The new string set features a unique blend of gauges and features the new Helix patent-pending hyper-elliptical windings.
Santa Clara, CA (July 24, 2012) ā Dean Markley today announces the release of the new Carl Verheyen Balanced Bridge Helix Electric strings. This partnership brings a unique string set intended to balance the six screw and two screw Strat-styleĀ bridges. The new string set features a unique blend of gauges and features the new Helix patent-pending hyper-elliptical windings.
The Helix string uses a precise elliptical shape for the winding wire. The shape then had to be paired with the correct winding process. The hyper-elliptical winding process results in an increased number of wraps along the length of the string. This increases the mass of the string, without changing its diameter or material. More mass makes a fuller tone; more windings give a smoother feel as well as a brighter, more resonant tone.Ā Additional benefits of the hyper-elliptical windings are a relaxed feel and less unwanted noise.Ā The strings last much longer without sacrificing tone and performance.
The Carl Verheyen signature set offers his choice of custom gauges:
E String: .009
B String: .012
G String: .016
D String: .026
A String: .037
E String: .046
MSRP: $12.95 USD
For more information:
www.DeanMarkley.com
Carl Verheyen talks about working with everyone from Joe Bonamassa to Steve Morse and Robben Ford for his latest release, Trading 8s.
I think not! Iām not following Carl Verheyen! No way! How do you follow a guy who has recorded guitar for icons such as Dolly Parton, Stanley Clarke, Supertramp and The Bee Gees? Thatās the short list. Recently heās played on the soundtracks to Land of The Lost, Star Trek and Up. He even played in the house band of this yearās Academy Awards and performed āMoon Riverā with host Hugh Jackman in front of 68 million people.
With a bunch of solo records under his belt, Carl Verheyen has been doing his thing for a long time. Iām not the guy to play guitar right after Carl Verheyen at a NAMM show, but he found some heavyweight cats to join him on his new release titled Trading 8s. Itās a rockinā, diverse and earthy record featuring guest pickers Joe Bonamassa, Rick Vito, Steve Morse, Robben Ford, Albert Lee and Scott Henderson. I caught up with Carl so he could tell me all about it.
Iām really enjoying your new record. How did this all come together?
It really started when I wrote a handful of tunes. I talked to Joe Bonamassa about two or three years ago about doing a record together. We always said, āYeah, letās do it in September.ā Then September would come around and then Iād be on the road or heād be on the road, so that never happened. When I wrote āHighway 27ā I asked Joe to play on it. He said, āIām coming to town Tuesday and I can do it on Wednesday.ā It just happened overnight. We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes together in the studio tracking our solos. It went down super fast. That included getting the sounds. He picked out one of my 100-watt Marshalls that he liked and played his signature Les Paul. We put a baffle between the two 4x12 speaker cabinets and we both sat in the studio facing each other. If he made a mistake it would ruin my track, so what we did was completely live. That inspired me to pull the rest of this together in terms of guests.
Iāve always enjoyed your Beatles cover of āTaxman.ā
Thanks. I was going to play the entire solo but I thought, āHow fun would it be to trade 8s with Scott Henderson!?ā Heās a buddy of mine from the Musicianās Institute. Weād show up every once in a while, hang out in a room and play. He kept saying, āLet me do one more take! One more take, but stop me when itās good!ā I used my ā58 Sunburst Strat on that.
I take it you had everything recorded before you brought in the guests.
Pretty much. I had tunes that I had been playing on the road, and we went in and tracked six or seven of them at once. Basically what I was looking for was getting solos out of people. In the case of Robben Ford on āNew Yearās Day,ā he played solos and played fills throughout, which really wasnāt something I was planning on. I turned him loose and he sounded so good. Thereās not one lick that I would take away. He did a runthrough just to figure out where the changes are, and it was every bit as good as anything that he did after that. Itās a shame we didnāt record it. Robben Ford has a wonderful touch thatās uniquely his own.
The songs are solid and the guests really bring their individual personalities to each track.
I agree. In the case of Rick Vito and Steve Morse, I didnāt actually get a chance to play with them in the studio because of our schedules. Steve was on the east coast in his studio. He had me send him the track and sent it back with his stuff on there. I asked him for a solo and some harmonies on the melodies. This is on the song āOn Our Way.ā Iāve been a huge fan of Steveās since the ā70s so I know his playing pretty well. I figured since the song is a pretty ballad, heād give me the beautiful lyrical side of his playing with a clean guitar tone. He might even do an acoustic guitar solo. It wonāt be the blazing, shredding Steve that we all know. Itāll be a different part of his playing.
When the track came back my jaw literally dropped. He was able to play the most beautiful, singing, lyrical, melodic solo, but itās got that burning Steve Morse shredding edge too. It was so musical it just blew my mindāit was the last thing I expected. I couldnāt stop listening to it.
[On that song] I used an acoustic twelve-string, an acoustic six-string capoād and my ā65 Strat for the main melody stuff. For my solos I was looking for something somewhat clean, and I actually used my Flying V through a Princeton. On the second half of that solo I slipped in an Xotic BB Preamp pedal.
When youāre trading solos with guitarists of this caliber, do you find yourself soaking up a bit of their style?
I really do. I listen to Joe Bonamassaās vibrato for example and it reminds me a little of the old Cream-era Clapton vibrato. Iāll spend hours after just being in a session with a guy like that, working on my own vibrato and making it as exciting as Joeās. When I played with Robben I went home and spent many hours just trying to get a few of his little bends and phrasing things together. I played along with the recording until the phrasing sounded identical. But Iāve been doing that for years with everybody, people like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, you name it.
Allan Holdsworth. That must have been pretty cool to sit around with a guy like that.
We hung out together back in the ā80s. I would go down to his house and we would jam. He turned me on to some chord voicings that my hands just would not reach. [Laughing] So I just went into a room, shut the door and said, āIām not coming out of here until my hands can play that chord.ā [Laughing] I think getting kicked in the butt by fellow players is always healthy. Every one of those guys on Trading 8s kicks my butt in some way and that makes me want to work on more stuff.
I canāt imagine what it would be like to trade solos with Albert Lee.
Al came back from the road and the next day he was in the studio with me. I used a crunchy Telecaster tone. I think I played my 1960 Tele custom through a Victoria Tweed Deluxe. I did that because I knew his guitar tone would be pristine clean. He never uses any distortion, ever. So I thought to really contrast it, a Telecaster is what you need here and a dirty sound would be best. He played through his Music Man 1x12 combo that heās been using for years along with his Ernie Ball Music Man Albert Lee model guitar. My only fear was that most of my country playing had been copped directly from records of his. [Laughing]
I notice you like small amps in big rooms.
Yeah, itās an old trick of mine. I use little amps that are not very distorted. On one side Iāll use my SG, and then in stereo Iāll use a Les Paul through a different small amp, but cranked. No pedal, but Iāll take my little ā63 Gibson Falcon and turn it all the way up. The other side will be like a Tweed Deluxe and crank it up too. Instead of having a lot of distortion, which would turn things into mush, itās better to double it for your sonic girth and not use so much distortion. I think almost all microphones like small amps better. When you have a huge amp itās just beating up a microphone and doesnāt deal with it as well. I like small amps with a close mic and something in the distance. Maybe twenty feet away for that ambient room sound. Itās really great way to record.
Whatās it like being a referee for all these guys?
Everybodyās bottom line is just stellar and itās fresh and new to me. Iām just like they are in the studio when Iām on the other side of the glassāāI got one better! I got one better!ā The thing is, you know what you were going for and whoever is listening and producing has no idea. Theyāre digging whatās happening but you tried for something that didnāt happen, so you need one more. Somebody has to say, āWhat you did is every bit as valid as what you may have been going for.ā Thatās how the happy accidents happen.
Carl Verheyen is a guitar chameleon whose whose adaptability puts him in high demand has made him in high demand for everything from TV commercials to major recordings.
|
I caught his gig at Hollywoodās legendary fusion hang, The Baked Potato. I heard an eye-bulging fusion of great tunes and styles and that made me want to run home and practice. Verheyen uses the kind of gear that makes guitar freaks need a drool bucket. He uses a mix of vintage amps and guitars married with modern technologyāto great effect. Verheyen has the coolest toys. When he agreed to this interview, I knew this was going to be the perfect opportunity to pick the brain of a great virtuoso. He also turned out to be one hell of a nice guy.
What in your mind distinguishes you from other guitarists who put out records with chops for days?
The problem is that there are so many guitar players nowadays that love to use their home studios and spend hours and hours on their solos. Iām an old school guy sonically. Iāve got to use a real studio. You never listen to your amp with your ear down near the amp. You listen to your amp in the room. The best studios in town, like Capitol Records and Sunset Sound and some of these old school places, have amazing rooms. We mic the amp, but we also mic the room. Thatās the sound of the guitar and thatās what I want to hear. Iām not a home studio guy. I pretty much just do little demos for myself on an old hard drive recorder, and mic amps and mic acoustic guitars and work out parts, so I rarely have to use a real studio.
So instead of my records costing $5000 to $6000, they cost $25,000 or $30,000. Which is dangerous nowadays in this climate where people arenāt buying CDsātheyāre downloading. But thatās ok, too.
The sound on your records is very organic.
I never use plug-ins, and I always mic an amp no matter what. I like to mic it through some of that old API gear that they have at Sunset Sound, but Iām paying two hundred bucks an hour (laughs) so itās a little dangerous. You want to be able to listen to it five to ten years from now and say, āMan, this still holds up,ā
whereas that plug-in stuff may not.
When I go into the studio, I have four to five hours to get this tune completely in the bag. That means the 12-string part, the Gretsch part, the SG part, the two acoustic parts and the solo. The modern art of the guitar records is in the orchestration, because at some point everybodyās got monster chops.
I was listening to Greg Howeās new record and thinking, āOh man, this guyās chops are insane!ā There are a lot of people on a level thatās pretty high in terms of that. Now it becomes, how do you layer? How do you orchestrate? My concept has always been, āHow do I pick whoās going to be Frank Sinatra? Which guy is going to have that main voice?ā On those Frank Sinatra records the whole orchestra comes in and itās beautiful. Thereās this huge level of glorious sound. Then Frank comes in and itās even more glorious!
So when youāre orchestrating all the guitars you have to figure the rhythm part is going to be this clean Strat, but Iām going to back it up with this acoustic. Iāll put the Strat in the middle of the two acoustics to give it a little more sonic girth. Right in the pre-chorus this Tele has to come in with a little hair on it. When the chorus hits Iām going to put the Les Paul here and the SG here through little amps, and theyāre going to play the same unison line. Little amps are key because they can give you that cranked tone. When the solo comes in, thatās a 4x12 in the middle of the room with a mic far away and you get this big huge sound. You can hear the room, and thatās really important.
1969 Marshall 100-Watt head, 1964 Fender Twin, 1963 Vox AC30 and two THD 2x12 cabs. |
In the eighties, just like everybody else around 1981, I met Bob Bradshaw. So I got the big rack. That rack grew and grew, and then there were two racks, an amp rack and an effects rack. One day in about 1989, when all that stuff was going strong, I remember plugging my seafoam green Strat into one of my Fender Princetons and thinking, āYou know what? This sounds better to my ears than $50,000 worth of rack gear.ā In those days we were listening to the sound of the reverbs and the delays and the choruses. When you turned all that stuff off, the sound of the basic guitar through the rig was kind of sterile. I realized that the marriage of a great-sounding guitar with an amp is very important. I had a Vox AC30 and some Marshalls
and stuff like that and I thought, āMaybe I can use these things.ā
It started to come together with an A/B system. I would say right around 1990 I started putting together that kind of clean and dirty rig. I remember talking to Allan Holdsworth and he said, āYou donāt play clean and dirty out of the same speakers do you?ā And I said, āYeah.ā He said, āHow can you do that? I want a real papery warm sound from my lead tone, like Celestions. From my clean sound I want something a little more bright and pingy.ā Then I thought, āWell so do I!ā Thatās what kind of started me thinking down the road of having two separate rigs.
At one point I was playing a show at Billboard Live in Hollywood, and I had my rack stuff and the entire bandās show was programmed in. I just had to go to number one, number two, etc. Somebody walked by the power source and kicked the cable and it came out of the wall. It wiped out all ninety-nine programs! So Iāve got ten minutes until show time, and the other band had a Fender Twin. I thought, āIāll just pull out some pedals, plug into this Fender Twin and go for it.ā Really, when you get into all this changing of parameters of each sound, the only person who knows it is you, unless itās super radical. I realized at that point that itās better to have two amazing sounds than ninety-nine okay sounds.
That rackmount preamp/power amp period was sometimes an eight, but never a ten. My two favorite clean sounding amps are the Fender Twin and the AC30. I get all this nice midrange and fatness from the Twin. With the AC30 I get all this high-end sparkle. As a stereo pair itās pretty cool.
Dr. Z SRZ-65 head, with Carl's rack. |
What I do is come off the A/B pedalboard, and for the clean Iām going through one pedal. It goes into a Robert Stamps reverb unit, which he made custom for me back in 1997 when I was about to do a Supertramp tour. I needed spring reverb, but in rack form, and he did that for me. It comes out of that and goes into a stereo chorus, but I almost never turn it on. When I do, itās very subtle. That comes out in stereo to the left and right inputs of a Lexicon MPX 100 Stereo Delay. I use that ping-pong delay just to give myself some imaging on stage. Iāve got a few settings for various tempos, and all my rack effects are before my clean amps. For the dirty sound, I come off the B-side of the pedal board after going through the three distortion pedals and go into the Doctor Z head. Itās a replacement for my old Marshall. Theyāre becoming $5000 to $6000 for those Plexi heads. Doctor Z made it so that if you turn the master volume all the way up itās out of the signal path. Itās basically acting like a non-master volume amp using the power tubes to the fullest. Then I come into one of those THD Hotplates. That has a direct outāI feed that to a cabinetāand it also has a line level out that I feed into a Lexicon PCM-41. Itās a line level reverb, and the only way you can get into that is by turning the speaker out into line level, which the Hotplate does really well.
The switching is seamless.
An A/B system like that is going to be organic, whereas if you do channel switching or MIDI or any of that stuff, it cuts off. That little millisecond is not organic. If I have a rhythm part going and Iām singing, and I feel like slamming in a little lead line, the rhythm part hangs over in the air while I switch. Thereās no pop or anything with those Lehle foot switches.
Carl's pedalboard. |
Yeah, thereās a really nice distortion pedal Iāve been using called the Cream pedal by Andy Fuchs of Fuchs Amplification. Itās kind of a cross between a saturated Fuzz Face type of pedal and a Tube Screamer. Itās somewhere in the middle, which is nice because I find Tube Screamers sometimes arenāt saturated enough to get that creamy tone. Fuzz Faces are a little hard to manage for me. Theyāre a little out of control. Iāve been using that quite a bit lately.
Doctor Z recently got me a new Carmen Gia head. Thatās a really nice head. Itās only 18 watts, but for recording or a small blues gig itās great. Iāve been able to use that head to get the sound Iāve never been able to get before, real beautiful sounding.
How did you become such a successful session cat? What separates you from other guitarists?
I looked at the guys who just did record dates. They were maybe non-readers. Then I looked at theses other guys who seemed to be able to do everythingā¦ records, movies, jingles, TV, all that kind of stuff. The guys who can do everything get a lot bigger piece of the pie. To me the number one requirement for that was a thorough understanding of the ornamentation of the styles.
When you really get down to it, blues, blues-rock, rock, country, country-rock, bluegrass, jazz, heavy metal, be-bop, all these different styles of music use the same twelve notes. The only difference between the jazz guys is how they ornament the style. Theyāll play a certain feel so itās a rhythmic ornamentation. Theyāll play a certain choice of notes so itās a harmonic thing and a sonic thing. You take that be-bop style of Charlie Parkerāitās really in many cases the mixolydian mode. Then you go to these blues guys like B.B. King. Heās also playing the mixolydian mode, along with minor pentatonic and various things, but so are the jazz guys. So itās the phrasing and what I call the ornamentation of styles.
I had an awakening one day around 1980. Iād been studying jazz really hard, practicing five to eight hours a day for maybe six to seven years to try to be able to play through changes in the style of Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, Pat Metheny and all those guys. I wanted to be a jazz guy. One day, Iām driving my car and I hear this Joe Walsh solo on the radio. It was from The Eaglesā tune, āThose Shoes.ā It was just a soulful solo. I think he was using a voice box. I had to pull my car over. The state of the art of rock guitar has come so far. It made me think, [laughing] āThis is the music of my people!ā It made me really think, āI could play twenty-six choruses of āStella By Starlight,ā but who cares? I really like this.ā
Come to think of it, I love that Chet Atkins stuff I was hearing the other day. And I really like the way my friend plays classical guitar, and Iād really love to learn some of those Bach pieces. And I love the way Albert Lee plays. I need to get into everything. It made me come to realize that if you dig it, you must learn it. I just want to be a great guitar player, and not a great jazz playerānot necessarily a great one thing or another. I think that really helped me in the studios.
Give me an example of how this works for
you in the studio.
I come into a session on a country thing, so I pull out this great Fender Tremolux amp Iāve got, and plug my Telecaster in and get the perfect country sound. Then the producer says, āYaā know, I think itās a little too country. Can we rock out?ā So I say, āYeah.ā So I get a Strat and play through a THD head that has some crunch to it. So the artist says he wants to go more acoustic and he wants to take it up a step. So now weāre in a different key and weāre thinking bluegrass or folk-rock.
If youāre the hat-wearing, boot-wearing, country picker guy, once they start changing it youāre sent home. That day is over. They need different guys because that country guy can only play one thing. Anybody who wants to be successful in the world of producers and songwriters really needs to have all that versatility. Itās even more important than reading, unless of course you get into movies.
Youāve got to separate your artistic career from your sideman career. Your sideman career is about you being a well-listened craftsman. I was called into a session once where they said, āI need that ZZ Top thing.ā Thatās Billy Gibbons playing a Les Paul, probably through a little tweed Fender amp. Pinch harmonicsā¦ a Texas shuffle is very different than a Chicago shuffle so the sound adjusts, the feel adjusts and hereās my impersonation
of Billy Gibbons. That is being a well-listened craftsman, as opposed to an artist. I separate the two in order to make a living. When you are a sideman youāve got somebody elseās musical vision that youāre trying to bring out. When Iām making my own records itās my musical vision.
The styles come through in your solo work.
I hear all that country stuff in my own playing, the jazz stuff as well as the fusion of rock and blues. Itās all part of the expression of the whole. With the well-listened craftsman, youāre kind of like a plumber who looks under the sink and says he needs a 5/8ā wrench.
Knowing your guitar tone history is just as important as knowing the fret board.
Every real serious student of the guitar is also a musical historian. You think back to those old records and you know what they played. Seymour Duncan can name every guitar from every track from the fifties, sixties and seventies. He knows every pickup. He knows it all.
What do you do to further your craft in terms of practicing?
Iām a serious practicer. To me, practicing is where I find my center as a person. If I go a day without practicing, I feel useless. I donāt feel like Iām doing what Iām here to do. I donāt feel like Iām on the level of where I want to be. To practice, Iāve always kept a lick book. Itās an ongoing musical diary thatās always on my music stand.
Iāve got lines for Emaj7th chords, harmony lines, pentatonics in D minor, chord voicings and anything that comes to mind. Iām always writing stuff down. Iām getting ready to do a DVD, so Iām writing five minor, five dominant and five major lines. I have old lick books that are completely full of lines. Iāve transcribedĀ Brent Masonās āHot Wiredā and then start working on ideas from that. Itās a great way of practicing. Iāll say, āI need a line in F# minor that starts on the low F# and ends on the high C#.ā Iāll come up with something new and original, then write it down. Then Iāll transpose it into a major version, and then a dominant seventh version. Then Iāll practice itā¦ to see if it fits. Then Iāve got new materialāor I could go back ten pages. I can try it again and it might lead me to new stuff.
Youāve discussed your lick book on your Intervallic Rock video. Itās invaluable.
My personal style is a direct result of the lick book. My intervals are always larger than minor seconds, major seconds and minor thirds. I think in terms of fourths, fifths and sixths. It relates to my lines and my chords.
I would say itās a key element of your style.
|
People who are full-time musicians run the risk of picking up the guitar after work and relaxing with it. They end up playing the same stuff they play every night to relax. Itās like the glass of wine. They play a lick, maybe a couple of chords, improvise in D major and it just kind of flows along. That isnāt practicing.
Practicing is finding new things or getting the impossible stuff you already know down better.
Improving. Do you play every single day?
Yeah. Not playing for a couple of days would be really bad.
Whatās your favorite Strat?
The one you saw me play live is a ā61 seafoam green Strat. Itās my favorite rock guitar.