In 1992, I invented an online graphics technology (i.e., RIPscrip) which was the recipient of the Dvorak/Zoom Award in 1993 for Technical Excellence in the area of graphical communications programming. The company that owns the RIPscrip technology was TeleGrafix Communications, Inc.. Unfortunately, this company has gone the way of the dinosaur. In their heyday, they had quite a few products available for this amazing graphical protocol.

I'm also serioualy into playing guitar. Since heavy metal has been such a strong influence in my life, my musical style has developed similarly.

Album Name: Twisted Roots
This album is a composition of my own solos over top of existing backing tracks from other musicians. They are my own 'takes' on the songs, and weren't truly influenced by the original records by the artist.
Release Date / Title	Orig. Artist	Len	Size
06/20/2006 - Crystal Spires	Gary Moore	6:35	6.03 mb	Backing by Gary Moore
06/20/2006 - Call of the White Horn	Geoff Whitehorn	5:42	5.22 mb	Backing by Geoff Whitehorn
06/16/2005 - Sunset on the Beach	Gary Moore	6:07	8.80 mb	Backing by Gary Moore
01/25/2005 - Moore Than Enough	Gary Moore	6:24	8.80 mb	Backing by Gary Moore
12/07/2003 - A Touch of Pink	Unknown artist	4:02	6.50 mb
06/17/2005 - Call of the White Horn (#2)	Geoff Whitehorn	5:43	5.13 mb	Backing by Geoff Whitehorn

 

Album Name: Glimpse
These are early works, all of which are original, except for a few drum tracks that I bought on the Internet.
Release Date / Title	Len	Size
04/15/2003 - Too Blue to be New - Version 2	3:31	4.90 mb	Remake of an old tune, much better!
08/12/2003 - NeverWhere	5:05	7.00 mb
12/26/2002 - Living Free	3:49	5.37 mb
10/03/2002 - Lost Dreams	3:33	4.95 mb
07/01/2002 - Forsaken Souls	3:59	5.63 mb
06/08/2002 - Synergy	5:40	8.16 mb
05/27/2002 - Hell Raiser	3:43	5.23 mb	(I'm re-recording this)
01/20/2002 - That Which Has No Name	3:50	5.40 mb
11/18/2001 - Bam Bam She Bad	6:05	8.55 mb
10/27/2001 - Tryste	2:35	3.65 mb
08/15/2001 - Silver Flyer	3:57	5.58 mb

 

Listen At Your Own Risk
These are extremely rough ideas that may or may not end up being full-fledged songs.
Release Date / Title	Len	Size
11/03/2004 - Squeelie	1:01	2.34 mb	Experiment / long-term idea

My friend Walt and I both got back into playing guitar at the same time. We started this god-forsaken-job on the same day, and became fast friends. Coincidentally, we both stopped playing guitar nearly a decade before. I went broke and had to sell my equipment to keep a roof over my head. He quit for similar reasons. But we always yearned to return to the axe-wielding position. It beckoned.

At one point while we were down in this dinky town in Alabama, Walt and I learned a local country bar was closing down. They were selling all the bar's assets. Since it was also a dance club, we "honed-in" immediately on the PA system. Walt nabbed this monster PA system (1200 watts, with the speaker cabinets to back it up!) for a measly $1000.

My First Mixing Board
I snatched up a mixing board. It was a Peavey Unity Series 1000 8-track mixing board for $100. Back when I used to play guitar (like 14 years prior) I never dreamed of having my very own mixing board. But here this was, at a great price. Rugged as hell, and reliable until the day it dies. It was mine!

The Marshall Practice Amp
Among my earliest equipment was a Marshall model "G15R CD" practice amp. At 45 watts and it's compact size, it was perfect for my early playing needs.

Oh yeah, I picked up the cat at about the same time. Her name is Coco, and she's probably the most awesome cat that's ever existed (and NO, I didn't name her).

The ART E.C.C. Effects Unit
I picked up an A.R.T. ECC multi-effects foot unit, and wow! A lot more impressive than all the old BOSS foot units I used to have what I had twelve years ago! Overdrive, compression, delay, noise gate, chorus, reverb, and a dozen other effects, all built into a single (small) box! No more pedals with all their noise buildup!

But alas, it was noisy. It sucked for recording. All the recordings came out distorted, with clipping and other audio artifacts that made the recording sound terrible. I needed something better, that would stand up for recording purposes.

 Roland GP-100

Walt bought this cool rack mount unit that embodies your guitar with incredible range and diversity of sounds. The GP-100 was an incredible little rack toy. I wanted one so bad, I could taste it. I finally stuck it out and bought one off of eBay. Got it brand new in the box for $450. What a steal. It was like Christmas when it arrived. When I opened it, I fell in love. It made the A.R.T. ECC foot-unit look like a bad toy. The sound was crisp, with frequency dynamic ranges I never thought I could afford. The ECC went into the closet. So did the Marshall amp for that matter! My PA system was more than enough coupled with the GP-100.

 ART Model 341 Equalizer

But I still wasn't satisfied. I picked up the A.R.T. 341 rack mount Dual 15 Band EQ. It gave me great control over my guitar tone. Now I could sculpt the sound I wanted from the GP-100. I learned that this little beast can be patched in just about anywhere. I use it for my guitar, but when I need a hardware EQ, it's versatility is excellent. It's XLR connections makes it a great candidate for a house PA system too.

 Korg ToneWorks DTR-2 Tuner

Add a Korg ToneWorks DTR-2 Digital Tuner, and I was well on my way. This little toy saved me quite a bit of money during a time when I was constantly screwing with the intonation of my Jay Turser SG guitar. It had a chronic problem at one point in it's life where it liked to throw its intonation all to hell in no time at all. I purchased this toy so I could have an accurate readout on my current tuning. It really helped with intonation, and tuning in freaky effects situations. Try tuning a guitar "by ear" when you have a flanger turned on. This tool allows you to tune the instrument regardless of the effects that are turned on.

 Mesa/Boogie Triaxis Tube Pre-Amp

But then I hit another wall... The Roland's preamp circuitry wasn't what I wanted. I needed something with ultra crispy gain, heinous crunch. Something well suited for recording purposes.

Enter the Mesa Boogie Triaxis tube-based preamp. With its five tubes and extensive editing range, I soon had a rig that screamed with gain, and had all the awesome sounds. All of a sudden those EMG pickups I invested in screamed into life with all the attitude that anybody could want!

 DBX 266-XL Compressor/Gate

But I still wasn't happy! I needed more edge from my gain - something that would push the harmonics into those squealing tones from Zakk Wylde on Ozzy's "No More Tears" CD. So I went out and picked up a DBX 266XL dual channel Compressor/Gate. This let me compress my tone where I wanted to with more detail than the Roland provided. It also gave me a more finely tuned noise gate.

 Lexicon MPX-500 Effects Processor

The GP-100 starting showing some of it's shortcomings. It's reverb wasn't very good, and its delay was moderately ok. So I went out and got a Lexicon MPX 500 24-bit dual channel processor to give me that cool feel. My sound was getting great! The reverb on this unit was hands down better. It's delay circuitry was also incredible. My sound was getting better by the day!

 Hartke 3500 Bass Amp
Now that I had a bass guitar, I found out that my guitar rack-mount equipment didn't work very well with a bass guitar. The low-ends just weren't there. The bass sounded like a crumby guitar, with no real bass response to speak of. So I picked up the Harte 3500 rack-mount bass amp from a friend, Dan. Not only does it pump out 350 watts of bass attitude, but it also is a combination tube/solid-state pre-amp, where you can "dial-in" the levels of each pre-amp (tube or solid state) to tweak your sound even better. Add-in a "line-out" connection on the back, and I was totally stoked about using this in my rig to give me great sounding bass.

 Carvin 4x12 Stereo Half-Stack
In the summer of 2003, I was down in Arizona at my friend Walt's place, and he decided he didn't want his Carvin half-stack any longer. It was stuck in the back corner of a closet gathering dust. So I snarfed it up for another $150. Yowza - a full blown stack for $300! The Carvin doesn't sound quite as nice as the Jackson, but with both being stereo, I get a great combination sound!

Event Project Studio 8 PA Speakers
While I was living in Minnesota, I picked up a pair of these Event Project Studio 8, Bi-amplified PA reference speakers. They have a great frequency reproduction, and work out very well for mixing final tracks. I would prefer to have a couple serious PA colums, or the monster horizon 1200 watt PA setup that Walt has, but I don't have any room for stuff this sized. These work great as a compromise though.

Cables - Everybody needs 'em
Along the way, you'll spend quite a bit on cables from Radio Shack and local music store(s). Be prepared for this. You'll need lots of 1/4" patch cables, guitar cables, speaker cables, power cables, power strips, and the like. And just when you think the cable nightmare is over, you'll need the MIDI stuff, and the ones you'll need to hook into your computer. Cables are a never ending story. Again, be prepared for this!

The Goodie Box
One thing that I've found to be invaluable, is the Goodie Box. This is basically a glorified tackle box or the like, with lots of compartments. I keep all my wiring adapters, guitar strings, wire cutters, tubes, tools, and various other junk that I wouldn't want to carry around by hand. The more that you start going out to other people's houses, or jam at clubs, you'll need bigger and bigger Goodie Boxes. So far, I haven't needed one too terribly large. It holds what I need, but can only hold about 20 cables. I need something much larger when I decide to go out and start jamming with people! Be prepared to buy a lot of RCS-to-1/4" guitar jack cables, and a bunch of RCA gender changers among other things.

I've also got my guitar rig plugged into my computer, which I use for digital multi-track recording! Using Cakewalk SONAR 2.2 XL, I lay down one track after another until I've got what I want.

The capabilities I've experienced through this recording system have been nothing short of indescribable! I've struggled with limited recording techniques in the past, where only the rich could go into recording studios.

Now you... Me... Joe Shmo... or your dog...can pump out serious-quality recordings -- those worthy of posting online and/or broadcasting.

 The Mixing Board - Connectivity!

You'll need to get yourself a small mixing board to get started. Behringer 6/8-track units seem to be handy, and cheap (under $90). If you can spend the money and grab one of the 16-20 track models like I have shown here (about US $225), I'd highly recommend it.

This one is a Behringer EuroRack MX 2004A I got from a local music shop in St. Cloud, MN. It got lucky and found one with a flat-black finish. Having almost landed a job with Mackie Designs, I was surprised by this brand - I'd never heard of it before. But it turned out to be a great 20 channel mixer (4 are stereo inputs). My life was getting schweeeeet!

If you get into this seriously, you're going to need equipment like this (especially if you "jam" at other people's places, or if you tour).

Once you get the initial equipment, you'll go "hog wild" with "connectivity". You'll want to connect your gear to everything you own. If you get seriously into MIDI-compatible rack-mount gear, you'll have to spend some dough to get totally fixed-up.

TIP: If you take this to conclusion, you'll be mega-ready for high-end audio productions.

NOTE: Try not to go too crazy on the cable purchasing. It's a very easy pitfall to fall victim to. You ARE going to need quite a few cables -- RCA, 1/4", XLR, and 3.5mm computer speaker jacks will become very familiar to you. You're inevitably going to have to purchase numerous adapters from Radio Shack. It can get to be a major "dent" in your wallet. All I can say is to stick with what you need right now - don't worry about "what if I need this thingie for such-and-such in the future?"

If you have a mixing board and/or a computer connected to your rig, then you'll need quite a few cables. Resign yourself to this fact up-front. I got myself a big fisherman's tackle box to store all those cables and adapters, but I quickly ran out of space for the cables. It holds all of the adpaters nicely though.

When you have to start integrating equpiment, you're going to need to inter-connect them. This is going to mean a lot of 1/4" jack (unbalanced) cables. My rack needs quite a few of the 6" and 12" patch cables. The 2 foot and 3 foot cables have also come in handy.

I've also got several rack-mount units that take advantage of XLR cables. These balanced audio cables are "hotter" than the 1/4" unbalanced variety. You have to compensate for their "hot-ness" (i.e., -4 Db for XLR, -10 Db for 1/4") in your electronics. If you feed XLR inputs into equipment, make sure their impedance levels are properly set.

It goes without saying at this stage, that you'll want to purchase the best equipment you can afford: Amps, Cabinets, Effects units, Instruments, performers, and anything else you need.

Cables are more durable than you think. But remember, those cables that are heavily used, are more apt to break. Check them often. Don't ignore them. You can save yourself a great deal of time if you remember to check those cables that you "take for granted" in your Rig's configuration.

You're about to embark on a journey that will result in incredible revelations about sound engineering. If you play an instrument, you'll receive even more rewards!

 Drums (Percussion)

Since I'm not a drummer, I use the computer to play drums for me. You can purchase canned drum tracks to start from at DrumTrax.com. I can't tell you how much this service assisted my guitar evolution. Nearly any song I've put out in the last two years is based on DrumTrax excerpts. Thank god they don't prevent you from doing stuff with their percussive melodies!

I have used DrumTrax MIDI files extensively, and I highly recommend them! Just take the .MID files you get from DrumTrax and apply your favorite Drum-Set SoundFont. Voila! Instant drummer. In fact, the variety in melodies, categorized the way they have them, makes selecting "grooves" much simpler than any other serice I've found.

If I had every toy for my rack that I could possibly dream of, I'd have a rack-mount similar to the mock-up photo to the right. Click on it to see all of the goodies in their full glory. THis would comprise a full Mesa/Boogie amp / pre-amp like I already have. It would also have full Line 6 bass and guitar POD units. Beyond that, it would have extensive PA Mixing equipment for line-switching, headphone distribution amplifiers, rack-mount MIDI-controllable EQ'ing (with spectrum analysis), and much much more!