Takamine

Virtuoso guitarist Jake Allen, who helps out Takamine Guitars with a good number of our demo videos and has been our top clinician in recent years, got together with harpist Amy Turk and bass player TJ Rankin to do an outstanding rendition of the video game soundtrack from the "Hydrocity Zone" of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. We asked Jake (who is playing a Takamine NEX cutaway guitar similar to the current P7NC here, along with an ESP LTD Xtone PS-1000 electric guitar as well as drums... don't hate him) what led up to this game-tastic collaboration.

“Years ago I came across Amy Turk and her absolutely enchanted harp playing on the internet," says Jake. "I was an instant fan. I had noticed that we shared a love for a lot of the same fantastic video game soundtracks. As funny as it sounds, some of the most beautiful and intricate music I have ever heard is from old video game soundtracks. Years later, Amy actually stumbled upon a video of me covering a video game piece from the Resident Evil soundtrack, and I was floored to see her commenting on it.

"I messaged her and we instantly got to work on some collaborations of these beloved cult classic video game songs. I pulled my bass player, TJ Rankin, into the fold and we’ve since discovered a fulfilling synergy in recreating and rearranging some of these beautiful and often very complex songs. Many of these pieces, including this recreation of a song from the Sonic The Hedgehog game series, were seemingly never written with the idea of human beings actually playing them live, so it’s been a fun challenge translating them to actual instruments.”

You can always get more info on Jake at his official site.