The second track in the Gorilla series
Sometimes, while playing, you find yourself thinking, “Wow, I must record this riff or melody.” In most cases, these ideas end up somewhere on a drive or perhaps in a track. Occasionally, you encounter a specific flow or theme that sparks a stream of ideas.
While practicing, I began playing an E9 no 5 kind of arpeggio, incorporating some Mixolydian passing notes. As I played, the ideas kept flowing. Inspired by this, I decided to break the ideas into several parts. The first part became the Yellow Gorilla track, and today marks the release of the Vanilla Gorilla track.
Re amping
In the past few years, I’ve been collecting some cool tube amps, and recently, I added the Synergy system to my setup. However, I’ve never actually used a combination of amps and guitars in a track. Most of the time, I record the base of the song and start improvising until I reach a point where it all becomes automatic, and the flow starts to happen. This is often when I switch on the ENGL power amp and begin serious recording.
However, it also happens when I’m traveling or sitting in the garden, recording something really cool, but the sound is bad. A re-amping box allows me to send a clean DI track (or dirty) to an amp just like I would have played it in the first place. This opens up a lot of options.
In this track, I’ve used the re-amping box for the first time. What you hear at the beginning is a blend of the following guitars and amps.
Guitars:
Hamer USA Centaur, Jem 7V WH ebony, Vintage Charvel DK115 arched, Ibanez JIVA10
Amps :
ENGL 920/100 poweramp for the Synergy : XTC, KH3, VAI modules.
Marshall DSL20
When the song starts the main guitar is a blend of the Synergy XTC, one Vai module with low gain and one VAI module with slightly more gain and less treble. The Blends are slightly panned left and right.
Effects used :
X32 Edison
Behringer MDX1000 and sonic maximizer on Drum track
Digitech S400 for the guitars
Hope you enjoy the track as much as I did recording it.
The track
Listen to the track on your favorite streaming service via this link.
Or listen to it via Soundcloud.