Come On and Get It

[toomanycats]

The origin of this song goes back about 5 years when I made a short instrumental demo of a Hard Luck Kings model called the Lady Luck. It's a 7/8th size Explorer copy in matte black. Nice guitar, though it had horrible stock pickups. Swapping in a set of Agile ALNiCo humbuckers out of mid 2010s AL-3100 was a major improvement.

Hard Luck Kings "Lady Luck"

Anyways, the demo I made sounded like it could be a great hard rock song if fleshed out with vocals and fully realized. It sat, and sat, and sat, as ideas sometimes do when put on the back burner and forgotten. But then I recently remembered the little ditty, as it occurred to me that my current musical collaborator, the lovely Mrs Amanda, could deliver the vocals needed to complete the song. So here it is.

All that remains of the Hard Luck Kings Lady Luck on the final recording is the main guitar solo in the middle of the tune. I just couldn't duplicate it. I don't mean that I technically couldn't play it, but rather that there was a singularly unique feel and quality to it that couldn't be repeated. The entire rest of the song was re-tracked using a Gibson Les Paul, the one pictured in the Youtube video in fact.

[Partscaster]

Smokin' ! Good presence in that rhythm guitar. Ms Vixen looks like an AI companion. Nice voice too.

[tonebender]

Good stuff as usual.

[tlarson58]

Love it.

LP goodness.

[Narsh]

Love that tone!!!

[toomanycats]

Love that tone!!!

Regarding the tones:

The signal chain was Gibson LP with Burstbucker 1 & 2 → Boss SD-1 → JTM type tube amp → Celestion Vintage 30 → SM 57 → Neve 1073 preamp.

The intro riff, as well as the break down near the end where the drums drop out, are the guitar straight into the amp. It's just a pure, raw amp tone recorded with a SM57. There is also zero eq applied during those sections, as I wanted a full sound. This is in contrast to the rest of that guitar track, during which I applied a steep roll off at the low mids. A guitar track eq'd in this manner will sound thin in isolation, though in the context of the mix it is more defined and focused, giving the overall recording more air.

A lot of that raspy, throaty bark of the rhythm guitar tones is attributable to the venerable Boss SD-1. Mine is the lowly $50 made in China model, no mods.

Specifically regarding the main solo, I don't remember exactly what I used in the signal chain. It is shocking how much it sounds like a Les Paul, even though it is in fact an Explorer clone with a basswood body, and quite possibly a maple neck. It's gotta be those "golden age of Agile" Artec A5 humbuckers, as that guitar did not sound like that with the stock pickups.

[Narsh]

Love that tone!!!

Regarding the tones:

The signal chain was Gibson LP with Burstbucker 1 & 2 → Boss SD-1 → JTM type tube amp → Celestion Vintage 30 → SM 57 → Neve 1073 preamp.

The intro riff, as well as the break down near the end where the drums drop out, are the guitar straight into the amp. It's just a pure, raw amp tone recorded with a SM57. There is also zero eq applied during those sections, as I wanted a full sound. This is in contrast to the rest of that guitar track, during which I applied a steep roll off at the low mids. A guitar track eq'd in this manner will sound thin in isolation, though in the context of the mix it is more defined and focused, giving the overall recording more air.

A lot of that raspy, throaty bark of the rhythm guitar tones is attributable to the venerable Boss SD-1. Mine is the lowly $50 made in China model, no mods.

Specifically regarding the main solo, I don't remember exactly what I used in the signal chain. It is shocking how much it sounds like a Les Paul, even though it is in fact an Explorer clone with a basswood body, and quite possibly a maple neck. It's gotta be those "golden age of Agile" Artec A5 humbuckers, as that guitar did not sound like that with the stock pickups.

I have a similar tone on the Kemper where I use a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Rev F with a Mesa 4x12 and a Tube Screamer in the Front. I usually mix that one hard right and then either a slightly brighter Boogie Dual Rec or a Vox AC30 hard left. Get a fat clear tone with the semi hollows and a gritty raspy fat tone with the solid bodies.