Innehållsförteckning för November 2019 från Guitarist

I was once in a prog band where the bandleader decreed that no blues licks were to be played. Everything was to be strictly ‘modal’, he declared, solemnly. While I respected the sincere effort to move away from the everyday language of rock, which could fairly be said to be blues (mixed with country and a little jazz), it’s only when you fence off the whole of blues from use that you realise just how fundamental it is to guitar. But the very ubiquity of blues also makes it all too easy to lapse into cliché when we do play pure blues or use blues licks. That’s why we joined some of the world’s great practitioners of the blues to ask them how they keep their licks powerful, fresh, authentic…

PRICE: £2,639 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Offset solidbody electric BODY: Alder NECK: Caramelised maple ‘Speed Neck’, graphite reinforcement, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech Tusq XL/42.86mm FINGERBOARD: Caramelised flame maple with rolled edges, 4mm pearl dot inlays, 305-406mm (12-16”) radius FRETS: 24, jumbo stainless HARDWARE: Chrome Gotoh Custom 510 6-saddle floating bridge with screw-in arm; Sperzel die-cast locking tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 53mm ELECTRICS: Direct-mount Seymour Duncan SH-10B Custom Full Shred humbucker (bridge), Seymour Duncan APH-1N Alnico II Pro humbucker (neck), 500k EVH Bourns low-friction master volume, No-Load master tone, 5-way pickup selector lever switch WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.5/7.9 OPTIONS: No RANGE OPTIONS: The following USA Select models are available with Floyd Rose Original vibratos and maple fingerboards unless otherwise stated: San Dimas Style 1 HSS HT w/…

While Godin – and the various brands it produces – is one of the largest, if not the largest, manufacturer of guitars in North America, it also remains one of the most diverse in terms of the styles of instruments it offers. Our two very different guitars illustrate the point. The 5th Avenue range put the hollowbody ‘jazzbox’ centre stage when it launched in 2008; our 2019 dual-pickup cutaway Uptown takes the concept upmarket. The A6 Ultra couldn’t be more different: a bolt-on necked, thinline electro-acoustic with both under-saddle bridge transducer, a neck-placed humbucker and dual outputs. 5th Avenue Uptown If you’re into your rootsy alt-rock, blues and jazz, you’ll probably have come across Godin’s 5th Avenue range: relatively affordable laminate archtops that also provide a platform for more upmarket…

HISTORY ERASED? I read with great interest and excitement the small Sept 2019 profile on Jimi’s Woodstock Strat, The Story of the White Strat. I had my own brush with that axe in April of 1990 as a 20 year old from Brooklyn living in London for the first time. I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to play it briefly and unplugged when a German film crew were doing a TV piece on it at Sotheby’s. This was a few days before the public auction where it was justly being featured as the star attraction (along with a lock of Madonna’s hair and one of the Ramones’ finger nails, if memory serves). I didn’t see the guitar again until a few months ago at the wonderful Play It…

What was your first gig and how did it go? “Oh wow… my very first gig was a thing called ‘Art Break’ and it was put on by the school board. In my city they would have a little festival down on the riverfront where they would display arts and crafts that were done by the students around the city throughout the year – poems, paintings, drawings – and then they would have school choirs and school bands performing, things like that. I was not part of the school band, but they knew I was starting to get some attention from playing music so they asked me if I would play a set. I didn’t have my band together yet and so I approached a band called The Bluebirds, a…

Signing a record deal with a major label used to be the ultimate goal for guitarists serious about making a living from the instrument. These days, however, savvy musicians are building their own relationship with their fans online – and often reaching far more listeners as a result. Brighton-based guitarist Mary Spender is among the most successful of a new generation of musicians who blend music-making with shrewd, engaging commentary on guitar culture – sharing both with 170,000 fans via YouTube. Along the way, she’s become a mentor to thousands of guitarists who follow her friendly, intelligent advice on how to match gear to your own music-making needs. But the music still comes first, she says, and deservedly so. Blending aspects of Joni Mitchell’s confessional songwriting style with a harmonically…

From his sweetly sonorous fingerpicking to his emotionally powerful vocals, Eric Bibb is one of the finest exponents of acoustic blues working today. A teenage interest in early blues recordings set him on a lifelong path of discovery, digging up the deepest roots of blues music and incorporating that powerful spirit into his work. He’s a fascinating scholar of blues history and a real gent to boot. Who better to give us a primer in what matters in blues guitar, looking back over the whole span of its history. You’re a real student of early blues guitar – some of those recordings can sound quite other-worldly to the modern ear. What do you take from them as a player? “One of the things that’s fascinating to me about early blues…

While some blues guitarists fill their songs with fictional tales of whiskey and women – then go backstage and drink Perrier – Toronzo Cannon draws his inspiration straight from the streets of Chicago. The city that gave voice to Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy and many more masters is still a tutor to blues musicians who use their eyes and ears to observe life as it really is. Cannon’s song Insurance, for example, is about not being able to afford medical cover – which is no joke in America if you get sick and don’t have enough cash to pay the doctor’s bill. “It’s the same old blues but in a new suit,” says Toronzo. “I mean, I took the template of Jimmy Reed’s Take Out Some Insurance, with that feel…

“Apart from the neck [see main text] the guitar is stock. Maybe the pots have changed over time, but the pickups that originally came with it, as I was mentioning, the ’63s, had to be swapped out. At some show I thought it would be cute to grab a beer bottle and play [slide] with it. There was still some beer left in it and – whoosh – it got into the pickups… It was fine for about three weeks, then three weeks later two of the three pickups stopped working. Whatever was happening as it got in there corroded the [wire insulation] and they were done. So I had them rewound and they didn’t have the same feel and so my friend Brad in Edmonton, Canada, who’s a collector…

e were in the audience of one of Eric Gales’ stunning live shows recently, when someone in the crowd shouted out, “Play Machine Gun!”. But Eric simply shook his head and said, “I ain’t trying to be the next Jimi Hendrix. I’m just trying to be the first Eric Gales.” The riposte earned him an ovation and serves as a mission statement for the career-peak form he’s currently on. You get the sense that Gales is a guitarist whose defining moment has come: a time when he is wholly and unapologetically himself. “I’m really, really proud of this,” Gales says of his latest album, The Bookends, from which much of his live show is drawn. “My goal was to let the listener hear a glimpse into things that inspire me.…

“With a guitar like this you can’t kill it. What can you do with it? It’s survived this long” “This guitar was found in Atlanta. They were cleaning out an old nightclub, and they were going in there to salvage the copper wire and they found this in a utility closet in the basement. It was leaning in the corner, no case – a ’57 Strat. So again, all the pickups were dead; Joe Glazier rewound them. And frets? There were none. So I had the pickups rewound and the frets put on it and it’s a great Strat. I’m playing this with slide, so this is the open A guitar. This is a later ’57 Strat, so it’s almost in transition to that ’58 neck. It sounds fat. And…

PRICE: £3,359 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Single-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: 2-piece ash NECK: Rift sawn maple, 10/56 ‘V’ profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT: Bone FINGERBOARD: Maple (neck face), black Micarta dot markers, 184-241mm (7.25-9.5”) radius FRETS: 21, medium vintage HARDWARE: Fender ’58 top-load/ string-through Tele bridge with threaded steel saddles; vintage-style tuners – nickel-plated ELECTRICS: Fender Custom Shop Hand-Wound ’58 Tele single coils; 3-way lever pickup selector switch, master volume and tone OPTIONS: Supplied with additional Fat ’50s Tele control plate/electronics. See ’57 Strat RANGE OPTIONS: See other Vintage Custom models on review. Other Tele styles include the 1950 Double Esquire and the 1959 Tele Custom LEFT-HANDERS: Yes, no extra FINISHES: Aged White Blonde NOS Flash Coat nitro cellulose Time Capsule gloss finish (body); tinted NOS Flash…

“After doing this for some 30 years, you get to see a lot of vintage Fender guitars,” says Mike Lewis, vice president of Product Development at the Fender Custom Shop, as he begins to explain the thinking behind the Vintage Custom series. “Every once in a while you see things and go, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen this before,’ or ‘Oh, I didn’t know we’d done it this way.’ It might have been a prototype, a custom order or something like that. I’ve come to believe that the early Fender factory was really a custom shop because there’s so much evidence out there of guitars that were one-offs, you know, made for people. As you know, there’s the Songbirds Guitar Museum in Chattanooga and it’s really just full of these things.…

PRICE: £529 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: China TYPE: OM-size acoustic TOP: Cedar BACK/SIDES: Sapele MAX RIM DEPTH: 107.9mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 381mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 632.5mm (24.9”) TUNERS: Open gear Ping V93N NUT/WIDTH: Bone 45.5mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 20, Jescar FW43080 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony/54.6mm ELECTRICS: None WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.81/4 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: The OM range starts with the E1OM (£499) and goes up to the E40OM (£2,199) FINISH: Nitro top/open pore back and sides PROS An OM with everything you need onboard: simple CONS Very little to complain about for this price…

AUDIENT SONO GUITAR RECORDING INTERFACE £419 As long as it’s got a Hi-Z input, you can plug in and record a guitar through any audio interface. Savvy manufacturers, however, have realised that guitar players might desire a few extra features above and beyond the usual array, so have been coming up with interfaces designed specifically for guitar recording. We recently took a look at the IK Multimedia Axe I/O (in issue 448), which features variable input impedance as well as JFET circuitry in the preamp. Now it’s the turn of the Audient Sono, a system that actually puts a 12AX7 valve in the guitar signal path and follows it with three-band EQ and Torpedo power amp/ speaker cabinet simulation from specialists Two Notes Engineering. The Sono is no one-trick-pony –…

ORIGIN: China TYPE: Phaser pedal FEATURES: True bypass, slow/fast switching, optional 3dB boost CONTROLS: Rate 1, Depth 1, Rate 2, Depth 2, Blend, Feedback, Sens, 4/8 switch, sine/triangle switch, Boost switch (+3/0), LED kill switch, Slow/Fast footswitch, Bypass footswitch CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output POWER: 9V battery or 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 80mA DIMENSIONS: 95 (w) x 125 (d) x 64mm (h) ORIGIN: China TYPE: Rotary speaker pedal FEATURES: Buffered bypass, slow/fast switching, stereo operation, expression pedal control of speed CONTROLS: Drive, Tone, Fast, Slow, Level, Ramp Sens, Mode switch (1, 2, 3), Voicing switch (Guitar/Keyboard), Dynamics switch, FS Select switch (Exp/FS), LED kill switch, Slow/Fast (Brake) footswitch, Bypass footswitch CONNECTIONS: Standard inputs (L/Mono, R), standard outputs (L/Mono, R), Exp/FS POWER: 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 310mA DIMENSIONS: 95…

1 What was the first pedal you built and how did the design come about? Lars Dahl: “It was the Mudhoney [distortion]. Sebastian and I were studying electronic engineering and our project was to make an analogue pedal MIDI controller. Sebastian did all the digital stuff and I did the analogue stuff. When it was done we said, ‘Why don’t we also make the analogue pedals?’ We made the Mudhoney first, then the Alberta [overdrive] and Tremster [tremolo].” Sebastian Jensen: “We later found out there was a movie and a band that are called Mudhoney!” 2 What’s your best-selling pedal and why do you think that is? LD: “At the moment, it’s the SoulMate Acoustic [all-in-one acoustic pedalboard] and the Replicator Junior [tape echo]. The SoulMate Acoustic is so easy…

Writer DAVID MEAD, Guitarist, Deputy Editor David succumbs to the nylon-string charms of Yamaha’s TransAcoustic with some highly ambient nocturnal noodling “Suddenly everything I played sounded ambient and somehow ‘produced’. What I was hearing was inspiring…” Yamaha has been quietly innovative in the acoustic guitar market for years. Never a company to make outrageous claims nor shout from the rooftops, they have developed things like the AG-Stomp preamp, the Silent Guitar and the Atmosfeel pickup/preamp system to name but three. I’ve reviewed guitars with the TransAcoustic system onboard before and so I’m aware of what it can do, but this is the first time I’ve encountered it on a nylon-string guitar. If you’re unfamiliar with how it works, basically there’s an actuator installed on the guitar’s inner back that responds…

Jamie Dickson Guitarist editor Jamie is as happy with steel wool in his hand as he is with Steely Dan in his headphones, and loves vintage-gear restoration and ambitious signal chains. Dave Burrluck Guitarist’s assiduous reviews editor is also the author of numerous guitar books.Very handy with a fret file and indeed any aspect of a finely fettled six-string. Ed Mitchell After 18 years in guitar retail Ed turned to journalism as reviews editor ofTotal Guitar, then as a contributor toGuitarist. He’s also edited the mags The Blues and Country Music. Neville Marten Edited Guitarist for 13 years, after working for both Fender and Gibson as a repairer. From desirable Les Pauls to dream Strats, he’s owned and worked on the lot. Nick Guppy Guitarist’s amplifier specialist has built up…

1938 ES-100 introduced (renamed ES-125 in 1941); deep-bodied electric archtop; single pickup 1946 ES-125 reintroduced; deep-bodied electric archtop; single P-90 pickup 1955 Thinline electric archtop designs introduced (Byrdland, ES-350T, ES-225T) 1956 ES-125T thinline non-cutaway electric archtop introduced; single P-90 pickup 1957 Non-cutaway ES-125TD thinline and deep-bodied ES-125D introduced; dual P-90s 1959 Single P-90 ES-225T and dual P-90 ES-225TD single-cutaway thinlines discontinued 1960 Single P-90 ES-125TC and dual P-90 ES-125TCD single-cutaway thinlines introduced 1961 ES-125TCD renamed ES-125TDC 1965 Chrome-plated tailpiece; deep-bodied ES-125C and ES-125CD introduced 1970 ES-125 range discontinued…

Difficulty # 5 mins per example Tutor: Richard Barrett | Gear used: Knaggs SSC, Vox AC15 C1 I-IV-V Blues THE 12-BAR BLUES has become such a staple that it’s easy to overlook what’s going on in terms of harmonic content, compared perhaps with a tricky jazz chord progression that keeps us on our toes. The standard 12-bar chord progression is less complicated harmonically, but it’s interesting to look at it afresh – as players must have done back in the early 20th century or even the generation of electric blues players that followed in the 1960s. So let’s take a look at these chords: we are in the key of C major and this is our I or ‘home’ chord. The next is F major, our IV chord, F being…

Electrics Duesenberg Alliance Series Joe Walsh, black/gold, 2017, unused, Duesenberg case, strap and documents. £1,995. Contact Alan on 07975 775449 or email alanbryan@ymail.com Gibson Flying V, 1995 RCA Victor version of Jimi’s custom, black, one of 25. £2,750. Contact 07773 276815. Cumbria Gibson Les Paul Classic Gold Top Ser # 060624 original, in mint condition but has crazing with Gibson hard case, bereavement sale. £1,800 ono. Contact Joe on 01643 702313. Minehead Gibson Les Paul R8 (2014 Anniverary model). As new condition, fantastic guitar with case and certificate etc. £2,500. Contact Phil 07989 322602 or email philipwatkins147@btinternet.com Gibson SG LP Standard, 1962, remnants of PAT number decals, new case, fitted retro Klusons. Offers around £8,000. Contact 07773 276815. Cumbria Gibson USA Les Paul Junior 2018. Vintage Sunburst with ohsc and…

We now only accept reader ads via e-mail to guitarist.readerads@futurenet.com. The 21-word maximum for your advert description (excluding your name and location) still applies. To be fair to all readers and allow for the maximum amount of ads to be included each issue, ads that exceed this count will not be included. In addition, there is a maximum limit of three advertisements per person, per month. Guide example to formatting your adverts CATEGORY: Electrics ADVERT: Fender Stratocaster, USA Standard, 2001, black, white scratchplate, three Lace Sensor pickups, vgc, never gigged, Fender hard case, £435ono. Call Joe on 01234 567890 E-mail joebloggs@youremail.co.uk Runcorn Send your ads to: guitarist.readerads@futurenet.com PLEASE NOTE: Due to the section’s popularity there can sometimes be a period of around a month before your advert will appear. We…

Mary Spender She’s a YouTube star, thanks to her deep dives into guitar culture, but she’s first and foremost a fine singer-songwriter p46 Robby Krieger The legendary Doors guitarist joins us to share the guitar stories behind their classic album 1969 album, The Soft Parade on p52 Orange TremLord Orange is known for its superb drive tones – turns out the Brit amp supremos can do superb cleans, too. Read the full review on p16…

PRICE: £1,449 (inc TRIC case) ORIGIN: Canada TYPE: Single-cutaway, hollowbody electric BODY: Canadian wild cherry laminate NECK: Silver leaf maple, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 631mm (24.84”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech Tusq/44.2mm FINGERBOARD: Richlite, pearloid dot inlays, 356mm (14”) radius FRETS: 21, medium HARDWARE: Roller saddle tuneo-matic-style bridge, Bigsby B-30 vibrato,‘High-Ratio’ tuners (18:1 bass side, 26:1 treble) – nickel-plated BRIDGE/STRING SPACING: 51.5mm ELECTRICS: Godin Kingpin single coil (neck), Seymour Duncan SH-1B ’59 humbucker (bridge), 3-way toggle pickup selector, volume and tone WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.76/6.1 OPTIONS: The 5th Ave Uptown T-Armond with dual TV Jones T-Armond single coils and the same finish also costs £1,449 RANGE OPTIONS: Also new is the non-cutaway 5th Ave Nightclub Indigo Blue with single neck-placed TV Jones Classic (£1,599). The 5th Ave range starts at £675 LEFT-HANDERS: Only the…

After the success of 2018 and with a new venue in place, expectations were high for the UK Guitar Show’s return last month. The pressure was on for the Guitarist Of The Year finals hosted there, too. And the players didn’t disappoint. Across the three categories – Young Guitarist Of The Year, Acoustic Guitarist Of The Year and Guitarist Of The Year – the incredibly high standards from entrants from around the globe made the judges’ jobs even harder than last year. Contestants flew in from as far afield as Japan, the US and even Australia for the Guitarist Of The Year finals as crowds of guitarists gathered at the UK Design Centre in Islington to demo and buy gear from the world’s leading brands and witness a weekend of…

We’ve all played them, but how many of us can say we know how 7th chords actually work? There’s more to them than meets the eye… In this month’s Substitute column we’ll go through the difference between a dominant, major and minor 7th, plus the apparent contradiction of a minor/major 7th. The first 7th chord most of us learn is called just that: C7, G7, A7, etc. It seems reasonable to assume these consist of the root, 3rd, 5th and 7th of the scale, right? Wrong! This would make a major 7th chord. For a regular 7th chord, we need root, 3rd, 5th and b 7 – but the name b 7 would be too easy to confuse with the chord A b 7, a completely different thing. One solution…

While we were with Eric, he gave us a mini-masterclass in blues fingerpicking, showing us how he builds on a basic, rhythmic right-hand picking pattern then introduces embellishments and melodic lines that mirror the vocal melody. It’s a real education in how to make your acoustic fingerstyle playing more expressive and musical – but Eric explains it best. Watch him explain the elements of his laid-back but sophisticated style in a special video masterclass here: http://bit.ly/guitaristextra…

“[The upside-down headstock] gives it that look so people say, ‘Is that a left-handed or a right-handed guitar?’” “This guitar was built by a guy named Roger Lambrechts [of US luthiers GTR]. He’s out of Spring Willow, Illinois. He wanted to make me a guitar and I said, ‘Yes, make me a guitar, but I like the big upside-down headstock because of Jimi Hendrix, you know?’ It gives it that look so people say, ‘Is that a left-handed or a right-handed guitar?’ So it’s got a Strat-style head on a Tele-style body. “I also said, ‘I just want a little Chicago flag on the body at the top.’ But he came up with the idea of having the whole guitar as a Chicago flag. He said, ‘I’ve been looking at…

“They are fun, the Nationals. Maybe it was Mark Knopfler that got me into them. Nothing’s going to beat a great acoustic guitar, but it’s a variation on the sound” As well as his long-serving Strat, Sayce has brought along a resonator by National Reso-Phonic, which appears to be one of the many custom variations of the single-cone Style O guitars that the Californian company offers. This is a 12-frets-to-the-body example that’s also fitted with a Tele-style magnetic pickup. “They are fun, the Nationals,” Sayce says. “Maybe it was Mark Knopfler that got me into them – I mean, nothing’s going to beat a great acoustic guitar, of course, but it’s just a variation on the sound, right? I play D’Addario strings, usually – based on how I’m feeling –…

The event that brought together so many top players in one place for this issue’s cover feature is a guitar-themed cruise hosted by Joe Bonamassa. He’s been doing this blues cruise for the past five years – though this is the first time it has sailed on European waters. We’ve covered Joe’s approaches to blues in Guitarist many times so, as eloquent as he is on the subject, on this occasion we’ve devoted centrestage to the other luminaries aboard. But we couldn’t resist calling by to take a look at the guitars Joe brought with him, as well as to talk vintage finds with a man who’s always got an eye out for the unusual. “This is the ‘B’ rig,” Joe says of the rack of guitars behind him, “because…

You’d think a compound radius on a vintage-spec guitar is totally wrong, but the 184 to 214mm (7.25 to 9.5-inch) radius used here has some history. “Yes, we have done this radius before,” explains Mike Lewis, “but we decided to use it on this series mainly because some of the earliest, earliest blackguard Telecaster/Esquires actually had this radius; many were actually 241mm (9.5-inches) all the way. But a handful certainly had this compound radius. Now, I’m sure it was not intentional. Think about it: it was very early days and what type of tools did they have? What processes did they use? I’m sure it wasn’t, ‘Hey, let’s make a compound radius!’ I don’t think so! But some came out that way. “When you hold it, it feels so good.…

PRICE: £3,429 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: 2-piece alder NECK: Tinted rift sawn maple, ’57-style Soft ‘V’, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT: Bone FINGERBOARD: Maple (neck face), black Micarta dot markers, 184-241mm (7.25-9.5”) radius FRETS: 21, medium vintage HARDWARE: Fender Vintage Jazzmaster bridge and vibrato; vintage-style tuners – chrome/ nickel-plated ELECTRICS: Fender Custom Shop Hand-Wound Jazzmaster single coils; Lead circuit: 3-position lever pickup selector switch, master volume, master tone; 2-position rhythm/lead switch. Rhythm Circuit: thumbwheel controls for neck pickup volume and tone OPTIONS: See ’57 Strat RANGE OPTIONS: See the other Vintage Custom models on review LEFT-HANDERS: Yes, no extra FINISHES: Aged Desert Sand NOS Flash Coat nitro cellulose Time Capsule gloss finish (body); tinted NOS Flash Coat nitro gloss (neck) PROS If you…

PRICE: £529 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: China TYPE: Dreadnought acoustic TOP: Cedar BACK/SIDES: Sapele MAX RIM DEPTH: 120.6mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 396.2mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 645mm (25.4”) TUNERS: Open-gear Ping V93N NUT/WIDTH: Bone/45.5mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 20, Jescar FW43080 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony/54.6mm ELECTRICS: Optional WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.81/4 OPTIONS: Pickup RANGE OPTIONS: The dreadnought range starts with the E1D (£499) and moves up to the E20SS and E20D (both £1,459) FINISH: Open pore PROS Well built and toneful dread; remarkable for the money CONS Again, we have few real complaints for this price…

1 An audio interface with a valve? Surely not… Yep, the USB-C connection to your computer might be bang up to date, but there’s some nice vintage technology in the guitar signal path to enhance your sound. 2 There are a lot of knobs for an audio interface… True, but those six black ones are pretty much dedicated to guitar tone: setting the input to the valve stage, tweaking it with three-band EQ, and setting the drive of a simulated power amp. 3 So, who is Audient anyway? You may not have heard of the company before, but it is a respected UK brand with over 20 years of history and best known for mixing consoles, audio interface and microphone preamps.…

Released alongside The Breakdown in Danelectro’s new ‘vintage’ pedal range, which revives the sounds of certain ‘lost’ pedals, The Eisenhower Fuzz is said to be based on a 50-year-old fuzzbox with an octave effect. Resplendent in its distressed finish, the pedal features two selectable voices – Flat and Sculpt – suggesting to us that it may be based on the rare Univox Super-Fuzz, which had a similar two-position tone switch and was used on stage by Pete Townshend, notably on the Live At Leeds album. Where you need to turn some fuzzboxes’ Fuzz knobs up a bit to get a usable fuzz tone, you’re good to go from the minimum here because the Eisenhower delivers a righteous fuzzy grind with that ever-present upper octave contributing a spitty attack to the…

THE BACKGROUND MICHAEL ALBANESE via email I regularly play out and about and therefore encounter a lot of different rooms and play different guitars based on the gig. My pedalboard is very straightforward with an overdrive, tremolo and delay, but I am now looking for an EQ pedal to fine-tune my sound to the combination of room and guitar. What do you suggest? THE QUESTIONS 1 WHAT IS AN EQ PEDAL AND WHY DO I NEED ONE? 2 IS AN EQ PEDAL A BETTER ALTERNATIVE TO A DIFFERENT DRIVE PEDAL? 3 CAN YOU SHARE SOME EXAMPLES OF WHAT’S AVAILABLE?…

Writer DAVE BURRLUCK Guitarist, Gear Reviews Editor Last time, we left our gear reviews editor wrestling with this new Classic on its first gig. Did they both survive? “The more I play the Classic and compare it with other single-cuts, the more ‘vintage-y’ it feels – despite its model name” All the spec-checking, auditioning and at-home or even rehearsal room playtime can only prepare you so much for a new instrument’s first performance. And that’s where we’d left the first instalment of this Longtermers test. I’d certainly chosen a difficult gig to put the new Les Paul Classic through its paces. Outside summer gigs always throw a few curveballs. A hastily assembled ‘stage’ in a park with a gazebo to shelter us partially from the sun – though not the…

Q I’m looking for a small acoustic steel-string guitar to travel with. A travel guitar, you might say. Thing is, the travel stuff I’ve tried isn’t to my taste. The necks tend to be a tad too thin and the string spacing a little tight for my sausage-like digits. What’s the solution? Michael Quinn, via email A Consider a parlour guitar instead. These little beauties feature the scaled-down body of a travel acoustic with regular-spec necks. The form dates back to the late-19th century where these Lilliputian guitars were marketed to women to entertain in their parlours. These days, the guitars are very much back in vogue. 1. Gibson Montana Parlor Avant Garde Rosewood £1,699 It’s not just a clever name. This compact beauty features rosewood back and…

The dual P-90 pickup single-cutaway ES-125TDC thinline electric archtop was manufactured at Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory during the 1960s. In terms of features, it is the furthest evolved of the original ES-125 lineage – a family of electric archtops that has its roots in the pre-war era of the late 1930s when amplified guitars were just starting to become popular in the jazz world. The arrival of Gibson’s ‘Electric Spanish’ (ES) range of archtops was heralded by the carved top ES-150 in 1936, and in 1938 the ‘less expensive’ alternative, the ES-100, became available. Sales proved successful and within a few years the ES-100 was renamed the ES-125, although by 1942 production had largely ceased following America’s entry into World War II. After the war, the demand for electric archtops was…

Difficulty 10-15 minutes per example Tutor Phil Hilborne | Gear used: Ex 1-5: PRS McCarty 594 (left channel & solo); ’95 Fender Strat with Bare Knuckle Irish Tour pickups (right channel); small amount of reverb and delay added to solo in the mix. Ex 6: PRS McCarty 594 (left) Fret-King Corona P-90-style pickup selection (right channel). All examples: Yamaha DG60-112 close mic’d with a Sennheiser e906; EBow Plus used in the solo (Ex 5) I HAVE BEEN following Ty Tabor, King’s X and all their associated side projects since I first heard the band’s debut album, Out Of The Silent Planet way back in 1988. The band wrote brilliant songs such as King, Goldilox and Shot Of Love, which all became instant favourites. The distinctive guitar sound, the arrangements, the…

ALBERT KING Born Under A Bad Sign Listening through the title track, plus classics like Crosscut Saw and The Hunter, should give you a flavour of how Albert approaches classic blues chord progressions, often in a very minimalist style, which is worth paying close attention to. Also of interest is the original version of Oh, Pretty Woman, which he re-recorded with Gary Moore. Apparently, after the recording, Albert advised Gary to simplify things and play “every other lick”. ALBERT COLLINS Truckin’ With Albert Collins Released in 1965, this album shows how far ahead of the curve Albert was, with his rhythmic, melodic phrasing, distorted tone and the confidence with which he plays between major and minor, lots of 6ths and prolonged syncopated phrases. Track 1, Frosty, is an example of…

With terms like ‘Speed Neck’, ‘Full Shred’ and ‘Shredder’s Cut Heel’ on offer, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce what kind of life this guitar is destined to lead. We’ll wager that the Charvel USA Select DK24 HH will never be deployed on a ropey rendition of Blanket On The Ground for line dancers at your local social club. This thing possesses the kind of power that welds eyeballs to the back of skulls. It’s designed for the fleet of finger. Shredders. Note-junkies, if you will. And speaking of notes, you’ll have to come up with 2,639 of the pound-shaped versions to own this guitar. You might recall that we looked at a similar-looking Charvel DK24 in issue 448. On that occasion, it was the Mexico-built Pro-Mod…

PRICE: £1,349 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Canada TYPE: Single-cutaway, chambered acoustic electric BODY: Chambered silver leaf maple with flame maple veneer top NECK: Mahogany, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech Tusq/42.8mm FINGERBOARD: Richlite, small dot inlays, 406mm (16”) radius FRETS: 22, medium TUNERS: ‘High-Ratio’ tuners (18:1 bass side, 26:1 treble) – nickel-plated BRIDGE/STRING SPACING: Richlite with compensated Tusq saddle/53.5mm ELECTRICS: Godin GAHN1 humbucker (neck) and under-saddle transducer. Acoustic and electric volume, 3-band EQ (acoustic), 2-band EQ (magnetic). Dual outputs WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.86/6.3 OPTIONS: The Ultra is also available in Black and Cognac Burst (both £999) and Koa (£1,375) high-gloss finishes RANGE OPTIONS: The A6 Ultra starts at £899 with the Natural (cedar top and satin finish). There are also baritone (£1,149) and 12-string (£999) versions LEFT-HANDERS: Not this model,…

Guitar Techniques has a ‘60 Seconds With…’ feature with a set of questions that includes ‘Is there anyone’s playing, past or present, that you’re slightly jealous of?’ Invariably the answers begin with, “Well, I don’t like to call it jealousy, more like respect” or something similar. And, indeed, my own position usually contains reverence for a player, but there have been occasions… In the past, when being introduced to a player of whom I wasn’t aware, if they were clearly better than me and played in my general style, my first response was one of jealousy. But jealousy tempered with annoyance at myself – if I’d worked harder maybe I could have been as good. In my 20s I shared a house with a mate who was a pretty tasty…

KNOCK ON WOOD I’ve been an avid subscriber to your great magazine for as long as I can remember and hopefully will carry on forever more. Anyway, that’s enough brown-nosing. The case in point: how often we see distressed and road-worn electrics in your pages. Surely the manufacturers are missing a trick here. Could there be a market for road-worn acoustics, I wonder? There’s so much hype generated around road-worn Strats and aged Les Pauls – but where is the coverage about the threadbare, beat-up old acoustics? I am only writing this because I was recently frowned upon for having a guitar in what a friend said was, I quote,“a disgusting state” and what the hell had I been doing to it? I was quite taken aback: I’d simply been…

Toby Hay New Music For The 12-String Guitar The State 51 Conspiracy Hypnotic 12-string meditations with unusual tunings For this album, Toby Hay commissioned a very special 12-string guitar – Macassar ebony and Engelmann spruce – from Roger Bucknall at Fylde guitars. Called the ‘Red Kite’, the guitar was set up to play in unique tunings, many tracks employing a musical interval between the top two string pairs – a major 3rd, perfect 4th and so on – rather than them being tuned in unison. An example of this is found on the track The Bird By The Waterfall where the tuning (bass to treble) is as follows: Cc Gg Cc Ee Ga Ce. It’s an unusual approach that has yielded a dozen mesmerising instrumentals on this, Toby’s third release.…

FEATURING Eric Gales Philip Sayce Eric Bibb Toronzo Cannon Joe Bonamassa Know any blues licks? Thought so. Do you use them a bit too often and wish you had some new ways to approach playing blues? Us, too. That’s why, in August, we set sail onto the Mediterranean with the Keeping The Blues Alive At Sea cruise, which played host to some of the world’s top players. Our aim was to have some frank, wide-ranging conversations about bringing authenticity, originality and a little smokestack lightning to your blues playing. We also brought home some masterclass technique lessons, to expand your blues vocabulary and spark new ideas, whether you’re a dedicated blues hound or just want to imbue your guitar playing with more mojo and nail the timeless fundamentals, such as…

“It’s so easy to play and I don’t have to be too precious about it – it’s got some dinks in it for sure and that doesn’t bother me” “I have a lot of guitars at home and it’s a question of, when you’re touring, you don’t always have time in-between gigs or tours to really get back into another guitar that’s been in the case for a little while. You tend to pick up the guitar that you probably haven’t unpacked since the last gig but you know your stuff is in there, and you know it works, and you might want to change strings when you get to the hotel. But, basically, if you’re moving a lot, like I’ve been doing lately, you’re going to use a guitar…

When we meet Philip Sayce, he’s clearly a man who’s taken a long, honest look at his life and music – and emerged stronger for the process. He’s playing up a storm on the Keeping The Blues Alive At Sea cruise and he has a new album in the can that’s as raw and direct as any he’s made. “It’s been a really intense year for me, personally, so a lot of that has gone into the music and I got to produce the record myself this time,” Sayce reflects. “My dad passed away and I took some time after that happened. He passed away just under a year ago and I went into the studio about four or five months after… I’m grateful to have this as an outlet…

“I said ‘This is a perfect Oxblood.’ So I gave it to Joe Glazier and he routed it and refretted it and it rules…” “I bought this guitar for a thousand bucks. It came in a Supro case, ’54 or ’55, and I’m sitting there looking at it. It had P-90s and I went, ‘This is cool – it’s got a neat little centre seam… it’s had a nice little headstock repair.’ So I go, ‘Am I going to do what I’m thinking about doing to it?’ And I said, ‘This is a perfect Oxblood [Jeff Beck’s famous stop-bar Les Paul]’. So I gave it to Joe Glazier and he routed it and refretted it and it rules. When I posted it on Instagram, some people were like, ‘The angle…

PRICE: £3,359 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Double-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: 1-piece ash NECK: Rift sawn maple, ’57-style Soft ‘V’, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT: Bone FINGERBOARD: Maple (neck face), black Micarta dot markers, 184-241mm (7.25-9.5”) compound radius FRETS: 21, medium vintage HARDWARE: Fender American Vintage vibrato; vintage-style tuners – gold-plated ELECTRICS: Fender Custom Shop Hand-Wound ’57 Strat single coils; 5-way lever pickup selector switch, master volume, tone 1 (neck), tone 2 (middle) OPTIONS: This is effectively a base model. You can order from a huge selections of options. See the 2019 Custom Guitar Design Guide RANGE OPTIONS: Along with the other Vintage Custom models on review are the 1955 and 1959 Stratocasters LEFT-HANDERS: Yes, no extra FINISHES: White Blonde NOS Flash Coat nitro cellulose Time Capsule gloss finish…

PRICE: £3,359 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Double-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: 2-piece alder NECK: Rift sawn maple, ’63 Strat-style ‘C’ profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT: Bone FINGERBOARD: Flat-lam maple, black Micarta dot markers, 184-241mm (7.25-9.5”) radius FRETS: 21, medium vintage HARDWARE: Fender American Vintage vibrato; vintage-style tuners – nickel-plated ELECTRICS: Fender Custom Shop Hand-Wound ’62/’63 Strat single coils; 5-way lever pickup selector switch, master volume, tone 1 (neck), tone 2 (middle) OPTIONS: See ’57 Strat RANGE OPTIONS: See ’57 Strat LEFT-HANDERS: Yes, no extra FINISHES: 3-Color Sunburst NOS Flash Coat nitro cellulose gloss finish (body); tinted NOS Flash Coat nitro gloss (neck) PROS As the ’57 Strat: great build; NOS/Closet Classic finish and hardware; rich, resonant sounds – yet another beautiful guitar! CONS Ditto the ’57 Strat…

1 Why all the fuss about cedar as a top wood?  Because it’s distinctly different to the arguably more common spruce in terms of touch and tone. It’s a softer wood than spruce and delivers a warmer, more mellow tone. Players with a lighter touch love it. 2 Isn’t sapele just a cheap alternative for mahogany?  No. Tonally speaking, sapele is in the same general area as mahogany but with an extra helping of treble. It’s sustainable, too. As an attractive body wood, many luthiers celebrate its inherent universality. 3 Is the fuss about ‘all-solid woods’ really justified?  Acoustic tone is about how vibration is managed, so it’s tempting to think lamination might act as an inhibiting factor. But we’ve played instruments with laminated backs and sides that are tonally…

PRICE: £619 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: China TYPE: Grand auditorium cutaway electro-acoustic TOP: Cedar BACK/SIDES: Sapele MAX RIM DEPTH: 107.9mm (4.25”) MAX BODY WIDTH: 406.4mm (16”) NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 645mm (25.4”) TUNERS: Ping RM 1171-CVR NUT/WIDTH: Bone/44.5mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 22 Jescar FW43080 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony/54.6mm ELECTRICS: Fishman Sonitone WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.84/4.06 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: Next up in Eastman’s GA cutaway’s range is the AC 322CE (£885); the range tops out with the AC 822-CE-FF and AC 822CE (both £1,999) and there’s plenty in between FINISH: Open pore PROS Sweet, soulful grand auditorium with loads of power and finesse – for this money? CONS Nope, we’re happy…

The IK Multimedia Axe I/O (£369) audio/MIDI interface is designed for the same purpose as the Sono but doesn’t have onboard sound-shaping facilities other than choosing impedance to suit your pickups and optional JFET circuitry in the preamp. It does have a reamping facility, though, and integration with AmpliTube including rear-panel controller inputs for expression pedals and footswitches. For a fully formed sound, the Line 6 HX Stomp (£429) is an amp and effects processor that offers a two-in/two-out USB audio connection for recording. Focusrite’s Scarlett Solo (£85) is more basic but considerably more affordable, featuring a mic input, input for guitars, plus monitoring via line outputs and headphones.…

1. SERIAL NUMBER Five digits impressed into upper rear of headstock 2. HEADSTOCK Yellow silkscreen Gibson logo; black nitrocellulose finish 3. HARDWARE Three-on-a-plate single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners; height-adjustable compensated rosewood bridge; nickel-plated trapeze tailpiece with raised diamond; adjustable truss rod 4. NECK One-piece mahogany neck; 24¾-inches scale length; unbound 20-fret Brazilian rosewood fingerboard with pearl dot inlays; 14th-fret body join; nitrocellulose finish 5. BODY Arched laminated maple top and back; laminated maple sides; single Florentine cutaway; 16¼ inches wide, 1¾ deep; single bound top and back; Cherry Sunburst nitrocellulose finish 6. PLASTICS White tuner buttons; black ‘bell’ truss-rod cover; two black ‘dog-ear’ P-90 pickup covers; single-layer tortoiseshell pickguard; four metal cap bonnet knobs; white switch tip 7. PICKUPS & ELECTRONICS Two ‘dog-ear’ P-90 pickups with adjustable polepieces; two tone capacitors;…