Ultra Pushed into use in Emergency

M

Mike Fleming

New Member
Hi everybody! I've been following the forums for some time. It's quite admirable how everybody helps each other out in here and listening to all your sounds in the recordings section convinced me to buy. I've been playing for 40 years and have owned it all....probably a few times lol!! :roll:

Yup...you guessed it - it's all gone now and I'm the very happy owner of an Ultra running 9.03.

Recently we did a fairly large gig and my "real amps" went down just before start time. I had a W/D/W rig with a rack of gear, 5150 head, Mesa cabs...the whole nine yards! My new Ultra was already in the rack as I was about to start learning how to use it. I had no intentions of using it that night but had no other options. I had 10 minutes to dial in a sound and just hooked up direct to FOH. The tech put it back through the stage monitors for me to hear. I used a preset with a 5150 amp as I had one of those modified by Voodoo and was familiar with that sound.... made a couple of very small EQ adjustments, added some delay and just went for it!

WOW! I was giggling like a 13 year old catching his first glimpse of a bra strap! :cool: Nobody could believe what they were hearing! I kind of almost expected it in a way after hearing what it could do from your guy's sound examples. I had no idea how to run it but the sound was already there. There were other bands at the gig that night and all the guitarists wanted to know what I was using....some even writing down this site to look further into it.

I guess my point here is I've read some comments about how complicated this thing is to operate. If you've ever used a programmable guitar fx unit in the past then you'll find the Ultra very similar and it's actually quite easy to operate...even when you really don't know what you're doing....like me! lol. Do I know what "sag" and "damp" do? No! I just LISTEN when I tweak settings...I don't "watch" numbers changing. I'll learn how to post more sound clips and video in the future and share those with you. Right now though I'm too busy PLAYING with this amazing little box! :D

You can check out this gig's sound on YouTube if you search "Backdraft Toronto Fire". It's the first video that comes up in the upper left side. It's our only YouTube video....the other "Backdraft" videos aren't us. My "real" amp rig :lol: is off to the side and you can't see it. The little Fender amp behind me was being used by our other guitarist. I have no idea what the house tech did to my sound (if anything) in the PA as I couldn't hear it but this video suggests it sounded ok.
Yes...that's a Lado Strat style guitar that was made for me back in the late 70's! The sound is quite distorted as it came from somebody's camera but you can tell the Axe is there for sure. It's a cover of a Whitesnake song we do. By way of introduction....we are a band made up of Toronto Canada firefighters and we do charity gigs to help people in need. This gig was for Haiti.

Love to hear your thoughts!
 
Awesome story! I'm glad everyone was so impressed by the Axe going direct; it's also what I want to do with my band.
 
Great job! Nice guitar but i gotta say....those switches would be RIGHT in the way of my hand if that were my guitar! lol
 
Thanks for the kind words. Ya...that guitar has been heavily modified over the years - sustainer, boost, Blackout pickups. Too many switches for sure :lol:
 
Cool story!
Must be a Canadian thing. I had a couple of Lados, both customized with EMG's and Sustainiacs. Really nice quality guitars.

Welcome to the AxeFx madness!!


Mark Day
 
Thanks Mark!
Yup...it's a Canadian thing. Joe at Lado made that ax for me himself years ago...back in the spandex days! Yikes!!!! :shock: I often played out in your neck of the woods.

I've also got an Indie LP which I believe you are familiar with :lol:
I have been dealing with Paul over at Indie.

I enjoy your videos/humor and you've got a great rock sound happening with the Ultra.
 
Mike Fleming said:
Thanks Mark!
Yup...it's a Canadian thing. Joe at Lado made that ax for me himself years ago...back in the spandex days! Yikes!!!! :shock: I often played out in your neck of the woods.

I've also got an Indie LP which I believe you are familiar with :lol:
I have been dealing with Paul over at Indie.

I enjoy your videos/humor and you've got a great rock sound happening with the Ultra.
Click to expand...

Paul is great guy and a good friend :)

I remember doing the "circuit" way back...lol, Gasworks, Uncle Sams, Barrie, Hot Rocks....those were the days :)
I could survive on a peanut butter sandwich a day...as long as I had enough money for strings and hairspray..lol.

Mark
 
Great post Mike!

Cover'd said:
samhill said:
[quote="Mike Fleming":3mbr3wba]...as long as I had enough money for hairspray..lol.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Not so much of a concern these days Mark..? ;)[/quote:3mbr3wba]

Hahaha. At 27, when I realized that I spent more $$$ on hair care products than my sister, my hair farmin days were over. I cut it all off soon after and my hair has never been longer than a inch since. (40 now) :p
 
:lol: You've brought back a lot of great memories with that Mark! It certainly was different back then....playing to a full house 6 nights a week....Sat matinee. (hung over) :roll: Now I can get the "senior's discount" at Shoppers Drug Mart - could have used that back in the day with all the hairspray I used as you mentioned. Thank god there's no video of that! :geek:

I told Paul I had an Ultra and said it would be worth the drive out there to have Mark Day program the thing for me. lol. I'm still working on getting a great sound...but of course I'm never satisfied. Yes...Paul has been great with everything. I've been setting up the Indie to use as my main ax....the Lado is slowly dying. I've been recording with the Indie lately but I realized the pickups are so strong I'm getting a lot of spring noise with the whammy. I've ordered those "noiseless springs" and also the Floyd big block upgrades. It will be interesting to see what improvements all that does.
 
Cover'd said:
samhill said:
[quote="Mike Fleming":lpj4ot99]...as long as I had enough money for hairspray..lol.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Not so much of a concern these days Mark..? ;)[/quote:lpj4ot99]


A little gel takes care off the little I have left (well compared to back then anyway). At 49, I'm doing better than some and worse than others :lol:

Hard to choose your gene pool.....there was no lifeguard in mine.

Mark
 
Hey Mike, you and Mark Day have the same hairdresser too? Y'all kinda look alike.

At least from before Mark scared off what used to be living on his upper lip...

;)


Great story. Very lucky too. You can very much end up with the wrong combo and it will not sound stellar. But all's well that ends well!
 
:lol: You're not the first to say Mark and I look the same. Hey...we're Canadian...we ALL look the same! haha. I kinda play guitar like him too. You know....nobody has ever seen us together in the same room. Maybe I'm Mark....or maybe Mark is Mike? :shock:

On a serious note (pardon the pun) - I can program my Ultra no problem. I can adjust the sag, damp etc so it feels perfect for me. I've played around a bit with the Redwirez as well. I did a recording and it sounds "dull" to me. It seems if I add more "treble" then that sort of digital high end "fizz" (?) seems to creep in. Any suggestions you guys have would be greatly appreciated. The sounds you guys get are amazing but I'm not there yet. I'm committed to this Ultra in a big way but I'm recording and need sounds NOW as I have time deadlines so an amp rental may be in order and I don't really want to do that. Of course I've already sold everything else putting all my faith in the Ultra. I really like Scott's "Bogner" sound but when I downloaded it, it is extremely bright and unusable. Mark's sounds are amazing too but I'm going in a blues direction so that may be a little too "rock" for this project. Any suggestions anybody has would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!
 
Cab selection is the key to the Axe-FX. That and the PEQ block. Insert it after the cab and set band 5 to "blocking"(=low pass filter), Q@800-ish, Frequency between 5K and 8K to your discretion. That cuts out the fizz while leaving the treble intact.
See this:
http://axefxwiki.guitarlogic.org/index. ... ls#EQ_Tips
Radley is Hadley Hockensmith, one time member of Koinonia and current steady guitarist for... (Drum Roll): Neil Diamond.
Here's the 12 page thread where it's taken from:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=12374

Come to think of it, if you canadians would grow beards...
 
Dutch said:
Cab selection is the key to the Axe-FX. That and the PEQ block. Insert it after the cab and set band 5 to "blocking"(=low pass filter), Q@800-ish, Frequency between 5K and 8K to your discretion. That cuts out the fizz while leaving the treble intact.
See this:
http://axefxwiki.guitarlogic.org/index. ... ls#EQ_Tips
Radley is Hadley Hockensmith, one time member of Koinonia and current steady guitarist for... (Drum Roll): Neil Diamond.
Here's the 12 page thread where it's taken from:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=12374

Come to think of it, if you canadians would grow beards...
Click to expand...

What? I had a goatee, I'm just fairhaired like you dudes over there :)

Mark
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom