Well, this post is about Chris Broderick of Nevermore. There is a rumor on the internet that he is going to join Megadeth, Glen Drover wishing to leave the band due to family reasons. At least this is what some say…

However, this is not the reason of this post. The reason is an other one. After reading this news and watching a short movie with Chris Broderick playing five-octave arpeggios, I wanted to watch more and I did on YouTube. Of course, he can play electric guitars like hell, this it is what he does. He is a rock guitar player, he knows to shred and play both hands arpeggios, right?

OK, fine!!But now comes the thing that made me write this post! Man, this guy really knows how to play the guitar, beyond rock boundaries! He plays classical guitar and I am not speaking about dark arpeggios or futuristic sounds like Satriani does on his acoustic guitar, no! I am speaking pure classical guitar! Bach!



What do you know?Also see some jazz slap but I can not tell if he is good or not since I am not into jazz, but if you are, let us know what you think!

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Well, when you thought you have seen it all, think twice! Take a look at this astonishing black beauty, this ESP DV8 Double-Neck electric guitar, 18 strings of violent, crunchy tone, “Mustaine-approved” as they say.

The interesting part it is the 12 strings neck with 2 sides string tuners. Also, I seems unusual to me the fact that it looks like
it has 2 bodies stuck together instead of one larger body, but this is because of the particular shape of the original guitar. However, I must admit this was not an electric guitar that I would have expected to see in double-neck version.

More about it here (no affiliate link, I swear, just the specs)

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I don’t know what it’s happening to me but this post is again about Paul Gilbert! And I didn’t even intend to write again about him, I was actually looking for some materials of Ritchie Kotzen and I stumbled upon this video on YouTube where Gilbert plays a 3 string acoustic guitar, all 3 strings being tuned to E… (by the way, skip the 5 seconds electric guitar shredding in order to get to the interesting acoustic part)

Don’t ask me what he wanted to do with it, he says it works well for arpeggios due to open strings. Anyway, here’s the video.

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I have just visited Paul Gilbert’s website, www.paulgilbert.com. He has a section called magazines featuring magazine covers presenting him. Used to seeing him with his signature models, it was strange to see him using some guitar that I think it is a Danelectro Longhorn. Check the picture, I think I am not wrong and compare it to the one here.

I think it is Danelectro, no doubt here. Check the round pickguard , the horns and the 2(I think) volume/tone controls plus the switch.

Later edit: searching on Google, I have found the guitar collection of Paul Gilbert and indeed, he seems to own at least one Danelectro electric guitar. Check here the collection and here the guitar itself. However, it is not the one in the picture above.

Considering my previous post here about Danelectro Longhorn could we consider Paul Gilbert as being brave?

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I was thinking about every guitar player’s dream, about that part where you are the solo guitar player and everybody is cheering you, loving you, adoring you, in a spot where everybody would love to be. It is somehow like in that movie I saw some years back with one guitar player that was no good, selling his soul for becoming a great guitar player playing astonishing solos. Of course…

Anyway, every guitar player wants to be the bad ass solo guitar in a famous rock band. Every guitar player dreams it….

But! There is a but here… I had the opportunity to go with this friend of mine in ‘97 to get a job (my friend, not I) as a professional guitar player in the local theater big band. He was good, really good. Now, as I have already told you a few times before here, he is one of the best rock guitar players in Romania, in my opinion. So, he got the job as the lead guitar in a big band with about 30 instruments, a band that used to play along the lead singers working for the local theater.

There was that other guitar player there, about 45 or something, the second guitar. Of course he didn’t have leading parts, he was always there but nobody saw him. However, I couldn’t help myself thinking that if that guy wouldn’t have been there, the music would have been missing something…

If you think about it, you can not play a guitar solo without somebody being the rhythm guitar, to keep you on chords and to help you be creative. I don’t speak about somebody playing C, F, G only. I am speaking about a better guitar player. A bit of 9 here, some 7+ there, a small 13 chord, well, you know what I mean… Did you ever notice that if you play with a rhythm guitar who is a great at playing chords, you just become more creative, you feel the music better and you are better, playing better solos? It feeds you with his chord harmony instead of playing those plan C, F, G…

That guy there is the second guitar that nobody knows or notice.

I have been in this second position while playing in Kapela (I am not saying I was that guy that inspired the lead guitar, I was not in such a position, unfortunately). I was there for about 1 year and all that I had in front of my eyes was to be the lead guitar in an other band. Of course, the dream…

I am sure you are familiar with TV shows such as “So, you think you can dance?” Next time you watch it, watch the second guitar there and see how important is that part: rhythm, chords, melody, technique but no glory. Is it right this way?

Take the man out of the band and see how it sound. Then, if it sounds bad, put him back in the band and put the lights on him, giving him those moments of glory that he deserves. I say that because our similar TV show here had such a moment, cheering the rhythm guitar while playing on a large screen some great moments with him on stage. Unfortunately it was because his sudden death  a few days ago, he was 70 or something…

But he had his part. Unfortunately, one moment too late…

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This morning a discussion of some time came back to my mind and made me start this post. Are a fan of guitar compact sound processors or a fan of separate pedals? I know I have started by using separate pedals, BOSS pedals, at that time, a flanger pedal and then a serialized overdrive pedal. The sound was ok, as far as I can say now, just that each time I was playing, I was dreaming about a multi-effect of my band colleague, multi-effect that I have purchased from him at one moment and I am still using today. It is (again) a BOSS ME-6 which I just love even now. I know it is way over his time, has only a few effects, compared to today’s complex sound processors but I just love the greasy sound of distortion and the clean chorus plus that the delay that I had for my distorted solo tone remained for half a second when changing tones, which in a live situation was great.

I know that this is one of the first things I have observed listening it since when going from a distortion solo (with a delay) to a clean tone, in that exact fraction of the second you start playing the clean notes you still hear the tail of the solo. Man, I loved that!!!

On the other hand, there are many (professional) guitar players preferring to put together some separate pedals as one single group and use this arrangement on stage. The reason, they say, is the original sound, greasy, fat that nothing can emulate.

So, what do you prefer for yourself?

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I have seen this picture on TheLongTail.com and I just couldn’t resist posting it. It is freaking funny!

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For the past month I have been using light D’Addario strings on my acoustic guitar. I have always been using medium strings but now I have tried some light strings (0.8 I think but I would not bet my life on it) just for getting the feeling. What I could say about it is that for soloing it feels great, I could bend the G string very easy, the same as with my electric guitar. Everything works way easier on these light strings than on my medium ones. However, when strumming, I feel frustrated, I can never get that full sound of tensioned strings, feeling that I get with medium to heavy strings. I guess folk guitar players play at least medium strings since otherwise they won’t ever get that sound for their acoustic guitars. Somebody even asked me why my guitar had no “power” in it. Well, it took me some time to explain him the reason…the strings are not very tensioned,they are light and easy on my fingers.
I have a friend which is one of the best electric guitar players in Romania at this time, (we used to play in the same band for 1 year) using electric guitar strings shifted one string up. Meaning that he used E for upper E string, an other E for B string, B string for a G and so on. What I could say is that the taping went great, bending strings was great, but there was something missing in heavy chords, those power chords that electric guitar players love…

Now, If I think about, I guess Stevie Ray Vaughan had a point when using only heavy guitar strings, only heavy guitar strings could give him that spanky sound that we all know. However, those strings were not good for his fingers,not to my knowledge or experience…

So, what kind of guitar strings do you like for your acoustic or electric guitars?

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I was not a big fan of YouTube. To be honest, in the beginning I could not understand what is all the fuss about. Some people uploading their stupid videos with their dogs at the pool or some idiots drinking Cola while eating Mentos…

That was in the beginning. Now I heavily use YouTube for watching cool concerts, songs, videos and guitar lessons, I almost all the time find something interesting to watch there and my most important (like 95%) usage of YouTube is for music.

I have seen there a lot of wannabes, a lot of people trying to play the guitar like their idols, I have seen people trying and people failing and also some of them succeeding. But what really impressed me is this guy, Gustavo Guerra!

When I have first seen him on YouTube I couldn’t believe my eyes. Or ears. Really! He seems to be in absolute the same league as Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen, Gilbert, etc. He plays guitar with an amazing easiness and feeling, speed and technique. Using specific electric guitars for specific artists made him look more than cool and built him a brand image. He must have money and a lot of passion for electric guitars, since he owns custom models of famous artists, playing Satriani on Ibanez Joe Satriani models (I have counted about 3 of them, including the chromed model), Vai on JEM model, Malmsteen on his scalloped Fender, Eric Johnson on his model, damn, he seems to have them all, he must feel like a child in a toy store, really.

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