Guitar Licks and Tips

I just found out that someone is tearing down a music recording studio that RUSH and many other great Canadian and international bands once used to record some great classic albums.

Here is a short of who once called this once Toronto historical music recording studio home at one time in their life.

• RUSH
• Ringo Starr
• Steve Winwood
• Gordon Lightfoot
• Aretha Franklin
• Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• Rosemary Clooney
• Chubby Checker
• James Brown

This ordinary one story unit was called the McClear building. It was located at 225 Mutual St., in Toronto.

“I’m a little saddened that it’s gone,” said former McClear chief engineer Jeff Wolpert. “It could have been designated historical. It had a lot of great ghosts.”

Just a side note here folks but another historical music site is just within ear shot of this place. It’s called Maple Leaf Gardens. Another historical site is within a stones throw as well, it’s the old CBC recording studio’s on Jarvis, directly to the south east of the McClear Building. My favorite and the one who influenced me the most as a very young player was Glenn Gould who recorded at the CBC studios for most of his career.

Scott Yellan, property director for Arsandco Investments, a company with ties Yellan would not precisely describe to both 225 Mutual and the nearby Best Western Primrose Hotel, said the studio building would be replaced by a parking lot. Toronto Star

In the infamous words of Joni Mitchell they paved paradise and put up a (F- – - – - -) parking lot!!! Assholes!

To read more about this story check out this link.

Keep on Jammin’

A couple weeks ago I was contacted by a representative for Sanyo US. The gentleman who contacted me wanted to know if I was interested in trying a sample of the brand new Pedal Juice by Sanyo for review. Naturally I replied back stating that I’d love to give the Pedal Juice a try.

The Pedal Juice arrived last week and I have to admit that I haven’t really had a chance to test it with my pedals, but I thought I’d start out by writing a post about just exactly what the Pedal Juice is and how musicians can use it when they are playing gigs.

The Sanyo Juice Pedal is a 9 volt portable guitar pedal power supply and from what I have seen and heard of about it online it’s a great thing to use.

The Pedal Juice Pedal is quite light and a very compact accessory that you can take along with you anywhere you practice or perform.

The Pedal Juice is a 9V DC Rechargeable Lithium-Ion power supply for your pedal with a List Price of $199.99(US) that charges up in about 3 1/2 hours. It gives you up to 50 hours of constant, stable power for a single analog pedal or up to 20 hours of continuous power to three digital pedals. No more looking for an electrical outlet or hookup for your pedals -- just use the rechargeable Pedal Juice and you’re set.

I use 2 pedals, so when I jam this weekend I’ll see how it works and get back to you with my results. With the price of 9 volt batteries these days, if your better at math than I am, you can see how much money and time you’ll save with an accessory like this.

This power supply eliminates all that AC ground looping noise that you get when you play. Another advantage that it has is that you can recharge it hundreds of times, thereby eliminating the need to change batteries in the middle of a show. That happened to me last year on stage and that’s something no musician wants to go through more then once!

With both DC outputs the Pedal Juice has the ability of powering multiple devices including pedals, multi-effect units, drum machines or portable recorders at the same time. It doesn’t get any better than that.

This device has a very visible LED power indicator that shows you the remaining power level with green, orange, and red LED lights at a glance. There is also a nice little feature that allows you to connect devices with a flip of the on-off switch. The Pedal Juice is both water and shock resistant to JIS IPX3 compliance levels.

I found just a couple of video reviews and this one is the best I’ve seen so far. Why don’t you take a look at it if you find the new Pedal Juice as interesting and innovative as I do, and once I’ve tried this out for myself, I’ll write another post about my experiences with the Pedal Juice.

Keep on Jammin’

I just thought that I’d make a list of Canadian Guitar Makers or Luthiers. I feel that we, as a guitar playing community, should be aware of who and where these mast craftsmen/women are and most importantly support them! So here is a small list of them that I am aware of.

Toronto Area
http://www.manzer.com/guitars/ Linda Mazner
http://wrenguitarworks.com David Wren (made 3 for Bruce Cockburn)
http://furanguitars.com Furan Guitars Edgar Munch
http://williamlaskin.com/index.php William Laskin

B.C.

http://robertandersonguitars.com/Home.html Robert Anderson
http://richguitars.com/index.html Rich Pielou
http://wrayguitars.ca Wray Guitars

Manitoba

http://mcconnellguitars.com/ Jordan McConnell

Quebec

http://www.saumierguitars.com/english/ Marc Saumier

I know that there are tons of other guitar Luthiers out there that I have obviously missed. If you know of any, please tell and I’d love to check them out and place them in this post!