with our playing. But when you get into a studio
and record that and play it back, you’re like,
oh wait a minute, that actually didn’t sound
that good. I should have played something
else. So that’s how you kind of learn to
balance out melodies and tone, figure out
how aggressively you should be playing, and
how to flow dynamically throughout the song’s
dynamics. This is the biggest part of what we
do, especially in a church service – you don’t
want to interrupt the spirit of God moving in a
service. Dynamics is one of the biggest things
that I learned, and I also try to teach that.
[WM] You’re a Helix ‘power-user’, which
includes creating and selling presets on your
web
site
(www.ChrisRochaGuitar.com).
I
noticed you also created some HD500x and
Firehawk presets. What about the Line 6 family
of gear appeals to you so much?
[Chris] I think that they’re really outdone
themselves with being able to tweak the sounds
for different environments, especially church.
Snapshots gives you real time tools to change
your sound in a set without having that really
horrible DSP silence or anything like that. The
snapshots that they have, in my mind are really
revolutionary. I think a lot of guys that work with
actual tube amps, they like to have the power
of the tube amp blasting at them and they like
the way it feels. But what’s really important is
what’s coming out in the speakers, going out
in the PA system. Line 6 figured out a way to
have that polished sound right away. If you
learn to tweak the stuff that they have out you
can come up with some really great tones, I’m
just a huge fan of what they’re putting out right
now. The new HX Stomp pedal is amazing, the
way you can integrate all of that stuff together
within the pedal board is cool also. I’m looking
forward to doing a lot of that stuff.
[WM] You’re big on pedal boards that
integrate traditional pedals with modeling gear.
As an educator do you sneak out on YouTube
and take a peek at what other people do as
part of your preparation process?
122
April 2019
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