I am now offering lessons on a full time basis! Therefore, my availability has been much increased. Head over to my Lessons page, to get all the information you need on the services I offer and for details on how to contact me.

Today, has mostly been about burning the final Red Book master for the new album by The Nightwires. Having listened to it a couple of times to check all was ok, it occured to me that all of the guitars have been recorded using DI and speaker simulation. The majority of this involved using my Morgan and Victory heads into my Palmer PGA04 rack unit, with a few bits and bobs recorded with my Guitar Rig software.

To be honest, I really dont think that any casual listener will be able to tell that I haven’t mic’d up any cabs. Granted, a few tone snobs may CLAIM they can tell, but in the context of a band mix, I think its impossible to tell. The beauty of the Palmer unit is that you can use a 50 watt valve head at full power, silently! With a subtle bit of post EQ and compression, you can get a great sound very quickly.

However, I cant see me going down the Axe FX or Kemper route any time soon for live work. Partly because I have so much money invested in my stupidly expensive boutique amps, but mainly because I still dont hear any digital modeling units that can truly compete with a proper tube amp at decent volume. Yes, digital is getting close, very close, but its not there yet.

So in the studio, I shall continue to do whatever gets a decent tone quickly and painlessly, but I wont be giving up on tubes any time soon.

My band The Nightwires, have revealed the artwork and title of our new album.

Head over to our site, for more information on the release of “Life of Sound”

I’m currently mixing the second album, by my band The Nightwires. This will be the fourth album I have written, produced and mixed and I still feel like a bit of a novice when it comes to the mixing part. It’s the alchemy involved in it. Infusing the songs with the magic, the air, THE LEVEL!!

I’m probably doing my skills a bit of a disservice but making the album sound like a cohesive professional project, is so difficult. For this project, my first mixes were very far advanced. Normally, I would present my singer with a mix after the initial tracking, a warts and all mix. I’ve just realised though that that method means too many changes are made and I’m forever altering things and doing endless CDs of mixes.

No, this time I did a first mix which, I hoped, would be not far off finished at the first attempt. And you know what, I have almost achieved that! The changes I’m having to make now to the mix are quite small and thats ended up saving me a lot of stress. However, its still the case that the old adage is correct: you never finish a mix, you merely leave it once you cant stand hearing the song anymore!

That’s the problem. You listen to the songs so much whilst mixing, that when you listen to a CD of mixes, you are instantly disappointed. My advice is definitely to leave it 24 hours before you listen to that first mix on your car stereo. And it will then take a few listens for it to sink in and then, if you’ve done the right things to the mix, you will start to think it sounds good.

The problems I always hit first are, making the vocal level/volume consistent across multiple songs and also making the kick drum clear and loud enough without dominating. Add to that not wanting to make the mix too bassy from the off; these things can make you liable to holding back a bit on some vital frequencies.

And then there is the overall volume. Ahhh, the volume wars! I’ve been guilty in my younger days, of trying to make my mixes as loud as possible but, after heeding the advice of songwriting god and mixing guru Steven Wilson, I ain’t gonna take part in your loudness war!! These new mixes for The Nightwires are loud enough, but I’m not going to push them beyond that. It makes things sound overly compressed and so small. Also, mid range is king. Too many albums have that smile EQ curve, with all of the mid range sucked out of the sound. Mid range is where all the body of a sound lives. I want my music to breath and pump and be dynamic. Hopefully I’ve achieved that.

So, I cant wait for you to hear the fruits of my labour. I shall be putting the first song up here soon.

Finally got a CD in my hand yesterday, of mixes for The Nightwires new album. They don’t sound too bad!

The first mix stage of any recording is always hard to deal with, as you have got so sick and tired of hearing the songs during the process, making it hard to be objective. In my experience, the hardest thing to accomplish is to make the music sound good on lots of different systems. My hi fi separates system, makes anything sound good!! However, my car stereo doesn’t.

There are a lot of things to sort out, but I think it should all be finished in a week or so. Watch this space…

Phew! Its been a few hectic weeks at guitargeek towers. Mainly due to the fact that I’ve been recording and mixing the new album by my band The Nightwires. It is sounding rather spiffing and I hope to have a track up for you to listen to soon. Stay tuned.

Loads of other things are happening or about to. Not least an update on my lesson availability. That will come soon also!

Its always “soon” with me 😉

Greer Amps have been kind enough to add my video of The Southland Overdrive, to the Southland product page on their website. Check it out….

Southland Harmonic Overdrive

My newest addition!

“How to record guitars when you can’t crank the amp loud enough?” The eternal question for home studio users!

I have mic’d up my amps in the past, but never loud enough to get the power tubes working. I have used Guitar Rig software alot with some success, but I’d prefer to use my amp heads.

So instep Palmer Germany with the PGA 04 speaker simulator and load box. This seems to be a great bit of kit. You simply take a speaker cable out from your amp into the PGA04 and then a mic lead from the balanced output of the box, and into your recording interface.

There are lots of controls to simulate different types of speaker cabs and you can mix in the unfiltered direct signal of the amp, to add a bit more bite. There are also unfiltered line outs, so you can send a pure DI signal to you recording interface, to then process separately in something like Guitar Rig.

I’ve only used it for a couple of hours so far, but it seems to be pretty useful. I mean, having the ability to drive a 50 watt head at even half volume on the master, and record it silently, has got to be good!

I hope to do a video at some point….

This is the current state of my pedalboard

But it will change soon! First new pedal is the Greer Amplification Southland Harmonic Overdrive. I’ve been wanting one of these for a while but I couldn’t find a UK dealer. But Joe’s Pedals stepped in, to help me spend my money!!

The Southland will be my main overdrive pedal but I need to see which of the Wampler drives I have, will be the best pedal to stack into it.

Second new pedal is the Keeley Electronics Aurora Reverb.

My Morgan amp doesn’t have any reverb built in so I had been looking at pedals to add some. However, I’ve been happy to use delay only up until now and this pedal ended up being a bit of an impulse purchase. Don’t get me wrong, it sounds very good, but I’m not sure if it will make it onto my board permanently. It would be a case of fitting 7 pedals, into the 6 loop Quartermaster.

Any finally (phew) to hopefully improve the sound of the board further, I’ve invested in an Evidence Audio pedalboard cable kit, courtesy of the lovely people at thegigrig.

These are solderless like the George L’s cables I’ve used for years, but the end of the cable screws into the jack, making the connection very secure. I’ll have some more updates on these as the new pedalboard is built.