Legacy drive

Folks, Commander Vai has this new Legacy Drive pedal for those into his tone & tube lovers alike. Yes, a 12AX7 tube is in there for em, tube-likeness 😜 My personal experience with tube-equipped pedals- they aren't quite like what they are in amps. Some of them are next to awful. Regardless, here's the Commander himself playing through the Legacy Drive & you just might agree with me that this is one of the worst playing by him: 

11 Most Innovative Guitar Brands You've Never Heard Of

                             By Theleaguelady - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49183958

In a world dominated by Les Paul knockoffs and endless variations on the strat and tele designs, it’s natural to feel like the guitar will remain largely unchanged until the end of time. After all, there’s nothing left to take away or add to a guitar that can make it any better, right?

Wrong.

We’ve found 11 of the most innovative guitar brands in the world right now that are challenging the long held standards of what a guitar should be. The big guitar brands in the world should start taking notice unless they want to find themselves lagging behind in a world of endless innovation. 

Thunder Eagle Guitars

Thunder Eagle guitars design custom guitars, creating some of the weirdest and wonderful looking instruments around. It’s primarily the work of Jeff Ritzmann, who’s taken his experience as an artist and combined it with a passion for guitars to make some truly unique guitars that are both beautiful and sound amazing. Their guitars have been found in the hands of many celebrities, and they’ve gained a strong following in recent years, but despite this, and appearing in Guitar World Magazine, Thunder Eagle Guitars remains a relatively low key brand.

http://www.thundereagleguitars.com/index.htm

IKON Customs

Much like Thunder Eagle Guitars, IKON Customs are a US based brand making a name for themselves on the metal scene as creators of outlandish and beautiful guitars. They use proprietary resin to craft designs that wouldn’t look out of place at a black mass, and their customers rave about the inspirational results.

http://www.ikoncustoms.com/

Stewart Guitars

All guitarists will be familiar with the struggles of packing up seemingly endless amounts of gear and dragging it around from home to gig and back again over and over. If you’re not quite famous enough to hire on a few hands to help out with the labor, Stewart Guitars have developed some extremely useful designs that make guitars much more travel friendly. Their primary innovation is the ‘clip-joint’, which allows the neck to be easily removed. They combined this with a sheath on the back of the guitar for safe storage, with the added benefit of allowing you to imitate a samurai whilst you’re on stage.

http://www.stewartguitars.com/

Blackbird Guitar

Blackbird builds guitars built with the hazards of traveling in mind. Unsatisfied with the weakness of travel guitars, they developed incredibly strong and weather-resistant guitars that can take any amount of punishment. They favour single-piece bodies, and their carbon fibre construction grants them a level of indestructibility rarely found in musical instruments. For guitarists who are playing in humid areas, or are paranoid about the damage caused to their instruments by uncaring flight crews, a Blackbird guitar has you covered.

They’ve also made some stunning innovations in resonance too. In 2009 they appeared on guitarplayer.com with their Super-OM design that featured asymmetrical designs, an offset sound hole, a hollow neck and multiple cutaways for playing comfort, plus the aforementioned carbon fibre construction.

https://www.blackbirdguitar.com/

Greenfield Guitars

The main force behind the harp guitar design at this moment. Their most famous user is likely Andy McKee, who took the internet by storm with his unusual percussive playing styling and use of the bizarre, yet beautiful instrument.

http://www.greenfieldguitars.com/

Fusion Guitar

Smart technology has changed the way we live, and for guitarists it’s no different. Most of the big brands have been slow to adapt to these changes, utilizing the power of the now ubiquitous smartphone only in the margins of their technology. Fusion Guitar have taken the opposite approach, and have made the most common place of items, the iPhone, one of their central components, and the results are unbelievable. They integrated the phone by turning it into a battery, modelling amp, speaker and recording studio - without the need for any cables.

See it in action here:

https://youtu.be/y9UO8QXjbok 

The only real possible upgrade at this point for travel guitars would be to combine it with the incredible strength of a Blackbird carbon fibre construction, and we’d be set to take a guitar anywhere in the world without fear of damage and still have access to all the tools we’ve come to rely on for electrics.

Although there are a few other guitar brands that are trying to bring about a smart revolution for their instruments, none have done it in such an elegant fashion that fits so seamlessly with modern living. It’s also one of the few smart guitars that don't look like a novelty item that’s just for show, and instead seems like a genuine progression of the guitar.

https://www.facebook.com/fusionguitars/

Tronical

Although not a manufacturer of guitars, Tronical have unleashed one of the biggest game changers guitarists are going to see for a while in terms of what they are capable of doing in a live situation.

The Tronical Tune device auto corrects the tuning of a guitar, meaning that it will never go out of tune whilst the battery is charged. It is easily fixed to most headstocks, and also allows you to change from one tuning to another within a few seconds. Accomplishing this in a live playing scenario is technically possible, but doing it in the middle of a song without having to worry about getting it exactly right is quite a challenge.

The Tronical Tune has been picked up by a few legendary players such as Steve Vai.

https://www.tronicaltune.com/

Pitch Key

Like Tronical, Pitch Key have developed a method of quickly altering tunings whilst in the middle of playing. The difference between their approach is in the execution of the idea. With a Pitch Key, a screw like device is fixed to a guitar string, which changes the string to a different pitch when fully turned. The most common application is being able to go from standard to drop D tuning in less than two seconds, and unlike the Tronical it doesn’t rely on battery power, and it’s also much cheaper.

https://www.pitch-key.com/

Babicz Guitars

Babicz most creative addition to the Guitar is the split bridge. It allows the bridge to be easily repositioned, allowing for perfect intonation. Furthermore, the bridge will never need to be repaired due to the seal between it and the guitar breaking, and it reduces stress on the body of the guitar by altering the way the strings apply pressure to the body. 

http://www.babiczguitars.com/

Hufschmid Guitars

Hufschmid Guitars are the work of a single master artisan at the peak of his game. Although the guitars are works of art in themselves and sound amazing, the real innovation is the unique humbucker pickup design. They’re solid cast resin, coated in a patented photoluminescent pigment that causes them to glow in the dark, uses military grade capacitors and high quality pots with an engraved design. They’re only available as part of a Hufschmid guitar, so you won’t be able to get hold of them separately as an aftermarket pickup.

https://hufschmidguitars.com/

Odd Guitars

Olaf Diegel, the force behind Odd Guitars, is a professor of Mechatronic and a leading expert on 3D printing. He combined his knowledge with a passion for music and started creating some of the most intricately design guitar bodies in the world. Every guitar is one of a kind, and full of detail that will take a long time to fully appreciate. They are true works of art derived from cutting edge technology, precision engineering, and deep creativity.

http://www.oddguitars.com/

So there we have it. 11 of the most innovative guitar brands on the planet today. One thing is clear: innovation in guitar manufacturing has never been in a better place. Which one do you fancy trying out?

Ged Richardson runs his own music blog at Zingstruments.com and has a special thing for guitars in general. Check out his stuff over there.

INTERVIEW: Trivium’s Matt Heafy

Trivium’s 2003 debut Ember To Inferno is a landmark release that led to the band’s signing to Roadrunner Records and the worldwide success that followed. Out of print for several years, the band and 5B Artist Management have partnered with Cooking Vinyl to re-release the album, along with a deluxe edition titled Ember To Inferno: Ab Initium that includes 13 additional demos that have never been previously available. It’s a hugely important release for Trivium fans, filling in some gaps in the story of how they became one of the hardest-working and most self-reinventing metal bands in the world. I caught up with voclalist/guitarist Matt Heafy to chat about it.

What would the Matt Heafy of today have told the Matt Heafy of 2003 about what to expect from a career in music? 

If I could look back and talk to myself now I would say ‘be prepared. There’s going to be a lot of good, bad and ugly. You will have good things happen and you will have bad things happen, but all those things will bring you to who you are today.’

How did you grapple with the attention being so young?

Back on Ember, we didn’t have fans at that point. When that record came out, with the distribution deal it had, you couldn’t really find that record anywhere. So we were excited to get signed but when we went to our local record stores, we couldn’t find Ember. When the release first came out it was kind of cursed from the beginning. That label eventually did get their distribution sorted out, but by the time it was sorted, Ascendency was coming out. Ascendency completely eclipsed the release of Ember. And when Ascendency first came out we still didn’t have fans yet. I remember going on tour doing Ozzfest and having people not knowing who we were. The first time we went somewhere new and had fans who were waiting for us was the UK. That was the first time we really experienced ‘Oh wow, people are into our band!’ But in the Ember days, from the beginning up until the Ascendency days, we’d play a couple of local shows in Orlando once in a while, maybe play a dive bar and get five or seven people.

One of the most revealing things I’ve heard in an interview is when Metallica came to Australia in 2013 and an interviewer on the radio asked James Hetfield ‘Did you imagine in 1983 that in 30 years’ time you’d be headlining arenas in Australia?’ and James’s answer was something like ‘Yes, of course. You have to have goals like that and believe they’re going to happen.’

For Trivium the goal from the very beginning has always been to be one of the biggest metal bands in the world. To be the kind of band that makes an impact on the music scene. It’s something that takes a lot of time and it’s always been the goal. When we first came out, when people first started hearing about Trivium and reading about us in magazines, we were known as that band with the cocky ambitions of world domination. People were taken aback by that because we were 18, 19 years old and they weren’t used to people talking like that at that age, but people have got to understand that I’d already been in the band for six or seven years at that point. I’d already been living with that goal of wanting to be a massive band. It’s been that same way since day one.

Take me back to the demo days.

With the Ember reissue it has the Red, Blue and Yellow demos. At the time of Red, that was our first time recording in a decent bedroom-converted local studio. When we went to do the Blue album with Jason Seucof, that was the first time recording in something a little bigger. It was Jason’s garage converted into a little studio. And for us that was the biggest thing we’d ever been in in our entire lives. We did Blue, Yellow, Ember, Ascendency, The Crusade, I did Roadrunner United and Capharnaum, this technical death metal band I have with Jason, and it’s really like a DIY home-made studio. Jason pulled off some amazing things. So by the time we were doing the Blue album it was familiar with us to be with Jason.

At what point did you feel that you guys found your voice as a band?

That’s a good question. From the beginning we always made the kinds of music we wanted to hear as fans of metal. We made the kind of music that we felt was either missing or that we specifically wanted to hear at that point in time, and I don’t recall exactly when we were thinking ‘Oh we’ve really hit our stride now,’ but I can say that looking back now and listening to everything very intensely, I used to love Ember as being a record that was similar to Ascendency, in the same style. But looking back now, it really isn’t. It’s so different from Ascendency. Yes, there is screaming and singing but musically it’s approached very differently. And what’s so cool is it truly is seven records of Trivium that are very different to each other. Some have a little more in common with each other than others but I feel like Ember falls into that category as well. It’s great to see the scale and breadth that the band has, with so much different material that can still fit together. Like today we can play a song like ‘Until The World Goes Cold’ and go immediately into ‘Pillars of Serpents’ and it makes sense. That’s a really great thing and it’s not a contrived feeling.

You guys are in a category that I would put an artist like Devin Townsend in too, which is that you have fans who trust you with their ears, y’know? Whatever you do, they’ll find their personal way to connect with it and they don’t necessarily want it to be the same thing all the time. You’ll always get the people who latch onto one album and want you to make it over and over but they’re probably not the ones with Trivium tattoos. 

Exactly. And one of the cheeky things we always say about us not making the same record every time is, there are enough bands that do that, where it’s pretty much the same record every time. We would never be content to do that. And if you even look at Red to Blue, they’re very different to each other. Blue to Yellow, very different.

How have your gear preferences changed over the years since doing Ember?

I know the Blue album, we recorded with something weird. What was that gold BOSS rack preamp thing?

The GX-700! 

Yeah! I think we used that into an Alesis PA power amp or something really bizarre. I think that was the sound of the Blue album. I could be wrong. With Ember I want to say it was maybe some version of a Peavey 5150 or a XXX head. If I think of all the record it’s always been some form of a 5150 I, II or III into something with V30s or something similar. It’s always been that with an overdrive in front, whether it’s been Ibanez or Maxon or MXR. It’s always worked for us.

It’s so interesting that when Eddie and James Brown designed the 5150, the genres it went on to be used in didn’t exist yet but it’s such a perfect amp for really extreme metal. 

It’s crazy! Y’know, there’s actually a scene in Full House where Jesse and the Rippers were trying out new guitar players and there was a 5150 there. And there was a 5150 onstage with Jesse and the Rippers in a lot of scenes! But every record we’ve done has been some version of a 5150 head. I think with Ascendency, Sneap used maybe a Mesa Dual Rectifier for the leads.

Ember To Inferno is out now.

- See more at: http://iheartguitarblog.com/2016/12/interview-triviums-matt-heafy.html#sthash.aH39o7lA.dpuf

Mod Garage: Four Ways to Configure a 4-Conductor Humbucker

Fig. 1 — illustration courtesy of singlecoil.com

This month we’re going to explore four ways to configure any humbucker that has 4-conductor wiring. (Note: These wiring schemes are not intended for an old-school humbucker with 2-conductor wiring, but rather the modern humbucker that allows coil-splitting and other wiring mods.)

For starters, let’s review our terminology. Looking at a humbucker from the front, we call the lower coil “south” and the upper coil “north.” The south coil is always the “screw side,” while the north coil is the “slug side.” The latter is named for the type of magnetic material used on this coil. Each coil is wrapped with very fine wire, and this wire has a start and a finish. This results in a total of five wires coming from the humbucker:

• North coil start plus north coil finish.

• South coil start plus south coil finish.

• Ground.

The bare wire or braided shield always goes to ground—there’s no exception—so that leaves us with four wires to play with. Having access to the start and finish of each coil wire not only makes it easy to solve potential out-of-phase issues (a subject we’ll cover in another column), but it also gives you the option to wire up your humbucker in one of four different ways. If you’re ambitious, you can use a switch to put several options at your fingertips.

The south coil is always the “screw side,” while the north coil

is the “slug side.”

Every pickup company uses its own color-code scheme for these four wires. This makes discussing humbucker wiring a little more confusing than necessary, but that’s the way it is. As usual, I’ll use the Seymour Duncan color code as a quasi-standard. You should be able to get color-code information for your pickups from their maker, and there are several charts available on the internet that let you compare color-code schemes from different manufacturers. You can use such charts to translate the following wirings into whatever color code corresponds to your particular brand of humbucker. Fortunately that’s not too hard—you only need to know which color wire on your pickup indicates the start or finish of which coil. Once you have that info, you can draw up a reference chart to decode this column’s wirings.

Here’s the Seymour Duncan 4-conductor humbucker color code:

• North coil start is black; north coil finish is white.

• South coil start is green; south coil finish is red.

• Ground is bare wire.

Fig. 1 sums up what we’ve covered so far in the Seymour Duncan format. Now let’s walk through the four ways you can wire up a humbucker. Ready?

Standard humbucker wiring: both coils connected in series. This is the default wiring in almost every guitar loaded with one or more humbuckers because it produces a warm, fat tone with maximum output while offering hum-cancelling capability. (It’s also the factory standard for all humbuckers with 2-conductor wiring consisting of only hot and ground.)

Fig. 2 — illustration courtesy of singlecoil.com

Here are the connections for series wiring (Fig. 2):

• North coil start is the hot output.

• North coil finish and south coil finish are soldered together and taped off (this is the series link).

• South coil start is soldered together with the bare wire going to ground.

“Single-coil” humbucker wiring: both coils connected in parallel. This option gives you a single-coil-like tone, but still retains hum-cancelling capability. It doesn’t deliver a crystal-clear Strat or Tele tone, but to my ears it at least resembles a single-coil pickup—maybe closer to a P-90 than to a standard single-coil. Every type of humbucker sounds a little different when wired this way, so it’s simply a matter of giving it a try to determine if you like the sound.

Fig. 3 — illustration courtesy of singlecoil.com

Parallel wiring (Fig. 3) requires the following connections:

• North coil start and south coil finish are soldered together as the hot output.

• North coil finish and south coil start are soldered together with the bare ground wire.

Coil-splitting humbucker wiring #1: splitting to the south coil. This wiring splits the humbucker in half, shunting one coil to ground and leaving the other coil engaged like a true single-coil pickup. In this mode, the hum-cancelling function is no longer active, so you’ll get the hum and noise of any single-coil pickup. But don’t expect a true Strat or Tele tone: If that’s your goal, investigate the special breed of humbuckers that are made out of two real single-coil pickups. The downside of this type of pickup is that it doesn’t sound great in full humbucker mode, so, as we’re so often reminded, it’s about compromise.

Splitting to the humbucker’s south coil, which is the screw side, is only recommended for neck pickups. (You’ll learn why we’re excluding the bridge pickup when we get to our fourth wiring scheme.) Let’s also remember that in most guitars with neck humbuckers, the south, screw-side coil lies closest to the neck.

Fig. 4 — illustration courtesy of singlecoil.com

For this coil-splitting wiring (Fig. 4), you need the following connections:

• South coil start is the hot output.

• North coil start, north coil finish, and south coil finish are soldered together with the bare ground wire.

Coil-splitting humbucker wiring #2: splitting to the north coil. This wiring follows the same concept as our previous coil-splitting recipe, but leaves the north coil active—that’s the slug side. This version is recommended for a bridge humbucker because pole-piece slugs deliver a fuller sound than pole-piece screws.

Fig. 5 — illustration courtesy of singlecoil.com

Here are the connections for our second coil-splitting wiring (Fig. 5):

• North coil start is the hot output.

• North coil finish, south coil start, and south coil finish are soldered together with the bare ground wire.

Well, that’s it. In a future column we’ll explore how to integrate and control all these options with the help of a switching device. And, of course, we’ll learn how to compensate for possible out-of-phase issues that can occur when you combine several humbuckers or a humbucker with a single-coil. But next month, we’ll dig into a proje

Secrets of Shred: Eddie Van Halen-Style Speed-Picking Technique.

In this lesson, I’ll be showing you a relatively unknown picking technique used by my favorite guitarist, Eddie Van Halen.

It can be heard in countless Van Halen songs, including "I’m the One," "Spanish Fly" and "Jump."

This technique is based on a combination of hammer-on notes and alternate-picked notes. Eddie likes to take a fingering pattern and hammer on the notes on one string, then alternate pick the same pattern on an adjacent string. This creates the illusion that he’s picking every note, when he’s really not.

It allows him to rip up and down the neck with minimal effort from his picking hand. The technique is shown in EXAMPLE 1 below and is demonstrated as a simple pattern in the key of B minor.

Now, let’s take a look at EXAMPLE 2. This example takes the picking approach from EXAMPLE 1 but extends the scale up the neck in the key of B minor. This time, the pattern utilizes only the B and E strings. This scale pattern allows you to quickly transition up and down the neck and not get caught in complex fingerings or picking. Even though a few notes are not completely diatonic, they provide color and sound great in many musical contexts.

EXAMPLE 3 is the exact same pattern as EXAMPLE 2, just moved down an octave to the D and G strings. This is a great trick that every guitarist should know. Whenever you have a lick on the B and E strings, you can move it down an octave simply by sliding it down three frets and playing it on the D and G strings. For precision, make sure to use the same left-hand fingering so that it feels the same in both octaves.

Expanding on this idea, EXAMPLE 4 is the same pattern as EXAMPLE 3 just moved down two more frets to the E and A strings. Remember to use the same EVH picking pattern: three hammer-on notes on the E string followed by three notes using alternate picking on the A string.

Once you have the scale down on one grouping of strings (EXAMPLE 2), you should be able to play the scale at the same speed on the other two groupings of strings. (EXAMPLE 3, EXAMPLE 4) Finally, in EXAMPLE 5, we’re going to move back to our original position and play a run that combines patterns from all of our previous examples. This illustrates how you can take these patterns that move vertically up and down the neck and use them to create runs that stay in one position. If you play it quick, you’ll notice it sounds eerily similar to EVH.

Once you have these examples down, try using this approach to create runs and different scale patterns of your own. Combining the EVH picking technique with these scale fingerings will hopefully open up some new doors for your playing, creativity and technique. Cheers.

Sammy Boller is the guitarist for the Detroit rock band Citizen Zero. They’re touring and recording their first full-length album with Al Sutton and Marlon Young (Kid Rock, Bob Seger, Uncle Kracker). In 2012, Boller was selected by Joe Satriani as a winner of Guitar Center’s Master Satriani competition. He studied music at the University of Michigan. For more about Boller, or to ask him a question, write to him at info@sammyboller.com or follow him on Twitter.

Martin Howe

Something to look forward to- Carl Martin's Lick Box. It's a signature pedal as indicated. I'm a sucker for a stackable overdrive arrangement, especially one offered in a single housing. Pedal will debut this 1st August. 

Going Unplugged

Nirvana did it. Eric Clapton did it too. So did Pearl Jam, Jimmy Page, Bob Dylan, KISS, R.E.M. and Springsteen. These artists and many others, who are known more for their electric performances than they are acoustic, have all at some point unplugged and gone bare bones with their music.

Now, we're not talking "unplugged" in the literal sense, as in no amplification. What we're referring to here is when a musician plays a stripped-down version of their electric repertoire on an acoustic instrument that is amplified, but to a lesser degree. If you remember MTV Unplugged, you'll recall the series wasn't actually a showcase for artists playing their instruments without amplification, but rather for bands performing their songs on acoustic instruments that were plugged in to smaller, less powerful amps.

Going unplugged adds a degree of intimacy to a song that approximates playing in one's living room or around a campfire. It can sometimes feel a little too personal for comfort though, like Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven," which he wrote to cope with the pain of the tragic loss of his four-year-old son, Conor, and Nirvana's haunting, legendary Unplugged in New York performance, which was recorded four months prior to Kurt Cobain's death. Especially poignant is Cobain's rendition of Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night."

When you take a song unplugged, you can't simply play the same song, note for note, on a different instrument and expect it to sound as good as or even better than the original. In most cases, it won't. Average will be as good as it gets. The challenge in going unplugged then doesn't concern trying to be heard, but involves the ability to take an electric song and make it translate as an acoustic one. Compare the plugged-in version of Eric Clapton's signature song "Layla" with the unplugged version, which he completely reinvented. Same song, very different sound.

The key to reworking heavier songs as acoustic numbers without sacrificing the power and passion of the song is to keep in mind the differences between electric and acoustic guitars as well as the context of the original song. Are you playing unplugged as part of a band or in a solo situation? If you are creating a solo acoustic version of a song that's played by a whole band, you'll need to compensate for what the band provides.

The following are some tips to help you adapt an electric piece to an acoustic guitar and make it every bit as compelling as the song it's based on:

Add bass lines to your chord progressions. Learn the existing bass line to the song you're creating the acoustic version from and include elements of it in your arrangement, especially if you are creating a solo version where it's just you, your guitar, and a vocal. This will help fill out the sound more and create movement within your chord progressions.

Swap out power chords for open and barre chords. For a bigger, fuller sound on your unplugged song, replace the power chords in the electric version with open and/or barre chords. This can be a great way to build the intensity and dynamics in your acoustic song when you don't have the distortion of the electric guitar at your disposal. You don't necessarily have to replace every power chord, it really depends on the context of the song. Whether you go with open or barre chords will also depend on the situation in regard to chord picking, embellishments, strumming approaches, etc.

Strum more. Another way to compensate for the loss of distortion, sustain, and lack of other instruments (assuming you're playing without a band backing you) is to strum more in your acoustic version. Strumming can have a very percussive effect on your acoustic guitar, providing you with a cool groove, and can be a great tool for compensating for the lack of other instruments if you are playing solo. It's also great for building intensity and dynamics in your song.

Add bits of melody to chord progressions. A very effective way to round out and add interest to your sound, especially if you are creating a solo acoustic version, is to include hints of the song's melody in your chord progressions. In doing so you will end up with some really sweet embellishments and extensions to your chords. This approach will fill out the progressions of your acoustic song more, and can even provide a nice instrumental break within the song.

Try fingerpicking. Fingerpicking allows you to play more than one note simultaneously. Using your fingers also provides a different tone compared to that of a pick. It comes in especially handy at times when you're walking the bass line and want to put in the chords on the upbeat, and when adding melody lines to the song. Fingerpicking is also useful for arpeggios and embellishment techniques such as hammer-ons and pull-offs, all of which help beef up your sound and make it more captivating.

Incorporate percussive elements. By introducing slaps, knocks, raps and other hands-on-wood effects into your playing, you can enliven and add greater sonic interest to your unplugged performance. Percussive elements are a great technique to emulate the feel of a rhythm section in a solo acoustic song.

Use slides. Certain techniques are harder to execute on an acoustic guitar than they are an electric. String bending is one of them. Due to the extra tension in the strings of an acoustic, it can be difficult to bend them. Sliding is a good substitute. Sliding to your note instead of bending to it will provide a slightly different sound. It's nuances like this that will give your unplugged song that acoustic sound.

Try double stops. Double stops are a great tool to consider when it comes to soloing on your acoustic guitar. Double stops are when you play two notes together at the same time. They help to add intensity to your solo lines. A nice contrast is created between the double stops and your single notes when you use them, and they also thicken up the sound of a riff. This provides you with yet another way to compensate for the lack of distortion and sustain of the electric guitar.

These are just a few ideas to help you get started stripping down your songs. If you play a lot of solos, be sure to dig deeper into the techniques for soloing unplugged.

Have fun experimenting and retooling some of your old favorites. Of course, while you are learning to rework your electric songs as acoustic numbers, it helps to carefully listen to some artists who have done it. Compare their unplugged songs to the original versions to see what those artists have done, then take those ideas and implement them into your own unique takes of songs on your acoustic.