Worship Musician Magazine September 2020 | Page 110

GUITAR
TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS | James Duke
One of the albums I played guitar on this year,
Wild Heart by Kim Walker-Smith, released
recently. It’s a live album recorded in February
2020 (just before the shut down) in Redding,
California. Kim assembled an amazing band
and we spend a week together doing preproduction
and rehearsing and ended the week
with a live concert that became the album.
I thought it would be fun to go over my rig for
the recording and detail some specific sounds
on some of the songs.
I used a few different amps during the week.
I started with an old top boost AC30 and a
Matchless Lightning. That combination lasted
about 2 days and then the Matchless blew
up, which was a bummer. Not to be deterred,
I borrowed a friend’s Fender Twin Reverb.
It sounded way better than the Matchless,
considering the Matchless sounded horrible
(it blew up, remember?). I like Fender Twins.
They are loud and clean, which is all I’m usually
looking for in an amp, besides reliability and
cool looks. For the actual live recording, I used
an AC30 and the Twin.
My guitar selection was somewhat limited as
Kim wanted all white instruments on stage.
I knew I was going to use my Gretsch White
Penguin, but I needed a second white guitar,
so I called my friend Andy Elliott of Elliott
Guitars and he graciously sent me one of his
new Warhawk models in a lovely creamy white.
The Warhawk is a really cool and interesting
take on a Strat-style guitar. Those two guitars
complemented each other really well and are
both super solid and fun to play.
My pedal board was pretty straight forward
(see photo). It was its normal mess of cables
going everywhere and knobs falling off. That’s
how I roll. I did realize that I was going to need
a looper pedal for the guitar solo on a song
called “Breathing Room”. I was going from a
big overdriven chorus sound on the bridge to
a completely different tone on the guitar solo
where I was using the JHS Muffaletta and an
Electro Harmonix Micro Pog. I was trying to
switch off 3 pedals (JHS Bonzai & Morning
Glory, Walrus Audio Julia) then turn 2 pedals
on (Muffaletta & Pog), then after the solo switch
those off and switch back on the Bonsai and
Morning Glory so I could immediately go into
the chorus. It was a lot of work. I thought I
could do it all by myself, but during the week of
rehearsals, I realized that I didn’t have enough
feet to perform such a task (Guitar Tip #74:
Sometimes you have to know your limits). I
used the looper (thanks David) to switch all of
that for the solo and it made me realize why
people use those big fancy true bypass looper
rigs.
I switched guitar picks a lot during the
recording. I used both a Dunlop Gator Grip 1.14
110 September 2020
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