Artist description Focuses on the Amp Tone qualities and playing and production style associated with Acid-rock guitar, exploring the subtleties and variations of cranked-amp tone. All instruments and sounds are treated as rich sonic backdrop for the mystic altered state.

Music Style Rock

Musical Influences Beatles, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, SRV, AC/DC, Van Halen

Similar Artists Beatles, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, SRV, AC/DC, Van Halen

Artist History I bought my first guitar processor, a Big Muff Pi distortion pedal, in high school. Plugged it into stereo with v-shape in the stereo's 5-band EQ, and wondered why it didn't sound like Hendrix's amp tone no matter how I set the EQ. In college, played in bands during the mid 80s and wondered why my small Peavey combo amp sounded unlike the pro songs, and began The Guitarist's Quest for the holy grail of Tone mastery. After college, I quit playing music and only operate the guitar as an input-signal generator for signal processing gear (guitar fx/amps/cabs). I discussed gear online and tested every possible way to emulate a conventional cranked amp setup and obtain classic amp Tones. I create a Web site summarizing the state of the industry's and my own knowledge about the principles of amp tone, with a unique focus in the middle region, avoiding the extremes of circuit details and high-level gear ratings. Instead, I demonstrate and explain how to use any standard guitar gear intelligently, at a block-diagram level of discussion such as "amp's EQ", "amp's preamp distortion", or "2x12 closed-back cab". I've made a point of discussing gear concepts with all types of people throughout the guitar industry, and discuss ideas with many manufacturers. Amptone.com has getting 1 pageview per minute for over a year and is now on a semi-dedicated server.

Group Members Michael Hoffman. Starting to do some online collaboration such as exchanging unprocessed guitar or blues harp WAVs, then sending processed results after reamping through miked tube amp or amp emulator.

Instruments Electric guitar, blues harp, keyboards, and lots of guitar gear

Albums Illumination Valve, 5th Dimension

Press Reviews The press has entirely ignored my site, which is great, because it's *way* over my allotted download bandwidth. I'm almost actively hostile toward the "glitz" and superficial aesthetic of the official guitar magazines. I just focus on delivering the information that guitarists and recording engineers want, without wasting time messing up the site with broken "gee whiz" navigation design and decorations. When I put graphics on the home page, I had to pay tons of overage fees from too many downloads.

Additional Info Special Prince Mix

Location Seattle, WA - USA

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