Just How Heavy Can a U-Bass Get?

I’ve had this cool Kala U-Bass for a few years. (I did a video on it back when I got it.) I’ve used it on a few things, especially when I want a sort of Latin-flavored Ampeg Baby Bass sound. (That solidbody upright from the 1960s is largely forgotten, except in Latin dance bands, […]

Logic X is Here!

Nnnggg…pedals.

Apple released the long-awaited Logic X a few minutes ago. And it’s dripping with cool new guitar and bass stuff: a fabulous bass amp modeler. Lots of new virtual stompboxes. Vast new libraries of guitar tones, and newer, smarter ways of accessing them. More product info here.

FYI, I’m the furthest thing […]

Tonefiend Book Week is Coming!

Next week at tonefiend we’ll be talking about our favorite guitar/music books. I’ll write about some of the titles I find especially useful, inspiring, or entertaining, and I hope you’ll chime in with some of your recommended reading.

Since there’s so much potential material here, I suggest we focus on a different book category […]

The View from Here

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed a recurring pattern: I attend some interesting event and promise to report on it, only to get subverted by work, crowds, jabbering with old acquaintances, and jetlag. True to form, I’ve spend the first two days either demoing TriplePlay, or staggering […]

Grüße aus Musikmesse

It’s wet. Will it be wild?

Howdy from Frankfurt, where I arrived this afternoon to attend Musikmesse. United Airlines was its usual scuzzy self, though a nice flight attendant found a place for me to stow my guitar. And my pedalboard seems to have arrived in fine shape, even though I had to […]

Playing with Pain

I’m lucky — I’ve never suffered from any playing-related pain. (I mean, other than expected stuff, like spurting blood all over a guitar when you bash it a little too hard, or picking up a soldering iron by the wrong end.) But I’ve been blissfully untouched by carpal tunnel syndrome, numbness, arthritis, etc.

Until […]

NAMM I Am

It’s that time again, folks.

“It’s the most won-der-ful time of the year…”

Oh wait — that was last month. Now it’s January. NAMM time!

I’ll be there for the duration, partly to hang out with my Pure Guitar pals, and partly to meet with Fishman about the upcoming TriplePlay release. But mostly […]

Resolutions, Anyone?

I tend to regard the New Year’s resolution like New Year’s drinking: not necessarily a bad tradition, but one I feel no guilt about ignoring most years.

But since I have some specific musical goals in 2013, I figured I’d share ’em — and open the floor to anyone who feels inspired to […]

The Effect-Order Follies

This effect order ALWAYS works great!

Weird, isn’t it? You can explain the rules of thumb for ordering your guitar effects in about ten seconds, but you can still get stumped after years of experimentation.

You probably know the conventional effect-order advice, which goes something like this (in order of appearance):

Distortion effects […]

Who Dares Predict Our Fretboard Future?

“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” — Criswell, Plan 9 from Outer Space

UPDATE: Wow, I can’t believe all the cool stuff folks have been posting to comments. I find myself feeling quite inspired about the […]