The quest for tone is a life long journey. If you began to play at a young age you had no preferences as to what your instrument sounded like. There’s no frame of reference for tone, ease of playing or anything except looks. I received my first guitar and first lesson on my 11th birthday and began with a $30.00 nylon string acoustic.

Eventually I talked my parents into a cheap electric guitar called an Orpheus. I got a small, off brand amp, and at 12-years-old I didn’t care what they sounded like. It wasn’t until high school that I fell in with a group of friends searching for knowledge about all things guitar, and we began to compare notes. When I formed a band to play Friday nights at the local Youth House dances, our drummer’s big brother lent me a Gibson ES-335. I didn’t know how lucky I was, borrowing it every weekend until I could afford a Les Paul Deluxe.

It was probably around this time that I began to appreciate tone. Recordings like The Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore, Electric Ladyland by Hendrix and Wheels of Fire by Cream were major signposts along the way. They helped me to form a concept of tone. It wasn’t long before I began to realize there were choices. Preferences as to string gauges, pickup height, action height, speakers, tube types, pedals, cables, picks, pickups, neck shape, scale length and tuning gears. I met some older, more experienced players that taught me a lot. Things that never occurred to me being mostly self-taught, like keeping my nails short on the fretting hand to play cleaner chords. I had no idea you could get your frets reshaped when they became pitted. Who knew you could change tubes in the back of your amp and give it new life? I bought a Fuzz Face, a wah-wah and a MXR Phase 90. The journey was ramping up!

To sound like Jimi I needed a Stratocaster. A Les Paul with humbuckers was necessary to emulate Mike Bloomfield. My band played a dance at a horseback-riding club in Pasadena with an as-yet-unsigned Van Halen on the bill alternating sets with us. I watched and learned a little more as Eddie and I exchanged guitars for a set. At any given moment in your musical journey your tone is the artistic signature that defines you and your musical tastes.

Now I’m the king of tweak. The cables I use for the distortion side of my rig are different from the clean side. I have preferences for everything, even the wiring inside certain pedals. It may seem like minutia, but by paying attention to your signal path down to the tiniest detail you are enhancing the sound your hands make. But this is where it should start:

Finding that sweet spot

Where I stand on stage in relation to my amps is very important to me. On a normal-sized, big stage I like to be off-axis from my speaker cabs so I can hear them as the sound reacts to the room. For me, that ambient room sound is so inspiring, rather like Clapton’s tone on the live “Wheels of Fire” disc. You know he was using no reverb or delay, and yet the sound was fat, captured by distance micing and full of “room sound.”

That same room sound is what I want to hear when I play on stage. Some guitarists use a Plexiglas® barrier between them and their rig. I’ve experimented with this a little, especially in community theaters where they sit the 70-year-old patrons and subscription holders in the front row. But my clean sound gets a little too dark and loses the high end sparkle. In my own band I always play stage right so that my bass player will be on the hi-hat side of the drums. Once I find a comfortable stage volume I position my pedal board somewhere between my farthest left cabinet and the farthest right cymbal, at least five feet in front of the drums. This is usually the sweet spot for me on stage; I can hear the bass player clearly and my ears aren’t getting beaten up all night by snare drum cracks and cymbal crashes. I hear myself in the room and sometimes even through the mains, which is very inspiring.

On the real big stages – when I have to use in-ear monitors – I go to that same sweet spot on stage and take one of the ear buds out, usually my left.  Sometimes I can get far enough up front to hear myself through the giant mains and it’s very inspiring. But my band doesn’t play the arenas and I don’t use in-ears in clubs and small concert halls, so stage position is everything. One more tip: adjust your lead solo tone so that you could stand right in front of it if you had to, then don’t!

©2011 Carl Verheyen. All Rights Reserved.

Disc One:       

“The Road Divides”

“Chinatown”

“Taxman”

“Highland Shuffle”

“You Bring Me Down”

“On Our Way”

“New Year’s Day”

Disc Two:

“Henry’s Farm”

“Jerry’s Breakdown”

“Bass Solo”

“Slang Justice”

“Slang Justice Jam”

“Take One Step”

“Eastern Steppes”

“Topanga Hoedown”

“All You Need is Love”

The companion piece to the live CVB DVD, “The Road Divides,” is now available on a special pre-release deal exclusively through http://www.carlverheyen.com.

From now through 8/31, the pre-release price will be only $15 for the double-CD set. Additionally, the first 50 folks who order will receive their copy autographed by Carl Verheyen! The CD price will increase to $18 as of 9/1/11, the official release date. The digital version of “The Road Divides” is available for $11.99 throughout.

The CD version contains sixteen live songs – new and from the CVB catalogue – recorded at Musicians Institute with this incarnation of the Band, their strongest line-up to date. It includes a new, fiery cover version of “Jerry’s Breakdown” (by Jerry Reed), and one new CVB original, “The Road Divides.”

The CD will also include two more unreleased tracks not contained on “The Road Divides” DVD:  Live versions of the Beatles’  “Taxman” and Verheyen’s signature tune, “All You Need is Love.”

Total running time is 87:74 minutes.

• Bodies made from the lightest Alder we can find.
• Carl Verheyen-designed, LsL hand-wound pickups that are based on his ’61.
• Slightly hotter bridge pickup.
• Dark rosewood 7.25″ radius fingerboard with LsL’s “Lowered Apex” fingerboard edges. The “Lowered Apex” creates a rounded transition from the neck to the fingerboard that begins behind the fingerboard and creates a soft, worn-in feel that melts in your hand.
• Hand-shaped neck that is based on Carl’s ’61 which has a medium “C” shape that is about .88″ thick at the 3rd fret.
• Hand-cut bone nut.
• Lower torque Bournes pots for fast, easy controls.
• Gotoh, vintage style, bridge with steel block and 2-3/13″ string spacing.
• 60′s style string tree.
• LsL’s thin, NC, checked lacquer finish with very light aging.
• Available in CV Blue (metallic), Vintage White and 3-Tone Sunburst.
• LsL, aged 3-ply pickguard with aged knobs and pickup covers.
• Medium high, 6105 nickel-silver frets.
• Tone circuit using oil-filled capacitor.
• Like our LsL Saticoy’s, the middle tone knob controls tone on the neck and middle pickups while the lower tone controls the bridge pickup alone.
• The “CV Special” will be strung with Dean Markley’s Carl Verheyen “Balanced Bridge” Helix HD™ string set: .009, .012, .016, .026, .037, .046.
• The “CV Special” will be set up and shipped with the Carl Verheyen “floating bridge” setup. This is Carl’s iconic setup that allows you to use the trem bar to not only lower the pitch of the strings but raise them too. This setup allows the pitch of the high E string to be raised a half step. The B string will raise in pitch by a whole step and the G string will raise a minor 3^rd.
• Backplates will feature Carl’s engraved signature.
• Like all LsL’s, each guitar will be named with a unique female name.
• Each finished “CV Special” will weigh in at less than 7.5 lbs.
• A G&G hard-shell case will be included.
• Made in USA.

http://www.lslinstruments.com/CVSpecial.html

THE SAILS is a 14-bar melody I wrote when I was a 19-year-old and living at the beach.  Dan, Karl and Cliff turn in super melodic solos, especially for sight-reading it on the first take.  I made a demo of this song as a young lad, but this is really its first commercial release.

L.A. VISIT is Karl’s funky composition inspired by the Austrian’s west coast experience. John Ferraro lays down a rock-steady groove throughout, giving the soloists a chugging bed to improvise over.  At the end the two guitars jump into some spontaneous harmony because it was feeling too good to finish the song right there!

SEND IN THE CLOWNS was one of the many standards we recorded those two days.  After I get the 6/8 vamp started off with some harmonics, check out Karl’s treatment of the melody.  He makes it sing and the biting Tele® back pickup tone really soars.  Dan Wall sounds like McCoy Tyner on this one!  Dan was an incredible surprise to me.  I had no idea he was that good.

TACOS FOR EVERYONE was his on-the-spot composition, inspired by the sound of the band and rendered immediately after lunch.  After Dan and I play the melody (that we barely know!) I launch into a Stratocaster® solo beginning with a few sounds that I didn’t know were in that thing!  The band builds under me until it all explodes and cools out, then Karl takes over on a masterful take on the song’s difficult changes.

DOLPHIN DANCE breaks it down to a two guitar duet on Herbie Hancock’s beautiful song.  We actually recorded at least a dozen duets together, sticking to our original two guitars:  Karl plays a custom made Telecaster and I play a 1958 Fender® Stratocaster.  We used a pair of Blackface™ 1964 Fender Princeton® Reverb amps and set mics up around the room for the most “honest” recording possible.

LOUD GUY BLUES was originally recorded as a guitar and drum duet on my 1997 release entitled “Slang Justice.”  So on this date we played it two ways: as a slow funk groove and as a burning up-tempo swing.  When it came time to make a choice for the CD it was impossible, they were both so different.  So we combined them into one long “variations on a theme” version.  After the slow version ends Dan comes back in blazing away and Karl and I take it out trading 12- bar choruses.

5 STEP SNAKE BLUES is a Karl Ratzer composition with no melody!  His playing on here is so melodic that the song doesn’t need one.  He carries it with his sweet, soulful Tele bends and beautiful tones.  Dan and I follow him with short explorations on these Ab major blues-gospel changes, and then it’s back to Karl who takes it home with some of his most powerful playing on the record.

SOLAR brings the CD to a close with Karl saying “I’ll follow you” and the two of us launching into another duet, this time of Miles Davis’ composition.  I believe the duets really show us stripped down to the core, both as soloists and accompanists.  All this music was recorded direct to 2-track tape, so the performances are not fixed or overdubbed in any way. The mixing was done on the fly during the actual performance and only “Loud Guy Blues” was edited after the fact.

Special thanks to the late Peter Infeld for making it happen. He was a good friend and supporter of the arts and we dedicate this re-release of Real to Reel to him. Thanks to Bernie Matthews for getting it all down on tape. Thanks to Gertraud Faigl and Helmut Frank for organizing this wonderful project, and all the staff at Sound Chamber for their hospitality. And thanks to Cliff, John and Dan for making it so easy for Karl and I to play!         –Carl Verheyen

PLAYERS:
Karl Ratzer: Telecaster®
Carl Verheyen: Stratocaster®
John Ferraro: Drums
Cliff Hugo: Bass
Dan Wall: Keyboards, Piano

SONGS:
“Bad Day for Robots”
“The Sails”
“L.A. Visit”
“Send in the Clowns”
“Tacos for Everyone”
“Dolphin Dance”
“Loud Guy Blues” (Version 1 & 2)
“5 Step Snake Blues”
“Solar”

Just 10 sleepless hours after I finished an intense five day mix-down of my 2000 CVB release “Atlas Overload,“ I found myself in the studio with one of the baddest guitar players on either side of the Atlantic: “The Telecaster Terror,” Karl Ratzer. After our mutual guitar string company had orchestrated a collaboration in the form of a live concert in Vienna, it was suggested that stylistically we are quite complimentary together.  Two days of recording were planned in early 2000 with a rhythm section in Los Angeles, neither of us knowing what it would sound like or where the soul of the project would be: jazz, blues, rock, country or funk? As it turned out it was all of those things, and this recording represents just a fraction of what was recorded and what we could still do. There are seven tracks with the band, and two duets with just Karl and me. I especially enjoy the interplay and musical connection with Karl. Since those two days in January of 2000 we have played together a few more times in Austria.  I always ask him to sit in with the CVB whenever I’m on tour there, and last year I was honored to be a special guest soloist at his 60th birthday concerts in Vienna. I hope there are many more collaborations in our future!                                                                                                                                          –Carl Verheyen, July 2011

Reeves Gabrels and I jam at summer NAMM 7/11, then are critiqued by Muriel Anderson.

If our first of the new LsL CV signature Saticoy’s, “Carolita,” is indicative of the norm for this new model from Lance Lerman then every die-hard Strat player should own one.

Carolita was pre-sold on arrival which saddened me a bit. I’m happy for the new owner and, of course, glad to have the business, but given the opportunity this guitar would have gone home with me. It’s impossible to say that any guitar is “the best I’ve ever played” for a given style, but Carolita is certainly up there in the very top rankings when it comes to the Strat style guitars I’ve had in my hands.

Carl and Lance have teamed up to create one of the finest sounding, most soulful feeling guitars I’ve had the pleasure of playing. The neck carve is fantastic……seeming to disappear in my hand…….the new CV specific, LsL hand-wound pickups truly incredible and I really dug the warmth and overall vibe of Carolita’s “CV Blue” finish.

It’s rare when an S-style piece can effortlessly cover both the shimmery, swirly, percussive and bubbly cleans and the thick meaty ‘Texas Tone’, but this guitar does it. The two extremes of my favorite Strat tones in one fantastic playing guitar that felt, in my hands, as if I’d owned it for decades.

One S-style guitar that will cover the signature tones of Clapton, Stevie, Hendrix, Knopfler, Cray……..?……..sounds like total BS and as I type this I’m thinking “Oh Lord, they’ll nail me to the Ultimate Salesman Tree for sure this time,” but Carolita was that guitar. I just hope all of the CV models are this good…..if so…..I gotta have one.

Highly Recommended!!   –Stu Carter, owner, Fat Sound Guitars™

Fat Sound Guitars

Pure Boutique Since 1993

8316 Chapel Hill Rd.

Cary, NC 27513

(919) 467-1003 (local)

1-888-328-7686 (FAT-SOUND)

+011-1-919-467-1003 (international)

http://www.fatsoundguitars.com

http://www.fatsoundguitars.com/store/index.php

US/UK BLUES ROCK CONNECTION
Starring Guitar Virtuosos CARL VERHEYEN (US) & PAUL ROSE (UK)!

CARL VERHEYEN:
“One of the Top 10 Guitar Players in the World” – Guitar Magazine
“One of the Top 100 Guitarists of All Time” – Classic Rock Magazine

PAUL ROSE:
Two-time winner of “Guitarist of the Year” – Guitarist Magazine
“A hot player with a hot future” – Rory Gallagher

Thursday, July 21, 7:00PM – 11:00PM

Red Rooster Nashville

1530 Demonbreun Street
Nashville, TN 37203
Phone: 615-457-2781
http://www.nashvillerooster.com/

The event will feature a scorching set from each, followed by a set together. The Red Rooster Music Hall is just past Music Row heading downtown. Award winning Kansas City BBQ, two huge bars and ample FREE parking in back of and across the street from the venue.

A $5 cover enters you into the drawing for prizes from the guitarists’ endorsement companies! There will be representatives from their gear companies and music stores carrying their signature lines present.

Grand prize will be a set of Seymour Duncan Zephyr™ silver pickups for Strat®, Tele® or Les Paul®, a retail value of $1,195! Click here for more details: http://www.seymourduncan.com/newproducts/zephyr-silver-pickups.php

Carl and Paul will be playing through the new Dean Markley CD60 amps, kindly furnished by Dean Markley Electronics, LLC. Carl will be debuting his new DMS Carl Verheyen Balanced Bridge™ Helix HD signature strings. Lots of DMS Carl Verheyen Balanced Bridge™ and other Helix HD™ string sets will be given away as prizes. Carl will also be playing his new LsL “CV Special” signature guitar.

Presenters:

Seymour Duncan, http://www.seymourduncan.com/
Dean Markley, http://www.DeanMarkleyAmps.com/ and
http://www.deanmarkley.com/Strings/Electric/CarlVerheyenBBHelixEl.shtml

Special thanks to:

Lance Lerman, http://www.lslinstruments.com/CVSpecial.html

Exclusive media sponsors and promoter:

Doak Turner, http://www.nashvillemuse.com/ and http://www.Musicstartshere.org/

Artist info:

Carl Verheyen, http://www.carlverheyen.com/

Paul Rose, http://www.paulrose.co.uk/

Event info:

Betsy Alexander, redqueen9@att.net