GarageRocker's Balancing Act

9/9/2020 - Squat Day

Up and moving early but slow. Slammed some caffeine and normal PWO routine, hang cleans instead of jumps. Traps sore from cleans yesterday.

Squat
45 x 5
190 x 5
230 x 5
270 x 3
310 x 5
350 x 3
390 x 6 - PR

Assistance - SS w/ Squat
Ab wheel - 5 x 10

Pause for work meeting - will go back down and superset curls with seated DB press.

Edit to add rest of assistance

Superset:
Seated DB press - 30 lbs - 5 x 15
BB curls - 45 lbs - 5 x 10

The squat PR came outta nowhere, I felt weak on everything until the final set. Assistance was good. Traps hurt, everything else is good other than me actually being tired as balls. Will train the wife later on squats and bench, then take a decently long walk around the neighborhood. Sandbag/farmer walk tomorrow.

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I gotta say… candy corn is disgusting!

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False, it’s delicious and it’s what PR’s are made of.

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@boilerman and @flappinit I managed another music gear score last week. Got a Peavey XXL 100 watt head on ebay for 130 shipped (with footswitch). The plywood and tolex are a little fucked up but I’m planning to build a custom enclosure for it. Pretty sure it beats any tube amp I’ve ever played, only issue is the damn thing is about 30-35 pounds so it’s not much lighter than a tube head. Pretty thrilled with it so far, will try and get a video as soon as I clean my guitar room up enough to not be embarrassed by it.

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Nice dude. I’ve never played one, but have heard good things. Kinda crazy it’d be that heavy for a a solid state, but if it sounds good I’d be willing to lug it around.

Looking at the specs it seems awesome, 3 band active for rhythm, 3 band passive each for lead and clean. Are there voicing switches on it too?

I initially thought you bought the xxx they made back in the mid-late 2000’s, which I had to suffer through a show with due to no backlining of gear… the other bands wanted to use the Peavey because they thought it’d sound like a 5150. I think the xxx was their take on the Mesa rectifiers and they sounded and felt like absolute garbage. Other than the xxx, I’ve never played a Peavey I didn’t thoroughly enjoy. Nice purchase man, looking forward to some sound clips!

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Yeah, it has two tube-amp-sized output transformers which is why it’s so heavy, but it’s also part of why it doesn’t sound digital. 3 different voicings on each channel - synopsis below.

Clean
Vintage - like an old Fender/Vox hybrid
Modern - Vintage with slightly more bass
Warm - about 50% louder than vintage and modern and lot of midrange, breaks up if channel volume is above 5-6

Lead
Classic - heavily overdriven Fender
British - fizzy, lot of midrange (I think this about most “British” voicings on amps…and hate the V30 speaker, too), sounds OK at higher gain/volume
High Gain - very good 5150/6505 copy - barely any fizz but ridiculous gain

Ultra - all 3 sound like shit until they’re loud enough for the speaker’s ass to overcome the fizz
Crunch - similar to classic, slightly more aggressive and more gain
Modern - avoid at all costs…sounds like a bee hive cooking in a hot garbage can, zero midrange
Ultra - well-voiced but nobody on earth needs this much gain…

I run the Vintage clean, Classic Rhythm (gain on 6-7), and Ultra Ultra (gain on 5) and like it a lot. Still working on getting the Ultra channel to sound exactly the way I want (active EQ can swing frequencies 15 dB in each direction) it but still satisfactory so far. First two channels are a wet dream though.

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So, if you don’t mind me asking, what does that mean for you? Balls to the wall all the time? Because that also seems like a recipe for burn out.

So that’s something that’s beyond training and generally speaks about doing my best to improve myself all the time. I coasted for a few months and just went through the motions in life, and got way too comfortable being comfortable. I need to be on top of housework, practice music, keep up on eating well, and try to help others more. I should live with a little more conviction and leave no doubt with myself that I’m doing the absolute best I can all the time.

I think I get that from my mom, the woman woke up at 3 AM to work out, took really good care of us boys and my dad, worked 10+ hour days, still kept up with her family and in-laws, and went to bed around midnight just to do it over again. Now, I can’t do that, and she shouldn’t have either - she checked outta this world at 41 years old (lung cancer) and the 100% moving-all-the-time probably didn’t help the spread of the cancer. Maybe I’ve been running the way I do because it makes her feel a little less far away - I’m not sure. But I also have this thing I do to deal with when people I care for pass away, where I think of what they mean to me and what they contributed to the world, and I try and sort of carry that on and be a little bit of what’s missing now that they’re gone.

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Sorry for the slow reply, but this is an area I’m trying to explore myself a lot. My default is either coasting or all in. Neither is long term sustainable for me, but I find moderation very difficult. I’m intellectually aware that “little and often over the long haul” is the way forward in nearly every avenue of life, but is something I find hard to follow.

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Yep, I completely agree with you on that. As long as I’m making some progress and putting in good effort, I know I’m OK. The mental issues I’ve had are from realizing I was 100% stagnant for a month or two, which is not OK for me. Baby steps are still steps.

This is the mentality I’m trying to foster. Next year is 531 all year, which I think will definitely help cure that, since it’s pretty much embedded into 531 principles.

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Very true. I’m more of a plug and play type guy so I find active eqs difficult to sculpt to what I want. I just don’t have the patience… people get all sorts of great tones out of mesas and the like, but I just want to play lol.

Didnt mean to derail from the current back and forth, but I always get pumped about gear, even if it isn’t mine.

Didn’t you just PR like ten times this past couple months? If that’s not realizing progress then idk what is

See, I’m the total opposite, I love to tinker with everything constantly. I actually picked the distortion/overdrive pedal I have because it had a 3 band eq. But yeah, active eq definitely gives you enough rope to hang yourself with.

Regarding the progress, I did well with lifting but literally nothing else. Haha I like to do slow and steady progress in all of life, rather than kick ass at one or two aspects.

Maybe I am a closet tone tweaker or something. I need simplicity or else I get nothing done… for example, the POD x3 has ungodly amounts of amps and pedals. I found 2 or 3 models for clean, crunch and dirty that I know I like, and I know the settings I like. If I try using something else, I spend hours turning knobs and end up recording nothing.

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That’s the reason I stay away from modeling amps - was actually pretty interested in a VYPYR when looking, but realized I’d get the guitar version of Wendler’s fuckarounditis and regress as a player. I kinda saw the XXL as exactly what you use the POD for - 1-2 good clean, crunch, and lead tones. Now I can just use my distortion pedal at unity volume on the clean channel to do my best Skynyrd tone, because what works for their music (or Southern rock in general) doesn’t work as well for other crunch/lead type sounds.

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Adding yesterday’s cardio

150 foot sandbag carry (120 lbs)
sprint back
150 foot Spud Traveling Farmer’s Walk (90 lbs/hand)

8 rounds in 24 minutes

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9/11/2020 - Bench Day

Thought for the day - I was a kid when the attacks happened. I remember the sadness and devastation and anger, but I also remember the unity our country felt in the period following the attacks. Thinking about those lost and sacrificed 19 years ago, and what it would take to make our country feel like one nation again - without the tragedy.

Coffee and oatmeal PWO today, forgot to do my jumps like a dumbass though.

Bench
45 x 5
120 x 5
145 x 5
170 x 3
195 x 5
220 x 3
245 x 9 - PR where the fuck did that come from?
270 x 1

Assistance - SS w/ bench
Chest-supported DB row - 35 lbs - 5 x 20

SS w/ each other
DB “plate” raise - 25 lbs - 20, 20, 15, 15, 15
Calf raise - 1 leg - 4 x 12; 2 leg - 1 x 50

Bench felt really strong on PR set but the joker was heavy as balls so I quit after 1. I think I do better benching when I handle heavy weight a little more frequently. Assistance was good. Should probably do some cleans later to make up for not jumping.

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Awesome work man

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Thanks! Felt good man.

@boilerman recorded a lightning quick and very-not-virtuostic demo with my phone camera tonight. Finally got the Ultra changed figured out and am real happy with the sound through my homemade Swamp Thang cab.

Dad Songs On Peavey XXL - YouTube

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