At [ WM ] we have had a long and loving relationship with Lincoln Brewster as a respected guitarist , touring artist and worship pastor . With all that has been going on in the world , we thought it was high time to reconnect with our friend to see what he has been learning through these quite unusual times , what has been going on in his quest for a great guitar tone , and to hear about his new record … fittingly titled Perfect Love .
[ WM ] All right , so Lincoln , you ' ve got a unique perspective as you are , in normal times , a touring artist and on staff as a pastor . At our Christian Musician Summit conferences , you are a dual threat in that you teach workshops on both guitar tone and church leadership . Let ' s talk first about guitar tone . This is late April 2021 . Where are you , tone-wise ?
Kemper and the Quad Cortex , it ' s a good time to be a guitar player . There ' s lots of options .
So , for me , it was just an exciting thing to go back to the real deal . I ' ve got a whole collection of vintage Marshalls and Fenders , and I think I ' ve got a Vox or two . I ' ve got a pretty cool set-up as I run through some switchers and all that kind of stuff . So , I started messing with reamping tracks for this instrumental record that I ' ve been working on forever .
[ WM ] It does seem like forever , doesn ’ t it ?
[ Lincoln ] Yeah , we ' re getting close to the end of it . I finally discovered what was hanging me up . One of the good results of that is I ' m going to be recording those tracks ... Either the tracks that have been tracked , I ' ll re-amp them because I ' ve recorded pickups for that through these new tones . And each of the tones that I use on the record will be profiles and impulse responses that will be available ... I ' m hoping sometime in June .
Now , I ' ll tell you what ... running the existing guitar tracks that I had through these vintage heads that I really took time to dial in and running certain pedals in front of them ( or Echoplexes or whatever )… the difference was
[ Lincoln Brewster ] During the pandemic , and sort of leading up to it , I had , I suppose , a rebirth of sorts with tone , and ... I ' ve always been a big tone guy . I have this other very architect , very pragmatic side , where I wanted to have a tone that I loved , that worked , that felt inspiring to play on , that was consistent , that I could take on the road . And doing a lot of flying dates , obviously , I needed something small and where it didn ' t have to depend on backline amps because I couldn ' t get a consistent sound . So , I worked hard to do that with modelers and was able to get some tones that I really liked . It worked for a long time .
And then , as time has progressed , I think I ' ve just found that ... almost like I was yearning for something different or a little more . Sometimes , for us guitar players , it ' s finding something that just re-ignites you and feels exciting . And for me , it was getting back to my roots . So , I have just taken the deep dive back into tube amps . Mostly vintage ones , some that are new but that are basically clones of vintage amps in some cases ( except the Two-Rock ’ s are newer amp designs ). But just really rediscovering the magic of tube amps . I do think , obviously , there ' s some great models of those . And with products now that can capture amps like the