Marty Friedman, Wah Pedals, Question of the Week
Hey guys, I hope you had a great week. If you’re new to Six String Sunday, it’s a weekly post where I collect the best the guitar world has to offer. I watch tons of videos, read lots of posts, listen to all sorts of great music, and then bring it to you right here each week.
There’s a lot of fun stuff going on for guitar players this week, so let’s get right into it.
Wall of Sound is out now — The new album from Marty Friedman just came out on Friday, and it’s exciting. It’s called Wall of Sound, and it lives up to its name. Marty’s playing is great as always, and he brought a few guests along too. Multi-instrumentalist Jinxx (Black Veil Brides) is on one of the heaviest and most ear candy-esque tracks on the album, called Sorrow and Madness.
There’s also Shiv Mehra guesting who’s from the band Deafheaven, and Jorgen Munkeby who plays sax and more on the track Something to Fight. If you have no idea who Marty Friedman is, let’s fix that! Marty came up playing with Jason Becker in Cacophony and also released a bunch of solo albums. He then was part of one of the best lineups in Megadeth, and then left to move to Japan, where he kept releasing solo albums and teaming up with great guitarists.
Marty’s currently on tour, and I got to see him and Scale the Summit play in New Jersey last night. What an incredible show! I’ll have a writeup about it some time this week. If you can catch this tour, go out and support these musicians!
Pedal rec Jim Dunlop 535Q — This week on my guitar radio show Amped Up! I was talking about great guitar players who love to use wah. I was playing all different types of guitarists, which showed off different situations for the wah. Everything from the theme to Shaft, to Kirk Hammett, Tom Morello, Jerry Cantrell, RHCP and more.
I wanted to recommend one of my favorite wah pedals, the 535Q from Jim Dunlop. I remember upgrading my original Jim Dunlop to this model as soon as I heard it was going to be released. In addition to having a cool boost built right into the pedal, it also has a selectable frequency range, and you can also change the Q of the sound. The Q is the bandwith control, so you can have a more bell curve or narrow bandwith. This has always allowed me to dial in some of the best wah tones ever.
I love using a wah. I think if you use it in good taste it can amplify leads and chords. Do you use a wah? Let me know!
Question of the Week — I’m thinking about making cool “cheat sheets” for guitar players and offering them on my website for a tiny fee ($1-$5?). This could be anything from 20 great blues licks to 20 chords you need to know, etc.
What are you looking for as a guitarist that’d help you? I’m always taking feedback from these posts and turning the answers into posts on the site, so I wanted to reach out to you guys first when it came to this stuff. I want to make sure it’s helpful. Just respond to this post and let me know what you’re looking for. Plus if you have any questions about guitar, music or even recording and mixing, you can always email me at Brian@ChasingSound.com.
TabBank and Learning for the Month — I reviewed the great new app called TabBank, and after I reviewed it, it landed at the number one spot on the App Store’s front page! If you’re looking to create great tabs and chord charts, with lyrics, go check this app out. It’s free with in app purchases for additional features.
Being that it’s the beginning of August, I also wrote a post called What’ll You Learn This Month? If you need a kick in the butt to learn something new, this is the post for you. It’s all about getting started today, setting small goals, putting in the time, and starting slow.
Every Guitar Player Should See This — I love this video from Music Is Win. It’s about 8 guitar lessons that Tyler’s learned from some of his guitar heroes. He takes clips and gives good insights as to how these guitar players have helped his own playing. Also this week, he weighed in on the 10 greatest guitar melodies of all time. Do you agree with his list? There’s some great licks on there!
Gretchen Menn tests the HeadRush pedalboard — Gretchen is such a great guitar player, and she’s also a music geek, which I love. I enjoy checking out her Instagram where she posts lots of great guitar and music related stuff throughout the week.
Recently she tested the HeadRush multi-effects pedalboard. It seems very cool! What do you use? An all in one, or multiple effects pedals? Let me know by reaching out on Twitter or Facebook!
That’s about it for now friends! Have a great week, and have fun playing guitar.
Enjoy this post? Please tap on that 💚 below to let other readers find it!
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.
Brian Sutich is a guitar player, audio engineer, podcaster, teacher, and hockey fan! He loves learning, helping people, and drinking way too much coffee.
