gronkyco - just because

I’ve been playing guitar for more than 18 years. Though I am currently working on making a record with the band Building James, I am also working on a less organized solo project in my home studio. The Building James material is coming out awesome, and should be available soon, but I am also working on a solo project of my own material.

“Solo Project” sounds a little too official for what I’m doing. I mean, I’m not shooting for the next White Album or anything here, but I’ve wanted to produce a decently mixed 6-8 song demo of my own tunes for a long time. As these songs get written and recorded, I will be posting them here and making them available to anyone who may want to check them out.

Meet the Studio:

All of my personal recordings are done using a combination of a Korg D888 multi-track system and the Cubase computer recording and mixing software. I use the Korg to capture the tracks and Cubase to mix. It seems a little needlessly difficult, but I do this because I’ve never had much luck with computer interfaces. I always get ’some’ amount of lag or driver issues. I’m also old-school when it comes to recording, preferring to actually move knobs and sliders. Doing it all with a mouse, clicking and dragging, just looses something to me.

For mics I use two condensers, the MXL 990/991 set. I was a little concerned by the price of these. I mean honestly, $100 for two mics? I didn’t expect much… boy was I surprised. I love them.

For effects I have a Boss GT-8 guitar sound processor. Granted I should probably mic my amp, but I run the GT-8 directly into my KORG so I can get clean stereo effects on my guitar tracks.

None of the recording gear I use is “top shelf” or “high fidelity” but it works perfect for what I am trying to achieve, and none of it broke the bank.

A Man Needs Guitars

In the past I’ve played metal, funk, jazz, blues and whatever else anyone wanted to jam out. I never pigeon-holed myself to any one style. Because of this, I’ve gathered a small collection of guitars for varying playing styles.

• Fender Acoustic - With no active electronics, I use this guitar for most of my non-amped jam sessions such as burgers on the deck or beers around a campfire. The sound is incredibly warm and the fretboard feels great.
• Ovation Celebrity Acoustic - I bought this on a whim one day becuase it was a great deal, turns out it was the best buy I’ve done in years. The integrated pickup is awesome and the on-board tuner is always a nice feature. I use this guitar on stage and for most of my recordings because it just sounds so nice when amped. When playing acoustic, or non-amped, the sound is a little thin and tinny.
• Gibson Les Paul Studio - Enough said, this is my rock guitar and is completely badass. I’ve played a bunch of Les Pauls, but none that have the same feel. I this guitar brand new in 1990 when it was introduced. Every nick and ding is something I’ve done and I’ve played it for so long now, the fret board is building up a nice smooth feel.
• Ibanez JS100 - Joe Satriani signature-series electric. I wanted a versatile, modern-sounding electric and being a Satch fan I decided to get one of these. I even went to a CD signing and had this one autographed. Being both a guitar player and Joe Satriani fan, this is like the holy grail of guitars to me. Warm sound, fast fret board, sexy as hell… *sigh