Customer Reviews

Gear Secrets of the Guitar Legends: How to Sound Like Your Favorite Players (Book)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having read the book I'm pleased to say that I found it both interesting, informative, and fun. I like the no nonsense get down to it approach to the different guitar players and there gear. The rundown of the various guitars, amps, strings, and pedals, pedals, pedals used by these "Guitar Legends" (most of them are... but a few really don't deserve that title) gives a great insight in to the many sounds and tones you can generate from a electric guitar. More so Pete and Lisa go in to the playing styles of these players to give you ideas on how to go about adding some of there "Mojo" in to your style.

Perhaps the most important thing I got out of the book was to reafirm what I have felt for many years now. YOUR SOUND IS IN YOUR HANDS...not in some amp, speaker, or little pretty colored box from who knows where. Great Players sound great on anything but, by seeing the choices they have made in guitars and other gear goes a long way into developing your own choices for your own sound and style. I think players of all levels would enjoy reading this book because it covers sounds from the dawn of rock & roll up to the present.

The enclosed CD by Pete Brown has many good examples of the different sounds and playing styles of the many guitarists in the book. It is not a big over produced demo. It sounds like it was recorded at home using gear most of us have or can afford. The cool thing is Mr. Brown has the guitar chops to pull off close approxamations of the various "Guitar Legends" in the book. They are not perfect but they are well done nontheless. See what I mean good players sound good on anything. I'll be stealing some of those licks in no time. Where can I get my hands on Volume 2.

This book is packed with info which will be of great interest to guitar gear-heads. You would have to search throught decades of old guitar magazines to compile the facts found here. A lot of the popular guitar players from the last 40 years are represented here, with the obvious exceptions of Stevie Ray Vaughan, (Beats me as to why any book would leave him out???) and Jimmy Page. It also wastes a lot of pages on several contemporary one hit wonders who will be nobody in a year. For example, Tom Delonge of Blink-182 is included, but Slash, who is actually a talented guitar player, is left out. The CD that accompanies the book was a bit of a dissapointment. With all the info in the book about vintage amps giutars and pickups, the CD was recorded with a computer's digital amp simulator and sound very innaccurate and fake. Still, for the price, it's a lot of good info.

Gear secrets is an interesting book full of the type of thing you would have read in the old Guitar shop magazine. The diagrams are easy to follow and the explanation of the signal chains are often done in the own words of the artist.
There is a good mix of players from vaious musical genres and enough info to satisfy players of all types. Even if you are not interested in certain guitar players it IS interesting to read about how they set up their gear.

I like this book a lot--there a great tips for guitarists on how to improve your tone. I learned that, if you want to sound like a top guitarist, it's not about what gear you own--it's about how you set your amp and effects up, and how you play your instrument. (Just because you buy an Eddie Van Halen guitar, that doesn't mean you're going to sound like Van Halen!)

The CD that comes with the book also demonstrates how to sound like just about anybody--ERIC CLAPTON, VAN HALEN, ANGUS YOUNG, METALLICA and more. Overall, this book has really changed the way I approach my rig and my guitar playing. Cool.

I enjoy reading about the various guitars, amps, and effects that various rock guitar virtuosos use in their performances. I also enjoy reading about the evolution of equipment that these stars undergo over the course of their careers. If you share these interests, this book belongs on your shelf. It is probably the most in-depth treatment of the tools that help these stars create their unique sounds ever published. It is well-written, technically accessible, and filled with first-hand descriptions of the equipment by the stars themselves. It's the sort of book that you'll enjoy reading over and over - I sure do!

Don't know what the *ekstasis16* is talking about--GEAR SECRETS is an fantastic book of guitar-gear information. If you've ever wanted to know how your favorite players get their tone, this is the book to get you going. There are lots of great gear diagrams and interiews. EVERYBODY who plays electric guitar should check this book out. And the CD really COOKS, too.

Great book - I good insight on how equipment is set up and who is using what etc. tone ideas etc not to heavy just interesting reading or reference book. enjoy

I bought this book hoping to gain a little insight on the gear setups of Vai, Satriani, and Petrucci (Petrucci isn't included). But there is nothing new here that you can't learn from going to their websites and looking up their gear list. I'm attempting to construct my own rack setup right now, so I was really hoping for detailed diagrams of signal flow, like specific inputs and outputs on each piece of gear, or at least a note of which was a MIDI connection and which was audio. But, no, none of that here. The included CD isnt very revealing either, as the examples arent even recorded with the artist's chosen guitars. I can understand not using specific gear because it gets expensive real fast, but at least use their guitar, it's one of the biggest tone factors. The musicians included are your standard line up of rock guitarists as well as some who have such a simple setup, such as Tom Delonge of Blink 182, its not even worth including. The best part of this book is the foreword by Vai (cuz I'm such a Vai freak I guess), but I'm gonna recommend you save your money for something else.

The book is superficial and somewhat disappointing; for example it is confusing and unhelpful in Van Halen's signal path. Dave Hunter's books are closer to what's needed. This book is ok to add to a collection, but not the first book to get.

The accompanying CD sounds bad. After gathering articles about genuine star guitar rigs, one editor poured his time and energy into making a so-called sample CD -- using an amp simulator. The CD tracks provide fake, incomplete, half-baked Tone at best. It misleads and misguides beginning guitarists to make them think that this non-range of non-Tone is worth recording. These tone samples are mediocre at best; instead, Dave Hunter's CDs with his good books set a proper standard.

Why would anyone ever choose to listen to this fake sound when they could easily put on a genuine, rich sounding record instead? It's misguided to use the opposite of Tone, to create a CD that is marketed as showcasing the goal amp sounds, including actual power tubes and bona fide speaker distortion, which are explained to some extent within the book.

What this CD ends up demonstrating is negative: why your tone is doomed to sound like a total uninspired amateur and poseur if you use an amp simulator rather than actual power tubes and hard-pushed guitar speaker. The CD perpetuates the divide between kids' gear and adult gear (per the Damage Control founders who broke off from Line 6 corporation). Actual cranked amps are essential to the qualifications of the guitar gods.

This sample CD could be a boon to amp tone, by steering people away from amp simulators, jolting some good sense into them to run out and get instead an actual miked-amp setup, such as a tube power amp and a guitar speaker, possibly in an isolation booth.