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Neal Schon Plays Journey’s Lights On A Fender Stratocaster

It’s well known that Journey’s Neal Schon plays primarily Gibson Les Paul guitars both in the studio and when the band plays live. Well, there’s one Journey song that you just can’t get the right tone on without a Fender Stratocaster. That song is “Lights”, so there you go all you Gibson Les Paul fans out there. Let’s face it, the Fender Stratocaster has a delicious, bluesy sounding neck pickup.

In this video, Neal Schon is demonstrating his parts on “Lights” while playing a Fender Stratocaster. It looks like he’s using an early 90’s Strat Plus with Lace Sensor pickups and a Floyd Rose double locking tremelo. What’s doubly cool in this video is the fact that he’s looping his rhythm part and playing lead over it. I don’t know if he does that live or not but it sure sounds cool here. (more…)
Top Content On Live Musician Central For 2009
   Well we’ve made it through another year and I hope all you live band musicians out there have had a good one. I know it’s been an interesting year for me. I’ve played some great gigs and I’ve had my share of problems in my live bands this year. All in all I can’t say it was the best year of my career as a live musician but it hasn’t been terrible by any means. Probably the greatest thing I did this year was start a live band project with my three oldest sons. Stay tuned and watch for my sons and I to be playing a gig very soon.

   I figured to celebrate the end of 2009 here on Live Musician Central I would post up a list of the most viewed content over the year. It’s no surprise that my custom programmed Fender Cyber-Twin SE preset patches take the top honors. I’ve been programming my own effect racks for almost 20 years and I used that experience while programming my Fender Cyber-Twin SE amplifier. It stands to reason that every post associated with my Cyber-Twin SE amplifier downloads would be in the top viewed categories as well. So I decided to include the Amplifier Preset Downloads page at the top of the list and fill out the rest of the list with other topics that were the most popular but not related directly to the Cyber-Twin SE preset patches.

   The following list is the top viewed content on Live Musician Central for the year of 2009. I’m glad that so many people have visited and I hope that you’ve all found something useful here on Live Musician Central. Here’s to a fantastic and excellent 2010!

Top Content On Live Musician Central For 2009
Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas? (Video)

Merry Christmas

From

Live Musician Central

It’s Christmas time again for 2009 and I’d like to wish everyone who’s been reading Live Musician Central a very merry Christmas. To celebrate, I’m posting the video to one of my favorite Christmas songs, titled “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. This song was released in 1984 and was written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. The song featured many of the top Irish and British musicians of the decade and was released to raise money to help provide relief to those ravaged by the famine in Ethiopia. (more…)
Sunday Funnies – Bohemian Christmas Rhapsody

I got a good laugh out of this Christmas version of the Queen classic, Bohemian Rhapsody. Whoever is playing and singing on it is actually quite skilled and the song is mixed nicely as well. Whoever N2OBand is on YouTube, good Job! I hope you enjoy another great Christmas Sunday Funnies. (more…)
Tipping The Bartenders And Waitresses

Full Tip Jar? Spread The Wealth Around

One of the most important things to have when you play in a live band is places to play. Without having a club or venue to play in we couldn’t really call our band a “live band”. It would just be a band that gets together to play for each other and although that’s fun for a while, the real fun is playing in front of an audience at a venue.

I’m sure you know there is a lot of competition between bands to get into the places that feature live music. Even if you have a regular gig you can rest assured that there’s another band ready to step in and take that gig if your band can’t fulfill it. Most clubs have several bands on a regular rotation and there are many other bands trying to get their foot in the door and get booked too. Today I’m going to talk about a very simple way to set your band apart from the other bands that are playing in the same clubs as you. (more…)
Lowering Your Live Band Rates To Get A Gig

The Concert Was Free, But I Bet Jimi Got Paid

The current economic conditions have been especially tough on live bands. Gigs just seem to be drying up and disappearing altogether. There is very fierce competition between bands to get the gigs that are still available. Sadly, this has led to many bands lowering their gig rates simply to get any bookings at all. So what should you do when it becomes a matter of money that is the final deal breaker between you and another band getting a gig?

That’s a very tricky question to answer because lowering your rates will not only hurt your band, but it will hurt every band that plays at the club you lower your rates to play in. The biggest problem with lowering your bands going rate is that the new, lower rate will become the accepted pay standard for your band every time you play in that club. The club owner can then use your lower rates as leverage against other bands to get them to drop their prices as well. So as you can see, it hurts all of your local bands if you undercut everyone in pricing just to get a gig. (more…)
Make Your Live Band Gigs Easier By Downsizing Your Rig

Haul Less Equipment With A Small Amplifier

One of the least fun things about playing in a live band is hauling your equipment around. Of course, having the right equipment is crucial to being able to put on a live gig. So it seems like the longer you play in a band, the more equipment you acquire and then have to haul to your gigs. It’s a problem that can quickly get out of hand and can leave you feeling overwhelmed when it’s time to load up and haul all your equipment to the gigs.

When I started playing in bands I had one electric guitar, one distortion pedal and one amplifier. It wasn’t bad to haul that small setup even though my amp was really heavy. Naturally over the years I added more guitars that I used onstage, more effect pedals and multiple amplifiers. When my guitar rig was at it’s biggest I was hauling 3 guitars, two amplifiers, an effects rack, multiple effects pedals, wireless guitar system, microphones to mic the amps and all the necessary audio and power cables to hook everything up. I also had to haul my vocal microphone, mic stand, guitar stands and a couple racks of lights to the gigs. Needless to say, I hated hauling all that gear even though it was necessary to my show. (more…)
Make The Leap To HD Radio With The Microsoft Zune HD

Microsoft Zune HD

One of the most important things any live musician can do is keep listening to music on a daily basis. It’s no secret that you are what you listen to and it’s in any musicians best interest to listen to the widest variety of music possible. One of the reasons I love satellite radio so much is because of the wide variety of non-stop music available to listen to.

I have been subscribing to satellite radio for about 5 years now and had all but given up listening to my local radio stations. But there are some drawbacks to satellite radio broadcasts. The three biggest drawbacks are the monthly subscription fee, the fact that you can’t receive it indoors without a good antenna and the fact that it doesn’t sound as good as a CD. So I was very intrigued with the development of the new HD Digital Radio format. (more…)
The Beatles: Rock Band Intro and Outro Animations

The other day on Live Musician Central we did a review of The Beatles: Rock Band video game. One of the things we talked about was how amazing the animation was in the game. So today we’re posting up the video clips of the opening and closing animations of The Beatles: Rock Band so you can see for yourself how great they look. On our Playstation 3 system they look much better because the resolution is true HD.

The intro and outro videos were directed by Pete Candeland who is best known for animating The Gorillaz. The videos in The Beatles: Rock Band definitely have his unique style to them and they really take you into another world where The Beatles themselves rule. (more…)
Weekend Gig Report – Highway 6 at 9th and 9th Festival Sept. 19, 2009

Highway 6 – L. to R. Erik Rushton, Heidi Nedreberg, Tom Nedreberg, Ted Townsend, Matt Rushton, Kyle Johnson

This last weekend I played in the excellent live band Highway 6 which is fronted by my good friends Heidi and Tom Nedreberg. I’ve been playing with Tom in various bands since the late 80’s and I’ve known Heidi since she was about 4 years old. So it’s been a fascinating project to be able to play with them in Highway 6.

Highway 6 is an original music band with Heidi and Tom sharing the songwriting duties. It’s been fun for me to play sideman in this band since I’m one of the primary songwriters in my all original band, Shufflin’ Noah. It’s kind of a luxury for me to be able to sit back and play my guitar parts while someone else does all the songwriting. Tom and Heidi do give me creative license on all the guitar parts I play so I really feel like I contribute to the overall sound of Highway 6.

So with all the songs written and the CD recorded and ready for release, it was time to play a live show. Playing live is what I’m all about so I was excited as usual to hit the stage with a brand new project. We rehearsed the songs pretty heavily for about a month before the gig. It was really interesting trying to remember what I had played in the studio. It was also a challenge to recreate the studio sound in a live show. We had to cut out some instrument parts that are found on the recording and fill up the songs with our live stage instrumentation. (more…)

Category: 1. Live Musician Central

Merry Christmas

Live Musician Central