I've been playing guitar for more than thirty years, but never professionally. Life, etc, has made it difficult for me to carve out the time to commit to a band, but jamming online with like-minded players has been a godsend for me. Self-trained, I used to think of myself as a rhythm guy, without the chops to play much lead... but after hundreds of recording efforts of lead wankery I'm a lot better than I was.

I can't thank the regular players of the Les Paul Forum and The Fender Forum enough for their indulgence, their backing tracks, their encouragement and their inspiration. You'll find links to many of these fine players under "my fav bands".

Primary recording methods used on my tracks: Most of my tracks are leads recorded at home over public domain backing tracks created by fellow online jammers or by me. I have two small children and a wife, living in an urban condo, so micing an amp is an impractical method for me -- almost everything except the occasional acoustic track is recorded direct to a computer, "silently" within the home.

The search for good tone using this method is an ongoing process. I 've progressed through a Digitech multi-fx pedal, a PodXT and on to a Damage Control Womanizer pedal as primary tone generatorsl to get the sound I'm after. Each of the tools I've tried within that quiet home limitation has its strengths and weaknesses. Most of my playing...

Gibson's CS-356 guitars: My number one guitar is the Gibson Custom Shop CS-356 shown in photos here. It was from a special run of guitars produced for a store on the other side of the country, promoted on the internet in the days not so long ago when Gibson allowed their valued dealers to market the individual guitars they had purchased.

That is no longer the case, and sadly this relatively new model is very difficult to find in the shops. A pity, that. The craftsmanship is impeccable, the woods and tone sublime. It is, for me, the perfect recording guitar with a huge range of available tone, from 335 woodiness through LP balls to almost Tele-like spank. It's also a screaming blues machine.

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