I think I did all the wrong things with this guitar. For example, I switched out the plastic nut to a brass one — the idea was to get more sustain. What I got instead was worse tuning stability, when metal moves to metal the steps to get out of tune are bigger than when metal moves against plastic. Oh well.

Otherwise it was a real live show guitar. As for playing in the studio, it was indeed a drag.

I’m still annoyed that I used it for a trade to an Ibanez RoadStar II Strat-like copy. It would have been fun to keep it around. It’s the only guitar I ever sold or traded, all the other ones are now in my studio. Of some reason most of my guitars are Ibanez ones. One exception is an SX bass that I got for $100 used and it’s one of the most fun bass guitars I drag around to gigs. If it gets scratched, Ok. No need to worry about that.

If you have gear you like, keep it.

Basically I have three  setups. A light-weight one, a more massive one and one that could be either super-light or otherwise transportable.

The massive one is my Marshall JCM900 50W combo amp. I got this one back in 1991 as slightly used. When I moved to a more electronic production world it started to gather dust in the closet. So it was in a very pristine shape when I took it back out three years ago.

I just took it to service to get the tubes re-biased. But the original tubes still sound good according to the technician so I didn’t even need to replace those. This is a good amp for the crunchy sound. As a tube amp it will stick out at any stage if needed. It has a 4/8 Ohm output so I could load my 2×10 Avatar  cab underneat If I need more power. This is a good amp for the blues/rock and similar gigs. You really can’t go wrong with a Marshall on-stage. JCM900 is a somewhat interesting system as it has a second gain section, this one actually goes to 20! Think of having a Tube screamer added in front of a normal Marshall pre-amp section. So if I need even more crunch, it’s all there. To get a really clean sound, you need to work a lot, mostly making sure you could get a clean signal from the guitar. I use an Ibanez RG setup with the middle single-coil mic being in a lower position just to get to this cleaner state.

My second amp system, the lightweight one, is a Tech 21 Trademark 30 amp. I got this one slighty used a year ago. The reason was that I wanted a really light-weight amp to take to jams and all kinds of other small gigs. Now this amp is 14 pounds (unlike the Marshall 40+ pounds). But it’s loud enough, especially now when I figure out the configurations concerning getting the loudness out from the amp. It actually helps to keep it up on the air, I’m using a plain guitar stand, just place it hanging on this one. This way I could control the switches on top for going between crunchy and clean setups. The other trick is to *always* put the effect pedals on the return/send in the amp, not in front. Finally it also has a line out for PA systems. Or I could put a cab underneath again if I want to push more air. I could pack this one into a backpack!

Now, to understand how a Tech 21 works, it is really like a Sansamp as the pre-amp with a 30W solid state power amp section. As Sansamp analog circuits are good at emulating the tube crunch sound, you could key everything from cleaner Fender sounds to more dirty Fender overdrive tones, up to Marshall and Mesa Boogie overdrive sounds. It’s not 100% the same, but close enough for stage use. 30 Watt is plenty for smaller stages and jams.

The third one is a weird combinations. It’s either my PodXT straight to a PA. If this is the the case, I need some kind of monitoring — it’s very distracting to play and hear some of the sound just in front of me. Or then I could use my MarkBass CMD12P bass amp that has a good clean sound and let this system drive it. With the Line 6 pedalboard combination I have hundreds and hundreds of sounds. It is useful as the ultimate flexible setup.

As for my effect systems, I have a big pile of old and new pedals, Boss and so forth. In any case, they seem to gather dust. Why? Because it’s just so painful to take pedals or pedalboards to gigs, cables, batteries and so forth. Instead I have two solutions. I use the Boss-ME 50 as the ultimate tweaking system. It basically has digital version of all kinds of Boss-like pedals, delays, chorus, flanger, distortion systems. It also has a volume/wah/pitch and so forth pedal, as well as a tuner. This is a good solution for the cases where you want to constantly modify the sound on-stage for surprising yourself and others. Did I mention to always hook such pedals through an effect/send loop? The reason is that you get a much stronger effect signal and no degradation of the incoming guitar signal. Another trick I use with the Boss ME-50 is that I use the distortion section with somewhat higher signal; this way if I need to do a solo I could raise the level by pushing the distortion module active.

The other system I use is a Zoom G2. Most of these products I got really cheap from Craigslist. I think I actually got this one from a local music store, used one, for $50. Best investment ever. I have the forty presets programmed so every even number is clean, every odd number has a distorted sound. As I go up on the bank numbers, let’s say from A1 to A9, more effects are added. In other words, from conservative sound to more crazy sounds at the end. As I don’t remember exactly the patches (who would) it’s always interesting to perform and see what happens. Now, the 0 patches, such as A0, is a clean signal, with a noise gate added. So I could always go back to a clean signal if needed. I could sometimes just take this unit with me to jams and use someone’s amp. By this effect I could control the sound I needed for particular sounds. It also has a tuner so I’m all set when I’m up on stage.

I think the key with all this is to learn the amplification and effect systems inside out. The more you know about your setups, the better you will get concerning tuning your sound. Sometimes on a gig the acoustics are odd and you need to know how to tweak the sound on-the-fly. The second issue is that you need to spend a lot of time with these setups and learn how they behave, what happens with each step. For example, with the Boss ME-50 setup, you really need to know what each modules sound with various settings so you could tweak and do initial sound sculptures within seconds.

Anyway, I hope this posting will inspire others to tweak on their systems and explore similar configurations or even better ones. As for other solutions, I have this Line 6 JM4 looper that is just waiting for a good spot. Also I could take this laptop and run Mainstage with all the Logic guitar amp simulations and studio effects with a Zoom MIDI pedal that is gathering dust. And when I record I nowadays record a clean signal into Logic and test out various amp simulations until I’m happy (or Guitar Rack, or PodFarm.) Oh, all the possibilities!

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!

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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’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.