Kristian Naugle - April 30th 2023 shredding guitar practice with new Genalex Gold Lion EL84 tubes

I recently had to change out the EL84 power tubes from my Hughes & Kettner GrandMeister Deluxe 40 guitar amplifier and I decided to record some video of my music development to show my friends what I'm working on.

Back in April of this year 2023, the Shuguang EL84 power tubes that were in my Hughes & Kettner GrandMeister Deluxe 40 guitar amplifier had gone bad. But they were in that since I bought it new in the summer of 2020 and those were probably made in 2019.

So I decided to purchase and install some Genalex Gold Lion EL84 power tubes to see what they're like. The Genalex Gold Lion EL84 power tubes were the most expensive that I could find from the new current production but I purchased them out of curiosity.

I have been working on this song idea shown in this video for awhile and started in late January of 2021 and early February of 2021 when I began playing Animal Crossing New Horizons on Nintendo Switch with a friend of mine.

I got into playing this musical scale/mode on the guitar because I watched a YouTube video of a song from a video game. That game was the Nintendo Game Boy version of RoboCop from Ocean software and some guy was playing a cover version of it on his YouTube channel.

I liked the song but I was excited in the happiness of playing Animal Crossing New Horizons and I used the notes from the musical scale to play out what I envisioned as walking put in the peaceful fields in Animal Crossing New Horizons and a sense of happiness in the spring time of the year.

These days I'm trying to transfer the sentiment of that happiness mood into musical notes and learning techniques on the electric guitar to articulate the music as I hear it in my mind.

I apologize for the perspective of the video being backwards. I was using the front facing camera on my phone to record this video and it's the same camera on the phone used to take selfies. I wanted to make sure the camera could see me play the guitar and that's why I laid the phone on the couch and watched the screen of the phone to make sure the guitar was in view.

The equipment I'm using is the Jackson Pro Series Soloist SL2Q-MAH in the Caribbean Blue Fade color when I bought this guitar in new condition from Sweetwater in the summer of 2019 when Jackson was making this guitar available in a variety of nice color options. Caribbean Blue Fade appealed to me the most.

I am using DiMarzio Evolution humbuckers in this guitar. They are the first signature series of pickups for guitarist Steve Vai and he has since had DiMarzio make several other signature series pickups for his guitars. The neck pickup I'm using is the DiMarzio Evolution DP158 and the bridge pickup I'm using is the DiMarzio Evolution DP159 which has very vivid harmonics capabilities, the Evolution DP159 almost has a fluorescent-like accenting of harmonics and that's why I like it.

The amplifier I'm using is the Hughes & Kettner GrandMeister Deluxe 40 guitar amplifier which is now equipped with the Benelux Gold Lion EL84 power tubes because the O.E.M Shuguang EL84 power tubes were worn out after nearly three years of usage. The speaker cabinet I'm using is the Hughes & Kettner TM112.

I am not using an effects pedal or board because the Hughes & Kettner GrandMeister Deluxe 40 has a variety of built-in effects such as flange, chorus, and others. I am using my guitar directly plugged into the amplifier and no external effects equipment is connected to my amplifier at the time of making this video which was April 30th 2023.

I use a variety of techniques such as two-handed tapping, flurry tapping, tapping dives, pumping dives, pinch harmonics, sliding tapping, trlling, and whatever else I feel will make for a more artistic listening experience. These techniques are not impossible and they're easier to perform than one would really think. It's like bicycle philosophy. Something only seems impossible until you learn the principle that the technique operates on.

A bicycle only seems impossible before the skill is learned and then it seems so easy and natural after it's learned. It's a matter of perspective and perception. A child thinks bicycles are fascinating and intimidating to learn until they learn the skill for pedaling and steering the bicycle. Then they wonder why they were so afraid at the beginning. I learned that these guitar techniques are much the same way.