Sommaire pour September 2022 de Guitarist

Looking at some of the amazing vintage electrics at Well Strung Guitars (see cover feature, page 60), you get a vivid impression of how these guitars must have glowed with modernity when they were first taken out of their case by the original owner. And, the first time they were dinged, that person probably cursed their own clumsiness and wished they hadn’t just marred the perfection of the thing. They might have been surprised to learn, 60 years on, that people pay a premium to have wear-marks put on their guitars… Another twist of history that the guitar buyer of the 1960s might have been surprised by is how custom colours have become so sought after. Custom colour guitars were always relatively scarce and David Davidson of Well Strung Guitars…

FIRST PLAY CÓRDOBA STAGE £625 WHAT IS IT? Thinline electro nylon-string with new pickup system developed with Fishman Amplifying any acoustic guitar, if you can’t use microphones, can be fraught with difficulties, not least for those of us who have to cart our own PAs to gigs while acting as guitarist, roadie and sound engineer. And although acoustic pickup technology is now hugely refined, battling with onstage feedback from your acoustic box – especially if you’re a part of a band – can certainly be difficult to manage. Creating a thin-bodied electro is far from a new idea, but it does answer some questions, offering a stage-aimed instrument with a much smaller soundbox – and, therefore, much less acoustic volume – that can work in many environments. Like many large-scale…

FIRST PLAY THORPYFX SCARLET TUNIC £264 WHAT IS IT? A vintage Selmer amp emulation for early Pink Floyd sound and beyond It may not enjoy the same kudos as an AC30, Plexi or HiWatt DR103, but the Selmer TruVoice Treble-N-Bass 50 was another fine British valve amp from the 1960s. This was the amp of choice of original Pink Floyd guitarist Syd Barrett, and can be heard on the opening notes of Interstellar Overdrive from the band’s 1967 debut album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Roll on 55 years from that album and Lee Harris, guitarist with Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets band, wanted to recreate the exact tones and looked to Adrian Thorpe for help – the result is the Scarlet Tunic Analog Amp Emulator. The pedal…

Artist: Laura Veirs Album: Found Light (Bella Union) The albums from Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter Laura Veirs are always rewarding listens, showcasing her skills as both a guitarist and sharp lyricist, and taking in influences from country blues to punk. Found Light is her 12th release and the first she’s co-produced, but as well as this prolific recording career, which started in 1999 with her eponymous debut, Laura has also written a children’s book, Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life Of Elizabeth Cotten, launched a podcast called Midnight Lightning, which explores juggling a music career with parenthood, and taught songwriting. It’s a full resume, and her latest album is a standout addition. Riot Punk Roots Found Light includes songs such as lead single, Winter Windows, that lean on punk styles from the…

NEVILLE’S ADVOCATE One criticism that we occasionally get at Guitarist is, “You never give anything a bad review.” Well, that’s true to an extent, but only because we rarely see anything that falls below par. But we also like to sort the wheat from the chaff so we can point you in the direction of the good stuff. Having given Patrick Eggle’s brilliant Macon Single-Cut a Guitarist Gold Award this month, I started thinking about other products that left a mark, due to pushing boundaries of quality, innovation, or just plain, “God, I want it!” “And the first Collings. Another ‘bloody hell’ moment. This thing roared like a cannon and looked like it had been milled out of stainless steel” The first was an early PRS Custom 24. Remember the…

SUBSTITUTE In this context, the word ‘stacking’ refers to how we arrange the notes in a chord from the lowest to the highest – and imagine how this might appear on a musical stave (whether you actually read music or not isn’t necessarily an issue). This is an effective approach in any context, such as a string or brass arrangement, a whole orchestra, or even solo piano or guitar. Of all these, the guitar especially requires ingenuity, as we are working with just the six strings, giving a comparatively limited choice of notes, plus the disadvantage of any finger stretches that might be necessary to realise wider intervals. Check out any video of Allan Holdsworth playing chords if you need that clarified! The second part of the title here refers…

Call me last. Those three words have become David Davidson’s calling card in the vintage guitar world and they catch you off guard, as perhaps they are supposed to. But what do they mean? We’re sitting in his office at Well Strung Guitars, the Long Island-based store that he co-owns with his daughter, Paige. It contains some of the most jaw-dropping instruments you’ll ever see. A dozen ’Bursts hang on one wall. Across the room are more than 20 Blackguard Teles, Broadcasters and Esquires. In the middle are two 50s Flying Vs facing a wall of custom-colour Firebirds. All original, no refins, no reissues. If even a drop of guitar-loving blood flows in your veins, this place is a dreamland – an Area 51 of tone, where things you didn’t…

EPIPHONE LES PAUL STANDARD 50S METALLIC GOLD £599 Now with a more Gibson-style headstock, Epiphone’s Les Pauls look better than ever. The Standard 50s comes in three finishes, including Metallic Gold, and features typical mahogany and maple construction, the neck with a rounded medium C neck profile. Add in Epiphone’s LockTone bridge and tailpiece and well-received ProBucker 1 and 2 humbuckers, and this is good to go. www.epiphone.com YAMAHA SG1802 ELECTRIC GUITAR £2,834 Yamaha’s reinvention of the Les Paul goes back to the 70s, and while its double cutaway outline might suggest an SG, it’s very much the full LP-style voice. In modern form, the construction is regular with unchambered mahogany back, maple top and chunky mahogany neck. This 1802 in Gold Top finish is powered by dual Seymour Duncan…

BLUEPRINT: Fender Pickups When it comes to pickups, it sometimes seems like Fender’s Custom Shop gets all the adoration – and with some justification, because the pickups coming out of there (such as the Ancho Poblano Strat set), have been seriously impressive. But Fender’s main production guitars are far from being slouches in the tone department and the R&D effort behind them is just as serious, if not more so, as these pickups are being designed for guitars that will sell in their tens of thousands and represent the Fender name and sound around the world. Keen to learn more about how Fender’s main-production pickups are devised, designed and made, we caught up with Allen Abbassi, Director of Product Management for guitars and bass, to find out how the magnetic…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money? “That would be a Charvel Model 4 that I bought on eBay in 2003. I think it was probably $350, or something like that, and it was all the money that I could manage to save at that point. It was purple with sparkles that you see when you look really close up. In some lights it looked brown and in some lights dark purple. “I was in high school, I had friends in school that I’d played with, but it was still in my very early days of learning to play guitar. I was starting to get into the instrumental guys and a lot of the Shrapnel players and I loved hair metal at the time. Anything…

So far we’ve talked about many different aspects of speakers and speaker cabs, so now it’s time to get into the ‘hands-on’ stuff. This issue, I’ll talk you through various aspects of changing a speaker in a combo and speaker cab. There are two main reasons for wanting to change a speaker: one is that the speaker is broken, and the second is to add a different flavour to your sound. Now, the first one can be tricky. Often a faulty speaker will just sound bad – weak, loss of low-end, little or no increase in volume as the amp volume is increased, and sometimes there’s a bad smell (as well as other things). But these can also be signs of a faulty amp, so make sure you go to…

The Hummingbird appeared in 1960 and is regarded as the first Martin-esque square-shouldered Gibson acoustic guitar (as opposed to the classic round-shouldered Jumbo design). But it wasn’t the first square-shouldered dreadnought/D-style flat-top in production at the company’s Kalamazoo factory. That honour goes to the Epiphone FT-110 Frontier manufactured from 1958. After the company was acquired in 1957, Gibson president Ted McCarty drew up a list of suggestions for Epiphone-branded instruments, and the “Flat-top Jumbo – Maple Back and Rim… Copy Martin D’nought size” Frontier he spoke of was one of them. The first Gibson-branded maple-bodied flat-top with square shoulders appeared in 1962 in the form of the Dove. With fancy appointments – notably, their elaborately engraved pickguards – Doves and Hummingbirds were considered upmarket models and sat near the higher…

Shine On You Crazy Dorian Tutor Richard Barrett | Gear used Knaggs Choptank, Vox AC15 C1 and JHS AT Difficulty 10 mins per example FULL DISCLOSURE: my original intention was to play some Santana/Peter Green type licks demonstrating G Dorian (G A Bb C D E F G), but along the way it took on a far more Floyd-esque character. I guess a slow 12/8 blues in G minor can do that to a guitarist… but I think it still fulfils my original brief. The repeated G minor/C7 change in the backing track, plus the slow tempo allows an exploration of ideas that wouldn’t be possible in a faster-moving piece with more chords – though experimentation such as this can inch us towards that, if that is your goal. The…

PJD CAREY APPRENTICE FRIST PLAY PJD CAREY APPRENTICE £1,950 WHAT IS IT? If Leo Fender was asked to make a Les Paul Junior, it might have turned out just like this… What is it about Gibson’s Les Paul Junior that – some 68 years on – continues to inspire both guitar makers and guitar players? For that matter, the good ol’ Fender Esquire shares an equally blue-collar appeal and vibe. Pared down with just a single pickup, both designs can be huge tone machines with a very seat-of-your-pants drive. We’ve seen plenty of contemporary makers focusing on either of these benchmark designs, but combining the two is what’s at play with PJD’s latest electric, the Carey Apprentice – a special run of just 12 pieces in either 3 Tone Tear…

FIRST PLAY GRETSCH G5700 LAP STEEL £495 WHAT IS IT? Solid mahogany-bodied 28-fret lap steel with ‘low noise’ single-coil pickup Back in the 1930s, the ‘electric Hawaiian’ guitar pretty much beat the ‘electric Spanish’ instrument to market. Post-war, the Spanish style began its ascendency and the lap steel became more niche. It differs from the later pedal steel in numerous ways, not least that it doesn’t have any pedals. As its name suggests, it’s simply played on your lap (table or keyboard stand), and while console steels – one or more necks in different tunings with legs – had their day, the lap steel remains devilishly simple for today’s musician. It can be tuned in numerous ways and used for clean country or Hawaiian styles, or played dirty through your…

Opinion CONFESSIONS OF A LUTHIER Regular readers of this column may remember I recently undertook a project to build 50 guitars to represent the UK’s ‘jubilee trees’. These trees were spotlighted in 2002 and make up some of the finest and most interesting trees in our landscape. My furniture-maker friend Danny and I have spent the past few years investigating quaint English villages and dark corners of obscure ancient woodlands to find and document these magnificent trees. To date, we’ve checked off about 11 from the list, but it was only last year that we casually challenged one another to represent each of them in our own crafted wooden form. “The tree to which this instrument pays homage is a Cedar of Lebanon that grows in Oxfordshire; the first…

STAR LETTER CUSTOM CELEBRATION All my life I have been an enthusiastic guitarist; my sister being my biggest fan. She was always there to listen and comment on my musings from our early childhood through to our adult lives. Sadly, she recently passed away from breast cancer at the age of 55. I decided to celebrate her life and create a lasting memorial by having a custom guitar made. I designed this in conjunction with Guy Harrison, a local luthier. I wanted a simple guitar with the breast cancer ribbon at the 12th fret, pink dot inlays and her name on the headstock. It’s built from korina with an ebony fingerboard and features a little Seymour Duncan ’59 humbucker with split coil. I’m sure you agree the guitar has turned…

Early Conventions “There are many things in favour of the guitar. When you’re a young chap it’s portability, the fact you can have it around when you’re at the beginning of the learning curve. Somebody can show you exactly what they’re doing and you can try it yourself just by passing it over. That doesn’t work with a piano. When you’re a young lad growing up in the 60s, the guitar was kind of a token. You were part of some social experiment, but it seemed like a young person’s instrument in the way that the violin or so forth couldn’t possibly be. It was a cool thing to have.” Connecting Up “A number of my peer group had guitars and we would play Beatles songs and the hits from…

What’s The Best Way To Record Great Tone? with Jamie Dickson This month, Jamie switches amps, ditches the mic and microphones and tries using a reactive loadbox to get the rich, glitch-free recorded tone he’s been longing for… I’d like to be able to say that in the world of Guitarist long-term tests, everything is run with the utmost professionalism in a gleaming studio with perfectly functioning test gear. Unfortunately that isn’t quite the case, not in my home studio anyway. As regular readers may recall, I started my longterm quest in order to find the easiest means to record great electric guitar tone at home using a Shure Beta 57A mic and my Dr Z combo. Now, I love the Dr Z and it will always be my go-to…

We last featured this 1972/’73 Les Paul Deluxe in issue 476 as a reference for Gibson’s new 70s Deluxe. As I wrote, it was a guitar that I used to own but rather foolishly sold on to a friend – who, graciously, always lets me borrow the guitar, knowing that I usually give it a check over and some fresh strings. The thing is, ever since the early 80s that’s all the work that’s been done on the guitar, which was already ‘player’s grade’ back when I bought it in the late 70s or early 80s. There’s a very solidly repaired headstock break for starters, which is still rock-solid today, even though the refinishing remains pretty rudimentary looking. But the guitar has never been refretted, and the original wide and…

FIRST PLAY BARONI AFK150 HEAD £549 WHAT IS IT? Affordable, super-portable 150-watt head, with vintage Italian styling complementing its hybrid design Italy’s contribution to the guitar universe is bigger than many people realise, with many famous brands including Eko, Binson and Meazzi, from Sicily, playing pivotal roles in the development of some of the biggest names in rock and pop. Today, Italy’s amp and pedal scene continues to flourish. Here, we’re looking at the new AFK150 compact pedalboard head from Ugo Baroni, a well-known amp and pedal designer from northern Italy, currently producing a range of Chinese-manufactured pedals under the Foxgear Distribution umbrella brand, which also includes Gurus – another well-known Italian amp and pedal builder. The Baroni AFK150 is a hybrid design with a 12AX7-based preamp feeding a Class…

FIRST PLAY WALRUS AUDIO LORE REVERSE SOUNDSCAPE GENERATOR £285 WHAT IS IT? A pedal for creating ambient soundscapes using combinations of delay and reverb Complementing the reverb and delay effects already in the Walrus Audio roster, the Lore focuses on building complex ambiences– “an ambient creation machine built around reverse delay and reverbs”, says Walrus. Basically, it’s a pedal that has two DSP chips running in series, each with its own analogue feedback path, allowing for various combos of delay and reverb, with plenty of interaction between the effects. Your starting point is the five numbered programs: reverse delay into reverse reverb; reverse delay into octave-up reverb; reverse delay into octave-down reverb; reverse reverb into forward reverb; and pitch delay into pitch delay. An array of knobs take things from…

Artist: Julian Lage Album: View With A Room (Blue Note) We spoke to Julian Lage while he was on tour in Italy, performing material from his forthcoming second album for Blue Note, View With A Room. Accompanying Julian on the album is regular bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, but this time the trio has been augmented by Bill Frisell, who appears on several tracks. “Bill’s the absolute master of masters,” Julian says. “So we feel very privileged to expand the group to include him. It was a really fun record for us to make.” How did you meet Bill Frisell? “I went up to him at Newport Jazz Festival when I was probably around 17 years old. I was there with Gary Burton’s band. I was a lover…

RAISING THE TONE Opinion Years ago I bought a 90s Marshall Bluesbreaker reissue at auction. Nice amp, great sounds, plenty of welly in terms of volume and, of course, an iconic look. I sold it less than six months later, for one reason. It weighed an absolute ton – well, 31kg to be precise – and had but one woefully inadequate carrying handle on the top. It was like trying to lift a suitcase filled with lead blocks. It had to go. Currently, my main gigging amp is a Dr Z Jaz 20/40 combo, which is right on the limit weight-wise. But because I love its sounds so much, I’m prepared to put up with its bulk for festival shows or larger gigs. But what about those nights when…

UNIVERSAL AUDIO UAFX AMP EMULATORS £339 EACH CONTACT Universal Audio PHONE +44 33 08080136 WEB www.uaudio.com What You Need To Know 1 Doesn’t Universal Audio specialise in plug-ins and studio gear? Correct, but the company branched out into guitar pedals last year with the Golden Reverberator, Starlight Echo Station and Astra Modulation Machine units. 2 Are these more of the same, then? They may look similar, but these are not effects pedals as such – they provide full-blown amp and speaker simulation. Each pedal represents one particular amp type. 3 Just one amp! There are usually multiple amps in these things… Yes, but by dedicating all of its DSP to a single amp type, each pedal ought to be able to offer a really detailed and nuanced…

Has the Aurora’s pickup-swapping capability changed our reviews editor’s world? And what about the guitar itself? When I started this Longtermers test, I was focusing solely on the pickup-swapping ability of this guitar. Yup, it’s great! A lot of fun with a pretty serious intent. But any innovation is only as good as the guitar it’s on, right? I’m not sure I really explored that enough in the first part of this test in issue 487, so here goes… For many, this is a top-dollar instrument and the question I asked myself is, ‘Irrespective of the pickup swapping (which is totally unique to Cream T and Relish at the moment), how good is the actual guitar?’ Back in issue 483, for example, we reviewed the Indonesian Cor-Tek-made Trinity by Relish,…

Vintage Telecaster Pickups Whether you call it the Esquire, Broadcaster or Telecaster, Fender’s T-type was not the company’s first electric musical instrument. Leo Fender started making lap steels in 1946, with many of the design concepts carrying over to Fender’s first ‘electric Spanish’ guitar. On Fender’s famous red two-pickup prototype of 1949, it’s clear to see that the neck pickup was taken straight out of a Champion lap steel – the giveaways being its shape and two mounting screws on the one side that tap straight into the body. Fender would soon devise a completely different neck pickup, and the three mounting screws confirm that the company had already adapted the Champion unit to create a new bridge pickup. With only minor alterations, both these pickups have remained in production…