Practical or Pointless Guitar Accessories

on today's episode i'm going to show you a host of different guitar accessories gadgets and very strange devices marketed to guitar players and we're going to decide together if they're practical or pointless it's that simple let's just do it [Music] first up are the barefoot buttons stomp switch toppers these go on top of your stomp switch uh here's one that has thorpey's brand name on it back in the day they sent me the same pack this one's branded jhs you know sell it with your pedal sell it on your site here's one from beatronix and then all the big stores like sweetwater and those places sell these so you have your pedal with your foot switch and maybe on your board it's a little hard to hit that button properly every time maybe it's a tap tempo button or something so you just put this on there tighten down an allen and it makes the stomp switch bigger now a person like me i think i'm the target audience i have larger feet sometimes it's hard to like you know navigate the giant pedalboard i've tried these and just never stuck with them but what do you think that's what matters let's fight about whether or not these are practical or pointless in the comments next up is an item made by proco that honestly i never heard of i've never seen it anywhere and i was doing some research and stumbled across it and uh it's it's something unique i'll tell you that it's called the rat tail it's made by broco so the idea here is that this is a distortion cable you know we go through great lengths of cable to make our signal clean and strong and this one though has a knob you turn and you go from true bypass which is actually in the copy it's a true bypass cable and then you have a gain setting one and a gain setting two i just want to read the copy it says want to goose the front end of your amp with some gnarly sounding dirt out of pedalboard real estate then plug your guitar into the proco wrap tail distortion cable loaded with the same clipping diodes as a vintage rat distortion pedal one in four and four eights i assume this cable is a great way to propel your amp into sweet grungy overdrive a three position switch at your instrument's input puts two ranges of distortion plus a true bypass toggle right at your fingertips complete with composite conductive vinyl and copper braid shielding i don't know what that is but it sounds impressive and a rugged matte pvc jacket okay where's the jacket the rat tail distortion cable is a quick easy way to edge your guitar tone i do want to have a disclaimer here inside the other end it takes a battery and it takes these tiny little batteries they're so small that my giant freakish hands won't even allow you to see them and they went dead so we just opened it up and forced a double a battery to power this i mean those are so small they're like a speck of life like you can't even i lost them they're gone we're gonna jam on this and you're gonna decide is the rat tail practical or pointless [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and [Music] guitar tuners didn't always exist sometimes people just tune by ear or to a piano or to each other and then you know we get things like these giant tube tuners or weighs 500 pounds has a microphone in it you know so led zeppelins on stage they're tuning with this kind of stuff then we get digital tuners and then in about 1985 we get the first pedal tuners and these are the standard but there's been this recent uprising of headstock tuners i remember buying my first one probably in 98 for musician's friend it was an intellitouch you know about intellitouch some of you do we got a lot of options here we have uh a korg one peterson even has a strobe tuner that goes on top we have the snark this is probably the best selling one ever the polytunes ernie ball and we even have this really cool tuner that i love nick loves it oil you love this one nick it's the ns micro sound hole tuner for acoustics highly recommended do you even need pedal tuners giant tube tuners are the clip-ons gonna last are they practical or are they pointless paper was first invented we think in 25ad by the chinese and there's been a constant problem with this for hundreds and hundreds and millions of years you get a big pile of cash from your hot gig you set it down before you count it because i don't know you're watching tv you're hungry you're thirsty and it's windy in your room the wind starts blowing that fat stack of cash all over the place but you know what mxr solved this problem in 1978 when they introduced the mxr paperweight now you can take that money that big stack of cash you got it that smoking sweet gig put it down on top no more wind no more problem is it practical or pointless i don't know but i think it speaks for itself also it's a little strange that analog man at some point ended up with a stash of these like you could buy nos mxr i i just thought that's worth mentioning you've probably heard of scene owned or broken in ebo they came out decades ago i've had a ton of them i think i got my first one in 2001 or two and i've broken at least 30 to 50 of them on stage well there's a new product in town and honestly i think it replaces the ebo it is called the soundstone and honestly it comes in this little bag it's delightful the bag alone i mean i may use it for other things but that's for another episode here it is 9-volt battery you turn the switch on it just basically puts a magnetic presence over your string and holds a string infinitely so you can hold it over that and play tap-on type stuff slides and yeah it's an electronic bow effect you know i'm not a pro with this yet it feels a little different than the ebo i gotta i gotta step up my game but i think i'm good enough to demo it right now and while we do this jam i think it's your turn to chime in again and just say is it practical or pointless and in the description below fill out the link it's a giveaway thing down there you'll see it and we're going to give away a sound stone we'll mail it to you so do that or don't don't really care but definitely watch the jam because we put a total of like five minutes into it [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] next up is an item that i purchased in 110 degree weather in fort wayne indiana at sweetwater's gear fest outside gear festival showcase thing they have like a yard cell tint this is the pulse tron uh i think it's a tremolo an exciting new pulsating guitar effect and cable in one unit the back says uh some stuff like explore your creativity you know we we googled this and google actually said it looks like there are not many results i haven't seen that in a while so it says the pulse tron is a light activated sound effects unit designed to operate in low or bright light room conditions it can be used with any guitar bass or keyboard it just goes on and you know try new sounds move your hand up and down over the pulse tron move your hand across the pulse rod moving your hand over it's just like do stuff with your hand and it says at the end let your imagination fly i paid 20 bucks for this uh if you live in las vegas i do need your help there's an address on here we want to get to the bottom of this it says rustar electronics 6731 west bonillo drive las vegas nevada 89103 so if you're in vegas you know let us know there's a phone number too call this phone number if you're watching 702-367-3665 that's 702-367-3665 we're gonna we're gonna hook this up i'm gonna open it up here uh yeah it was originally 27 i got it for 20. so i got a bargain we have like this light sensor i'm going to plug this into the guitar this goes out to the amp and then your signal is in this light sensor we have some hundred year old 3m tape i'm just going to gaff tape it down one of the greatest accessories ever and i think the idea is you move your hand back and forth and create tremolo there is a possible problem if you don't have full light on a photo resistor it's gonna make the signal of the guitar really dark and crappy so there's another accessory that could help with this we're just going to rig this up i feel good about it nick you excited to like we're going to rig up something here there is a product that's really really cool by rock stock called the bright switch and you put it on your board and you can charge your cell phone or ipad from it and it also has a usb light so we're gonna hook this up hook the light onto the guitar and just do a lot of stuff with that we're gonna see where this takes us and i'll i'll even put this miniature hand on my finger so i have two hands just let us know is it practical or pointless [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i gotta say using this as seen in that video when i turn it on the difference is night and day [Applause] next up is an accessory that's highly controversial some people don't use them some people say they're stupid some people love them some people fight over why they love them hate them different types of this accessory i have seen full out punches in the face at nam over this when i saw a guy drag through the bathroom and thrown into a stall it's serious it is the subject of picks and here's the thing it's hard to pick the perfect pick i have some options here that i want to go through and just elaborate on a bit first up we have a very very generic and you know honestly almost poorly crafted walrus pick i don't want to hate on walrus i love him but this is just a normal pick you know there's nothing fancy and and here's the deal i played this pic a lot in the shows great results but when i compare this lowly simple pick to these other picks you're gonna see that i don't know they're all picks so we have the walrus pick then there's the gravity pick i love this pick for how it feels and i i swear i hear a difference but i'm probably insane and that's okay if you're insane and you're okay with yourself that's fine and i think that might be the case here we've shipped thousands tens and tens of thousands of these that come in every jhs pedal so i just want to read a few comments about this from their website uh you know you just have to hear what other people are saying and they say what other people are saying here are some quotes improves articulation and tone by a mile i have measured articulation and tone and a mile that's insane listen to this one the picks are never going to wear down it is sick i don't think i've ever worn one down that is kind of sick next up i am faster moving from pluck to pluck than any cheap this is a family show i'm gonna edit this any cheap a nylon thing amazing there's that one next up we have a pick called the magic room let me tell you about the magic room sound strength sustainability trifecta it's made from what's this made from bamboo is it bam made from bamboo next up these are made from wood i think these are from modguitars.com yeah wooden picks we're gonna try those a big one and a small one and then there's a pick that really really means a ton to me it comes in a little jewelry case i actually had someone buy this for me and bring it from hawaii on a trip uh i i don't know where to buy it there's an 845 front street la han lahina maui i don't know it has they wrote it to me i've had this for 15 years and it says inside prehistoric mammoth ivory the woolly mammoth was the distant cousin of the modern elephant although extinct for 20 000 years their preserved remains are occasionally found intact with long curved ivory tusks mammoth ivory can take on a variety of colors although scarce and difficult to work with each piece of mammoth ivory's unique and exist as a witness to prehistoric times so here it is this is a prehistoric pick you know there's vintage picks then there's this this is a next level thing let's shoot some things out as picks let's shoot these picks out let's get to the bottom of depicts really matter is it practical or pointless to worry about your picks this is the walrus pick this is the ghs pick this is the magic room [Music] this is the ancient tusk this is the small wooden pick this is the big wooden pick walrus pick jhs pick magic room pit ancient tusk pick small wooden pick big wooden pick the box that the ancient toothpick came in a giant clamp bernie sanders [Music] next up is an accessory that i saw and i bought it because it looked interesting and we're about to find out what i think about it maybe but definitely what you think about it it is called the submarine pickup there's a link in the description below as with all of these you can go read more about it but here's the idea you put this pickup sensor under a few strings one string two or three and you send signal out of this to a different output so you have your normal electric guitar you know whatever strat telly i'm going to play a tele so two pickups pick out whatever you want to use that's your normal guitar signal then this is like on top of that through a different channel or a different amp so you could run out to just a bass amp maybe put it on your low strings put it on your high strings and put effects on it that don't affect the low strings you get the idea what i'm going to do is i'm going to play my normal guitar pickups do a clean amp with some reverb and add a little bit of quarter note delay with a cub and then through this i'm going to do the c9 organ machine and i'm going to put this on the base strings the top two e and a and i'm going to process them with like this whirly organ sound and then i'm going to use a fat cat distortion and kind of gristle that up a little bit and i think you're going to like it because it's like i'm playing two things at once even though i'm just playing one thing and that's basically wizardry so is it practical or pointless just figure it out while we jam it's up to you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] earlier we talked about guitar picks and you know played some different ones to see what we think but there's this other trend it's been going around for maybe maybe 10 years not not quite 10 years uh it started with people putting altoids mint cans on their pedal board and i think putting pics in them so we have this thing now so walrus has this you slide it open and you know it comes with picks which is cool it's like a like a swag type gift thing they give them out at nam or mail them with packages october audio sent us one yeah pixar in there harmony guitar chorus has these round ones these are cool i don't know where i stand i i don't know do i want to put pics on my pedalboard is this is this pointless or practical do you want to do that maybe you have a spot on your board i don't know and i personally need help deciding what i think so help me decide maybe i'll put one on my board or not maybe this never happened next and last is something that i've used for years so i guess in a way i have to say i love it because i do love it um it is the kaiser cut capo you've probably heard of a capo which simply clamps onto your guitar and in theory and practicality simply shortens the neck of your guitar so if you put it on the second fret and play a g you're actually playing an a so it helps you transpose and get different sounds it's really useful and really fun and this is different i think it started from people flipping their traditional kaisers upside down because they have this section and they would just cover three strings so they made one that doesn't have the longer part here and so you put it on your guitar and your e bass string goes through here untouched and then your a d and g are clamped down at the second fret you can do any fret you can do crazy stuff with this but the practical usage that everyone kind of starts with is put this on the second fret and your guitar is in a type of open e instantly it's really great and you always see it on acoustic which i feel like you know it kind of robs electric players of thinking about this i love it on electric and if you're crazy you can double them up you know you can put this anywhere and then this two behind it and move your open e to higher registries like f sharp g whatever you want to do we're gonna do a jam on it i think we're gonna do something meaningful a lot of times on the show we just riff you know we just go after it i feel like we need to create art let's do some art and then you tell me if it's practical or pointless you're not gonna hurt my feelings it's just my art and just me pouring my soul out through song and music it's fine [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] what have we learned from this where do we go from here i've presented tons of accessories that are possibly practical or completely pointless and honestly i'm starting to wonder if this episode's practical or pointless and i need you to go to the comments and just let it all out on me i want to sit around at night and read your comments and hate towards me and love and really fight with that as a person let it mentally torment me and i think that's an important thing to do as a human as a person and that's the end of this episode practical or pointless you know maybe that's how i feel about myself sometimes maybe maybe life's just a vapor i don't know maybe maybe everything's useless i don't know let's go to record time yeah whatever it's pointless hey everyone it's future me like with a haircut and stuff not the past me that you've been watching in this episode i just want you to know that we are doing pedals the musical it's a 25 30 minute musical about the history of guitar pedals it's going to be on youtube uh right here where you are actually and it's saturday the 13th and sunday the 14th it's a live theatrical musical with like cast original songs stories emotions it's actually a thing i know you still don't believe it you've seen the ads you're thinking that's some kind of weird early april fool's thing it's not it's gonna happen so if you don't watch it you won't see it so go watch it cause like i'm from the future technically you should listen to people from the future today's record time is brought to you by 1996 fashion nugget by cake practical or pointless that's why i pulled this record out i think it's amazing highly practical in my guitar playing life i remember being right at the front of learning guitar riffs printing tabs out and i heard the distance i watched the video on mtv i would watch greg brown's fingers play the riff and this older kid that i would sometimes see at break time he explained to me he's like oh two three like he would tell me the tab numbers on the string and this record's so awesome they're a little weird little bizarre but i love the style it's one of the only things i'll ever listen to that's rock with trumpets not a huge scar fan and this isn't ska but to some people i think it could trigger them it might trigger you i want you to listen to it let me know what you think my favorite tracks are the distance frank sinatra race car yaya the whole thing's really great just check it out in the comments let me know what you think what's your favorite cake record and also remember i said it at the beginning here is it practical or pointless i need i need your vote have to have it thanks so much for watching this episode i hope you enjoyed it i hope it was practical like it if you liked it subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to get notifications of future episodes check out thejustshow.com for all kinds of things you might find interesting including merchandise and other really good information like articles and all the record times we've ever shared and just lots of stuff it's all over there and then you can be a patron of the jhs show check out that link below there's a lot of long form talks and very nerdy things that a lot of people who are watching who are nerds will enjoy so click that as well have a great day and just go accessorize do whatever you want just buy some of the stuff or don't or i don't know just do whatever you want to do that's that's what i'm going to do now a human skull a whirlwind direct box a plastic goat abraham lincoln an unopened copy of u2's unforgettable fire on vhs from the mid 80s 1986 larry bird a clone centaur a nash p bass style bass electric guitar my pet penguin from childhood which i had stuffed and plasticized [Music] an apple from trader joe's a house shoe that i bought in california on a trip and it kind of hangs out here in the office an energizer double a battery a big stanley a steve stevens sound laser it's modified a chipset 250 millimeter pick a sob tech model 001 mig 50. my right in-ear [Music] that silver youtube award thing they sent us for having over a hundred thousand subscribers [Music] dot warner her nose is missing a vertex still string clean drive assure sm57 the other end of the shure sm57 a framed picture of the morning glory from our 2014 nam booth

Channel: JHS Pedals

Views: 227,175

Keywords: JHS, JHS Pedals, The JHS Show, Guitar Pedals, Guitar Effects, Guitar Gear, Guitar Pedal Demo, Music History, overdrive pedal, chorus pedal, distortion pedal, boss pedals, compressor pedal, univibe, delay pedal, octave fuzz, reverb pedal, reverb, eq pedal, boost pedal, behringer

Id: 9loWz8eknpc

Length: 29min 49sec (1789 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 05 2021