Pics by Nina Voronova

Some days ago I got some pictures taken by Russian photographer Nina Voronova that really impressed me big time. She gave me her ok to use those pics for this blog so I wanted to share some with you, you can check out more of her pictures at www.blind-guardian.ru

Metal Heart

I'm back from Norway again, even though we had some techincal problems on stage during our show at the Metal Heart Festival we really enjoyed our time. When I first saw the lineup for that festival I couldn't wait to go there cause some of my fave bands were on the bill but as usual the running order ruined this and bands like Nevermore, Dimmu Borgir and Testament didn't play on our day, too bad. At least I got to see Queensryche again and they played a killer set with tons of old songs, but it would really be nice if for the next festivals the promoters would let me decide about the running order :-)

Les Paul Studio III (Tronical)

Here is another guitar of mine, another Les Paul Studio in black. For a change, the special thing about this guitar is not the pickups (it has the original 498T / 490R combination), here it is the Tronical Powertune system. For those of you who don't know this system yet, it allows you to store 6 different tunings in your guitar and to get the guitar in tune in the desired tuning within about 2 seconds! All you have to do for this is to pull up the special poti to activate the whole thing, set it to the desired tuning, push a button, strum the strings once and after 2 seconds the guitar is in tune. You don't believe that this works? I thought the same, but trust me, it works perfectly. If you want to read more about this powertune system you can find a link to the Tronical webpage in the linksection under my endorsers. (Pic taken by David Siepen)

Manuals

Today I had the smart idea to mention this blog on the BG-forum so people that don't search the net all day long get to know about it, but I found out that it was already discovered by some guys and there was already a discussion going on about it. So instead of posting the link I just posted a short comment for somebody that had the thought to be all knowing and took care of my Pro Tools instead. The bad thing about Pro Tools is that I keep forgeting how to use it properly after not working with it for some time, but since by now I know how to use my new handy I guess I can replace the phone's manual with the one from Pro Tools...

Lessons in Blues

Did you know that everything in todays music is based on the blues? Just listen to the tonality... very B.B.Kingish, very soulful, very beautiful... lol Check that link and learn from the best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpCZpysf94

Les Paul Studio II

Here is another newbie in my collection, a satin black Les Paul Studio. No, this time I didn´t mess around with the pickups, it already came with EMG´s, an EMG 81 and an EMG 85 to be precise, it is part of a new line of guitars launched by Gibson, strictly limited to 400 pieces worldwide and it sounds really great. In contrast to normal Studios it also has a white binding on the neck which looks awesome in connection with the satin black finish and the black hardware. (Pic taken by Michael Schüren)

J45

Here is the newest piece of my collection, a Gibson J45. It just arrived in time before Wacken and will replace my old Ovation from now on. It does not only have a great tone, it also brings a lot of fun and chaos into touring since it managed to confuse my guitar tech completely. By the time I arrived for soundcheck in Wacken, Danny already took the guitar apart completely, checking the built in preamp and all cables because he was convinced that something was broken since he didn´t get any signal from the guitar... Well, he couldn´t find any mistakes or damages in the setup, but he learned the very valuable lesson that if you turn the volume control clockwise the guitar will be muted, and if you turn it in the opposite direction everything works perfectly fine :-)
(Pic taken by Frederik Ehmke)

Back from Wacken

I am back from Wacken and I had a great time there. I saw some of my fave bands live, as usual I also missed some of the bands that I originally wanted to see but I guess this is the eternal curse of big festivals with several stages and bands playing at the same time. At least from Friday on it stopped raining, in contrast to 2002 I even made it home without getting stuck in the typical Wacken traffic jam so everything went perfectly smooth for me and I am looking forward to our next time in the full metal village.