Word of the Code has been ricocheting around the Internet, from Facebook to forums to sites like Guitar Noize. We love reading your comments and emails, and following the discussion that’s been happening around the show. Every one of you who identifies with the project validates all the work we’ve put into this. And we’ve recently gotten some pretty awesome further validation from the web server behemoths and Internet at large: we’re now on the first page of Google results for “Cracking the Code”! Read More
I sold mens suits in high school. Compared to the stockroom at the dollar store, the clothing business offered a far lower risk of maiming my fretting hand with a box cutter, and of course, took place at the very location I’d likely end up anyway: the mall. It was a suburban sinecure of the highest order, offering fringe benefits like girl-watching and free tailoring, while simultaneously conferring valuable life skills. Full Windsor knot anyone? To this day, I can still spot a neck size from twenty paces. Read More
In Season 1 of Cracking the Code, classic video games frequently serve as analogical springboards for discussing the challenges of high-speed guitar playing. Read More
If you’re finding this post via search (or heroic blog-dive) please note that the Code Archives are a legacy product, no longer available in the form described below. They were, however, an important predecessor to our Masters in Mechanics interviews — of which you can find many on the Interviews page, with more coming soon!
—The Cracking the Code Team
The Cracking the Code project is the most comprehensive investigation of picking technique ever undertaken. And now, we’re making the raw materials of that investigation available for you to watch, study, and enjoy. Today we’re officially launching the Code Archive, the most unique collection of high-speed analytical guitar footage ever assembled, and a rare opportunity to study world-class technique up close and in action. Read More
The Taurus had actually been designed by Moog as part of a trio of synthesizers called the Constellation. The lower portion, operated via foot like the pipe organs of yore, would handle bass duties. The upper sections, supplied separately, would present more traditional keyboard interfaces. While the Constellation project faltered, the bass pedal section became a success on its own. As a rock band accoutrement, its hands-free operation provided guitar-driven songs a keyboard part without, quite literally, lifting a finger. Read More
Doesn’t it feel like just yesterday — or at least just last decade — that Cracking the Code first seeped into your consciousness, blazing riffs and whispers of picking secrets crackling across your computer screen and through your speakers? Well, with Episode 8: “Fast Forward”, we’ve hit our first big milestone and wrapped up Season 1. There’s much yet to come, but we’re proud to close the first folio of this journey and get down to business on the next steps.
In the Arpeggio Mystery, we explore the difficulties a person is likely to encounter reverse engineering Yngwie Malmsteen’s arpeggio-based solos in a world populated by jagged trees, wolves shrouded in fog and shadows, and a circus full of little moving angular pick people. It’s a scene that’s become a favorite of mine, but it didn’t just form out of the ether. A lot of consideration went into the conceptualization of this world, and a lot of work went into its execution, so how did we go about making it? And where did the inspiration for the scene come from?
Let’s go back to November 19, 1990, to a mid-size concert venue on the edge of campus in a college town on the eastern seaboard…back to one rocking night at Toad’s Place, where both Alice in Chains and Extreme took the stage, performing to a crowd of twenty-somethings, buzzed, and abuzz with excitement. While Troy remembers this night clearly — the cheering crowd, the lights, the energy, the unique sound of Alice in Chains, the picking mastery of Nuno himself — I don’t remember it at all; I was still in Seattle (and in diapers) and wouldn’t set foot in New Haven for another couple decades. If you weren’t there either, it’s hard to imagine the atmosphere and excitement that permeated the space, hard to feel the experience of being at that particular concert. But it’s an important scene to the narrative of Cracking the Code, and in the process of creating Episode 7: Licks et Veritas, we had to come up with some way to depict this event in all its glory.
The dog may not have eaten our homework, but we did have to chase him around the yard for a week to get it back! Episode 7, “Lix et Veritas”, delayed for a week, is finally ready.
To quote a band you’ll see in Episode 7, it’s a monster! Episode 7, at over 20 minutes long, is nearly a double episode. And this is after cutting a two or three scenes which would have pushed the total length closer to half an hour. It’s also perhaps the most television-esque of the series so far, featuring some of our most immersive animations, and a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat guitar contest showdown. Before you hit the play button, you’ll definitely want to hit the concession stand. Read More
Record the speaker cabinet sounds of Cracking the Code with the Cracking the Code IR Pack!
Includes all the pine cabinet H30 impulses — plus the Marshall 1960A impulses we use for rhythm tracks, and a couple ultra-rare Cornford 2×12 impulses featuring the Vintage 30 speaker recorded via the Shure SM57.
UPDATE: We don’t currently have the impulse response pack for sale, but will try to get it added to our new store soon.
Amid the seemingly illimitable interest in amplifiers, with their mysterious tone crafting abilities, and their steam-punk innards so attractively aglow with filaments and glass, it’s easy to overlook the humble wooden box at the end of the chain. But if your 10-second Chevelle is only as fast as the slicks that hook it to the tarmac, then your supercharged big block of an amp only sounds as good as the device actually emitting those pressure waves into the room: the speaker cabinet.
Indeed, the speaker and cabinet assembly is a good part of any classic tone. That sparkle on the first Van Halen album? Reportedly the work of the glittery JBL D-120 speaker. But with a nearly endless variety of speaker cabinets available in all shapes, sizes, and power handling capabilities, why build your own? As is often the case in the world of extreme guitar sports, the answer is simple: because we can. Read More
