Guitar Licks and Tips


You are here: Home / Blog

Bruce Cockburn’s guitar Preamp

by

Bruce Cockburn has that live acoustic guitar sound that every player would kill for.

It covers such a complete tonality and range that it’s quite unnerving to just think about how he achieves this, live on stage. Lots of money and equipment manufacturer’s falling all over you, wanting to give you their wares for free, just for the bragging rights to say that you use them, must come in very handy!

This will be the beginning of a quick series of posts talking about the equipment that he uses in the studio/live that allows him to bring us his extraordinary guitar sound.

Fishmanprefixproblend First lets talk about his guitar preamp. Bruce Cockburn uses a side mounted Fishman Prefix preamp. A pre-amp works like a P.A. system (Public Address) inside your guitar. Your mic’s pick up the sound and the amplifier, the thing with all the knobs, puts all the sounds together and then forwards that signal to the speakers.

Some acoustic guitar pre-amps just pickup the sound (signal) from inside the guitar (1 or 2 inside the guitar) and then sends the signal into your amplifier or P.A. system. The more complex ones, manipulate the sound and send the signal off to an amp. These ones, have the technology to capture the essence of a particular guitar sound in a electronic file and you can store it inside this device to be used at the touch of a button on the guitar. Boy have acoustic guitar’s changed!

As for Bruce’s, I can’t say that I’ve used it in a store through an amplifier, but from what I’ve heard it has had mixed reviews. That being said, this product in concert with other products can over come their defects to compliment each other nicely. I know that from my experiences with pedals. I’m sure that he has figured something out! The side mounted Fishman Prefix Pro Preamp and Pickup System that he uses something to look into if your very serious about sound … and you’ve got some time to develop it to it’s fullest potential!

I use a B-Band A5T in my Larrivee L-03. I honestly can say that this is the best acoustic pre-amp that I’ve ever owned! With or without my pedals, this thing still sound lovely. The only thing I’d like to add would be a nice EQ.

So I hope that you all found this relatively interesting, that is if your not a guitarist! In the next installment I will be talking about his acoustic Matrix pick ups that he uses.

Keep on Jammin’





Are you developing pains in your finger joints?

by

Debilitating pain in anyone’s finger joints can effect you in so many ways. I’m nowhere’s near the debilitating state, but having those odd nagging sensation makes we wonder what could be in store for me, right around the corner. Now, being a guitarist with this kind of complication is worrying to me to say the least. So now I’m trying to understand what it is, what causes it and how can I attempt to manage the symptoms.

There are so many problems related to this health problem in both musicians and non musicians that it’s not funny! Rheumatoid arthritis (a hereditary autoimmune disease) or osteoarthritis (a noninflammatory type of arthritis that can be caused by repetitive movements or overuse of a joint) or Focal Dystonia can be very taxing both physically and emotionally. For a musician, just imagine the pain that you would be experiencing if you were forced to just turn off the thing that you loved the most … your instrument.

Over the years I have never given it a second thought. I guess being relatively young gives you the air of invincibility. You might say that only happens to other people, certainly not me! That is what goes through a young persons mind this topic arises in conversation.

It’s only been in the past couple of months that I have noticed strange feelings in the joints of both hands. Today, I think the root cause for me is by moving many patients from a stretchers to their beds. I know most people in a hospital setting develop it. The most common complaint is the back and knees.

When I bring up this question to the many surgeon’s that I work beside with everyday, most reply that the root of the problem usually starts in your feet. It then starts to radiate to you knees, then back and well … you get the picture.

So I guess I’ll have to go and hit the podiatrist office and see what they can do for me. I realize this will be VERY COSTLY because our health plan, like most others, do not cover this service. The one nurse I’ve talked to says she had the exact same problems for years until she broke down and had to go see one. She says after they made her some foot inserts (costing around $400.00) and used them for a while, there was immediate relief in her feet, back and her fingers. God help the podiatrist if I buy them and they don’t work!!!

I found this book titled the The Musicians Hand, what is quite fascinating. It has full descriptions of your condition and how it can resolved surgically (as a last result that is!) I know I’ve seen some wild cases in the past that ended with favourable results. If you happen to be effected with this type of issue, this might be the first step in finding out more about this horrible problem.

Here is a simple on line test to take to start off with if you experience problems like this. I scored in at 75%.

If anyone out there suffers from any of the above illnesses, can you tell us what you do to help work through it?

Keep on Jammin’
Here are some books that I think you might find interesting!

Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Number One guitar

by

Considering I forgot about the anniversary of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s death on August 27th, 1990, I thought I’d show you a video about his number one guitar, called Number One!

I don’t want to bore you with any technical aspects of one of the worlds most recognizable Fender Stratocasters, so I won’t.

Stevie Ray Vaughn affectionately called his signature guitar First Wife. It was known to most of us simply as Number One. There are tons of neat history lessons to be heard of about his baby and the other lucky ones in his collection of guitars! Hell, the boys and girls @ Fender Guitars made a replica of Number One!

The video below is the first encounter that the technicians at Fender Guitar had with this very, very important piece of Rock and Roll History! It just sends shivers up and down my spine every time I watch it, I hope you get as much out of it as I do.

Number One
“Number One”- Also called “First Wife,” a 1959 Strat body with 1962 neck, received in 1973 in trade of 1963 Strat with Ray Hennig, Heart of Texas Music

I have only written once before about the late great Stevie Ray Vaughn and it brings back some fantastic memories of seeing him live in Chicago! Man, I wish I had a video camera way back then. Has anyone out there seen the man live and what did you think about him?

I hope that the man and his distinctive style lives on forever … as well as his Number One!

Keep on Jammin’ Stevie Ray Vaughn

Some neat related things!

The magic of Scott Merritt lives on

by

I just found out through a buddy of mine on Facebook that one of the greatest musicians that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, Scott Merritt, was playing at this years Guelph Jazz Festival today.

Three Parades, by Guelph artists/multi instrumentalists/producers Scott Merritt and Jeff Bird, will orchestrate a performance by three different bands, each made up of 10-20 musicians, that will approach the St. George’s Church’s bell tower from different directions. All three bands will play a Merritt composition in counterpoint with one another and with the tolling church bell (played by Guelph player Jeff Bird), which will act as both a time pulse and key center for the composition.

Along the three routes, road signs will provide supplementary cues for the musicians to change what they are playing. The bell tower will house a PA system, which will project a pre-recorded score for solo voice that is reminiscent of a muezzin, who delivers the Muslim call to prayer from mosques. Once the bands converge at the tower and play together for several minutes, they will turn around and recede to their original starting positions.

The compositions for the three bands, the bell, and recorded voice work both independently and in concert, regardless of the listener’s position.
The Guelph Jazz Festival

The man was always a head of the curve. How he composed his songs were brilliant and very innovative. He did it such a way that I have never heard of before. I guess this is what peaked my curiosity with his overall body of work. In 1986 he was a nominee for the Juno award of Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year!

He was the kind of guitarist that when he entered the local music store, Music and Sound, everyone who was holding a guitar put it down making it look like they didn’t play it at all! We all just had so much respect for him that we felt a little bit insecure about playing in front of him. The man was always a gentle giant in person and Scott’s interviews were always insightful.

My wife and I feel in love with his Gravity is Mutual album when we first heard it. We still have our original vinyl copy downstairs!

I will leave you with a video that he did to support his album and I know that you’ll all enjoy it!

Scott Merritt, Keep on Jammin’ PLEASE!!!

More things about Scott Merritt

The band Toto

by

Toto is one of those bands from the late 70’s to the present day that has produced one or two certain song(s) that everyone attaches some fond memories to or just really like the band! The level of musicianship, the jelling of the band members, that sound and rhythm they had was truly unmistakable. Toto was such a polished band that some people may have viewed them in too harsh a light. Their first self titled album, Toto, was the best one they ever put out.

I had all these musical emotions fly directly into my mind the other day by an unexpected force, my god-son Jeffery! He had been talking about this TOTO Greatest Hits (Steel box collection) that he just picked up and he talked about some of the tunes that he liked on it.

The songs he was referring to were some of Toto’s newer releases. They were the ones that I had heard over and over again on the radio. They were nice and all that but, not always as complex and intricate as I liked in comparison with their first project.

So yesterday a few of us went off to help my cousin, Jeffery’s aunt and her husband, put in a retaining wall in their back yard. On the drive over there, Jeffery told me he brought his Toto CD and asked me if I wanted to hear it, so I sheepishly said ok?!

When he placed it in the car CD player and hit play, a few of the songs on it instantly brought me back to my early years as a young progressive guitar player. I honestly love how they formed all their chord/vocal progressions in each of their songs. All though I could not for the life of me figure them out back then, I could certainly appreciate the talent that was needed in performing these difficult pieces live on stage.

Does anyone out there have their self titled album Toto in their collection? If not, then here is what they played on this classic album in order!
Child’s Anthem, I’ll Supply the Love, Georgy Porgy, Manuela Run, You are the Flower, Girl Goodbye, Takin’ it Back, Rockmaker, Hold the Line and Angela.

The members of the band for this album were Bobby Kimball, Steve Porcaro, David Hungate, David Paich, Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro.

These bunch of musicians were everything that I could ever want in a band’s style. They guitar, keyboards, bass, drums and percussion are all seasoned studio players. Just imagine how many ways they could come up with in playing a song?

I used to listen to them everyday in my early years. The only song I ever played of theirs was Hold the Line, with a Brantford band called Duece. No other musicians wanted to venture off in that direction. I used my sister’s old stereo a QueOn some much that I went through 3 stylists! I listened to each song taking it apart instrument by instrument in my mind. It’s amazing how much time a young kid can have on his hands isn’t it!

BTW the word toto means all encompassing in Latin! This is so great because it really represents the true essence of the band because of all the contrasting musical styles that they cover.

Keep on Jammin’

Meta

Pages