Ballad soloing - dynamics and phrasing

Welcome to the Phrasing and Dynamics lesson!

Lesson is focused on the beauty and dynamics range of the classic strat tone....mostly loved when using neck pickup. Natural brightness of this tone creates perfect conditions to pull out some screaming and agressive notes, while still being able to make it sound warm and subtle. You can do this by adjusting picking strength as well as pick and hand angles. Sometimes it's wort using fingerpicking to add extra colors to Your playing. To avoid distraction from main purose, there are no demanding, speed licks. This time it's all about the dynamics. Do not underrate the magic of details. Main influences in this composition were Andy Timmons and Jeff Beck.

Gear used (in order of connection chain placement):

1. SX SST57 guitar with Seymour Duncan STK-S4 pickups
2. Behringer MIC100 tube preamp (-20db switch on, gain and out knobs about 50%)
3. Presonus Inspire 1394 firewire audio interface (input gain 25%)
4. Poulin LeXtac vst plug-in:
- Channel - blue
- Input 50%
- Gain 70%
- Pre EQ - brighter
- Bass 50%
- Middle 40%
- Treble 50%
- Contour 100%
5. Kefir impulse loader (mix 100%)
6. Impulse - Catharsis s-preshigh

Tuning - Standard E

Backing track progression:

4/4 ||: D | D | G | G | Em | Em | A | A :||

Tempo: Main song tempo is 140 bpm. There are also backing tracks available at 80, 95, 110, 125 and 140 bpm.

Time signature: 4/4

Scales used in this lesson:

D major