Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
Ignoring it’s prime directive, a robot out of Cyth Systems overtook it’s human masters and proceeded to absolutely destroy it on Guitar Hero, achieving 98% accuracy on Expert level playing Cult of Personality.
The robot remarked afterward that it could have achieved 100% accuracy if not for a programming error by it’s flawed human creators.
Monday, October 27th, 2008
In physics there’s the well known “E = mc2” equation from Albert Einstein. Well in rock we have a similar, iconic equation. “Gibson Les Paul + Marshall amplification = Tone Heaven” and it was Eric Clapton who first pioneered this rock math.
While poking around on YouTube today looking for videos for the
upcoming re-launch of Fretbase (more to come soon!!) I found a great
tutorial video on achieving some classic Eric Clapton tones. This video comes from the blokes over at MusicRadar.com and we’d like to thank them for sharing. I love how many different tones you can get just by playing with your guitars volume and tone knobs.
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
The possibilities with this instrument never cease to excite us.
Please let us know in the comments which guy you think is Brian and which you think is me.
Monday, August 4th, 2008
The Sundance channel has a feature called “Live From Abbey Road” where bands are invited in to do a live performance in the famed studio. The Black Keys recently played at Abbey Road and it was aired on Sundance last week.
It’s a bit odd to have a live performance in a studio…but it’s Abbey Road…
If you haven’t checked out The Black Keys yet, definitely take a listen. At this gig, Dan Auerbach plays an old Harmony Stratotone H47 with a couple of P-90s and Bigsby vibrato. He gets a fantastic, gritty blues sound that I absolutely lust after.
On the Sundance channel here. But even more footage on YouTube here.
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
A couple of months back I stumbled upon a Led Zeppelin cover band on YouTube. At first I was struck by the technical accuracy the musicians put into their covers, everything was note-for-note. Upon further research my mind was completely blown when I found out each of the musicians were in different locations and recording their parts individually!
Virtual Led Zeppelin comprises a set of top notch musicians from around the world who all record their parts - video and audio and then splice them all together to create a single video and song track. It’s absolutely spot on and features some great guitar work by vanderbilly and jun626.
Here’s “Over The Hills And Far Away“:
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
I often feel sorry for the Martin D-35. Forced to live in the shadow of its big brother - the Martin D-28 - the guitar doesn’t seem to get the credit that it deserves. The story goes that the guitar would never even have been made except for the fact that Martin couldn’t get large enough pieces of rosewood to make D-28’s after a fire in the Martin factory. The company was forced to use a 3-piece back to create the D-35. The surprise was that a lot of players preferred the D-35 to the D-28 and a classic was born. You can buy it here.
One of those players is Ray Lamontagne. As legend has it, Lamontagne was listening to music one morning before going to his job in a shoe factory. He heard Stephen Stills’ Treetop Flyer and decided that day to become a musician. Ray sold his Volkswagen van to buy a 1972 Martin D-35 because he wanted the same brand of guitar as Stephen Stills. A great new artist was born.
Related Article: The Guitars of Johnny Cash
Thursday, June 12th, 2008
I’m a big fan of Lyle Lovett. It isn’t just his voice, but also how he makes the acoustic guitar really stand out even when he’s playing with his (very) large band.
One of the things I like about Lyle’s guitar playing is he never does anything flashy. No extended solos. No improvisation. When Lyle plays, it sounds tight and perfect. A real cowboy doesn’t show off. After paying very close attention to Lyle in concert, we have learned a lot about how he does it. Read about it after the jump.
