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Archive for September, 2007

Sometimes you just need to take a break…

Posted in Guitars, Music, guitar, musicians on September 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment »

If you’re an avid musician – and I don’t necessarily mean “pro” or anything like that – a good piece of your free time is spent playing your instrument. Like, every day. But sometimes you just need to take a break and do something else to get your perspective back. A couple of weeks ago, [...]

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Review: Maxon CP-9 Pro+ or… Oops! Time to put foot in mouth…

Posted in Effects, Guitars, Tone, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear on September 25, 2007 | 8 Comments »

The last review I wrote was on the Demeter Opto Compulator, a great compressor that I had the chance to A/B a couple of weeks ago. In the review, I said that that was the comp I was going to buy, but that was until I did a side-by-side comparison with the Maxon CP-9 Pro+ [...]

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Review: Demeter COMP-1 Opto Compulator

Posted in Effects, Guitars, Tone, Worship Music, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, pedals, performing, playing live on September 22, 2007 | 1 Comment »

I was at a casino last weekend, sitting in a bar with a couple of friends and listening to this great duo play classic rock hits. During one of their breaks between sets, I went to the stage to talk to the guitarist (he had a cool name: Buford) and checked out his gear. He [...]

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Fighting with my guitars…

Posted in Guitars, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, performing, playing live on September 12, 2007 | 3 Comments »

My blog buddy, IG over at igblog always compels me to really think about playing. It’s uncanny. Thanks, IG. Anyway, in one of his latest installments entitled “You gotta fight your guitar a little…” he talked about how different guitarists actually “fight” with their guitar; overcoming bad setups or dead spots to really push them [...]

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Review: Presonus TUBEPre

Posted in Effects, Guitars, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear on September 6, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Why use a pre-amp? Quite simply, a pre-amp greatly aids in either bolstering the signal of either a mic or line-level device, but it also can add some very helpful signal conditioning that will add “warmth” to the tone a device produces. I use the Presonus TUBEPre not only for microphone applications, but also for [...]

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Review: Dr. Z Air Brake Revisited

Posted in Amps/Amplification, Effects, Tone, amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, performing, playing live on September 5, 2007 | Leave a Comment »

About six months ago, I wrote a little ditty about the Dr. Z Air Brake, but I thought I’d revisit this essential piece of equipment once again. The Air Brake is a power attenuator; in other words, it reduces the amount of signal from your amp that reaches the speaker, thus reducing your audible output. [...]

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Review: Ibanez TS808 “Tube Screamer” Re-issue

Posted in Effects, Guitars, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, pedals on September 4, 2007 | 3 Comments »

Since I recently did a review on the Fulltone OCD, I thought that I’d do a review on the much-revered TS808. As many in the know, this is the pedal that defined Stevie Ray Vaughn’s sound. But it’s not the reason why this pedal is so special. The Tube Screamer has a unique, transparent tone; [...]

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Song: We Sing With Joy!

Posted in Worship Music, performing, playing live, songs on September 4, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Song Title: We Sing with Joy! Description: This is a pure praise song, very simple to play and sing, and VERY easy to play. The main riff has only three chords and the bridge only adds another two chords. The trick to this was not to make it monotonous.

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Song: If Today (Psalm 95)

Posted in Worship Music, recording, songs on September 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment »

Title: If Today (Psalm 95) Description: I wrote this song for the Catholic Mass (though it could easily be used in both Episcopal and Lutheran services) as a sung Psalm response. It’s lively and upbeat, and a departure from the more meditative songs you normally hear during this part of the service.

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