As part of my recent quest for a quality amplifier, I've become even more acutely aware of the huge amount of energy expended by players everywhere in the process of demoing, analyzing, rating, discussing, and ultimately investing in expensive equipment that suits their tonal preferences. But as vast a resource as the internet can be, let's face it -- without sound samples, and some normalized way of comparing them all, reading about gear is ultimately more addictive than useful.

With that in mind, I've put together a compendium of field recordings from my amp shopping expedition at Ultrasound Rehearsal, organized by amplifier and gain level. All...

A guitar player with no amp? What's next, a graphic designer with no Macintosh? A writer with no Starbucks? Alas, it's true. With the highly focused and forensic nature of the work on the Cracking the Code film project, there's been no need for me to own anything that produces actual amplified sound. For the last several years, my musical activities have targeted the mechanical over the creative, and the visual over the aural. Sure, I've produced lessons, but those have generally been...

In the pantheon of classic debates, sandwiched somewhere between Atari vs. Intellivision, Dick York vs. Dick Sargent, and Chocolate in My Peanut Butter vs. Peanut Butter in My Chocolate, sits a laser-guarded display case containing a vintage white Stratocaster covered in the fingerprints of anyone who's ever pretended to the title of The Greatest. While this is not a debate anyone actually enjoys, ending it is about as likely as curbing the desire to pop every last blister on a sheet of bubble wrap. Whether it's Guitar One magazine's oft-quoted Top-Ten Fastest...