Happy New Year, and welcome to 2003 at Onstage. We're starting the new year off with a bang by running features about two very exciting and accomplished musicians: Carlos Santana and Béla Fleck. At a time when image seems to be valued more than substance, it's nice to be able to cover musicians who focus squarely on the latter.
Carlos Santana has been putting his own stamp on the music business for more than 30 years. He's shown incredible staying power, has built a diverse audience that cuts across many age groups, and is still a guitar hero at a time when there aren't many left. Author Blair Jackson, a longtime editor at Mix and the author of the Jerry Garcia biography Garcia: An American Life, spoke at length with Carlos and was able to coax some fascinating answers from the guitarist including a couple of interesting comparisons between sex and playing live (see “Carlos Santana's Magic Touch,” p. 14).
The story about banjo master Béla Fleck (“Five-String Wizard,” p. 35) was written by Jon Chappell (author of Guitar for Dummies and Rock Guitar for Dummies and former editor of Home Recording and Guitar magazines), who interviewed both Fleck and his tech and FOH engineer, Richard Battaglia. You'll want to read this story regardless of whether you're familiar with Fleck, because it paints a compelling portrait of a gifted musician who's not afraid to push the boundaries.
If you've ever wanted to push the boundaries of your own vocal sound, you'll want to check out “Perfect Harmony” (p. 23), which delves into the cutting-edge field of voice processing. Author Emile Menasché, a former editor of Guitar Shop and longtime contributor to Onstage, tested processors from Akai, Antares, Boss, DigiTech, and TC-Helicon. He gives his opinions on those products as well as an in-depth explanation of the features that they offer the live performer, including intelligent harmony processing, gender bending, pitch correction, and much more.
Thanks again for reading Onstage, and look for another year filled with exciting interviews, informative technical and how-to articles, timely columns, and lots of product reviews.
