AMPAGE 2002 - The Blue Guitar

AMPAGE 2002
Recording Details:
Track 1 Dirty L. Karlsson: A Tribute to Angus
This track is so good I had to put it first! For more information about Dirty check
out his site at MP3.COM:
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/74/slide_man.html
Track 2 John Kelley Brown: Dancing on Broken Glass
From Kelley: “The piece was recorded in 1996, it was missing something so
recently I decided to add the slide part. With the exception of the slide part it's all
the old plexi Marshall, most of the rhythm is the PRS into the plexi, the first solo
is a Strat into a Proco Rat into the plexi, the second solo is my Les Paul straight
into the plexi, the slide is the Strat straight into my POD on the "Blackpanel"
setting, during mixdown I gave the slide a lot of Bombfactory LA2A
compression.”
Track 3 Carlo Letizia: Don’t Care
From Carlo (aka Funkyloon@aol.com):
- guitar and amp used... Gibson Les Paul and a custom homebrew 50w head
("Purple") that started out as a Trainwreck, but it ain't even close now, into a 2x12
sealed Fender cab. also used a stock 1965 Fender DR. sometimes used a Morley
Power Wah...one of the big old ones with the power supply built into the pedal.
- recording equipment used... close mic with SM57, with the occasional AT4050
room mic into a Mackie SR24 - then fed from the Direct Out into an Aardvark
Aark24 soundcard. mixed, mastered and burned to CD with Samplitude Producer.
- recording the other instruments...first, i use the preamps on the Mackie for
everything because it's all i have. then i take the signal from the Direct Out of the
Mackie, this bypasses all the EQ and extra stages, so the signal only goes through
the preamp. from here i go straight into the Aark 24. for all the vocals i use the
audio Technica 4050 condenser mic set to the cardoid pattern, no pad, no bass cut,
into the mackie, then the aark. the mackie supplies phantom power for the mic.
bass goes directly into the mackie then into the aark. really need to build a tube
pre for the bass. drums...same signal path as the vocals. i put a sm57 on the
kick...cos i still don't have a real kick mic... 57 on the snare. i set up two 4050's as
a stereo pair of room mics to pick up the whole kit, especially the cymbals. follow
the basic equilateral triangle rule...the center of the drum kit, (usually the snare),
and the 2 mics form an equilateral triangle. the 4050's are set to the cardoid

pattern, no pad, no bass cut. then i throw some dynamic mics on, actually
between, the toms...3 rack toms use two mics. and one more dynamic on the floor
tom.
- members in band (Letizia)...
Peter Letizia - drums
Wyl Muchrison - vocals
Bob Alias - bass
Carlo Letizia - guitars
www.members.aol.com/funkyloon
Track 4 Richie: Hot Lead
Better known as Richie{~}==:::
These clips are sound samples of his 18 watter Marshall clone:
http://www.18watt.com/cgibin/photo/index.cgi?mode=view&album=Sound_Samples/Richies_MP3s
I wasn’t planning on including any raw sound samples for this project but these
were just too good to pass up!
Track 5 Paul Cochrane: Blondie’s Squad Car
This song (from Paul’s old band “Jack Johnson”) was featured in the 1996 movie
“Barb Wire”.
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/176/jack_johnson.html
Track 6 Regis: Riders on the Storm
Name: Regis Coyne
Email: doctorx@bellsouth.net
Band Name: Baited Breath
Rig: 60 Strat > Boss Stereo Chorus > Boss Overdrive > Two SF Bassmans
>Stereo 4x12
Recording: 16 tracks, Tascam DA-78s, cab miked with SM57s, flat eq.
My old friend Tony, a drummer, came to visit me here in Atlanta in December. I
begged and borrowed a drumset for him to play, and called my friend Gary the
bass player to come on by. They are two great players and I had wanted to get
together with the two of them for some time. "Riders on the Storm" was first take,
other than explaining and practicing the arrangement with them for a few bars. No
overdubs. I had a bad head cold, and lost my voice the next day after singing that
song.

Track 7 Steve Ahola: For J.D.
I recorded this in my MIDI studio in 1987. The guitar was my LP 25-50 with a
JB pickup on the bridge and I was using a Chandler Tube Driver floor pedal and a
Boss DD-2 going direct into the mixing board. The drum part was sequenced
from a Roland drum machine “cookbook” and the synth riff was something I
came up with on my Casio CZ-101. The working title was “Bossa Rock Boogie”
but I renamed it for my nephew who was 18 months old. figuring that I’d sell the
demo to Santana and make enough money to put him through college. [ROTFL]
Track 8 Shawnee: O’Tara Backyard Daisies
Sean Kerrigan (Sean K.) from New Zealand AKA Shawnee
Equipment:
-Art of Lutherie acoustic guitar soundhole miked.
-Home made tele with seymour 59's,home made p/p with 6AK6's and 12AT7's.
-Played through Aria digi box,miked with condensor fet thingy and through
tascam 424 and DMAN PCI soundcard.
-Tracks downloaded from local radio station as separate wav files and remixed
with guitar over the top.
Track 9 Stephen Conner: Summer
AKA Steve C. from Glasgow UK:
"Summer" was written this year. I wrote it for the band I was in, but we split
before we had a chance to do it. So what you have is a demo version with me
playing all the instruments and singing. I only did one take of each part so I guess
you could call it "live" ;-D Unlike the other two, this track has no home-made
amps on it. The lead guitar was DI'd through a modified Shred Master stomp box,
the bass was plugged straight into the mixer, and the rhythm guitar was a mic'd
classical. (Why? The band had one electric and one classical guitarist.)
Track 10 Guistd: Naomi
I seem to have lost any information about giustd but I believe that this song is an
original.
Track 11 Paul Cochrane: Nothing
See Track 5 for more information.
Track 12 Carlo Letizia: Stop

See Track 3 for more information…
- on "Stop" i also used my Charvel/Jackson Model 4 strat-like guitar w/ whammy
bar plugged into my 'purple' amp for all the whammy (slide-like) stuff that
happens mainly during the breaks.
Track 13 Richie: Power Chords
More sound samples of his 18 watter. We all hope that Richie will have a tune for
us to include on AMPAGE 2003!
Track 14 Chris B: Drum & Guitar
“I used my Korean Strat with the JB jr. pickup in the bridge through a Big Muff
Pi straight into my Fostex X-14 four track. For the drums, I played my Lugwig
Rocker Elites, recorded with a Shure SB588 vocal mic into the Fostex.”
Track 15 Steve Ahola: Snappin’ the Strings
The lead-off track on my Christmas CD for 2001, with my MIM 1969 Thinline
plugged into my Blues Express amp. Backing tracks are from Band in the Pocket
– Volume Two.
Track 16 Bill Harbour: Put Yourself Last
Written and sung by John Fleming
Music written by Bill Harbour
Lead and rhythm guitars Bill Harbour
Drums John Fleming
Bass Mark Hendrix
http://home.att.net/~w.harbourjr/harbtone.html
Track 17 Dirty L. Karlsson: Dirty Brutal Slider
See Track 1 for details.
Track 18 Mark Lavelle: High Tide
- name: Mark Lavelle
- email: amps@harmonicappliances.com
- site: http://www.harmonicappliances.com/
- gear: 1973 Tele with Barden pickups
Verberator amp (2xEL84, cathode biased)
(see http://www.harmonicappliances.com/verberator/VerberatorPix.html)
- bass & drums recorded with Alesis ADAT
- guitar recorded with SONAR via Sound Blaster Platinum Live

- bass: Steve Lavelle
- drums: Corey Bovyer
- story: it's just a tune, man!
Track 19 Richie: Chicken Pickin’
BTW I had to cut the volume on all of Richie’s tracks because his playing was
blowing the rest of us off the bandstand, so to speak.
Track 20 Giustd: Rockabilly
Giustd did tell us that this number was completely unrepresentative of his work
with his band.
Track 21 Doug B: We Three Kings
Douglas Beneway
I've always been fascinated by the combination of the primitive with the modern -
- it suggests to me the sense of drama and timelessness. One day it flashed on me
that the Christmas carol "We Three Kings", with it's contrasting verse and chorus
sections, might be just the thing for an experiment with the modern/primitive. So
i set about working something up.... And when i heard about the Ampage
'Christmas' CD project, i thought it might be just the thing to contribute!
MUSIC: I wanted a kind of 'mysterious, sense-of-wonder' feel for the opening
(foreshadow the "star of wonder...." lyric), something that would immediately
grab the attention of the ear. (I always remember George Martin's story about the
opening chord to "A Hard Day's Night"....) And harmonics lend themselves so
easily to the key of Em... so there you have it.
Much of the melody in the verses has been re-arranged around parallel fourths
and fifths -- partly out of a twisted desire to mortify overly-conventional musictheory
pedants -- but also because i find the sound strangely... primitive... and
modern!
Using them required me to take some liberties with the melody and harmony --
hah! There are a few subtle variations thrown in the second verse just to keep
things from getting overly repetitious. For the chorus section, i switched to a
more folky style in the relative major key (G) -- just as the song was originally
written. However, there is still the constant interval of the fourth (D and G notes)
droning away at the top (for a *little* continuity). A single line of parallel fourths
is reintroduced (a little more continuity) before the closing, and the piece finishes
on a harmonic (a tip of the hat to the introduction).
The very last chord uses the second inversion (tonic major triad with the 5th in the
bass). This is a fairly unstable voicing -- especially as the final chord in a piece!
It wants to go somewhere; it wants to resolve. No way -- this is the perfect
musical ending to a story that has not yet resolved!

EQUIPMENT: For what it's worth... a pretty-much stock, late-'80s/early-'90s
Fender Stratocaster, tremolo bar removed, that spring-hooked thing in the trem
cavity blocked, D'Addario 12-gauge Half Rounds (my all-time favorite strings!),
regular old cheezy cord, Korg SDD-3000 digital delay set up for pseudo-stereo
chorus. Recorded direct into soundcard, stereo, 44k1 Hz. No picks, just
fingertips and fingernails... except the two-chord transition between the second
verse and chorus -- used the fleshy part of my thumb. Whilst recording, i was
munching on an absolutely-delicious piece of low-fat pumpkin cheesecake that
my lady-friend Lynne made. Ummmm....
Track 22 Dirty L. Karlsson: Single Dobro
Well, it is good to know that Dirty wasn’t messing around with a married dobro!
[grin]
LEGAL NOTICE
The contributors retain all rights to their contributions to AMPAGE 2002, which is not
being distributed for profit. “Riders on the Storm” was written by the Doors but Regis’
arrangement is original so the lawyers can put that in their pipe and smoke it!
Notes compiled by Steve Ahola 01/19/03
http://www.blueguitar.org/