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Archive for March, 2008

Got Inspiration?

Posted in Guitars, Music, christian music, guitar, guitarists, inspiration, musicians, youth ministry on March 28, 2008 | 6 Comments »

People get inspired by lots of things: Pictures they see, songs they hear, conversations they’ve been in; lots of things. Over the course of my life, like others, I’ve gotten inspired by lots of different things, but certain wise words I’ve heard from various people have probably inspired me the most. Not surprisingly, these have [...]

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Reunion with Rusty

Posted in Guitars, Music, gear, guitar on March 28, 2008 | No Comments »

Meet “Rusty,” my Gibson ES-333. It’s essentially a 335 without the jewelry (pickup covers [which I don't like anyways], pick guard, translucent volume and tone knobs, mother of pearl inlays, etc). In other words, Rusty’s a straight-up, no-frills guitar, and out of all my guitars, he’s the most playable and most tonally diverse. I can [...]

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Top Dawg: NAUDO

Posted in Guitar Top Dawgs, Guitar Top Dogs, Guitars, Music, guitar, guitarists, musicians on March 27, 2008 | No Comments »

I was looking for some videos of a local band here in Northern California, called Big Rain on YouTube, and they did a cover of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” in a reggae style. Not bad at all. But as I’ve been looking to expand my current repertoire, I’ve been looking for [...]

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Spring Cleaning Your Gear = Gear Rotation

Posted in GAS, Guitars, Music, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists on March 20, 2008 | 5 Comments »

I walked into my garage this morning, which also doubles as my home studio and I looked around and saw several items that I’m not using at all right now. This includes a couple of solid state amps, a few pedals, and a sweet, digital recording workstation that I inherited from my brother that I [...]

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Okay… What really makes a guitarist great?

Posted in Guitars, Music, guitar, guitarists, musicians on March 12, 2008 | 10 Comments »

Just read a great article in Guitar Jam Daily entitled: Industry Insider: The Cobain Backlash and it got me thinking about what really makes a guitarist great. I know, this is such a subjective thing that if you ask ten different people, you’ll get ten different answers. But I’d like to posit an idea about [...]

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Creating a Demo: Lessons Learned

Posted in GarageBand, Studio/Recording, recording, songs, songwriting on March 11, 2008 | No Comments »

A couple of years ago, I called Tom Booth, a prolific Catholic songwriter and recording artist. I was seeking advice on the best way to approach putting a demo together of the songs I’d written for Mass. I wanted to know things such as how much I should budget, what players I should bring in [...]

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Amp Update: Simple Hot Rod Deluxe Mod for < $50!

Posted in Tone, amps, gear, gear reviews on March 10, 2008 | 5 Comments »

My Hot Rod started making a bit of a humming sound a couple of weeks ago, and I figured out that it was one of the preamp tubes. So instead of replacing the bad one, I decided to replace all of ‘em. Not knowing what was best, I called up The Tube Store because I [...]

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Review: Gettin’ in the Vibe…

Posted in Effects, Guitars, buying gear, gear, gear reviews on March 7, 2008 | No Comments »

Fulltone Mini Deja Vibe
Summary: Fulltone makes some of the best pedals in the world, hands-down. You pay for the quality, but you’ll almost never walk away disappointed for the coin you have to pay for a Fulltone pedal. The Mini Deja Vibe is a great take on the original UniVibe, and faithfully reproduces the old [...]

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Review: Fender Champion 600 Post-Mortem

Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, performing, recording on March 3, 2008 | 6 Comments »

You really don’t get a taste for how well gear actually performs until you use it in a performance or recording situation. After all, doing tests is one thing; mixing it up in a band or recording a track with it are entirely different animals. This past weekend, I had the chance to put my [...]

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New Song: Love Will Set You Free

Posted in Studio/Recording, Worship Music, christian music, christian worship, recording, songs, songwriting on March 2, 2008 | No Comments »

Listen to the song!
I actually wrote this song a couple of years ago, and have played it live a ton of times since then. Don’t know why I didn’t record it earlier, but I think I was a little scared of the arrangement of the guitars - I needed three to pull it off, with [...]

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