I suppose this is a slight misnomer, as I need to set up my PRS and when I do I’ll probably add one or two humbucker clean tracks using that. So, really, what I’m saying is all the clean and gritty rhythm guitar parts that I planned on playing on a Strat are done.

I used my mutt partscaster, a 2013 American Deluxe neck with a rosewood fretboard and a 2014 60th Anniversary Siennaburst ash body, with a set of Suhr V60LPs, for all of my Stratocaster rhythm parts. A lot of these songs will ultimately have a Strat playing the leads, so I wanted to have it sit in a slightly different space than my ’97 maple fretboard/alder bodied American Standard. The one song I will be using this on leads, it’s a power trio arrangement with no rhythm guitar, so that won’t be an issue either.

There’s a couple songs I’ll be at least trying layering this guitar against something with humbuckers for heavier tones – one of the heavier songs, in particular, I demoed the whole thing n my ’97 Strat, and there’s a part in the riff where some of the notes will likely ring out a little better played on a birdge position singlecoil than a bridge position humbucker. I’ll try quad-tracking that one, and then decide in the mix if it works or not.

I’ve just been recording DI tracks, so there isn’t really much to say about amp or mic choices here just yet – there’ll probably be a few posts on reamping clean and distorted tones, when the time comes. I’ve been using the old LePou amp sim VSTs that I used while demoing, mostly the Lecto (since it really does get me into the right territory for the sort of lead sound I like, set appropriately) though with the Lextac for the album opener where I want a crunchy Marshall-like jangly sound rather than full Mesa saturation. I’m recording DIs at unity since, per my earlier post experimenting with this, I couldn’t hear a difference if I recorded hotter than unity, and it means I just set the Level (really, an attenuation/gain reduction control) at 100% on my Radial Reamp Station and I know I’m sending the amp exactly as hot a signal as I was hearing when I had the Thru-output running to the amp while playing.

I did end up trying a few different picks – I’m pretty sold on the Dunlop Ultex Flow shape, but for the clean parts (especially with something like a Strat, which is relatively uncompressed as far as clean tones go) I ended up dropping down from my usual 1.0 to a 0.73mm. The greater give helped keep things smoother, and typically I’ve found that, especially for some of the more intricate stuff, really focusing on having a light touch and relaxed hand both on the neck of the guitar and with the pick helps keep the parts feeling relaxed and in the pocket. Which, when some of the parts are physically challenging to pull off, isn’t always easy – I think this is one of the problems with doing something like this a few hours at a time as a hobby rather than full time; in an ideal world I’d be working with a band and rehearsing all this stuff for hours on end before we start tracking, and as a home studio project, often times i’m going back to the demos and asking myself, “what did I play there,” and transcribing the part before I tart recording. The post-chorus changeup in the song I’m adding into the mix at the last minute, I’m pretty sure that what I finally settled on wasn’t what I originally had written… but here we are.

Since there isn’t much else to say here, I did a couple video clips that I put up on YouTube and Instagram while tracking, as work in progress updates. Here’s the album opener, with VSTs and then some quick scratch reamps with the amp/mode combos I plan on using:

This is almost entirely unmixed. The LePou, honestly, doesn’t sound half bad at all, for a 15+ year old freeware amp sim, and really there’s no reason you couldn’t still release this today. The Roadster sure sounds better though, a little more raw and a little more in your face.

…and this is a clean-ish arpeggio figure for the chorus of the song I added in at the last minute:

Quick scratch reamps here, as well, and mostly unmixed as well (just some delay, as I recall). The bridge pickup figure, clearly I had a Tele-like sound in mind, and in the mix I’m hoping for something a little more ambient and “splashy.” Maybe a slight chorus, as well. Really though, the drums here need the most attention, it’s a little too hard-hitting and “rock” for this song, which is part of the reason I was planning on skipping this one, until I started to think maybe I could take down the intensity and it would work better… I think where the arrangement is going will work better, it’s just not quite there yet.

Anyway, time to start tracking some heavier single-coil guitars, and get my PRS ready for a lot of the rest of the “heavy” guitar sounds.