A little while ago I was reading about the Edgar Winter band, now it seems I am just a little too young to have known about the band when they released the classic ’Frankenstein‘ and was interested to read that Edgar is younger brother of guitar legend Johnny Winter. Anyway I was reading about their guitarist Doug Rappoport who is a British born guitarist has been playing professionally since age 15. I was interested to hear his new solo album ‘Bionic’ so I contacted him in order to get hold of a copy, in fact it was so hot off the press that the CD covers hadn’t even been printed yet so I got an advance copy! I presumed it would be a bluesy jazzy album as I don’t know much of the Edgar Winter discography (yet!) but then I saw the album artwork and realised that this wasn’t going to be what I expected at all!

Bionic opens with a track called, ahem… ’Camel Toe Rodeo‘, yes really. Anyway aside from the bizarre vocal interludes, which personally I would have preferred without but I guess that is Doug’s sense of humour coming through, this is a rocking track. Great heavy riff and melodic rock soloing that reminded me of Andy Timmons very fluid and effortless sounding with a few fusion licks thrown in some nice octave unison lead lines.

‘Bionic Warz‘ is one of my favourite tracks on the album, again blending rock guitar with fusion elements but not so much that you would ever say it was jazzy this is some heavy shit going on! I would put this track more in the John Petrucci style of music, lots of fast picking, crazy arpeggios and super heavy backing riffs.

The third track on the album is called ’Chopper‘ which Doug wrote after watching the awesome Eric Bana film of the same name based on the life of legendary criminal Mark ‘Chopper’ Read. I don’t know if it is Doug singing on the track? Doug if you are reading this please leave a comment and let us know, if it is he has a great rock voice kinda like Zakk Wylde. This track shows that Doug is more than just a shredder and can write melodic songs too. In fact there is also a rock ballad called ”Dyin’ 2 Live” also featuring vocals but I wasn’t a fan of this, sorry Doug, I prefer the heavier stuff.

There is also a cover of Jimi’s ’Voodoo Chile - Slight Return‘ and the guitar playing is very impressive, Doug has a wide vibrato that sounds like he is shaking the neck of his guitar. It is very hard to do a cover of any Hendrix track and not get criticised so fair play to Doug for just doing his thing. It is basically a heavy rocked up version which takes elements from the original but Doug puts his own stamp on it.

The last track on the album took me completely by surprise! ’When I Wish Upon a Star‘ which shows off Doug’s Jazz chops on both electric and acoustic guitar. I expect to hear this on a Tommy Emmanuel record not a rock album like Bionic! Very impressive playing with plenty of harmonics a la Tommy and nice counterpoint bass lines.

If you like guitarists like Andy Timmons, John Petrucci etc. you will like Doug Rappoport and if you like the Edgar Winter Band, Doug apparently does an 8 minute guitar solo during the set! Check out Doug’s myspace page for some audio clips which also has more info on how to purchase his album ’Bionic‘.

I discovered Alex Ehrsam recently while scouring YouTube for some lesser known talent to add to my Guitar Noize YouTube favourites. I say lesser known in comparison to the Joe Satriani’s and Steve Vai’s of this world I’m sure he is known in Jazz circles because he is an amazing guitar player. I recently contacted Alex and he was kind enough to send me a copy of his album, ’djaz_dtox‘ available through guitar9.com. Alex sights Greg Howe and Scott Henderson as influences for this album and he recently entered the Greg Howe ‘Play for me’ contest, check out his entry here.

Alex picked up the guitar at the age of 15, his love of jazz music such as Coltrane and Miles Davis mixed with his rock shredding style have blended over the years into what he calls Progressive Fusion. He is capable of the Rock style of playing as demonstrated on the opening track of the album, ’Scab Co-Worker‘ with overdriven guitar lead lines and pinch harmonics but also incredible fluidity with endless legato lines that meander around the jazz style progressions, nice bit of wah on this backing track too!

‘Snappy Response‘ is a similar ‘Greg Howe’ style track with overdriven guitars and legato playing at blistering speed although this track felt a bit more like an improvisation over a chord progression, personally I would have liked a bit more variation.

‘Out U Go‘ has a crazy opening riff that seems to defy time signatures, I think the drums are programmed if not the drummer certainly wouldn’t be thanking Alex having to learn something as complicated as this! Actually any decent drummer would probably relish the challenge. Once again in this track the Wah Wah comes out to show Alex’s funk side with some nice slap bass accompaniment. Oh and I said the opening riff was crazy but really the timing throughout is enough to make the most seasoned professional sweat!

‘Elevator Shaft‘ opens with a Saxaphone melody over what I would describe as a Drum & Bass beat with ethereal synth chord backing, but the track suddenly takes an entirely different direction half way through dropping the tempo to a half-time beat and overdriven guitars take over with a ballad like melody that occasionally deviates with lightning fast licks. The track then returns to the introductory them and original tempo with the guitars taking the Sax’s place.

‘Standard Procedure‘ is another rock fusion track with some bluesy pentatonic licks mixed in with more traditional jazz scales similar to the way Scott Henderson mixes it up. There is some fierce technical soloing in this track with tapping and arpeggios that are just plain scary!

‘Fix‘ has one of the more memorable melodic hooks on the album as the main riff, mind you I’m not talking a straight pentatonic riff, it seems to pass through about 3 keys in 1 bar! Maybe I’m exaggerating but its a very cool riff and one I intend to learn just to analyse exactly what is going on.

‘Cold Chill‘ is a really nice departure from the rock fusion which starts to take its toll on your ears after a while. The track opens with a solitary nylon string acoustic guitar and then a second guitar is introduced playing a melodic solo. It has a kind of spanish feel throughout and around the halfway switches to a more Gypsy Jazz feel mixed with modern harmony. It highlights how precise Alex’s playing is.

‘Decoy Unseen‘ is back to the Greg Howe-esque insane legato and speed picking that seems to cross the entire fretboard and back every bar, Alex’s knowledge of the fretboard is amazing. It has a funky feel with some modern jazz lines.

The final track ’Malpractice‘ is the only track on the album to not feature soloing guitar all the way through and has a more relaxed fusion style with laid back drum beats, synth pads and Sax melody. Kind of cheesy to non Jazz fans but easy to listen to.

If you are not a Jazz fan you might find it hard to listen to all the way through but you might like the tracks individually so don’t rule it out. If you like Greg Howe, Prashant Aswani or Scott Henderson you will like Alex’s playing he is l’extraordinaire guitariste! If you want to try before you buy go to Alex’s website, or MySpace page to hear tracks from the album. Merci once again to Alex for sending me the CD.

One of the most informative YouTube channels I’ve found recently is the ProGuitarShop.com channel. As you can see from the photo left and in more detail here, ProGuitarShop.com have created a studio setup for a consistent video and audio recording environment in order give an accurate representation of the products that they review. They have already uploaded 236 reviews and counting, so far focussing on effects pedals but there are going to be Amp and Guitar reviews down the line too. It is quite amazing just how many similar products are on the market so ProGuitarShop.com have set up a few reviews where they compare similar stomp boxes to help you decide which is the one for you.

There is a reason for them investing so much time in recording their reviews, editing them and uploading to a YouTube channel, they sell these products on their website ProGuitarShop.com and they have a huge range probably the biggest I’ve seen on the web. So why not head over and check out their range, careful though you know you can always use a new stomp box!!

ProGuitarShop.com on YouTube.

Anyone who knows me will know that I have idolised Joe Satriani since I started playing guitar 20 years ago, when I first started playing “Surfing with the Alien” was out and he was just about to release “Flying In A Blue Dream”. I think my brother and I saw Joe 3 times on the “Flying...” tour, the first and most memorable for me was at the Birmingham Hummingbird, not sure what it is called these days but it used to be an intimate sticky floored venue where you were able to get very close to the action which is pretty exciting when you are 13 or 14 years old! Well I might not get quite as excitable 20 years on but I have to say it was a fantastic gig last night at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre. For a start just like all those years ago I was in the standing area near the stage and the Enmore is quite a small theatre so you’re never far from the stage.

“What is your purpose?” came blasting out over the P.A. as Joe walked onto stage, the unmistakable intro from “I Just Wanna Rock” (Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock), it is one of the cheesiest of Joe’s tracks but he had to open with it really, its a great high energy rock anthem to get things underway! I’m not going to list every song because I simply can’t remember them all but he did play a lot off the new album such as “Musterion”, “Andalusia” and “Diddle-y-a-Doo-Dat” which all sounded amazing but what had me really excited was Joe and Stu Hamm jamming on the old favourites just like those gigs at the Hummingbird and Hammersmith Apollo all those years ago! “Satch Boogie”, “Surfing With The Alien”, “Ice 9”, “Flying In A Blue Dream”, “One Big Rush”, “The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing” and epic version of “Always With Me Always With You” and some tracks from “The Extremist” album, “Summer Song”, “Cryin” and one that really suprised me “Time Machine” from the ‘93 release of the same title, it’s a great track I’m glad Joe has resurrected that one! There were also a few tracks from “Super Colossal” including “Crowd Chant” which made me laugh because of how seriously people tried to imitate Joe’s playing, have you ever heard a 6ft beer swilling rocker trying to sing Joe’s crazy whammy harmonics? It’s not a nice sound… I think Joe only wrote that song to amuse himself!

I should make a special note of Stu Hamm’s bass solo, Stu has been working with Joe Satriani for as long as I can remember and is a really fantastic bass player. His played a solo rendition of Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” which was awesome, unfortunately he then went into some crazy country thing that was all a bit too Benny Hill for my liking even though the crowd seemed to enjoy it! I think he was just having a bit of a laugh, I just prefer the technical stuff!

There were a couple of things that made this gig extra special. Firstly it was Joe’s birthday although this didn’t become apparent until after the gig, and secondly because I finally got to meet Joe and the band in an after show meet and greet!

So here is the proof me and Joe! Unfortunately he was being constantly hounded the whole time so I didn’t get to talk to him for more than about 10 seconds but I did get to chat to Stu Hamm for quite a while about his recent experience at a Birmingham City football match, Birmingham, England that is - my home town where I grew up. I also got a chance to have a quick chat with Tour Manager and Rhythm Guitarist (busy man!) Galen Henson who was really cool and the man with the most energy out of all of them, Drummer Jeff Campitelli. Jeff is a really great Drummer I was watching him play quite a lot because he seems to be into it as much as Joe, whereas you get the feeling Stu could play the whole set standing on his head and Galen tends to look a little bored at times (I would be playing the 2 chords from ‘Flying In A Blue Dream’ for 10 minutes while Joe shreds away!). This topped off a great gig, the sound wasn’t as crystal clear as I would have preferred but it was still pretty good and Joe still amazes me everytime I watch him play, aside from his incredible technique he has amazing feel and tone for a shredder and also seems to have a much more general appeal than say Steve Vai. If you are wondering whether to buy a ticket for Joe Satriani this time round don’t even hesitate this tour’s set list is too good to miss out on.

For those of you who are interested here is the entire Flickr set which some live video, more live photos and more pics of me hanging with Joe, Stu, Jeff and Galen.

Update: Regarding the rumours surrounding Joe Satriani and Sammy Hagar, Joe was happy to openly talk about it with someone backstage and said they have already written a few songs.

Greg Howe has been around as long as I can remember and has always been a guitarist that pushes the boundaries of rock and fusion guitar playing. When I started playing Greg was one of Mike Varney’s discoveries and was releasing albums on Shrapnel Records around the same time as Jason Becker and Marty Friedman were playing together in Cacophany. His liquid playing and glissando style vibrato captivates me everytime I watch one of his videos. So I was really excited to receive his new album ‘Sound Proof’ and what an album it is!

The album opens with ”Emergency Exit” a high energy rock fusion track that seems to be as much a showcase for drummer Gianluca Palmieri as it does for Greg! The solo in this one is pretty crazy with a nice octave effect applied to the guitar signal. The solo is pretty heavy on the jazz side so its not going to appeal to the rockers out there quite so much as the main riff does!

”Tell Me Something Good” has an infectious groove and heaps of Wah! It is a real feel good kind of track, with a nice combination of super dry tones and the usual drenched in reverb and delay which we all love to use! I think this track really highlights Greg’s sense of melody and timing which is pretty unusual, he certainly doesn’t write simple music!

When I first heard ”Reunion” I didn’t really like it that much but it has really grown on me over the last week or two (I’ve had this album on constant rotation!). At first I thought the Samba style sounded a little cheesy but I’ve really started to like it, as on all the tracks Greg’s playing is just jaw dropping and you just don’t expect the hear this kind of virtuosic playing over a latin sounding track.

”Morning View” is a much more lyrical track that is all about the melody, it is quite pop sounding but once again the fluid style of Greg’s playing just takes it to another level. His tone, although distorted is still very clear and precise. This track has a nice acoustic solo, I wonder if he is using the Parkwood Hybrid?

”Walkie Talkie” has one of my favourite riffs of the album, I’m a sucker for half time rock riffs. The track seems to have taken its name from the intro which has been eq’d to make it very Lo-Fi sounding. There is some nice interplay between Greg and bass player Jon Reshard during the main solo which is then followed by a very cool Keyboard solo by David Cook. There is some great unison playing in this track which states quite firmly what genre this album is in. Once again on this track Gianluca Palmiera lets loose with another display of his exceptional drumming skills.

When I heard the opening to “Sunset in El Paso” I immediately thought of Hill Street Blues… I don’t know why because it doesn’t sound anything like it?! Maybe it is the piano accompaniment to the solo acoustic guitar? It just has that 70’s and 80’s cop show theme about it. A little too cheesy for my tastes, I prefer the rockier tunes.

I forgot to mention there are spatterings of comedy throughout this album with short interludes such as ”Write me a song” which has a fake (I presume) conversation between Greg Howe and some record label exec. Greg: “Well did you listen to the whole disc or just the first couple of..?” Sam: “Greg if I listened to the whole disc I’m gonna get a migraine!”. There are also a couple of tracks ”Connoisseur Part 1” and ”Connoisseur Part 2” which seem to be some guy leaving messages on Greg’s answer machine talking to extreme lengths about how is trying to get a nice tone, its incredibly annoying. If Greg receives calls like I this often I feel really sorry for him, I’d change my number!

”Child’s Play” is another of my favourites on this album, its a real funked up tune with a nice double track of guitars playing different parts of the melody. One is Greg’s creamy distorted sound and the other is a crunchy single coil funkier tone which he uses to play plenty of funky double stops. There is also a clean solo which just shows how precise his playing is. There is also a nice example of Greg’s hybrid picking technique. He seems to manage to get every style of his playing into his solos without it sounding forced. From legato runs to super fast alternate picking into hybrid rolling licks without breaking a sweat!

”Sound Proof” is the last track on the album which is weird, I would have thought the title track would have been higher up the playing order, but maybe Greg wanted to go out on a high? This is another funky track, there is a great drum groove which reminded me of the drum part that plays under the tapping solo in Satch Boogie.. I really should stop making comparisons but thats what I first thought! Greg’s rhythm guitar track really cuts through the mix, the dry clear chords are very reminiscent of that James Brown kind of rhythm sound. Jon Reshard gets a spot in this track to show off his bass solo skills including a bit of tapping!

If you are a guitarist and you haven’t heard Greg Howe then you should definitely check out Greg Howe TV to see him jamming and hear some examples of his playing before you rush out and buy this album. It certainly won’t be to everyone’s tastes because of the heavy jazz influence but he is a real virtuoso and I think that every guitarist can appreciate his skill and control of the guitar which in my opinion is reason enough to buy it.

Check out GregHowe.com for more info and samples of ”Sound Proof”.
Greg Howe on MySpace.
Greg Howe on YouTube.

Last week I received my Black Label Society model Shredneck, I didn’t even know there was a Black Label Society model there certainly doesn’t seem to be one in their product section, having said that Zakk Wylde is top of their Artists section! So let me just say I was a bit skeptical about how useful the Shredneck would be before it arrived, I used to own a Grip Master and used it occasionally to build finger strength as it was nice and portable but it was no substitute for the real thing.

The Shredneck is quite large, it is in fact the first 7 frets of a regular guitar neck but let me explain a few things before I go any further. Straight out of the box I assumed (rather naively when you think about it) that I would be able to play the Shredneck like a regular guitar, obviously at a much higher pitch than a regular scale guitar. What I forgot to take into consideration is that with such a short scale length in order to have chromatic notes up and down each string would mean having frets very close together probably to the point of making it unplayable anyway and beside it is not the point of the Shredneck. This is an important concept to remember. You tune the strings arbitrarily until you are happy with each strings’ tension rather than the tuning. This may sound crazy but once you pick one up it all makes sense, it does mean you can do some crazy bends though, I reckon I can pull a couple of octaves!! Also the headstock acts as the body of the guitar and has a velvet pad so you can rest it on your leg for one arm operation, or you just grab hold of the headstock for more stability. There is no point practicing picking to be honest because there isn’t really space to pick, it is like picking over the fretboard.

Now we are past the technical difficulties that I could have got through a lot quicker if I had read the manual, how useful is it? Well although it looks great I wasn’t sure I would get past the whole tuning thing but it has sat on my desk all week and I have suprised myself how many times I have picked it up! Whenever I have a spare couple of minutes, waiting for files to upload, rebooting etc. I pick up the Shredneck and start doing a few left hand exercises. Sure it doesn’t beat the real thing but I don’t have the luxury of working with a guitar on my lap or even in the vicinity so this gives me a few minutes here and there to get my fingers working which is great. It is quite bulky and I’m not really sure you need 7 frets considering it is a practice tool 5 would probably do and that would make the unit more compact. I think it is aimed more at people like me who would really prefer a guitar at their desk but can’t so are happy with this as a silent substitute rather than professional musicians who need to warm up before a gig, surely they would be using their own guitars for that?

Shredneck have expanded their range to include a classical guitar neck, acoustic guitar neck and even a bass guitar neck so obviously there are a lot of people finding the Shredneck a great accessory. Check out their range at Shredneck.com and don’t forget to ask about the Black Label Society model!

A big thank you to Anthony from Niche Music Supplies in NSW, Australia for supplying the Shredneck. Check out his site for some other interesting guitars and guitar accessories.

I first heard of Tommy Emmanuel about 5 years ago when I heard ‘Train To Dusseldorf’ from his solo acoustic guitar album ‘Only’, I was instantly hooked and it inspired me to play again after a break of quite a long time. I bought an acoustic guitar, Tommy’s ‘Only’ album and the TAB book and I’ve been trying to get somewhere close to the virtuosic fingerstyle master ever since, you have to be optimistic don’t you?! Since ‘Only’ Tommy has released ‘Endless Road’ and ‘The Mystery’ on Steve Vai’s record label, Favored Nations. Both are essential listening for any guitarist, the technical ability of Tommy is amazing and is something he has been working on since the age of 6 when he was touring Australia with his dad and brother!

Well Tommy has just released a live double CD called ‘Center Stage’ on Favored Nations and Guitar Noize is giving 1 lucky person the chance to win a signed copy with 4 runners up also receiving a copy (unsigned, sorry). All you have to do is head over to the Competition page and enter your email address, it’s that easy.

I have just listened to ‘Center Stage’ and as a Tommy fan I was not disappointed, there are tracks from ‘Only’ such as the fantastic ‘Train To Dusseldorf’ and a percussive version of ‘Mombasa’ that has to be heard to be believed, it honestly sounds like an entire percussion section has joined Tommy onstage rather than him beating, scratching, plucking and brushing his guitar! There are also 4 new tracks ‘Ruby’s Eyes’, ‘Papa George’ (inspired by George Harrison), ‘Lenny Bro’ and ‘The Jolly Swagman’ which is a kind of celtic track like ‘Tall Fiddler’ (which by the way there is a blisteringly fast version on here) and ends with ‘Waltzing Matilda’ a nod back to his motherland Australia. There is also the obligatory Beatles Medley that Tommy is famous for playing in which he manages to combine tracks with ease starting with ‘Here Comes The Sun’ into ‘When I’m 64’ into ‘Daytripper’ into ‘Lady Madonna’.

CD 2 starts with a track by Merle Haggard called ‘Working Man Blues’ featuring Bob Littell on harmonica and Tommy singing, his guitar playing is better than his voice but it mixes up the set nicely. The next track is a great instrumental version of ‘Georgia on my mind’ with Bob Littell wailing the melody on harmonica and Tommy playing a cool bluesy solo, it really is a fantastic arrangement of the classic Ray Charles track. Other highlights include Tommy’s rendition of Amazing Grace, if you have never heard this bluesy version check out this video on YouTube now imagine it with Bob Littell’s harmonica taking turns on verses!

The nice thing about this CD is that it gives you an insight into Tommy’s sense of humour, especially on his ‘Story of a little boy’, he plays with a lot of humour and if you watch his videos you can see the enjoyment written all over his face, I think it takes a rare talent to convey this to an audience. He also plays using a lot of percussive techniques and he takes this to the next level on the track ‘Inittiation’ where he uses a delay effect to create an amazing soundscape which I think sounds very aboriginal to begin with but then moves into a more modern sounding piece , it is very ethereal and inventive. The CD closes with one of my favourite tracks to play, ‘Questions’ from Tommy’s ‘Only’ album, it is a slightly new arrangement compared to the 2000 album version and Tommy plays it with such precision it sounds incredibly simple, although as I found out when I was learning the piece it is far from simple to seperate the melody and harmonies in the way Tommy does so effortlessly.

So if you want to win this great CD all you have to do is go the Competition page here on Guitar Noize.

Good morning pop pickers its time for another Guitar Noize CD review and this time its an eclectic mix up that should appeal to pretty much every guitarist, covering most genres with a few suprises in there too! The album opens with a track from legendary Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones called ‘B Fingers’, that was the first suprise. It’s a catchy overdriven bass riff too with Trey Gunn from King Crimson providing some backup on guitar. The next suprise was that track two is Jeff Beck, no he isn’t the suprise it is the fact that he is playing the classic reggae track ‘54-46 was my number’ with Toots and the Maytals! The next suprise comes by way of Zakk Wylde, now he suprised me a little bit years ago with a track that started with long country chicken pickin’ intro but then soon turned into typical Zakk, however on Guitar Masters Vol 1 Zakk plays on the classic Stevie Wonder track “I Wish” with Randy Coven where he displays a much more restrained playing style than his usual all metal assualt, gone are the pinch harmonics and wide vibrato which are replaced with the bluesy side of Mr Wylde!

OK, one more suprise and then I’ll stop with the suprises! Track 4 is by rock bass master Billy Sheehan, another bass player? Yeah but hang on not only does Billy play bass on “Unleash the beast” but also guitar and he’s quite the shredder! I suppose I shouldn’t be that suprised after all he plays the bass like it is a guitar anyway, if this is any indication expect to hear more of Mr Sheehan on the old six stringer in the future.

So what else can you expect to hear on Guitar Masters Vol 1? Well how about Stanley Clarke and Joe Satriani playing together? And a very funky track “Hair” is too, these two should collaborate more! Also Steve Morse appears on a Southern Rock flavoured track by Randy Coven. There is also a great track called “Picture of a purple sky” by Violet Samdura featuring Steve Booke which sounds like one of Jimmy Page’s eastern flavoured songs, think Kashmir without the vocals and awesome acoustic guitar solos, the guitar and violin double track melodies over a fantastic percussion backing. This track is definitely one of my favourites on the album. There are also tracks from John Scolfield and Doug Doppler and a great acoustic track called “What can I say” by Carl Tosten who uses tapping and open tunings like the late great Michael Hedges to create soulful melodies and an intricately developed arrangement.

One of the things that impressed me the most about this album is that it isn’t just an instrumental shredding album there are plenty of actual songs, yes with vocals! So there is plenty of music to be enjoyed by everyone not just the guitarists out there. So if you are looking for a bit of inspiration or just want to hear some of the greats doing what they do best check out Guitar Masters Vol 1. I look forward to hearing the next installment!

Check out Bohemian Productions MySpace and Company site.

My first experience with music sequencers was back in the mid 90’s using Cubase on an Atari ST520. Due to the Atari’s rather pathetic 520Kb of memory and storage of all tracks on 3.5” floppy disks Cubase was only capable of midi sequencing. Having said that, not that much changed with midi sequencing between Cubase and Cubase VST however once I started using VST on a PC with decent memory and a large hard drive it opened up a lot more options to me with its audio recording capabilities. The only problem was that I felt limited, certain things seemed like a lot more work than you would like them to be. Recently I have been reading a lot about Ableton Live and decided it was time to put it through its paces to see how much power lies behind the simplified looking user interface. For this review I installed Ableton Live 7 and the Essential Instruments Collection 2.

I’m a very impatient person, once I install something I want to start using it immediately and don’t want to be bogged down with reading the manual. With Cubase VST this simply wasn’t the case I remember falling at the first hurdle trying to work out how to record audio. I installed Abelton Live 7 and as soon as it was open I started dragging things around to see what would happen. I started off with the Session view which is a little different to the arrangement view I am used to, but flicking between the two is as easy as pressing TAB, however I like using Session view to begin throwing ideas together. I dragged a drum kit and a couple of Ableton’s midi instruments onto a track and was recording within seconds. It is SO easy to use! There is a massive collection of midi and audio effects that you just drop on the instrument track and have immediate access to all the parameters. When you are recording in Arrangement view and click record you can tweak every knob of the instrument panel and each effect in the chain that you create and record the changes as it plays or stop and draw the envelopes. If that sounds complicated, believe me, it isn’t, you don’t even need a keyboard controller to create professional tracks (although it is nice to have). You can use the computer keyboard for playing a single octave (C3 - C4) and then drag around to the octave you want or copy and paste to layer your midi notes or simply use the pen tool to draw the notes into the editor.

One of the great features of Ableton Live 7 is ‘Impulse’ (above). I’m going to quote the manual on this one because it describes it way better than I could, “The eight drum samples loaded into Impulse’s sample slots can be time-stretched, altered and processed by envelope, saturation, pan and volume components, nearly all of which are subject to random and velocity-based modulation.” It is a very clever module, you allocate instruments such as one of Ableton’s Kick drums or even an audio samle to a pad by dragging and dropping and immediately this is available either on your keyboard controller or between the ‘a’ and ‘k’ keys on your computer keyboard. This instrument makes it incredibly easy to create custom drum kits in seconds and of course you can chain as many effects as you want simply by dragging and dropping. Check out this video tutorial on Impulse to see just how easy it is to use!

Once your instrument is loaded and you switch to track detail view (SHIFT - TAB toggles this mode, see above) you see a simple little panel with (usually) 8 control knobs mapped to certain parameters. This alone is very cool, as I mentioned before you can record all the filter tweaks and effect tweaks in realtime so that they automate on playback. At the click of a button inside this macro panel you can expand to see what is behind the instrument’s sound. For example I dragged an instance of the Synth Instrument ‘Juno Style’ which when you expand you see a ‘Simpler’ instance called ‘Sawtoothy’ and a couple of effects, in this case a chorus and auto filter. Every part of this instrument is editable, its just a case of clicking on controls, turning them and finding a sound/effect you like.

Recording audio is just as easy, it really is as simple as creating a new audio track, selecting the input source, arming the track to record (click on the little record button in the track) and then click on the main record and play buttons. As you record you see (in Arrangement view) the waveform appearing as you play. You can zoom into this audio clip to edit and apply envelopes. This can be as simple as a volume fade or altering an effect parameter, just as you do with a midi instrument. Applying effects is just as easy, simply drag and drop each effect to the track and it will be added to the chain, which can be reordered at any time by the way. You can then add as many envelope lanes as you like to add more automation to the track.

So this probably all sounds very complex so let me break it down into terms any guitarist will understand. Simply put Ableton Live 7 lets you plug in, record, edit and arrange your music in a very simple way. The built in midi instruments allow you to play (with a controller keyboard) or program in the editor, drum loops and bass lines with ease. You can drag and drop drum samples and Ableton instantly time stretches it to make sure it fits your song’s tempo and allows you to chop it up and make it your own. Just as importantly Ableton Live 7 makes it very easy to create sets of music which you can mix on the fly with the use of an external foot controller so you could use this for a one man performance, you just need a guitar and a laptop to make each performance unique by arranging as you play. It is easy to see why bands such as Daft Punk use Ableton for live performances.

Having used this product for a pretty short time I already feel pretty comfortable but I know there is a lot more power waiting to be unlocked, I just need to have a dig through the manual and experiment a little. I have already set myself the task of producing 2 albums by the end of the year confident that Ableton will help me achieve this goal. The first will be a rock guitar album, the second will be an ambient techno album. I will release streaming excerpts as I finish them, this is going to be fun!

Whenever somebody on a guitar forum asks which book they should buy for improving speed or lead guitar techniques there are a couple of books that always come up, Troy Stetina’s Fretboard Mastery and Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar. Now “Speed Mechanics”, as you can probably tell from the design, has been around a long time. It has a copyright dating back to 1990 and is considered the “Shredder’s Bible”. I thought I would check out what all the fuss is about as I seemed to miss this book when I was learning. I will give you a quick overview of both books as there is far too much material in each book to cover in one post. Then after I have absorbed some of the information and applied the practices to my own playing I will publish another post in the future to outline how I have benefit from the books.

Speed Mechanics For Lead Guitar
Speed Mechanics is divided into 3 parts: Mechanical ability, Rhythmic ability and Creativity. Mechanical ability is the where the real guts of this book lie Troy not only teaches you strength building exercises but teaches you how to practice efficiently something which is often overlooked, I know I was far too impatient when I started learning and this hindered my progression. This section then moves on to building speed through cyclic and sequenced patterns using alternate picking before moving on to sweep picking and arpeggios. There is also a full transcription of Troy’s version of “Flight of the bumblebee” by Rimsky Korsakov to practice all the alternate picking techniques you have learned.

Rhythmic ability has some basic information on time signatures, offbeats using triplets and plenty of rhythmic sequences which all build to learning a Paganini Caprice at the end of the section.

Creativity talks about intervals and their connection between certain sounds and how they are represented on the fretboard. It then has some interval recognition training in order to help you create solos that you hear in your head without having to rely on old patterns.

There is a lot to get through but I am currently trying to re-learn with a completely revamped picking technique so I know this book is going to help me get my picking up to scratch, as I said before I will post at a later date as to how much improvement I see.

Fretboard Mastery
Fretboard Mastery was released last year and is the long awaited sequel to Speed Mechanics. This is Troy’s full system for learning the fretboard inside out and there is enough material in this book to write a complete university syllabus! When I was studying for my music degree back I felt that a lot of the information lacked relevance to me personally and therefore became harder to comprehend and absorb. What this book looks to have achieved is to take all the interval ear training and theory and apply to it the guitar in a way that is interesting and comprehendible. There is way too much in the book for me to talk about in this post but it starts with Foundation for Music which covers basic music theory, how scales and arpeggios are constructed and how they are related to triads. It then moves on to how scales/modes are positioned on the fretboard, more advanced music theory, chord structures and chord progression ear training. Troy then moves on to expanding your fretboard knowledge showing how scale and arpeggio positions overlap and exercises to help you memorise the box positions.

This book is not only a complete guitar method it is also a complete guitar reference, something that you can keep coming back to in order to further your musical knowledge and sharpen your skills. If I was to start teaching someone guitar today these would be the 2 books that I could use as a complete method, from theory to shredding. One of the most important things to realise as a guitarist is that you never stop learning, Fretboard Mastery is a tool that can help your musical progression whether you’re into rock, jazz, anything! There is something in this book to help everyone.

You can buy both of these books online at Music44.com which I find is the cheapest site for instructional books and DVD’s, links are below:
Speed Mechanics
Fretboard Mastery

Don’t forget you can also get one on one video instruction from Troy Stetina at GuitarInstuctor.com.