Incredible jazz, how to spot a fake, gearing up for September and more
Hey everyone, welcome to another issue of Six String Sunday! Thanks for hanging out and checking out the coolest guitar stuff on the internet. I’m back from Denmark in my home state of New Jersey, and I’ve had a lot of time to listen to new music. I have lots of cool recommendations this week, so let’s get right into it!
Guitar Album of the Week — This week’s Guitar Album of the Week is Arclight by Julian Lage. I just recently found out about Julian, and can’t put this album down. It’s an awesome jazz album that clocks in at 37 minutes, with 11 songs. Julian reminds me of all sorts of guitar players, like Wayne Krantz, Oz Noy, with a little bit of Scofield thrown in too.
The album has more jazz-y sounding songs, ballads, even a little bit of a country flair to it. If you’re looking for some really great jazz you can get into, and even transcribe, check this album out. It’s jazz, and it’s fresh.
Getting your YouTube audio to shine — A lot of students lately asked about putting up their own guitar videos on YouTube. Getting a great guitar tone is a post in itself, but if you’re going to do any type of talking throughout the video (instructional video, any YouTube video with voice), you really should nail down good quality audio.
In this new post I go over 4 ways to get your voice to sound great on YouTube. People are quick to close videos if the quality isn’t up to par. Getting your voice to sound good in videos is important. Check out the post and let me know what you think.
Gearing up for September — As you may have seen, August was all about learning something new on Chasing Sound. I loved watching this slide video from Dave Weiner, where he shows you a solo from his On Revolute album. I’ve never been a great slide player, and it’s something I’m considering tackling for September.
If you want to learn something new in September, when you’re reading this in August, try and make a plan for yourself. What will you accomplish in September? Set small goals, and you’ll achieve them! Let me know what you’re going to learn.
Presets, presets, presets — A lot of students who are inexperienced in getting a quality guitar tone think they have to reinvent the wheel. I think one of the best things you can do is start with a preset. Take a preset from one of your favorite sounds and tweak it to your liking.
It’s often that we tweak until we don’t even want to play guitar any more. If you don’t have an amp simulator or guitar amp program, go online and look up the amp settings of your favorite guitar player. Your signal chain will most likely be different, but you can probably get a similar sound that you’re after.
Don’t waste time dialing in the perfect tone. You’ll learn how to achieve “your sound” as the months go on and you play guitar every day. If you want to get started with getting your own signature sound, check out this post.
Amped Up! — By the time you read this, my guitar radio show called Amped Up! Will have hit 30 days of broadcasting in a row. I’d love you to check it out and let me know what you think. It’s like a behind the scenes look at Chasing Sound, plus a mix of what we talk about here on Six String Sunday.
You can find it right now on Anchor exclusively. Either download the app or head to this link to take a listen. We’ve gotten into the top 100 a couple times out of thousands of stations, and I’m trying to hit the top 20. Let’s see if we can make that happen!
Don’t get fooled — Unfortunately fake guitars run rampant in pawn shops, online and elsewhere. If you’re in the market for a Fender Strat, you’re going to want to take a look at this video. You’ll find out some easy ways to tell just by visually taking a look at the guitar that it’s a fake.
That’s about it for now friends! Have a great week, and have fun playing guitar.
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If you have any questions or comments, you can reply to this post, let me know on Twitter or by posting in our Facebook group. I also have a fun Instagram channel where I post fun guitar pictures throughout the week, and do a guitar radio show called Amped Up!
Brian Sutich is a guitar player, audio engineer, podcaster, teacher, and hockey fan. He loves learning, helping people, and drinking way too much coffee.
