It’s that time again - happy Sunday to ya! As the warmer weather continues to roll in, I’ve been more excited than ever to do so much for Chasing Sound. I think I was in a weird winter and early spring funk, and I’m glad to be out of it! This week I have brand new posts, lessons, new gear, and lots more. Let’s get right into this week’s links.

The Music Apps I Install On Every Mac - It’s super rare I get a new computer, but last weekend I picked up a new M1 MacBook Air. Getting the laptop made me want to talk about apps that I install on day one on all my computers. I talk about apps like Guitar Pro and Transcribe!, Neck Diagrams, EarMaster and even some apps from one of my favorite devs, Rogue Amoeba. If you’re looking for great apps to download for your Mac (some for Windows too!) check out the post.
3 Essential Things For The Perfect Practice Session - I followed up the post above by talking about 3 things that I need for every practice session. Utilizing a simple notebook and some staff paper, using metronomes and backing tracks, and developing a distraction free zone for practice have helped me immensely over the past couple of months. If you’re struggling in getting ahead with guitar, give that post a read. And if you want to take a deep dive on practice, check out this post from one of my favorite blogs, Farnam Street.
PRS Custom 24 Wood Library Giveaway - If you’ve popped into our Discord channel, you’d know I’ve been fiending for a PRS guitar. The good folks at Music Zoo are giving away a Custom 24 wood library in Red Tiger. This has to be one of the best giveaways I’ve seen in a long time. I hope one of us wins! If you do, let me know.
PRS Unveils New McCarty 594 Singlecut Joe Walsh Limited Edition Guitar - Speaking of PRS, this week we heard about their collaboration with the legendary Joe Walsh. Check out the included video in the post to hear how great this guitar sounds. If you want one, they’re going to be limited - just 200 guitars worldwide!
The Pedal Movie Is Here! - I’ve been waiting to see this movie for a long time, and I’m glad it was worth the wait. The Pedal Movie features pedal builders, musicians and more, and goes back nearly a century to document the history of effects boxes. The movie is over 2 hours long, and is well worth the 10 bucks it costs. This is a film I’ll be going back to for inspiration down the road - I feel like many are going to be inspired to try their hand (myself included) after watching this movie.
Josh Smith Teaches me the Blues | Lessons with the Greats - Josh Smith is at the top of his game right now in the blues world. I loved watching him teach Martin Miller (another excellent player) how to play the blues. It still amazes me we can watch these types of lessons for free.
Watch a Guitar Get Made From Scratch in This Documentary - If you have an extra hour to spare, and want to watch one of the most calming videos on the internet this week, you should check out this great video of a guitar getting made from scratch. I guarantee you’ll have a new appreciation for luthiers after watching it.
Learning guitar is better than meditation - The Next Web shows us why learning guitar is better than meditation. This was one of my favorite videos of the week, and just affirms why a lot of us love learning guitar. It feels great, is relaxing, it’s great for our brains, and is always like a “medicine” to whatever type of issues you might have going on.
Tech Talk: How I learned to stop worrying and love fretwork - If you’d like to do your own guitar repair, you should check out Guitar.com’s new post about fretwork in their Tech Talk series. I absolutely loved this post, because it harkens back to some of the “diary style” blogs of old. Lots of great advice in this one.
ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR PRACTICAL MUSICIANS: Guitar Cable Repair / How to Fix - In the same vein, I enjoyed this video from The Guitologist. He talks about why learning the ability to repair cables will save you time, money and more. Once you learn how to repair cables, you can go on to making your own custom ones.
The Bursts: A Short History - featuring Jeff McErlain - One of our readers Simon, shared this fascinating video of Five Watt World talking about the history of Gibson sunburst Les Pauls. The video features LP players like Jason Isbell, Joey Landreth, and Jared James Nichols.
Jared James Nichols reveals plans to restore ‘Dorothy,’ a Les Paul found in the wake of a tornado - JJN is also attempting to rescue ‘Dorothy’ a goldtop Les Paul with P90’s, which Nichols is a huge fan of. The reason it got its nickname? It was found in the front yard of a home in Washington, Illinois after a massive tornado ran through the town. Keep an eye on Jared’s Instagram for updates.
7 Steps To Cure Gear Acquisition Syndrome (G.A.S.) - But what if you’ve got the G.A.S. and don’t want to entirely deplete your bank account? Check out Antoine Michaud’s video, with 7 steps on curing G.A.S. - Antoine talks about things like planning your gear purchases in advance, to more drastic things like unsubscribing to pedal demo channels, or gear forums. I think the biggest thing you can take away from a video like this, is that you should focus more on playing, and less on gear!
Paul Gilbert Rants About Guitar and Melts My Face and It's Glorious | Guitar Villains - Paul Gilbert is a national treasure in the guitar community. He has a new album coming out soon, and the tracks I’ve heard from it so far, are of course musical and will appeal to any guitarist. Check out one of his latest interviews on the Guitar Villains podcast. The way that Paul thinks about the guitar, learning, songwriting and more is great. His passion and excitement for the instrument, even decades later, is really inspiring. You also have to check out Tyler’s $9000 vs. $250 pedalboard shootout.
Racing the Devil: Identifying Di Meola Style Wrist Motion - Troy Grady cracks the code on Al Di Meola’s “2 o clock” angular wrist motion, and shows us why it’s made Di Meola a speed demon on guitar over his career. Later in the week, the Everyone Loves Guitar podcastinterviewed Al, and he shared things he hasn’t shared in any other interview.
I Found The First Wah Demo Ever! (1967) - I grew up idolizing Kirk Hammett’s playing, so you know I listened to and loved wah guitar playing. JHS guitars reflects on the invention of the wah, and claims to have found the first wah demo ever. When Josh put the cardboard record on, it felt like going back in time. It’s a goofy song, but it’s funny to hear what the early wah playing sounded like.
(4K) Jimi Hendrix - Rock Me Baby (Monterey 1967) - Anthony from Texas Blues Alley continues to do some phenomenal restorative work on old blues and rock videos. His latest has him 4K-izing Hendrix playing “Rock Me Baby” at Monterey in ’67.
Uncle Ben's Subdivision SUPREME Alternate Picking Workout! - We’ve been talking about working on hand sync in our guitar chat a lot this week. Luckily, Ben Eller came out with a helpful alternate picking workout which you can use each day to warm up your hands.
Trying out a swirl painted vintage talman that was gifted to me - Yvette Young is doing exciting, new things on the guitar. I loved hearing her riff out on this swirl painted, vintage Ibanez Talman.
5 Reasons to Buy a Cheap Guitar - Rhett Shull takes a trip to Atlanta Discount Music, and gives us 5 reasons to buy a budget guitar. Spoilers, he walks away with a very cool orange sparkle Danelectro that sounds great. I’d love to hear your takes, but I really feel like more and more budget guitars have upped their quality over the last 10 years or so.
Everyone Should own a Boss DS1 - The Boss DS-1 is likely the most popular guitar pedal of all time, part of Boss’ classic lineup that’s sold over 15 million pedals. It’s a staggering number to think about. In John Cordy’s new video, he makes the case why everyone should own one of these distortion boxes, and goes through the tones that make it great. You might want to pick one up on Reverb, but before you do….
Reverb.com hit by temporary data breach - Change your password!
Jimi Hendrix's 'Woodstock' Marshall Super Lead and Fender Jazzmaster go up for sale on Reverb.com - After you’ve done that, check out Hendrix’s Woodstock Marshall head and Fender Jazzmaster which are now for sale. At the time of this writing, the Jazzmaster has sold for $750,000, while the amp is still available for a mere $350,000. 😳
Sick Riffs #136: John Notto teaches you Dirty Honey's Gypsy- I can’t get enough of Dirty Honey’s new self titled EP. John Notto from the band takes us through their new song, “Gypsy”. If you’re in to GnR, you should check Dirty Honey out.
Vintage Tuners: How To Restring Your Guitar Easily. - Do you have a Fender or other guitar that has vintage style tuners? In The Blues takes helps us learn how to change strings on these slotted, old school tuners. I have these on my Thinline Tele, and I wish I had helpful YT videos like this back when I first started!