A quick gear rundown, please!
Live I use a Kemper Profiling Amp. I’ve been using them since they first came out and I love them. They make everything so easy. We don’t even use cabs, just straight to FOH and to our in ear board. The best part is, I have all the channel switching being controlled via Pro Tools Midi, so I don’t have to worry about stepping on any stop boxes or having anyone step on them accidentally. For guitars I have a couple different signature models, and I have a brand new signature E-1 coming out very soon.

What’s your recording setup like?
I have my own studio that is constantly getting more and more gear. I’m actually at the point where I’m out of room and need to move to upgrade my space. For gear, I have so much, I’m a big Universal Audio fan, and love their pre’s, I also use the Apollo Quad interface and it has been absolutely great. I’m a Pro Tools guy and Avid hooked me up with the HD Omni but honestly I’m thinking about making the switch over to Cubase once I have a little down time to learn all the different quick keys. Can’t do it now as I don’t want to slow my workflow. So in my studio I have a Kemper, and Axe FX II, 11 different Tube Amps, Mesa, and Marshall cabs. Too many guitars to count! haha.

What Toontrack products do you regularly use?
I definitely use EZ drummer the most. It makes it so simple to just pull up a kit and get some drums down when I’m writing. The midi grooves I cannot express enough how awesome they are and I would love more! I have almost all of them, but I’m not even sure which ones I don’t have. They come in so handy with coming up with drum fills and parts I would never think of. I also play drums, but I’m not as skilled on the drum kit as the guys shredding the stuff in EZ drummer groove packs.

If you had to name one guitarist that influenced you the most starting out, who would you say?
James Hetfield.

…and what guitarists do you think stand out today?
My all time favorite guitarist is Paul Gilbert. As for this generation of players now I would have to give huge props to Brian (Synyster Gates) Haner. He’s an incredible player, and such a down to earth dude. It always makes me such a bigger fan of bands I look up to when they are awesome people as well.

If you could put together a dream-team of musicians to form a band with, who would they be?
That’s a really tough question and I have no idea haha.

Walk us through a typical day ”in the life of”.
Oh man, it all depends on where I am, what I’m doing and if i’m on tour or not. When on tour, its pretty much the same everyday. Wake up sometime between 9 – 10am generally, go find out where I am, and if the venue is open. Then I head into the green room and get situated. Find somewhere to work out. Get a shower if there is one. Maybe play some xbox, then do sound check. Then we have a meet and greet typically, then its a couple hours of hanging, get some dinner, then about an hour before showtime, I start warming up and run through solos from songs I’ll be playing that night.

JAKE PITTS
– NEW TRACK.

Listen to this track, performed with the Metal Guitar Gods 4 EZmix Pack tones and written by Jake himself, specifically for this project!

A quick gear rundown, please!
I play Jackson guitars and I can’t say enough good things about them. My current favorite is a custom telecaster they built me with a Floyd Rose, 24 frets, a pull out volume knob for coil splitting and a pull out tone knob to activate the tone to, so you never accidentally bump it mid-song. I have a variety of amps, including some Randalls and Marshalls, but I have recently been playing an all-digital rig through plugins running in and out of a MOTU interface with the buffer set very fast. It has all patch changes programmed within the DAW we use for our click tracks and keyboard and sound design tracks. I also use some Dunlop pedals including the X2 volume, CFH wah, and I also have a Line 6 G50 wireless system on my pedal board as well. Sounds a bit complicated, but it’s actually fairly simple and I really like the results I’ve been getting.

What’s your recording setup like?
I have a Tascam DM4800 digital console with the add-on interface card. It gives me 24 digital ins and outs or 12 ins and outs if I run it at 96k. The DM-4800 allows me to do minor pre-EQs on drums, get everything in phase with either the phase flip or the fine-tune delaying to get everything perfectly phased. I also have 2 MOTU 2408 Mark III interfaces, which you can run in parallel. So when I need more than 12 channels at 96k, I switch to those, which gives me 24 channels at 96k. I use Mackie HR824 MK II monitors, which I swear by and can’t say enough about. I also have the trusty, standard Yamaha NS-10s for secondary reference. I run a Mac Pro quad core 3.0 with 16 gigs of RAM. As far as outboard gear, I have two Universal Audio LA-610s and an API lunchbox with seven channels of API 512c mic pres. That’s pretty much the heart and soul of my setup.

Astrong for software, I use MOTU Digital Performer as my DAW and have for the past 16 years. People are sometimes surprised to hear that, but it has a lot of really useful, cool features and after 16 years, I know it incredibly well and I’m very fast in itstrong
Not to mention, I’ve seen other DAWs “borrow” its features years after they came up with them. Aside from the great Toontrack products, I also depend heavily on a lot of Kontakt libraries for some of my “post apocalypse” signature sounds, and I’m very impressed with most of the Steven Slate products I have, though I opt for Toontrack drum libraries over Slate virtually 100% of the time. I Particularly find his FG-X mastering plugin nearly indispensable.

Mstrong mic collection includes a Neumann U87, Neumann TLM103 x2, Blue Woodpecker ribbon mic, Blue Baby Bottle x2, Shure SM7B, AKG C414 x2, AKG C430 x4 and your standard things like about a half dozen SM57s, a few beta 57s, Audix D2’s and D6s, AKG D112 anstrong
things of that nature.

What Toontrack products do you regularly use?
I am a big fan of the Metal Machine EZX library as either the basis of my drum sound with some additional samples I’ve made blended in to give the drum sound something that is distinctly signature to me, or I like it for blending into real drum recordings for reinforcement. I load it in Superior Drummer 2 player rather than EZdrummer 2, so that I can get the full mixer and effects before routing certain pieces out into channels in my DAW. I also really like the reverb on Metal Machine. I generally add a bit of high end on the insert of the reverb to bring out in the mix more. I also use a lot of the EZkeys products quite frequently, especially the organs, as well as the Drumtracker for sound replacement. I find it particularly useful on creating MIDI for toms which can otherwise be tricky with many trigger plugins.

If you had to name one guitarist that influenced you the most starting out, who would you say?
My first real influence as a guitarist was definitely my dad, without a doubt. He’s a great player and had a pretty successful career as a session guitarist for several decades and still works. He never pushed me to play, but I had a massive guitar collection at my disposal growing up and I had someone to ask questions and teach me things when needed. From there, Alice in Chains put out their first record and Jerry Cantrell was my gateway into riff-oriented heavier music. Later, I’d get into guys like Paul Gilbert, Reb Beech, Eddie Van Halen and Marty Friedman, which then turned into guys like the almighty, untouchable, Allan Holdsworth all the way to Brent Mason. I would also say that Ron Jarzombek has been an influence on my playing that I think can be heard in my playing at times.

…and what guitarists do you think stand out today?
He’s not a new player, but finally getting the notoriety he deserves and that’s Luc Lemay of Gorguts. I think he is a brilliant player and writer. My good buddy, ex-band mate and co-contributor on this very Toontrack project, Wes Hauch, is another. Dave Davidson and Dan Gargiulo of Revocation and Daniel Mongrain of Martyr, Voivod and ex-Gorguts to name a few.

If you could put together a dream-team of musicians to form a band with, who would they be?
Luc Lemay on guitar, Sean Malone on bass, Devin Townsend on vocals (who I feel is the Freddie Mercury of our time), either Dirk Verbeuren or Zach Hill (just to throw a little chaos into the mix) on drums and I’d like to play guitar and do a duo singing thing.

Walk us through a typical day ”in the life of”.
“Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, made my way downstairs and drank a cup and looking up, I noticed I was late….” Just kidding. Let’s see, I usually watch the news until the early afternoon and then get into the studio for a bit and play a little guitar. I get most my daily errands and chores done during the day and then spend the hours that normal people with respectable professions are sleeping, in my studio writing, recording or mixing. I used to play guitar a good amount of time every day and admittedly I don’t do that so much anymore, but I’m redeveloping my love for shedding, working out complex things and spending time just sitting with my guitar writing, practicing, crafting tones, etc. I also really enjoy the side of composition that involves creating big arrangements and soundscapes and spend a lot of my days working on those types of arrangements. It’s something that shines through on our last record “Autotheism” in a pretty big way and I’ve continued to develop those skills and showcase them in the forthcoming record.

Astrongide from that, I enjoy reading and I’m currently reading a book on composition for film, as that is something that interests me in a big way. I’ve done some music for film, but I’m still in the phase of getting my feet wet. It’s something I’d like tstrong
take on in a serious way.

A quick gear rundown, please!
Ibanez Guitars with Seymour Duncan Pickups. Friedman Amps, Two Notes Torpedo Live and The Kemper. Dunlop 535Q and an original Digitech Whammy 1.

What’s your recording setup like?
I have an iMac and Logic is my DAW. Other than that it’s Superior Drummer 2 and a good amount of coffee and guitar stuff.

What Toontrack products do you regularly use?
Superior Drummer 2 and the EZmix 2 stuff. I also really like the Tempesta/Verburen MIDI packs because it saves so much time with programming drums.

If you had to name one guitarist that influenced you the most starting out, who would you say?
Very tough one, but I’m gonna have to go with Rivers Cuomo on this one. I learned most of the songs off of that first Weezer record, and he kinda made we want to start playing solos and stuff.

…and what guitarists do you think stand out today?
Man, there are so many, but there’s a young cat named Sims Cashion that I think is going to take over the world. Emil Werstler is a huge inspiration and a great friend. Andy James, Rick Graham, Nick Johnston are all way killer.

If you could put together a dream-team of musicians to form a band with, who would they be?
Krimh on drums, Martin Rygiel on Bass, CJ from Thy Art Is Murder on vox.

Walk us through a typical day ”in the life of”.
On tour, I’m probably driving the van. If not, then I’m probably sitting somewhere in the venue playing guitar and waiting to soundcheck. And if I’m not doing that, I’m probably looking up Ramen spots on Yelp in that city and trying to find a way to get there.