Gear talk
September 3, 2014
It’s funny how our preferences change. After summarising my musical modus operandi a few weeks ago it all felt a bit too set in stone. I’ve been resistant to switching to Ableton Live, thinking that it was more efficient and unique to keep plowing my own furrow on Cubase. However, I want to collaborate with a few friends who use Ableton and see what new possibilities appear because of Ableton’s novel way of triggering clips and instruments. I’ve installed it on my wife’s laptop, which I’ve basically commandeered and where I have recourse to none of my preferred plugins. It’ll be fun to start from scratch.
I’ve also finally gone ahead and bought a Fender Stratocaster. In my reckless youth, I was all about high powered humbucker pickups and the uncompromising shape of my cherry red Flying V. I played an Epiphone Les Paul Black Beauty for a while, probably because it was like my guitar tutor’s Gibson custom shop model. Perhaps some part of me thought that by owning the same guitar I would acquire the same speedy chops. This strat is all white with a rosewood fretboard, a mexican model rather than the more expensive American made guitars. How can you play the blues on a thousand pound guitar? I asked myself. Same as you can on a burned out and swamp-rotten one in all likelihood but in the end I didn’t want to spend quite that much.
The Fender tone is there. It’s much more subtle than that of many other guitars, I believe. Those crunchy, warm but clear and bright chords would have been great for the rhythm sections of Distant Signal songs when my MO was to make everything as loud as possible and hope the song would fit around enormous riffs. The strat has plenty of soul for lead lines too, which I’m hoping will come through on the next Uffmoor record. I have no idea what that will sound like at the moment… only a few guesses. Whether these changes will make more difference to the creative process or the end product remains to be seen.
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