Shred Reviews | Reviews of instructional guitar material

Chris Letchford’s Gu...

Chris Letchford (Scale the Summit) was born in Houston, Texas in 1984 and began playing guitar at the age of 8 -- since then he’s attended MIT, Berklee School of Music and the Houston Community College and managed to tour in support of Dream Theater -- does he really need any futher evidence of his musical credentials or abilities? If so then the fact he’s also busy teaching private students...

Flatstick – Omnicore...

Flatstick was a studio project between 2 guitar teachers, Doug Steele and Gary McKay. They’ve released one album (Omnicore) and were about 80% done with album number 2 when Gary was diagnosed with cancer. Gary died in March, 2006. He is deeply missed. Flatstick are one of those bands -- you know the sort; packed full of talented musicians who decide that they don’t want to release just another...

Artist Profile – Jef...

“I have known Jeff for a while and have jammed with him on several occasions. He is not only an amazing guitarist, but a great instructor as well.” -Michael Angelo Batio “Killer chops, great melody and song diversity” -Rusty Cooley Jeff Beasley is another one of those players that I have been peripherally aware of but much to my chagrin I hadn’t investigated his playing...

Andy James – Metal E...

Extreme Metal Arpeggios The latest in the “Metal Edge” series from Lick Library (see also Extreme Tapping, Extreme Pentatonics, Metal Soloing Techniques volume one) Extreme Metal Arpeggios covers a wide range of approaches to arpeggio playing and provides an excellent introduction to the idea of sequencing arpeggios in order to provide further musical examples to inspire a wide variety of...

Derryl Gabel – Outsi...

(For other DVD’s by Derryl see Pentatonic Passages, Creative Tapping Techniques, Cool Legato Phrases and Cool Legato Phrases 2 ) Outside Secrets 1 and 2 (review coming next week) are further releases by Derryl as he educates and enlightens the guitar playing masses about various concepts and techniques, these however are a little harder to review than some because there’s a great deal of...

Derryl Gabel – Creat...

(See also Pentatonic Passages , Cool Legato Phrases, Cool Legato Phrases 2 ) Derryl Gabel is of course no stranger to any fan of Fusion or Shred guitar and indeed, no stranger to this website as I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing other DVD’s of his in the past. I was very excited when Derryl himself contacted me to see if I were interested in reviewing other instructional DVD’s he had...

Fred De Brum – Artis...

Fred de Brum with GK Messerschmitt Fred “The Shred” De Brum hails from Lisbon in Portugal and is another of those underground players that are gigging, touring and playing up a storm whilst hovering just under the horizon of international recognition – a position which looks likely to change in the near future. On asking him how he got started Fred was quickly to the point: I started...

st0rk – st0rk...

A long-anticipated release (see the back story here) stOrk features Shane Gibson (Korn, Johnathan Davies) Thomas Lang (The Greatest Drummer in the World) and Berklee Alumnus Eloy Palacios (Schwarzenator, Vension, session work) in what has to be one of the tightest, most rhythmically schizophrenic and groove-laden records to have been released. Leaving aside (for a moment) any other concerns the whole...

Red Bear Tuff Tone and Ori...

Red Bear Lil' Jazzers (Tuff Tone L, Original Tortis R) Red Bear have been somewhat polarising opinion on the forums that I frequent ever since they were released onto the scene in 2003. Numerous claims have been made as regards to longevity, tone and precision which have intruiged many guitarists looking for exactly those qualities in their pick choice and while there are some who feel that some of...

Chimp spanner – At t...

At the Dream's Edge At the Dreams Edge is the latest work by Paul Ortiz - a young chap from Essex in the UK who has had a lifelong association with music courtesy of his parents and describes himself as a Multi-instrumentalist composer and producer. He fulfils all these roles quite brilliantly and in Chimp Spanner “an intstrumental metal project I’ve been working on for the last few...

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Dave I'll probably look at the tab book when my 7 string arrives amd my wrists recover - s...
Griffo Sweet. Just ordered this through your recommendation (and my love for all things STS ...
Dave Cheers Adi - definitely recommended reading because it does have a huge selection of ...
AdiHughes Looks like a good book, its nice if your building a catologue of these things if you ...