Musings

Know How to Listen

By Charlie Doom

Over and over again I’ve said there’s only one way to listen to music.

First, barricade your front door, plaster your windows with tin foil, feed your phone to the estrous she-boar in curlers who lives next door, drag your mattress onto the floor, turn out all of the lights, lie down on said mattress and make sure your high quality headphones¹ are pressed firmly to your skull (with the volume at 65%).

Second, press play.

For me, music is why I’m late for work in the morning, why I ruin any good relationship I happen to get myself into (I showed up 3 hours late to “dinner with the folks” because I was crafting the dynamics of a mix CD for the car trip). Egad!

I’m a music addict.

But so are most people.

We owe it to the great bounties of Western Civilization: it’s made even something as beautiful as music synonymous with a vice – 80% of the marketing budgets are aimed at prepubescent teens, its portable, easy to get, has a thriving black market and feels sinfully good to indulge in all the time.

Personally, I just can’t stand the freedom that silence gives my troubled mind to wander. That’s why I’m always listening to music; while driving, biking, eating, sleeping – I’d go so far as to say – it’s why I became a musician….

When you listen to music you shut yourself out from the world; you have no friends, no family, no neighbors groping for your attention. There is a risk in that because it’s important to hear the world sometimes, too. Life has its own soundtrack and it’s not in the best seller list on Amazon. It’s all around you. You just have to know how to listen.

Listening to music should be like looking at art, watching a movie or reading a book. It takes precious time and focus, which is why listening to good music is so important. So the next time you buy an album or an MP3, set aside a moment of time for yourself to actually appreciate it and see what happens.

¹If you consider yourself someone who’s even remotely serious about music then you need to invest in a pair of quality headphones – not ear buds. Good headphones are not that expensive and yes, it makes a difference.

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Musings

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May 1st 2012

Amps vs. Amp Simulators

by Rich Tozzoli

By now you’ve probably had a chance to run your guitar through one or more of the available amp simulators on the market. With hardware and software offerings ranging from the pioneering Line 6 POD to IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube and Digidesign’s Eleven, there are literally hundreds of amp models available at your fingertips. Want a ’64 Blackface Deluxe? A ’67 AC-30 Top Boost? How about a ’65 Marshall JTM-45 into a 4×12 cab loaded with Celestions? No problem, just dial it up.

Well, maybe there’s a little problem. You will need a fairly modern, fast computer and an interface to get the job done with software. Like their desktop and rackmounted counterparts, these simulators are all very well-suited to digital recording rigs, but if you want to use them as a preamp for a live setting you’ll still need to run them through speakers or a freestanding amp.

What happened to just plugging that ¼” cable into a good old tube combo and cranking it?

Amps and amp simulators. There is no answer to which one is intrinsically better, so the question becomes: What best suits your musical needs?

Live Rigs
If you’re mostly playing out live, a standard amp sure makes a lot of sense. However, more and more players are going the laptop route with interfaces such as the Stealth Pedal, which was built just for that purpose: live playing through a computer.

What are the benefits of a laptop for live performance? Well, aside from not having to lug your 50 lb. monster in and out of the club, there’s the flexibility of sound. You can call up a massive variety of amps, cabinets and effects to produce most any sound for any setting or style. That kind of Swiss Army-knife diversity would set you back a small ransom if you owned the actual hardware pieces. And who would want to hump all that gear on a gig?

On the other hand, there’s a great deal to be said for the simplicity and reliability of a conventional amp. It may not be a master of all trades, but it can be a master of tone. An amp (let’s say a combo amp) represents true, old-school plug and play, and troubleshooting is usually at a minimum.

Plus, you may not like the feel of playing through a computer. Even though many amp simulators sound amazing, they may not give you that sponginess or string attack you’re accustomed to as a player. That will in turn affect your performance — and we all realize what that leads to.

Another issue to take into consideration with a laptop rig is latency. Basically, latency is the delay (in milliseconds, or ms) that it takes for the sound to travel from your strings, through a computer’s processor, and out to a speaker. The current generation of speedy computers renders latency nearly a non-issue, but there are system/software combinations that are problematic. You’ll have to explore the options to learn which programs are most compatible with the computer you intend to use.

Recording
If you mostly work in the studio, an amp simulator can be an amazing tool to get sounds that are otherwise very difficult to come by. Recording a real amp comes with the complication of miking it properly (which includes owning the right mics), not to mention those volume levels when you’re working late at night. With a simulator you can put your headphones on and dial that JTM-45 up to blistering levels. Then, with just a few clicks of the mouse, instantly switch over to a small Fender Princeton.

Good as these simulators are, the sound of a real amp that’s miked up and dialed in just right is an incomparable thing of beauty. Sure, you have to get it set up just right, but that tone and feel can inspire great performances.

Some players throw in the towel on simulators, tired of working with digitized sounds that don’t meet their analog expectations. Some can’t understand why anyone would lose an hour of precious time moving around a room mic when great tone is a click away.

Suss for Yourself
In my work producing artists and on my own television tracks, I’ve found a combination of amps and amp simulators to be the best solution. No software can replace the sound of my ’62 Gibson Falcon, ’66 Magnatone M10, or ’91 MESA/Boogie Mark IV head. But none of those amps can provide me the amazing variety I get using my favorite amp simulator programs.

In deciding which approach works best for you, be sure to test both under optimal circumstances. That is, be sure to give each side a fair shake. Get the tubes changed in your amps and make sure they are biased properly so that when you plug in the sound will rock your world. But also poke around online and check out some cool amp simulators. Install the demos using sounds that grab you, and A/B them with your miked sounds. You just might change your thinking — and your tone — in the process.

Rich Tozzoli is an accomplished engineer, mixer, producer and composer. He has worked with artists such as Ace Frehley, Al DiMeola and David Bowie, among many more, and is the author of Surround Sound Mixing for ProTools. Rich is also a lifelong guitarist and composer. His work can be heard regularly on FoxNFL, HBO, and Discovery Channel.

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Sevens

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April 30th 2012

7 Things They Didn’t Tell Me When I Started Guitar

by Rich Maloof

1. There will never be enough guitars. They never told me, when I bought my first really good guitar, that other guitars would move me in a completely different way. It’s like falling for a girl and expecting you’ll never want another. There will never be one perfect guitar or even one fantastic combination of guitar/amp/effects that will deliver all the tones you will want and need. Even the guys who achieve great tone keep chasing great tone. It’s a moving target.

2. Music can be your greatest pride…and your complete undoing. There’s nothing I’d rather do than play and compose, but making music has not come with peace of mind. It has pretty much eaten my life. For every proud moment there have been another fifty occasions where I’ve heard something incredible and thought, Oh my God, I am a total amateur. I should have gone to dental school. In my experience, music has been completely fulfilling and utterly heartbreaking.

3. Playing under the influence actually makes it harder. Friends don’t let friends drink and jam. Not to be prudish (I dare you to keep up with me after my set is finished), but if you’ve spent a lot of time honing your skills, there’s just no way you’re going to perform as well snockered as you would straight. If you have any doubt, record yourself the next time you have one of those chemically induced moments of brilliance at 2:00 a.m., and see how it sounds after coffee clears the cobwebs in the morning.

4. It costs you something. If you’re going to be good on your instrument, you’re going to pay for it. It costs a chunk of your life. You will lose time, sleep and sanity. Some people will think you’re refusing to grow up. You’ll miss out on better-paying jobs and financial stability. It hurts relationships.

I once had a conversation with Robert Fripp and complained that sometimes I just wanted a job that paid better — that I was sick of living on a shoestring budget, always scraping to pay my bills, barely able to afford toppings on my pizza. “Forget the job and forget the pizza,” he said. “If you want to reach your potential as a musician, none of that means anything.”

5. Music beats the hell out of sports. There’s a long span of years, usually throughout high school, during which popularity and achievement all seem to be hung on athleticism. But everyone who plays knows that music easily offers all the camaraderie, exhilaration and pride that describe the finest experiences in sports. Wait 10 or 15 years after high-school graduation and then check in with the killer musician and with the star athlete from back in the day: one guy is playing all the time and still exploring his passion, while the other guy is stuck watching a lot of ball on TV. Don’t forget, you can still play guitar when you’re old and fat.

6. You’ll have to come up with your own definition of success.
If you’re fixated on getting a lucrative gig, being signed to a record label (do they still have record labels?), or having 10,000 fans on your band’s Facebook page, you’re pretty much sunk. It’s not that those things are unachievable, but they don’t satisfy the urge that drives a player to play. They don’t scratch the itch. You’ll have to redefine, time and time again, what you want to accomplish as a musician and what are your markers for success. Completing and recording a composition, improvising a great solo, collaborating with musicians who challenge you to be your best…these are the kinds of moments that take us to the top. And they’re fleeting, so you’ll always have to be ready to start again from the bottom.

7. There’s a lot of crap to carry. Shoulda played the sax.

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Guitar Lessons

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April 22nd 2012

7 Ways To Improve Your Tone for Free

by Corey Palmer

There are many ways to improve your guitar’s tone without running out to buy new gear. Start with these simple suggestions and you’ll surprised how much your tone can be tweaked for the better. And if you want to take your tone to a whole different level, be sure to check out our Kings of Tone course.

1. Use your guitar’s volume and tone knobs.

A number of years ago I had a footswitch that died on me, so I could no longer switch between the amp’s clean and dirty channels. While the footswitch was out getting fixed, I had to rely on my guitar’s volume and tone pots to alternate between clean to dirty sounds. Dialing the volume knob back a bit, for example, was great for cleaning up the sound, and then I got a nice, natural gain when I pushed it back up. More than that, though, I was struck by all the different tones I could dial in just by playing around with my volume and tone knobs. Definitely something for everyone to experiment with. I’m a Strat guy and the knobs are nice and close to the strings, which makes it fairly easy to make changes while playing.

2. Tweak your pickups.

In case you don’t know already, you can adjust the height of your pickups to set them either closer or farther away from the strings. With some pickups you can even adjust each pole’s height under the string. Play around with your pickup’s height or the height of each pole and you may be surprised at how drastically it can change the tone of your guitar. Another thing you can try: If your guitar has humbuckers with the ability to do a coil split, flip the pickups so that the active split coil is in a different position. Just like treble pickups are near the bridge and bass pickups near the neck, small position changes to where the string is “picked up” can make a load of difference.

3. Listen to the rest of your band.

It never ceases to amaze me how a guitarist can sound absolutely great playing by himself, and then the same tone is terrible when he’s playing in a band setting. One reason for this is that the guitarist has not learned how to listen to the band he’s playing with. It is really important to dial your guitar tone in relation to the rest of your band. Find the tone that fits appropriately into the arrangement. Just like when an engineer tweaks the guitar’s EQ in a studio mix, you have to find an appropriate EQ pocket when playing live. A tone that sounds really harsh on its own might balance out perfectly within a band.

4. Experiment with your pedal configuration.

Changing the order of the pedals in your signal chain can influence your guitar tone. You may want to first eliminate any pedals that really add no value to your tone or aren’t used. Personally, I like to have as few pedals as possible, which for me means a tuner, a boost pedal for leads, and a wah — that’s it. Keep it simple. Keep in mind that each pedal will color the sound it receives from all the pedals that precede it in the chain. As a rule of thumb, distortion pedals usually come early in the line-up, and reverbs and delays at the end. You also may want to move your modulation effects (chorus, delay, etc) to your effects loop instead of routing them through the front of the amp.

5. Try different string gauges.

String gauges will impact the tone of your guitar, with higher-gauge strings (i.e., thicker strings) generally making for a warmer, richer sound. Note that changing string gauges may require a tweak to the truss rod since heavier strings increase tension on the neck. If there’s an impact on your intonation, your guitar might need adjustments made to the bridge or saddle. Some guitars may need a new nut cut to accommodate heavy strings.

6. Try different pick gauges.

This isn’t quite as apparent if you are playing with a lot of distortion, but for clean tones, using different pick thicknesses can give provide wide variations in tone (overdrive can mask the sound of the pick on the string, though you’ll feel it in your fingers). For example, when strumming with a clean tone, a light pick can add a trebly, percussive timbre to the attacks while a heavy pick makes for a tighter, more aggressive hit on the strings. Depending on your playing style the change in tone can be subtle, but those little differences are what separates a good guitar tone from a great one.

7. Learn your gear setup.

If you haven’t sat with your gear and really “learned” it, you aren’t getting the most out of it. Tweak all the knobs on your amp and see what kinds of different tones that you can pull out of it. On some amps you’ll notice a drastic change with small adjustments, while on others it’s very reasonable to dial a tone pot all the way up or down. Try different combinations of your amp settings and guitar settings (tone, volume knobs and pickup selector switch) and note how the two interact. It can be a tedious process but it helps you to learn how the gear works and how to derive the tones you want.

Like these tips? Check out our Kings of Tone course for even more.

Corey Palmer has been a guitarist for the past twenty years and has taught rock guitar lessons at his local music store in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada.

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Interviews

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April 20th 2012

Fireside Chat: Larry Carlton

It stands as no reminder that a guitar is made of wood, glue and metal. It is not a living thing. But when the 18-time Grammy nominated legend of guitar, Larry Carlton picks up his iconic Gibson ES-335, it certainly seems alive. In fact, it seems magical.

I saw it first hand a few years ago. Sitting three feet away from him, Larry picked up his guitar and played a single note. For the following three minutes and thirty-two seconds our raging planet was at peace. Not a single shot was fired, not a last breath was exhaled and not a belly shuddered with hunger. I wish that happened when I played the guitar.

Being able to suspend your disbelief through music is just one part of Larry Carlton’s magic, and it’s also what has made him one of the most recorded and celebrated guitarists of all time. Whether you believe it is Larry Carlton or his beloved guitar that holds the magic, to hear him play you cannot deny there is something bigger involved. That’s why I asked him to share some insight and to talk about his new 335 Improv course for this month’s featured chat by the fire. - Charlie Doom

1. First off, if you weren’t a musician, what would you be and why?
I hope the questions get easier than that, because as you probably know I started playing the guitar when I was so young; I was 6 years old when I started taking guitar lessons. It’It’s all I’ve ever done. I never had another kind of job – even in high school – I always played guitar. There was never a consideration of what I might be if I weren’t a musician. So honestly, I have no answer for that!

2. Honestly, how many hours a day do you practice?
Wow, this is really going to be truthful isn’t it? That’s a tough question because I hate answering it “honestly,” but I don’t have a practice regimen and I never have – at least since I was in my 20’s doing session work. I really feel guilty about that because I know I could improve my chops if I took more time to practice. But I tour and play the guitar over 150 days a year and so that really helps keep my chops up pretty good. And I’m always listening and thinking about things that I know are not as strong in my playing as I would like them to be, and I try to work on those when playing live. I do notice improvement every year in my playing, but it’s without a practice routine. Please do not follow in my footsteps regarding that.

3. What are you listening to lately?
I just returned from a five week tour in Europe and found myself listening to a lot of Joe Pass from the early 60’s in my hotel room. He always inspired me with how melodic his solos were and just how much chops he had (I don’t have those kind of chops at all!). I get inspired listening to how cleanly Joe could play his solos and how much sense they made. So, yeah, I’d say I’ve been listening to Joe lately.

4. How would you describe the music business today?
Obviously, the music business has changed in many major ways. One example is how the music business used to be run and motivated by radio airplay. You would make a record, if the program directors liked the song, they would play it. If the audience liked the song and it became a hit, or even somewhat of a hit, you would go on tour to promote the album. Today Radio has very little to do with most artists’ careers today. It’s mostly live gigs that promote an artist and their music. Today I advise younger artists to promote their CDs by going out and doing as many live gigs as possible to build their following and promote their music.

5. Stranded on a desert island, which guitar would you take?
I would take a very small bodied acoustic guitar with me, as I would probably not be playing a lot of lead guitar. But with a small acoustic guitar, I could explore more beautiful guitar voicings and maybe even experiment with alternate guitar tunings. I also love the sound of piano voicings when they’re played on the guitar, but they’re very difficult to voice on the fretboard and so we’re very limited to which ones we can play that will sound as tightly clustered as they do on the piano. I’d spend a lot of time on the island working out voicings!

6. Let’s talk about what’s going on with you right now, your new course, and what’s next?
I am very excited about the new TrueFire course, 335 Improv, which is the deepest I’ve ever gone into the subject of improvisation and I’m very happy with the way the course presents my approach. I also have a live DVD with my trio in the can, which I’m really excited about because we had a great show that night and I think friends and fans will really enjoy it. We also have another DVD filmed in HD featuring myself and my good buddy Robben Ford playing acoustic guitar “unplugged” in Paris.

Questions submitted to TrueFire via Facebook, Twitter, and our Forum.

7. What was it about the 335 that called to you? – Hutch82
When I first started getting calls in 1969 for recording sessions, I was carrying at least three different guitars to the session – a Tele for country music, a Les Paul for rock n’ roll and pop oriented things and my ES-175 for more jazz or legitimate guitar playing for the sessions. I never knew what they were going to ask me to do. Truthfully, picking the ES-335 as my main guitar was just a practical decision at that time. I’m a very versatile player and I needed a guitar that was likewise versatile to cover all of the bags that I was working on at the time. The 335 fit the bill perfectly for me!

8. Any advice for session musicians? – Leedelta
Put your ego away! When you go into a recording session – be a servant. You’re there to help someone make their music. The session isn’t really about what you think, although you want to give all you can as far as your ideas are concerned, but it’s up to the producer and the artist to decide how they want their song to be presented to the world. So be humble and be a servant.

9. For the tune “Room 335″, what did you come up with first; the chords or the main riff? – jimiclaptoncarl
The chords came from a track I played on for Steely Dan called “Peg” – those chords are the first four chords of “Peg” pretty much. I really liked the sound of them and when the time came to record a new album that sequence of chords came back to me. I wrote the melody on top of that sequence. Then I changed the bridge so it wouldn’t sound like “Peg,” but I do consider those opening chords to be inspired by Steely Dan.

10. How is it different recording in a studio for an album vs. playing live for an album? – 19Echo19
This can be a very short answer because it’s the honest truth – I’ve never worked out a solo in my life. For a record or a live performance it’s always improvised and that’s the part of making music that I probably enjoy the most, the improvisational part.

Visit Larry Carlton online at www.larrycarlton.com for news and updates or watch tons of performances, interviews and lessons on Mr. 335 TV. Below is a clip from Larry’s brand new guitar course, 335 Improv