2012: How Not To Repeat The Mistakes Of The Past (Or Nothing Ever Got Done With An Excuse)

Posted on December 27, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

(This is a repost of something I wrote for the end of 2010. The dates and information have been updated, and I suspect this will be one of the few yearly repost traditions I indulge in.)

I had hoped to get a few more things done before the end of the year, but decided instead to take the last week to wind down and center. I find that this not only helps me take stock of what worked and didn’t work for me in 2011 but also helps me make sure I’m on track for what I want to get done in the new year. As George Santayana said,

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

As 2011 draws to a close, I think back to many conversations I had with people at the end of 2009. At that time, it seemed like everyone I talked to said the same thing, “2009 was such a bad year. 2010 has to be better. It just has to.”

Now it seems I’m listening to the same sentiment with the same people about 2011 and the coming 2012. And in some ways they have a valid point. Listening to their circumstances, 2011 certainly offered some of these people a tough blow – but regardless of their circumstances, I believe that, unless they experience a windfall of good fortune, I will hear the same sentiments echoed at the end of 2012. There’s a reason for this:

“If you always do what you’ve always done – you’ll always get what you always got” – anon

While I fully appreciate the merits of planning and goal setting – life will throw you any number of curveballs that may make a meticulously laid out plan get derailed.

A good plan has to be countered with an ability to improvise (as need be) to make sure that even if your mode of transportation is disabled, that you are still on the path to achieve your goals.

“Improvisation as a practice is the focus of an idea through an imposed restriction. This restriction could either be self-imposed or be imposed upon the improviser through other means. Improvisation as it relates to common experience can be seen in the example of the car that stops running in the middle of a trip. A person experienced in auto repair may attempt to pop the hood of the car to see if they can ascertain how to repair the vehicle. Or they may try to flag down help. Or they may try to use a cell phone to contact a garage. The point being that within the context of a vehicle malfunction, different actions are improvised based on the improviser’s facility with both the situation at hand and the tools at their disposal….life is essentially an improvisation. As individuals we come into each day not exactly knowing what will happen. We know that there is an eventual end, but we don’t know when or how it will end. But we continue to improvise, because it is in both the active improvisation (the present), the skill set and knowledge of that improvisation (the past) and in the philosophical/worldview/goals guiding our improvisational choices (the future) that we create meaning.”

If you approach life’s problems with the same mindset you’ve always had

-and your new year’s resolution runs contrary to that mindset –

your resolutions are doomed.

I say this as a seasoned graduate of the school of hard knocks and as a person who found that while success felt a lot better – failure was a much more thorough teacher.

2011 had some great ups and downs for me and now there are a number of life and playing upgrades I’m going to put into practice in 2012 to address the things that didn’t work for me. For those of you who are interested in making a real change the new year – here’s what worked for me going into 2011 that I plan on using this year as well:

Know the big picture.

If you have a goal – know why you have the goal. As Victor Frankl once said, “He who has a why can endure almost any how.”

Take stock of what you have done and identify what needs to change.

Have you done things that work towards that goal? If so, what have you really done? What worked? What didn’t work? And what parameters can you put in place to make it work better?

What decisions did you make that set you back and how could you alter those decisions in the future?

Sometimes honesty is brutal but this isn’t about beating yourself up. It’s about taking a realistic stock of what worked and what didn’t work for you in the year, reinforcing that things that work for you and discarding what didn’t work for you.

Revolution not resolution

People typically make resolutions because they recognize a need for change in their life. For me – it really isn’t about making a momentary decision as a knee jerk reaction to something (which usually lasts as long as the time it took to make that decision). The long-lasting changes in my life have come from making lifestyle changes, setting priorities and working within those changes. It’s a revolt against what was done before instead of a compromise for a current mode of operation.

Positive habits

Making something a daily positive habit (like brushing your teeth) makes it easier to maintain over the long haul.

“Don’t make excuses – make it right” – Al Little

People make excuses for things all the time. No one cares about excuses because nothing ever got done with an excuse. People (typically) only care about results.

There will undoubtably be moments that you relapse into older habits. Instead of making excuses for why it happened – just acknowledge it and move past it. When you fall off the bike, it’s not about sitting down and nursing your scrapes. It’s about getting back up on the bike again. As it says in The Hagakure, “Seven times down – eight times up”

There is strength in numbers

Try to surround yourself with supportive people.

Not enabling people who will make changes more difficult for you.
Not negative or judgmental people who will scoff at your desire for change

Talk to the friends and family who will give honest and supportive feedback. Here’s another important tip – don’t burn those people out with your goals. The people around you have their own lives, so if every conversation becomes about you and your goals, you’re going to see less and less of those people!

In addition to (or in some cases in lieu of) that support, you may want to look into some free online accountability sites like Idonethis.com (post on this here) or Wunderlist.com which maintains a private calendar to help observe progress.

Be motivated to do more but be grateful for what you have

In a final 2011 observation, I’d like to thank everyone who took a moment to come here and read what I was doing. GuitArchitecture had a 800 % increase in web traffic this year! It’s going to get even bigger next year and it would all be impossible without the people reading. So thank you all again and I hope that 2012 is your best year yet.

-SC

A Holiday Thought That May Help The Whole Year

Posted on December 25, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Thanks for dropping by!

This post has moved to Guit-A-Grip.com!

You can read it right here.

-SC

Creating Chords And Lines From Any Scale – A Harmonic Combinatorics / Spread Voicings Lesson

Posted on December 18, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Hello everyone!

I wanted to post a lesson up that uses one of my approaches to harmonizing scales from my Harmonic Combinatorics book. It’s a cool way to not only get away from stock voicings but also to generate new lines as well!

I’m using C Major as the tonal center for this lesson but the approach can (and probably should be) be adapted to any scale.

A couple of lessons ago, I talked about the modal microscope – which was a term I used to discuss examining modes on multiple levels and the advantage of viewing modes as subsets of a parent scale. Before I get into the harmonization approach I want to expand on this idea of the microscope analogy and apply it to harmony.

The Harmonic Microscope

If I harmonize a parent major scale in the key of C, I’ll end up with the following chords on each scale degree.

So if you’re playing in the key of C and want to get into more harmonic depth on an E minor chord, it’s time to reach into your chord bag and pull out your stock minor 11 (b9, b13) voicing. Oh, you don’t have one? Don’t worry – most guitarists don’t. Learning stock voicings and inversions for this specific chord form probably isn’t the best use of your time anyway.

Using the microscope analogy, this is really looking at the chord on a 2x setting.

Here’s the 1x setting for this example:

playing any combination of the notes from C Major over the root E creates some variant of an

E min / min7 / min7 (b9) / min 11 (b9, b13) chord.

And here’s the bigger picture:

Once you are aware of the types of sounds that are created from various chord types, you can start thinking about chords and chord voicings on the macro (i.e. parent scale) level. This means that if I’m playing over a D minor chord and using notes from the C major scale, I don’t have to analyze each indidual chord because I know it’s all under some type of generic D minor 7/minor 9/minor 11 or minor 13 umbrella.

Harmonic Combinatorics

Harmonic Combinatorics refers to a process of identifying “countable discrete structures” harmonically. In other words, it examines unique combinations of notes on all of the possible string combinations for the purposes of develop harmonic and melodic possibilities. One way to do this is through a method that I use to generate unique ideas through a process that some people refer to as spread voicings.

A Systematic Method For Harmonizing Any Scale Or Mode On The Guitar

It’s important to state at the outset that the method I’m employing is only one possible way to approach this exploration. I’ve taken this approach to maximize the number of unique voicings, but you should feel free to take any of the rules that I’ve applied to this approach (like eliminating octaves) with a grain of salt. The object is to gain new sounds – so change the patterns here in whatever ways necessary.

Here’s an approach that will give you more voicings and lines than you might have thought possible.

Step 1: Write out a scale and write the scale degree under each note.

(Example: C Major)

Step 2: On a blank chord sheet – write out the scale degrees on each string up to the 5^th fret.

(To clarify: The numbers on the left hand side of the diagram are the fret numbers ).

Step 3: Starting with the lowest note on the lowest string, write out all the initial voicing of all possible 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 note harmonies by scale degree on different string sets.

For example, if I was looking at the G, B and high E strings, some sample initial voicings would be

573, 574, 576, 513, 514, 516, 523, 524, 526, 534, 536

673, 674, 675, 613, 623

713, 723

173, 174, 175, 176, 123

You may have noticed that I skipped some voicings:

If you want to save some time and increase the number of unique chords try the following parameters:

No doubling of chord tones (Ex. 363). (Again – if you like that sound – use it! but the point of this process is to generate unique voicings with unique notes.)

At least one note in the voicing has to be the lowest on a string. If you look at 614 on the G, B and high E strings you’ll see that it’s really the second voicing of 573 on the frets below it. Having at least one note be the bottom note on any string will help ensure that you’re not just working out voicings that you may have already done.

The highest fret to be used in the first voicing is the 5^th fret. This last step is going to produce some voicings that aren’t playable on the lower frets, but might work in the upper registers.

Step 4: Select a string set and move the voicing in scale-wise motion up the strings to the octave.

For the purposes of this lesson – I’m going to focus primarily on 3 string groups, but this idea is applicable on any 2-6 string set of strings. (It’s worth mentioning that – Harmonic Combinatorics does all the work for this process for all string sets – (it’s also why it’s over 400 pages long!!)).

(Again, while this book follows this process through the key of C Major, this process can be applied to any tonal center.)

I’ve written out an example based on the D, G and B string set (i.e. 432) and gone with an initial voicing of a F, G and D (or 452).

(Note: The reason I start with numbers instead of notes is 1. It’s a lot easier to see if I’ve missed a number in a sequence when working these things out and 2. It eliminates the initial step of wondering what harmony I’m creating. This is simply a process that I’ve used with good results. If the numbering is weird for you, just use what works for you.)

This creates seven different voicings which could be played as a modal chord progression, used as the basis for a melodic idea or even isolated into individual chords. If this process yields even one chord that you like it’s worthwhile.

The function of the voicings will depend on the root. If you want to dig deeper into this area, you can use other notes as a root (note Harmonic Combinatorics includes a chart which shows all chord tones based on scale degree). I’ve posted the sound of the chords being played against an A root below. A was picked as a root because it’s an open string, but you could just as easily tap any note from the C major scale to create various modal sounds:

Playing C as the bass note will give you C Ionian sounds
Playing D as the bass note will give you D Dorian sounds
Playing E as the bass note will give you E Phrygian sounds
Playing F as the bass note will give you F Lydian sounds
Playing G as the bass note will give you G Mixolydian sounds
Playing A as the bass note will give you A Aeolian sounds
Playing B as the bass note will give you B Locrian sounds

Check out these chord sounds over A. In addition to possible comping ideas, these can be arpeggiated for melodic ideas as well.

A few notes on working with voicings

Here are some additional points to consider when using this process:

Common sense is your friend. If a chord seems difficult to play:

there is almost always an easier way to play it on another string set.

.
Since the voicings presented are in the key of C Major with no sharps or flats, the information (and approach) here is easily adaptable to other scales, modes etc…

If you find a voicing in C Major you like, just move it to whatever other key you’re playing in.

To create all of the C Melodic Minor (i.e. Jazz Minor) voicings – just change any E to Eb.

To create all of the C Harmonic Minor voicings – just change any E to Eb and any A to Ab.

Now I’ll talk about making melodic lines from this material.

Melodic Variations

As I mentioned earlier, these voicings can be played as melodies simply by playing the notes one at a time. In The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration and the GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Melodic Patterns, I’ve outlined a series of methods for generating melodic variations. But since this approach is about combining things, it makes sense to at least look at some melodic possibilities with regards to note choice. I’ve decided to take a three-note voicing as it offers enough possibilites to be interesting, but not too many to be over-whelming and have chosen this pattern simply because I like the first voicing.

It sounds a little deceptive if you play it as is. This is because the first voicing is actually a G major chord in 1st inversion (i.e. with B in the bass). Here it is with the root of each chord added to the low E string (Try working them out and playing them!! There are come challenging chords there.)

but when you play it with the B as the lowest note it sounds like a B minor with the b3rd on the B string.

If you play it without harmonic backing, try changing any F natural to F # and it should sound more pleasing to you.

“Variety is the spice of life”

There are six unique melodic variations of any three-note chord or pattern.

These numbers represent note order. Assigning 1 as the lowest note and 3 as the highest – here are the unique variations on the first three notes.

Applying this idea, one possibility for 123 looks like this:

Two things to consider:

1. I’ve notated this as triplets for ease of reading, but the very first thing you should probably do (after getting the notes under your fingers is look for a more musical phrasing).

2. Again, if you play this without harmonic backing this may sound more “right” to you:

Alternating groups of 123 and 321 for each chord produces:

Combining the first 2 chords into a 6-note pattern allows even more flexibility. Here, I’ve moved the number order around and made a more interesting line.

One part of this phrase has caught my ear:

When I add a low E root, I get a cool little Phrygian phrase (with a couple of notes snuck in on the high E string).

The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration and the GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Melodic Patterns, has a systematic approach to exploring these types of variations. Having said that, those of you who want to do the work, could just write down a collection of numbers and apply them to different ideas and see what happens.

The first important thing, however, is to experiment with different rhythms (including rests!), phrasings (like slides, hammer-on/pull offs) and make some music out this raw material.

The second important thing to consider is that with any approach like this you should:

take the things you like

use them in what you’re currently working on (songs, solos, etc)

make what you keep part of your sound and discard (or ignore) what you don’t use.

I cover some other approaches and break down the theory a little more in depth in Harmonic Combinatorics but I hope this lesson here helps and if you like this idea – you should check out the book (if you haven’t already)!

Thanks for reading!

-SC

If you like this post you may also like:

.

Books:

The Modal Microscope And A Sequenced Arpeggio Approach

Slash and Burn – Creating More Complex Sounds With Slash Chords

Making Music Out Of Scales

.

Chords/Triads/Superimposition/Arpeggios:

AUGMENT YOUR KNOWLEDGE: SONIC SHAPES AND GETTING MORE FROM AUGMENTED CHORDS

.

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 3

Getting Hipness From A Major Triad Or More Chord Recycling Part 2

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 1

.

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 3

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 2

GETTING THROUGH THE GIG – NEGOTIATING A CHORD CHART PART 1

.

RECYCLING CHORDS PART II: TRIAD TRANSFORMATION

RECYCLING CHORDS PART I OR WHERE’S THE ROOT?

.

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 2

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 1

.

RECYCLING SHAPES OR MODULAR ARPEGGIOS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

GLASS NOODLES – ADAPTING A PHILIP GLASS ARPEGGIO APPROACH TO GUITAR

.

Augment Your Knowledge: Sonic Shapes and Getting More From Augmented Chords

Posted on December 11, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Hi everyone!

I wanted to post a lesson that uses some of the material from my Positional Exploration book in a way that I didn’t get to cover in the text itself.

Back in November when Guitar-Muse posted the second part of my interview with Rob Balducci, Rob brought up a process he called chord morphing. When I saw it in the video, I slapped my head forehead loudly as I realized that while I mentioned that any of the melodic exercises in the Positional Exploration book could be played as a chord, I didn’t include chord tablature.

Anyway Rob had this cool idea of taking a 1-2-3-4 chromatic shape and playing it one note per fret on the bottom 4 strings which produces an Augmented chord like this:

Note:

Rob play this up on the 12-15th fret, but I’ve moved it to a low pitch of C for the purposes of explanation.

He then goes on to lower each note of the chord chromatically one at a time until he ends up with an augmented chord a 1/2 step away from where he started. I’ve detailed a sample of this below with analysis, when playing it the key to remember is keeping your fingers down and only moving finger playing the individual note that changes.

Sonic Shapes

So, I thought that was a cool way to:
.

warm up
find some new voicings (1 shape yields 4 chords total) and
see how different chord forms can be created by modifying existing voicings.

(You can check out my recycling chords post, for a pretty in-depth exploration of this idea with triads!)

And then I got to thinking about Sonic Shapes. Back in the day, Howard Roberts used to write a column for Guitar Player magazine and he had a whole series of columns that centered around an idea of sonic shapes, which is moving a fingering to different string sets to create different sounds. So here, I’ve taken the same 1-2-3-4 augmented shape and moved it to the 5th string:

And finally moving it to the top four strings:

Going Deeper

Then, because I couldn’t leave well enough alone, I started thinking about augmented chords in general. They’re neat little things because they’re intervallically symmetrical and any note in the chord can be the root.

You can also use them to visualize all of your 3-note major and minor inversions.

Here’s the first trick using augmented chords that I copped from Pat Martino:

If you sharp any note of an augmented chord you create a minor chord with the sharped note acting as the root

In the following chords, I’ve taken the original 4-note voicing I had (with doubled C) and sharped one note at a time which creates A minor, F minor and Db (or C#) minor.

Following through on this process, we can find voicings for every minor chord inversion. First I’ll go through the inversions of the 3-note augmented chord across each group of 3 strings:

With the augmented inversions outlined, try converting each voicing to a minor chord:

Raising C a 1/2 step creates a C#/Db minor chord
Raising E a 1/2 step creates a F minor chord
Raising G# a 1/2 step creates a A minor chord

Since augmented chords are symmetrical – the fingerings for inversions repeat every Major 3rd (i.e. 5 frets higher).

The next step is to move the entire pattern up 5 frets and repeat the process of converting the chords to minor.

Going up another 5 frets gives up the final inversion.

Once you get used to manipulating the augmented patterns to create all three minor chords, try taking one minor voicing (like A minor for example) and using the augmented visualization, try visualizing every inversion of A minor both across the fingerboard as well as on each string set.

Augmented visualization tip #2:

Here’s another cool trick from Mr. Martino:

if you flat any note in an augmented triad, the flatted note becomes the 5th of a major chord.

You can guess that the next step would be to apply this to all of the above inversions like you did with the minor.

To Review:

C / E/ G# (Ab) augmented can be transformed into:

A minor
F minor
C#/Db minor
C major
Ab major
E major

In a future post, I’ll talk about this as a melodic application, but in the meantime think about this:

If all of the above chords are related from C / E / G# augmented, then that augmented chord could be used as a bridge to cross bridge chords in very different key centers.

For Example:

A minor – C augmented – F minor.

A minor – C augmented – Db minor.

For those of you who have read my glass noodles post, you’ll see where this is going for a future lesson.

Enjoy the new voicings and thanks for reading!

PS – If you like this idea, you might find my Positional Exploration book, Harmonic Combinatorics Book, Chord Scale Book or Melodic Patterns book really helpful in generating new melodic ideas or approaches.

For posts here, you may also like:

.

Chords/Triads/Superimposition/Arpeggios:

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 3

Getting Hipness From A Major Triad Or More Chord Recycling Part 2

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 1

.

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 3

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 2

GETTING THROUGH THE GIG – NEGOTIATING A CHORD CHART PART 1

.

RECYCLING CHORDS PART II: TRIAD TRANSFORMATION

RECYCLING CHORDS PART I OR WHERE’S THE ROOT?

.

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 2

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 1

.

RECYCLING SHAPES OR MODULAR ARPEGGIOS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

GLASS NOODLES – ADAPTING A PHILIP GLASS ARPEGGIO APPROACH TO GUITAR

.

Books

Mas Modeling!! POD Farm, POD HD, Scuffham Amps And A Whole Tone lick

Posted on December 4, 2011 by GuitArchitecture

Computers, and models and amp sims – OH MY!

There’s been a lot of interest in the posts on this site regarding modeling, POD Farm and POD HD. When I made my initial post about this, I didn’t have the 2 units to compare, but I do now and here are my thoughts.

POD FARM

I still like POD FARM. For tonal flexibility – it’s really cool.

The first thing about POD FARM to recognize is that the amps are more like specific snapshots of amps than fully realized models. By that I mean, if you have a Marshall sound with a killing setting that you dig, then that’s great. But if you roll back on the volume, it’s not going to clean up the way a real Marshall would. There are ways to circumnavigate this (and you can definitely adjust your playing around it), but when playing through it, you’re definitely playing a good sounding model rather than an amp.

The second thing is that there’s a BIG sonic difference in the distorted sounds between 44 and 96k. This is to be expected, but there are certain models that are unusable at 44k.

On the plus side the laptop functionality of POD FARM is awesome. I can get sounds out of this rig that I could never get out of a conventional amp. I can run two rigs with more pedals than I could ever run live and, furthermore, when I run it through the Atomic tube amp – even the 44k sounds come alive and works well live.

Breaking out POD Farm into individual elements is really smart – and very cool. It means that I can run (for example) pre-amps or compressors in my AU LAB shell anywhere in the signal chain. A nice touch.

I love AUs. Why? Because when the power goes out at my place for 4 days and I have to type this from a coffee shop, being able to discretely pull out an electric and play in a corner with a set of headphones (and not take up multiple tables) is a GOOD THING!

Conclusion #1: If you’re the type of person who like’s to get a great tone and park it – this may be a good option for you.

Conclusion #2: If you’re the type of person who wants to reference guitar tones (clean, dirty etc.) but then go beyond that into the stratosphere tonally – this is the unit for you.

Conclusion #3: If you want more amp, effect or cab options than you ever imagined – you know the drill.

Conclusion #4: If you expect different tones from your guitar when you roll off the volume, or the thought of using a laptop guitar on stage makes you nervous, this may not be the unit for you.

POD HD 500

This review is specific to the 500 as it’s the only unit I have (and have played through). Comparing this to POD FARM is kind of like comparing apples and onions. They may have a similar shape, but they’re very different things.

The POD HD has substantially fewer models than POD FARM. Having said this, the architecture of the modeling is completely different and the tonal detail is stunning. There may be much fewer amps – but they all sound really good. The amps themselves have controls like BIAS, BIAS-X, HUM and SAG that the POD FARM amps do not and when plugging in the guitar signal feels like it’s plugging into an amp. You can roll off the volume and the signal acts in a musical way. As of this writing, Line 6 updated the HD500 and HDPRO w. a new variable input impedance that affects the tone of certain distortion pedals when you back off the volume (so they behave more like the real thing).

While the unit supports 96k as an output, the distortions sound good at 44k. Much better than the POD FARM distortions at that setting.

As a hardware unit – it has a number of ins and outs. It’s extremely flexible in that way, has a built-in expression pedal and a looper. I’ve never liked USB recording, but the USB recording in the HD works well.

The unit has some tricks up its sleeves that are unique. Particularly the particle verb, which is a gorgeous sonic mangler.

On the down side – the unit doesn’t have the horsepower that a laptop has so you can’t use any combination of amps cabs and effects on the unit. If you’re using a DSP intensive amp and effect, you can get the DSP limit screen pretty easily.

I have some minor global EQ and loop quibbles that you can read about here.

The POD HD Verdict

For the price point this is a great sounding unit.

If you want an all-in-one unit that has the potential to create really musical guitar tones – this may be the unit for you.

If you like to get under the hod and mess with things like SAG and Bias to get a good tone – this may be the unit for you.

If you need more outrageous non-guitar tones, there are some excellent possibilities on this unit.

If you’re the type of person who needs specific distortions, eq, compression or delays to get your tone, and don’t have the patience to chase tone to do so, this may not be for you.

PODFARM HD

So in my mind, PODFARM HD would really be the best of everything. All of the CPU/DSP resources of the laptop mixed with the sounds of the HD unit. Unfortunately, there’s no word on when this is coming out (there’s a lot of new Line 6 gear coming out right now – but even so I’m guessing you may see a demo version at NAMM and then a release in 2013).

(A few tips for Line 6 between now and NAMM.

Please add global EQ and allow looper wet volume to be pedal assignable.
Please release all of the LINE 6 Model amps in POD FARM (Like Bayou) for POD HD.)

And why do I think that Line 6 may step up the time-table on PODFARM HD?

Because despite what the forums say, in terms of hardware, I don’t believe that Line 6 is in the competing market with Fractal Audio. They’re at completely different price-points. AVID’s Eleven Rack however is a completely different matter. Software wise, you have Amplitube and Guitar Rig as probably the two closest competitors. Both sound good for different things. Both have a lot of the modelling issues that Line 6 has. Only Guitar Rig comes close to the number of effects that POD FARM has though.

So why do I have Scuffham Amps in the title of this post?

Because Scuffham Amps has something neither of these do. They have the nearest thing to a PODFARM HD AU on the market.

Scuffham Amps

I understand that Mike Scuffham was one of the guys behind the JMP-1 (Which was a great sounding pre btw). He’s done something several really cool (there’s that word again – but it’s applicable) things with the design of this plug-in.

Limited amps – and specialized limits at that. His “Duke” amp is based on Robben Ford’s amp (a DUMBLE) and has three channels to choose from. The “Stealer” is loosely based on a PARK and the “Jackal” is based on a Soldano. This is cool only because – they’re all really good sounding amps.

PRO Convolver and RED-WIREZ IRs. The 64 bit convolver hosts a slew of really good sounding RED WIREZ IR’s (or you can load your own). For someone like me who typically runs IRs in LA Convolver – having them bundled in the AU is a nice feature.

Dynamic Power Amp. In addition to the amp drive switch, you all get tweak controls like SAG High Frequency cut and Presence Frequency.

FX are limited. It’s got a nice sounding delay, and the gate also works well the amp drive switch acts as like a distortion pedal – but no other fx onboard.

This might seem like a small thing, but the presets sound good. There’s a lot of gear a I use where the presets range from ok to trash, but the presets here have really had some attention given to them.

I’m not going to put a million mp3s up here as there are already a bunch of them on the site here.

I am going to put up what I can get away with in a coffee shop. First here’s the AU Lab session I’m using. The only external effect is a spring reverb.

The Stealer has great blues/classic rock tones. But here’s the odd thing, The Jackal has the 80’s metal vibe – but I REALLY dig it’s punchy clean tone and I’ve never really been into any Soldano clean tone I’ve heard. Maybe I’m just not hearing the right ones. For rhythm/lead distortion – I’ve been into the Duke.

Breaking up is (not so) hard to do

I think I’ve used that title before….

Anyway, here’s the Duke and a favorite voicing of mine – an open E min 9 chord in the 7th position.
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With many distortions – anything beyond a root-5th craps out and looses all definition. Here, I’m going to play an mp3 with full distortion and then keep strumming the chord bringing my volume know down a notch or so. Notice how:

1. Everything cleans up as I lower the input volume and

2. how even at full volume and distortion you can still make the notes out!

Note:

For those of you interested in the tech side – this was recorded with an FnH Ultrasonic guitar, neck pickup through an Apogee Duet into AU LAB and Scuffham Amps’ THE DUKE model.

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Let’s see how cleaning these things up sound with an actual lick.

That Whole Tone Idea

In the previous lesson, I talked about my concept of the modal microscope and how looking at things at multiple levels can help open new perceptions.

Let’s take a look at this with the Whole Tone Scale.

If I have C Whole Tone (C, D, E, F#, G#, A#(Bb) one chord that can be extracted from that is a C7+ (R, 3, #5, b7). However, If we focus on the other chord tones of C7 (C, E, Bb), we can play it over a regular C7 chord with just a little bit o’ dissonance.

Since I’ve always done things in C – I’ll move it to G and play a G whole tone (with a few chromatics) over G7.

Here’s the lick (with some extra rubato, legato, vibrato and other atos):

And here’s an mp3 of the lick – with the same volume drop approach as the E min 9.

One thing that those of you who follow this blog might notice is that I’ve adapted my pentatonic 3-note-per string/1-note-per string – fingering to the whole tone scale (which I think is a cooler way to finger it and maybe you’ll agree!)

Conceptually, I’m thinking G whole tone from B for visualization purposes (but moving back to the A on the D string for a little melodic velocity). The point is as long as I resolve to either the B (3rd) or G (root) I can sneak this in even if G7 is the I chord in a I-IV-V blues.

When I went to Berklee the best harmony lesson I learned was in Harmony IV, when the teacher told me that the whole point of Harmony I-IV was to teach students that any chord can precede or follow any other chord. That means that you can superimpose anything over any chord – but the keys are 1. having the knowledge to resolve it and/or make it work and 2. having the experience and the confidence to go for it.

This has been kind a weird lesson/review post (indicative of a few weird days) so please bear with me as I get back to the review aspect of the Scuffham Amp for a moment.

On the minus side – I wish this AU had a tuner and a separate reverb built-in. I understand why they’re not – but it’s nice to have a self-contained amp sound.

On that note – the amps sound really good and they’re unlike anything else really out there.

The list price is $90 – but they sell it online for $75. Some people may balk at the lack of effects, but price-wise this is extremely reasonable for the quality of the amps and the red wirez bundle.

Don’t take my word for anything regarding YOUR tone. You can download a fully working demo for 15 days and take it through the paces. Some things will underwhelm you and there some things you will probably dig – particularly for blues/rock tones.

I’m still waiting for Line 6 POD FARM HD – which I hope is everything I expect it to be, but in the meantime, I’m using this. If you’re even remotely interested in getting decent guitar tones out of your computer , give the demo a try.

As always thanks for reading!

-SC

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