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When I first started these lessons, I did a few gear demos showing off my gear setup. While I don't really have an 'official' setup these days, I've left these demos up for an example of how I approached the task of getting 'that' tone at reasonable volumes. I will be adding much more structured advice on tone to this website in the future, but for now, these demos will have to do.
Gear Demos | Bookmark or Share This demo showcases a wah-wah pedal and a set of pickups that I purchased from Mike at Mccon-o-wah.com. The song is called "Running Scared". Complete details about the gear used in this demo are below the video.
Gear Demos | Bookmark or Share I’ve been asked on numerous occasions what I think of the Bill M. mods for Fender Blues Junior Amps. I could never answer that question because I had not ever heard any of his modded amps.
Gear Demos | Bookmark or Share For this demo, I'm using a Kenny Wayne Shepherd signature strat, through a Boss GE-7, Creation Audio Labs MK.4.23 clean boost, into a Samamp VAC 23 amp.
Gear Demos, Guitar Demos | Bookmark or Share This demo was done to showcase a guitar custom made for me by my cousin Joe from Stauffer Guitars. The video highlights the tone of the guitar and below I’ve listed a detailed description of the guitar, along with the settings for all the gear used in the demo.
Guitar Demos | Bookmark or Share I picked up this strat new from Rainbow Music in 2008. Most strats have very similar, thin necks, but the KWS strat has a fat neck and jumbo frets. It's aimed at the player who likes the SRV style of playing, and comes with Graphtech Bridge Saddles out of the box too. Although I recorded it for OldToneZone, I posted it here for obvious reasons.
Guitar Demos | Bookmark or Share A viewer in MA sent me his brand new, vintage looking Rocketfire Guitars Strat for me to do a demo with.
Gear Demos | Bookmark or Share At some point in 2008 I did another demo of my Blues Junior, this time to an original ballad tune "Just Another Love Song" that I wrote back in college. In the vein of "Life Without You", this demo sparked a huge amount of interest in the song, which I then taught a few lessons on in the "Original Ballad Series".
Gear Demos | Bookmark or Share Shortly after purchasing my Blues Junior in Dec. of 2007, I recorded a demo of my rig at the time to a backing track for the song Texas Flood. While my playing was sloppy (as it always is when I'm out of shape), the tone was quite nice :-)
Gear Demos | Bookmark or Share This demo was recorded on Dec. 19th 2007. I found a very rough backing track for the song 'Lenny' by Stevie Ray Vaughan, so I sat down and recorded myself playing along. I was quite surprised by how well it went with fairly little preparation.
Gear Demos | Bookmark or Share This demo was recorded right after I bought my Fender Blues Junior. Just recorded with my cheap camcorder, the audio doesn't really do it justice, yet this video has been hugely popular on YouTube for some reason.