It burns when I type.

Maybe you should see a stenographer…

Getting blisters from playing rock ‘n’ roll is cool, getting them from programming rock ‘n’ roll is not. Refreshing pretty much my entire rig from ears to fingertips seemed to be a requirement to properly play music again. Like everything else with a bit of technology in it, much has changed since I last slung wood. The year 2000 was a long time ago in music tech. My FX, my amp, my guitar, my leather pants—not a single one of them has a USB port on it let alone Blue Tooth or Firewire. (Interesting how technology and rock band names are interchangeable, maybe that’s how they found themselves into so much music gear.) What guitar player wouldn’t want Firewire on his guitar? Especially if they are in a band called Blue Tooth. Or maybe Blue Oyster Tooth.

While I did get a smoking new pickup for the guitar, my guitar still uses a good old-fashioned, unbalanced (like me) guitar cable (aka phone plug). No problems there. Nah, what’s been worrying my fingers to the texture of used-up sandpaper are my effects. For the sake of convenience, ease of use, and economy, I rely on a multi-effects pedal for the breadth and depth of my effects palette, plus a standalone stompbox for additional distortion. But I was an early adopter (I don’t recommend it) of the whole digital amp modeling thing, and they don’t always play nice with external distortions. To compensate for this limitation, along with all the cool (but suddenly tiring) distortions and guitar amp models, digital amps also have their own suite (okay, more of a roomette) of effects. So between the amp and my old crusty Digitech GNX1000 multi-effects processor stompy-pedal-thingy, I was covered for any live or jammy thing that would come up. Add all the software I was, err, evaluating, and I had recording well-covered, too.

My modeling amp had a four-channel footswitch, so live I could have four different sets of effects and amp-model setups. Not bad. And then for color and more effects, especially ones that can be properly edited, I could use the Digitech. Okay, this piece was inexpensive and could sound like it. But you could also edit the snuff out of it—better yet, in to it—to get the box to do some cool things. It boasted like three zillion simultaneous effects or something, but that was only available if you were willing to suffer a complete drop in your sound for a fat second every time you changed effects. I’ve always felt large silent gaps in inopportune places were bad for music, so this meant I couldn’t use the gajillion different effects live. Instead I had to put the unit into a mode where one footswitch turned on a modulation effect, like a flanger or phaser, and another managed the delays. There was another footswitch that could be used for distortion, but it really only made things worse. So that was what I had to work with. Recorded, the amp sounded pretty darn good, and in spite of all the signal processing going on between guitar and speaker, I could get nice sonic and emotional feedback. But all good things must pass, and it wasn’t just the lack of USB, either. I found myself looking over my shoulder at the amp, thinking maybe it had shrunk, because in a band situation, what I heard seemed to come from an amp much smaller than the one I was using. So I replaced the amp with an all-tube number (there’s a story….), and lost about half of my effects in the process.

Suddenly (finally?), the limitations of the Digitech became woefully obvious. So in my search to replace it, and given the new direction (still silica-based—but now glass instead of chips), I didn’t want another box that modeled other boxes. I wanted a box without an identity crisis or personality disorder. I wanted a box that wasn’t designed to think outside itself.

Clearly, the music industry felt otherwise because practically everything offered to guitar and bass players these days has some sort of digital modeling replicating technology in it, unless you are willing to go the hand-wired boutique route and run up your credit cards. Frankly, I think half of them don’t model anything, it’s just marketing. If vintage typewriters were as popular as vintage amps, computers would be marketed as typewriter modeling systems (Wow, sounds just like a real Underwood Five!).

So I struggled with finding all kinds of things I really wanted but couldn’t justify the expense, and things I could buy but couldn’t justify the mediocrity. If I’m going to play again, it has to be for me—true aerobic counseling, as it were. It has to feel good, so it has to be good. Then, just like love, when I was looking for something else, I found it! It was old and used (like me), but with a little love and a wall wart it may just come to life (queue Vince Guaraldi!). Okay, it did say modeling on it, but only once and in what had to be in an eight- or nine-point font. No USB, however, which spoke to the unit’s age (probably as old as my krufty Digitech). A USB port would have meant that I could edit it via my typewriter modeling system, and that would have been nice. But I have to say the unit, a Toneworks AX1500G is doing most of what I want. Not only can I use it in a proper multi-effect mode without giant gaps of silence while switching, it actually has some distortions I can use. And the modeling technology simulates some really great vintage effects instead of amps. This brings the digital modeling down to a level that is more malleable for band situations. The difference between amp and effect modeling is similar to car and carburetor. A modeled Shelby Ford is not really a Shelby Ford, and at some point that becomes obvious. But put some fancy modeled carb in a real Shelby Ford and you still have a real Shelby Ford. And that’s nearly everything I know about cars.

Toneworks is made by Korg, a Japanese company. Korg is probably best-known for its Triton and Trinity synthesizer workstations, but their Toneworks line has earned respect in the segment of the market they play in. And it is no coincidence that the Trinity and Triton have great effects sections.

With an entirely new effects system to learn and dial in, I told myself I should keep the old (sniff, sniff) Digitech in the lineup as a safety net, and as a means to appropriate more stage real estate away from the singer, who just has a mic that doesn’t even have a single switch or button or LED. (Ha! Singers…) So, sporting a row of buttons, knobs, and footswitches four-and-a-half-feet long, I began my quest to achieve sonic overkill. Knowing I could not do the splits, I spent a good week just mapping things out so I could use this new rig without getting a hernia, or worse, ripping the ass in my pants. With that sorted, I started to invent effects combinations rarely used in real life. I was like the iron chef of budget-priced guitar processors. Days went by while my guitar gently wept—out of loneliness. I had been so busy ergonomically programming effects I had barely played the thing. Then it happened—salvation in the form of a faulty component. Whenever I turned away from the Digitech and walked down to the Toneworks, the Digitech would reboot itself. Well that was certainly not helpful, until I realized it was setting me free. Free from using it. And as I chucked it aside and lost a couple feet of DSP, I regained a sensible constraint. A constraint art and I can thrive under. Bitchin’.

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