Inhoudsopgave van May 2018 - Guitarist

This month, myself, Nev Marten, Editor of Guitar Techniques and Mick Taylor of That Pedal Show had the pleasure of performing some of Cream’s greatest tracks at Bristol’s annual Jazz & Blues Festival, in honour of the 50th anniversary of the band’s farewell in 1968. Aside from the exhilaration of playing such classic material to a room full of Cream fans who cheered us on in a very generous spirit, everyone in the band remarked on what an interesting journey it had been musically, too. One of the most surprising things was which songs generated the most power and excitement on stage. Sometimes it was obvious hits like I Feel Free but quite often the tracks that really hit home were deep cuts like Deserted Cities Of The Heart. Far…

For an event that was founded in order to showcase and celebrate the guitar-building community worldwide, the Holy Grail Guitar Show in Berlin is now more important than ever for an industry that’s facing new challenges – namely the recent CITES regulations on rosewood (that sees a restriction on its import). We spoke to Mike Hembury about this year’s show and the challenges currently facing luthiers. The show is now in its fourth year, did you want to change anything for 2018? “It has proven to be a good format and we’re happy with the response from the public and from the exhibitors, so we’re focusing on improving and expanding the offerings. We’ve learned new things with every show and this flowed into the organisation of this year’s show. Last…

Our Guitarist Of The Year competition will be returning for another year to find and recognise new playing talent. Readers will be familiar with what past winners Dave Kilminster and Guthrie Govan have gone on to achieve, and now we’re looking to help more players receive the recognition they deserve. We’re working alongside our sister titles Total Guitar, Guitar Techniques and MusicRadar.com to find our 2018 Guitarist Of The Year, Young Guitarist Of The Year and Acoustic Guitarist Of The year with a live final event to be held at our new UK Guitar Show on 28 and 29 September. There will be more details on the show revealed soon. Entering Guitarist Of The Year is a simple process – just upload a video of your playing to YouTube and…

Aynsley Lister, a friend of mine, is in the market for a nice Strat at the moment. He’s a fabulous player and seriously knowledgable about guitars. But he always bemoans the fact his 90s Japanese model is still the only one he can get on with. He’s tried everything from vintage to Custom Shop, off-the-shelf Fenders and luthier-built Strat-types but just can’t seem to find ‘the next one’. I remember Chris Rea telling me how he’d scoured the world trying to get a back-up for his beautiful 60s Strat, ‘Pinky’. He finally found a blue one that was just a few serial numbers away from his own, so he bought it sight unseen. Guess what? It felt and sounded nothing like his. Another pal, Mick Taylor, just can’t play my…

BANK ON IT Your article on the Two Pigs guitar (Custom Guitars supplement, issue 431) was fascinating to me. As many of us form an intimate bond with our guitars, why not start out with a piece of wood that you already have an emotional attachment to, or has a story behind it? On a similar theme, although perhaps not in the same league as Patrick Eggle, please see the above photo of my home-built Tweed Deluxe clone and extension speaker. The wood for the amplifier cabinet came from an old solid-ash cupboard. The mahogany for the extension cabinet was reclaimed from Lloyds Bank in Beccles when they were having a refit. I like to think the different woods add to the tonal character of the two cabinets, but beyond…

What was your first ever gig? “My first gig was at St Saviour’s church hall in Swindon with a group called The Kestrels. It was pretty messy, I think – a little bit under-rehearsed. I would have been 10 and there were a couple of boys who had nice instruments but they couldn’t play, whereas another couple of us had terrible instruments but knew the chords…” Describe your current stage rig… “With the Moodys I use my 1963 red 335, my ’65 Telecaster, my Collings D3 and two McPhersons – a 12-string for Nights In White Satin and a six-string for Tuesday Afternoon. The acoustics go straight into the PA and I put an LA Baggs preamp in front of the PA for the 12-string McPherson just to fiddle with…

Eric Johnson seems to be enjoying a bit of a musical renaissance. He’s exploring new sonic avenues with a new signature Thinline Stratocaster (see review, p18) even as he once again tours the album that really ‘broke’ him as a major force in guitar, Ah Via Musicom, released in 1990. But well before that, he’d upset the applecart of the American session world with his precise yet progressive, melodic guitar work that stood in contrast to the urbane stylings of Larry Carlton and other giants of that scene. His solo on Minstrel Gigoloby Christopher Cross in 1979, for example, is a little jewel – whose geometrically perfect construction still glitters with invention. Virtuosic yet deeply melodic and widely imitated, Johnson went on to introduce an abundance of distinctive licks to…

“I was working on another project with Sylvan Records owner Tom Siering. Everything was lined up but then, the project fell through. Tom said ‘What do we do now?’ and so I mentioned the idea of the Elmore James project to coincide with his 100th birthday. Typically, these things are done remotely with artists sending in their contributions but I wanted as much of it done with the same band, live in the studio so that’s how it was recorded. Only a couple of artists, Deborah Bonham and Mollie Marriott couldn’t make it as they live in the UK.” “I was first made aware of the project by Jamey Johnson who asked me to play on his version of It Hurts Me Too,” says Warren Hayes, who is proud of…

Adrian Thorpe “IT USED TO be that I would stack low-gain pedals into high-gain pedals. But over time I’ve come to feel that it actually sounds better if you have a lower-gain or a less-clipped pedal coming after a higher-gain pedal. If you’ve got a higher-gain pedal that’s quite compressed in nature, what you would want is to run it into a second drive pedal that’s relatively uncompressed. You can then use [the second pedal] to tweak the EQ and add volume without changing the character [of the first pedal]. It’s like blending amplifiers to a degree, although it’s a little bit different because you’re in series rather than parallel. But I’d definitely prefer a higher gain pedal and then a lower gain pedal. “A second point is that stacking…

TS TYPES JHS PEDALS THE BONSAI £219 Nine different Tube Screamer circuits in one box. They’re all-analogue recreations of classic Screamer types, plus a collaborative Robert Keeley Mod Plus. KLON TYPES WAMPLER TUMNUS DELUXE £199 Inspired by the Klon Centaur – and it does a fantastic impression if we do say so – but the Tumnus Deluxe is also way more versatile in terms of gain and EQ options. TS TYPES EARTHQUAKER DEVICES PALISADES £249 The ultimate shapable and customisable take on the fabled green classic with six clipping modes, five bandwith settings and two gain channels. KLON TYPES PROANALOG DEVICES MANTICORE £299 Superb evolution of the fabled Klon Centaur, with an additional clean boost ‘drive’ control. Can sound indistinguishable or very different from the ol’ ‘man horse’. DUMBLE TYPES…

THE BACKGROUND STEVE THOMAS, GUITARIST READER: I’ve been playing metal guitar for as long as I, or anyone else, would care to remember. It seems throughout those years I’ve been searching for that magical metal pedal that’ll give me the sound I want, when I need it. Practically everything I’ve tried has had “metal” graffiti’d on it somewhere, which should mean I’m shuffling off in the right direction. But, these things always seem a bit one-dimensional to me and I ultimately get bored and start looking again. Just because I’m an old metal guy doesn’t mean I’m only looking for decibels. THE QUESTIONS 1 I WANT A SOUND THAT’S HEAVY, OBVIOUSLY. YET, I FEEL THAT I’M MISSING SOME DEPTH. MAYBE I SHOULD GIVE IT ALL UP AND PLAY THE BLUES?…

BACK IN THE SADDLE I recently installed an under-saddle piezo pickup in my Martin D-45. I would normally farm out work like this but I felt that it was within my ability. I think I did a good job, even if I say so myself but I’ve noticed a problem… When I plug the guitar in, the response across the strings isn’t right. The bottom strings pump out plenty of volume but the top E and B are a bit quiet. The difference is very noticeable. Where did I go wrong? Could it be a faulty pickup? Any advice would be welcome. T Russell, via email Installing an under-saddle pickup is a skilled job. Even if you manage to drill the holes without reducing your pride and joy to sawdust,…

We’re taking a leap to the 1970s with a look at the most 70s of Fender guitars: the Telecaster Deluxe. Part of a trio of updated Telecasters launched between 1968 and 1972 (along with the semi-hollow Thinline Telecaster and the updated Telecaster Custom), the Tele Deluxe differed from the standard design in two main ways: the body was more contoured with curves on the back like those of a Strat, and the traditional single coil pickup set was replaced with a pair of Wide Range Humbuckers. While these guitars have never attained the same values as the Teles and Strats of the 50s and 60s, they remain a unique slice of Fender history with their particular complement of components earning a committed fanbase. For many, the double humbucker pickup set…

STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN TEXAS FLOOD Lenny, from Texas Flood features a wealth of lovely ideas ripe for stealing! The title track itself is also a fine example of a style that almost certainly left its mark on Mayer. While you’re listening, be sure to check out Pride And Joy. It’s a more uptempo track that doesn’t immediately seem relevant, but checking those rhythm guitar skills will really help you focus on the approach needed for the faster licks. JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: THE BEST OF... It would be a shame to concentrate solely on one album, as no doubt John will have absorbed a lot more than that in his formative years! Check out The Wind Cries Mary for some beautiful double stop playing -particularly in the solo and outro.…

Tone For A Ton How hard can it be to build your own electric guitar from a kit? We find out with Dave Burrluck’s DIY review of the £118 Boston Teaser on p96 Elmore James Haunting, moving and deeply influential, the slide blues of Elmore James inspired everyone from Jimi to SRV. We look back on the bluesman’s life on p62 Silver Sky We review what is easily the year’s most controversial guitar, the PRS John Mayer Silver Sky, to find out what all the fuss is about... p8…

Back in 2016, John Scofield had a somewhat unusual brainwave of creating a genre-bending homage to country music with a jazz approach. Country For Old Men was born, giving an inspired new spin to standards made famous by Hank Williams, George Jones and Merle Haggard. For the album he was joined by pianist Larry Goldings, Steve Swallow on bass and Bill Stewart on drums, and on the European dates, Scofield has bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Bill Stewart and pianist Gerald Clayton. “We improvise while keeping the integrity, character and twang of this wonderful music,” says Scofield of the songs. “I’ve always loved country and am excited to put my treatment of it into play.” www.johnscofield.com Grant Lee Phillips 17 to 25 April Various UK venues The former Grant Lee Buffalo…

“The photos from the session were better than the record… But, I had been inside a studio and I loved the experience” After the UK’s recent freezing weather conditions – dubbed the ‘Beast From The East’ – it made me think about some of the weather conditions I’ve encountered over the long years on the road. Many times I have looked out of a hotel window in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the countries across Scandinavia to witness snowfalls of what looked (to me) to be gargantuan in size. And, I can’t remember ever actually missing a gig because of bad weather. This I pondered on as I cancelled a day in the recording studio during the freeze. Okay, it wasn’t a gig, but I’m a little annoyed with myself for…

MAKE IT YOUR OWN As an online guitar teacher, I have observed the different ways in which people learn guitar is an interesting subject in itself. These days the resources for learning are superb. However, I am often contacted by people with regards to the problems they are having due to this new way of learning. First, learning to play takes time – you’d be surprised how many people ask things like “Why can’t I come up with my own solos and play them like Eric Clapton? I’ve been playing two years!” I tell them it’s not all about the destination, it’s about the journey, too. Even when we get good, we are still travelling. So whenever you pick up your guitar and play, you will improve – but you…

For many guitarists the word ‘technique’ has been corrupted to mean solely an individual’s ability to play fast or execute complicated fingering patterns with ease. Oxford defines technique as “a way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic work.” What it doesn’t mention is how fast or accurately that task should be undertaken. To look at it another way, the execution of an idea to the extent that it fully makes its point and communicates with others could and, to many, should satisfy the dictionary definition. The older generation of blues guitarists understood this in a way that many modern players don’t. None more so than one of the true titans of the genre, Elmore James. One String And The Truth Elmore James…

“Anything mid-humpy like a Klon or a Tube Screamer derivative is just a perfect match in front of a Blackface style amp because of the EQ of the amp combined with the EQ of the pedal itself,” says Brian Wampler, who adds that the rich mids of those drives fill in a slight mid-scoop in the EQ profile of many Fender amps. “It’s really effective for warming the sound up. Also, if you crank one of those Blackface amps all the way up, the bottom end gets a little flubby. So those kinds of drives also tighten everything up and you end up with a smoother, tighter distortion sound by using a pedal with a cranked Blackface style amp.”…

If you’ve ever wondered where players like Ronnie Wood, Richard Hawley, Paul Carrack and Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr buy their guitar straps, you need to turn your attention to a small family-run business nestling in the epic Devon countryside at Hatherleigh, within hailing distance of the wilds of Dartmoor. Here you’ll find Heistercamp, makers of fine handcrafted leather guitar straps, all of which are made on site to their customers’ specific requirements. On the day of our visit, the team of Nigel and Alaine Heistercamp and their two sons James and Craig agreed to make one of their straps so that we could witness every step of the process for ourselves. The journey begins with choosing one of the rolls of different coloured hide from the selection stacked neatly on…

1. SERIAL NUMBER Black decal on headstock matches Fender logo serial number sticker on reverse of scratchplate 2. HEADSTOCK Bullet truss-rod nut; two butterfly string trees; black and logo; black decals 3. PLASTICS Three-ply scratchplate; four black knobs with metal cap; screw-on white pickup selector switch tip 4. HARDWARE String-through-body chrome ‘hard-tail’ bridge with adjustable saddles; six metal ferrules; Schaller tuners; recessed side input socket; two strap buttons 5. PICKUPS Two Wide Range ’buckers with adjustable polepieces and Fender logo chrome covers; individual pickup tone and volume 1 mega-ohm pots; mylar tone capacitors; three -way selector switch 6. BODY Three-piece ash single cutaway with curved shoulder joining at 16th fret/no 17th fret ‘notch’; Strat-style ‘belly-cut’ back contour; Walnut polyester finish 7. NECK Detachable single-piece fretted rock maple neck with 9½-inch…

• ORIGINALITY OF PARTS Since Fenders from the 70s have not always been in high demand (and because the quality control also wasn’t the best when they were built) it is not uncommon to find vintage examples with all kinds of mods and swapped parts. The late-70s was also an era where a new range of aftermarket parts were hitting the market, so you will often find older Deluxes with, for example, non-original tremolo systems, which can lower the overall value. • PICKUPS The original pickups found on the Telecaster Deluxe were Fender’s Wide Range Humbuckers as designed by Seth Lover (formerly of Gibson). These pickups have a certain status and mythos about them, and the lack of these original parts will lower the resale value of a specific guitar.…

Eric Clapton’s 1978 Guild D-55 sold for £25,000 at auction in the UK last month, smashing its estimated ‘£7,000 to £10,000’. The guitar, which was sold at the Wiltshire auction house Gardiner Houlgate on 8 March and is pictured with auctioneer Luke Hobbs, was owned by Slowhand between 1978 and 1999 and features a trademark burn from his smoking days on the headstock. It was originally sold at a charity auction in New York to raise money for Clapton’s Crossroads drugs and alcohol rehabilitation centre. Auctioneers across the Atlantic will be hoping for an even higher price when Stevie Ray Vaughan’s 1951 Fender Nocaster goes under the hammer. A rare bird with serious provenance, ‘Jimbo’, as SRV called it, is up for grabs at Dallas’s Heritage Auctions this month. Jimbo…

Gibson guitars and their imminent financial problems seem to be very much in the news at the moment. I hope this is all resolved in a positive fashion by the time you read this. As we all know, Gibson and their fluctuating fortunes (not to mention quality control) have been at the forefront of rock and jazz music since the 30s, a few questionable updates notwithstanding (robot tuners anyone? No, thought not). I’ve been using a 1936 L50 for my current day job in the 42nd Street orchestra at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London’s West End, and I don’t think I can remember doing any studio sessions when I didn’t take at least one Gibson along. I’m not a financial or marketing expert, so I’m not going to…

1 What was your first guitar and when did you get it? “My first guitar was a Fender Stratocaster that my parents gave me when I was five. My father had started playing the year before and I asked my folks for a guitar. They said if I still wanted one when I was five, they would get one.” 2 What guitar would you save if the building was burning down? “That’s a tough one. I would be inclined to save a Linda Manzer Blue Note guitar I’ve been playing for years. It’s the guitar I played the most when I was growing up. I started to play it when I was about 11, she sent it to me to try out and said if I liked it we could…

Judas Priest Epic Firepower Metal gods bring out the big guns once more Fortunes seemed to be dwindling for Judas Priest a few years back, with long-serving six-string pioneer KK Downing stepping aside in 2011 not long after the ludicrously overblown Nostradamus, while its follow up, the clunky, plodding Redeemer Of Souls did little for the credentials of his replacement Richie Faulkner or indeed the bandmates KK had left behind. However, the Priest Beast has never stopped being anything less than a strident live force, and it’s this verve and excitement that they’ve tapped into for album 18, Firepower. Put simply, anyone who’s written them off now looks like a plonker. Those classic twin leads and duelling solos that so categorised the Glen Tipton/KK Downing axis are back in force…

Traffic Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory Island Records 1973 In 1973 Steve Winwood, Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi, the nucleus of Traffic, relocated to Strawberry Studios, Jamaica. With the help of drummer Roger Hawkins and bassist David Hood from Alabama’s Muscle Shoals Studio plus percussionist extraordinaire Rebop, they began recording Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory. Winwood, something of a child prodigy, handled lead guitar, keyboards and vocal duties for the Spencer Davis Group at the tender age of 14 before he formed Traffic four years later, in 1967. He left in 1969 to start Blind Faith with Eric Clapton and then reformed Traffic in 1970, assuming more control of the direction the band would follow. Shoot Out… follows the style set by its predecessor Low Spark… and features…

DUST MY BROOM The song that started it all for Elmore. Originally recorded in 1951 and rerecorded in 1959 and 1962 THE SKY IS CRYING Inspired by a rainy day outside the recording session in 1959. Arguably one of Elmore’s most celebrated compositions SHAKE YOUR MONEYMAKER Recorded in 1961, this is the original version of the song that Fleetwood Mac covered on their first album almost note for note SOMETHING INSIDE OF ME One of the deepest and most profound slow blues performances of all time featuring James’s later horn-laden band I CAN’T HOLD OUT A great showcase for Elmore’s fantastic vocal style recorded during his 1950’s R&B heyday…

“Guitar builders explored new designs in an attempt to supply a demand for an ever-more evolving instrument” Owning a 12-string is on many a guitarist’s bucket list. Meanwhile, being able to play a 12-string well is like adding another string (or six) to your bow. Popular with solo performers and bands alike, they can also make an excellent addition to any studio, adding shimmer and depth to rhythm parts as well as filling out lead lines with a natural chorus effect. It’s uncommon to find a guitarist who plays 12-strings exclusively, although some players are perhaps better known for their association with them, such as folk musician Fred Gerlach whose album title Twelve-String Guitar left no one guessing about his instrument of choice! Twelve-string acoustic guitars appeared on sale in…

“A typical low-gain drive doesn’t do much clipping. It might smooth off the edges and add a bit of perceived compression because it’s lightly clipped. What it will do is add EQ [often mids-focused] and it will add volume. That volume is effectively signal voltage that comes out of the back end of the pedal. “So a larger signal is hitting the front end of your amp. In fact, it works almost the same way as a higher-output pickup would. A higher-output pickup will drive tubes harder, so when you’ve got a low-gain pedal with more volume than your guitar alone can produce, you’re driving the front end of the amplifier harder.”…

“My favourite amplifier at the moment is an Orange Rockerverb Mark III. It’s got a lovely clean channel and it’s also got a great drive channel. Mid-gain and higher gain pedals will go through the clean channel, so I get the high end clarity – but the pedal will provide most of the overdrive character to the sound. With lower-gain pedals like the Thorpy FX Peacekeeper, I’ll often opt to use the amp’s drive channel set to a crunch tone – here the pedal is simply adding complexity to what the amp is already producing.”…

1 What was the first pedal you built and how did the design come about? “The Lovetone Meatball, in 1994. Lovetone was a collaborative effort [with musician Vlad Naslas]. I was aware the envelope filter circuit used something called a state variable filter from looking at the Mu-Tron III and Craig Anderton’s book [Electronic Projects for Musicians] and I went about designing an original circuit. I was tweaking the design during my night shifts at the BBC, and in the day time I’d show it to Vlad; he was pushing for lots of controls and it ended up being used in studios a lot, as well as on pedal boards.” 2 What do you think makes your pedals unique? “I don’t build pedals any more, but I still love electronics…

1961 Gibson GA-79RVT Vintage Amp Replacement Challenge With Rod Brakes Writer ROD BRAKES Guitarist & Journalist Having now finally parted ways with a classic vintage amp – a 1961 Gibson GA-79RVT – Rod is on the hunt for a more roadworthy alternative that delivers all the character and vintage charm of this classic collectable combo without compromising on sound. Regret has massive earning potential. If only those coins dropped straight into my hand every time someone stared into the middle distance and lamented “I wish I hadn’t sold it…” I would be in a position to buy as many 1961 Gibson GA-79RVT amplifiers as I needed to fill my private jet. When it comes to moving on and letting go of music gear without repine, I have a strangely comforting…

In the early 1950s, Fender’s Telecaster/ Esquire and Gibson’s Les Paul Model were competing directly in the fledgling solidbody electric guitar market. Fender, being acutely aware of how Gibson’s ornate Goldtop made the humble Tele seem rather modest in appearance, decided to up their game in 1954 by releasing a sleek, curvaceous, futuristic-looking and feature-packed solidbody electric guitar: the Stratocaster. Taking heed from the suggestions of local Californian guitarist Bill Carson, Leo Fender decided to add a third/middle pickup to the Strat’s design to complement the tried and tested dual format of neck and angled bridge positions. Loaded with three identical single coil pickups, three-way pickup selector switch, master volume control and separate tone controls (for both the middle and neck pickups), the Strat voiced an impressively wide range of…

1972 First Tele Deluxe (serial number 000001) appears in Walnut with December neck marking 1973 Deluxe tops the Telecaster range pricelist at $399.50 1975 Synchronised Fender ‘tremolo’ discontinued 1976 Fender amp/Gibson-style knobs change to black Strat-style knobs Late-1976 Serial number format changes and moves from neck plate to headstock 1977 Antigua finish available in regular production 1980 Now $750.00, the Telecaster Deluxe still tops the Telecaster range pricelist 1981 Discontinued 1995 ‘90s Telecaster Deluxe released with 3 single coil pickups 2004 ’72 Telecaster Deluxe reissue released…

Electrics FenderSquier Telecaster black, hard case, vgc, £135. Contact David on 01803 269228, Devon. GretschG5420T Electromatic Hollow Body, Orange, rosewood fingerboard, 22 medium jumbo frets, Filter’Tron pickups, Bigsby B60 complete with Gretsch hard case. Excellent condition, £675. Contact Mick on 01282 868166/07851264851. Gibson Les Paul Special 2016, shelf body, cream P90s, single-ply tort guard, 18:1 Grovers, MojoAxe tailpiece, 60s neck profile, virtually custom shop quality, £1,400. Contact John on 01904 593787 or janderson.jnr@gmail.com, York. Gibson Les Paul Standard Traditional 2011, Faded Cherry burst with good flame, BK Mules, aged stopbar. Excellent condition with OHSC, £1,500. Contact John on 01904 593787 or janderson.jnr@gmail.com, York. Gibson Les Paul Studio cherry P90s, great rocker/gigger, soft case, £575 pickup only. Phone 01277 626595, Essex. Gibson Memphis ES Les Paul, spliced AAA top, light ’burst,…