Frequenting the Line 6 forums, Karl Houseknecht comes from an era where guitar prowess was judged by the speed of your solo and to a lesser extent, the bigness of your hair. Karl Houseknecht has been in many cover bands, so he knows his tone, and he knows a whole lot about ripping it up on guitar.

What is your background?

I'm a software architect by day and a family man/guitarist by night. Spent my formative years in the 80's and 90's playing covers in bar/party bands. Currently playing in local 80's hair metal bands, recording a solo CD and teaching guitar.

How did you get started in music, and what advice would you give to someone who just started?

Took the standard piano lessons as a child for 5 years and decided that rock guitar was where it was at. Found that playing with other musicians really inspired me to learn quickly. My advice to a beginning guitarist would be to start playing in bands right away, even if it's just garage jamming. It really helps you hone your timing and playing skills.

Who are your musical influences and what genre do you listen to most?

I like all manners of 80's Hair metal. But most of all, I really like early Rush. Alex Lifeson is probably my main influence in rhythm guitar and his chord voicings are always showing up in my rhythm work.

What's your inspiration?

Adrenaline. There is nothing, nothing like being on stage and just nailing a song and having the audience feel it. It's an addictive rush, and it keeps me wanting to play more.

What's your motivation for helping people out on forums?

When I was growing up as a guitarist, there were no internet forums where you could learn from other people's experience. If you were lucky, you latched on to some older guitarist in your area and watched what they did. The internet changed it all. Now the "secrets" are no longer secret. I enjoy giving back what I learned the hard way.

What's your favorite piece of gear and why? What gear do you use?

My favorite piece of gear? Hard to say. Has to be a toss up between the Line6 PODxt and the Atomic Amp. The combination of the two gives me any guitar tone that I care to dream up. I use a PODxt Live, soon to be a POD X3 Live, an Atomic Amps Atomic Reactor 212-50, Ibanez SZ520 and SZ720 guitars, a Boss DS-1 and a pair of Digitech Bad Monkey's.

What are your favorite sources for gear-related information?

The internet. For user reviews I usually read Harmony Central. Gearwire has some great articles. Mostly I like to talk to the actual users themselves through forums.

What's the best music related advice you've ever given?

As far as gear related advice, using the Digitech Bad Monkey with the PODxt. That seemed to be a big hit with a bunch of people.

For music in general, I'd have to say that the best piece of advice I've given is to keep persevering. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it. Prove them wrong.

What's the best music related advice you've ever received?

My teacher once told me not to strive to play fast and showy, but to play with feeling. Feel the groove, play for the song. Make the notes you do play count for something more than just note count.

What's the best and worst thing about being a musician?

Best thing has got to be that adrenaline rush. It's a natural high. Worst thing would be the pay. But I'm not in it for the money.

What is the best and worst thing about online forums?

Best thing is all the experience that you can learn from. The best experience to learn from is someone else's.

The worst thing is anonymity. People think that because nobody can see them that it gives them license to act in ways that they otherwise wouldn't in public.

What music-related topic do you think is most neglected on forums?

Everyone talks about the gear, the tone, the technical aspects of musicianship. Very few people talk about how to be a musician at different levels, i.e. - how to balance work, family life and music. Since the majority of musicians aren't in it full time, this is a valuable topic.

What are the 5 forum posts/threads where you are most proud of your contributions? (Give actual URLs)

• DIY Talkbox
• Bad Monkey Review and Recommendation
• Atomic Reactor 212-50 Review
• Keeping it real about the POD X3 rumor
• How to do 2 amps at once with a TonePort

Anything else you would like voters to know? Any interesting music related stories?

I'm just a normal guy that likes to play guitar and has fun helping other people out. It should also be pretty obvious from my forum posts that I'm a gear head, but what guitarist isn't?

Too many [interesting stories] to mention them all here. Probably the funniest thing that's every happened to me while playing live occurred during a guest spot with another band. It was the late 80's, and a friend asked me to sit in on lead during White Lion's "Wait" because their lead player didn't know the solo. I had it nailed, and they'd heard me play it before. When my spotlight moment came, hundreds of pairs of eyes and ears turned on me when the singer yelled "Take it, Karl!". Remember, this is the 80's, right? I had a good bit of jewelry on and one piece was a gold bracelet with a safety chain on my right wrist. One of the first maneuvers in the solo is a tap-slide with the right hand. The chain became so entagled in the fine tuners on my Floyd Rose bridge that I couldn't perform the solo at all. I smiled, waved and walked off the stage.