Happy Halloween everyone!

 

Hey everyone! Happy Halloween! I hope you’re having a great time and some success trick-or-treat-ing =)

And a short bit of the “Halloween” movie theme… sorry the time signature isn’t shown, of course it’s 5/4…

 

(click the thumb for the original size)

 

Carpe noctem! =)

Random video clip…

Here’s another file I found. Last summer, I had a Danelectro Longhorn here for a review, and during a lesson, I jammed on it a bit, using a “shred sound”. Those Danelectros might not be built for that kinda stuff (regarding pickups etc.), but they are so much fun, and actually play great.
My student filmed it, and we had a good laugh at the DP-quote at the end. Sorry for the crappy audio and video, it was a cell phone cam, and the mic is distorting because of the volumne… I figured Id share it anyway (isnt that what blogs are for? =))

Longhorn-noodling

3 string soloing

Browsing through my harddrive, I found these two soundfiles I had recorded earlier this year. Back when I moved my blog here around xmas last year, I posted about Paul Gilberts “Get Out Of My Yard” and his use of the 3 string-guitar… I had strung my trusty old Flying V like that and made a TAB.
Anyway, a little later I was sitting around and picked up the V and noodled around a bit, and recorded some of it. A few sonic dings there, cuz its a bit of a change to get used to playing on those 3 strings, but its fun to do, quite refreshing, and makes some funny stuff possible.
Here are the links:

3 string noodling 1

3 String noodling 2

Try it out, its a fun thing to experiment with tunings like that…

Zoom G9.2 preset: Dry lead-sound

here is another preset of mine for the G9.2tt. Its a dry, warm lead-sound, I use it for musical examples for articles, like the upcoming ones for the Talking Hands article-series

Preamp: BG Crunch
Gain: 85
Bass: 8-12 (depends on guitar)
Mid: -3
Treble: 5
Presence: 0
Cabinet: Mic Type = Dyna
ZNR: If needed, depends on pickups and what I play

Accelerator:
Tube: 10
Solid State: 0

Energizer:
Tube: 7.5
Boost: 2.5

Comments: As mentioned before, a dry sound, not too distorted, for musical examples. I prefer to cut back on gain and compression (or at least not go overboard with that), so little details of the playing can come through… I always test the settings by rolling back the volume a bit to see how much the sound clears up, as I like to control my sound with the volume knob too, for quieter passages.
Effects usually are added in the mix, if needed (ambience).

I certainly dig high gain sounds, but I cut back on that a bit in recent years, and avoid too much compression. Both that and gain are great for some stuff, but at the same time, it can take away from the little details sometimes…

Now playing, Oktober 07

 

Here are some of the albums I am currently listening to:

 

Cream- Wheels Of Fire

Cream – Fresh Cream

Stevie Ray Vaughan – Texas Flood

Eric Johnson – Venus Isle (Ill never get tired of this one, Ah Via Musicom and Tones…)

Joe Bonamassa – Sloe Gin

Richie Kotzen – Return Of Motherhead Family Reunion (loved the first one, too, what a great singer, writer and singer!)

The Beatles – Help!

 Joni Mitchell – Blue

Buckethead -  In Search Of The.. (lots of music, after all its a 13CD boxset of unreleased music…)

 

In addition to that, I also love to listen to Sirius a lot, too…

 

Talking Hands- the series

 

 The newest issue of GUITAR-magazine hit the newsstands yesterday, and it features the first episode of my new instructional series, “Talking Hands”.
The content in those articles is not taken from the book, its entirely new stuff. The focus of the series is on soloing.. how to develop solos, how to execute them, melodic ideas and approaches etc. As you might know already, the book focusses more on the pure technical side.
I hope you will find the series interesting, and if you have any feedback, just email me!

Accepting students

As stated on the frontpage of my website, I am accepting private students again, as there are some very few time slots available again. So if you would like to apply, send me an email at eric@ericvandenberg.net

Lessons can be in English or German, all levels & styles are welcome.