go to college. But, when I was around eighteen
years old, I had a friend who went to a music
school (that I wanted to go to) that was called
the Recording Workshop. He brought back his
books and stuff like that. I started reading the
books, learning frequencies, mic placement,
how to engineer, and I bought these little hard
disk recorders that at the time that were kind of
popular. I got a job, and I would order $2,000
worth of equipment off of American Musical
Supply, pay it off in six months, then order
another two $2,000 of equipment, so that’s
how I started building up my studio.
Basically, I started recording anybody just
to get experience. I had a keyboard player
friend, and he was the producer and I was the
engineer, so I learned more of the engineering
aspect during that time. My Dad was a singer,
so he would call his friends over and talk to
them about me, so I got clients that way, and
I would record his friends. In my twenties was
when I really started to up my producing game.
I produced the bands that I played with. It
made me a better guitar player because I had a
broader perspective on what the song needed
from my instrument, not what I wanted to play
personally.
[WM] What are some of the things that are
most important as you look at your guitar
playing through a producer’s eyes?
[Chris] I think that every guitar player should
go into the studio and record just so they can
learn about tone. If you can get your tone to
sound great in a recording studio then it’s
definitely going to sound great live. I think that
helped me out a lot being able to fine tune my
tone, because I had a lot of time in the studio to
work on it. I’m a big fan of amp modeling and
IRs and all that stuff, because it really gives you
that studio environment and translates well live.
That helped me out a whole lot and I encourage
other guitarists to do the same and get into the
studio.
When we’re playing live we kind of get excited
and in the moment, we can get kind of crazy
April 2019
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