Forget All About That Macho Sh#t and Learn How to Play Guitar
Alright, for those of you that aren't into serious guitar geekness, I would suggest you skip this blog. I recently have had my pedal board made for me and I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk a little about my gear, which I've been asked about a few times.
I've never really looked at myself as a guitarist. I just happen to play the guitar. There are many, many, many guys that can really PLAY THE GUITAR. I have just looked at someone who's participating in music through the guitar. It's only really been in the last 5 years that I think I've actually developed into a guitar player. I didn't even really understand tablature until about 2000. There lives a certain breed of guitarists who owns every video, book, magazine and seem to collect every vintage pedal, amp, and guitar and participate in all of the discussion groups, message boards, and forums concerning our 6 string obsession. I am not one those BUT I'M NOT KNOCKING THEM EITHER. My geeking lies in different areas; theory, music history, and my album collection! Now, that's not to say that I'm not interested in guitar sounds and tone, quite the opposite. I have spent countless hours and dollars trying to get a great sound and I'm thankful to the endless supply of information online to help me investigate these things. It's only recently that I've been nuturing my inner guitar geek.
First off, my guitars:
Washburn H335 semi-hollow body electric. This is one of my most special guitars. I won this guitar when I was 14 from the Lionel Hampton jazz festival for winning the "soloist" category. Basically, you play 2 tunes with a trio with you as the featured instrument. There were all types of instrumentalists competing in this category (saxophonists, bassists, trumpeters, etc.) and I'm guessing if one of them would have won, they would have been presented with an instrument they played. Mine happened to be this Washburn. This guitar was later stolen from me and I found it on EBay. It was about 6 months after the guitar was stolen from me, I was online one night. This was when Ebay was new and I'd heard about this online auction site. I decided to have a look and bingo, up came my guitar. It said it was located in Victoria. I called the police and they suggested I buy it and when I got the guy's email, they would get in touch with him and get the guitar back. Turns out that this guy bought it legitimately at a pawn shop in Vancouver, it just sort of slipped through the cracks. Anyways, I got it back. I have since replaced the electronics on the guitar with a Gibson Humbucker in the neck and a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck in the bridge. I've used this guitar on jazz gigs and Lee Aaron Metal Queen gigs and it rips. As a jazz guitarist, I've always played hollow bodies and they are the guitars that I'm the most comfortable with regardless of the style of music I'm playing. I always feel a bit like Alex Lifeson in the 70's playing all that great rock stuff on a hollow body.
Gibson ES 175. This is my baby. I love this guitar although it once suffered an injury and it has yet to get into the regular rotation. I was adjusting the truss rod and the screw/nut and the threaded end of rod that the screw is on snapped off. I replaced the entire rod, but the neck has yet to comfortable get back to 7 thousandth of a millimeter of relief at the 7th fret.
Gibson ES 135. This guy has been my workhorse through the last 5 years. One of my favorite guitarists is an Isreali guitarist named Ofer Ganor that I went to Berklee with. I hung out and played a couple of times with him and he played one of these guitars. He played it through a pignose and it was such a great sound!!! This is one of my main guitars with Soulstream.
Kinal Stratocaster. I decided that I wanted famed Vancouver guitar builder Mike Kinal to build me a guitar, but I hadn't decided what to get. My decision came from one of the most unlikely sources: Dr Dre. I have always loved those early NWA (Straight out of Compton) and Snoop Dogg (Doggystyle) albums and the session guitarist for those records had this great strat sound. Growing up, I was obsessed with Stevie Ray and Jimi Hendrix, so a strat was a sound that has always been in my head. Mike builds beautiful instruments and I'm lucky to have this guitar in my collection.
Fender Reissue Japanese Telecaster. I always thought that Andy Summers from the Police had the coolest guitar. In 98 when I saw that Fender had reissued that 50's sunburst tele with the binding around the edges, I had to have one. While playing Joseph and the Technical Dreamcoat, I met a friend after the show briefly and left the guitar in my car. Someone broke in and stole it along with my Roland Cube 60 amp. I was devastated. I did so much work to that guitar (Gibson Humbucker, Gotoh bridge, Tung Oiled Neck). I looked for years to replace the amp and guitar to no avail, scouring Ebay and Craigslist weekly. A year ago some guy walked into the guitar shop I was teaching at with one and I ended up replacing not only the guitar, but also the roland amp a few days later.
Ibanez RG 550. I bought this for the Cirque Pop show at the PNE that required me to play a Joe Satriani tune....plus it just feels so good!!! Everyone should own an Ibanez hockey stick shredder with a Floyd Rose, if for no other reason than fun!
Aria (Made in Spain) nylon string electric acoustic. I bought this at a time when I was just learning how to play classical and fingerstyle in general. When I worked on the cruise ships in 2000 I brought 3 guitars and ended up using this almost exclusively.
Amps:
Vox AC30 2xCCH with Alnico Blue celestion speakers and 2 x 12 extension speaker cabinet with Alnico Blues. The best thing I ever did was buy this amp. I first heard these amps live (aside from the obvious Beatles, U2, Queen, and Radiohead) when I opened for Heart with Lee Aaron. The guitarist had a row of these and his tone was buttery sweet. Then, I heard local guitarist Marc Wyld gushing about the one he just bought and I just happened to be in L&M one day and plugged one in. I just about died. I bought it the next day.
Fender Reissue Twin Reverb. This amp has played over 1000 gigs and sessions for me (think about that....that's a gig a day for almost 3 years straight!!!). It's actually literally fallen apart and put back together (thanks Richard at Backline!!) I think I need to make a plaque in its honor.
Roland Cube 60 (old white one). One of the best little amps ever. My old one was one of the orange ones and Darren Radtke installed a push button on/off switch on it when I needed to replace the old toggle type. We just thought it'd be funny. This replacement one that I have actually used to be Dave Sikula's although I bought it through a consignment at NJAMS through the guy HE sold it to.
Roland Jazz Chorus 120. This was the first real professional guitar amp I ever saw.....ever! When my cousin Gwen got married, the wedding band guitarist had one of these and I've held it on a pedestal ever since. I use this in my studio and for the occassional gig. It gets the cleanest clean of any amp.
Peavey Stereo Chorus 212. My second amp ever. The first being a Peavey backstage plus that I loved and kinda wished I still had. I've thought about selling this amp a few times, but nostaglia is good sometimes isn't it?
Pedals:
Because I play so wide a variety of music, including a few cover bands where "nailing the sound" is crucial, I found that I can pretty much cop any tone with these although the Clyde McCoy Vox Wah and the Lexicon LXP 1 are still on the wish list:
Boss TU 2 tuner.
Dunlop Hendrix Wah. Wah is obviously a big part of the funking that I do and I love the gnarlyness of this pedal although the throw takes a little getting used to.
Boss Compressor/Sustainer. I love John Frusciante's (Red Hot Chili Peppers) really compressed poppy sound on Blood Sugar Sex Magic. I pretty much leave this on always.
Boss Super Chorus. I bought this after the Police concert. No further explanation required.
Ibanez Tube Screamer TS 808. $250 worth of overdrive and worth every penny.
Marshall Guv'Nor. The best distortion and a total steal for $70 (helps ease the pain of the TS808).
MXR Zakk Wylde Overdrive. You can never have enough overdrive/distortion options.
Boss Mega Distortion. I NEVER run this pedal separately - on its own, this pedal sounds like ass but if I run the ZW before the Mega in the chain it totally browns the tone. I keep the settings of the ZW at about 3 for each knob and the only thing I turn up on the MD is the level to about 9 and the the tone and bass I keep at 7. If I want it to feed, I turn the drive on the ZW to 8.
Boss EQ pedal for boost and/tone tweaks for the room or backline amp provided. I can pretty much get "my sound" out of any amp with a few tweaks of this pedal.
MXR Phase 90. I don't use this too much but it's good to have on board for things like some of the disco stuff like Car Wash or rock stuff like the 2nd solo in Hotel California or Unchained by Van Halen. Also if there's a flanger part I need to cop like Are You Gonna Go My Way, the phaser doesn't usually create any disappointing looks from the band leader and saves me from having to have yet another pedal.
Ernie Ball volume pedal....obvious, but this is probably the most important pedal in the chain. I ride it at 80% for almost everything, 90% to bring out a specific part and 100% for solos. I'll kick the EQ boost if I need to go any more, but I usually set the amp pretty loud.
Boss DD - 20 giga delay....this thing's pretty awesome. I MUST have a tap tempo delay unit and this thing is one of the best that I've found although I've heard great things about the Line 6 one. I keep it on the analog delay patch for everything but I preprogram all of the settings for different rhythms, effect level, and feedback. I run this AFTER the volume so I can do swells and still have it go eniff-eniff-eniff.....but I'm sure you're all down with the eniff-eniffs. This baby comes in real handy for the obligitory producer request of ".....hey, for this section I was thinking of a U2ish/Coldplay kinda thing here, do you got that type of thing????....."
Roland GR-33 guitar synth. This is fun for screwing around and inputing stuff into Siballius on my laptop.
I still have my old Boss GT-5 and used it for years and listening to it now, I'm also embarrassed I ever used one. There's something about those stompboxes that are irreplaceable live.
Lastly is my newly aquired Lexicon LXP - 5. I'm still figuring this out, but essentially it's a reverb/delay/harmonizer. I really want an LXP-1 if anybody knows where I might get one, lemme know!!!!
So that's it. Rock on.
I've never really looked at myself as a guitarist. I just happen to play the guitar. There are many, many, many guys that can really PLAY THE GUITAR. I have just looked at someone who's participating in music through the guitar. It's only really been in the last 5 years that I think I've actually developed into a guitar player. I didn't even really understand tablature until about 2000. There lives a certain breed of guitarists who owns every video, book, magazine and seem to collect every vintage pedal, amp, and guitar and participate in all of the discussion groups, message boards, and forums concerning our 6 string obsession. I am not one those BUT I'M NOT KNOCKING THEM EITHER. My geeking lies in different areas; theory, music history, and my album collection! Now, that's not to say that I'm not interested in guitar sounds and tone, quite the opposite. I have spent countless hours and dollars trying to get a great sound and I'm thankful to the endless supply of information online to help me investigate these things. It's only recently that I've been nuturing my inner guitar geek.
First off, my guitars:
Washburn H335 semi-hollow body electric. This is one of my most special guitars. I won this guitar when I was 14 from the Lionel Hampton jazz festival for winning the "soloist" category. Basically, you play 2 tunes with a trio with you as the featured instrument. There were all types of instrumentalists competing in this category (saxophonists, bassists, trumpeters, etc.) and I'm guessing if one of them would have won, they would have been presented with an instrument they played. Mine happened to be this Washburn. This guitar was later stolen from me and I found it on EBay. It was about 6 months after the guitar was stolen from me, I was online one night. This was when Ebay was new and I'd heard about this online auction site. I decided to have a look and bingo, up came my guitar. It said it was located in Victoria. I called the police and they suggested I buy it and when I got the guy's email, they would get in touch with him and get the guitar back. Turns out that this guy bought it legitimately at a pawn shop in Vancouver, it just sort of slipped through the cracks. Anyways, I got it back. I have since replaced the electronics on the guitar with a Gibson Humbucker in the neck and a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck in the bridge. I've used this guitar on jazz gigs and Lee Aaron Metal Queen gigs and it rips. As a jazz guitarist, I've always played hollow bodies and they are the guitars that I'm the most comfortable with regardless of the style of music I'm playing. I always feel a bit like Alex Lifeson in the 70's playing all that great rock stuff on a hollow body.
Gibson ES 175. This is my baby. I love this guitar although it once suffered an injury and it has yet to get into the regular rotation. I was adjusting the truss rod and the screw/nut and the threaded end of rod that the screw is on snapped off. I replaced the entire rod, but the neck has yet to comfortable get back to 7 thousandth of a millimeter of relief at the 7th fret.
Gibson ES 135. This guy has been my workhorse through the last 5 years. One of my favorite guitarists is an Isreali guitarist named Ofer Ganor that I went to Berklee with. I hung out and played a couple of times with him and he played one of these guitars. He played it through a pignose and it was such a great sound!!! This is one of my main guitars with Soulstream.
Kinal Stratocaster. I decided that I wanted famed Vancouver guitar builder Mike Kinal to build me a guitar, but I hadn't decided what to get. My decision came from one of the most unlikely sources: Dr Dre. I have always loved those early NWA (Straight out of Compton) and Snoop Dogg (Doggystyle) albums and the session guitarist for those records had this great strat sound. Growing up, I was obsessed with Stevie Ray and Jimi Hendrix, so a strat was a sound that has always been in my head. Mike builds beautiful instruments and I'm lucky to have this guitar in my collection.
Fender Reissue Japanese Telecaster. I always thought that Andy Summers from the Police had the coolest guitar. In 98 when I saw that Fender had reissued that 50's sunburst tele with the binding around the edges, I had to have one. While playing Joseph and the Technical Dreamcoat, I met a friend after the show briefly and left the guitar in my car. Someone broke in and stole it along with my Roland Cube 60 amp. I was devastated. I did so much work to that guitar (Gibson Humbucker, Gotoh bridge, Tung Oiled Neck). I looked for years to replace the amp and guitar to no avail, scouring Ebay and Craigslist weekly. A year ago some guy walked into the guitar shop I was teaching at with one and I ended up replacing not only the guitar, but also the roland amp a few days later.
Ibanez RG 550. I bought this for the Cirque Pop show at the PNE that required me to play a Joe Satriani tune....plus it just feels so good!!! Everyone should own an Ibanez hockey stick shredder with a Floyd Rose, if for no other reason than fun!
Aria (Made in Spain) nylon string electric acoustic. I bought this at a time when I was just learning how to play classical and fingerstyle in general. When I worked on the cruise ships in 2000 I brought 3 guitars and ended up using this almost exclusively.
Amps:
Vox AC30 2xCCH with Alnico Blue celestion speakers and 2 x 12 extension speaker cabinet with Alnico Blues. The best thing I ever did was buy this amp. I first heard these amps live (aside from the obvious Beatles, U2, Queen, and Radiohead) when I opened for Heart with Lee Aaron. The guitarist had a row of these and his tone was buttery sweet. Then, I heard local guitarist Marc Wyld gushing about the one he just bought and I just happened to be in L&M one day and plugged one in. I just about died. I bought it the next day.
Fender Reissue Twin Reverb. This amp has played over 1000 gigs and sessions for me (think about that....that's a gig a day for almost 3 years straight!!!). It's actually literally fallen apart and put back together (thanks Richard at Backline!!) I think I need to make a plaque in its honor.
Roland Cube 60 (old white one). One of the best little amps ever. My old one was one of the orange ones and Darren Radtke installed a push button on/off switch on it when I needed to replace the old toggle type. We just thought it'd be funny. This replacement one that I have actually used to be Dave Sikula's although I bought it through a consignment at NJAMS through the guy HE sold it to.
Roland Jazz Chorus 120. This was the first real professional guitar amp I ever saw.....ever! When my cousin Gwen got married, the wedding band guitarist had one of these and I've held it on a pedestal ever since. I use this in my studio and for the occassional gig. It gets the cleanest clean of any amp.
Peavey Stereo Chorus 212. My second amp ever. The first being a Peavey backstage plus that I loved and kinda wished I still had. I've thought about selling this amp a few times, but nostaglia is good sometimes isn't it?
Pedals:
Because I play so wide a variety of music, including a few cover bands where "nailing the sound" is crucial, I found that I can pretty much cop any tone with these although the Clyde McCoy Vox Wah and the Lexicon LXP 1 are still on the wish list:
Boss TU 2 tuner.
Dunlop Hendrix Wah. Wah is obviously a big part of the funking that I do and I love the gnarlyness of this pedal although the throw takes a little getting used to.
Boss Compressor/Sustainer. I love John Frusciante's (Red Hot Chili Peppers) really compressed poppy sound on Blood Sugar Sex Magic. I pretty much leave this on always.
Boss Super Chorus. I bought this after the Police concert. No further explanation required.
Ibanez Tube Screamer TS 808. $250 worth of overdrive and worth every penny.
Marshall Guv'Nor. The best distortion and a total steal for $70 (helps ease the pain of the TS808).
MXR Zakk Wylde Overdrive. You can never have enough overdrive/distortion options.
Boss Mega Distortion. I NEVER run this pedal separately - on its own, this pedal sounds like ass but if I run the ZW before the Mega in the chain it totally browns the tone. I keep the settings of the ZW at about 3 for each knob and the only thing I turn up on the MD is the level to about 9 and the the tone and bass I keep at 7. If I want it to feed, I turn the drive on the ZW to 8.
Boss EQ pedal for boost and/tone tweaks for the room or backline amp provided. I can pretty much get "my sound" out of any amp with a few tweaks of this pedal.
MXR Phase 90. I don't use this too much but it's good to have on board for things like some of the disco stuff like Car Wash or rock stuff like the 2nd solo in Hotel California or Unchained by Van Halen. Also if there's a flanger part I need to cop like Are You Gonna Go My Way, the phaser doesn't usually create any disappointing looks from the band leader and saves me from having to have yet another pedal.
Ernie Ball volume pedal....obvious, but this is probably the most important pedal in the chain. I ride it at 80% for almost everything, 90% to bring out a specific part and 100% for solos. I'll kick the EQ boost if I need to go any more, but I usually set the amp pretty loud.
Boss DD - 20 giga delay....this thing's pretty awesome. I MUST have a tap tempo delay unit and this thing is one of the best that I've found although I've heard great things about the Line 6 one. I keep it on the analog delay patch for everything but I preprogram all of the settings for different rhythms, effect level, and feedback. I run this AFTER the volume so I can do swells and still have it go eniff-eniff-eniff.....but I'm sure you're all down with the eniff-eniffs. This baby comes in real handy for the obligitory producer request of ".....hey, for this section I was thinking of a U2ish/Coldplay kinda thing here, do you got that type of thing????....."
Roland GR-33 guitar synth. This is fun for screwing around and inputing stuff into Siballius on my laptop.
I still have my old Boss GT-5 and used it for years and listening to it now, I'm also embarrassed I ever used one. There's something about those stompboxes that are irreplaceable live.
Lastly is my newly aquired Lexicon LXP - 5. I'm still figuring this out, but essentially it's a reverb/delay/harmonizer. I really want an LXP-1 if anybody knows where I might get one, lemme know!!!!
So that's it. Rock on.
posted by Hammer at 6:21 PM
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