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I haven’t posted any new video in months and months. It’s not just laziness or business, though I suffer from both. I’ve just been locked away in my studio, trying to create a new live looping system. I still haven’t nailed it down, so I’m not going to get into a complete run-down […] 
For a while I’ve been playing this loop-based cover of Foster the People’s “Pumped-Up Kicks” at solo gigs and with my duo band, Mental 99. At risk of sounding like a pompous dick, I’ve annotated the performance, highlighting techniques I’ve found useful for making loop-based performances livelier and less predictable. I’ve covered some of […] Premier Guitar has posted my review of Universal Audio’s Apollo Twin interface. Short version: I love the thing. A rackmount Apollo interface has been the core of my studio for two years, replacing both a Pro Tools HD rig and a complicated Apogee setup. I adore Apollo’s great-sounding preamps, lucid interface, and innovative […] I had a lot of fun putting together an article for Premier Guitar on using non-tube distortion. It features a smorgasbord of digital tones guaranteed to horrify tube purists. (It’s certainly horrifying a few commentators on PG‘s Facebook page.) iZotope’s Trash 2 — like version 1, only trashier! It was also a chance […] I’m thrilled to bits about a show I’m playing Thursday eve in San Francisco featuring two guitarists of impeccable skill and taste, plus me. Teja Gerken and I are co-hosting a monthly solo guitar night at El Rio, my groovy neighborhood dive.Our guest is the amazing Eric Skye who, among other things, plays […] Okay, I promise: tonefiend is not going to become an all-digital blog. I’ve got two new DIY analog pedal projects in the pipe, plus a piece on that delightfully retro technology, the book. But while there’s more to life than MIDI, for the last few months my particular life has been all MIDI, all the […] Is this what your studio will look like in 2023? The recent post on Auto-Tune for Guitar generated much interesting discussion, plus a few good Auto-Tune jokes. Thanks, guys! :beer: The comments from smgear particularly impressed me, because he managed to assemble a wish list for a future digital guitar with more detail […] This first installment of my 2013 NAMM report focuses on products for the digital guitarist. In the coming days I’ll be doing posts on analog amps, guitar, stompboxes, and accessories. (But maybe not as quickly as I’d like, because I’ve also got to cover MacWorld in San Francisco this weekend.) This is cross-posted from Create […] Only very bad dogs like ring modulation! No disrespect to Chuck Berry, but I seriously doubt Johnny B. Goode played guitar just like a-ringin’ a bell unless he was using a ring modulator. That’s the only effect that can give you the complex, clangorous harmonics of a bell or a cymbal. Or make […] UPDATE: Here’s a direct link via SoundCloud. The file is downloadable for free. Sheesh — never occurred to me that folks might, like, actually download it and overwhelm my feeble little DropBox account! While most people are baking cookies or lining up at the grocery store for 45 minutes to buy those frickin’ […] |
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