If you’ve ever purchased a CD or at least been to a record store and looked around, you’d be familiar with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) logo that’s on some of the record album covers that says: Parental Advisory – Explicit Content. The recording company that produced the album decides which ones get the sticker and which ones don’t, so it isn’t exactly a rating given out by some accredited evaluation group. There isn’t a standard set of criteria to tick off against, but the albums that have this warning are usually presumed to have instances of strong profanity, violence and/or sexual situations. Critics have said that an album that has a sticker doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s more profane than one that doesn’t have a sticker. Some have been first released without the label and subsequently re-released with one. In other words, the label isn’t as telling as album titles like “Prolonging the Magic” and “Barely Legal.”

So you’re sitting in front of an amp that’s cranked to the max for some searing over driven guitar sounds and you’re stuck trying to make the thing sound clean. The worst part is your amp is only a single channel model, so you can’t switch between clean and dirty.

You’ve got two options. I’ll offer the first one as the “easy” way, then the second as the “best sounding” way.

Option 1: Use a Distortion Stomp Box (Effects Pedal)

This is pretty straightforward. Set your amp to get the clean tone you want, then put a distortion pedal in line between the guitar and the amp. Now, when you want distortion, hit the pedal with your foot. Then hit it again to turn it off and return to the original sound.

If you perform in a rock band or country band of any kind then you should know that using professional backing tracks will help you be one step ahead of your competition. The right tracks can add to your sound and performance enormously and help you perform songs that you may not normally be able to play live. Whether you’re in a cover band, a tribute band, or an original band, tracks are going to give you that extra edge to thicken up your live sound.

The internet as we know has changed the music industry forever. And I’m not just talking about the downloading and sharing of tracks that’s now going on in every school and a lot of offices around the world, I’m talking about the more positive side of things: Everyone has the change to make it big!

Websites like MySpace have given EVERYONE the chance to showcase their music, whether you’re the next big thing to grace the centre stage, or a rookie musician with vocals flatter then a fried omelet. But with all this choice around, why should the consumer (The person you want to pay your wages by buying your music) choose to listen to and invest in you over the other thousands of people that do similar music?