Tone Of Gold

Ok guitar nuts - I need some help. Crystal Lewis has to be one of my all time fav female artists. This album called "Gold" came out in 1998 and contains some of the greatest guitar tones I've ever heard. Shawn Tubbs is the session player on the record and man can this guy play. I'd like to ask any of you out there what exactly Shawn is doing on track nine (Why). The lyrics/guitar/bass combinations draw my ears back to listen time and time again - I just can't get over how much the guitar sings as much as Crystal in this song. There is soooo much power in finding and utilizing great tone - and to make that tone communicate a message... what an art. I understand that post-prod. ie)eq etc.. has a great deal to do with the final outcome of any guitar track recorded, but Shawn's doin somethin' right on the tracking end. Any comments welcome to me. I'd sure love to play like this guy. Wow. It's one of my favorite songs to savour... The song itself is a bit dark and bluesy but the tones...wow... the tones!!! Give it a download from iTunes and have a listen. The entire album is pretty cool but track nine has my ears in a trance. Amazing what great tone can do.

Andy

PS - here's a snapshot of Shawn Tubbs' rig.

One More Thing for Tonight....

The Fender Amp Field Guide

This website is an information gold mine on fender amplification! I came across when i was researching a friend's mystery amp. A student of mine was given an all tube fender amp by his father's friend. Upon first inspection i could tell it was somewhat unique. The amp features 2 normal inputs, 2 reverb inputs, vol, treb, bass, reverb and volume, treble, mid, bass that all feature a boost option. This amp didn't have an obvious model name written on it (although i realized it did today), and the grille has been redone. Upon finding the amp online i learned that the amp was only manufactured in '80 to '81 and features a tube rectifier(5U4) and tube reverb. You cannot get tube reverb on some of the new tube fender models (deluxe and deville), and you cannot even get a tube rectifier on the fender twin (their flagship model, although many of the older ones had solid state rectifiers and some did not). I actually don't think that either of those are vitally important, but some tube-purists refuse buy amps with things like solid state tremolo on it (nevermind reverb!)!!

I'm considering saving some dough for a deville or delux, as they both have a "power amp in" on the rear panel. I'd really like to run my mesa/boogie" formula 1" pre amp through a tube poweramp, to do it some justice. It has sounded fantastic all of the times i have used it with a tube power amp (i've tried it with a mesa strategy 500, peavey classic 30, mesa 50/50, and my buddy's fender 30). Until i can get my hands on something with a tube power amp, i'll be using my POD 2.0.

Amps?

The ultimate reference source for all the classic amps!

This deluxe revised edition contains 40% new material, with a comprehensive A-Z section covering all the great tube amp manufacturers, with histories, photos, and information. Brands include Ampeg, Dr. Z, Fender®, Gibson, Hiwatt, Marshall, Matchless, Mesa/Boogie, Orange, Vox, Watkins and many others. Features a CD-ROM with 800 schematic and layout diagrams, from Ampeg to Western Electric, plus dramatically improved design and page layout. The book's technical tips, in-depth electronic specs, explanations, 350 schematic diagrams, and full-color plates make it a must-have for tube-tone fanatics. Hardcover with convenient enclosed spiral binding. 416 pages.

I thought this would be a really interesting resource to own, i'm going to check music123.com and amazon to see if they have it. (musician's friend doesn't ship to canada, unless they've changed in the last couple years)

I wonder why fender is the only company listed with the "®" beside it...

World's Smallest Guitar...

A "nano" guitar? Just read to believe..

The Dance





So I'm sitting around doing my chemistry ILA on molecular structure and my mom puts on a cd while she makes her signature italian soup (it's my favourite food EVER!)......It's Fleetwood Mac's live CD "The Dance" recorded in '97. My mother has owned the cd since she has owned a cd player, and over the years the music has seeped into my subconscience. I was able to sing a long with every single song. I haven't actually heard the cd in years, but every day (especially when we lived in FL) me and my bros would go swimming and my mom would have Fleetwood Mac on while she tanned or whatever. I didn't appreciate the music as much back then, although when I was 11 or so i learned "I'm So Afraid" and "Big Love."

As I was listening to the cd today I found new appreciation for Linsdey Buckingham- vocalist, guitarist, song writer, and producer. He has a very distinct sound both tonally and in his phrasing. I think he's fairly underrated, he's no Phil Keaggy, but he's definitely great. And his guitar looks weird, that always counts for something. =)

Strings Too

I know that strings play a huge role in the kind of tone that comes out of a guitar. I've been seriously considering resetting up me prs with thicker strings. I currently equip the prs with D'Addario .009 - .0046 and it's hard to believe that I haven't paid too much attention to my strings... partly becuase I was grid-locked in a very rhythmic style of play - very clean, warm sounds - very little drive on the amp. I think I've played the past 5 years this way. As I gravitate toward trying to develope some killer tones, I seem to get stuck on getting that full-bodied, rich crunch that I'm going for. No matter what kind of processing I put my guitar thru, my quest for this crunchy, messy tone is nothing without a string upgrade to the axe. Lately I've noticed that as my playing intesifies, so does the fret-rattle - even to the point that when I strike an E chord the low E string worbles almost up to an F!!! Sheesh. I know my style is going through some musical evolution so I've got migrate the string setup too. I buy D'Addario's 'casue they are cheap. Any good suggestions on some strings I could try? I'm not going to kill my fingers and move up to 11's - probably just 10's. Give me some suggestions - and yes... I've tried Elixir's and I find they snap easy - anyone else? I think Elixir's look really cool in the pretty pink package but that's about it. You can try to sell me on 'em anyway, just for fun. Well, I'm open to try just about anything after I setup the axe... and I'll give you all the official update when I'm finally happy.. with my superb tone... for now...

Now I did find a web-site here that's a shop based in TO that sounds like they've got good strings. Might try them out too... who knows.... back to my 9's for now...

Ken Parker

http://www.tonequest.com/articles/article23.htm


Ken Parker is the guy who pioneered Parker guitars. This is a very interesting article, he began basically making furniture, and then started builing solid bodies, tool-making...and then began working on the Parker design.

He has some interesting views on tone wood as well. He proposes that thickness from front to back of a piece of wood is what causes a guitar to sound better, not the mass (although the two are proportional).

" That means that when you take a guitar neck and add some material to it, you don’t make it a little bit stiffer – you make it hugely stiffer, and that’s what we do with the composite materials in the Fly guitar. It allows us to make a slender neck that behaves like a big, fat neck. "

I also liked this quote:
"The term tone wood is almost meaningless… I mean, a weed in your garden
could be almost anything… if you’re growing strawberries and a rose pops up,
that could then be considered a weed (laughs)."

Different strokes for different folks, eh.


Ken also explains how people tend to neglect the tonal contribution of the neck, and just how paramount the neck really is.

I found this to be an interesting read, a lot of things for me to think about.....

Cool album...

Just had to plug this album my buddy Trever gave me this week. It's not a new album - actually was realeased in 1999 by... Garth Brooks? Yup - that's him on the cover. It's a wierd story actually. Garth redid a bunch of Chris Gaines songs for a movie he was writing the script for called The Lamb. The movie was never released for some reason... it's just a very cool album - full of many different styles - and Garth is fantastic. Here's a bit more about the movie etc...from Chris Gaines' web link:

The Lamb has been the subject of many rumors over the last few years. Mainly because it was well known that Garth Brooks was writing a movie script, and that it would be a story about the life of a musician in the public eye. That was the majority of details known about the project. Not much more is known now.

This wasn't going to be an autobiography, a new character was created, nothing at all like Brooks. In the Fall of 1999, Chris Gaines was introduced as the main character of The Lamb. Producers Don Was, Babyface, and Garth got together and recorded the first Gaines album to get people familiar with Chris and his music, well in advance of the movies release. The CD case to "In The Life of Chris Gaines" describes itself as the "Pre-Soundtrack" to The Lamb.

Other than the fact that Paramount Pictures will be distributing the movie, further details are sketchy.

Garth has taken on the on-stage character of Gaines. However Garth has not been cast to play Gaines on-screen.

As of February 2001 The Lamb was in pre-production, and could possibily be released to theaters in late 2001 or 2002.

More Links =D

http://www.guitargeek.com/

I've always found this website to be quite cool, it has been around for a long time and has only recently started updating again. They have compiled a list of various rigs used by popular artists, obtaining gear-info directly from guitar techs, various magazines, or the artists themselves. At certain guitar forums I went to, forumites would hack apart guitargeek photos in order to make "geek" style photos of their own rigs.

http://www.guitarprinciples.com/

To me, Jamey Andreas has written the most useful guitar instructional material available. Even without buying any of the books/dvds Andreas has written, there is much to be learned. The forums are filled with very helpful, skilled guitarists writing about technique. The website has very little focus on theory, and about 90% on technique. Jamey's book Principles of Practice for the Guitar deals with technique and how to practice correectly, and isn't based on one genre of music because of this (there is even a lot of material on finger picking for classical ).

http://www.bogneramplification.com/

Bogner is another boutique guitar amplification company in the same vein as Deizel. Very pricey, gorgeous tone. This site has many different sound samples by different artists. I REALLY dig the ecstacy classic. ..if it sounds as good as the samples on the site it will be my dream amp.

http://www.vhtamp.com/frames.html

These amps are BEASTS. Thick massive gain....kind of boogie-ish. The list of artists that use them are fairly impressive for a smaller company.

http://www.conklinguitars.com/

Conklin is a custom guitar company, with some of the most beautiful guitars i've ever seen. Just look at the tops on these things!!!! They are known primarily for their fanfret design and their ability to build guitars ranging from 6-9 strings. Yeah...9 strings. Oh yeah, and they'll build guitars with 30-some-odd frets as well. And to think, 6 strings has been giving me a rough time =S.

That just about does it for me. I've posted pretty much all of the sites i frequent.

One more thing, when posting, watch the time and date. It's never correct, and I think i missed on my last post.

American Idol

poor guy... anyway, anyone following idol this time round? How 'bout that Carrie Underwood last night - she's been my favorite from the beginning. AI has not had any country singers take the title yet - she's my favorite to win the competition... either her Bo Bice...lol what a rocker! Is soooo good to him up there - great stage presence. Anyone gonna challenge me on the fav to win?????????

DL4

okokokokok.... is this delay not to die for? Anyone else think this is the best darn delay out there? It's soooooo nice. ALthough I only had mine for 6 months before I ebayed it, I still think it's fantastic.. and besided I've still got line6 delays comin out of the XtLive... I sure like the fact that I can run my delays pre or post the amp mods... pretty cool... anyway, just had to plug the DL4 for sure... sorry. I just think the boyz at Line6 are briliant!!

BIG-MATT ATTACK!!!

Well, i just got home from school and i got Ando-matic's email about this nifty new blogger....I figured I'd leave some sites for your perusal.

http://www.engl-amps.com/engl-amps/

Here's an interesting company that offers amps, cabinets, rackgear, and combos. In and around various forums i've seen a lot of gear head's giving them rave reviews...it's difficult to tell the quality from the sound samples they've given me (basically using computer mics, LOL!), but they seem pretty crushing!

http://www.rhinoamps.com/

Rhino amps..who wouldn't want to sound like our favourite large, horned, smelly mammal?! These sound pretty neat based on *their* samples (obviously they may be misleading). The reason I'm interested in these amps will be apparent to those who know me upon entering...hehe. Malmsteen uses a big, stinkin' wall of marshalls anyways....these guys are kidding themselves. EDIT: I forgot to mention that their site is sort of wacked right now. I checked the source code, but i couldn't find any link tags....so basically their website is inaccessable, but you can still check out the nifty front page hehe.

http://www.fuchsaudiotechnology.com/index.html

Fuch's amps have caught my attention recently due to their miniscule guitar world add (ususally near the front of the mag), and a jazz/blues/fusion guitarist i listen to uses these, and he has a dead-smoking tone! I dont' believe he's signed or anything (last time i checked!) but he's an excellent musician. I just remembered his name, Scott Learner. http://www.fuchsaudiotechnology.com/RhumbaBlues.mp3 here is a sound sample of Scott in action, hosted by the Fuch's site.

http://www.jimsoloway.com/27inch.htm

"Sweet, shocks....peggs...lucky!!!" -Napoleon Dynamite. These 7 string guitars have a 27" scale (hence, "the swan"), are semi-hollow, and are available in many different high quality tone woods. I haven't even heard of some of the available wood selections, so they must be good!!


http://www.edromanguitars.com/

Here is a very popular site visited by guitarists all over. I first heard of this site when i was living in Florida, my friend Vern turned me onto it. Ed Roman's Custom Shop builds and modifies some of the most beautiful guitars i've ever seen.

http://www.carvin.com/

K, everyone has heard of carvin, but they seriously are THAT good. A buddy of mine bought a custom 7-string for $1500 (including a lovely tweed case). It is absolutely smokin'. One of the best guitars i have ever played. I bought a small power amp from them to use in conjunction with a marshall cabinet and pod 2.0. The thing is really sturdy for what it is, although a solid state poweramp combined with an outdated digital modelling device doesn't go very far, as far as ear candy is concerned. It's a mediocre sound. I'm looking forward to eventually buying a tube poweramp to use in conjunction with my mesa/boogie formula pre. I'm trying to avoid buying an actual mesa power amp unless i can get a really good deal...they sound great, but are severely overpriced, to me.

Well, Dinner Time!
Gotta Run!
Happy Surfing.

Time To Connect...

This week I will be making a few of my own patch cables out of supplies from George L's patch cable co. south of the border. Any hard-core guitar nut has a wack of GL's cables on the rig. They're pretty sweet actually: you can order any length of .155 or .225 cabling and choose from a variety of different plug&jacket combinations - the.155 cable is perfect for stomp-to-stomp connections on the floorboard and for rack stuff - the .225 is best for guitar-to-pedalboard and pedalboard-to-amp connections. Good quality connections are essential in delivering the best available tone to the house mix. Can't wait custom up my GL's!

My New Pet, Furman!

Well.. this just in. I had done some ebay shopping over the past few weeks and finally was able to aquire some new guitar gear to add to the rig. My Furman SPB-8 Pedal Board came in yesterday and I've got to say it's one slick unit. Some great routing options for a stereo amp/pa setup and has ample power to run the gear I've got then some. For now I'm using the PodXt Live on the floor board routing into my my BBE 100X DI . I've also been able to patch my Samson AG1 wireless thru the system for great mobility on the stage. The majority of my playing is at church and unfortunately is wired up mono at present (soon to be changing). Because I'm wired direct into the system from my PodXtLive, most of my great stomps and fx like ping-pong delays, tremolos, etc. have huge limitations in a mono environment. When the current PA migrates to stereo I will be able to run two amplifiers in stereo for some really great tones. Until then, my current rig will suffice. No complaints at all actually. The Pod Xt Live has fantastic sonic representation of some of the worlds best amplifiers. One of my favorites right now is my very own custom Treadplate head & 4x12 cab patches. The PodXt Live is so versatile that I can even use different microphone techniques (digitally of course), like... using two 57's on or off axis for a certain tone or exchange the 57's for a dynamic and pull it back a few feet for some depth - quite amazing really.