Mark McKenzie is an awesome guitarist, highly fluid, fluent and versatile. He`s also a great teacher. Mark has just finished filming the video for the Sultans of Swing tutorial for Song Pond and sitting here in the office, just kicking back with a coffee, it`s a pleasure to listen to the riffs in the edit suite, and have a chat with him too about guitar techniques, riffs, chords, playing by ear and all the other jazz guitarists tend to yak on about.
What is particularly interesting about Mark is his choice of equipment. Mark is no dinosaur when it comes to kicking out the jams…unless there`s a digisaurus laying buried in the soil somewhere. On a personal level Mark may have also delivered the solution to some of my own recording woes – having to haul several different guitars through the airport on multiple trips to the recording studio has become a logistical, risky nightmare.
Mark is using a Line 6 variax guitar and a Line 6 amp. Variax gives you an endless variety of sounds from classic acoustic and electric tones all the way to sitar and banjo, all in one instrument. I`ve had a quick play and Mark has taken me through a demo: the guitar plus the amp combined gives you a full range of tones and sounds, a range of guitars to choose from and a range of effects. For example the sounds from Sunshine of Your Love, Smoke on the Water, Pink Floyd instantaneously dialled in.
Cameron our tech guy and resident DJ has also pointed to a similar offering from Gibson – the robot guitar.
Here are some more blog posts about digital guitars, tools and concepts:
3. Tesla Niwa
4.Fender G DEC digital modelling amp
5.Ovation iDEA electro acoustic with built in practice recorder
