Petaluma, CA (January 1, 2009) — Rumors of new Mesa/Boogie rectifiers have been confirmed by Haggerty’s Musicworks, who have posted a blog with details and photos of the 2010 amps. Here’s the information via Haggerty’s Musicworks:

Introducing the new Dual and Triple Rectifiers for 2010 – Prepare to meet the finest sounding, most addictive feeling and stylistically versatile Dual & Triple Rectifiers we have ever made!

We’ve painstakingly poured over this new design for more than a year and a half, comparing and play-testing it against original 2 and 3 Channel Rectifiers to ensure that we not only preserved every nuance that made the originals legendary icons, but that any change made maintained or exceeded the original standards… Not a small or simple task, as our competition can attest to, but one that we think you’ll agree was well worth the effort.

We are very excited to introduce the new Dual & Triple Rectifier for 2010 and invite you to plug in and play-test it for yourself. We are confident that it’s going to take you beyond that place you remember… You know, that amazing feeling of almost disbelief when you plugged into a Recto for the first time… hit that first chord and were pressed back with arguably one of the most defining guitar tones of our time. The new Rectos aren’t just that good… They really are BETTER!!! We can’t wait for you to play these new amps and experience that feeling all over again!

New Improvements / Features:
1. Patented Multi-Watt Channel Assignable Power – Allows you to assign either 2 or 4 Power Tubes to each Channel for Power Ratings of 50 or 100 Watts of Class A/B Power via independent 50/100 Watt Power Select Switches. The Triple Rectifier allows you to do the same however with either 2 or all 6 Power Tubes for Power Ratings of 50 or 150 Watts per channel via independent 50/150 Watt Power Select Switches.

2. Patented Channel Assignable Dual Rectification with Recto Tracking – Allows you to assign either Tube Rectification or Silicon Diode Rectification to each Channel to fine tune the feel and character of each Channel.

3. New Footswitchable, Tube-Driven SERIES FX Loop – Vastly improved performance and tone with Multi-Effects than Parallel Loop – Exceptionally transparent in preserving your tone while being easier to use with any type of effects. The original Rectifiers featured a Series Loop.

4. New Tuner Output with Footswitchable Tuner Mute

5. New Compact Footswitch – New 3×3 Stacked, 6 Button Footswitch – Top Row = Mute, FX Loop & Solo, Bottom Row = Channel 1, 2 & 3

6. Improved Clean & Pushed Modes (Channel 1):
* Clean Mode features improved headroom for amazing clarity and the most sparkling bell-tone cleans ever from a Recto, even with hotter humbuckers.
* Pushed Mode features tighter, more focused and percussive low end with an amazing range of gain from Overdrive textures to full-on ripping Crunch.

7. Improved Channel Cloning on Channels 2 & 3 – Raw, Vintage and Modern modes have been further optimized for more similar performance on either channels

8. Improved Presence Control on Vintage Mode – Provides better high-end balance and control between Vintage and Modern Modes

9. No Price Increase – All this for the same price as the current 3 Channel version

Photos from Haggerty’s Musicworks (see blog for larger versions):

We’ll be sure to update you with any more information or details we get from Mesa/Boogie and at NAMM 2010.

Source premierguitar.com

Frusciante, who has released 10 of his own albums over the years, used the band’s break to work on his latest solo record, The Empyrean, which was released at the beginning of the year.

However, MusicRadar.com is now reporting the musician has quit the group to continue work on his own material and has been replaced by Josh Klinghoffer, who toured with the rockers in 2007 and has previously played for Gnarls Barkley and PJ Harvey.

A source tells the website, “Josh Klinghoffer has been playing with the group for a couple of months now. Optimistically, the Peppers are trying to lock down a replacement for John, who has apparently quit. Mentally, John checked out a long time ago. He’s interested in doing his own thing, his own albums – the whole big rock band machinery just doesn’t appeal to him anymore.”

Source: starpulse.com

eBand is the audio player that combines playback of full songs, backing tracks, or rhythm loops with high quality BOSS guitar effects and a built-in stereo speaker system. This all-in-one solution is ideal for guitarists who want to learn songs, solos and riffs, practice new songs outside of band practice, play along with any of their own collection of music, or create new songs while jamming with audio tracks.

Loading music onto eBand couldn’t be easier, with direct playback from any standard USB memory stick or SDHC memory card up to 32GB. eBand also has the ability to import songs from any audio CD using the included utility software.

Unlike traditional audio players, eBand lets guitarists interact with their music by changing the pitch and tempo independently, or using the advanced Center Cancel function to remove guitar or vocal parts. eBand comes with 300 backing tracks and rhythm loops which also include pre-programmed guitar effects.

eBand is loaded with powerful COSM® preamp technology, authentic BOSS-quality guitar effects derived from the BOSS GT-10, and over 100 preset guitar sounds from every musical genre. To help navigate the possibilities, eBand includes the EZ TONE function, providing an intuitive, easy-to-use approach to sound creation based on graphic icons. In addition, tuner and metronome functions are built in, keeping guitarists on time and in key.

Not only can players jam along with eBand, they can record their musical ideas as well using the included USB audio interface. Pressing the Record button during a jam-along session will create and save a new audio file with the entire performance.

Introducing the Les Paul Tribute 1952 Guitar

The passing of the incomparable Les Paul in August 2009 broke the hearts of guitar enthusiasts around the world. What can never be broken, though, is the legacy of innovation and creativity that he built during 94 years of constant musicianship. Though the original guitar he designed in 1952 has informed every Gibson guitar since, our engineers were inspired anew to handcraft a guitar just the way Les demanded it nearly 60 years ago.

————————

Never before has a Les Paul guitar been so completely designed to Les’ original specifications. Until now. Anchored by a golden mahogany body, maple top and rosewood fingerboard, the Les Paul Tribute 1952 is equipped with an all-new bridge that’s an exact replica of Les’ original 1952 patent. Our luthiers have also added historical interest with details like stamping “prototype” into the back of the peg head and staying true to Les’ preference for P-90 pickups. The Les Paul Tribute 1952 honors the most important figure in all of guitar history and the guitar he designed and loved.

For more information, please visit www.gibson.com

Source:  guitarsite.com

Stevensville, MD

PRS SE Business Unit Manger Doug Shive said, “Musicians looking for all Korina guitars now have a new option within the PRS family that is unmatched in the market in terms of price, aesthetics and quality.”

The SE Singlecut Korina features include a solid Korina body, 3-piece Korina neck with 22 fret Rosewood fretboard, 25” scale length and moon inlays. Other appointments include two-humbuckers, a master volume and tone and a 3-way toggle. Vintage Amber is currently the SE Singlecut Korina’s exclusive color offering.

The guitar will carry a street price of $908.

For more information:
PRS Guitars

Source: http://www.premierguitar.com

Like Ferrari, it is a study in superlatives—among the most resonant, durable and lightest guitars in the world. The Rider travel guitar is compact enough to fit in the trunk of a sports car, but it plays and sounds like a much bigger instrument. It looks like nothing else on the market: sleek, black carbon fiber speaks to the high-tech materials and construction while the exclusive Maranello Red interior, accented red A string, and Ferrari Scuderia emblem highlights the passion of world-class Italian motoring.

Blackbird Guitars blends traditional guitar-making with design and construction inspired by Formula 1 race cars. The guitar features a one-piece, hollow neck, carbon fiber construction—and a unique sound port at the head directly influenced by F1 race car design. The high-performance Ferrari pedigree is more than just show—designer and Blackbird founder Joe Luttwak worked for the storied car manufacturer in Maranello, Italy.

This experience laid the foundation for this thoroughbred of a guitar, inspired by Ferrari’s unque commitment to technology, style, and performance. “Great acoustic guitar construction, like great race car construction, benefits from stiff and ultra light materials. Using carbon fiber, like Ferrari’s Formula 1 race cars, for the guitar’s uni-body design produces an instrument that sounds better and is much more durable than any travel guitar available today. Many ideas for Blackbird Guitar’s models were inspired by my time at Ferrari, and it’s wonderful to make a model that honors their unparalleled technology, ingenuity and success.”

All Blackbird Rider models are built for the road with a virtually indestructible carbon-fiber body that is less than two-thirds the size of a standard acoustic, but has nearly an equivalent tone—so players no longer need to compromise tone for portability. Each Blackbird Rider is beautifully hand-crafted, with the carbon fiber expertly constructed to balance tone, weight and strength.

The first run of the exlusive Ferrari guitar series is now sold out, but Blackbird Guitars is accepting special, custom orders on the Rider model. Blackbird Guitars are made in San Francisco by a small team of luthiers by the Bay. The world’s best travel guitars, the Rider steel and Rider Nylon, now start at $1499. The Blackbird family also includes the larger Super OM.

For more information, please visit www.blackbirdguitars.com

The three highlighted modes—Phrygian, Aeolian, and Locrian— are staples of heavy metal. Even their names sound metal. To demonstrate the difference in how each sounds, we wrote a single-string metal riff on the low E string, and changed the fretted notes of the riff according to each mode’s formula.

AEOLIAN
If you play the G major scale starting on the 6th degree, E, you get the E Aeolian mode, which is also known as the natural minor scale. In the first version of our riff [Fig. 1], the highlighted pitches (F#, G, B) seen below are pivoted against the root E pedal tone, giving it a distinct E Aeolian sound:

Play the riff slowly at first, and gradually increase the tempo to about 100 bpm. Watch out for the meter change in the second measure and use alternate picking and palm muting to achieve the full effect. (For a more open and raging feel, try playing it without palm muting as well.)

PHRYGIAN
Next we’ll take a look at the Phrygian mode, which comes from the 3rd degree of the major scale. This is a bit darker than Aeolian as it includes the very metal-sounding b2nd. Here are the pitches and degrees of E Phrygian:

Notice that the only difference between the two modes is the lowered 2nd, but it creates a distinctly different sound. Here is the same riff, but now with pitches from the Phrygian mode. You’ll notice how using F instead of F#, which is only a half step above the root, E, adds a darker shade of evil to the riff.

LOCRIAN
Locrian, derived from the 7th degree of the major scale, is the darkest of all modes. It includes the same pitches as the Phrygian mode with the addition of a b5th—the devil’s interval. We’re talking pure evil here, folks!

Now try our riff again, but this time with the full modal malevolence of Locrian.

So you can see how just a few pitch alterations can really change the feel and sound of a riff—or lick, for that matter. By harnessing the power of the modes, you can attain an informed grip on note choice and effectively add new shades of black to your next epic metal opus. -GE

Thanks to: GuitarEdge magazine

The 10-date outing, which begins Nov. 30 in Salt Lake City, kicks off a week before the record’s Dec. 8 release date. The Los Angeles-based band will celebrate the album’s drop with a show in Baton Rouge, LA, followed by three stops throughout the Midwest. The full schedule is shown below.

“This Is War” marks the group’s third studio set and first since 2005’s “A Beautiful Lie.” One of the new record’s tracks, “Kings and Queens,” is currently streaming at the band’s website.

Led by actor/singer/guitarist Jared Leto, 30 Seconds to Mars worked with producers Flood (Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails) and Steve Lilywhite (The Rolling Stones, U2) on the new effort.

The band also mobilized their fan community, known as The Echelon, inviting them in April to Hollywood, CA’s Avalon Club for an impromptu recording session dubbed “The Summit.” Hundreds of fans enjoyed the opportunity to contribute vocals and percussion to the new record and, because the experience was so successful, the band decided to host, though not attend, eight more summits over the summer months in countries around the world, including Australia, Italy and Mexico, among others.

“There’s something magical that happens when a group of people come together, a group of strangers, and they share a public experience,” Leto said in an interview with Kerrang magazine. “We then harness that energy, that collective consciousness, and apply it in a musical way.”

Tour Dates:

November 2009
30 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Rail Event Center

December 2009
01 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
03 – Houston, TX – Verizon Wireless Theater
04 – Grand Prairie, TX – Nokia Theatre
05 – West Palm Beach, FL – Cruzan Amphitheater
06 – Tampa, FL – Ford Amphitheatre
08 – Baton Rouge, LA – Varsity Theatre
17 – Milwaukee, WI – The Rave Eagles Club
18 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore
19 – Cleveland, OH – House of Blues

Thanks for the report to Livedaily.com.

Bell Custom Guitars unveils the new SS Series

Bell Custom Guitars has added a new series to it’s custom line of handbuilt guitars, the SS series uniquely designed with affordability in mind. Some of the more labor intensive features of the existing CTS series of Bell Custom Guitars have been eliminated from the building process, making the SS line more affordable without compromising the Bell Custom Guitars’ signature tone.

The SS base-model is priced as shown from $1,300 and may be customized to suit personal preferences including electronics, hardware, and paint. With a maple or mahogany and acrylic fused body, the tone of the wood is maintained while making a more clear, focused sound. This fusion of materials provides crisp, sharp highs and smooth, rounded lows.

For more information, please visit www.bellcustomguitars.com

This is a Press Release

Steve Vai doesn’t do things by halves. When he sinks his teeth into a creative concept, he doesn’t let it go until it’s completely and thoroughly tamed. Take, for example, his new live DVD, Where The Wild Things Are . It’s as intense and colourful as it is virtuosic and funny – the perfect filmic compliment to the technicolour frenzy that is his musical output or the multicolour splatter of his famed swirly Ibanez Universe 7-strings.

Vai’s always been a huge inspiration to me so I jumped at the chance to interview him about Where The Wild Things Are, the art of improvisation, and just what’s next for the Ibanez Jem line…

I Heart Guitar: Let’s talk about the new DVD. That tour obviously didn’t come to Australia, so the DVD was the first thing I’ve seen of that line-up.

Steve Vai: First of all, I’m sorry I didn’t make it to Australia. It was a relatively short tour because I had just finished a project that had me working in the studio for over a year, which was the orchestra project I did with the Metropole Orchestra in Holland. So at the end of that I wanted to put a band together. Something different, something unique, hopefully something that no-one has ever done, and go out and do a short tour. I wanted to put the kind of band together that would give the music a different kind of dimension. So I had a couple of different ideas. One of them was to have a rock band core with two additional percussionists. Another was to have a rock band core with a twelve-piece horn section, and another was to have two violins. So I chose the two violins this time because it made the most sense coming out of the orchestra project. The problem was finding the right players because my music, although it can be very compositional in nature, it’s fused with rock and roll sensibility, y’know, because I’m primarily a rock artist. So because the music can be very challenging and demanding I needed musicians that could read music. All the violin players I was auditioning were these metal violin shredders. They sounded terrible. They couldn’t really play well and they didn’t understand the dynamics and the nuance of the music. And all the classical players I auditioned who could read the music didn’t have any rock and roll sensibility, so when I turned my amps up their violin bows melted and they ran for the hills. So I was lucky than Ann Marie Calhoun and Alex DePurdue fell into my life because they are real stunners. They are unbelieveably talented, elite players with great discipline and respect, and wonderful people.

I Heart Guitar: And great stage presence too.

Vai: Yeah! It’s like the devil and the angel!

I Heart Guitar: When you go to a Steve Vai show you don’t want to see someone standing in the corner playing. You want someone to perform!

Vai: Yep! Well they perform! And when it came time to put the show together, there are certain elements I try to stick to to create an interesting show because just a guy standing up there playing electric guitar all night, even though it’s great it could get kinda boring, and I like to do long shows. And especially DVDs – I like to do DVDs that have entertainment value. So I created this whole visual of the show with all these dynamics, broken down in to different sections, and then we filmed it. I waited until we got to America. We did 30 days of 12 to 15 hour a day rehearsals, and then we did a 30 day tour of Europe, a month in the States and then we did South America. And by the time we got to the States the band was ripe. They were smokin’, and they were ready to be filmed. I chose the State Theatre in Minneapolis because it’s such a gorgeous venue. It’s really big and it’s historical. It’s got this large wooden stage which sounds so much better than rubber, tile, concrete, carpet. It’s the best sounding surface. So it made the recording very warm. And there it is!

I Heart Guitar: It’s a beautiful looking concert film too. The Live At The Astoria DVD, I believe you’ve said in the past that there were scenes where they just weren’t filming your guitar and stuff like that. But Where The Wild Things Are looks as gorgeous as the music feels.

Vai: Oh thanks. You learn as you go, and when I got into the edit bay to edit the Astoria DVD I was trying to squeeze blood out of a rock, y’know. ‘There’s Steve sitting on a fence, trying to make a dollar out of 99 cents.’ So when it came time to shoot the Minneapolis show I made sure I had very thorough production meetings, and I made it very clear on more than five occasions what each camera was supposed to be doing – and still they screwed up a lot of stuff. But for the most part there was enough there to make the kind of edits that made sense to me.

I Heart Guitar: [Bass player] Bryan Beller is kicking ass on this thing!

Vai: Yeah! Doesn’t he sound great! I had to mix his bass really loud because it sounded so good.

I Heart Guitar: So the 25th anniversary release of Flex-Able is coming out soon – when is that coming out?

Vai: Well I’m working on it right now! As I’m sitting here talking to you I’m looking at the machine. It’ll probably come out next year some time. I’ve got a lot of things coming out right now, and you’ve got to be careful how you position things so you’re not killing everybody.

I Heart Guitar: And of course the anniversary of Passion & Warfare is coming up soon too. Do you have any plans to do something for that?

Vai: Well… Flex-Able is hitting 25, and I’m doing a complete remastering which is sounding unbelieveable. And also adding bonus footage and doing all that stuff… making a package for the fans that really like that stuff. And if I was to do something for the 20th anniversary of Passion & Warfare it’d be like next week or something. So I figured I’d wait for the 25th and then do things. I like 25.

I Heart Guitar: How do you feel about Passion & Warfare now? It was a huge one for me – it coincided with the end of grade school and the start of high school for me, and it was like this world of musical colour right when I was really falling in love with the electric guitar.

Vai: I just feel very blessed and fortunate that I had an opportunity to do that record, because it was a long time coming. Because when I was with Alcatrazz… no actually, from as long back as I could remember, when I was a little boy and I discovered music, I knew that I had my own musical voice, so to speak. And it wasn’t a unique kind of thing, it was just something that I think songwriters and composers have. And through the years, one thing led to another led to another, and when I did Flex-Able it was just a time when I was very free, I had no expectations, I didn’t expect to become famous or rich or even that the record would be released. It was really just an opportunity for me to have fun with my friends and do stuff that made us laugh. I had tonnes of stuff recorded – tonnes and tonnes. Flex-Able represents probably five percent of what I recorded in that period. And when it came out, when I actually figured out how to put it out there and it started to sell, I realised it was really a conduit to people: making music and releasing it. Then when I joined all these big rock bands in the 80s, that stimulated a particular desire for me, when it comes to satiating a rock and roll sensibility and being a rock star and all that, that was fun. But through all of it I knew there was this music in my head that really needed to be expressed. I started working on Passion & Warfare right after Flex-Able, but because when I joined Dave Roth I couldn’t release it, when I joined Whitesnake I couldn’t release it. Then finally after I left the Roth band and I quit Whitesnake I just knew that this brand of music had to be created, y’know? I locked myself in the studio and I just felt a lot of liberation and freedom. Because like I said, I didn’t have any expectations, and that’s really one of the best ways – for me at least – to create music, because you’re really free to do what you’re hearing in your head. When I released that record I really didn’t expect it to sell at all. I thought ‘Who’s gonna want it? There’s nothing like it.’ I thought it was good, I enjoyed it, but that didn’t mean anything. How do I know what other people would think? So I was somewhat detached, y’know? And the first person I played it for was David Coverdale. I told him, ‘It’s probably not going to sell anything.’ And he said [adopts David Coverdale voice] ‘Steven darling, I think you’re wrong. This is a tremendously beautiful record. You’re going to be very surprised.’ And he was right, because it was gold in one week. But I get that a lot, that a lot of young people discovered it when they were going to school and it was the soundtrack for their year or something.

I Heart Guitar: I used to sit around and harmonize to ‘The Riddle.’ I didn’t have a 7-string so I thought ‘how can I play along if I can’t do those low notes? I’ll just play a harmony.’

Vai: Well there ya go!

I Heart Guitar: Let’s talk about the Ibanez Jem and Universe for a while. I’ve got one of each, and even though they’re your guitars I kinda feel like they were designed for me. They just fit my body and way of playing so well.

Vai: You must have a body like an upside-down question mark also!

I Heart Guitar: Haha. Do you have any new developments coming?

Vai: Yeah there’s always new developments! That’s one of the fun things about being Steve Vai! They’re willing to build anything you want. In the beginning, back with even Alcatrazz, my style was developing and there were certain things I wanted to do, and certain things I wanted in a guitar, that no conventional guitar really had. So I went to this little guitar shop around the corner and I got a piece of wood, told them how to carve the body… because I liked the way Strats looked, and I couldn’t seem to sit with a Les Paul, but there was something about Strats… they were beautiful, but they weren’t sexy enough. So I thought, how do I make them look a little cooler? It was just my taste – to me it didn’t mean anything to anybody except me. I thought, ‘This is just me, I can do anything I want because I’m buying the piece of wood,’ y’know? So I had the body shaped a particular way and it sits really well for me. Nobody was making 24 fret necks for guitars with whammy bars – it was really unheard-of – so I said ‘Make me a 24-fret with this scale length so it works with this kind of guitar…’ And then I had the cutaway cut really deep because it’s just practical. I can’t reach the notes on another guitar. When I go to play a Strat and I go to play high, the body gets in the way, so it’s like, ‘Just cut it out!’ And I did that and it looked good and it worked great. And then the pickup configuration at the time was completely unique. There was nothing like it. Nobody had three pickups, two of them being humbuckers, on a guitar with a whammy bar. And the thing is, the way that it was wired with the 5-way switch was unique too. When you’re in the neck position you get a humbucker, but between the middle pickup and the neck position you’ve got them both on and it splits the coil in that position, so you get two single coils, which gives you that cool Stratty kinda sound, which I love. And no noise too, because the hum is getting bucked! And then there’s the whammy bar. I wanted to pull up on the whammy bar, and no guitar let you really pull up on it. I just looked at it and I thought, ‘Well, the only thing stopping it is this piece of wood here…’ So I took a screwdriver and a hammer and I just banged out the wood, and that was the first real floating tremolo system. And then there were the practical things – like, I don’t need two tone controls, the volume knob should be here because it gets in the way when it’s there. And just simple things like the input jack. Guitars had input jacks pointing down, so you’re always stepping on them and pulling the cable out.

I Heart Guitar: And cracking the little plastic bit around it if it has that kind of design. I’ve replaced so many of those damn things!

Vai: Yeah! And I just thought, well why not recess it and put it on an angle? It’s such a stupid, simple idea that no-one ever did, that works perfectly. So I had this guitar that was really exactly what I want. All these guitar companies were approaching me to play their instruments and I just couldn’t understand why they would want me to play their instrument when I had one that was so perfect for me. So I said ‘If you want to make this instrument for me, I’ll play it, if it’s good.’ Because it was a pain in the ass having this guitar – I had four of them made, and it would be great to have a real company making them. So they all approached me, and I said whoever makes me the best guitar based on my specifications is the one I will use. And so many guitars just gave me back crap. They would take a guitar that was in their line, alter it a bit and say ‘Here ya go, Steve.’ And it was nothing to do with what I wanted. So Ibanez, within two weeks, created an instrument that was absolutely flawless and perfect. It was exactly what I wanted. So that was the Jem, and that’s what it’s been for 22 years now.

I Heart Guitar: So where to from here for the ‘ol girl?

Vai: There’s always little innovations. We’re working on a new material pattern – remember the floral pattern? Oh my gosh, we’re doing something like that again but ah, the pattern is so gorgeous. When you see it you’re going to die. And also there’s one innovation, I can’t really tell you what it is, but it’s revolutionary. It’s one of those very simple, practical things that no-one ever did, and it’s just like, ‘Well duh!’

I Heart Guitar: Is this going to be at NAMM in January?

Vai: Yeah, we’re going to have a couple of things there. NAMM show’s amazing. Just tonnes and tonnes of cool stuff!

I Heart Guitar: I notice you’ve been pictured a lot with the ‘For The Love Of God’ Universe lately. Are you using that much?

Vai: Yeah! I’m thinking of using it for my next record.

I Heart Guitar: Cool! What are the plans for the next one? How far off?

Vai: I’ve got a couple of projects I’m working on. One of them, I have to finish up this DVD (Where the Wild Things Are) which at this point means press. Then I’ve got the 25th anniversary of Flex-Able I need to complete. Then I’m getting together a big handful of songs that I’m going to be spoonfeeding digitally once a month. Because I’ve got a vault just filled with stuff in various forms of completion that never quite fit for a particular project, but now if I release them all as singles it doesn’t matter. Then I’m hoping to go into the studio and create a studio record, and I’d like to use the band that I had on the DVD.

I Heart Guitar: One of my readers wanted to know if there were still any plans to do another Alien Love Secrets kind of thing like you mentioned a few years ago.

Vai: Yeah, y’know, it’s one of those things I’d like to do. It’s just that I’ve got so many ideas for various projects and each one can take a year, y’know? So I’ve gotta be really careful with my time. I know that that particular type of record would be something a lot of my fans would really like to hear, but if it’s up to me – which it is [laughs] – to go and do a stripped-down trio record right now or take this band with string players and create a whole record with a concept and all that, it’s a hard choice. Frankly putting a show on is much more entertaining when you have a bigger band, so I have to keep that component in mind. So I don’t know. Right now I’m leaning towards doing something with the band.

I Heart Guitar: Another reader question was whether you’d be interested in doing something like Joe Satriani has done with Chickenfoot – although you’ve already had a band with a Van Halen singer!

Vai: Yeah, I’ve been there, done that, I guess! You know it’s interesting, I get asked that question a lot. I went to see Chickenfoot and it was a lot of fun. A great party band. I saw Joe and it looked like he was having a great time. In my mind I put myself in that position and thought it sure would be nice to take a break from all the hard solo work and being the guy that has to make all the decisions, and just put a bunch of guys together and go out there to play simple rock music to people who want to just party and have a good time. But then I thought ‘…Nah.’ There’s just way too much I want to do that’s really very compositional and theatrical and rich. And you know what? The great thing is, for me, I did have that opportunity in the 80s. And I really embraced it and I loved it. I played every arena in the country five times. And it was really fun, and part of me pines for those days. But really, when I think about the here and now, it’s all really about exercising my potential as a guitar player and a composer to the best of my ability, and I just don’t think I could do that in a band situation.

I Heart Guitar: As a fan I’ve loved that over the last decade or so you’ve seemed a bit reflective about the back catalogue, with orchestral reinterpretations, various live versions and stuff, but now I’m like, ‘Man, I want to hear some new music.’

Vai: Yeah, me too! I’m starting to feel like, ‘Gee Steve, remember you used to write music, Vai?’ But I’ve got some fun stuff up my sleeve. It gets better, stick with me!

I Heart Guitar: Another reader wanted to know about your approach to improvising – what you think about when you’re improvising. What goes through your mind?

Vai: Well, a part of me thinks about real practical stuff – ‘We go to this piece of gear here, we shift into this mode here, we try this harmonic atmosphere.’ But that’s a very small part. The thing that I try to capture is, it’s a particular frame of mind. It can be elusive, but there’s this focus that you go to, this little place that exists between your brain and the tip of your fingers and your ears. It’s this process of listening to your environment, processing it with your creative element, then letting that creative element take control of your fingers and just trying to step back from it. But it’s easy to lose that focus, because when you’re doing that, usually for me, you’re in the moment. Improvising, most of it is listening – responding to what’s coming into your ears and letting your fingers move in an unobstructed way. And there are all these little flashes that are just comfortable visuals, like you’re hearing something and you know that there’s a particular scale or note or atmosphere or chord that’s going to work. And that’s just like a ghost to letting your fingers speak. And here’s the trick with being in the moment: you almost have to be a little bit ahead of the moment. You have to think about where you’re going, and then once you’re exploring where you’re going, your fingers and everything are performing where you were thinking about going. So you’re almost not even a part of the playing – your whole consciousness is in that elusive space of just a little bit ahead of what you’re about to play.

I Heart Guitar: I know for me something happened about five years ago with improvising. It was almost like time was slowing down and I was getting in between the notes and hearing things before I play them.

Vai: That’s the thing. It’s like becoming one with the note.

I Heart Guitar: Yeah. I felt I was in a rut before this, and one day I just stopped thinking so hard and started listening, and I felt like my whole playing opened up.

Vai: And you’ll notice that there are plateaus to each zone. And as you go through life and you keep doing it, it becomes a cathartic process of self-discovery. You just have to keep doing it. It’s about letting go of your hang-ups, about being afraid of what’s going to happen, about letting go of the big fear of being accepted, or that what you’re playing isn’t good enough. So many people get hung up on that shit. ‘I don’t have the cool gear,’ or whatever that is, you know? And you’ve really gotta let go of all of that shit and be in the moment of the note. And being in the moment is that frame of mind where you’re not thinking about these other things. Because the moment you’re thinking about these other things, you’re creating the future and the past. But you’re right on when you say that time starts to stand still and slow down. Because what happens is the mind is constantly creating the future and the past because of the way we think. We’re always thinking about what we’re gonna do, or what we did, or what happened yesterday, or what’s going to happen tomorrow. But when you bring your focus of attention to what you’re doing at hand, you’re not thinking about the future and the past, so time is actually slowing down. It’s just a perception, really.

I Heart Guitar: It’s really deep to discover this side of myself personally and musically. It just seemed to open up so much more!

Vai: Yeah, and that’ll continue to open up, the more you let go.

I Heart Guitar: Man I love music!

Vai: Yeah. It’s a good life!

Source : Iheartguitar