Yesterday was quite a day; I received my appointment for my first dose of the Covid vaccine, so it’s safe to say I’ll be in a hellish mood for a day or two next week if I have any side effects, in other news Lockdown Lead Guitar now has it’s 46th episode, and this one is a song that’s charting right now!!!

I decided to join in the fun with the #CardinalBlackSoloChallenge, if you don’t know, YouTube guitar superstar and Cardinal Black guitarist Chris Buck has asked his subscribers to have a crack at playing the solo from the band’s number one single ‘Tell Me How It Feels’; you can replicate Chris’s original solo or try some of your own ideas – I went with the latter, and the one in the video was my 3rd attempt, having listened to the original a few times and the improvised over the track.

My first though was to use a Strat as this is often Chris’s first choice, but he went with a Yamaha Revstar on this one, so I opted for an old favourite, my 1991 Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro HT. Amps were not an option as we’re still living with the fallout from covid so I went down the digital route for my amp and pedal tones. Much like the last couple of LLG videos I’ve been using the free plugins from Nembrini, the Crunk v2 amp simulation and Rack Delay, to give the ‘amp’ a little push I switched between the ‘Clon Minotaur’ and ‘808’ plugins – I recorded with the 808 and feel it smooths things out a little better, but since Chris is a Klon guy, I went with the Minotaur in the end – it seems to give the guitar more a metallic attack.

I’ve no idea how many players are entering the competition, but it’s great fun and I’m looking forward to hearing what others do with the track. Wish me luck.