When recording an instrumental Southern rock ballad, it’s painfully easy to fall into the trap of soloing over blues changes for 3 or 4 minutes. While that can be great fun for the soloist, it’s generally not as interesting as having actual structure for the composition. Scott Reynolds has done a lovely job of creating interesting sections and using them to create a pleasing recording in his song, “Says Who 2.”

Scott’s arrangement uses different chord patterns to give the feel of verses, choruses, a bridge and even a quiet, piano-based vamp at the song’s end. To help provide these individual sections their own vibe, he switches between lead guitar (played, I think, on a PRS Custom SE 24 electric), alternating with an Epiphone SG with P90 pickups for the slide guitar. The PRS and the Epiphone have pretty different tones, and the juxtaposition of the two instruments works very well. There’s also a Taylor acoustic guitar mixed pretty far back in the track, which adds a nice sheen and foundation without calling attention to itself. 

The programmed drum track is very well done. The programming is sensitive and musical, and it sounds like an excellent actual drummer performed it—not an easy task with this kind of groove. I also like Scott’s bass sound (played on a Carvin bass); it has a bit more grit than I would usually go for, but it certainly works in this track—remember, I am a bass player, so I notice these things.

The keyboards used on this track are primarily organ and piano, though a melody that occurs a couple of times may either be a synth, a chorus/fast vibrato guitar, or possibly another organ sound—having listened to the track on a number of different speakers, I’m still not sure. In context, the melody matters more than the sound, so I’ll assume that however it was created, it was the sound that Scott wanted.