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PeteDuBaldo

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Joined
Jul 16, 2004
Messages
10,205
Location
Central Connecticut (Manchester) USA
First off I would like to extend my thanks to the Ernie Ball crew and Sterling for sponsoring the clinic, and a huge thanks to Steve Morse and Dave LaRue for doing this clinic on their only day off this tour - what great guys they are! Beej, Lou, and Tommy, your help setting up and tearing down was much appreciated, we couldn't have done it without you.

After soundcheck Steve and Dave took a few minutes to breath and have a quick snack. Steve moved in on the lasagna like it was nobody's business, I think he may have strong-armed or maybe leap-frogged Dave to get to it first, as he was behind him while walking into the Green Room.

The mayor came out to watch the clinic, and presented both Steve and Dave with special citations thanking them "For sharing and demonstrating [their] expertise, technique, and mastery" of their instruments at Cheney Hall in Manchester CT. For those of you who don't know, Manchester is a somewhat small town, with a population around 50,000. An event like this is very special to our town, and the mayor was honored to have Steve and Dave here.

Having done an EB clinic with Steve before, I took this opportunity to watch how Dave was playing, and how his basslines interacted with Steve's playing. You can learn so much by just watching, and the way he switched from fingerstyle to slap & pop blew my mind. Some of my personal highlights were during the guitar solo in Vista Grande where Dave plays a chordal tapping section, and when Steve went into some detail about counterpoint technique.

It was a great experience, and I am looking forward to the SMB show tonight.

mbgreene, it was great seeing you again, please share your thoughts on the Big AL!

Obligatory pics, starting with soundcheck:
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Beej soundchecking a 25th
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Some Morse models, along with our BFR 20th SR5 and a 25th Anny HH - that's an Ice Blue Morse on the right, the stage lights were pretty bright.

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Steve
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Dave
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Steve
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Dave
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Mr Mayor
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These pictures were taken while we were loading the gear out during a monsoon and Dave was signing our basses. We had to rush the PA out the door in order to get it to my gig on time, and we all got soaked!

Steve signing the Engl Amps we used (he also signed the 3 Morses we have)
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Steve with several of the first 50 Morse models. He took the time to play each one during soundcheck, and then during the clinic he made a point to talk about how consistent they are, not to mention the fact that he can pick one up after 20 years and it sounds just as good as the first time he played it.

Left to right, #1, #4, #11, #14, #23

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Tommy, Steve, Beej, and I with the first run Morses.

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Tommy and Beej also came out to my gig last night with Yellow9, and Tommy was willing to sit in for a half dozen songs or so. I'll get to those pics later. For now, here's one with some of the band at the clinic
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leftyguitarblue

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Jun 29, 2007
Messages
4,053
Location
Planet Erf
thats awesome pete, thanks so much for sharing! I wanted to be there so bad. It sounds like you guys had a blast.

I think I missed the lasagna more than anything. It's legendary.
 

Big Poppa

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Feb 9, 2005
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18,598
Location
Coachella & SLO, California
Wow great shots especially of the first fifty......

Pete and crew thanks so much for doing what you do and really putting your heart soul (not to mention blood sweat and tears) into making these really special nights. The rest of the businees should take note.
 

Sweat

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Dec 31, 2006
Messages
7,448
Location
Texas Finally!
nice Pete, looks like it was a killer event, oneday i am going to make it to one, love the pics of the originals, man I need some lasagna now:D

Also thats a killer Y2D in the pic, did Steve play that one?
 

Jack FFR1846

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Feb 17, 2008
Messages
2,176
Location
Hopkinton, MA
nice Pete, looks like it was a killer event, oneday i am going to make it to one, love the pics of the originals, man I need some lasagna now:D

Also thats a killer Y2D in the pic, did Steve play that one?

Pete.....when your mom came in the front door with the lasagna, I just turned to my son and said...."lasagna". For some reason, it felt like the entire waiting area suddenly went hush. :D

Keith....Steve played the Y2D to demonstrate the hotter pickups. He was demoing how to go from a real distorted sound to clean with simply switching pickups. I was amazed with the differences......as I'm currently learning Pantera's Cemetary Gates and playing all with one guitar. Now to just get Steve's tone..... This was a section where Steve described really well how distortion works (clipping of the wave, square wave becoming a sine wave). I'm a EE and could not have described it better. He really knows what he's talking about in engineering terms!
 

musikarero

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Joined
Feb 1, 2004
Messages
594
Looked like a great event.....sure wish we had something like that in our neck of the woods. Thanks for posting the pics!
 

Trev

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Feb 24, 2006
Messages
254
Great pics - I would have loved to have been there myself!

Congrats to everyone involved!

:cool::)
 

John Price

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Joined
Sep 5, 2009
Messages
87
Location
N.E.P.A USA
Hey Pete! Looks like it was a great event. I sent you an email about the morse guitars you have instock. Any chance you will be putting pictures of them on your site. I'm interested...

John Price
 

fbecir

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Joined
Jul 3, 2005
Messages
3,028
Location
Paris, FRANCE
Fantastic !!!

Thanks for giving us some pictures.
The Ice Blue Morse is killer but the collection of "old" Morse is amazing !
 

Lou

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Jan 23, 2003
Messages
1,356
Location
MA
Glad I could help out, Pete. Thanks to EB, Steve and Dave.
 

mbgreene

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Sep 8, 2004
Messages
2,556
Location
Rockland County, NY
Good to see you too Pete, I'm glad I was able to make it. My friend Mark had a good time also (plus it got him out of the house with the kids for a man day). Sorry I just missed you guys at the store prior to your going to set up, but it did give me some quality alone time with Nick and I got a chance to play around a bit with the Gold Roller - I liked the neck more than I thought I would.

The clinic, Steve and Dave were all great - music, questions, answers, stories. You can just see that Steve's wheels are always turning in any of his answers.

Afterward, Pete let me up onstage for a quick tour of the Rig and some of the original Fifty. Tommy was actually re-stringing #1 when we spoke. Had a nice chat with Beej and then Pete let me go backstage to fiddle around with the BIG AL (unplugged) very comfortable. I've always been of the opinion that the Sterling neck (which is what was used for the AL) was much more forgiving toward guitar players looking to dabble in bass.

Thought about hanging for some of the after clinic activities but at that point it had been a fairly long day for me and we had a 2 hour drive home.

Thanks to EB, the artists, the DuBaldos and the forumites I got to talk to. All in all it was a good day.

(although I do think Manchester CT has some issues with respect to serving people lunch, but that's a whole 'nother story;)).
 
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beej

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Aug 16, 2004
Messages
12,419
Location
Toronto, Canada
What a killer time! Thanks so much to Pete and the DuBaldos for hosting such a great event and taking care of us.

Great too see everyone that came out ... Michael it was a special treat to see you man- so glad you came :)

Killer day all the way through. Got to hang at the store and play everything in site. Setting up for the clinic was awesome. (Hearing Tommy rip it up through the clinic rig in particular.)

At the soundcheck it was pretty cool see how excited Steve was over the first 50s (btw, as Sterling mentioned those are Tommy's, mine and Pete's. And of course Steve's). He ran over to each of them and played each one in turn to see how they sounded- said they all sounded fantastic. How cool was that to see him like a kid in a candy store :)

Steve & Dave were fantastic ... stayed forever answering questions and signing stuff. Great guys.

Pete's gig was killer too ... Pete was ripping it up. Word on the street is that Tommy may have passed the Yellow9 audition ... (I myself was distracted watching the chicks in the crowd flashing the band.)

Got to abuse the store with Pete & Tommy all day today, playing just about everything in sight. Now I'm all ears to hear Steve rip it up tonight!

Now I've just got to get the Gold Roller and Koa Luke off my brain.
 

threeminutesboy

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Joined
May 11, 2003
Messages
6,907
Location
France
Pete thanks for the reporting of this event indeed it looks like it was a tremendous fun.

Too bad I'm a bit far or you could have count me in :p
 
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