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Archive for the ‘Guitars’ Category

What? Modeling? You bet! As long as it’s Roland COSM…

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on February 18, 2012| 1 Comment »


At my solo “acoustic” gig that I play every Friday night, I haven’t been playing an acoustic guitar, instead using my beloved Gretsch Electromatic. It sounds awesome plugged into the house board but admittedly, it only sounds good when I’m playing finger-style. Last night it became very apparent that with songs that require strumming, my Gretsch just didn’t sound all that good. On the other hand, when I use the guitar with my own PA (a Fishman SA220 SoloAmp), strumming is not an issue because I also have great effects that I run the guitar through which make strumming not an issue.

But plugged directly into a board, even if I’m running effects such as reverb and chorus, the Electromatic sounds like an electric guitar plugged into a PA when strummed. Kind of lifeless. So this morning, I plugged my guitar into my trusty Roland Cube 60, switched over to the Acoustic channel, and smiled. It sounded close enough to an acoustic that strumming wouldn’t be an issue. The amp is set set up to run right into a board as it has a recording out which defeats the speaker. I’ve used it in the past precisely for this purpose.

What is an issue is the limited space I have. I could make it work, but it’s not optimal. Besides, all I’d be using the amp for would be as a pedal. Then it hit me. Roland is notorious for offering its on-board effects as pedals and vice-versa. So I did a search to see if Roland or BOSS made an acoustic simulator similar to what is on my Cube 60, and I found the BOSS AC-3, which uses the COSM technology that they put into the Cube line. For modeling/simulation, I’ve found that the COSM tech works really well with my equipment. Others’ mileage may certainly vary, but in my years of using my Cube 60, it has never failed to deliver – at least for playing clean, which is how I’ve used that amp for years.

Here’s a great video from Andy at Pro Guitar Shops that demonstrates the pedal’s capabilities:

The cool thing for me is that I won’t have to lug my Cube 60 to get an acoustic sound. Admittedly, it won’t sound _exactly_ like an acoustic, but it’ll get me close enough, and close enough is good enough.

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Gear Review: Aracom Amps VRX18 1 X 12 Tweed Combo

Posted in GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitar gear reviews, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged , , , , , , , on February 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Aracom Amps VRX18 Tweed ComboSummary: No… Surprisingly enough, I didn’t buy this one, as I already have the VRX18 head. But my good friend and bandmate just bought this, and I tested it out for him so he could listen while he was making his decision. Anyway, this is classic Marshall 18 Watt Plexi tone, but with Jeff Aragaki’s tweaks and modifications. It’s such a sweet-sounding amp, clean or dirty.

Pros: Handmade, and hand-wired on turret board. The VRX18 brings out the best of what I love about EL84-powered amps, and combined with the custom Weber speaker that’s in the cabinet to balance out the natural highs of the amp, this amp is capable of producing some of the most gorgeous clean tones I’ve heard, plus some incredible vintage overdrive.

Cons: None.

Features

– Channel 1: Volume and Tone Controls
– Channel 2: Volume and Tone Controls
– Master Volume Control (PPIMV)
– On/Off Switch
– Indicator Lamp
– (2) EL84 Power Tubes
– (2) 12AX7 & (1) 12AT7 Preamp Tubes
– Cathode Biased Power Tubes
– S.S. Rectifier with “sag” circuit
– Custom Heavy Duty Aluminum Chassis
– ARACOM Power Transformer: hand-wound and interleaved
– ARACOM Output Transformer: hand-wound, interleaved on a paper bobbin
– 4, 8, 16 ohm Speaker Jacks
– Detachable Power Cord (IEC320-C13 Socket)
– External Fuse Holder
– Custom Turret Board (G-10/FR4 Flame Resistant)
– Handwired and Handcrafted in the USA.

Price: $1095 for Combo (see Pricing Schedule for complete options)

Tone Bone Score: 5.0 ~ Yeah, I’m biased towards Aracom Amps as I am a faithful customer, but this amp is yet another example and an affirmation of why I love Aracom amps so much!

As most know who read this blog with any regularity, I’m a faithful Aracom Amps customer. I play three of them: VRX22 (6V6), VRX18 (EL84), and the PLX18 (EL84); plus I have the venerable PRX150-Pro Attenuator. Can’t believe I’ve been playing Aracom equipment for almost four years now, but I can’t think of any other amp to play, except for, perhaps, the DV Mark Little 40, which I still intend to get eventually.

In any case, my bandmates have known my passion for Aracom equipment, but have purchased other amps in lieu of the fact that I’ve been raving about Aracom for years, and in lieu of them commenting on how great the Aracom tone is. It always puzzled me, but hey! To each, their own.

A few of weeks ago, my right-hand and cohort in the band Dave started looking into getting a new amp, and to my pleasant surprise started taking a look at the Aracom site and listening to the clips. He was actually considering buying a Carr Viceroy, but held back until he took some time to evaluate amps. Now he’s glad he did.

In any case, he contacted Jeff and set up a meeting to go out to Jeff’s shop, and asked if I wanted to tag along. Never one to turn down an invitation to hang out with Jeff if I can help it, I accepted and a couple of days later, we made the short trek out to Jeff’s shop.

The wonderful thing about working with a builder like Jeff is that because he’s a small operation, he can be fairly agile in the combinations of equipment that he offers. So on that day, we took a couple of hours to play through different cabinet/speaker combinations to find a combo that “fit.” After playing through the tweed cabinet with a custom Weber 1 X 12, it was clear that that combination was the best for the style that Dave plays, which is mostly clean.

Jeff told Dave that he should take the amp with him and play around with it before he made the decision, so we loaded the amp in Dave’s car. On the way home, I mentioned to Dave that he will probably not want to return the amp and left it that while we talked about other stuff.

A few hours after I had returned home, Dave called me. He wasn’t returning the amp. 🙂 I knew that would happen. That amp was magical. Earlier, I shared with Dave on the way home that he’d know if he found the right amp if he lost track of time. He did. Now he is the proud owner of the best amp he’s ever played.

Fit and Finish

I love the classic tweed finish of this amp. Jeff personally built the enclosure and covered it with tweed. It’s really beautiful to look at. He also used 1/2-inch ply to construct the cabinet, which is something I look for in cabinets. With 1/2-inch ply, I believe the wood provides a lot more resonance as opposed to cabs built with thicker boards. Compared side-by-side with my Avatar 1 X 12, which uses thicker wood, the Aracom cab sounds so much more deep and lush (I’m not knocking my Avatar – that cab is perfect for more aggressive tones).

How It Sounds

Unfortunately, I don’t have any clips to demonstrate, but Dave’s VRX18 sounds absolutely KILLER! I’ve played three of Dave’s guitars through the amp, which include a custom Carvin acoustic/electric, a custom Rick Turner Renaissance, and a Gibson ES-335. All three guitars sound absolutely gorgeous through the amp which, with the custom Weber and dynamite cabinet produce a very lush and deep clean tone, while retaining great note separation and definition. Note separation and definition are especially important with an amp that produces such deep cleans because it could become extremely muddy. Not so with the Aracom VRX18 combo.

It’s important to note also that in addition to such great cleans, the amp really projects the sound well, with a very three-dimensional quality about it that makes it sound as if it has a reverb tank. Jeff attributes a lot of this quality to the sag simulation circuit that he built into the amp. It provides just a touch of sustain to add depth to the sound.

Playing right next to Dave is another guitarist (another Dave) who has a Carr Mercury. Maybe the “higher end” Carr models sound better, but the Mercury’s tone pales in comparison to the VRX18. Where the VRX18 sounds three-dimensional, the Carr sounds brittle and hollow. I don’t like the tone of that amp at all, and constantly have to help the other Dave dial in his EQ to make it sound even halfway decent. Also, the reverb on that amp is horrible, and I always have him turning it WAY down. Amazing that that amp costs more than twice as much as the VRX18. Anyway, I don’t want to make this a Carr amp smack-down. Suffice it to say that the Aracom VRX18 simply outperforms the Carr hands-down.

Overall Impression

Jeff Aragaki makes killer amps. He’s not building near the amount of amps at this point in time as he has in the past because his attenuator business is so good. But when he does get amp orders, he takes extra-special care that it’s right; and that’s exactly what he did with this particular amp. In fact, this particular model of the VRX18 is much more simple than his other models in that it doesn’t have the 1/2 power switch, nor does it have a tube rectifier. But it sounds incredible as it is. And as I mentioned above, this amp is yet another example of why I will remain a faithful Aracom customer!

For more information, go to the Aracom Amps web site!

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On Choosing a Drive Pedal…

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , on February 17, 2012| 5 Comments »

Awhile back, I posted an article discussing Overdrive vs. Distortion, discussing what I believed were the fundamental differences between the two, but also pointing out that the end result – no matter the source – will be distortion. The only difference between the two being how the signal is clipped to create the distortion sound. Overdrive pedals normally produce a soft-clipping distortion, whereas distortion and fuzz pedals create a hard-clipping distortion. Here’s a great diagram I found that describes the differences between soft and hard clipping:

As you can see from the diagram of the waveform above, soft clipping clips the peaks somewhat, while hard clipping pretty much lops of the peaks leaving a narrow dynamic range. This article describes clipping quite well. So what does this have to do with drive pedals? Well, let’s take stock of the types of drive pedals available to you.

First up is the booster pedal. Basically this is simply a gain boost that will add gain to your signal. It’s either used as volume boost or, if you’ve set your amp at edge of overdrive, the booster will take it over the edge into overdrive. Note that a booster is most effective with a tube amp. This will produce a soft-clipping waveform, and the distortion will come entirely from your amp.

Next we have overdrive pedals. These pedals come in LOTS of different flavors, but typically combine a gain boost plus a soft-clipping circuit. Most designs out there are based upon the venerable TubeScreamer design, though there are several that use proprietary approaches, such as the Paul Cochrane Tim and Timmy pedals (the Timmy is the best OD I have every played). Here, the distortion can come from both pedal and amp.

Then we have distortion and fuzz pedals. I’m lumping them together because they’re both hard-clipping devices, though fuzz really gets into that square-wave distortion where the signal gain is really amplified then severely clipped, with really aggressive emphasis on harmonics and overtones. You can get some pretty far-out sounds with a fuzz. Also, just like with overdrive pedals, many distortion pedals also provide a gain boost knob, though to produce distortion, they don’t really need it. Once you turn a distortion pedal on, it produces distortion right away with no help from the amp.

So which do you choose? Well the only good answer I can come up with is this: It’s the one that sounds most pleasing to you and fits your application, and notice I’m not putting on my normal smiley-face to indicate a “jk.” To come to my own “comfort zone” with drive pedals, I probably played a couple of hundred of them – maybe more – to finally arrive at the four drive pedals that I have on my board. I have 5 or six drive pedals that are actually collecting dust; a couple of which are worth a pretty penny, and I’m not using them at all – craigslist here I come!

In any case, I have all three types of drive pedals on my board: Timmy Ovedrive, Tone Freak Abunai 2 Overdrive, EWS “LBD” Little Brute Drive (distortion), and a Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 booster. I’ll describe how I use each so you may perhaps glean some insight on making a choice.

For my overdrive pedals, the Timmy and Abunai 2, I use them like an additional gain stage before my amp to soft-clip my signal before going into my amp. Typically, I have the amp at the edge of breakup and the combination of the overdrive pedal and the amp overdrive sounds are quite nice. The Timmy is a fairly transparent overdrive, whereas the Abunai 2 provides just a bit of color and compression, and it also includes a switch to choose the wave symmetry. I look at OD pedals as little “amps-in-a-box.”

When I want crunch; I mean rock crunch at any volume, I use my EWS Little Brute Drive. I look at this as a classic distortion pedal. It has a single knob to adjust the internal gain and can produce some pretty wicked distortion sounds. I use this typically with a purely clean amp, and let the LBD provide all the distortion.

With my booster pedal, I use it a few different ways. When I just want my amp tone alone and just want my distortion to come entirely from my amp, I’ll use my booster to take it into overdrive. I find it most useful when I’m playing a Strat and want to do a quick lead. But I also use it with my overdrive pedals and LBD. With my overdrive pedals, I use it to stack on top of my overdrives so I’m really slamming the front end of my amp. With my vintage Marshall-style amps, this gets the pre-amps totally saturated, and in turn drives my power tubes into saturation and compression. It’s a cool effect.

Used with my EWS Little Brute Drive, since the amp is clean, I use it for lead breaks to boost my volume just a tad so I can play over the rest of the band (and no, I don’t stomp on them, but it’s easy to get lost in the mix when we’re all together 🙂 ).

Please don’t take my mention of the pedals above necessarily as endorsements. I love ’em all, which is why they’re never leaving my board. But I arrived at this combination of pedals literally after years of evaluation. These are the pedals that I found work the best with my guitars and “go-to” amps (which are vintage Marshall-style amps made by Aracom Amps). YMMV… For my Fender amps, such as my Hot Rod Deluxe, I typically only use my LDB, especially with my Hot Rod Deluxe, which doesn’t have a very nice overdrive sound to my ears – it’s much better clean.

Just as I mentioned in my previous article about making your decision on a tube amp with respect to your particular application, the same holds true with drive pedals. You have to think about what you want to achieve before buying one. But here’s an extra piece of advice with respect to drive pedals: Because drive pedals generally run under $200, it’s easy to get them; and that’s the problem. You want to be extra careful in your buying process because you will end up like me, having a couple of grand worth of drive pedals that end up collecting dust.

I know it sounds rather mundane, but in order to rock, you have to do your homework! ROCK ON!

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The Tube Amp Buying Decision: What Power Tubes?

Posted in Guitars, tagged on February 15, 2012| 6 Comments »

Because I’ve had a lot of experience with lots of different amps, invariably people ask me for advice  – especially on what power tubes to go with. They ask, “Should I get EL34? 6L6? 6V6? EL84, etc.” My answer to that question is: Yes. 🙂 On a more serious note, I do tell them that they have to play several amps to find out what appeals to their sense of tone the most. After all, it’s what is pleasing to your ear that matters.

I used to drink the cool-aid and say something like this: “If you want real chimey clean tones, then you’ll get that with 6L6’s,” or some other rubbish like that. That’s all a bunch of crap because I’ve got EL84-based amps that have that kind of chimey clean tone as well. It’s all about how the builder voiced the EQ circuitry AND what guitar you play through the amp!

What I do see a difference between the different tubes is in how they distort once overdriven. This is NOT hard and fast, but in general, I’ve found that the ELx varieties tend to compress their signal a bit more when saturated as compared to their 6×6 brethren. The 6L6 and 6V6 amps that I’ve played usually have a more open and dynamic overdrive tone. But again, that is also affected by how the amp is wired. For instance, designs based upon Fender amps have fairly open distortion, while the Marshall-style amps have a more compressed, in-your-face distortion. And I’ll say it again: There are NO hard and fast rules here. So how do you decide?

Well, while power tubes do affect the tone, you shouldn’t make an amp decision based upon just that; though I shared a very general rule of thumb, wiring topology can strike that generalization down fairly quickly. What you probably should consider is the power rating and your application of the amp. EL84 and 6V6 tubes are generally used in lower wattage amps, anywhere from 5 Watts to 45 Watts. Generally, you’ll see numbers such as 5, 6, 10, 15, 22, 30, 36, and 40. For the top three, four tubes are usually used to achieve those wattage ratings.

On the other hand, 6L6 and EL34 power tubes are used for high-wattage applications from 40 Watts up to 200 Watts (40, 45, 50, 60, 75, 100, 150, 200), again with the top three employing four power tubes to achieve that wattage rating.

The rule-of-thumb with respect to wattage is that the higher the wattage, the more clean headroom you will have; that is, the amp will be totally clean at increasing volume levels (in decibels) before the amp goes into overdrive. For instance, taking a 5 Watt amp to the edge of breakup will be at a much lower volume level than a 100 Watt amp taken to the edge of breakup.

Another thing that I’ve found is that with high wattage amps, when they break up, their tone seems to be so much more “beefy” than their low-wattage brethren. When doing A/B tests at equivalent volumes with let’s say a 6L6-based amp versus a 6V6 amp, there is so much more sonic content through the EQ range with the higher-wattage amp versus the low wattage amp. For instance, my 22 Watt 6V6-based Aracom VRX22 sounds “bigger” than my 6 watt Fender Champ when played through the same speaker at the same volume. Conversely, that same 22 Watt amp sounds “smaller” at the same volume level than my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe at the same volume level. A lot of this has to do with the higher wattage amp producing more bottom-end by nature. This is especially evident when pushing the amps into power tube saturation.

Some may have caught the phrase, “equivalent volumes” in the previous paragraphs, and wondered how I could get equivalent volumes with a low-wattage and high-wattage amp breaking up. The only way you can get that is by using a power attenuator, of which there are many on the market, though I use the Aracom PRX150-Pro.

Finally, what advice do I have? It’s actually fairly simple:

  1. First, evaluate the average usage (i.e., the application). Will you need lots of clean headroom? Do you play large venues? Then a higher-wattage amp might make sense. On the other hand, if you play mostly small venues, in the studio, or in your room, a lower-wattage amp may make more sense. BUT, if you have a great attenuator like the PRX150-Pro (or DAG), my personal preference would be to go to the higher-wattage amp. While I love the tones that I get with my low-wattage amps, with the PRX, I don’t have the volume considerations to take in to account any longer that had me go with low wattage amps in the first place.
  2. Once you’ve determined your power needs, then you have to test amps – lots of ’em –  there’s no way around it.

Then once you’ve done the evaluation, you might throw that all out the window and go for what sounds good to you, regardless of your power needs. 🙂

Hey! No one said it was easy…

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Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

Posted in Guitars on February 14, 2012| 2 Comments »

Not really much of an article today, just something I recorded last night to commemorate the day… My Valentine by Paul McCartney

The guitar used was my trusty Yamaha APX900.

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Monday Meanderings…

Posted in Guitars, tagged on February 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

On Master Volumes, Variable Power, etc…

A friend of mine recently got a great tube amp, and one of the options he wanted to have added to the amp was a half-power switch. I spoke to him about it and said it really wasn’t necessary since he almost exclusively plays clean, so his main concern was to have maximum clean headroom. The only thing that half-power switch would do for him would be to help get his amp into breakup earlier as the lower power will saturate the tubes at a lower power point. I also mentioned that the half-power switch would only provide a 3dB drop in volume, which wasn’t significant. Then Jeff Aragaki followed up with something I thought I’d share: In order to get half-volume, you’d have to drop 10dB. That’s something a lot of people don’t realize when considering variable power.

If it sounds good, then it’s right…

I heard this a few months ago I believe from Keith Urban’s guitar tech, and I was reminded of it a couple of  weeks ago during a gig, and when I made the final demo recording for my song, “You Raise Me Up” where I used my EWS Little Brute Drive distortion pedal to get my crunch sound. For years, I had eschewed the use of distortion pedals and relied on my amp for distortion. But pedal sounds so damn good that I’m now using it all the time. It’s a perfect example of “If it sounds good, then it’s right.” It’s a great and humbling lesson that it doesn’t matter the make, model, or price of a piece of gear. If you feel it helps your sound, then it’s the right piece of gear.

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Saturday Project: Arrange the Studio and Re-arrange My Pedal Board…

Posted in Guitars, tagged on February 4, 2012| 5 Comments »

Yikes! Can’t believe how piled up my man-cave got, so I started arranging stuff so I could feel less cluttered while recording. It’s going to be a two-day job – there’s A LOT of stuff to move around; not just mine, but boxes of my wife’s books and sports equipment, etc. In the end, it’ll be all good. 🙂

As for my pedal board, I decided it was time to get all my frequently used pedals all in one place – yet again. For the last few months, I’ve gone with a simple, four-pedal board, but I missed things like my wah-wah and booster. So I decided to get my act together and assemble my board. Here’s the order:

BOSS TU-2 Tuner ->
Paul Cochrane Timmy Overdrive (transparent) ->
Tone Freak Effects Abunai 2 Overdrive (transparent, but compressed) ->
EWS Little Brute Drive Distortion (I LOVE THIS) ->
VOX Big Bad Wah ->
TC Electronic Corona Chorus ->
Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay (hand-wired) ->
DigiTech Hardwire RV-7 Reverb ->
Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 Clean Boost

I know that lots of players prefer the wah in front of the overdrives and distortion, but I’ve never liked that sound, so I put it behind them, and before my modulation effects. As for the clean boost, I’ve always preferred it to be the last in my chain to do a final boost before going into the amp.

FYI, I rarely, if ever stack my overdrives. The Timmy is good for stacking when I’ve done it, but I usually just use a single drive to dirty up my signal. Especially since I’ve gotten the Little Brute Drive (“LBD”), when I want a high gain sound, I’ve been using a distortion. The thing about the LBD is that it’s super gainy, but it’s also amazingly transparent. I wasn’t expecting that. In fact, what’s cool is that when engaged, it doesn’t give much of a volume boost, so I haven’t had to use my attenuator at church. I just play clean, then switch on the LBD when I need crunch. And the LBD with the Deep Blue Delay? OMG!!! Fuggettaboutit! What a sound! Gainy and ambient – perfect for leads!

Oh well… I’m sitting at a local Peet’s Coffee shop right now, waiting to pick up my daughter from ice skating with her friends, and all this talk and thought about gear is making me itchin’ to play! Dammit!!!

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New Song: You Raise Me Up

Posted in Guitars, tagged on January 29, 2012| 2 Comments »

Funny how you hear a riff that triggers your creativity. I was watching a video last week at church, and there was this really cool acoustic riff that was played underneath that inspired me. There was something about the chord pattern I really dug: 6-5-1 with a minor root. So I started playing around with that pattern, and came up with this song called, “You Raise Me Up.”

This is a song about being called by God, something like how God called on Daniel and Ezekiel in the old testament, and how they couldn’t believe that He’d call on them because they didn’t feel they were anything special. But because they had such a deep love and trust, they just let go.

Here it is:

I played all the instruments except for the drum loop. For the electric guitar, I used my trusty Les Paul ’58 Reissue through my Aracom VRX18 running into my Aracom PRX150-Pro attenuator. No EQ on the guitar – it was recorded raw, then I added a bit of reverb in the mix.

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The Power of Vulnerability

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on January 22, 2012| 5 Comments »

I belong to a men’s fellowship group at my church. Ostensibly, it’s a bible study group, but it usually extends far beyond just discussing the particular bible passage that’s the topic for the week. This past meeting, the subject turned towards vulnerability, and we all agreed that much of our success in life – no matter in what we endeavor – has much to do with being vulnerable. During the course of the discussion, a good friend mentioned that he’s just watched a great video from the TED conference on the very subject of vulnerability. I just finished watching it, and it has really gotten me thinking. Here’s the video:

What struck me like a ton of bricks was what she said near the end of her talk: To let ourselves be seen—deeply seen, vulnerably seen. To love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee. To practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror.

After the talk, I sat for several minutes thinking about my music; what I’m playing, what I’m writing. In a previous post, I mentioned that after a year-long hiatus, I returned to writing music, but making a conscious decision to write Christian sacred music. That was difficult for me because I really wanted to write more mainstream pop and rock for a time. Before I made my decision, I anguished over what I thought I should be doing and worried over what others might think of my music.

I had already gotten a taste of humble pie with my non-religious music from industry veterans: It was not very good; or at least not good enough to be published. Most feedback came back stated that the songs were structured well, and the ideas were sound, but they wouldn’t have that much appeal. Mind you, having wide appeal wasn’t very important to me, but I was living under the illusion that my songs were hits. They weren’t.

A large part of why I couldn’t find much success in writing non-religious music was what I now understand is a lack of sincerity and a lack of vulnerability in my writing; a lack of willingness to completely expose myself for fear of showing too much. You see, like many, I had spent a lifetime “numbing my vulnerability” as Brene Brown puts it, and when I was writing about my life, I was going to some pretty dark places that were difficult to deal with. It was too uncomfortable. But I had always found peace and solice in prayer, and though I’d visit those dark places, within the context of prayer, my songs became therapy for me. I allowed myself to be vulnerable so I could heal that pain.

From a more practical side of things, I also decided at that point in time that I made my decision to return to writing sacred music that it wasn’t necessary to try to play like everyone else. I’d continue to study and do my best to improve my technique, but I didn’t feel all that compelled to play John Mayer songs note-for-note, or play blues with the same kinds of phrasings as Eric Clapton. I just accepted that my playing was where it was at at that moment in time, and I’d just play.

The interesting thing that happened when I made that decision was that my playing improved dramatically; more so than at any point in my life and playing career. I’m no shredder, and I’m no blues god, but I finally started getting comfortable with what I could do, and I just did it, knowing that if I needed to learn more, I simply would learn more. In other words, I just accepted the fact that I only had a certain set of tools at a particular time, and I just used what I had.

Anyway, food for thought…

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Wow! Made the Finals!

Posted in Guitars, tagged on January 21, 2012| 5 Comments »

I’ve been entering the SongDoor International songwriting contest on and off for the last few years. Like many emerging songwriters, when I first entered the competition, I thought my songs were hits, only to come to the sobering and humbling conclusion – after professional evaluation and feedback – that my songs really weren’t all that good. But last year, after taking a hiatus from songwriting for over a year, I decided to return to writing, but taking a much more humble approach, and also decided to go back to my roots: Contemporary Christian. But in deciding to going back to writing Christian music, I made a conscious decision to write in styles that departed from what you’d normally hear on Christian radio; for instance, reggae.

But I also wanted to make sure that my songs weren’t full of my own hubris, so I worked with a couple of different producers to evaluate my songs. That made a world of difference, and the way I approach music writing has been completely transformed; not really from the standpoint of “fitting in,” but writing music that has a good structure and good hook and while it may not be universally appealing, just plain makes sense.

For this year’s SongDoor International contest, I was invited to participate because one of the producers that I work with works there. Though she doesn’t do the judging, she encouraged me to enter a couple of songs. So I did, and I made the finals! I find out the results tomorrow, but to make the finals is real affirming that my choice to return to my roots was the right one. I really don’t care if I win the contest. It would be nice, but more important to me is the recognition that my music has appeal in a context that’s completely different from a church service. Here’s a link to the finalist list.

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