Today I’m in ‘Neil Young’ mode, listening to his tracks. Even learned the guitar lines for ‘Old Man.’

I think I played his track ‘Hey, Hey, My, My’ long time ago in a high school band configuration, think I even sang it, hepp.

Check out Neil Young’s acoustic guitar playing on various YouTube movies, such as this one, Old Man. He’s good!

And you thought Peter Frampton or Jeff Beck were one of the pioneers of the talking box effect? Here’s a strange video just posted via Boing Boing where Peter Drake is using something similar for a steel guitar. I must say, it sounds psychedelic even if the intent was not that. Note that the fun stuff starts way into the video…

If anyone knows if there’s a way to get Logic’s Vocoder to work nicely with a guitar track, let me know, not sure how it all will work as it’s the EVOC synth that is the generator…

I just picked up Talking Head’s Remain In Light from the Amazon MP3 store, special price today. Anyway, been a while since I last listened to this one.

I must say, the Adrian Belew guitar playing on this record was extremely innovative and different from the rest of that time. Maybe even today.

Please, more ‘think different’ guitar players are needed in this age of EMG pickups and metallic copycat playing. I still regret I didn’t go to the Adrian Belew concert in SF last April — not that I’ve seen him twice. The first time, in the first song he played, he started this guitar solo that was full of cliches and bad playing. My thought was: “OK, so this is the great Belew???” In part two of the same solo he pulled off the most amazing solo lines I’ve ever heard. Speak about showmanship using musical contrasts…

For more Adrian Belew madness, check out the Line6 Spider Jam video demo with Adrian Belew doing strange/strange loop overdubs.

Of some reason I really like the 5 type chords when playing guitar, such as A5. In addition I let the other strings ring so it’s a very open A5 or any other 5 using barre chords.

Why? Hmm, I think open-ended chords, both with piano/keyboards and guitars, make a more dramatic arrangement style than fixed major/minor chords. There’s something mysterious, to be followed by something else, incomplete, close but it takes to another direction. Something like that.

Besides, they are easy to play, just take a normal A major chord and lift up one finger and you are set. They work really well in all kinds of situations, even when you rearrange an existing song.

I think it’s worth exploring the use of different chords than the obvious ones when both composing and arranging, as it takes the song to a very different direction. If nothing else, it pops out from the majority of songs out there based on typical chord arrangements.

I got the Line 6 Gearbox Gold yesterday, so I installed the software and started to test out. After about 45 minutes of struggling with the installation. The included CD had a version that only worked with PowerPC Macs, so I had to go and download the latest GearBox version from the Line6 site. After that the additional Gold amp simulations et rest didn’t show up, so I had to do a refresh of the license registration. After that it was all good.

The Line 6 Monkey tool to keep track of registrations, upgrades and so forth is a good idea — but I somewhat suspect that some end users might be confused by all the computer-centric lingo in that specific application.

The UI is OK but not that fun — now I understood why PodFarm will be a really great UI. There’s something about a visual connection between the amps and effects and the configuration. Reading arbitrary names for amps and cab simulations is OK, but somewhat tedious if you don’t have a picture of for example how a Fender amp looks like. So I’m eagerly awaiting for the free upgrade to PodFarm next month.

Otherwise, this was exactly what I wanted, an endless amount of guitar amp simulations (bass, too) as well as lots and lots of guitar effects. It means I could indeed go ahead and do more productions with less synthesizer  tracks and more guitar sounds.

This is another fun AudioTuts blog posting — unexpected moments of Guitar Awesomeness.

Just some comments of my own. I don’t think Prince is underestimated, unless someone has totally forgotten to check out his playing ever.  Seeing him live doing all the guitar work is even more awesome — if he ever plays nights and especially the ad hoc jam sessions in Las Vegas I will take a night flight there.

While John Mayer, hmm, what could I say. That guy went to the crossroads and sold his soul to the marketing department, that’s for sure.

I hope the realization will sink in for the majority of consumers that guitar playing is more than trying to play as many notes as possible in the shortest time period. It takes a lot of guts to develop a personal style. I could hear immediately if for example Steve Hillage is playing.

I saw that Line 6 was dumping GearBox Gold kits, they used to be $399, then $199 and now $99. So I ordered one from Amazon. With free shipping this is a steal. I suspect they wanted to dump these kits as they just announced the new USB guitar interfaces. I won’t use the USB interface included, anyway, but it needs to be part of the system as it is also functioning as a ‘dongle’ for the AU plugins that GearBox contains.

Anyway, can’t say no for 78 guitar amp simulations, 24 guitar cab models, 22 bass amp models, 22 bass cab simulations, 6 vintage mic preamp models and 80+ stompbox effect models. Or, as my wife stated, that’s really all you need from now, no need to get more plugins for the guitar and bass. We will see.

I think I also remembered that the Line 6 representative over at AES two weeks’ ago stated that  there will be a free upgrade path to their new PodFarm software. Even if so, I don’t mind paying a little bit to upgrade when PodFarm is available — suspect that will neither be that expensive as companies want people to upgrade if possible. If so this is even a bigger good deal than I expected.

I’ve been recording a lot of my guitar tracks using my PodXT, but it seems I got more and more involved in using Logic’s amp simulations for both bass and guitar as there’s more flexibility to change the sound, especially when double-tracking guitar parts. What I do when I’m in a hurry is to record on rhythm guitar region, copy it to another track, then change the delay parameters (-5 and +5), as well as pan the tracks left and right. Then you immediately have a nice guitar spread sound. If I change the amp models I could make the tones different, too.

Now, when I’m not in a hurry I do two different rhythm tracks, as that is more interesting, but takes more time as you need to learn the first track internally so you could follow along with the other rhythm lead without clobbing or otherwise sounding not in sync. A lot of guitar tracking has to do with not playing over each other — and even if it is the same guitar player, you still need to learn what you played half an hour earlier…

PS: Podfarm has two different signal paths! Nice, so I could do combo sounds on one track, it’s another option to make a fatter guitar sounds using two different amp setups at the same time. Not that copying to another track and selecting a separate amp is the same thing, plus I could do panning and other separate effects inside Logic.

PSS: Yep, the upgrade to PodFarm will be free for any GearBox owners.

I have a Blockbuster home delivery deal with DVDs, similar to Netflicks. The cool thing is that I could order home music DVDs, live shows, instructional videos and so forth, then my wife takes it to the local Blockbuster store and could get another free DVD rental by just returning the one that arrived home earlier. I’ve watched a lot of live shows and other instructional videos — still waiting for the Frank Zappa Baby Snakes DVD; suspect I need to purchase that one.

Anyway, I watched through Nils Lofgren’s guitar instructional video yesterday, interesting techniques even if he uses a thumb pick and somewhat I think it would not work out well with my playing.

But there was another note of instructions that got stuck in my brain. Nils said that he got this from hearing  Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) playing. And this was to treat a guitar or actually any other instrument as a percussion instrument. It means playing in the pocket, use percussion elements and in all ways let the guitar playing work like another melodic drum playing.

It’s easy to forget this when you are up on stage and playing, but a band or setup sounds even more tight if your rhythm or even lead playing is tight and has percussion syncopations that work well. This is then true of playing keyboards or anything else, even voice. During the heat of a solo it’s easy to forget this — I think Frank Zappa was a master with his guitar solos, they were very evolving and abstract, but super-tight.

It might even help to think like a drummer from time to time to see how the percussion world works. If all instruments work together like a gigantic drum system, it’s sounds really well and you get the groove, especially a groove needed for any cases where you also want the audience to dance.

I have a Zoom G2 that is one of the best purchases I ever did, got a used one for $55 months ago. The reason was that I was looking for a better solution for quickly tuning bass guitars or guitars during a jam — having a tuner was a drag, it was for me easier to have something on the floor and check the tuning from time to time. Looking around I realized that multi-effect guitar pedals usually included a chromatic tuner. I needed a chromatic one as my bass guitars have D-G-C-F tuning.

I found a used Zoom G2 at the local Guitar Showcase store; it was a cheap one to pick up for plain testing purposes. Then I realized that I really like compression on bass playing — having that as a default setting when going to jams is neat, I could key in the sound I needed on any bass amplifier.

Similarly, I have seven other possible bass effects if I ever need those. The pedal has a built-in drum machine for practice purposes as well as headphone outs so I could take this battery-driven unit and practice anywhere.

For the guitar I have a set of eight or more sounds — all I need at the jam is a clean signal and I could control the guitar sound as I want. It’s a small unit, could fit easily in a padded guitar bag, as well.

All together, it’s good to have such a single-unit pedal, compare this with dragging to jams/practices/sets a huge pedal board, rack-mounted effect system with MIDI control or something similar.

There are indeed different schools of thought, having separate effect pedals versus multi-purpose systems. The nice thing with pedals is that you control each effect separately — the drawback is that sometimes you need to change the settings for specific songs. Multi-purpose pedals could be programmed, but depending on the architecture you can or can’t turn on/off individual effects in the patch.

This was for me a good compromise — next I will dedicate one bank to pure effect sounds, hooked this together with my Pod XT and Marshall stack I could key in either individual sounds, combinational ones and all kinds of other mixtures of effects and amp sounds.

There’s really not a big need to purchase a huge pedal board for your guitar or bass guitar, unless you are of course inclined on mostly doing musical sculpturing with your instrument. Anyway, here’s a really cheap effect solution: use your fingers, guitar pickups and your amp.

Excluding the technical abilities to play scales and chords and so forth, you could achieve a lot by just the finger usage on both left and right hands. For example, Jeff Beck is to a large degree not using a plectrum, only using his right hand fingers, resulting in very amazing sounds just based on the fingering. Bass players using fingers or plectrums also could generate very different sounds on the same instrument itself. It’s all about exploration and learning new tricks.

Same with pickups, learning how they interact, single-coil versus humbuckers, turning them on off, different volume levels, it all adds to the final sound.

Using amplifiers, same thing, the balance between gain and main volume, even eq settings especially with tube amps, it all creates different colorizations.

It is usually good to at least have an attempt to master this before moving on to huge pedal boards, as you could then achieve very interesting effects with no need to drag with you tons of pedals, worry about dead batteries, even more cables on the stage and so forth. Actually, it’s good to have some kind of effect pedal strategy, so I will talk of mine next.

I read a really good article about what makes the guitar tone really work on the Strat-O-Blogster guitar blog. That blog is by the way one of my daily reading blogs as it has tons of good postings about issues in the guitar world.

I think musicians over the ages have known about this, at least the ones that take this seriously. Orchestral musicians are trying to find the best instrument, intonate it and keep it in tune. Most of what they do comes from the brain and fingers, not from a huge pedal board in front of them — that would be a funny thing to see an orchestra performing, tangled with tons of cables and blinking lights.

It is also true of keyboardists and synth players — just keying another patch that sounds interesting does not mean that the whole performance or song should rely on a sound. Ultimately it is really the expression that counts. As the guitar is an extremely expressive instrument, this is why you hear the difference between a guitar artist and non-artist by just giving them the same guitar and amp and hear the difference.

Anyway, only way to get to this point, as the article mentions, is to just focus on a good instrument and then develop your style — woodworking but worth it.

From Guitar Player June 5 2005 interview with Steve Vai:

After all these years of performing and composing at such a high level, what still keeps you jazzed about being a guitarist?

It’s that the guitar is a virtually limitless tool of expression. Just the way you touch the note or pluck the string changes everything, and how a melody speaks on an instrument is really what determines the effect it will have on a listener. I love exploring the dynamics that are capable on the guitar. There’s not a single note I play that isn’t labored over until I’m in total control of the sound. The phrasing, the articulation, the dynamics, and everything else are carefully thought out and performed a million times. All of this is a tremendous challenge, but once I get to the next level of performance, the tough stuff becomes second nature, as well as becoming my new plateau—the place I’ll start from to develop my next period of discovery. And this is one of the beautiful aspects about evolving as a musician: You get to go deeper and deeper and deeper.

I wish synthesizers were as expressive; as  a guitar player you could do so much more with the same instrument, which makes it so much fun exploring and learning every single time you pick up the guitar.

The whole interview is here.

There was another big reason I needed another guitar, not that I like my main Ibanez RG750 workhorse (nicknamed Deanna after Deanna Troy as she knows exactly what I need.) It is about doing important gigs and not having a good backup guitar. Same with my bass guitars, my main work horse is an ATK3EX1 Ibanez, that’s a good sounding bass (named Anki after my wife.) but I have another bass guitar for just in case situations.

There’s so much that could go wrong on a show, broken strings, malfunctioning pickups, something else, having something  around is always a good idea, even if it takes some effort to drag all the equipment to the show. The same is true of extra batteries, enough cables and similar tools for those situations where something has to be fixed.

I must say, I don’t take multiple guitars with me for jams or practice sessions. This is only for those important shows where everything has to work, no music, the audience gets restless.

As for studio work, usually one guitar is enough, especially one that gives enough sounds from one end to another, as I use Line 6 Pods for most of my guitar sounds. Still, fun to pick up a different guitar from time to time. They all have their own special feelings when playing, the necks are different and so on.

In today’s market you could easily find a good brand new guitar for $400 or below. There’ no need to spend a lot of money for a piece of wood. Yes, you might get some special parts that are hard to find or it all sounds somewhat better, but with studio production the guitar sounds are processed so it all just drowns in the mix. Same with live. I must say, I would not like to spend a lot of money on an instrument, pay all the money and then worry for a lot of things. If it breaks, it’s not a big deal to get another one later. I’m sometimes confused about the used guitar sale prices — I looked at a used Ibanez JEM777 for $590 (made in Korea, i.e. low end Jem), it was beaten and even if it felt good, it’s an old guitar where all kinds of problems in the bridge, tremolo and frets will show up and you need to spend more money and time to fix those problems. Compare that with picking up a brand-new medium sized guitar for the same price and just start playing after some initial setup work.

PS: I named my new guitar Lori, don’t know why, I think I was thinking about Lore but Data’s evil twin is not a fun guitar name. While Lori sounds musical, maybe it’s a shorter name of Lorelei.

I was reading an article in the October 2008 edition of Guitar Player where Todd Rundgren described how he recorded guitars for his soon released Arena CD. What he said was that his DigiDesign rig was not working (driver problems) when he started the project, so what he did instead was to record guitars and such as samples, clean them up and trigger them in Reason. So as I know this is the only record where someone has recorded a lot of guitar lines for a rock album and just trigger them here and there using Reason’s sampler.

Now, it’s also doable in Logic, maybe even easier. You could do multitake recordings of various guitar tracks, then select the take you want and use this one. Then just copy the whole region into another place and select another take from the multi-take session, so no need to use a sampler.

This is actually my approach in the forthcoming psychedelic pop/rock project. I will record multiple takes of guitar, bass and so forth, and mix there in here and there to make it all sound more organic, but it’s still a matter of arranging patterns of recording takes, not record the whole thing from beginning to end. This is one of the neat things using Logic and similar tools, unlike tape you have unlimited ways to reuse material.

PS: Yes, that’s a picture of my new guitar. Still busy getting it into shape, when you get stock guitars you get a good starting point, but then you need to tweak and tune the guitar to your liking.

I could finally drive a car after the accident, so I took the chance and went shopping for guitars. As part of my new psychedelic pop/rock project I need another guitar to provide variation. Also, in case I go on stage doing guitar work, it’s always good to have a backup. I do have an old Ibanez Trailblazer II guitar but it’s an excuse to get another toy, so…

I looked at a used Ibanez RG220B, it was actually pretty solid, but I realized I already have an RG (RG750, hand-made in Japan), so getting another one might be just to get the same sound. It was a cheap one, though ($170.) I checked out some ESP guitars just as they exist, but those didn’t excite me that much.

So I took the standard detour over to Guitar Center to check out more models, as they seem to drown in guitars here in San Jose. I liked the Ibanez 2525 RG model, but again it was the same feeling of getting a guitar that sounds like the one I got 1992.

Anyway, just for fun I stopped by the display of Fender guitars and checked out the standard Stratocaster HSS (Fat-strat) versions. Wow. I always liked Stratocasters, however my problem with the guitars were the noisy single-coil pickups with no bite (not that someone could just replace them.) Also, in the 1980ies there was a big batch of really clumsy and expensive Stratocasters that were sold so I tended to back out from purchasing those.

Anyway, the standard Stratocaster HSS guitars were fun, nice layout, and the neck for me has always been the ultimate tool for guitar players. Anyway, what I really liked was the HSS spec of using a humbucker as the bridge pickup to get the bite and distortion, and using quiet single-coil pickups for the other two to get the standard Strat sound.

So unless I change my mind tonight I will get back to the store tomorrow and pick one up. That would compensate my Ibanez RG guitar sound so I get a nice spectrum of guitar sounds I could record. The other nice thing with Fender guitars is that there are so many parts I could customize, the first thing being something like Sperzel locking tuning keys as I hate guitars out of tune, doing anything to keep then in tune on stage (and in studio) is a big plus for me.

Anyway, I must say I feel a little bit old, then again any guitar player should at some point own a Stratocaster….

Followup: Well I started to calculate all the work and parts to make the Stratocaster keep in tune, especially with switching to a better tremolo. It got to a point where I realized it is just easier to get an Ibanez with everything in place, locking nuts and decent tremolo. I got a good deal on a white RG350DX over at Guitar Center so I took that home — so I’m still on the track to only own Ibanez electric guitars and basses.