Rob's silver

This is Rob Balducci's Ibanez (1977) Silver Series Strat-type guitar, you can see it over at his website. While you are there, click the video clip showing Rob playing this wonderful instrument. The other highlight here would be the fact that his wife, Carina, bought him this guitar...

How many of our spouses:

• would actually click with our guitar indulgences & do likewise?
• would actually go beyond just looking at us while we are playing... *bummer*

Balducci's bridge

The above guitars are Rob Balducci's custom Ibanez, there are others, of course.

A closer look reveals a different or variant bridge in use instead of the established Edge models. The gear section of Mr. Balducci's homepage is currently under revision. Hopefully, he will shed light on this bridge make.

Rob Balducci: Violet Horizon

I received Rob Balducci's Violet Horizon last Thursday, ripped it to mp3 & had the tracks in my phone & mp3 player. I've been listening to it every day...

Many people whom I've talked to do not quite fancy Mr. Balducci's playing because it's wah-drenched. But upon careful listening, it's not entirely true. Mr. Balducci here might have constantly punctuated his phrases with the wah but when he's not, I think many of us weren't listening. Ditto his playing style- after an initial listening, the impatient among us would ask, "Hey, where's the shred?" but RB is one who takes his time to craft his tunes. He would bend & vibrato at will then plunge into some shred; if it's done differently then it's not Rob Balducci.

Violet Horizon contains more shred moments than RB's two prior releases, it also features guest soloists Dave Weiner & Guthrie Govan. There are also some lush moments attributable to the Gilmour-esque school of guitar ambience as cited by Mr. Balducci himself.

Rob Balducci took time to have a Violet Horizon promo site up to share bits on the tracks & inspiration behind the tunes. Click here: Take me to the Violet Horizon promo site

Worthy quote: Rob Balducci

"I think that the tone comes from the combination of the amp that you use and the guitar that you use... The importance of the pedals come into play after you have that set up."

Individuals who have dabbled too much with tone changing fundamentals would concur what Rob Balducci said, above. We often forget the 2 fundamental components of our tone: guitar + amp. I often come across people who get worked up over pedal/ pickup issues when they don't really pay attention to their guitars & amps. We should see pedals as tone supplements, the stuff we use to better/ refine our fundamentals.

"I’m not into high output pickups because I think if the pickup is too hot that you are getting just the sound of the pickup. It all goes back to what I was saying about this quest for tone. It has to be a reaction between the pickup, the wood of the guitar etc., it all has to react together. If one of them is out of whack it’s just not going to work."

For those of us who love our straight through set-up, pickup selection/ matching is sacred. Like what RB mentioned, pickups with overpowering output would mask the true tone of your instrument; you hear your pickups more than the guitar's inherent voicing. This is why I'm rather selective when it comes to owning guitars with active pickups- the music I generate sometimes calls for that all-out distortion assault which active pickups would unquestionably deliver, hence my employment of EMGs & the likes. However when it comes to more tonal dynamics, the passive pickups would manifest more feel inter-play aka digging in & let your fingers do the talking.

Ibanez 2010 sneaks (Part 7): Amp!

Enough Ibanez guitar fodder, what I like this year is the new Ibanez amp- TSA15H. What's the buzz? TSA- the 'TS' stands for Tube Screamer, meaning: The Tube Screamer is incorporated into this amp... So now it's all about hearing it in action. Anxiety, anxiety... but not quite for me. This amp has no midrange control... *sigh* Still looking forward to hear it in person, though.

In the mean time, Rob Balducci's demo is here for everyone's considerations:

Rob Balducci... nice new guitar

Rob Balducci, perhaps the industry's most restrained shredder to date (but very tasteful playing, mind you) has a new personal custom Ibanez to show. There are no further details in the mean time but it's interesting to see an increasing number of renowned players opting for a non-dual action, non-locking vibrato bridge. Also, these chaps opted for non-locking nuts as well, Andy Timmons & Paul Gilbert are two others on the list. Mr. Balducci's new guitar looks stunning. It also makes the reverse Ibanez headstock very inviting...