Solo Flights...one of Chet's Best

Watch and share videos from youtube

Solo Flights...one of Chet's Best

Postby Douglas » Sat Jun 18, 2016 2:50 am

Back in the days when LP's cost $4.99 I spent my hard earned allowance on the Solo Flights album and probably wore out my Dad's hi-fi listening over and over to the wonderful cuts. Eventually I got my own hi-fi a few years later, and went through a number of Shure M91 styluses trying to figure what he was doing. With perseverance, and a little help from a more experienced guitarist, was able to come up with a poor facsimile of this tune. This of course was before the days of guitar tab and all the great learning aids we have today, but it was fun.

Anyways, here's a quick video of Mercy, Mercy, Mercy on a modified Gretsch with bass strings.

https://youtu.be/eHeOq6pzJe8

Doug
Douglas
 
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:49 am

Re: Solo Flights...one of Chet's Best

Postby DagerRande » Sat Jun 18, 2016 8:20 am

Douglas, you must have gotten that album when I did and also at the same price! I agree with you about having to learn songs the hard way. I too went out and got a couple of bass strings to put on my Gretsch and learned that one. The one that attracted me the most though was "Drive In" and I put a lot of time into it! There are many subtle little tricks in those songs that make the difference between merely recognizing the song vs. playing it closer to how Chet did! Thanks for sharing that!
Rande Dager

We are all capable of doing more than we think we can!
DagerRande
 
Posts: 1102
Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:53 pm
Location: Battle Creek, MI

Re: Solo Flights...one of Chet's Best

Postby Spadaro Paolo » Sat Jun 18, 2016 10:29 am

Douglas Good job, nice sound and "excellent Bass" !!!!
Beautiful backing tracks.
Beautiful gretsch.

How do you feel with the T-REX replicator ????
Ciao,Paolo.
Spadaro Paolo
 
Posts: 558
Joined: Sat May 03, 2014 2:19 pm

Re: Solo Flights...one of Chet's Best

Postby Douglas » Sat Jun 18, 2016 2:42 pm

DagerRande wrote:Douglas, you must have gotten that album when I did and also at the same price! I agree with you about having to learn songs the hard way. I too went out and got a couple of bass strings to put on my Gretsch and learned that one. The one that attracted me the most though was "Drive In" and I put a lot of time into it! There are many subtle little tricks in those songs that make the difference between merely recognizing the song vs. playing it closer to how Chet did! Thanks for sharing that!


Ah yes the good old days. Would've liked to try it back then but only had one guitar and a very limited budget. A lot more fortunate now so I've been able to relegate this guitar as my full time "octa-bass". Looking at the back of the album cover I often wondered if that custom Nashville 6120 with the real F holes Chet used in those photos had the longer scale. I tried it on a Gibson ES-137 (shorter scale) a while back and the results were underwhelming. One of my mentors back in the day, John Gould, also pointed out one of the fingerings used in this tune is shown in the album cover photos. John also hung out with Lenny Breau and he told me that Lenny suggested that tune to Chet.

Doug
Douglas
 
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:49 am

Re: Solo Flights...one of Chet's Best

Postby Douglas » Sat Jun 18, 2016 3:03 pm

Spadaro Paolo wrote:Douglas Good job, nice sound and "excellent Bass" !!!!
Beautiful backing tracks.
Beautiful gretsch.

How do you feel with the T-REX replicator ????
Ciao,Paolo.


Grazie Paolo,

Coming from a player of your caliber that means a lot!

How do I feel about the T-Rex? I love the "old school" tape sound with all it's shortcomings. They really need to do some quality control or a redesign of the cartridge IMHO as I've bought 2 replacements, both of which came off the rollers the 1st time I used them and they're not easy to re-thread. It also takes a bit of finesse to adjust the head mechanism, balancing between strength of the signal vs. wow and flutter on playback. If you listen to the tracks you'll hear a bit of a "chorus" effect. That's the T-Rex tape speed variation and not the chorus option on the unit. And you also get a bit of drop off every time the tape splice comes around. I do use a Boss echo more often as it is much cleaner and predicatable. I've also used CatlinBread's Bell Epoch which is an Echoplex simulator and does a credible job, but not as nicely as the T-Rex, but it's about a quarter of the price. I'd give the replicator an 8 out 10 rating. Again, I'm not real happy about the quality of the tape cartridges.

Ciao
Doug
Douglas
 
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:49 am


Return to Video Files

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 25 guests