Inside the Hey St. Jude Session

For those of you who aspire to do session work, here's a little view from the inside with some comments. I'd say this is a typical session, but every session is different, and some are very different. In this one we were hired to replace a karaoke track of the original tune that had already been sung over, by various artists, actors, athletes, and other, and edited. This posed some very unique and complex issues which the arranger and engineer handled flawlessly. I played bass, acoustic and electric guitar and even helped out with handclaps. here's my inside look...

Here's the final product...

A Recent Session

I did this one last week. It was fun to get the Beatle bass out, as well as the Epi Casino and my ol Gibson Folksinger to try to replicate the sounds and parts of the original.

Get That Gear - Part Five: Avoid Impulse Buys

There are few times when I bought something I regretted. Usually when I thought I really needed something, for what ever reason, and I rushed out and picked it up.

One time I got a call from a composer I'd never worked with before and he asked if I could get the Beatles sound. I had much of the gear that would facilitate the sound of the band that is the reason I play guitar, a Les Paul, a Strat, a Rickenbacher 12-string, a Gibson acoustic, but I didn't have an Epiphone Casino. Because I wanted to make a good impression on this composer I decided that I would get a Casino that day. I called around to many stores and the only one that had one was quite a ways away. I drove out and bought it. Didn't even negotiate the price. The fee for the session was going to enough to cover the cost of the new axe.

One problem: the session got canceled. I never ended up working for the composer.

The Casino has seen very little game time. It's a little toyish feeling and it's soap bar pickups were too noisy to be much use for live use and especially session work. It looks cool though.

Another purchase was a 60's Marshall 50 watt head. Ultimately I got a good deal on this one, but at the time I actually took out a loan to buy it to help build credit. I very rarely used it as it was way over powered for any situation I might need it for and the one time I used it for a session I hooked it up to a Rocktron Juice Extractor and blew the power transformer. Doh! It was one of those things I thought I should have, not something I really needed. Still to this day hope to start doing sessions where I can bring lots of heads (as I have a few now). Some day.

My point here is that resources for most of us are limited and can't be wasted on ill-conceived or hasty purchases. Take a deep breath, count to ten and put your wallet back in your pocket. But if it meets the criterium for your next purchase pull the trigger.

In my next post I'm going to contradict everything I just said here. Haha.

Guitar Gear of the Greats