I had the opportunity to see the Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, Poison tour when it came through Salt Lake City, Utah on August 24, 2009. Cheap Trick is one of my favorite bands of all time and I’ve never had a chance to see them perform live. So I was extremely excited to see Cheap Trick perform. Def Leppard is also one of my favorite live bands so I was really excited to see them even though I’ve seen them twice before. As for Poison, well, I like C.C. DeVille but I don’t particularly like Bret Michaels singing. (more…)
If you play in a live band then chances are you most likely have a modest home studio setup as well. Every musician needs a way to capture creative ideas and having a home studio setup is the best way to do that. Most musicians have at least a basic mixing console but a lot of these consoles don’t come equipped with Phantom Power. Why do you need Phantom Power? To power your large diaphragm studio microphone such as the Audio-Technica AT2050 microphone. (more…)
My favorite electric guitar is the Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster. I use it onstage constantly with my live band. I have two American Deluxe Stratocasters. One is the 2004, 50th Anniversary American Deluxe Stratocaster and my other is a 2006 American Deluxe Ash Stratocaster. They’re both equipped stock with Fender Samarium Cobalt Noiseless Pickups. In fact, Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups are found on all 2004-2009 Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster guitars.
One thing that I’ve always hated about traditional single coil pickups is the irritating 50/60 cycle hum that plague them. Obviously if you use a high gain amplifier or use any kind of compression, the hum is amplified and sounds even worse. I play a lot of high-gain, compressed sounds. The hum that comes with a traditional single coil pickup is unacceptable for a lot of what I play. Simply for the noiseless design, I have been very happy with the Fender SCN Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups.
I also love the MIDI capabilities the amp gives you with control over preset switching as well as control over many parameters in the amp controls and effects parameters. The MIDI controller I use is the Fender Cyber-Controller which has switches for controlling presets, the tuner, and effects on/off. The Cyber-Controller also has two controller pedals that I use to control various sound parameters such as Gain or effects levels. (more…)
As you know, I’m a Fender player and the Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster is my main go-to guitar. But I do play some other guitars regularly onstage with my live band. I also believe that there are just some instances where a Gibson Les Paul is the best guitar to get a particular sound that the Fenders can’t do well. The Gibson Les Paul sound to me is buttery and creamy without a lot of the pop that you can get with a Fender. Today I’m going to discuss my Les Paul BFG.
First, The Les Paul Custom
About 10 years ago I added a Gibson Les Paul Custom to my collection of guitars. I love that guitar but because it’s price has continued to climb over the years, I just can’t risk taking it out onstage anymore. I could never afford to replace it at it’s current market value so it stays home, cased up most of the time. I think that’s a sad, sad commentary on these outrageous guitar prices from Gibson and now Fender. It’s just a bummer to have an instrument that’s so expensive that nobody will ever see it played live onstage except in an arena.
Chickenfoot – Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Chad Smith
Who is Chickenfoot you ask? Maybe you recognize the names Michael Anthony, Chad Smith, Joe Satriani and Sammy Hagar. If not, how about the band’s Van Halen and Red Hot Chili Peppers? Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar are two former members of Van Halen and Chad Smith is the drummer from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Joe Satriani is one of the greatest guitarists in instrumental rock-n-roll. These four guys comprise the hot new rock band Chickenfoot. I’ve always been a fan of taking select musician’s from top live bands and putting them together to form elite supergroups. So it was with great anticipation that I waited for the release of the new Chickenfoot album.
I am a longtime fan of Joe Satriani and have been following his career since he released “Surfing With The Alien” in 1987. Joe’s guitar playing has been a great source of inspiration to me over the years and I’ve always been impressed that he’s followed his own path with his album releases and tours. He’s never become a hired gun for a successful band (other than the Deep Purple tour in ’93) which he did not join permanently so as to pursue his solo career. So I was very intrigued with the prospect of him working with two former members of Van Halen and a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. (more…)
Fender Deluxe Player’s Stratocaster – Transparent Blue Finish
Even though I’m a skilled keyboard and bass player, I play electric guitar in my live band and the guitar is my main instrument. If I could, I’d buy a new guitar about every month. I can’t afford that so I get out and shop for them always looking for that next great instrument. The Fender Deluxe Player’s Stratocaster really caught my eye!
I like brand new guitars and I certainly haven’t bought into this whole “vintage instrument” craze. I believe that new guitars are being built better than ever before. It’s a lot more fun for me to get a new guitar and play it than to collect a vintage guitar and keep it in it’s case, un-played.
Last week I picked up the new effect pedal from Pigtronix called the Philosopher’s Tone. It’s an analog compressor/sustainer that gives you the ability to sustain your held notes for a very, very long time. I had the opportunity to use it in my live band at a gig this past weekend and figured I’d let you all know how the Philosopher’s Tone performed.
I picked up my Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone from a webstore called GuitarX. I worked with Gary and the customer service was excellent. E-mails were responded to very quickly, shipping was super fast and the pedal arrived in perfect condition. It was a very good buying experience. (more…)
Not only do I play professionally in a live band but I’ve also been a home recording enthusiast for many years. My first piece of recording equipment was my good old Tascam Portastudio 4-track which came with microphone, mic cord and a box of good cassettes. I made a lot of great recordings on that old Tascam and eventually wore the recording heads out. After the Tascam died I moved to a Fostex hard disk based recording setup that I built up to create a 24-track studio. But to get in line with the rest of the recording industry I had to build a Digidesign Pro Tools based recording studio.
I now have a Digi 003 rack system running Pro Tools LE in my home studio. It has been a great system to work with and I’ve become really good with computer based audio editing. It would be really difficult to go back to editing tracks without the ease of being able to edit audio on the computer. Pro Tools is a very powerful program that is fairly easy to learn but can be a challenge to master. If you’re going to get into home recording, I recommend starting with an entry level Pro Tools LE system. (more…)
A few years ago I was looking for a cheap battery powered amplifier to take with me on the road so I could practice my electric guitar while travelling. I really just wanted a convenient way to stay in practice for when I gigged with my live band. I came across the Marshall MS-2 Micro Amplifier during my search and I decided to give it a try. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised at how well this tiny amplifier filled my needs for a portable practice amp.
The Marshall MS-2 stands a mere 5-3/4″ high and looks like a classic Marshall half-stack. The amplifier is powered by a single 9-volt battery that fits into a slot on the back of the amp and is very easy to change. The MS-2 has the Marshall logo on the front of the amplifier with a gold colored control panel. The amp has a guitar input jack, volume, tone and power/overdrive switch on the front panel. On the side it has a headphone output and a power adapter input plug if you want to use an external power adapter. You can also use the headphone out to run to a larger amplifier if you want to use the MS-2 as a pre-amp distortion box. (more…)
