This is a very special song to me – it contains many specific musical elements and it was a real challenge & fun to make. I think it is worth to write down a few interesting facts about it :)

The song is a combination of my authentic work and some elements/variations of the old Macedonian traditional folk song 'Jovano Jovanke'. A well known adaptation of this traditional song comes from the legendary Macedonian guitar guru Vlatko Stefanovski and his band 'Leb i Sol'. Being a huge fan of Vlatko and his work for as long as I remember, it is no surprise that '57 Guns in many parts feels very inspired & influenced by him. At least I hope so :)

You'll immediately notice the unusual 7/8 time signature, which makes the song not only more demanding to play (just ask my drummer, he really did a great job on this one in the studio), but also more attractive and interesting to listen to.

I played all guitars and a bass guitar in my living room ... no kidding !!! How is this possible, some of you may ask? Well, for all guitar work, the excellent Scuffham Amps S-Gear guitar amp simulator plug-in was used. Furthermore, the challenging task was to use only one amp for all duties. As the latest S-Gear v2.4 release contains the brand new Custom '57, it was a logical choice to use it.

As you can hear, the amp was pushed to its limits, covering all kind of stuff with the excellence: clean, crunch, overdrive & heavy. Only factory presets were used with some minor tweaking. Definitively, a small amp with a BIG soul, very dynamic & musical ... uh, I like things being musical =:)

Additionally, Electro Harmonix Q-Tron+ envelope filter pedal was used on some minor parts and Ignite Amps TS-999 overdrive plug-in was used with some 'heavy' solos.  The song was recorded/mixed/mastered with Cubase 7.5/Nuendo 6.5 using a bunch of plug-ins – I won't go further into the details, because it would be beyond the scope of this information.

The following guitars were used:
- G&L S-500 strat (G&L MFD single coils) for clean/crunch parts
- Paul Reed Smith Custom 24 20th Anniversary Edition (humbuckers) for hard & heavy parts/solos
- G&L L-2500 custom shop bass

Drums recorded in studio "Garbage", Ljubljana – studio technician: Drago Popovič
Drummer: Boštjan Vajs
Mix/Master: me & myself :)

Enjoy listening to this one, I really hope you'll like it :)

Franci Zabukovec – Zabukowski

www.zabukowski.com