Sound Clips

This clip includes a couple of solo out-takes from Mad at Music, a tune just now in the tracking stages. It is a great example to highlight the concept of texturing different guitar tones and sounds. A very clean tone in the break leads into several blended guitars that have a string quartet quality, followed by a glassy, liquid solo tone. Note, that the solos aren't just a blizzard of notes. Each solo uses a variety of styles in order to get from beginning to end and stay interesting throughout.

The clean sound comes from a Fender Strat, using switch position 4, played through a Mesa Boogie LSS on Channel 1, with almost no effects other than a touch of reverb. The solo guitars are a Music Man JP6 going through a variety of amp and effect combinations. It is such a fun tone to play with that it's hard to stop once I start!

This is a short solo clip done for Dallas Pickup, a ballad-style tune with lots of singing sustain and lingering phrasing. The effects are intended to create a big, soaring sound that just takes over that part of the tune. It makes for a good change, both in and out. I call it the Big Sky Effect!

Several different guitars make up the layering effect, including an awesome Music Man JP6 and several Ibanez models. It helps to give a lot of different creaminess to the tone, instead of using just one guitar with one set of pickups. And, it's good practice for doubling your own parts and being consistent! Almost all the effects are pre-console with the exception of some minor stuff done with Guitar Rig 2.

This clip is the intro from Texas Flood done in the classic style of Stevie Ray Vaughan. It has a cool blues tone and feel to it.

I am playing a Fender Strat, with the pickup selector in that great-sounding position between the neck and middle pickups, with just a little bit of overdrive and a tiny bit of effects. Sweet tone that the crowd always digs!

This clip from All Rolled Up is an example of a two-guitar solo, with both guitars doing the soaring-note harmony. I wrote this tune to showcase just this kind of solo.

Both guitars parts are played on an Ibanez JPM, with the right guitar playing on the neck pickup with the tone rolled off, and the left guitar playing through the middle selector position, which is unique to the JPM model. The different tones blend together for a great overall harmony tone.

By the way, it's great practice to write these dual solos, and then also record harmony part. Super good for your chops!

This is an example of Ice Cream Man, a tune that was done in the studio for another vocal artist. She asked for a solo that was very clean and pretty laid back, but had some bite to it. This was what came out, and they took it on the second take. That's me playing the slide licks behind the solo, too.

Plain ol' Fender Strat played directly into the mixing console, with just a touch of effects added during the mixdown. Otherwise, just the neck and middle pickup doing the job right. Easy, but cool sounding.

Here's a fun, upbeat solo for a budding country superstar's demo record. It is meant to capture and expand on the original tune's melody and feel, which was very up-tempo and poppy. He specifically requested that the solo wasn't too showy, since the song was showcasing the vocalist (him), not the guitar player (me)!

Basic country setup of a Fender Strat on the bridge pickup, going thru a little Tweed amp. The only effects are a tiny delay and a little spring reverb. The guitar was twin mic'd, with a condenser mic set about 10 feet away from the amp to get the natural room sound combined with the direct mic sitting just off the speaker cone. The distant mic gives it the very warm and natural sound the artist requested.

Here is a short finger-picking tune that came out of nowhere while I was working a new piezo-equipped guitar into my rig. The melody has roots from decades ago, and is based on the folk song Freight Train that my folks used to sing to me right before bed.

I am fingerpicking an awesome Music Man JP6, with the pickup selector in the piezo postition, yielding a sweet, full acoustic sound. The tone is so full and rich and acoustic, yet gives the flexibility of a full electric with the flick of a switch. How cool is that? Don't gig without one!