I’m having a dry week. I want to post some stuff, but I just don’t have the motivation or don’t really know what to write about. So here is something that has been sitting in my drafts for like a year.

Here is a guitar technique that I stumbled across while browsing some YouTube videos called double down up. It is sort of a switch-up for alternate picking (down up, down up) that you can use when skipping strings. Instead of following the down up pattern when you skip down one string you want to use two down picks and then pick the second string up again.

Once you build up some speed it can be a really great sounding technique as is shown in this video. The first half is really show as he shows the technique, but if you skip to the 3/4 mark you can hear it in action.

I think this guy totally over does it, but if you were to master this and just toss it in for a few notes every once and a while it is one of those tricks that could really make your playing stand out from others.

Children of Bodom has the new song they wrote for Viva La Bands Vol. 2 up on their MySpace page. It’s called Tie My Rope.

The album is slated for release on September 4th and includes songs from 19 other bands and has 7 exclusive songs.

Head over and check it out.

Eric Clapton’s 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival started at roughly 11:45 today in Chicago. If you were not lucky enough to get tickets in the 10 minutes between the time they went on sale and were sold out you can watch it live for free on MSN. Click the image above to go to the stream page on MSN.com.

Just a note… this is currently only streaming in some kind of Microsoft compatible format. This stream didn’t work on my girlfriends Mac or on my computer running Kubuntu. You seem to have to watch it on Windows in Internet Explorer. If you try from a different OS or browser it just gives you a message saying the Flash version will be available later.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months you should already know about the Crossroads Guitar Festival. The concert is featuring a handful of famous guitar players in support of Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Antigua drug and alcohol rehab center. Crossroads, created by Clapton in 1997, was originally intended to help support people from the island of Antigua and the Caribbean who wanted to overcome their substance addictions. The center is now internationally recognized as a Treatment Center of Excellence.

Many guitarists are playing at the festival to raise awareness about substance addiction. Artists on the block include Jeff Beck, Cheryl Crow, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, BB King, Los Lobos, John Mayer, Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton himself, and many more.

Crate has just released the first Amp with a USB port and it’s looking pretty enticing. This thing is seriously packed with a lot of crap (good crap I mean). First off it is a stereo mini five-watt amp. Thats right, I said stereo. This eight-inch tall, six-pound bad boy comes packed with two four-inch speakers. This sucker blows away all of the other guys mini amps.

Crate packed in gain, delay, and a slew of effects including chorus, flange, auto wah, and reverb. The effects are always fun to play with, but usually end up going unused in actual playing, well except for maybe reverb.

On the back side we have a mini-jack for headphones and a mini-jack for audio input (usually used to connect a CD player or mp3 player). The unit uses a 9-volt battery for portable power or there is also a jack for a 9-volt 700mA AC adapter. I couldn’t determine whether or not the AC adapter was included in the package or optional. Usually if it is extra they will mention that and nowhere I read said it was optional, so I would be inclined to believe it was included in the cost. The adapter is included with the amp.

The real standout feature (if all of the above was not enough) is the fact that this amp is the first ever to have an integrated USB port. Bundled with the included Mackie Tracktion recording software you have a portable guitar recording device with built in effects. Basically what we have here is a POD sans a few effects and models, but with stereo speakers. I would hope you would be able to record with whatever software you like… but that is not certain.

Crate Profiler Model 5 Amp Feature Set:

• Stereo 2×4″ speakers
• 5-watts of power
• 8″ tall weighing less than 6lbs
• Stereo DSP including Chorus, Flange, Wah and Tremolo
• Separate Delay, Reverb and 3-band EQ
• USB port for computer recording
• Includes Mackie Tracktion 2 Recording Software for recording USB output
• Carying handle
• Headphone output mini-jack
• CD/mp3 player input mini-jack
• Powered by 9-volt battery or AC adapter
• Includes AC adapter (Thanks Dustin for the tip!)

So what is this going to set you back? Well Musicians Friend has them listed for $159.99USD and you can pre-order them today! The first batch of orders will ship August 7th, 2007. If they get too many orders you may have to wait for their 2nd shipment.

I have been looking into a computer recording device lately. I have been weighing the options from manufacturers like Line 6. Looks like I might have a new option to consider.

If anyone knows whether the AC adapter is included or not, please let me know.
Thanks Dustin for leaving a comment and letting me know that the AC adapter is in fact included with the amp.

It looks like Seymour Duncan is looking to move in to steal some of EMG’s active pickup market with their new Blackout pickups. I only say that because they are active pickups and they look exactly like EMGs, complete with the metallic logo in the bottom right hand corner.

Blackouts are a new set of 9-volt active pickups from Seymour Duncan. Before starting their design the company did some research and claims to have found a a fundamental flaw in the design of the circuitry that causes signal compression and a loss of frequency response. They concluded the problem was the use of an unbalanced differential preamp. Therefore, in Duncan’s design they use balanced inputs which made Blackouts 14dB quieter than EMGs the competitors. As a result they claim you get more lows, more highs, more output, and less hum.

They do their regular round of name dropping to promote the product, citing players who have switched to Blackouts like Mick Thompson of Slipknot, Corey Beaulieu of Trivium, and Mike Schleibaum of Darkest Hour. To be fair, I’m pretty sure these guys were all already Seymour Duncan artists… so it’s not like they jumped over from “the other guys”.

Blackouts are already available for purchase. The neck and bridge pickups will be sold individually and in a two-pickup matched set. Battery life is 1420 hours for one pickup, or divide that by two for a set of pickups.

I Love my EMG 81/85 active pickups, but I have always wanted to try some Seymour Duncans. I think this is probably where I would start.

Here is some news for the locals. The Calgary International Blues Festival is happening here in town from the 23rd to the 28th of August. There will be quite a few big names at the show including Edgar Winter Band, Rick Derringer Band, Kinsey Report, Alberg Cummings, and Jimmy Bowskill to name a few.

Tickets are kind of steep for a 1 day pass at $50. If you are really into it and you want to get the full 4 day pass it’ll cost you $140. I may hit it up for one day, but I would have to decide on a day first. I think out of any of the days I would want to go on the 23rd to see Rick Derringer, Edgar Winter, and Jimmy Bowskill.

Anyway, if you are in the area and love blues, check out the Calgary Bluesfest website for more details.

This is a pretty amazing video I just found. I believe this was for Young Guitar Magazine. Usually when the guitar masters show us their signature techniques they don’t really go into much detail. In this video Dimebag goes into perfect detail how he plays harmonics and how he does those crazy squealing dive bombs like at the end of Cemetery Gates.

Basically in his technique he flicks the string with his left hand, dives with the whammy, and then hits a natural harmonic on the way back up. It seems so simple, but seeing Dime do it close up is just magical.

Alexi Laiho uses this technique in his playing as well.

I’m having a bit of a dry day today. I don’t really feel like writing or reading too much. I am trying to research a few things I have wanted to write about but somehow I just keep ending up back on YouTube.

Although I don’t really want a Dime signature, I am pretty sure my next guitar purchase is going to be a Dean ML of some sort. Here is a Guitar World video review for the Dimebag signature Cowboy from Hell I just watched on YouTube .

Apparently the tape is to keep the strings from catching on the pickups when Dime did his crazy dive bombs.

UPDATE: It is now 8:43am mountain time. Since this has already aired on the east coast you can catch a few video clips on the ABC website here.

Ok, who is skipping work tomorrow morning? I’m lucky enough to have the day off, so I’ll be at home. Good Morning America should air here in Mountain Time at 8am on channel 5. You can watch it on whatever channel abc is in your area.

I’m not a huge Mayer fan, but I’m a little excited to see what this Clapton guy is all about. Eric Clapton will be John’s special guest for the show.

But seriously folks, how can you have Clapton as YOUR special guest and not feel like a god among men. “Yeah, I’m going on the Good Morning America show tomorrow. What? A backup guitarist? Naah, I’m good, I’ve already got one. Eric Clapton AKA God is going to be backing me. He’s pretty good… I guess…”

John Mayer has been gaining in popularity over the last few years, and not just in the screaming lusting female-teenager demographic. He has gained a lot of respect from the guitar and blues communities, hence the whole Clapton thing (see above).

The singer, writer, blogger, stand-up comedian and shoe designer has also become a bona fide heartthrob. Since bursting onto the music scene in 2001 with his first major studio album, “Room for Squares,” Mayer has sold millions of albums, won five Grammys and broken hearts — sometimes famous hearts — in both hemispheres.

That first album featured the hit “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” rumored to have been inspired by then-girlfriend Jennifer Love-Hewitt. It won him a Grammy for best male pop vocal performance.

Source: ABC News

Ohhhkay holld on, John Mayer dated Jennifer Love-Hewitt? Seriously… her body IS a wonderland. That song just took on a whole new crazy kind of meaning for me. Every time I hear it now I’m just going to imagine John Meyer saying “yeah, I hit that”.

On a side note, Fender will be releasing their limited edition Eric Clapton Crossroads Stratocaster AKA the Sun Strat. The proceeds will go to help support Claptons Crossroads Centre. Crossroads is a rehab center created by Clapton in the late 90s.

One week from saturday the Crossroads Guitar Festival will kick off in Chicago. Clapton and Mayer will perform again, but this time it will be a full concert. Other guests include Jeff Beck, Cheryl Crow, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, BB King, Albert Lee, John Mclaughlin, Willie Nelson, Jimmie Vaughan, Steve Winwood, and more.

[Via Modern Guitars Magazine]

Summer NAMM will be kicking off July 27th, 2007 and running through the 29th at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas. Once again I will watch from the sidelines in pure jealousy. As we all know the NAMM trade shows are only open to association members, and to be a member you have to either be a manufacturer or retailer of musical paraphernalia. Oh yeah, and if you work in the media too, then I guess you get to go. I guess I could be considered media right? Somehow I don’t think my personal blog would get me in the door.

If you happen to be going to Summer NAMM 2007 and you would be interested in providing me with details, photos, or whatever from the show, please feel free to contact me… ya lucky bastards.

I have had this starred for a few weeks now. Arch Enemy has announced the release date of their next studio album Rise of the Tyrant. The album is slated to be on shelves September 24th, 2007.

I love the last few Arch Enemy albums and I’m excited to hear this new one. I don’t have any cover art for the album as of yet, but the track listing is as follows:

RISE OF THE TYRANT
Blood On Your Hands
The Last Enemy
I Will Live Again
In This Shallow Grave
Revolution Begins
Rise Of The Tyrant
The Day You Died
Intermezzo Liberté
Night Falls Fast
The Great Darkness
Vultures

In related news, Christopher Amott has returned to Arch Enemy after a 2 year break. Christopher was an original member of the band, but decided to take a vacation from Arch Enemy in 2005 after recording Doomsday Machine. He took some personal time for himself, saw the world and now he is back to slay some more metal.

Christopher’s brother and band mate Michael Amott comments on Christopher’s return to the band:

“So, we are back with my brother Christopher on guitar—it’s a huge rush to have him back playing in his signature style. He’s jumped in at the end of the songwriting process for the new album and added some of his unique spice. I feel Christopher’s playing has matured and is more precise and even faster than before! Guitar fans are going to freak out at the stuff we’re up to on the new album!”

This has me so much more pumped for this new album. I am pretty sure it is going to rule all of life.

Arch Enemy has already set some dates for the album tour with more to come. No Calgary date on this tour yet, but I’m holding out for some updates.

Right now Fender is holding a contes to allow us guitar fans to win one of two John Mayer Fender Stratocasters. The first prize is the exact master-built Continuum Strat that John has been playing on his summer tour. The second prize is one Limited Edition John Mayer Signature Stat. There are only 500 of these signature Stats being made and this one will be signed by Mayer.

All you have to do to enter to win one of these is head over to Fender.com and create a Fender Profile on their website. Fender says the profile is to give you access to their online community, but I think it is so they can send you junk mail. Either way, I’m sad that this is yet another contest not available to us living north of the border. So, I guess I meant to say all you have to do is be living in the US of A and create a Fender Profile.

I have been following this story lately about YouTube pulling over 100 videos created by NextLevelGuitar.com that show people how to play portions of copyright songs. Apparently YouTube received a take down request stating that the lessons were a copyright infringement. I first read about it in the post Guitar Lessons Removed from YouTube in Copyright Dispute on Guitar MX Blog.

Reading on the Next Level Guitar forums I found out that the copyright claim was filed by ABKCO Records. If you aren’t familiar with their history read up on the Bitter Sweet Symphony fiasco. After reading that it is pretty obvious why Next Level Guitar isn’t planning on fighting this. Instead the site will release new videos that indirectly teach people how to play copyright songs. We will have to wait and see what kind of shape this takes.

So is it really illegal to teach someone how to play a copywritten song? I don’t really want to get into the logistics of copyright law, but I want to know where exactly the line is drawn? Are the videos infringing on copyright because they are teaching (thus taking away from sheet music sales) or just because they contain a derivative of copyright material in them? Either way it’s common knowledge that if anyone anywhere is making a profit directly or indirectly from a copyright material the record labels wont be very happy about it. There are thousands of videos on YouTube teaching people how to play songs on the guitar. I think the reason the Next Level Guitar guys were targeted was because they were using these videos to promote their guitar lesson website and were indirectly making a profit from the material.

Here’s something interesting though, Next Level Guitar has started a new channel on YouTube housing copyright free material and the channel is the most subscribed this week, most subscribed this month, and #2 most subscribed of all time. Thats pretty freaking impressive.

Justin Sandercoe from justinguitar.com has yet to run into any issues with his YouTube videos. His YouTube account hosts several different lessons for songs like Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and Cold Play’s Trouble. Justin is less obvious about making a profit from the music. He only asks people for donations to help keep his site running, which is far from a profit. On the other hand, Justin does attract people who are interested in hiring him as a personal guitar instructor. This could make him a target for copyright infringement complaints. I think he knows this though because he has taken some preventative action by moving all of his videos that contain copyright material to their own channel called JustinSandercoeSongs. So if or when YouTube cracks down on him, none of his copyright free videos should be affected.

This is a story that I am going to be paying close attention to over the next little while as I have been considering putting up some videos of my own. I would never look to make a direct profit from the videos, but the copyright holders may not care about that. I’ll have to watch what Next Level Guitar does to sidestep copyright infringement while still teaching people how to play their favorite songs.

After seeing IG tag Cary from Electric Guitar Review I now see that Cary has tagged me in this Eight Random Facts madness. So here we go, here are eight random facts nobody cared to know about Matt Van Stone, but will now know.

1. I recently moved to a new house and my phone is not working. I am currently on hold with Shaw technical support trying to get my phone fixed.

2. I do not have a middle name and that really shocks a lot of people. Most people assume I say that because I have some horrible middle name like Remus or something, but my birth certificate doesn’t lie. I have none.

3. Sandwiches are my favorite food. I like breakfast sandwiches, sandwiches at lunch, dinner, and as snacks. Whether it’s cold meat or PB and J, I never get bored of them. Ask my girlfriend, I have been feeding her them for two years now and shes sick of ‘em.

4. I was home schooled between grade 2 and grade 7 at which point I went back to public school. I realize now that I put way too much effort into high school. Kids… dont read this, but I still believe it was mostly a waste of time.

5. If I didn’t go down the computers/IT career path I probably would have become some kind of a wood worker. Wood working and Computers were my favorite two subjects in school. Playing guitar was my favorite outside of school.

6. I love cheesy horror movies. In fact, yesterday was Friday the 13th and I had a cheesy horror movie party! We watched Freddy vs Jason (not so cheesy) and Adam and Evil (VERY cheesy). Basically we went to the local video store and found the best worst movie we could find in the horror section completely going by title and synopsis. It was a toss up between Adam and Evil and Death Tunnel.

7. I used to be a closet GAP whore. On any given day I could be caught wearing at least one piece of GAP clothing, and in some situations only my socks and shoes were GAP free. I have grown out of that, secretly I miss the GAP, but I can never find anything there I want to wear anymore.

8. I can’t grow a beard because it comes in too patchy and that saddens me on a daily basis. It sucks to have to shave all the time, but it sucks even more knowing I couldn’t let it grow if I wanted to.

Well there you go. I hope you learned something interesting.

And now to pass the curse on, here are a few people I’d like to tag:
Dave from eightface
T.L. from indieguitarist
Wookie from GuitarToyBox
Rich from GuitarBlog

And since Cary, IG, and I all seem to read the same blogs I only have 4 to tag. But I would like to double-tag Lori from Play Like a Girl and J.P. from Strat-O-Blogster.

Here is another quick roundup of a few stories I have starred in my trusty Google Reader.

GuitarSite.com has posted the top 10 Seymour Duncan pickups in 2007. This information was obtained through the Seymour Duncan newsletter. I have EMG pickups in my Epi right now, but I have always wanted to give some Seymour Duncans a go. This list should help me make my pick.

Musicnotes Inc. has reported that it has reached agreements with several thousand music publishers to allow the digital sheet music provider to offer free tab downloads online. MXTabs.net was a huge tab archive that was taken down by the MPA in June 2006. If you visit the site now you have a message that states they will be returning summer 2007, so I’ll be excited to see what kind of music is available when it is relaunched.

Yet again Lori Linstruth has put together another great tool for guitarists. This time it is in the form of blank tab sheets for noting down your riffs. Great work Lori!