Guitar Smarts

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! We are guitarists, and we love tone! But how do we get more and better tone than we had before? What can we do to maximise the sound that we produce from our instrument and out rig? Where can gains be made and what simple changes can we make to ourselves and our setup to really get to Tone Heaven!  Remember to please subscri...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! This week the guys take a philosophical view of Guitar Ownership and what it really means to own instruments that in some case have incredible sentimental meaning. Are guitars frivolous things, are they needless purchases only justified by a desire to own them rather than a real requirement, or are they genuine investments f...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Welcome back Listeners! This week Kiran and Matt discuss old guitar magazines, GAS, and Cheap Guitar Amps! Are you looking for a great budget amp to use for gigging or jams? Have a listen and check out the amps the guys chose! Remember to please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, and come to see us on our social...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! This week Guitar Smarts are super pleased to see the return of our regular guest, Damo Lodrick. This week Damo joins us to impart his experience upon us and to help us become better studio musicians.  Check out Damo's website here:  https://www.dlentertainments.co.uk/dlb/ Remember to please subscribe wherever you listen...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! T his week we are considering what the future looks like for the Guitar, for amps and manufacturers and all things to do with this instrument that we love. Will we see the instrument change as it devours new innovations and technology or will we remain as we have for a quite some time now, loyal to 1950’s and 1960’s design w...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Welcome! This week we are doing a Guitar based Pub Quiz night and you are all invited! get yourself a pint of your favourite, a packet of Pickled Onion Monster Munch, a pen and paper and settle down for the first ever Guitar Smarts Pub Quiz! Remember to please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, and come to see u...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Now its been a couple of weeks since Paul Reed Smith Guitars released their much anticipated and highly publicised SE model of the John Mayer Signature Guitar, the Silver Sky. Being John Mayer fans Kiran and I had been talking about this guitar for sometime and were interested to see what the SE model would be like in compar...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Welcome to 2022! We are kicking off the New Year with a light hearted look at the songs we love gigging and the ones we don't quite enjoy as much! Link to the Playlist is here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2VNPOscy7Ymk8zIu9mYIPE?si=fe02e3be2bfe4d75 Remember to please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts,...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! As we reach the end of another year, and the first year in Guitar Smarts history, Kiran and Matt look back at what have been important milestones for them in 2021, and also look forward to 2022 with new resolutions and hopes for how things might improve and change for the better in their guitar and music worlds! Remember to...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! This week, we are extremely privileged to welcome Richard Shaw on to the podcast. Richard is one of the guitarists in legendary UK Extreme Metal Band, Cradle of Filth and his career over the past 20 years is the product of many years of dedication and hard work. This conversation was a gem, and Richard recounted many experie...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! This week on the podcast, we talk about some guitar brands that you may not know about, but you NEED to know about! There are some luthiers out there who are knocking it out of the part and this week we are pointing the spotlight their way.  If you want to find out more about the Luthiers we have spoken about on this weeks p...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! This week on the Guitar Smarts podcast, Matt gives us the lowdown on his new rig. If you've been following the show, you'll know that Matt recently took the plunge and decided to sell all his amps, pedals and kit in favour of a Line 6 Helix based rig with FRFR cabinet. Lets find out how this has gone so far. Rememb...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Greetings and welcome back to the Guitar Smarts podcast! This week, the guys have a hypothetical £300 (about $400) budget to create a fully working pedal board out of new equipment. No homemade pedal boards here! And the guys did surprisingly well! Here are links to the equipment: Matt's Board https://www.guitarguitar.c...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! OK, maybe not the hottest guitar news out there but we enjoyed it! What do you think about the topics discussed today? We discuss some big manufacturer news, new products, budget equipment that is new on the market and a unique justification for buying something cheap. Remember to please subscribe wherever you listen to your...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Greetings! This week we are making another list - this time its our favourite guitar solos, from each sub genre of Rock, Blues, Jazz, Metal, Country and Pop.  What are your favourites? You can find a Spotify playlist of this list of songs here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2iB4KG3QTeYAOnvbgakVh6?si=d8f94782f4fa46dd For...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Every guitarist loves a great guitar based intro to a song. Sometimes it's better than a good solo, and the best of all of these songs are defined and recognised most by their amazing guitar introductions. They set the tone, create the vibe and leave you feeling ready for more. This week, Kiran and Matt have listed thei...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! This week, we are revisiting our conversation from an early episode of the podcast around guitar practice and music theory and specifically the things we have learned about how to get better at guitar practice.  Remember to please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, and come to see us on our social media channels...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! This week, we conclude our discussion on the things you can do to improve your live sound at your gigs for your band. You would be surprised how much of an improvement you could make simply buy reading up on some basic sound engineer skills and applying them to even the most basic setup. Go for it!  Remember to please subscr...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Getting good live sound at your gigs can be a challenge. Taking a simple approach is often the taken path for most bands, opting to use a PA to amplify vocals only and rely on backline for everything else. But taking that extra step to invest in some equipment, and more importantly, some knowledge and skills to improve your...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Once again, Matt has rebuilt his entire pedal board which means that this year, every gig he has played has had a different rig. Does Matt have a problem? You decide... Rate and Review the Guitar Smarts podcast here: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/guitar-smarts-1580199 (On the right hand side, press the button that says...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Streaming music is undoubtedly convenient and how we all consume music these days.  However has this ability to listen to any track instantly or let Spotify choose your playlist actually resulted in the death of the “album experience”? Does anyone craft an album the way they used to or is the industry geared to just produce...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Everyone loves a good live performance, but when an artist captures a live performance and releases it as a live album, you get to relive that performance forever. Some live albums have gone on to be revered as classic albums to be remembered and enjoyed for all of time, regardless of their origin. Which ones are our favouri...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Recently we spoke about getting ourselves prepared for gigging on a technical level, maintaining our instruments and getting our equipment ready for the rigours of gigging and rehearsing. But what do we need to consider when it comes to being a member of a band and ensuring that we are pulling in the right direction? How do...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! Ever wondered what it takes to be a modern day session musician? Gone are the days of driving from studio to studio, taking calls from the hot producers and working with artists to give them your sound. Now is the age of remote recording, dropboxing your stems and getting ideas down over Zoom calls, and the competition is hi...

Love Guitar Smarts and want to get in touch with us? Send us a Text HERE! For quite a few decades now, many guitar manufacturers have honoured some of their more famous users with signature instruments. Arguably the oldest signature instrument is the Gibson Les Paul, which has evolved into a whole range of guitars. For some guitarists, a signature guitar is a representation of what they prefer in...