Scarborough Fair – Three different lead guitars for Mark Knopfler sounds

Just like in my previous Youtube video, I am again playing different Knopfler-related guitars in my latest video. The tune is the traditional English ballad Scarborough Fair, made famous by Simon & Garfunkel.  There are four sections, each arranged differently and featuring a different guitar sound. Fender Stratocaster In the first and last section you can see my red ‘Part-o-caster’. While I am playing the bridge & middle pickup in […]

Dire Straits Guitar Sounds on Four Different Guitars

In my latest Youtube video I am playing four different guitars to a self-produced backing track. This backing track combines some Dire Straits flavours, a little inspired by songs like News, Single Handed Sailor or Once Upon a Time in the West (meter changes!), Tunnel of Love, plus some more. I am playing these guitars: Red Fender Stratocaster I used this guitar on many previous videos, however it has a […]

Dire Straits Tunnel of Love licks and sounds played on two Schecter Dream Machine replicas

Check out my latest Youtube video where I am playing guitar over a backing track inspired by Tunnel of Love from the third Dire Straits album. I built both of these guitars myself, the one with the birch body is actually the very first guitar I built ever in my life. The specs of this guitar are like the stolen sunburst Schecter that Mark played on the Making Movies album. […]

Check out this unbelievable guitar collection – A ‘Must-See’ for all Mark Knopfler fans

With this blog post I want to feature a website that hosts one of the most astonishing guitar collections in the world: Guitar Motel – guitarmotel.net It is not only a collection with many great vintage guitars like Fenders or Gibsons but also with exactly those guitars that are ‘the ones’ for us Knopfler fans – like Van-Nuys era Schecters (I guess the biggest collection of these in the world), […]

Where Mark Knopfler’s blue Fernandes Strat is today

In the early 80ies – in the Love over Gold / Local Hero / Infidels era – Mark Knopfler used a metallic blue Japanese Fernandes Strat copy with Seymour Duncan pickups in the studio. John Suhr once told me that in his opinion Mark created some of his best guitar sounds of that time with this guitar. If you wonder what happened to this guitar or where it is today, […]

First Sound Test of another Knopfler Style Strat

Here are two videos I recorded to try out another guitar I am building on: a Schecter Dream Machine-like Strat with an ash body and a birdseye-maple neck, with a brass tremolo and a ‘Making Movies’ pickguard. In other words, a Strat inspired by Mark Knopfler’s S8001 Schecter Strat. It is not finished but assembled for tests of sound, playability, and stability. And I must say, I am very impressed […]

Comparing three clean guitar sounds – Once Upon a Time in the West – Solo cover

For my latest Youtube video I recorded three different lead guitars over a self-produced backing track with the chords and groove of the Dire Straits classic Once Upon a Time in the West. The three guitars – a ‘normal’ Strat, a Schecter Dream Machine replica, and a Suhr – are similar to what Mark Knopfler played in the 70ies, 80ies, and in the 90ies. I tried to create a sound […]

Mark Knopfler’s contribution for the Soundbreaking series

If you have not seen this already, here is Mark’s contribution for the Soundbreaking series on Youtube. Soundbreaking is a documentary series about the creation of new sounds in the rock music history, based on more than 160 interviews with celebrated recording artists, producers, and music industry pioneers. Mark is demonstrating various guitar techniques and instruments. I guess you have seen one or the other lick in similar videos with […]