About the site...

Here's a website created for guitar aficionados from around the world. You can listen to these sound clips played on vintage (or near) gear with TONE in mind. We put this site together as a celebration and testimony to the great sounds of yesteryear. Along with photos, stats, cool artwork and an occasional blurb (beg your pardon), we set out to capture the essence of live and recorded musical history in the guitar realm. This evergrowing site is dedicated to the inventors and the pioneers, the trailblazers and sound innovators from the beginnings of the phonograph (thanks Mr. Thomas Edison), to the invention of sound on sound ('tanks Mr. Lester Polfuss [that's Les Paul to you sir or madam!]) all the way to the demise of the hair band and the emergence of indie labels, home recording and MP3's (Hey!, that's TODAY, isn't it?). What will tomorrow have in store for us tone freaks (guitarists in general)? Who knows. But hopefully this site will keep some of us lucky ones in touch with and further indebted to the great ones who led the way. I mean come on! Imagine never hearing Johnny B Goode or Sunshine of Your Love! I dare ya! So if the statement "history repeats itself" is true, man, I for one can't wait...

About Cameron...

Cameron Schmitz is a full-time musician living in the Boston area. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, he is an educator and as well can be seen in the greater Boston area performing with the band Jumpstreet and with a jazz and blues guitar/ bass duo named Swing2Bop. Cameron teaches upwards of 50 students per week at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, at the Pingree School in S.Hamilton, MA, and Middlesex School, in Concord, MA. Mr. Schmitz has done studio work on many exciting releases featuring Greg Hawkes as producer (the Cars), Bob St. John producer (Extreme) and Anthony J. Resta, producer, drummer (Collective Soul, Shawn Mullins, Duran Duran, and Extreme) as well as having recorded with Dave DiCenso on drums (2Ton Shoe, voted Boston's Best Drummer at BMA) on two of Camerons originals.

Any free time goes towards producing music for underscores and film and radio and for scoring soundtracks in his home recording studio. When not working on Camtoonz Productions, he is composing originals or working on finishing up the novel he is currently writing, entitled Adventures of PowerChord Man. Cameron met Rod Daynes (superpage.com) in a teacher/student relationship and the two have labored intensively on this music- related site with a goal of giving back to the musical community which has so freely given of itself.

Cameron would like to thank Craig Jones and Bay State Vintage Guitars, Boston, for use of some fine vintage gear for this site.

Technical and Legal Info

Technical. All of these clips are recorded in 16 bit stereo at 44khz. They are recorded "flat," i.e., no overdubs and no effects, other than the sounds that emanate naturally from the vintage guitars, amps, and effects boxes we'd use normally in a live show. After looking at every available internet sound format, we went with good old Quicktime, which wasn't a tough decision. This file format definitely has legs, and with Quicktime forming the basis of MPEG-4, longevity too. If you don't already have a Quicktime plug-in for your browser, you can get it free from Apple right here.

Based on comments from you guys we've cut the clips down to essentials. Our recently posted clips are available to you in two flavors:

1. "Evaluation Quality," i.e., 8 bit mono (1 track) and uncompressed at 11khz. Though the sound quality isn't as high (slight background hiss), it's enough for you to preview the clip without waiting forever (assuming your dialing up to the web).
2. "Download," this is the "high quality" clip that you can download and listen to on your own computer (.mov file). It's CD quality, i.e., everything you'll need for presentations, stings, transitions, etc. I use stuffit, so the clip is compressed but uncompressed on your desktop. Now listen: We recommend this one, cause you can check out other parts of the site while the clip downloads. It'll be on your hard disk, so if you don't want to keep it, then trash it, cause you'll eventually need a bigger hard disk...

Legal. The copyright for these clips belongs to me, Cameron Schmitz. If you're interested in getting a copy of an original uncompressed recording, we're happy to make one available to you for a small fee (?). Please let me know what you're interested in. The clips available through this web site are free. You are granted the license to use them in any manner you desire, except resale. If you're interested in resale, or have questions about a potential use of any one or more of the clips, e.g., as part of a larger production project that is designed for resale, please contact me first. Next point: We didn't make any of these guitars, amplifiers, or effects boxes. We're musicians, these devices are instruments for the conveyance of our art. The copyrights and trademarks for the various instruments, including "Fender," "Stratocaster," "Strat," "Telecaster," "Tele," "Gibson," "Les Paul," "Marshall," etc. belong to the respective manufacturers of these fine products. Nothing herein should be inferred by anyone that we're an authorized (or unauthorized) dealer, a luthier, a musical instrument service technician for hire, or anything else that might imply that we made these axes (got it lawyers?). Final point: The copyright for the graphics belongs to Rod Daynes. He's one of the partners in the web development firm, superpage.com (they developed my site). He's cool about you using the graphics any way you wish, except re-sale, but 'm sure he'd appreciate it if you let him know who, where, when, etc. Artists like to know it when somebody digs their stuff.