Just want to say...
I want to make the point that with my music I use very few electronic techniques. I do not use any looping or sampling and all of the instruments are played live by me for the duration of the song or instrumental piece. There is no doubling up, no chopping tracks. If it doesn't work I play the whole thing again. I use two guitar multi-effect processors, that I've been using for many years and the sounds that I use with them I have programmed in myself.
Amplifiers: I tend to stick to the same make, and guitars I limit myself to half a dozen, which at the moment give me everything I need in guitar. For the percussion, it is all performed live, also with the addition of a drum processor, and the addition of live drum sounds also. Occasional keyboard, but this is limited as I have developed most keyboard techniques on the guitar for what I need. I don't use stand alone pedals in the studio, except the WahWah, but would utilise them for live gigs, obviously for practicality.
With the solo guitar I am a firm believer that everything should be played in one stretch. I feel that to do a few bars and then maybe swap tracks is not good. I believe that if you can't do it in one stretch you are going to lose the ambience and power of what you want to say. You should plan this out in your head, and know on the fretboard where you are going to go. I have always played solo guitar for an hour or four, it doesn't bother me, and that's what you need to be able to do. You need to be able to play non-stop for a very long time as a solo guitarist, and if you can't, you are not doing your job. I feel very strongly about this.
With Lost in Wasted Time, which I regard as fairly short, people ask me if it was done in one take. Well the answer is yes, and I invite anyone to look at my wav file, there are no breaks, and no swapping tracks.
I remember being in a studio once and the producer wanted me to play, I guess the solo would be about almost a minute. He asked if that was OK, it's a long time. I just looked at him and said, just press record. It's the way it is with me, I don't practice anymore, but in the early days I would never put the guitar down, and would play for a very, very long time. Purely because I would get lost in what I was doing and time became irrelevant. The realisation of the length that I'd been playing was that the band members had changed !
I don't believe in gadgets too much, I believe that you need to learn the techniques to play. Tapping and shredding is not for me.
Just needed to clear a few things up.
Chris Dair