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…

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 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 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 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…

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…