The Tracking House KC

The Tracking House KC Private Studio located in KC with top tier equipment, a comfortable creative space and some of Kansas City's finest musicians on standby.

06/05/2026

🎮 PEDAL CHAIN 🎮

The rules are simple:

We give a category.

You build the board.

COMP → GAIN → MOD → DELAY → REVERB

This week, we handed the controls to Merle and gave him one word:

VINTAGE.

No budget.
No modern conveniences.
No MIDI.
No presets.

Just five pedals that earned their place the hard way.

What makes Merle's board?

👇 Drop your Vintage Pedal Chain before watching.

Legends.Cult classics.A few troublemakers.They're all getting their turn.New Series -- 1V1 starts soon.Who's making it o...
06/04/2026

Legends.

Cult classics.

A few troublemakers.

They're all getting their turn.

New Series -- 1V1 starts soon.

Who's making it out of the first round?

06/03/2026

Addison Tier Ranks Our 16Ί Amp Wall

No guitars were harmed in the making of this list.

We put the 16Ί side of the amp wall in front of Addison and asked him to tier-rank every amp based solely on what he knows about them. No playing. No demos. Just reputation, experience, and a few educated guesses.

Some picks were obvious.

Others might start a comment war.

⚡ Which amp are you putting in S-Tier?

06/02/2026

Workbench Walkthrough: Bruno Conqueror

This one started as a barn find.

A forgotten Japanese hollowbody bass rescued from a pile of old gear, now getting a second life with a Novak BS/DS pickup and a fresh set of electronics.

Not every studio bass needs to be clean and polite.
Some just need personality.

AnalogHeart

06/01/2026

🎙️ Mic Monday: Back from the Bench

Mail call today from Cole Picks.

A few favorites just made it back to the studio after some repair work:
• Shure 545
• Electro-Voice RE20
• AKG D224E

There’s something satisfying about opening a box like this—vintage pieces cleaned up, brought back to spec, and ready for another round.

The 545 always finds its way onto snare for brushes.
The RE20 stays in regular rotation for bass, kick, and anywhere detail matters without hype.
And the 224s… excited to get those back in front of loud amps.

Big thanks to Cole for keeping great mics working like they should.

Back on the wall. Back in the room.

📍 The Tracking House

05/31/2026

In the Room: Roland MKS-50 🎹

Quick one-handed capture of the Roland MKS-50—with the PG300 controller hooked up and ready.

Classic Juno voice in a rack: shimmer, movement, chorus, and plenty of analog character.

Easy one to lose track of time with.

📍 The Tracking House

05/30/2026

🎸 Addison blind ranks 5 acoustics he doesn’t know.

No labels.
No hints.

Just play… and rank.

Which one are you picking first?

📍 The Tracking House

05/29/2026

🎧 All-Time Starting Five: Joseph

In 1994, the Fox Theatre hosted a weekend music festival celebrating traditional big band music with a wide-ranging cast of guests.

One of the featured sets was dedicated to Gene Krupa and billed simply:

The Band That Swings with Strings

Yanni handled arrangements—reworking Krupa’s string-era catalog for piano and orchestra.

Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma carried the melodies.

And, oddly, the featured guitarist for the evening: Eric Clapton.

The set moved through “Stardust,” “Skylark,” and “Sweet Lorraine”—strings soaring while Clapton threaded blues lines through the arrangements.

By “You Go to My Head,” word had spread backstage.

Somewhere nearby, Bob Dylan heard about it.

No one expected him.

But midway through the tune he walked out from stage left, stepped to the mic, and joined for an unrehearsed verse.

Clapton beside him.

Strings swelling around them.

Krupa’s rhythm driving underneath.

By the encore, what was meant to be one standout set had become the performance everyone talked about long after the weekend ended.

“If big band jazz, world music, classical, rock and blues sent representatives to a summit—and then everyone jammed—it might sound like this.”
— House Review, 2026

🥁 Joseph’s Starting Five:
• Itzhak Perlman
• Yo-Yo Ma
• Yanni
• Gene Krupa
• Eric Clapton

⭐ Bonus appearance: Bob Dylan

05/28/2026

IN THE ROOM: Hagstrom Model 1

Quinn spent a few minutes with our vintage Hagstrom Model 1 bass and immediately found the thing it does so well—midrange with attitude.

Short scale. Fast neck. A tone that sits somewhere its own lane—not quite P, not quite J.

It’s one of those basses that doesn’t try to cover everything… it just gives you a very specific voice and makes you want to write around it.

Full Studio Tour with Clay is up on YouTube.

05/27/2026

🎛️ Studio Tour: Matchless Chieftain

Some amps feel like they’re trying to impress you.

The Matchless Amplification Chieftain just sounds like it already knows what it is.

Big EL34 punch.
Fast response.
A top end that stays clear without ever feeling brittle.

There’s a certain immediacy to it—where the pick attack feels connected right to the speaker, and every move of the guitar volume k**b gives you something usable.

Clean, it has depth and dimension without getting stiff.

Push it harder and it starts to growl in that unmistakably Matchless way:
harmonic detail up top, thick mids underneath, and just enough edge to feel alive.

At The Tracking House it’s become one of those amps players plug into and immediately start playing differently.

A little more dynamic.
A little more expressive.

The kind of amp that makes you stay in the room longer than you planned.

📍 The Tracking House

Address

Kansas City, MO

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Tracking House KC posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category