The first in a new series, Because It Was There.
Not abridged.
Main Ingredients
Eastwood ‘Skinny Rats’ guitar – The reason for the name I’ll leave for a moment as I’m curious to see if anyone recognises the reference but what was the ‘Californian Rebel’ was a bit of a disappointment on purchase but after modifications is now a favourite. Expensive way of doing it though.
The only person I’ve seen very occasionally use one in anger is Enon Kawatani of indigo la End, ゲスの極み乙女 and @gesunokiwamiotome and ジェニーハイ amongst others.
Lace Alumitone Pickups – Bought mainly because I liked the idea of someone trying to do something a bit different with pickups and it didn’t hurt that they had square corners like the one’s they replaced.
Swope Descedent Vibrato – available in the UK from James’ Home Of Tone. Though I use every type of vibrato going this is the first alternative to the original Strat type to match it for feel and sensitivity – to my taste in those fairly nebulous concepts at least (upwards bends excepted). Not used heavily here but will feature in the future. I’ve paired it with a Schaller roller bridge which has made its way round a number of my guitars over the years.
For ease of dangle I plugged into my computer and used Scuffham Amps S-Gear modeller which doesn’t offer the earth in options but has the best basic sounds of the plethora of modellers to suit me. On this occasion I’ve used the free Alberto Barrero Producer Pack as a starting point and didn’t muck up the settings too much.
I forgot to mention in the video that the backing synth and bass parts were created using Orb Producer. Careful selection of the ‘wrong’ plugin instruments and patches to follow it can create interesting results such as by sending the output of the ‘Chords’ module into mono synths and let them decide which note to use.
For anyone who’d like a bash themselves here’s the backing track.
