I was sitting around creating new presets for the Tone Master Pro and came up with a few for getting those rack style sounds from the 80s. When programming those sounds I came up with a few musical ideas that I distilled into this tune. But it's rather a collage of musical ideas than a tune in the traditional sense.

Private Songs 2024

About All That

I love the guitar sounds coming from the Los Angeles session studio guitarists and their huge racks.

So one of the first things I do when I get new stuff is how I can get those sounds.

It was quite easy to get these sounds here from the Tone Master Pro and they are so much fun to play!

Voluptous Waveforms

This is a track that I started writing in 1999 and then did some work on in 2010. But for some reason I didn't know how to develop it.
Last week I was trying out the latest update for the Fender Tone Master Pro and found a rhythmic motif that got me going again and I finished it in a day.
This is a mix of pop and a bit of rhythm mayhem in the middle.

Unintended Consequences

This is a track I started writing about 10 years ago. But I ran out of inspiration so it didn't get finished.
A few weeks ago when I was revisiting old unfinished tunes I found it again and this time I had enough ideas to finish it.

It's a tune with a (for me) unusual mix of synths, hard hitting processed drums, synth bass/electric bass and a few guitars.

I hope you'll enjoy it!

No Such Thing

I have often hear about the gloriousness of a cranked Fender Deluxe, but I've never experienced it myself as I've seldom played in circumstances where such loudness has been appropriate.

When I got into modellers and profilers, I tried cranking up the models but with no success with any of them. 

Fast forward til a few weeks ago when I tried it on the Fender Tone Master Pro and it was just there. Reacting really well to both picking dynamics and volume changes with guitar volume or volume pedal.

So this track is based on just that sound. So much fun to be had and I will be revisiting this sound many times to come.

Doing Nothing Much

When I started writing this tune, I thought it was going to to be a fairly straight forward countryish tune i D major with lots of twangy guitars.
But when I got into the writing process I kept hearing these, for the genre, weird chords, like C7/11, Bb7-5 and A+5 to name a few. So I put them into the tune and this is the final result.

Sharp Cuts And Close Shaves

I've always admired Larry Carlton and according to others that has influenced both my composing and my playing.
This track was an effort to write a tune where I decided to focus a lot on chord tones both for the melody and the solo.

Living With A Memory

I was in an 80's frame of mind when I wrote this and I think the influences can be clearly heard.

No Discernible Reason

Sometimes I hear things in my head that I want to record and this was a time to explore some (to me) unusual chords and how different notes feels relating to the root note. Lots of fun!

Rethorical Questions

I have always loved the songs from the 70s, 80s and 90's where my session heroes Mike Landau, Steve Lukather, Dann Huff and Jay Graydon were prominent in shaping the overall sound of the productions they were part of.

So this tune is a shameless flirt with all the sounds and styles of that era and I truly had a blast recording it.

Hands That Listen

I've been fascinated with synthesizers since the early 80's and love to program them to get my own specific sounds. Unfortunately, I've never had any success with guitar synths so since I got my Kemper profiling amp 12+ years ago I've been into profiling and playing weird sounds that sounds very little like electric guitars. I call this playing Un-Guitar. Along that, I've also tried all kinds of software plugins to craft more Un-Guitar sounds. One of my go-to software for this is Native Instruments Guitar Rig and with the latest version 7, I'm having a lot of fun!
Every sound you hear in this tunes except for the bass synth and the drums are made with guitars and in most ways mangled by Guitar Rig 7. The few sounds sounding most like traditional electric guitars were played through the Fender Tone Master Pro and then processed with GR7.  

Unknown Quantities

I love weird guitar sounds and I trying to get on with different kinds of fuzz so this tune is a mix of both. This is not a smooth sounding track.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

My musical roots are quite firmly planted in the music coming from the Los Angeles studios in the 80s and 90s. 
Some call it smooth jazz and I really don't disagree.

Worthwhile

I wrote this tune when I felt I wanted to get back to the sounds of the 80s but with a definitive touch of the present.
FM synths for bass beefed up with some virtual analog, some funky guitars and a massive beat.

Moving The Meter

Just a simple ballad in a West Coast LA style made popular in the 80's and 90's. Musically, I grew up with this style so every once in a while I revisit.

Heartstone

Every once in a while I feel the urge to do some country picking. Sometimes I revisit and old tune or sometimes I write a new one. In this case I merged to older tunes into a new arrangement. 
The reason I wanted to do some country this time is that I created a preset on the Tone Master Pro that I really like and I used that for all guitar tracks on this tune.

Western Headware

A bit of soul with organ and guitar as main ingredients. I'm going for a Dumble ODS vibe with the guitar.

Don't You Think

Back in the 80s I listened a lot to Lee Ritenour and whenever I play clean I think that influence shines through. Not the least in this tune.

Five Days Hence

I don't know if anyone can hear it but two of my main funk influences are Prince and Mark Lettieri. To my ears that's kind of obvious here.
One day I wanted to play some funk so I wrote this.


Spicy Funk Food

I started getting seriously into music in the late 70s and the 80s so there's were my main musical influences can be found. Both as a player and a composer.

This tune channels some of the lighter guitar fusion styles from that era. The guitar sound I was aiming for here is that of a Dumble ODS on its brighter side.

Force Of Habit

My goal with this track was to create a tune that would reflect my influences from the 80s. Larry Carlton for guitar and Michael McDonald for the arrangement.
Many people would probably call this Smooth Jazz but, personally, I'd call it Smooth Pop as the jazz influence is fairly minimal.

None The Wiser

I'm a huge fan of Michel Landau. I've seen him live a few time and I'm always blown away by his playing. In this tune I tried to channel the dynamic kind of rhythm he does so effortlessly.
For the rhythm guitar I used a James Tyler Studio Elite and for the solos I used first the Tyler and then a Collings City Limits. Amp and FX was the Fender Tone Master Pro.

The Very Same Thing

This is what we, in Sweden, call LA Slick or West Coast. A big ballad with lots of wide stereo guitar tracks, long delays and big reverbs.

The title came to me as I passed a fairly new building at Sveagatan 117 in Varberg and noticed what a nice door they have.

The Door At 117

This tune is a reflection of a painting I saw at a local art exhibition. It showed a young man in NYCunder a road sign saying ONE WAY and there was a "talking bubble" in which the guy said: "I'm lost!". 

I spoke to the artist and he told me he had used to photos and superimposed them on each other so, somehow, parts of both photographs were could be seen. I tokk that concept to my DAW and layered two grooves and deleted some hits from each groove to get the intended result and then build the tune from there.

So thanks to Bengt the artist for the inspiration. You can find the picture here:
https://www.bengtbakomkameran.se/product-page/i-am-lost


One Way and I'm Lost

If there's one player from the 80's whose rhythm playing I really admire, that would be Paul Jackson, Jr. His got such a command of "small chord" voicings and his right hand has such a groove.
So that's where I got the inspiration for this tune.

No Never Mind

Once in every great while I like to get my slide out a play some stuff. As I seldom play with slide, when I do, it tends to be blues or rock.
I never retune any of my guitars so I always play in standard tuning.

This is a funkyish kind of blues with some really undisciplined slide playing.

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