Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Cold Winter Blues
Posted by Jon in • Guitar Noize YouTube Channel,
After recently featuring BluesJamTracks.com on Guitar Noize (see here) I was not only inspired to record some audio of myself playing over the Larry Carlton track (see my review for the audio) but I was inspired enough to finally get my arse in gear and record a video for the Guitar Noize YouTube channel. The video embedded on the left is my rendition of Guthrie Govan’s solo over Cold Winter Blues, the Contemporary Blues collection all come with audio and video samples of Guthrie playing over the backing tracks and include a pdf and powertab transcription. So now you are probably thinking I’m incapable of improvising… damnit now I’m going to have to record a whole series of BluesJamTracks!
Check out BluesJamTracks.com for more backing tracks. Also check out BluesJamTracks on YouTube to hear Guthrie Govan and Ainsley Lister jamming!
Update: I forgot to mention what I used to record this video. The guitar is a ‘94 Patrick Eggle Berlin Stage going directly into a Vox AD50VT and then due to the lack of a decent mic, straight out into a Tapco audio interface and finally into my Macbook Pro. The tone is a hell of a lot better if you don’t bypass the power amp’s 12AX7 tube like this.

Nice tone, Jon. Icy. And the licks are very Carltonesque (Carltonish? Carltonian?).
But, that’s a take on Guthrie’s take?
It’s not that I think you are “incapable of improvising”, I’m guessing that you can blow. And, I want to hear you blow, man!
Rave, on.
Haha thanks man, yes Guthrie’s solos are just out of this world, my improv is way more generic sounding pentatonic, I’m a bit out of practice and in one of those pentatonic ruts at the moment but I’m working on it!
Great playing Jon. I was actually checking out your youtube channel the other day. It’d be interesting to know what gear your jammin’ with. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, well believe it or not I’m just using the direct output of a Vox AD50VT so I’m unfortunately bypassing the 12AX7 tube which adds heaps of tube goodness but I don’t have a mic at the moment so… The guitar is a ‘94 Patrick Eggle Berlin Stage with a Seymour Duncan SH-2 in the neck and SH-5 in the bridge. I should really add that to my post!
Jon, once again you are ahead of me
I plan to film myself playing since a few months and I have not managed to do it yet! Congratulations, sounds beautiful! I will watch your channel for more videos!
There’s no time like the present Ovidiu
to be honest for me it was a matter of getting set up and working out how to do it, now that bit is sorted I can record a few more tracks. I’ll be uploading some more shortly.
Nice work, Jon! It’s always nice to know that the guy treating us to all of these outrageous guitars can actually play one! Encore! Encore!
Mike Delaney
can’t get the video to play from guitarnoize, have to go to you tube direct , why is this.? Glad to see the the talent is still there, lets have more.
Not sure why its not working for you? It works fine for me?
That’s odd, it’s working for me as well. I have IE6 and IE7. If you run ‘Google Accelerator’, I found that it’ll mess with youtube and logging into certain message forums. Food for thought.
Great stuff Jon, that’s one of my favourite solos played by the bearded one and you nailed it.
Thanks Mark! I really should record a version of Fives using your transcription to show everyone who hasn’t seen your “Master That Riff” series what an excellent resource it is!
http://www.mastertheguitar.co.uk/mtr/
If you don’t mind, what kind of settings were you using on your Vax amp (I have the 30W version). Thanks!
Hi Mark, actually it was a while ago and I can’t remember now? I think I was using the Boutique OD amp model with the bass turned down to around 3 and a bit of reverb. I was using my front humbucker which has a particularly amazing sound, Seymour Duncan SH-2. I had the preamp volume up full and then Just mess around with the gain until you find the sweet spot. Check out http://www.valvetronix.net for some more ideas.