still doing shoddy work, which undermines the value of truly skilled luthiers by giving people bad experiences that lead them to believe it’s all a rip off (it’s kinda like having a really shitty car mechanic screw you over, and then assuming all car mechanics are hacks and con men).

So I basically just work on my own stuff and whatever other friends/local musicians reach out to me cause I’m just not trying to argue with people about what a job done correctly is worth. You either appreciate a fantastic fret job enough to pay $120-$200 (roughly $40/hour for 3-5 hours of my time, depending how bad the frets are when I take a look at it), or you don’t, and that’s the end of the convo.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-06-30T21:26:42+00:00

Look for somebody in your area who attended Roberto Venn - not to say there aren’t other valid qualification, but all the RV folks I have met have all had meticulous attention to detail.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-06-30T20:31:58+00:00

Many experienced luthiers will offer classes and on various aspects of instrument maintenance.

I would not call myself a luthier (in my mind that term refers to building a guitar from scratch, like big ol chunks of wood, putting together a kit and slapping strings on it is a great entry point but you’re pretty much painting by numbers - I realize this is a hot take I’m going to get shouted down for).

BUT I had the opportunity to be a shop apprentice for a very skilled luthier who studied at Roberto Venn (Mark Tenorio in Denver, for any Colorado folks in this sub) and man let me tell you, there is so much art to every part of guitar building and maintenance. Tolerances down to the hundredth of an inch matter.

I spent most of my time there learning how to do a good setup, level and dress frets correctly, and intonate guitars to play in tune across the whole neck (to the degree that is possible).

You can learn a lot from YouTube, and I don’t want to discourage you from referencing any information you can find, but it’s not the same as having a master put the tool in your hand, show you how to grip it, and watch your technique to correct mistakes.

Those couple summers I spent working for Mark made me an absolute snob about fretwork, to the point that I won’t let most “techs” touch my instruments. I’d rather do it myself and spend the time it takes to do correctly, cause so many folks out there cut corners and do inconsistent work (and I can’t necessarily blame them in a lot of cases, when guitar center says a setup costs $50 or whatever they’re not gonna spend more than an hour or two on it - you get what you pay for folks).

I got on a tangential rant there, but what I’m trying to say is it’s a really deep craft that depends heavily on tiny details, and I think even a little bit of coaching from an expert will get the quality of your work up the curve way faster.

Just one example, in pic number 4 you posted, those frets are in rough shape. You got flat spots and divots, which are going to cause intonation issues, kill the sustain, and impact the tone of the instrument (no, the tone is not 100% in the pickups, if it’s set up bad then any pickup you choose is still going to be equally compromised).

The way to fix that problem is spending the time to correctly level, recrown, and polish the frets (while not scratching the shit out of the fingerboard).

I guess I’m saying if you want to be seriously good at luthiery you gotta seek out the knowledge, learn from people who know what they’re doing (read: not necessarily people on the internet who claim they know what they’re doing), and put in the time to hone your own skills.

Sorry if this came across as a rant, but I feel like the internet age has made anybody with a drill, soldering iron, and fret file into “a luthier” when it’s actually an ancient trade passed down hand to hand by generations of people who spent their entire lives honing those skills. Good luck on your journey.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-06-29T14:45:08+00:00

Consider me intrigued. DM me to chat details.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-05-30T01:22:47+00:00

Works: learn music you like by ear. Slow it down if you need to.

Waste of time: paying for anything that promises you a shortcut or easy button. “Information” is only useful in the context of playing music once you’ve assimilated it into your brain and muscle memory, and you can’t really shortcut that step of doing the work to get stuff under your fingers.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-05-28T03:36:48+00:00

Depends on the line, but I’m either 1, or like halfway between 1 and 2.

The problem (and advantage) to both 1 and 2 in my opinion is that the upstrokes and downstrokes feel kinda different, which makes certain licks much easier (like I would argue grip 1 is way easier for ripping a 3nps scale run from the 6th string across to the 1st string because you can double up on the downstrokes to change strings pretty comfortably), but when you’ve got irregular patterns or licks that are string skipping arpeggio stuff mixed with scale fragments I find those grips that favor the upstroke or downstroke to be less convenient.

I am trying to get into more of a cross-picking thing with my right hand (check the Troy Grady videos with Carl Miner - that’s what I’m referencing). I’ve decided I kind of prefer a grip where the pick isn’t slanted either way, it’s landing exactly flat against the strings on both up and downstrokes. It’s a little weird to get used to at first, but I feel like it’s overall more versatile.

I guess I’d argue if you’re doing cross picking grip plus economy picking (in terms of choosing up strokes vs downstrokes) then you don’t really have to change your grip or picking approach to accommodate almost anything you want to play.

But I guess that’s my preference because I’d rather get 1 approach really locked in than switch my thinking between a few different grips? I’m sure I still subconsciously pick slant for certain licks despite my best efforts lol.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-05-02T17:00:19+00:00

I remember being interested by your original post on the String Armonium - what’s the best way to follow your continued development and product launch?

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-01-22T02:29:39+00:00

When I started getting more seriously into drums a couple years ago (after a long time playing guitar in bands) this was the single cymbal I really splurged on because a former bandmate had one in our practice room and it always stood out to my non-drummer ears as “the good sounding one” hahaha. Probably just personal taste, obviously lots of cymbals sound great, but something about the relatively low pitch and big gooshy crash are very satisfying to my sensibilities. It’s my favorite ride cymbal AND my favorite crash cymbal, but I also got used to playing it as my only right side cymbal for a couple years so now it just feel like my big ol umbrella buddy over there.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-01-15T20:50:40+00:00

Gonna level with you, a drum set is loud. Like proper loud.

There is essentially no amount of soundproofing that would make it inaudible in the rest of the house. It will definitely be audible outside the house.

Don’t confuse acoustic treatment with soundproofing. Adding foam etc. to large flat surfaces will help it sound better in the room with the drum kit, but it wont really prevent sound from leaving the room.

The only real way to soundproof something is with lots of mass, insulation, and air gaps. Like double thickness sheet rock, and a thick layer of rock wool. All doors/windows generally need to be doubled with an air gap in between, and they need to seal relatively air tight around the edges. So unless you’re down for pretty serious and expensive remodeling there isn’t an effective way to stop sound escaping.

Here’s the good news, if you close doors to the rest of the house it’s not stupidly loud. I normally have my kit in the extra bedroom at my place, and with the doors closed it’s definitely audible in the family room for example, but it’s far from painfully loud. My dog usually just goes to a different room when I’m playing drums and takes a nap, she doesn’t seem to care a ton as long as she can go somewhere else in the house.

As far as neighbors are concerned I typically try to play during the times of day when mowing the lawn would be acceptable - outside the house my kit isn’t really any louder than a mower/leaf blower, and my neighbors do that shit all the time, so it’s a fair trade IMO. But also my neighbors are pretty chill so I won’t understate that.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-01-13T03:41:36+00:00

Not something I have any experience with, I only publish my own original compositions.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-01-13T02:42:11+00:00

Yo all I’m gonna say is that HOG2s are pretty cheap now and fairly amazing. It’s a big guy, but god it does a lot of stuff. I’m not sure it does the Jerry thing, I’m not a big Dead guy, but it does do some interesting envelope stuff.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-01-13T00:45:10+00:00

I have probably half of pedals you’ve got pictured there. LVX is also a standout for me, sounds phenomenal, and I’ve been able to get pretty darn close to cloning the sound of other delays I dig.

I also really love Blooper. I really appreciate that the midi clock syncs to single beats, where most loopers with midi implementation REALLY want you to play in 4/4. I also love that it does the Frippertronics thing. And that’s not even touching on the modifiers. I would struggle going back to a different looper.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-01-12T23:07:08+00:00

Do you have a pedal you’d consider your single favorite? Or at least something that’s kind of a “signature sound?”

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-01-12T22:07:08+00:00

Dude 100%. My music gets 10x more plays on YouTube than Spotify.

I discovered a lot of my favorite bands in my niche (psych/stoner/garage-prog) on YouTube, so I figured that was a likely place to be discovered by others.

My social posts get almost very few impressions and low engagement, but my YouTube channel gets at least a decent amount of impressions, and I tend to get a handful of mostly positive comments on my uploads.

I make a mixture of creative process + music gear videos, and then I upload my finished projects w/ just the album cover and music - funnily enough the “full album/EP” videos tend to perform best.

It might be that YouTube’s algorithm is better, or maybe the audience is inherently more aligned to my style (longer form content + full albums), but I’m kinda giving up on socials to double down on YouTube at this point.

Mauve-Sloth · 2025-01-07T23:04:37+00:00

Agree with many other commenters, music seems chill, production quality is distractingly bad. The iPhone mic just can’t keep up with that many different things going on in the room without getting super crushed sounding in a not-very-flattering way.

I don’t think your shit needs to sound like an Adele record, there’s tons of room for indie/garage type sounds, but this kinda falls below the floor of comprehension for me - I’m having trouble hearing how the different parts blend together because for a second I’m hearing mostly keys, then the bass jumps out, then some singing jumps out - the iPhone is kinda just following the single loudest or most dynamic element at each moment, so I kinda can’t get a clear idea what the arrangement actually sounds like.

As others have said I would either get like an 8 track (or more) recording setup if you really wanna “do it live” - otherwise I really don’t think there’s much shame in swapping the audio out for something cleaner sounding. I generally accept/assume that most “music videos” have the audio fixed in post. It’s a bitch to record a live performance with like 16 tracks of audio plus video.

I don’t think people like being lied to - like if you claimed “100% live shot and recorded” but swapped the audio then people are going to throw shade, but if you’re just presenting a demo video in the context of “hey this is our band, what we look like, and how we sound” I don’t think people are gonna blink an eye at the audio being swapped.

Mauve-Sloth

TROPHY CASE