If somebody told me when I was 18 that I will make music together with a guy in Los Angeles sitting in my basement in Central Europe I would have thought that he has been drinking or smoking over quota. Well, after some years this happens and we are taking that like a normal daily issue. World is getting smaller, more united, at least in terms of communication and spreading messages around and I am not sure if it is good or not. I think the main problem is that due to the easier and faster crossing of the borders and overcoming distances the world becomes more     vulnerable, but the all old antagonisms still remain unchanged. This is a dangerous combination. If somebody was a carrier of a pandemic virus in the old times, before he came from one continent to another by boat or a coach, there was mostly no more carrier already. Today he could reach 2 continents in a day and share his problem with another 150 people in a plane. All the superpowers could start a war in any place in the world within a couple of days. On the other hand world still lives in various political, economical, religious and whatever contrasts like 500 years ago. There was not much done, I think.

Anyway there are also some good sides of the globalisation. People can share information without being censored by the official channels. That is a big thing, certainly if your Interent is not censored of course. And the main thing – musicians can make a virtual band. The real-time playing is not that far, but recording works perfect. Check out our new video we made together with a talented musician from Los Angeles, called Harold Leeds. We used the good aspect of globalisation to make a guitar tune and maybe make a good feeling for couple of minutes not only to the people in California or Czech Republic but hopefully around the world.

Good luck !

I posted a new video some days ago with a purpose to come with a different sound compared to the previous ones. I tried to do a little of the works of my Stratocaster heroes Mark Knopfler and Eric Johnson certainly with all my limitations. What is the thing that makes the Strat –style of playing so unique ? I think it is the  4th position of the switcher – combination of the middle and bridge pick-up. I know there are many those who prefere the sound of neck pick-up similar to Another- Brick- In-The- Wall tone, but for me Strat is always first of all the 4th position.  In the 80s everbody had to have this sound at least from time to time and so it has become a little worn out but it is not the case now when the fashion is no more so much uniform like it was. A good example of a fantastic  Strat player of this time is Ritchie Kotzen. A combination of a neck-wizard technique of 80/90s and a pure Strat sound makes the playing interesting and surprising.

My settings for this track was light crunched Mesa Express combo and a Digitech Main Squeeze compressor in front of it. For the lead part I switched than to a drive channel of Mesa.

Enjoy and listen easy !

Mike

When I was 5 years old I started to collect Matchbox car models. I loved that colorful box with various models of limousines and supersports. Probably since that time I have been having a weakness for a collection of small fancy things. Anyway – for my playing with an unique folk-rock band Lightfoot I need a long, clean/crunchy sound. A type of not much distrorted tone however with a long sustain and absolutely clear articulation. So I need compressor and booster, wah as well, noise gate as well and some chorus and echo. If you put that together you have already a small Matchbox collection. And what to do not to lose time at the gigs ? You need a pedal board with pre-installed stomps. I bought a new one from SKB called Stagefive. It is worth of couple of bugs to store your collection safely. Lot of fun by playing and collecting !

Check it at last.fm: Mike Poss – Love Her

Mike

Yes, I do use them even the main portion of distortion in the sound comes from the tube pre-amp. Basically I think the choice should be done first according to the style of music. There could hardly be one pedal used for both death metal and country. Then the next is the style of playing. If you prefer to play chords there must be something different compared to playing tapping, legato licks etc. And the last thing is a personal taste. Every player has (or should have) his dream sound and should get to it as closest as possible in the reality.

That was the boring theory and now about some models. I have started with Boss Overdrives, which are not bad, afterwards I disovered the Ibanez TS group of products which is beside Marshall Bluesbraker the only pedals that work with my relic Fender Super Reverb (anything else even much more expensive was a big buzzing shit). Since a like a smooth singing sound with a long sustain I always put some of the pedal in front of my pre-amp to get a smoother and „longer“ sound than just simply plugging in to the amp. For this purpose I use today 3 various stomps – Fulltone OCD, MXR GT-OD and Proco Solo. Each of them is slightly different but all are very good. Fulltone is more like driving an amp, MXR is a fat rich overdrive and Proco is an edge sound with a tendency to a feedback.

It would definitely be great to try some boutique stomp boxes like Landgraff, Clay Jones, Tim and others, but it is almost impossible to find them in continental Europe.

Playing some blues stuff with the band live I program open tuning for a slide and use Variax even live for this purpose by some songs.