Red Ant

Why? I never blame the tools

Sal Marquez.

Its the exact opposite for me, since the advent of digital I focus even more on the input side - that's your last chance to make it warm and musical.

I've got an autographed copy... I used to work for Loud, Inc. which had Ampeg as one of its brands, and part of my gig was doing Ampeg clinics with varuous people, Vic being one of them. I've spent many, many hours on drives talking music with Vic, and more than a few hours jamming, sometimes in the course of the clinics. Was a great experience, and Vic is a sweetheart of a person... though his mysticism does absolutely nothing for me

Vic knows what he's talking about.

While I've certainly witnessed my share of this, I have to call bs on the assumption that this is general practice.

I think its absolutely essential - vital, even - to practice with a click. So that you don't need one to record And in my experience, if you want to "learn time" its equally essential to keep the click on 2 and 4, only.

My "music sensei" (guitar/theory teacher, mentor, close friend) insists that everything changed - and not for the better - with the introduction of the click track. The musicians may still be human, but they're locked into a temporal straightjacket, if you will... it robs the music of its breath, which is essential for imparting human feeling. Im not 100% sold on his theory, but it does make a great deal of sense. Having made hundreds if not thousands of recordings, both with click and without, i can certainly attest that the results are different, and not just in how tight the performance is. Its always easier for an engineer if the musicians use a click, but whenever I record musicians who have "good time" I will usually lobby for them to forgo the click and play "free". And I never use a click on any of my own group recordings.

This, Three Steps, T for Texas, The Breeze... they're all basically the same tune, but I like the tune

While I think LS had their moments, I genuinely love the snot out of ZZ Top... everything from the 1st album right up to Eliminator is pure greasy, bluesy, funky Texas greatness.

Apparently, I don't speak alcohol, cause I have no idea what any of the above has to do with Skynyrd :lol:

Have you seen the '76 Knebworth show on youtube? The whole gig is absolute fire. I'm not the hugest LS fan, but that show is really worth a watch. I can't do Freebird though... have to skip it. This sh*t right here is killin' though... Steve Gaines is almost Duane-like. [video=youtube;SY63KTMrkTM]

Very cool! I bought this Squier for $127 in Virginia Beach 4 years ago - I was visiting my parents and while there was informed that I needed to learn 26 Steely Dan tunes pronto, for a gig. It is SHOCKING how good this guitar is, completely stock. Plays great (after a setup), and sounds great both dry and plugged in. Granted, I played 7 or 8 of them till I found one that sounded good, but still... [ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"20190713_161618.jpg","data-attachmentid":32551278}[/ATTACH]

That's the part I don't like. To paraphrase Hank Hill, "You're not making rock & roll better, you're making classical music worse"