Brisbane bands you should see and/or hear part 6

Part 6 : Violent Soho

Poppy, hooks, poppy, fuzzy, bassy, poppy, great live, nice guys = Violent Soho.
Their site.

FUZZ DVD

An in-depth look at the industry of noise making featuring Billy Gibbons, Jon Spencer, J. Mascis and more!

Fuzz... the sound that changed the world. The fuzz box: that tiny little box between the electric guitar and the amp that revolutionized rock music...what on earth does it do? Clif Taylor explores this insane industry of noise making, a world populated by guitar slinging super heroes and garage dwelling electronic geeks all sharing the collective obsession of one day creating that perfect sonic wave of limitless distortion. It's a unique subculture of psychedelic noise freaks and vintage distortion connoisseurs, a world of gear oriented Internet chat rooms and completely anarchistic electronic product conventions. From the geeky backyard boutique engineers building prized and instantly collectable clones of terribly scarce vintage psychedelic circuits to professional Wah Wah men, the electronic gurus, capable of pitching that monster tone into a circuit bent chaos, Clif Taylor shows us all of it, all the while, on the hunt for his own perfect tone. Guitar Gods Billy Gibbons, Peter Frampton, Jon Spencer, J Mascis, Chris Ross of Wolfmother and other music legends weigh in on their favorite circuits. Where would Jimi Hendrix be without fuzz? Would the sixties psychedelic movement even exist sans fuzz box? This film answers all those questions and more. It is a must see for anyone interested in the nuts, bolts, solder, transistors and true history of rock.
$22. IN STOCK NOW.

Distortion

Distortion, similar to overdrive or fuzz, is an effect applied to the electric guitar, the electric bass, and other amplified instruments such as the Hammond organ, synthesizers, and even harmonica and vocals. Accomplished by electronically compressing and/or clipping the input signal, this effect adds sustain and additional harmonics and overtones to the signal, creating a richer sound. The most subtle types of distortion add a "warm" thickness to the original tone; the more extreme types of distortion range from the noisy, buzzy sound of a late 1960s-era fuzz pedal to the screaming, "bite", "grit", and "crunch" of a late 1980s thrash-style distortion pedal. Distortion is used across a wide range of musical genres, from the subtle overdrive used in traditional blues to the hard-edged distortion featured in noise, hardcore, punk, industrial, grunge, and metal.

Early examples of distortion were often the result of accidents in which the guitar amplifier or its vacuum valves was damaged, or because the amplifiers and speakers were "doctored" by poking holes into their speaker cones. One notable example was Link Wray, who dislodged a tube by accident, and then took to doing so as a habit to get a noisy, dirty sound for his solos. Observing this trend, Leo Fender of the Fender amplifier company designed valve guitar amps that would "overdrive" slightly. In the 1960s, fuzz effect pedals were popularized by guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and George Harrison.
















Distortion can be produced by many components of an instrument's signal path, including effects pedals, the pre-amplifier, power amplifier, speakers, or more recently, digital amplifier modelling devices and software. Many players use a combination of these to obtain their "signature" tone.

In the early days of guitar amplification, amplifiers were primitive and low-fidelity, and distortion was inherent in the signal chain. Most amplifiers were all-purpose, designed for use with multiple instruments with different output levels, and guitar pickups were often clip-on types that had weak output levels and microphonic properties. The guitars were typically hollow-body instruments, which would resonate sympathetically with the amplified signal, causing unwanted feedback and an excessive resonant sustain in the bass frequencies. Though electric guitars had been around since 1928 and played popularly by Les Paul and Charlie Christian in the 1930s and 1940s, it was not until the early 1950s that they became commercially successful. It was during this period that the first solid-bodied electric guitars became widely available; they did not suffer as badly from feedback as earlier models, hence they could be played at higher output levels.

The idea of intentionally using distortion to improve the amplified tone had not occurred to early amplifier makers. Early examples of distortion were often the result of accidents in which the guitar amplifier was in some way damaged, but the player or producer decided they liked it and recorded it that way. During the recording of "Rocket 88", one of the early rock and roll songs, Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm guitarist Willie Kizart used an amplifier that had been damaged in transit, resulting in an early recorded example of guitar distortion. For the recording of "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" by the Johnny Burnette Trio, a valve fell out of the amplifier during a live performance. When a reviewer then raved about the crazy new sound, Burnette used the same tone in the recording studio.

Willie Johnson's playing on Howlin' Wolf's Memphis recordings of 1951-2 is marked by a consistent use of deliberate distortion, creating a raucous, menacing sound that complements Howlin' Wolf's singing.

An early user of valve overdrive was Chuck Berry, who at the start of his career played through small valve amplifiers, the only ones he could afford. Because of their low output, they were easy to overdrive, giving Chuck's guitar tone a warm overdriven sound, which can be heard on his recording of his first hit "Maybellene". On later recordings he was able to afford better and larger amps and consequently his tone became cleaner. The earliest uses of intentional distortion that have been recorded were achieved through "doctoring" amplifiers and speakers. Guitarists would use a razor blade, screwdriver or pencil to poke holes into their speaker cones to create a distorted sound.

Leo Fender of Fender guitars and amplifiers observed these trends and engineered many of his amplifiers to "compress" and/or "overdrive" slightly without drastically distorting the signal. The early Fender "Tweed" and "Blackface" amplifiers are considered a good example of clean electric guitar tone. Many later amplifiers are based on these designs. Significantly, Jim Marshall of Marshall Amplifiers copied the Fender Bassman using parts available in the United Kingdom, creating an amplifier with significant overdrive that quickly caught on in the local music scene and laid the foundation for the powerful, thick "Marshall Sound" that can be heard on so many early Hard Rock albums. Later, distortion and fuzz effects were achieved through electronics. Jimi Hendrix was one of the first guitarists to use outboard effects, many designed or modified by guitar tech Roger Mayer.

VASE

VASE is a piece of Brisbane music history. As a younger player it was easy to walk into a second hand shop in Brisbane and buy an old VASE amp for what seemed like a ridiculously cheap price and they always sounded ......... amazing. They were built in Brisbane, so we had lots of them here and by the 80's and 90's they were "out of favor" because of high gain, multi channel synthetic gain amps. VASE were always harmonically rich, clean and LOUD.
After closing down in the 70's , THEY'RE BACK. The new VASE gear will blow your mind. Not only are they exact copies cosmetically, they are meticulously built to modern standards using old VASE designs.
We have VASE amps and cabs available NOW at Tym guitars. There is a full retail display with 2x10, 4x10 and 8x10 bass cabs and 2 Trendsetter 60 heads with 3x12 cabs. Come in and try them out or contact Tym guitars for price and availability.

Sub Decay pedals

Liquid Sunshine - Class A Overdrive
The Liquid Sunshine will give your amp a good kick in the ass. Equally useful as a clean boost, treble booster, and overdrive. Responds well to boosters, and loves pushing your other dirt boxes too.
What is the Liquid Sunshine?
The Liquid Sunshine is a JFET based overdrive with graceful breakup and pick attack, and will not cover up the the natural sound of your guitar and amplifier.
With two drive knobs, the Liquid Sunshine allows you to control the character of the overdrive rather than simply controlling overall gain. The drive knobs control two separate gain stages, each with their own characteristics. The top drive knob pushes the overall frequency range, while the bottom drive knob accentuates the middle and high frequencies. Both are very interactive, and allow the Liquid sunshine to perform not only as an overdrive, but a clean boost or treble booster as well.
Why doesn't the Liquid Sunshine have a "tone" knob?
Unlike a lot of other overdrives that use diodes to clip an amplified signal, the JFET circuitry produces no "sharp edges" or hard clipping. Many tone knobs on overdrives have a very narrow band of useful settings.
Instead, the bottom drive knob on the Liquid Sunshine controls gain and also alters the frequency response, with many useful settings over a wide range.
The Liquid Sunshine now has two internal controls for bass, and treble boost.
Noise Box - Harmonic Frequency Generator
A chaotic concoction... Somewhere in between a chaotic octave generator, guitar synth, and a broken robot stuck in an angry bee hive. The Noisebox was inspired by additive synthesizers. This pedal needs to be heard to be truly understood, but I'll try to explain it anyway.
The Noise Box is an envelope following harmonic frequency generator. (Confused yet???) Frequencies generated are harmonically related to the input, and controlled by the Frequency knob, the Sense knob, and the chaos knob.
The Frequency knob sets the resting point of the frequency generator.
The Sense knob controls how much the input signal will affect the the range of the frequency generator.
The Chaos knob controls the attack. Once turned half way up the Chaos knob loses its ability to track correctly, and the tones created by the frequency generator become more and more random.
The Voice control alternates between two different voicings of the frequency generator, with varied levels of high frequency roll off.
Level controls overall volume of the effect.
The Noise Box also has an internal noise gate built in that turns the frequency generator off when you are not playing.
Flying Tomato - Mutant Fuzz
Similar to many classic fuzz designs the Flying Tomato adds a number of modern improvements, and it doesn't stop at true bypass and an LED. It also works with other pedals and active pickups. We also added Tone controls, and a Bias control. This fuzz goes from hair raising, to classic, to gated.
What is the Flying Tomato?
The Flying Tomato is loosely based on the classic two transistor fuzz design, but with a few modern improvements including, a switchable impedance-matching input buffer, Tone controls, Bias control, true-bypass switching, and an LED indicator.
The Flying Tomato input buffer allows it to work after virtually any pedal, or with active pickups.
One of the ideas we strive for here at Subdecay, are pedals you can "match" to your guitar and amp. Some fuzzes sound great with a combination of certain guitars and amplifiers, but are lackluster with others. With the Bias and Tone controls, you can dial in the sound you want, and still cut through the mix at your next gig.
If you are a "vintage tone purist" you probably want to stop reading right here (but wait, you're almost done anyways...) While the Flying Tomato is loosely based on classic designs, it is not authentic to any original. Like most of the tomatoes you buy at the grocery store these days, this fuzz has been unnaturally altered.
Available NOW at Tym guitars.

EarthQuaker Hoof fuzz

I LOVE THIS FUZZ !! The Hoof is a no-fuss, easy to use device capable of sounds from warm, gritty overdrive to a huge sustaining fuzz. It's a germanium/silicon hybrid muff style fuzz (based on the old green russian muff) with massive amounts of volume on tap and smooth amp-like sustain. It has a tighter, cleaner sound than most muff's which makes it more cutting and discernible in a band setting. The newly added shift control changes the frequency response of the tone control, mainly on the treble side (but takes out the mud on the bass side). Clockwise scoops the mids and counterclockwise enhances the mids. When the shift control is set dead center it has roughly the same frequency response as the original hoof (almost flat but still slightly scooped).
Measures
4 5/8" x 2 1/2" x 1 1/2"
Power
9v Battery or any standard 9 volt DC power supply with a negative center 2.1mm barrel.
Controls:
Fuzz
Tone
Level
Shift (mids)

Valve order just in

We have just received a big order of valves in including our usual line up of JJ, EH, Sovtek, Tube Amp Doctor, Groove Tubes, EI, Valve Art and Winged C as well as some good stock of Mullard and Svetlana valves as well. We have Mullard EL34's and 12AX7's which are both GREAT for old Marshalls. We have stock of Svetlana EL34's and 12AX7's which are great with EVERYTHING.
We have a good stock of guitar amp valves at both the retail and repair shop so check the site for prices or contact us for availability and advice.
We stock most of the "big" brands and can get most others inc NOS but advise against this as the market is so flooded with bad valves being sold as good, the success rate of getting good serviceable valves is getting harder and harder.
We generally always have stock of JJ, EH, Sovtek, Tube Amp Doctor, Groove Tubes, EI, Valve Art and Winged C with some Tungsol and Svetlana valves in stock.
We've found in the repair shop that JJ valves are a good, solid performer and generally sound pretty good. Good value for money and easy to get in most forms. I use JJ's in most of my personal amps and all Tym amps come standard with them.
EH and Sovtek 12AX7's perform well in higher gain amps and keep a tighter bottom end. The EI ones are great in Vox AC30's with a real "jangle" to them.
All this of course is subjective. The best way to find what's best for you is to try them. This can get expensive but all valves behave differently in different amps and just because you use one brand in one amp doesn't mean you should or have to use that brand in another amp.
Winged C EL34's, 6L6's and KT88's generally outperform the JJ's but are more expensive. We've been getting great tones from the TAD's in both preamp and power amp stages but they're not for everyone.
You can mix and match preamp tubes with different brands and sometimes types of valves to try and get the best tone. Sometimes one brand works best in VR1 but not 2 or 3. Power valves however MUST be matched in brand and type and most amps need biasing when new power vales are fitted so we recommend you get these fitted by a tech.
So this, like everything else in your signal chain is all personal. We can "steer" you towards what might be close, but at the end of the day it's up to the player to decide what valves best suit their style and taste. Come in and have a chat if you like or contact us and we'll help as best we can.

Tym strings

We have great quality USA made strings under the Tym brand name starting at $10 a pack, less with quantity orders. These are imported and made into packs of the most common gauges.
We currently do 9-42, 10-46, 10-54, 11-48, 11-52 and 13-56 in nickel electric guitar and phosphor bronze acoustic strings in 12-53 and 13-57 gauges and still at an AMAZING $10 a pack. We also offer these great quality strings in 45-105, 50-110 in nickle and 45-105 in stainless for bass at $30 a pack. You can also order custom gauge sets usually for the same price and we have more standard gauges to come.