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Cornford Carrera

In February 2009 I finally did it, I bought myself a Cornford. It’s a beautiful thing, hand wired, looks gorgeous and smells amazing. Yes, it smells amazing. I can’t explain it. When I get in from work I know I’m home when those valves start humming and it starts to smell of the pine speaker cabinet. Lovely! And more importantly it sounds just like a great valve amp should, you get grit, compression and sag… and feedback from the 12” Celestion Vintage. It’s a wonderful amp. It is as Leo Fender used to say, part of the set. Didn’t he use to think of the amp like the bell in a sax? It is like that. The electric guitar has no voice until the signal reaches the amplifier. The Cornford is so expressive it brings a tear to my eye.

So what have I learned from this? Firstly, as good as modelling is, there is nothing like a real amp/speaker. Secondly, as good as a real amp/speaker is there is nothing quite as good as modelling. Whilst my modellers lie around the house like door stops I do find myself recording ideas using Guitar Rig or Waves GTR as it’s so much easier!

Porcupine Tree ‘The Incident’

I was so excited about the new Porcupine Tree record, The Incident, prior to it’s September release. I had it on pre-order for what felt like forever and I was so nervous when I first put it in the player. And… I didn’t get it. It was one great big massive song and it seemed to have absolutely nothing memorable about it apart from the song Time Flies which was in my opinion not the Tree’s best song.

Oh how wrong first impressions can be! This album was a grower. It took about a week to start making sense to me. And now I still have to listen to it in entirety and as a complete whole. I have to say it’s one heck of an emotional trip.

The most memorable record of the year by some distance for me. PT go from strength to strength and have now released four of the best records I have ever heard!

Rediscovering Eric Johnson

Back in the early 90s I was in love with EJs playing. He was an incredible player and so unique at a time where we’d had endless Van Halen, Malmsteen, Vai and Satriani clones (myself included). As 2009 is nearly twenty years since Ah Via Musicom I thought it was time I caught up with EJ, half expecting a wealth of tremendous recordings to discover. Erm… there are some recordings, 2 studio albums, another on the way… it wasn’t what I was expecting.

But how can I be critical when he produces such amazing work. His guitar playing is absolutely astonishing, his tones and ideas have developed and become something that seems to have such a depth in it’s maturity. It’s been a blessing and an honour to rediscover the beauty of Eric’s playing.

Digi’s Eleven Rack

At the end of the year Digi released the Eleven Rack. Having tried just about every modeller known to man I wasn’t particularly excited and thought “it’ll be like the Pod X3 but will wire into Pro Tools”, and then videos started appearing on the Digi site. It looked good. It sounded good. The demos were very impressive. Uh oh, I’d bought the Cornford already… had I been hasty?!

This is a very exciting product for guitar players, IMO particularly because of it’s closely knitted ties with the Pro Tools platform. Saving preset details in XML data into your audio files so you never have to recall presets etc. is an unbelievable feature. I don’t think we’ll ever see a box in the future that doesn’t do that! And it sounds incredibly good.

Digi have put their cards on the table and it’s now up to the rest of the guys to decide how to play. Jon compares this box to the Axe-FX, and that’s one serious compliment for a box that sits in the market with, say, a Boss GT-Pro!

Les Paul

Sadly, we lost the amazing visionary Les Paul. Without him we wouldn’t be doing anything we do now.

My Marshall JMP-1 again

Twice I have boxed up the JMP-1 expecting to never use it again. And each time I am proven so completely wrong I feel totally dumb afterwards. Running this pre-amp directly into the Cornford return jack gives me an absolutely incredible variety of delicious tones. Remind me never to switch the damn thing off again! If you can find one on the cheap somewhere (they are now discontinued by Marshall) then you must try one out. Get it into a good power amp and speaker and it’s absolutely tremendous. I’ve had mine since 1994. I am still in love with it! It’s one of the longest relationships in my life!

Guthrie Govan

Finally, I have to mention Guthrie. 2009 really seemed to be a year where people were getting very excited about his playing. I really hope that Guthrie can build on this success and continue to dazzle us with his amazing talents. It’s hard to believe that Erotic Cakes was released over three years ago! The cream always rises to the top. Well done Guthrie.

I’ll also remember spending way too much time on Modern Warfare 2 instead of writing 5 for the Weekend! The cat is out of the bag… well, at least it wasn’t Guitar Hero!

I’d love to get some feedback on what you guys feel was memorable from 2009!!

Paul.

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