Thanks guys. I appreciate your understanding. I know I can be somewhat of a drama king.

One thing we talked about was the fact that I was not happy with my guitar tone in my recordings. I played him a youtube vid and asked "how do I get that sound?" Johnny said my Fender Ultralight would not do that. He said my Amplitube VST would and he sat in my chair, with my strat and tweeted Amplitube to give just the right sound as he played. I was very happy to get the instruction on how to set up an amp and to hear the rich tone. After he left, I sat in the same chair, with the same guitar and with the same Amp settings and....you guessed it, I could not get the same tone as him. It must be something in in his playing. Then I looked down and saw something under the chair. It was his pick. He must have dropped it when he sat there. I picked it up, hoping, hoping, ...tried a few licks.... no joy. So it must be his fingers.

He took one look at my Strat and said, "that thing is jacked !!". I guess when I put 10's on a guitar setup for 9's it pulled the bridge why up. It has been like that for years. I thought it was OK. He said, "you can't play that". He turned it over, and opened the back panel, I give him a screwdriver and he adjusted two big screws to pull the bridge down. Then he retuned and said that should be better, "you need to keep your palm by the bridge for muting, that will help". I had no idea.

He looked at my Berhinger mixer going into my audio device of the PC. "what is that for?". I explained how it allowed me to have multiple inputs to my PCI card which only allowed two inputs. "OK, but it is coloring your sound!" He quickly adjusted my guitar to put it directly into the PCI card and bypass the mixer. The difference was noticeable even to my ears. He knew this just by looking at the setup.


Ya, we talked a lot about the 10,000 hour rule. He told me "you are a regular guy, you got a nice house and a nice family, you have a full time job". He told me he lives in his mothers basement and last thanksgiving sat on his bed in his underwear eating a chicken sandwich and playing guitar (he is in his late thirty's I would guess). Music and musicians ain't necessarily like you see on TV. It ain't all glamor for everyone.

To me it is one word, "my lack of musicality". Johnny said it is technique 101. We talked about rhythm. Not just in playing chords but more importantly in improvising lead playing. Playing in the pocket. Listening to the drummer. Talking with the instrument.

I got some stuff to work out...

BIAB – 2025, Reaper (current), i7-12700F Processor, 32GB DDR4-3200MHz RAM, 1TB WD Black NVMe SSD, 2TB WDC Blue SSD, 1TB WD Blue, 2 TB SK NVMe, 6 TB External, Motu Audio Express 6x6