The Analog Man ARDX20 is a highly regarded analog delay pedal widely praised for its warm, organic sound and versatile range of features. In this article, we will look closer at the ARDX20's design, sound, and functionality to better understand why it is such a popular choice among guitarists and other musicians.

If you are unsure of the differences between analog, digital, oil drum, and tape echo, please read my Brief but Complete Overview of Delay.

I found my way to the Analog Man ARDX20 while searching for a genuine Bucket Brigade Device (BBD) delay. Unfortunately, I was not satisfied with digital emulations that chop off some high-end to mimic the tonality of analog echo.

The different colors of delay are significant when creating sounds. Each variety can significantly affect the tone of your guitar, synth, or vocal. Therefore, delay is not just a generic repeating device that I place in my signal chain. Instead, I consider distinguishing factors such as the tone of the repeats, the degeneration of the repeats, the tone of the preamp, the headroom, and other factors such as the size of the pedal and power requirements.

In this discussion, I will focus on different environments and how I pair delays for the occasion.

Over the years, I've used every brand of guitar strings accessible for purchase. I was like many trying to find guitar strings that were right for me. So I strolled down a slot of avenues. I tried boutique strings and cheaper bulk strings.

Finding the right match of strings can be tricky. First, some strings are OEM-made, meaning they're not manufactured by the name you see on the package. This also means that you may notice little difference between a few more prominent brands because, technically, they are the same strings with different names.

Guitar capos are one of those under-appreciated accessories. Unfortunately, I've seen many guitarists over-consider the price tag when picking a capo. Maybe because capos have an unfortunate stigma of being cheaters, guitarists feel dirty about buying a capo.

I would like first to address this absurd idea before we discuss variances in capos and why you should care what capo you use.

A capo in no way is a cheater. We use capos to get an open sound on the guitar in different key signatures. It's rather ignorant to think it's simply about making parts easier to play. Yes, sometimes parts are easier to play with a capo. But, first and foremost, I consider sound when choosing to play with a capo.

When recording multiple guitars on a composition, I often find using different amps on different tracks helpful. This is because guitars are very midrange-heavy instruments. The more guitars you layer on top of each other, the more muddy things can become.

Each part can lose its identity when you start layering the same sound on top of the same sound. So I often try different guitars and amps to help each guitar part stand out as a multi-guitar layered track.

I often see guitarists switch to another pedal on their pedalboard, but in my opinion, that doesn't change the sonic imprint enough, and stacked guitars can still lose their identity.

The best way to carve out some sonic space if stacked guitars are getting a little cluttered is to use a different guitar, amp, or both.

I have investigated, purchased, and sold many reverb and tremolo pedals. Unfortunately, tracking down what was missing for me in these effects took time. For many years the options were limited, and what I desired in reverb or tremolo didn't exist in pedal format.

In the past several years, some of my most significant tone gaps have been filled. So we're living in a noteworthy era for guitar tone.

Designers have been putting a lot of thought into the future and past of guitar tones.

One of my biggest complaints for many years was pedal format tremolo pedals. Unfortunately, there are a lot of amps that don't have a built-in tremolo, like my Victoria 35115.

For how seemingly simple surf guitar tone appears, it's pretty elusive. Like with cooking, the fewer ingredients you have, the better quality they need to be. There is no disguise or distractions.

Surf guitar is generally a guitar, reverb, and amp. Sometimes an early fuzz like the Maestro FZ-1A was involved. But primarily guitar to the reverb to the amp.

Each of these three ingredients needs to be correct to truly capture the classic surf guitar tone of artists like Dick Dale and the Ventures.

We live in a world of audio interfaces, and analog gear emulated plugins these days. As a result, it is not uncommon to see musicians and composers plugging straight into a Universal Audio Apollo.

I think the Apollo sounds excellent. It's incredible how close they've come to some analog gear and made high-quality recording available at an affordable price. Some may think to stop there and would not understand why analog gear is still important.

Plenty of people have a set it and forget it mentality when it comes to reverb, and that's fine and dandy. But there is a whole world of exploration there that can happen in real-time. Sometimes while recording, I venture into the sound design world. Meaning it's as much about the sound and feeling as it evolves as much as the part-writing. Which reverb I choose and the settings become an essential factor.

In this article, I will discuss sculpting tone with reverb, where the tweakability of a reverb is just as important as the guitar or amp you choose.

A 1990 Gibson SG '61 Custom came into my possession last year. Upon spending some time with the SG, which acoustically sounded phenomenal, I decided the pickups needed an upgrade.

The stock pickups didn't sound as bad as they did on my 1990 Les Paul Standard. Those pickups we shall never talk about again! I would have felt bad sending them to be recycled even. If I were a man of resources, I would have purchased s ticket on Elon Musks' rocket to dispense the stock LP pickups into space far away from the hands of guitarists.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been testing out the new Reactovator pedal from Hagerman. I was excited to try the Reactivator as it's an entirely new design for a tube pedal. But, unfortunately, although it's similar in topology (solid-state boost into valve overdrive into the solid-state buffer) to a BK Butler Tube Driver, that's where the similarities end.

Here is a little info from the Hagerman website:

During the early days of TV, if a picture tube grew dim, servicemen could perform a trick called "reactivation," where heater voltage was overdriven to the point of regenerating a poisoned cathode, thus restoring brightness. That's where the name of this pedal comes from! Increasing power from 9V to 12V adds another 6dB of gain for even higher performance.

For many decades guitarists would walk into a studio or gig and put their guitar amp on the floor without putting much thought into it. Sometimes, a guitarist would need to hear their guitar more so they would place their amp on an amp road case, chair, wooden box, or anything lying around.

There was little thought about how the guitar amp reacts sitting on a floor or on top of a road case. Guitarists would notice issues with the sound of their amp from gig to gig but often chalked that up to the venue or other circumstances.

The Fuzz Face circuit is the most well know of the fuzz circuits alongside the Big Muff. This largely in part by the usage of the Fuzz Face by Jimi Hendrix and David Gilmore. David Gilmore eventually moved to a Big Muff, which made that pedal well known.

Although Hendrix used other fuzz pedals from time to time, he became associated with the Fuzz Face. Likely because of his performance at Woodstock. I actually got to hold the Fuzz Face, and wah-wah Hendrix played at Woodstock. I was thoroughly pattered down, leaving the location where they are stored.

The term Fuzz Face has become a generic term for fuzz among some guitarists. Some major manufactures don't help in their marketing either. You're often led to believe there is one basic Fuzz Face, which is not valid. I'm not saying Dunlop is lying to you. I'm saying they're making a vanilla Fuzz Face with hopes it fits all.

Guitarists are searching for solutions to get a great tone in their home studios or on quieter gigs. Higher wattage amps are falling out of favor for these situations.

Bigger amps are harder to control at lower volumes and only saturate when played loud.

Many guitarists have tried products like the Kemper or Fractal as well as amp simulators. There are a wide variety of products today aimed at the volume restrained guitarist.

I have struggled with each of these products when dialing in a guitar amp tone I love. I find myself spending more time tweaking then playing. While mixing, I keep going back to make adjustments I wouldn't bother with a real amp.

The Bnson Echorec delay is a sound that many guitarists have heard but aren't aware of its identity. There is an assumption that anything before digital or analog delays are tape-based echos.

Tape echos such as the Maestro Ecoplex were produced in quantity and more available in the USA. Italian inventor Dr. Bini designed the Echorec to solve some of the issues known with a tape delay.

For many studio owners specializing in recording guitar, a lot of thought goes into deciding which mics to collect. 

There are some obvious choices like ribbons, dynamics, and condensers. Mics like the AEA 840, Sennheiser 906, and Soyuz Bomblet are my favorite choices for tracking guitars and guitar amps.

There will be times, though, when you need something a little more specialized and specific. Something like a Wasaphone MKII.

My first memory of a Dan Electro guitar is watching footage of Led Zeppelin from the Knebworth concert in 1979. I was intrigued by the unique look with the black body and white pickguard.

The pickups also caught my eye. They seemed to have a visual similarity to Telecaster neck pickups, but they weren't an exact match.

I decided to research Dan Electro guitars, which was a little more time-consuming than it is in modern times. Now Google is always at our fingertips.

Upon some digging and asking local guitarists about Dan Electro guitars, I stumbled upon the Sears catalog line of guitars called Silvertone.

When a lot of guitarists start recording themselves, they often complain about a tonal blanket hanging over their tone. I get asked frequently about the best ways to remove the dull blanket sound.

There are several ways to make a guitar more lively. Firstly, I try to start with the instrument itself. If I'm playing acoustic guitar, I will pick one that suits the tonality of the song. The same goes for an electric guitar and amp.

Concerning guitar amps, I spend time tweaking the EQ knobs on the amp itself. I'm not opposed to adding EQ down the line, but I want to get the tone as close as possible from the start.

You may have made the right decisions with the guitar and amp but still find you need to open up the tone.

I spend a lot of time on stage and in the studio. Because of this, I'm always thinking about my guitar tone. For most recordings, I engineer myself. This means I have to be pretty aware of how my sound gets captured.

This goes one step further these days as I also happen to be mixing all of the music I compose. I also mix a good portion of the music I produce with other artists.

Dealing with guitar at every stage of the process, from stage to recording to mixing, has given me a broad perspective of EQ.

I thought I would share some of my findings on the subject of guitar EQ—one thing to remember about getting a tone that it's merely an audio opinion. There are many ways you can approach sound. You can watch five guitarists or engineers talk about guitar tone, and each has a different approach.

I've been watching a lot of Mix with the Master's videos. I find it fascinating to watch others work. It's so interesting how many different approaches there are. Recently I was watching Tchad Blake mix. He was using a plugin I never saw before for saturation and distortion called the Pusher.