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All in Guitar
The Wah-Wah pedal has been around for about fifty years and it continues to be a popular effect for many guitarists. Essentially a frequency resonance filter that sweeps from bass to treble and back creating a vocal-like “wah” sound, this simple device can be heard on thousands of hit records.
You finally got that electric guitar you’ve been wanting for so long. It looks great and plays like a dream. But how does it sound? Much of a guitar’s tone comes from its construction and hardware, but it eventually has to go through an amplifier if you want to be heard. Choosing an amp is tough, there are lots of choices. A good amp can make an average guitar sound better, but a bad amp can make even a great guitar sound lousy. Let’s take a look at the different types of amplifiers available and then I’ll give you some tips on shopping for an amp.
For me nothing beats using a real amp when playing live. But for recording, software amp simulators are great. You can’t beat the convenience and affordability of having numerous amps available in software. I have been using software amp simulators for many years for recording. I have IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube 3, AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix, AmpliTube Fender, and AmpliTube Orange. I also have Native Instruments Guitar Rig, Garage Band, MOTU Digital Performer. So when I got an iPad Mini I was eager to test out AmpliTube for iPad.
Ask guitar players my age (even younger ones) who their guitar heroes are and you will likely hear the same five names in many replies: Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Eddie Van Halen. Which is understandable since they each are amazing, creative players who heavily influenced the way everyone who came after them plays guitar.
I certainly am a fan of them also, but I learned to appreciate them more as I entered my twenties. They didn’t resonate with me as a teen in the 1970s like other players did. I seemed to have had a more unusual set of guitar heroes. Stylistically, none of then are very similar. Some of them you probably wouldn’t have thought of and some you may not even know of.
Mobile devices have become part of everyday life for most people, just as computers did for previous generations. And since smart phones and tablets are really just small computers it is only natural that musicians, who have long utilized computers for making music, would also want to use mobile devices for the same purpose.
Drive pedals are generally divided into three basic categories: fuzz, overdrive, and distortion. Each category has numerous flavors, and their uses are many, which is why many players have more than one on their pedalboard. Empress has taken the three most popular drive categories and combined them all in one compact pedal with the three effects wired parallel.
I have just returned to my long neglected attempts at arranging jazz chord melodies for guitar. This time I chose the standard “A Day In The Life Of A Fool.” I wasn’t sure I would be able to come up with anything interesting for this song but it seems to be going pretty well. Amazing guitarists like George Benson, Johnny Smith, and Ted Greene could crank these things out in a heartbeat and throw in mind-blowing technique and runs, but for me they are a lot of work. I love doing them, but it doesn’t come easy. Which is why I tend to keep my arrangements fairly simple.
Many guitar players have been baffled by James Taylor's unique fingerstyle playing. Now you can watch James Taylor himself explain and then demonstrate some of his most popular songs. Videos show both his fingering hand and his plucking hand (from inside the sound hole, no less!) at normal and slow speeds. You'll never find more accurate videos than these. And they are free.
As its name implies, the Martin Backpacker guitar was designed as a travel guitar small enough to take with you on a backpacking trip or to fit in an airline overhead compartment. It succeeds at both these tasks, being both small and lightweight.
Can rockers age gracefully? Bluesmen do it. Why not rockers? To help rockers age with style I have compiled some helpful tips and advice to ease the inevitable.
There are two common types of Suspended chords: Suspended 2nd (sus2) and Suspended 4th (sus4). The Suspended 4th chord is the most common and is often referred to simply as a Suspended chord (sus). This creates confusion, and improper usage of the term Suspended is common, so if you run across a chord such as “Dsus” try a Dsus4 chord first, and if that doesn’t sound right try a Dsus2.
Don't you find it weird when someone doing a pedal demo on You Tube says "Here is my clean tone." And then when they play, their "clean" tone has more overdrive than a typical AC/DC song? I think "clean tone" should mean "no distortion or overdrive."
Modeling software has matured to the point where it is very convincing at capturing the tone of guitar amps, cabinets, and effects. IK Multimedia was one of the first companies to produce modeling software and it continues to be one of the best. And while very few guitar players have replaced their live rigs with laptops and software, modeling software excels for recording, allowing almost any guitar player the chance to play through dream rigs and capture the tone in a recording for a very reasonable price.
