Sound Clip Info

Jerry Stevenson Notes

As a long time friend of Mike Scuffham I was really pleased to be asked to help with the testing of his software and making some sound clips. He has asked me to write a little background info, so here are a few notes regarding the S-Gear sound clip recordings...

EQUIPMENT
I usually work on a Mac these days, so the backing tracks were originally created in Logic Pro 9. I then did a rough stereo mix which I imported into Tracktion on my Windows XP computer to play the guitar tracks, and used either the Native Instrument's Rig Kontrol or the IK Multimedia Stealth Pedal interfaces for the recording.  

RECORDING
I spent a little while building a suitable tone using the S-Gear plugin and then played the parts. After the recording was finished I took time refining the guitar tone in S-Gear and finding the best speaker combination and delay effect to use for the tune. I also find that when listening back I usually need less drive than I thought I did while playing...

The finished S-Gear stereo track was then exported back into Logic Pro 9 for the final mix. A couple of the guitars were refined with a touch of e.q.- no more than 1dB here and there, but most of the clips are just as they were in S-Gear with a splash of reverb. Many of the basic sounds I used for the recordings are to be found in the factory presets which I then modified slightly to match the track. To me the 'present' quality of the S-Gear tones is more obvious when part of a mix, which is why I chose to put most of the sounds in a full band setting with other instruments.

"Noodles With The Duke" - The Duke amp (surprise!) and a Les Paul style humbucker bridge pick up. My first outing with S-Gear.

"Steely Blue Ray" - I wondered what would happen if a load of blues players -for example, BB King, Gary Moore, SRV, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Clapton etc. all ended up on one recording session with only one amp (The Stealer) and a few different speaker cabinets to work with. I'm sure the result would be absolutely nothing like this, but you get the idea...All guitars use The Stealer amp with differing settings, speakers and delay; Guitar 1 is a 335 with both pick ups on, Guitar 2 is a Les Paul bridge pick up, Guitar 3 is a Strat neck pick up, Guitar 4 is a Les Paul bridge, and Guitar 5 is (I think) the Les Paul with both pick ups on. The different guitar's characters come through nicely I think.

"Stolen Time" - My Strat neck pick up with The Stealer amp and a modulation stereo delay. The tune is aptly named as I spent a whole evening noodling after nailing this tone...

"Day Of The Dog" - All three guitars are played through The Jackal amp with the drop tuned Les Paul and various pick up, amp, speaker and delay settings. This amp can be really deep, tight and aggressive without being harsh and I think this track shows it off well.

"Jackal Country" - I'm using my HTS custom guitar with the coil tapped humbuckers on and through The Jackal clean channel. It's just starting to break up which gives the single coil a nice thick twang. (I intend to make another clip of the versatile Jackal amp when time allows.)

"Klaptonite" - The Stealer amp and a Les Paul bridge pick up (what else?) I accidentally found this sound after recording "Steely Blue Ray". Having spent about an hour playing all the vintage Cream style EC licks I could remember I thought I'd record a bit for fun playing to a metronome. When I heard it back I just had to add some drums and of course find a suitable bass loop which I also put through S-Gear to give it a cranked up live feel.

"Thrilling Touch" - The Duke in fine expressive form with the HTS custom guitar and both humbuckers on.

"Dancing with Lions" - The Duke amp again with the Les Paul bridge pick up. This was originally a solo over a loop made from Steely Dan's track Home At Last. I did it after hearing the same track on a forum post being used to demonstrate a Dumble amp, and thought that it would be fun to see if I could find a sound in S-Gear that while obviously different, was just as expressive and dynamic. I was happy with the result, so afterwards I put my own backing track recording around the solo. I also spent some time with the 'raw' guitar pick up recording trying out different plug ins ( Guitar Rig, Amplitube etc.) to see how close I could get. Getting a good basic sound is not too hard with many plugins these days, but the elusive sense of realism, dynamics and depth is definitely S-Gear's biggest strength in my opinion. I'm really looking forward to Mike's future developments with S-Gear.....


Jerry Stevenson


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