Another Day on The Trails

I ride on trails for fun and adventure. (Occasionally on the road, but in So Cal the cars rule and I don't really enjoy the thought of getting run over by 5000lb SUVs while riding an 18lb road bike.) At least on the dirt only my own mistakes can kill me. Some days I can hammer on the road when I go in a group and stick with early rides on way back roads.

Today I rode 36.5 (total out and back) miles on a trail near my mountain home. It took me about 5 hours. Killer workout with amazing scenery. Today I saw one nasty rattlesnake (unusual), a bobcat (very elusive), and various squirrels and birds. 5 other riders the whole time which is unusually a lot for a week day. Almost entirely the trail is wide enough for only one bike or hiker at a time. Some of it along cliffs where falling can kill you. Some parts (about 200 yards) I walk because falling is not an option you can live with. Of course the first time I did this ride it, it took all day and I thought I would die. And of course you don't start out doing 36 miles at a time, but just like 4 and then working up as you get stronger. It takes a couple of years to get in shape for doing this routinely. But I ride 3-4 times a week (usually more like 2 hours and 20 miles at a time) and have no fear of beer, steak, and pizza, as it all comes off. I am a skinny guy mostly from the rides.

I attached a couple of pics of today's ride made from my GPS tracks. I saved some sat photos from google earth and overlaid the GPS on them. You can't see the trail because its under the trees and narrow. Not for rookies. If you crash you could be bear food. Usually I prefer a partner, but I have enough (10+ years) experience to do it alone. (probably a bad idea anyway) Cell phones don't work everywhere and its usually about a 3 mile hike into parts of the trail from where any kind of rescue jeep can go. So its a cool adventure. I write songs in my head when I'm not totally wrapped up in navigating the scary parts. The nature is fabulous. I am happy to be able to do this at 53, but it is not luck it is hard work (and good fortune).

I have a Trek Top Fuel 9.9, Its about a $6k bike but its a tool not a toy and worth every penny at this level of usage. Made for constant use like this. Also an older Trek Fuel 98, and a couple of older spares. I can't not ride just because my bike is in the shop.

Aside from my family and my music, my bike riding is the next important thing.

You can click on each of the pictures to see the original, more detailed image.

Zachary Guitar Videos by Frankie Baker

Well, most of this is duplicated elsewhere in the blog, but to simplify things for people who are only interested in the Zachary Guitars videos - here they are.

The Zachary Z2 Guitar featured in these videos is quite the tasty treat.

Here are two demos that features several pickup settings and styles. The amp settings were not changed during the recording. The first uses a different amp from the second.

Tone demo 1:




An earlier demo:



This short clip (part of a song) is with a clean tone.



In this video, I crank it up to show off the shred or metal type tone capabilities of this bad boy guitar. I think the Z2 is unmatched by any guitar for this kind of use.



Here is an entire song with the Z2. This is the Z Surf Boogie.
I recorded the bass, drums and backing guitar first, the did the lead track on video and mixed it down on iMovie. This is my favorite of the videos on this page.



Here is a clip that compares the sound of a Stratocaster, Telecaster and The Z2 all through the same amp settings. I don't care much for the playing or chops here, its more about comparing the tone of the guitars. Some guy on youtube commented that my Strat is ugly. Well, I like it. Its certainly not beautiful like a Zachary, but it has that Fender 50s car kind of vibe. Nonetheless I'd trade an endless pile of Strats of any kind for one Zachary. Imagine what SRV or Jimi could have done with a Z.

Z Surf Boogie

I am happy with the way this turned out. It was more complicated than the typical youtube thing with a guy playing along with a speakers into a video cam mic. I hope you agree that it is well mixed.

Check out my tunes on Garage Band. Download the mp3 for your iPod.

The Amazing Zachary Z2 Guitar

The search for the holy grail of guitars continues. For the moment this is it. The precision of the fretwork and beauty of the artistry of this guitar is incredible. It is a unique departure from what all other guitar makers are doing. Before I mention any downside, I must say I consider this guitar priceless. It is the only guitar I have that I would simply not part with for any reason. It is simply the best of them all.

Now that said, I would have no credibility if I was such a fool as to say one guitar does everything and is the perfect guitar for all applications. That would be ridiculous. For example, the best jazzbox simply can't do good rock crunch. And this guitar can't do jazzbox. But I'm no Joe Pass either, and I don't play that kind of music well anyway. So I am being real. The Z2 cannot replace an entire collection of guitars. But it does stand on top of the heap. It is the very best with respect to several critical measures that I am concerned with. First of all, the intonation and fretwork is simply unmatched. Every single chord and note is perfectly in tune and harmonically balanced both within the scale and chord being played. I am not talking about anything other than my ear. It simply works. It is a bit on the bright side, which is probably due to its long scale, pickup design and placement, a relatively hard wood body, and very, very low action. I don't think it will replace my best strat clone (which can't touch this Z2 for the most part) for "that" tone. The Z2 is it is magic to the fingers and the ears. And it flat ass honks. This guitar kills for rock crunch. Billy Gibbons needs this guitar. As soon as he finds out about them good luck trying to get one for yourself, they will become legendary and impossible to obtain for mere mortals. I almost hate to tell you about it lest the build wait get longer. I want at least two more of these guitars and the more people that find out about it the longer I must wait. Good luck getting one, if you can't play you are out of luck. No posers need apply.

Click here to find out more about Zachary Guitars

Bad Ass Baritone Slide Guitar

Click Here to Play the Song

A while back I got this baritone guitar. It didn't seem too useful, kind of odd and interesting but too bassy to really stand out. Actually its tough to record because it steps on the bass, and you need to do some EQ tricks to make it work.

Roy Bullis who built the beast claimed it would be a monster with a slide. In a brief moment of musical frustration, I tried it and discovered what it sounds like through a distorted amp with a slide. Man it has hair!! Now I don't pretend to know how to play slide. This is the first time I have ever tried it. But I like it, and will do it more, and in fact, I am sure that in a couple of months I will repost this song and it will really smoke em. Till then, enjoy my first stab.

Here is a pic of the guitar used on the tune:

Cool Guitar Amp

(Well, yes and the guitar deserves some credit too.)

Howdy, its been a long time since I've found anything to share. The quest for guitar tone tends to get more difficult and you begin to think you have seen it all. Recently I ran across the Suhr Badger. Now I don't need to tell you about it because there is plenty of info if you just search the web for it, you can find out all you need. The important thing is that for once, all of the good stuff that is being said about it is really true. I suppose you read the harmony central reviews, or even the reviews of products on sites like musician's friend. Well there are several problems with all of that. First of all some people (particularly electric guitar players) do not hear very well. Next, if all you have ever experienced is junk, something really mediocre could sound really great. Then, if some guitar god endorses it you might think its wonderful too. And if you just dumped a whole pile of money on something it must be good, otherwise you are stupid, right?

Click Here for the Harmony Central Reviews

Well the truth is a lot of guys have been playing the guitar for a long time, and some of us have been through not just a couple of guitar amps, and not just cheap ones either. So when you read the harmony central reviews on the Suhr Badger, you might think this is just another over-hyped and over-priced amp. Well its not entirely. It deserves some amount of praise. This amp can be enjoyed at low volumes. This is the first and only amp I have experienced that does decent big amp sound at truly reasonable volumes. In spite of its lack of reverb, it has a perfect effects loop so you can pick your favorite stomp boxes and plug them right in between the tube pre and power amps. I find it to be a wonderful place to put a nice digital reverb or delay. I'm not much of a fan of digital effects, but the tube tone from circuitry in this amp doesn't seem to be damaged by using the effects loop. Of course it adds a bit of noise, etc. and for recording you are better off adding this stuff in the mix, but its a great for live use.

This amp has a likable tone with a killer "not so loud" feature that works. I don't think its as good as a couple of other amps I have when clean, but I think I still have some speaker break-in issues to resolve, so we will see with time.

The demo video was recorded with my Onyx Forge Custom "Jag S". It has A Kinman strat blues set and an LR Baggs piezo hardtail bridge. I switch only the controls on the guitar, and get several killer tones through this amp without modifying ANY settings on the amp. So, generally all you are getting is the crunchy sound. But interestingly enough, what you are hearing was not very loud when I recorded it so its a good amp for that, and a bit more satisfying than all the digital stuff.

I don't claim this is great music, its really a tone demo. But I was having fun and made it a bit too long. Sorry, every minute or two I switch the tone settings, so keep at it and you will hear what I mean.

Another thing, this is using a the Suhr 112 ported cab. Which is very small and easy to live with and lug around. But its no Marshall 412 cab. This head sounds even better through a good 412, but I'm too old and lazy to move one around.




Many have said that you should always spend at least as much on your amp as you do on a guitar, and that is decent advice, but to be fair, this amp is a lot less expensive than many, many amps I have owned and played that were far more expensive and far less satisfying.

Maui is Nice In September

We just returned from a week there. Was a great time as we convinced our adult (24 and 27) kids to tag along. Not too tough to convince as we paid for it all, but nonetheless at that age they are busy and time off work is a premium to be savored. I'm not your travel dude but here are some Maui comments:

Mama's Fish House - perhaps the best restaurant on Maui. You will pay for it.

Roy's - Not as expensive as Mama's but also very nice. Not quite the ambiance or service.

Hyatt Regency Hotel Pool - Still the best pool on Maui.

Hyatt Regency Hotel Restaurants - too expensive - didn't try them - the breakfast buffet was included in our package and excellent - but not worth the $27 bucks it would have cost. I can't eat that much in the morning to make it worthwhile.

Fish in the Ocean While Snorkeling - Not as many as there were 10 years ago, but still beautiful. Kapalua Bay is the place to go to see fish easily.

Maui Ocean Center Aquarium - Beautiful exhibits and not to be missed.

Maui County Fair - If you are lucky enough to be there during the 3 days its on, the food was dirt cheap and great, and there was some good entertainment. (I don't know about you, but after spending $575 for a party of 6 at Mama's fish house it was refreshing to feed everyone for pocket change.)

Onyx Forge Custom Jag S

A new guitar in the collection has arrived. You can read the details here C25 Onyx

And you can hear it in this video:




This is currently my favorite guitar. I put 11s on it which is more beefy than the usual 10s. I think its the ideal "Nashville" and "SRV" axe.

New Old Guitars

I assume you are familiar with the Fender Custom Shop "Relic" guitars? Maybe not. Well they build a new guitar using an old design and materials, then grunge it up by wearing off the paint, scratching it, sandblasting the metal parts, rusting it, and other things. Now it looks old and beat up. That is supposed to be cool. Like if you inherited your pop's old guitar. Or you played it everyday for 10 years in grungy bars. As if you were SRV or Billy Gibbons or Willy Wonka or something.

How ridiculous is that. If you can play, nobody gives a rats ass if your guitar is old or new. I suppose some morons think people would see their guitar and think wow he's been playing forever, he must be good. Or wow that's a vintage Fender, how cool. It sounds so great. What a bunch of crap. And they charge a ridiculous premium for these things.

So if you see some guy playing a beater guitar don't pay any attention. If he sounds good, that's just wonderful, but its not because of his beater guitar, that he possibly paid triple for and bought last week.

Plastic Coated Guitars

Why do guitar makers use a poly finish?

It lasts longer. It wears better. It doesn't crack. It doesn't annoy the AQMD or the feds because of VOC emissions. Its cheaper to manufacture. It doesn't affect the tone at all. It looks better.

Do you know which ones of the above are true?

Well some of this is obviously true. As far as what is not obvious, or clearly a matter of opinion, I beg you to figure it out for yourself.

In my opinion, a nitrocellulose lacquer finish can look and sound better than poly. A near natural or light oil finish might be the best of all for tone. Actually no finish at all might be the best for tone. Of course the tone is really subtle, but from my experience a heavy finish kind of kills the wood resonance. Nitro has a chance to be lighter. It seems more organic (actually its like liquid wood). Of course the guitars I have experienced the nitro finish on are either recent customs, vintage guitars, or vintage re-issues, so a lot of what I am hearing could be in other things in the guitar. I also have one poly guitar that sounds pretty darn good, but I am guessing it would sound even better with a nitro finish.

Of two tele's I have, the nitro one sounds better, of course it has a lot of mechanical differences as well, so its hard to nail down.

I think a good nitro finish looks better. Its not as clear, it yellows with age, it looks "vintage". Of course a cracked faded or yellowed finish can look sucky too. So can a nitro finish on a guitar that cracks up because you opened the case it the winter after having it the back of your car. Oops.

So just remember when somebody says there are no real tone differences between nitro and poly, I think they are completely wrong. But it takes more than nitro to make a guitar sound good.

So where did you ride your bike?

(click to see more detail)

People often ask me that question, when we go to the Singletrack Lodge. This is where we ride. It's a dirt trail and today (once I got off the short road portion) I was entirely alone except for the birds and squirrels. Needless to say, when alone I ride extra slowly and carefully, because cellphone coverage is limited, and its a LONG walk out. The weather today was great, scattered thunderstorms kept the temp down around 70, while down the hill in the desert it was well over 110, and in fact even 93 at the beach. Another day in paradise.

Let Them be Boys - GarageBand Track of the Day

Hey, I entered one of my better tunes in a GarageBand contest to get some feedback, and got Track of the Day. I guess there wasn't much competition today, but I'll take it! The reviews are helpful on this one, its only a demo with a couple hours of work, so this will help with a remix. The drums in particular need to be redone, and I'm looking forward to doing that. Hope you enjoy it.

lyrics to a song - first demo track:

<- Click to listen to this song

they say there was a problem with that boy
he just didnt seem to do the things we like a boy to do

there seemed to be a problem at school
but things were too slow boring and uncool

who wouldn't rather mess and play around
when theres so much of life outside on the playground

but the teacher labled him as A D D and his momma
gave him some pills and put him in front of the TV

and now we wonder why he cant be part of society
and now hes a living in a correctional facility

take them outside and let them howl at the moon
don't treat them like a problem or they will end up in the zoo

not everyone can live a life behind a desk
sometimes a boy just needs some space to be his best

isnt a little discipline is better than a pill
why label him a reject and make them want to kill

a child's frustration with ordinary life
can be misdirected into the street and a knife

be smarter than the labelers and help them find a way
to teach us to innovate and live for better days

take them outside and let them howl at the moon
don't treat them like a problem or they will end up in the zoo

Click Hear to Listen to the Song

My Favorite Training Ride

Hi, recently I got a Garmin Edge 205 bike GPS. Its a thingy that tracks your ride and then you can download where you went and map it out, including the elevation changes. Also you can use it to compete against your prior rides etc. You can google it and figure out the details if you want. But the point of this is that we do a ride for training and its a tough one. Its located at Crystal Cove state park and we do some loops around this course (pics below). According to the fitness GPS we burn about 1400 calories, which does not sound like much until you try to burn off that many on an excercise gear in your favorite fitness center. On this particular ride we did it in about an hour and 50 mins. (excluding about the 10 minutes in between a few hills I rested to wait for my training partner). My record for this is 1:47, but I think anything under 2 hours is a great workout result.

If you ever want to try this, meet us at the parking lot most Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 7:30 AM. Bring lots of water, spare tubes, and a pump. And if you are really slow, you might be on your own, because for the most part we need to get on with our day. Don't worry about getting ahead of us, if you are that good, have at it. As we are old farts (53 and 59) you young-uns can kick our butts - but unless you are used to this kind of riding you will be surprised at the difficulty in keeping up.

The route is looping - clockwise from the left, at the survey point we double back through the crossroads and do that little inner loop, back up to the crossroads, then back down the center, up to I think I can, back to the survey point again, then double back the starting route to total out almost 20 miles. We end up passing the crossroads 4 times, so there are lots of shorter (and longer) variations.

(click to see better detail: - sorry html programming bores me)


Here is the hill profile, (click to see better detail)

Zachary Guitar Pedal

Update - August 16, 2007:

I have been spending a lot of time with this pedal. It seems to be ridiculous to say it, but it is brilliant. It is the best investment in gear I have made since I purchased a '69 Tele for $150 when I was 17. (damn I wished I was smart enough to have kept it) This pedal is so musical. (I will keep this.) Of course it is brutal in revealing your warts as a player, and the tone shortcomings of your guitars and amps, but it is also insanely rewarding when it uncovers the harmonics of your best gear and the skill you have as a player. After redoing the setup on my Tele, it is sweet through this pedal. I think a couple of my other pedals are going on e-bay in a couple of more weeks if I don't use them. This one takes the cake.

Note - my previous post of August 11 - five days previous:

Occasionally, one runs across something that lives up to its maker's hype. This is one of those things. Of course the hype here is over the top, and quite honestly I'm not sure how much better than some other units I have tried this really is, but in my opinion this IS the best guitar pedal available now for the kind of sound I like.

Here is a link to clip of me fooling around with this pedal. Part of it actually is musical and includes a chunk of a song, but mostly its a tone demo.



Expect to hear it in the mix of some of my upcoming tunes.

Am I plugging this guy's pedal? Well I suppose. I like to see good things get the attention they deserve. Also, if you check it out this might in fact be something that enhances my credibility as a person who is has knowledge about getting good guitar tone. And, we will see over time about getting rid of the other pedals. If I end up not using them for quite a while, that's exactly what I might end up doing.

A couple of other overdrive pedals I use include the Fulltone OCD, Barber Burn Unit and the Xotic AC Booster. I think the Zach pedal can replace the Fulltone and Barber, but the AC Booster is kind of in a class by itself for the sound it makes. The Fulltone, in some ways I prefer to the Zachary pedal because it produces a good grind that you can hide in a bit more easily than the Zachary pedal. The Zachary pedal is more transparent and up front, and brings forth both your excellence and flaws. It has a wider freqency footprint, and for some kinds of music, the OCD might be easier to deal EQ wise with in the mix.

To be fair about how good this pedal is, I don't think I would have bothered with the Barber or OCD if I had the Zachary first.

Telecaster Shootout

Scroll down to get right at the video if you are not interested in the text..

Well, as I mentioned I suffer from Guitar Aquisition Syndrome. My most recent attack concerned a '62 Custom Telecaster. Actually not a real '62 as these are out of my league (and honestly in my humble opinion are more valuable from rarity as opposed to utility or musical value). This guitar was recently built by Fender to almost identical specs to the original '62. It features vintage frets on a rosewood fingerboard, a nitro finish, 3 saddle bridge. Not specifically looking to buy a guitar, I played this one at a local shop and found it to be exceptionally nice from both a tone and cosmetic perspective. Forgetting that I already have a perfectly good Telecaster I bought it. Then I got home. I rewired the tone and switch - (the '62 had a dumb forward position with a dark neck setting and no split setting) I don't know anyone who actually uses one of these and leaves it that way. I didn't care much for the vintage 3 saddle bridge that had problems with string spacing and intonation, so I upgraded that to a Callaham compensated brass saddle bridge. Now I really like the tone, in fact I prefer it tone wise to my other Tele, except perhaps for the hum when using it really in a really high gain setting (which is not really a Tele thing anyway).

Well, what about the other Tele. It's still a really nice guitar, and better than the '62 in some ways for a couple reasons. It's an '06 American Deluxe Ash, with a nice thick maple neck, jumbo frets, and SCN pickups. Its a bit heavy. It stays in tune more easily and has almost no hum from the truly noiseless pickups.

Well I decided to play them back to back and decide which one sounds better. Here's a video if you'd like to post your opinion, I'd be interested.

A couple of notes. To be fair, the Deluxe has 9s, and while easier to bend, they don't have quite the tone of the 10s on the '62. But the Deluxe has jumbo frets and I just couldn't hear the Tele tone I was looking for (a bit of string slap and more twang) from 10s - the 9s did that. The '62 has vintage frets and I like that sound. I might try 9s on the '62 - but the 10s feel pretty good and sound nice.

The bridge swapout didn't change the dramatically - a bit smoother and more sustain - from what I can tell, but I do like the compensated saddles, and the string spacing from the original 62 bridge was bogus with the grooves and screws interfering with a straight string path. (I saved the bridge so when I resell the guitar I will have all the vintage pieces).