Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i Guitarist

We live in interesting times. As is the case with many offices nationwide, Guitarist HQ is in lockdown and I’m writing to you from my living room. I’ve got one eye on this month’s ‘What’s Goin’ On’ section fearing that much of it will be cancelled, but, like all of us, I’m hoping that the current crisis will abate soon and we will all get back to normal. For now, though, it’s a very unfamiliar variation on ‘business as usual’. But enough about viruses and self-isolation, let’s take a quick look at this month’s issue. There has been a rash of 50th anniversaries so far this year. The dawn of the 1970s was an unbelievably rich time for music (I know, I was there) and these landmarks keep coming thick…

PRICE: £1,199 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Korea TYPE: Offset double-cutaway baritone solidbody electric BODY: Mahogany NECK: Maple, Thin D profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 673mm (26.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech friction reducing/43mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony, cream block inlays w/ Human logo at 12th fret, 406mm (16”) radius FRETS: 24, medium jumbo stainless steel HARDWARE: Hipshot hardtail bridge with rear-lock Balaguer tuners – gold-plated STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm ELECTRICS: Balaguer Truenobucker humbuckers set, 3-way lever pickup selector, master volume and tone (w/ coil-split) WEIGHT (kg/lb): 4/8.15 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: Select Series Hyperion Standard with Feral and Evergreen humbuckers and tune-omatic/stud tailpiece (£959) LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Metallic Cool Green (as reviewed) PROS Great mix of vintage and modern tones; build quality and setup are excellent; it’s so pretty! CONS The baritone thing will obviously limit…

Usually, we’ll look at groups of related chords, or a particular type of chord extension here, but this time we’re going to turn this approach on its head and look at some of the various ways a C major chord can be voiced to fit with different styles and moods. Though you may not use these all together in any one song, knowing them will expand your vocabulary enough to add some interesting twists to songs you already play – and maybe inspire you to write something new, who knows? We need a baseline to start from, so that is the 3rd position barre chord version, also known as the ‘A’ shape if you’re into the CAGED chord approach. From there, we get into pop/rock, blues and jazz, with hints…

“In Mali, I’m used to seeing people with nothing. But when they plug their instrument in, they will give you the blues” “Blues is the base of everything,” begins Fatoumata Diawara. “Blues is the heartbeat. It comes from your soul. And from this soul and from this one heartbeat, you can do anything – any type of music.” A prolific collaborator, the Grammy Award nominee has indeed cast her creative net far and wide while featuring on numerous studio recordings alongside the likes of Flea, Herbie Hancock and Bobby Womack, and sharing the stage with such luminaries as Paul McCartney, John Paul Jones and Damon Albarn. “When I started to play guitar, it resolved everything,” she tells us prior to her Bristol show. “It was like healing my soul. Being…

It’s not every day that you find yourself being offered a Les Paul for next to nothing, but that’s exactly what happened to Gary Moore at the dawn of the 1970s. “Peter was such a generous person,” Gary told Guitarist back in 1995. “If you admired something, he’d give it to you. He had this amazing coat you may have seen in photographs: full length wool coat with a very faint red check through it. I don’t think I ever said anything about it, but he said, ‘Do you like my long coat?’It’s like he read my mind. He said, ‘I’m getting rid of all this stuff…’ and he gave me this beautiful coat.” “ Peter called me up and said, ‘What do you think of the guitar?’ And i…

If we exclude the insightful protest songs of Bob Dylan, mostly played over simplistic backings, the pithy words and harmonically sophisticated arrangements of Paul Simon, or the often wistful, sometimes jazzy but always poetically sublime meanderings of Joni Mitchell, then James Taylor is the archetypal singer-songwriter-guitarist. An often troubled intellectual, Taylor’s masterstroke was in putting deeply personal lyrics, sometimes clear but often cryptic, onto a country-folk musical backdrop with deft and hooky acoustic guitar picking at its core. In a way, he’s the stealth bomber of the music world. A bona-fide superstar with 100 million album sales to his credit (every release from JT in 1977 to 2006’s James Taylor At Christmas has gone Platinum), Taylor has a self-effacing demeanour that still sends women swooning and men trotting off to…

“I started out selling vintage guitars and effects in Japan. In the 90s, a lot of effects were constructed poorly, and the sound wasn’t very good, so people were looking to vintage effects to get the best sound. Analog Man started out by modifying Tube Screamers using TS-808 specs with parts that I got when I was over in Japan. Before the internet you couldn’t just go online and find parts – you had to go and actually search them out. Ultimately, I was able to find those parts in Japan and start modding Tube Screamers properly. “Tube Screamers have been popular for quite some time and they were one of the most popular pedals when I got into the business. I was able to buy them pretty cheap back…

No matter how lofty Leo’s ambitions for his Jazzmaster were, the design was destined to become a cult classic. Yes, it owned the 60s surf scene, played second guit-fiddle to Johnny Cash sideman Luther Perkins’ beloved Fender Esquire, and later found friends in the new wave, indie and avant garde cliques. But while the Telecaster and Stratocaster were masterpieces of functionality before form, the Jazzmaster was over-engineered at just about every turn. In more recent years, that classic offset body shape has been embraced by the metal crowd. Stripped of its cumbersome vibrato and vintage-spec single coils, contemporary versions more likely feature hardtail bridges and anti-socially wound humbuckers. Which brings us neatly to the Balaguer Standard Series Espada and Select Series Espada T-BAR guitars you see before you. Based in…

PRICE: £535 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Mexico TYPE: 0-style electro-acoustic TOP: Mahogany pattern HPL, X-braced (non scalloped) BACK/SIDES: Mahogany pattern High Pressure Laminate (HPL) MAX RIM DEPTH: 100mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 341mm NECK: Multi-laminate birch, Performing Artist style with mortise and tenon joint, hand rubbed finish SCALE LENGTH: 645mm (25.4”) TUNERS: Closed back Schaller style NUT/WIDTH: Corian/44.4mm FINGERBOARD: Richlite FRETS: 20, medium fine BRIDGE/SPACING: Richlite with Tusq saddle/56mm ELECTRICS: Fishman MX with soundhole volume and tone controls RANGE OPTIONS: See D-X2E LEFT-HANDERS: Yes FINISH: None PROS Great sound, playability and price; Martin legacy CONS Laminated neck isn’t that pretty; also heavy…

Eric Gales 25 May to 3 June Various UK venues Miss this your at your peril, because all signs suggest this is going to be Eric Gales’ year. “I love what I do,” he says. “The hardest thing about it is all the travelling, and the easiest thing is the playing.” It’s not been an easy ride for the bluesman, but the road to redemption is part of what makes Gales’ such a compelling blues story. “Things have happened gradually for me,” he says of his journey, “so I feel like life is my biggest breakthrough. I managed to finally get clean… that was the biggest breakthrough in many ways.” An album produced by Joe Bonamassa is set to follow later in 2020, but, for now, fans can expect the…

Vox Bobcat V90 & Bobcat S66 £1,199 CONTACT Vox UK PHONE 01908 304664 WEB www.korguk.com BODY Pickup format aside, these new Bobcats share the same spec.That includes a semi-acoustic body pressed from sheets of laminate maple, and a weight-relieved spruce centre block to help defeat feedback PICKUPS The Bobcat V90 (far left) comes with a pair of vintage-voiced P-90 single-coil pups with soapbar covers.The S66 is loaded with three Strat-style single coils with trademark Vox squared off covers BRIDGE In another departure from 60s spec, the new Bobcats feature anchored tune-omatic bridges for more secure tuning and intonation.The original guitars had floating bridges NECK Unlike their bolt-on 60s ancestors, these Bobcats have set necks. In other news, you get a 635mm (25-inch) scale length, Indonesian ebony fingerboards, 22 frets and…

These days, most session musicians are required to have home-recording setups to facilitate sending tracks to clients over the internet. Over the past 10 years or so, I’d say this kind of work has increased from five per cent of my total workload to closer to 20, as technology improves and clients from all over the world become more aware of the possibilities of working in this manner. This week I’ve been recording some Spanish-guitar tracks for a client in Switzerland. He was super-efficient – all the sheet music, audio files, click tracks, etc, were very professionally presented – and he was happy with what he received. Internet sessions have definitely been a learning curve, and for me to say yes to a session they have to fall into one…

It might be a matter of personal preference and taste, but there can be no denying how profound an effect the combination of amp and speaker have on one another. In last issue’s article, I pointed out that in some designs the speaker affects the amp’s behaviour more than others – and that it is, to a lesser or greater degree, a synergistic relationship. In other words, some speakers and amps go together sonically like peaches and cream, while other combinations, frankly, sound awful. Guitar amps rarely sound good into full-range PA speakers, for example. It’s really a matter of experimentation, especially if you have any misgivings about the overall tone of your rig. While it’s important to look at the construction and materials when selecting a speaker, here we’ll…

It was October 1966, and God had gone missing. Scanning the Decca Studios in North London as John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers set up to record A Hard Road, producer Mike Vernon felt a sense of rising panic. “I said to John, ‘Where’s Eric Clapton?’ Mayall says: ‘He’s not with us any more, but don’t worry, we’ve got someone better.’ I said, ‘You’ve got someone better – than Eric Clapton?’ John said, ‘He might not be better now, but in a couple of years, he’s going to be the best.’ Then he introduced me to Peter Green.” “To my mind, a blues doesn’t have to be a 12-bar progression. To me, the blues is an emotional thing. If a song has the right emotion then i accept it as a blues” –…

In Mark Eglinton and Fiona Beattie’s book about the legendary guitar repairman Sam Li (The Guitar Man: Sam Li – Rudling House Publishing Ltd) it’s revealed that it was Sam who originally carried out the repair to Greeny’s troubled neck pickup. Despite being a highly skilled craftsman, electronics were not Sam’s forte and the pickup was rewound using Formvar wire as opposed to the more correct plain enamel variety. It’s thought that Sam also replaced the magnet upside down, reversing its polarity – a theory that was proved later on by placing a compass against both the bridge and neck pickups. The book covers the repair – and that of many other well known instruments – in greater detail, making it an essential read for guitar enthusiasts everywhere.…

How did you manage to acquire Greeny? “[Guitarist specialist] Richard Henry and I have had a long-standing relationship with me buying guitars from him. About five or six years ago, I rolled into London and I called him up and said, ‘Hey, Rich. What have you got for me? Anything interesting?’ He goes, ‘I have a guitar you might want to see.’ I asked him, ‘What would that guitar be?’ He said, ‘Well, I have the Gary Moore/Peter Green Les Paul.’ I said, ‘Whoa! Wait a second. I’m not going to pay $2 million,’ because that was the rumour going around at the time – that it was on sale for $2 million. He said, ‘Don’t worry, Kirk. It’s all poppycock. It’s very reasonably priced. Let me bring it over.’…

1. My Blue Heaven KEY C, CAPO 3 RD  FRET This opening track on American Standard begins with a separate verse, a typical songwriting device of that time that we seem to have lost… “It was the way the song was introduced into the action of a musical, or a little way of setting it up. A bit of conversation that’s not yet the body of the song.They’re great; some of them are really smart. It basically sets the stage a little bit.A number of the songs that I play, I go from the swung thing to a straight eight thing, and it’s the straight eight that sounds like Latin. We actually brought in Luis Conte on percussion to make that clear.” 2.…

“Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing to begin with. It probably started with the ‘Silverface’ Twins I stumbled upon aged about 16. I’d seen pictures of SRV with Fender amps that looked similar and – given that I was 16 and ‘knew everything’ – I thought it was all down to these behemoth 70s clean monsters, as opposed to a beautiful 60s Vibroverb! Nevertheless, I plugged the Strat into the Vibrato channel, flicked the Bright switch on, turned it up and… Ouch! One trip to the music store later, a used Boss OD-1 and a new SD-1 improved things no end. Until somebody finally pointed out the little green box at Stevie’s feet. “Since then I’ve become accustomed to 50 per cent of guitar players telling me…

The key to the Acoustasonic platform is simply the number of sounds, or ‘Voices’, that we’re provided with, 10 in total, but each of the five pairs can also be blended together. Starting in what is normally neck pickup position on a standard Strat, position 5 on the Voice Selector, we have what Fender calls the ‘Core Acoustics’: a Sitka spruce-topped dreadnought with mahogany back and sides (A); turn the Mod control clockwise and we voice sound B, a smaller slot-head Sitka spruce-topped concert with rosewood back and sides. Position 4 voices the ‘Alternative Acoustics’: a short-scale guitar with Sitka spruce top and walnut back and sides (A) and a Sitka spruce/mahogany ‘Americana’ dreadnought (B). Position 3 is ‘Percussion and Enhanced Harmonics’ where a single voice, a Sitka spruce-topped Auditorium…

PRICE: £1,749 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Double-cutaway, solidbodysized electro-acoustic BODY: Mahogany (hollow) with inset Sitka spruce top NECK: Mahogany, modern ‘deep C’ profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) TUNERS: Fender standard cast/ sealed staggered tuners NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech Black Tusq/42.8mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony, white dot markers, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, narrow/tall BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony w/compensated Black Tusq saddle/53.5mm ELECTRICS: 3-pickup configuration: Fishman under-saddle transducer and bridge plate body sensor, Fender Noiseless N4 magnetic. master volume, Mod knob, 5-way Voice Selector lever switch. Single mono output with USB battery charge WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.32/5.1 OPTIONS: Colour only RANGE OPTIONS: The American Acoustasonic Telecaster (£1,749) LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: 3-Color Sunburst (as reviewed), Black, Dakota Red, Natural, Transparent Sonic Blue – satin matt polyester to body; satin urethane to neck and headstock PROS Innovative…

There is no shortage of guitars based on the great granddaddy of the original production electric solidbody. Fender itself makes quite a few. If you’re on a budget, head off to the period-specific Vintera range (from £779), move up into the American Original (from £1,699) if you crave a USA build, then look into the Custom Shop (from approx. £3.5k up) for your dream Tele. In the small ’shop world of Patrick James Eggle there is likewise no shortage of T styles with the ‘wrong’ headstocks. Suhr’s Classic Antique T (approx. £2,799) in Butterscotch with a swamp ash body, maple neck with stainless steel frets, nitro finish and noise-cancelling SSCII circuit certainly fits the old-looking modern vibe. More original takes on the Tele come in the form of designs such…

PRICE: £2,999 (inc case) ORIGIN: UK TYPE: Single-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: 2-piece lightweight swamp ash NECK: Roasted figured maple w/ ‘Soft V’ profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42.36mm FINGERBOARD: Roasted figured maple, black dot inlays, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, medium tall (Jescar 55090) HARDWARE: Gotoh BS-TC1S ‘low profile’ bridge with brass In-Tune compensated saddles, Gotoh SD91 tuners — aged nickel plating STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 54.5mm ELECTRICS: Cream T single coil (bridge), Cream T Banger and Mash humbucker (neck). 3-way lever pickup selector switch, master volume and tone controls WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3/6.6 OPTIONS: The standard Oz starts at £2,800 with Mojo single coils. Options include a contemporary neck shape, slimmer in depth with 254-406mm (10-16”) compound radius fingerboard and Jescar jumbo frets plus fretboard material and finish RANGE…

THE BACKGROUND GERALD BUTCHER, Via Email I often hear about classic effects pedal designs like the DS-1 by Boss being ‘modded’ by boutique makers. Why are these mods necessary? What are some mods that are typically done to established pedals and is it worth having them done to my own classic pedals? I have a Boss CE-1, Boss CE-2, Ibanez Tube Screamer and a Boss DS-1 (original silverscrew variant). Finally, are there any other options instead of modding what I have? THE QUESTIONS 1 WHY ARE MODIFICATIONS NECESSARY TO EXISTING PEDALS? 2 WHAT MODS ARE DONE TO ESTABLISHED PEDALS AND ARE THEY WORTH IT? 3 ARE THERE ANY OTHER OPTIONS INSTEAD OF MODDING WHAT I HAVE? THE ANSWERS A very interesting question, Gerald, and one that goes back to…

Knaggs Choptank & Fret-King Country Squire Semitone Special with Dave Burrluck Writer DAVE BURRLUCK Guitarist, Gear Reviews Editor Continuing our Longtermers special on two guitars not one, our reviews editor heads to the home studio… Back in issue 455, along with reviewing both of these guitars, we looked at the whole relic topic. In this exploration of the merits of two very differently priced instruments, relicing plays an important part. Personally, I’m a relic fan. Okay, some of the heavy relic stuff might just be a bit too tattered-looking, but the huge advantage of having a guitar with an aged or reliced finish is that should you ding it, it’s not going to affect its value. But more often it’s the lived-in feel that’s more important to me: I just…

It’s been a busy few weeks, so I had to shelve any improvements to our loaned PRS SE Starla Stoptail. To be honest, a bit of a break like that doesn’t do most modding projects any harm – like a new song or arrangement you’re writing, you sort of come back to it with fresh ears and ideas. I had already installed new SE locking tuners and those neat TonePros locking studs – which meant I could quickly remove and reinstall the stud tailpiece without restringing, making it easier to initially investigate the scratchplatemounted electrics. Aside from that, I’d spent most of my time just tweaking the intonation and making sure the strings sat properly over the bridge saddles. Subtle, yes, but with a relatively low-end guitar like this, it’s…

Fender Reverb During the 1950s, as the electric guitar boomed in popularity and fresh musical styles emerged, engineers and musicians increasingly experimented with various technologies to find new and exciting ways of livening up the sound of the instrument. Gibson’s leading guitarist, Les Paul, wowed listeners with his revolutionary tape techniques, while Gretsch man Chet Atkins was quick to jump onboard in 1954 with Ray Butt’s tape-echo-equipped EchoSonic amp. Both were leading electric guitarists of their time and were influential in establishing electric guitar effects as a crucial factor in the evolution of popular music. Taking inspiration from tremolo-equipped amps such as the Multivox Premier 66 and Gibson GA-50T (released in 1947 and 1948 respectively) Fender released its first tremolo-equipped amplifier, the Tremolux, in 1955. Although this marked a new…

1. CODES Tube chart ink stamped ‘PE’ denoting 1966 (P) and May (E) 2. CABINET 19 inches wide by 10 tall by 7¹/2 deep; vented one-piece back; control panel cutaway; four metal glide feet; one black plastic handle with two metal end caps 3. ORNAMENTATION Black control panel with white font; ‘Fender Reverb’ script model logo; black Tolex covering; silver grille cloth; silver/black plastic Fender script motif 4. CIRCUIT Model 6G15; valves: 6K6GT, 12AT7 and 7025; Hammond Type IV spring reverberation unit 5. POWER & CONNECTIONS From left to right: power on/off switch labelled ‘ON/OFF’; 750mA fuse labelled ‘FUSE/¾ AMP’; red pilot light jewel; standard (¼-inch TS) input labelled ‘INPUT’; standard (¼-inch TS) output labelled ‘OUTPUT’ 6. CONTROLS Three white plastic barrel knobs labelled 1-10 (from left to right): ‘DWELL,…

PRICE: £699 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: China TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: Alder NECK: Maple, Comfy C profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech friction reducing/42.8mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony, pearloid dot inlays, 406mm (16”) radius FRETS: 22, medium jumbo nickel HARDWARE: Hardtail bridge with rear-lock Balaguer tuners – black-plated STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm ELECTRICS: Balaguer Feral humbucker set, 3-way lever pickup selector, master volume and tone WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.6/8.3 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: Standard Series Archetype with Feral humbuckers and hard-rail bridge in various finishes (£699 to £799) LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Gloss Vintageburst (as reviewed), Gloss Shell Pink, Satin Black, Silverburst GuitarGuitar 0800 456 1959 www.balaguerguitars.com PROS This hot-rodded offset offers retro looks and shred-friendly performance; tonally versatile CONS The neck might be a bit too slim for some…

PRICE: £695 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Mexico TYPE: Dreadnought electro-acoustic TOP: Solid Sitka spruce, X-braced, scalloped bracing (non-scalloped tone bars) BACK/SIDES: Koa pattern High Pressure Laminate (HPL) MAX RIM DEPTH: 115mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 400mm NECK: ‘Select hardwood’ Performing Artist style with mortise and tenon joint, hand rubbed finish SCALE LENGTH: 645mm (25.4”) TUNERS: Closed back Schaller style NUT/WIDTH: Corian/44.4mm FINGERBOARD: Katalox – a Mexican hardwood FRETS: 20, medium fine BRIDGE/SPACING: Katalox with Tusq saddle/56mm ELECTRICS: Fishman MX system (was Sonitone) with soundhole volume and tone controls RANGE OPTIONS: There are 30+ X-Series models in a variety of sizes, with HPL grain pattern, and in black and sunburst: D-X1E (£565) has a koa patterned top, back and sides; 0-MCX1 (£575) OM-sized cutaway in black; D-X2AE (£649) dreadnought size with Macassar sunburst…

Joe Bonamassa has announced a surprise new instrumental album with his new project, The Sleep Eazys. As well as paying tribute to friend and mentor Danny Gatton, he’s tackling Sinatra, King, Curtis, a Bond theme and even Motörhead’s Ace Of Spades. “To be honest, I have always wanted to do a record like this,” says Bonamassa. “But, to be even more honest, I’m not sure I was ready both professionally and musically, until now.” KK Downing has formed KK’s Priest with two other former members of Judas Priest. Vocalist Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens and drummer Les Binks will play festivals with the guitarist this year, as well working on new material. Bassist Tony Newton and guitarist AJ Mills will also join the line-up. Professional musician, producer and long-term tinnitus sufferer Rupert…

Crucianelli While most early Vox guitars were originally built in the UK, the amp legends turned to Italian manufacturers EKO and Crucianelli to build its semi-acoustics. The reason? Vox wasn’t set up to build anything but solidbody instruments. Launched in 1888, Crucianelli is an accordion company that diversified into guitar production during the ‘best boom’ of the 1960s. Fellow Italian brand EKO was also called upon to produce guitars for Vox. EKO is probably best remembered for the seemingly indestructible EKO Ranger acoustic with its bolt-on neck and toffee apple thick finish.…

One of the cool things about being a ‘certain age’ is I was there when so much great music emerged.At 13 years old I heard The Beatles’She Loves You, at 14 The Who’s My Generation and The Kinks’You Really Got Me. At 15 it was (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, at 16 it was Mayall, Cream and Hendrix; at 17 Sergeant Pepper; at 18 Led Zep’s first radio broadcast; at 19 it was James and Joni… and so on. Luckily for me, my sister’s boyfriend at the time was a fine musician who played drums in a blues and soul band. He brought round the John Mayall albums Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton, and A Hard Road (with Peter Green). As a budding guitarist those albums floored me. When I…

What was the Orange shop like in the early days? “I opened our shop on New Compton Street in 1968, and I built a studio underneath. We were sort of long-haired hippie types [laughs], which was conducive to what was happening back then in London. Guys like Marc Bolan, Eric Clapton and Paul Kossoff would sit in the shop chatting and jamming all day long. It was part of the whole thing that was happening. They’d come in, take a guitar off the wall and plug in. It was all happening back then.” What kind of gear did you sell? “When I first started, nobody would supply us, so we had to deal in secondhand equipment, which made us popular, because none of those guys would be seen dead with…

What is it that makes Greeny unique? “A great deal of what constitutes tone is in the fingers, of course. But ’59 Les Pauls like Greeny do have a reputation for being bright, lively, resonant guitars – certainly the ones I’ve played have all been pretty consistent in that respect.” “I came to my own conclusions and nailed my colours to the mast. As far as building pickups go, it’s far more interesting than just flipping a magnet” – Tim Mills To what extent do an electric guitar’s acoustic properties affect its amplified sound, do you think? “The way a guitar resonates has more of an effect on the harmonics that come off the string than anything else. A guitar pickup is an electromagnetic transducer. It has to have something…

HOWEVER TEMPTING it may be to call this Headlines ‘How To Play Like Peter Green’, such a promise would likely disappoint. The subtleties of Peter’s exquisite phrasing are renowned, and were praised by none other than BB King, who said they gave him “chills”. Nevertheless, there is actually no reason why we can’t learn a great deal from listening and emulating, hopefully imbuing our own playing with a little extra class and panache along the way. Rather than sitting down to practise alternate picking or learn exotic scales and arpeggios, this Headlines is all about the phrasing – which is no less sophisticated but requires a more cerebral approach. Peter always makes each and every note count, giving the impression that he is always fully conscious of what he is…

What was the first pedal you built and how did the design come about? “The first pedal I designed was a phase shifter – it was sold as the Phase Tone PT-999 under both the Maxon and Ibanez brands. The PT-999 circuit design was inspired by the MXR Phase 90 and consisted of only three operational amplifiers so that many players could use it at a reasonable price.” What’s your best-selling pedal and why do you think that is? “The best-selling pedals I’ve designed are overdrives such as the Maxon OD-808 Overdrive and the Ibanez TS-808 Tube Screamer. To say that the Tube Screamer is synonymous with the term ‘overdrive’ would not be an exaggeration. “You could also say that a majority of overdrive pedals on the market are based…

This Strat’s obvious competitor is the Acoustasonic Telecaster, which is priced the same. Shape aside, it has less crunch for the electric voice and the acoustic sounds are slightly different from those on the Stratocaster. Conventional acoustic/ electrics typically stay in the analogue world, mixing an under-saddle piezo or body/neck sensors with one or more magnetic electric pickups. Taylor’s T5z Classic (which has a dealer price of around £1,900 with gigbag) is a recommended example. In many cases, via dual outputs, you can use two amps – one for the acoustic side, the other for the magnetic. PRS’s Hollowbody II Piezo allows you to do exactly that with its PRS/LR Baggs piezo pickup system, but it’s a more serious investment with full retail from £4,749.…

This Oz’s distinctive ‘Banger and Mash’ neck pickup came about “through Billy Gibbons back in 2014 when The Rolling Stones had a big gig in Oslo”, says Thomas Nilsen.“Billy is a good friend of Keith and Ronnie and he asked me if I’d make a special set of pickups for them as a gift from him. They were loading in on the Saturday, the soundcheck was on Sunday, and the gig was on the Monday. I got a call from Keith’s tech, Pierre de Beauport, on the Saturday and he asked if I could come down. So I bought the gifts from Billy and talked with Pierre, and that’s when he said they’d been trying to have this special pickup made for many years – are you up for it?…

Thomas Nilsen made his first electric guitar pickup around 2007, although he’d previously been making a variety of acoustic pickups for a music store in Oslo. He formed Cream T in 2013 in the UK, and finally relocated here just last year. “I needed to expand, and I’d been getting a lot of attention in Norway because of my work with Billy,” he says. “I was working on a lot of new stuff and I couldn’t do that in Norway because of the expense of taxes, import/ export, and everything in Norway is so expensive – that was another factor in the whole thing. A major factor, though, was that I’d starting working with players like Derek Trucks and Lenny Kravitz, not to mention Billy, and to meet all these…

MANUFACTURER HAMSTEAD SOUNDWORKS MODEL SUBSPACE INTERGALACTIC DRIVER PRICE £249 CONTACT HAMSTEAD 01223 208809 / WWW.HAMSTEADSOUNDWORKS.COM Hamstead’s Odyssey is one of those supremely versatile drive pedals that can provide you with a whole range of tones from clean boost to fuzz. The company has now followed that with a similar chameleon-like pedal that’s been optimised for low frequencies and expands on the Odyssey’s control surface with a sixth knob that allows a parallel blend of dry and effected tone. Such a feature set seems aimed at bass players, but it has attributes that will endear it to guitar players who are looking to shape fulsome drive sounds, too. A three-way clipping switch defines the basic character of the dirt here and works in conjunction with Gain and Tone (high-frequency) controls. There…

1 What was the first pedal you built and how did the design come about? “The first one was the Hot Drive’n Boost [released in 1993]. It’s become a bit of a classic now. It came about by coincidence. Our company [East Sound Research; Søren is CEO] was playing around with all sorts of gear in our studio workshop – noise gates, speakers, amplifiers, you name it. We were learning by doing and through that came our first pedal. The idea was to use LEDs to make the sound more tube-like, and we were looking at different chips and high- and low-cut filters. We were experimenting with noise gates when we suddenly found a really open and transparent sound. We’ve since used that as the basis for designing other pedals.”…

Deep at the heart of his company’s busy complex is George Lowden’s private workshop where he builds very special acoustic guitars – although, these days, time constraints mean the waiting list for a Lowden hand-built by the man himself is an optimistic two to three years. On our visit to this hallowed enclave we were shown some works in progress where rare woods were being combined into beautiful, singular instruments, the headstocks of which bear a single ‘L’ – the mark of the master. Elsewhere, an array of skilled luthiers are busy at work attending to the various stages of building customers’ orders from Lowden’s extensive range of instruments. Some installing the logo into the headstocks, some attending to binding, others fretting, testing, stringing up and finessing before the guitars…

What was the first guitar you bought with your own money? “The first guitar I bought myself was a red American Stratocaster from a guitar shop I was working in called Fair Deal Music in Birmingham. I’d been working there Saturdays and Sundays, plus I was gigging, so I probably earned more money as a 15 year old than I do now as a 35 year old. “My grandmother, bless her, had said, ‘Because you’re working so hard, whatever money you earn I will match,’ because she knew I wanted a nice proper American guitar. So, yes, a red American Strat that I guess would have been about the year 1997, because it had been there for a few years.” What was the last guitar you bought and why? “I…

In the formative years of the electric guitar amplifier, manufacturers began settling on designs that, although technically flawed, would ultimately prove indispensable to the instrument’s trademark tones and the evolution of popular music. “They got things wrong in terms of how sensitive the inputs are to guitar pickup signals,” Hayden Minett tells us. Having spent the best part of two decades building pickups and designing amps, he’s been able to draw his own conclusions as to why people aren’t rushing to correct these so-called mistakes. “I’m not entirely sure that things have been refined over the years,” he says. “All these mistakes that happened in the 50s and before have become part of the sound of what we expect to happen when we plug a guitar into an amplifier –…

1961 Reverb model 6G15 released; 6K6GT, 12AT7 & 7025 valves; blonde & brown Tolex 1963 Black Tolex; black plastic strap replaces leather type 1966 Reverb model 6G15 discontinued 1968 Solid State Series FT-1000 Reverb unit released (discontinued in 1973) 1976 Silver-panel Tube Reverb unit released; 6V6GTA & 3x 7025 valves (discontinued in 1978) 1994 ’63 Fender Reverb released; 6V6GTA, 12AT7 & 12AX7/7025 valves 2008 Renamed ’63 Fender Tube Reverb (discontinued in 2016)…

1953 Gibson ES-295 Today’s featured instrument in our Reverb Rarities series comes from a singular time and place in the annals of vintage guitar history: the 1950s at the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This decade saw the birth and early evolution of the Les Paul, and the advent of the thinline hollowbody electric guitar epitomised by the ES-335. In the realm of full-depth hollowbody guitars, though, Gibson was just as forward-thinking, releasing guitars such as the ES-295. Often associated with Scotty Moore as ‘The Guitar that Changed the World’, the story goes that the initial inspiration for the ES-295 came from Les Paul himself who had Gibson paint an ES-175 gold as a gift for an ailing WWII veteran. By the time of the Les Paul model’s development, Gibson…