Playing Mike Stern's guitar though his stereo rig
Playing Mike Stern's guitar though his stereo rig
During the time I lived in NYC I had an apartment right around the corner from Mike and Leni Stern and used to go over quite often to jam and play tunes. (I've been friends with his wife Leni for almost 20 years and have known Mike almost as long.) One of these nights Mike had his whole rig setup in the apartment (yes they have very cool neighbors!)......Mike is known for his great playing but also his sound- a wide stereo spread that he says he loves because it makes the guitar more "piano like". A lot of people mistake this for a chorus pedal but it's actually an old Yamaha SPX-90 that he uses and he has a few as backups. If I recall correctly it's set on a patch called "Pitch Shift" and that's what you actually hear going to 2 amplifiers. He handed me the guitar and told me to play some big voicings on it so I could not only hear but "feel" for myself what this effect does. He loves it because a lot of his gigs are trio gigs and it helps to fill space without playing more notes.
