Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i Guitarist

At the time that Guns N’ Roses released their debut album, Appetite For Destruction, in 1987, I was a guitar teacher and so I had a ringside seat from which I could observe the effect it had on my younger students. All of a sudden, it seemed, everyone under the age of 25 wanted to learn Slash’s opening guitar part to Sweet Child O’ Mine, closely followed by the riff to Welcome To The Jungle. No doubt about it, there was a new guitar hero in town. In the intervening years, the band’s fortunes have seen many changes in line-up – not exactly a unique thing in the tinsel-and-tiara-strewn landscape of rock ’n’ roll, you have to admit. But now we welcome in another kind of debut from the behatted…

PRICE: £1,199 (inc semi hard case) ORIGIN: Japan TYPE: Thinline electro-acoustic TOP: Spruce BACK/SIDES: Sapele MAX RIM DEPTH: 60mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 377mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 630mm TUNERS: Takamine-badged Gotoh NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood FRETS: 21 BRIDGE/SPACING: Rosewood/53mm ELECTRICS: Takamine CT-3N WEIGHT (lb/kg): 4.4/1.9 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: TSP158C SBL (£1,749) with spruce top, arched maple back, see-through black gloss: TSP158C STR (£1,749) with spruce top, arched maple back, see-through red finish. 12-string versions of both are available at £1,949 LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISH: Tobacco Sunburst (as reviewed), Natural and Tea Burst Korg UK Ltd 01908 304600 www.takamine.com PROS Instant familiarity for electric players; great flexibility of amp’d-up sound CONS That slight nasal midrange would put off acoustic purists…

Guitarist was saddened to hear of the passing of Gang Of Four guitarist Andy Gill, aged 64. Gill was the only founder member of the post-punk band to play on all their 10 albums over a 40-year history and was credited as an influence on players ranging from Kurt Cobain to Tom Morello, Michael Stipe and Red Hot Chili Peppers. He would go on to produce the latter band’s 1984 debut, as well as releases by acts including The Stranglers, Killing Joke and Therapy?. His bandmates paid tribute in a statement: “One of the best to ever do it, his influence on guitar music and the creative process was inspiring for us, as well as everyone who worked alongside him and listened to his music. And his albums and production…

On the gig circuit I regularly play, which is mainly theatres but also includes 60s weekends at UK coastal holiday camps, we get to work on the same bill as many hit bands from the era. Recently we played with one group that had achieved several massive hits and are still going strong, albeit with various replacement members. The nowfrontman is also the guitarist. He and I always chat about our gear and there he was, as usual, with his original Gibson ES-335, now incredibly faded through having done thousands of gigs, and a more modern Martin acoustic. I admire his approach: “This is the guitar I love and I’m going to play it!” Several of the other acts, though, have swapped their primary gear for cheaper alternatives. As often…

Most farewell tours are not to be trusted. From KISS to Mötley Crüe, long-time observers of rock will know the routine: the valedictory arena shows, the two-year itch, the reunion album, then business as usual. But when Peter Frampton says goodbye at five UK dates this spring, the veteran guitarist truly means it – however desperately he wishes he didn’t. News of Frampton’s situation can’t have escaped you. Nine years ago, the guitarist was newly into his 60s, and hiking up a mountain with his son when he found himself strangely fatigued. Back then, he dismissed it as the inevitable wear-and-tear of ageing. But when the guitarist began struggling to climb stairs and lift suitcases, then fell down repeatedly on stage in 2015, he visited a neurologist and had his…

PRICE: £3,199 (inc. case) ORIGIN: Japan TYPE: Single-cutaway hollow body electric guitar BODY: Laminated top, back and sides with ‘1959’ trestle bracing NECK: Maple, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 625mm (24.6”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42.8mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony, pearloid ‘Neo-Classic Thumbnail’ inlays, compound 241-305mm (9.5-12”) radius FRETS: 22, medium jumbo HARDWARE: Nickel Adjusto-Matic bridge with pinned rosewood base, Bigsby B6C True Vibrato, Gotoh locking tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 53mm ELECTRICS: 2x TV Jones Ray Butts Ful-Fidelity humbuckers, 2x volumes, master volume, 3-way tone toggle switch, and 3-way pickup selector toggle switch WEIGHT (KG/LB): 3.5/7.8 OPTIONS: No RANGE OPTIONS: G6120T-BSNV Brian Setzer Signature Nashville ’59 Black Lacquer (£2,769) LEFT HANDERS: No FINISHES: Smoke Orange – semi-gloss nitrocellulose Fender EMEA 01342 331700 www.gretschguitars.com PROS Breathtakingly beautiful as ever but this time we’re just as taken with the…

MANUFACTURER TC ELECTRONIC MODEL FLASHBACK 2 MINI & HALL OF FAME 2 MINI PRICE £79 EACH CONTACT WWW.TCELECTRONIC.COM Following in the footsteps of its larger X4 and standard sized-siblings, TC Electronic’s mini versions of the Flashback delay and Hall Of Fame reverb pedals were revamped to ‘2’ status at the tail end of 2019 bringing in a new level of expressive parameter control – all carried out via the new MASH pressure-sensitive footswitch. The two pedals still have the same extremely pedalboard-friendly footprint as their predecessors with offset jacks but now feature an extra LED that lights up more intensely as you increase pressure on that footswitch. The HOF also goes from a single knob to a three-knob control setup matching the Flashback. Both single-sound pedals, the Flashback 2 offers…

ELECTRO-HARMONIX Ram’s Head Big Muff Pi £92 A reissue of not just any Ram’s Head but a reproduction of the ‘Violet’ version – the most common and reputedly best-sounding revision of Ram’s Head-period circuitry as first seen in ’73 models with violet silk-screened graphics. KEELEY ELECTRONICS Dark Side £299 Fuzz, delay and modulation in one place. The fuzz here is based on an op-amp Muff rather than a Ram’s Head, and you can select between a multi-head tape-delay effect or between a combination of four different modulation sounds. BARONI LAB Moon Sound $159 Named after The Dark Side of the Moon, Italian company Baroni Lab says this 12-volt pedal “takes 70s lead guitar tone to the extreme” and features string definition that keeps “well out of the…

Emerald Guitars was initially set up in 1999, when founder Alistair Hay had the idea of turning his enthusiasm about the instrument into a career building them. With a background in engineering and experience using carbon fibre in Formula 1 racing boats, he settled down for a period of research and development, not only learning about luthiery in general, but how his knowledge of carbon fibre could be turned towards the manufacture of acoustic instruments. In fact, an early development involved making a guitar for a certain Mr Vai… “I went to a Steve Vai concert,” Alistair remembers. “It was The Ultra Zone tour and he came out on stage dressed like the alien from the album cover, but with a regular Ibanez JEM. I thought, ‘We’ll have to do…

Guild’s Newark St range isn’t intended to slavishly reissue instruments from yesteryear, but glancing through the now expansive range of hollow, semi-hollow and solidbody designs you find yourself in a near parallel universe. Not only were the majority of designs originally issued in the late 50s and 60s, but Guild – or rather its owner, the Cordoba Music Group – seems unrushed to launch new models. The Starfire I, II and III models date back to 1960, renamed versions of the prior T-100 ‘Slim Jim’. The Starfire II with LB-1 minihumbuckers joined the Newark St line-up in 2016 as the most affordable stripped-down model in the contemporary Semi-Hollow range. Announced last year is this latest addition that swaps the humbuckers for DeArmond Dynasonics and comes in a deep Royal Brown…

PRICE: £1,999 (inc semi hard case) ORIGIN: Japan TYPE: Thinline electro-acoustic TOP: Arched maple BACK/SIDES: Maple MAX RIM DEPTH: 50mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 377mm NECK: Maple SCALE LENGTH: 630mm TUNERS: Takamine-badged Gotoh NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 21 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony/53mm ELECTRICS: Takamine CT-3N WEIGHT (lb/kg): 4.4/1.9 OPTIONS: The TSP178ACK N (£1,999) features a koa top, back and sides RANGE OPTIONS: See TSP178AC SBB (left) LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISH: Blue Burst (as reviewed) PROS A bright, sparkly ride with slightly more volume and presence than its stablemate CONS The price tag may deter casual acoustic players…

It’s been over three decades since Ibanez launched Steve Vai’s JEM signature, one of the most iconic artist models of all time. So it was quite a surprise to see a brand-new guitar launched at NAMM in January: PIA (Paradise In Art) was unveiled with a press conference where Vai noted how “peculiar” the JEM was when it first surfaced back when he was 25 years old. “We nailed it 35 years ago when we introduced the JEM,” noted Vai, joking that “I may not be able to have a hit record but I can have a hit guitar – and that’s really nice.” As Vai pointed out, Ibanez’s hugely popular RG evolved as a sister model to the JEM, while his own signature was refined over the years. The…

F-stamped Tuners The new Lead Series II and III feature the vintage cool F-stamped design tuners that adorned the original American guitars throughout their initial three-year run. Replacing the classic Kluson hardware that Fender used from 1950, this new machinehead design was first seen on Strats and Teles in the latter half of 1967, although the high-spec Jazzmaster and Jaguar models featured them in 1966. The F’d up heads were spec’d earlier still on late ’65-made entry level Musicmasters…

The major 9th is known as an ‘extended’ chord, meaning it stretches further than the usual formula of root, 3rd and 5th, adding in further notes from the scale. One thing that can seem baffling at first is that a scale only has eight notes and we’re referring to a 9th one. This is because we’re adding in notes that come from extending into a second octave. If we were to include every single note that should (in theory) be present, an Emajor 9 would consist of: Root (E), 3rd (G#), 5th (B), major 7th (D#), 9th (F#). This isn’t that practical on the guitar, unless you have extra-long fingers and/or a superhuman resistance to pain! It also contains so much harmonic ‘information’ that it may benefit from some consolidation,…

“We played South America in 1980, and before we left Venezuela we flew on ahead to Panama and the gear went on a cargo plane. They think it wasn’t loaded properly and as the nose came up for take-off, the straps broke and the gear all slid down the fuselage, the wing touched and it blew up on the runway. All the equipment was in there – PA, guitars, backline, the lot. My guitar tech went down there and the guard said,‘No guitars made it. They were all burnt.’ He was mistaken. “So in 2010, I get this email and there’s a dozen shots of my Custom. It had survived. I almost fell off my chair, because I’m thinking this thing has gone back to the earth – and there…

1 CORT CUT CRAFT £1,349 With a well-established reputation for electric guitars, not least for PRS, Manson and a host of others, Cort has us rather taken with its own-brand acoustics. The “thoroughly modern” Cut Craft bundles in just about every boutique-style concept – fan frets, body contours, plus an LR Baggs M-80 soundhole pickup – on an all-solid European spruce/Myrtlewood small jumbo-size at a very tidy price, which includes a hard case. There’s more boutique-like craft with Cort’s other Limited Edition models such as the Roselyn LE, with its offset soundhole on the top and a soundport on the side, a bevel cut on body arm rest, and Art Nouveau-style soundhole inlay, and The Puzzle LE, which will retail around £1,899. www.cortguitars.com With a well-established reputation for electric…

PRICE: £2,599 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric BODY: Mahogany (non weight-relieved) with bound AAA flame maple top NECK: Mahogany, 50s Vintage profile, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 624mm (24.6”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech/43.1mm FINGERBOARD: Bound rosewood, acrylic crown markers, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, medium/jumbo HARDWARE: ABR-1 tune-o-matic bridge, aluminium stopbar tailpiece, vintage deluxe tuners w/ keystone buttons – nickel plated STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52mm ELECTRICS: Two Gibson Custom Burstbucker Alnico II pickups, two volumes, two tones, three-way pickup selector WEIGHT (KG/LB): 4.3/9.46 OPTIONS: Also non-limited is the Appetite Burst with open-top zebra pickups in cream rings RANGE OPTIONS: Two Limited Edition models: in Vermillion Burst and Anaconda Burst both with double-black pickups in black rings also cost £2,599 LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISH: November Burst (as reviewed), Appetite Burst – gloss…

Many of us will recognise the names of guitar pioneers like Leo Fender, Les Paul, Paul A Bigsby, humbucker pioneer Seth Lover and Gibson head-honcho and designer of the Les Paul, ES-335, Flying V and many more, Ted McCarty. Ray Butts is lesser known. Yet, this guy not only invented the EchoSonic, an amplifier with a built-in Taos Echo used by Chet Atkins, he also developed the Filter’Tron humbucker for Gretsch. The TV Jones Ray Butts Ful-Fidelity not only uses the name Butts intended for his iconic ’bucker, it replicates the designs lifted from the man’s own journals. The pickup is available with a blank cover, as fitted to late 1957 and 1958 Gretsch guitars, a Pat. Applied For engraved cover (1959 to early 1960) as featured on the new…

PRICE: £2,549 (inc. case) ORIGIN: Japan TYPE: Single-cutaway hollow body electric guitar BODY: Laminated top, back and sides with ‘1959’ trestle bracing NECK: Maple, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 625mm (24.6”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42.8mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, pearloid ‘Neo-Classic Thumbnail’ inlays, compound 241-305mm (9.5-12”) radius FRETS: 22, medium jumbo HARDWARE: Nickel Adjusto-Matic bridge with pinned rosewood base, Bigsby B6C True Vibrato, Gotoh locking tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 53mm ELECTRICS: 2x TV Jones Brian Setzer Signature Filter’Tron humbuckers, master volume, and 3-way pickup selector toggle switch WEIGHT (KG/LB): 3.14/6.15 OPTIONS: No RANGE OPTIONS: G6120T-HR Brian Setzer Signature Hot Rod in Lime Gold and Candy Magenta (£2,549); G6120T-HR Brian Setzer Signature Hot Rod in Extreme Coolant Green Sparkle (£2,769) LEFT HANDERS: No FINISHES: Candy Blue Burst (as reviewed), Lime Gold, Candy Magenta, Extreme Coolant Green Sparkle…

TC ELECTRONIC Flashback 2 & HOF 2 £99 each If you want the same range of different delays or reverbs but would like to instantly select several from the front panel, check these out: larger and more expensive than the Minis but still fairly compact. ELECTRO-HARMONIX Canyon & Oceans 11 £134 each Relatively compact practical pedals from Electro-Harmonix, the Canyon reverb and Oceans 11 delay both have a choice of 11 different programs with a decent amount of tweakability from the front panel. MOOER EchoVerb £59 For those of you who like to build your own pedals, BYOC has the Ram’s Head-style Large Beaver, which has the added flexibility of a tone bypass and a scooped/flat/hump mids selector switch. There’s also a more diminutive L’il Beaver.…

1 What was the first pedal you built and how did the design come about? “The first pedal that Audio Kitchen released was The Big Trees [Class A valve amp/preamp pedal]. I’d made the Little Chopper amp and at that point people were saying, ‘It’s great for the studio, but I need something really loud to play live with.’ I thought it would be really cool if you could have an amp to use in the studio that you could also use as a pedal and just plug into another [louder] amp when you wanted to go and play live. “I came up with this idea and it took about three years to get it out there. I had a strong gut feeling when it was finished; I knew it…

Writer JAMIE DICKSON Guitarist, Editor-in-chief This month, after skimming the manual, Jamie turns to Kemper’s new profiling amp to beat the bedtime recording curfew Becoming a dad is great, but it undoubtedly comes with side-effects on your ability to make music, especially if you’re a bit of a night-owl, as I am. Back in the days before our daughter was born, if I fancied doing some recording in the evening, I’d go up to the music room in the loft, crank up the amps and make merry until neighbourly relations were under threat. If I wound things up by about 10pm, no one complained, giving me a good two or three hours of fun. However, with the advent of a sleepy little one, turning up a valve amp after 7pm…

The Hofner instrument manufacturing company was founded in 1887 in the former Austro-Hungarian town of Schönbach (now Luby, Czech Republic) by Karl Höfner, a skilled violin maker. In the wake of World War II during the late 40s, Karl’s sons, Walter and Josef Höfner, resettled in Bavaria, Germany, where they began rebuilding the family business, of which guitars had been a significant part since the 1930s. By the early 50s, Hofner was making electric guitars and soon began to export a great deal of its production, thanks in part to a UK-USA trade embargo that ensured American guitars from the likes of Gibson, Epiphone and Fender were not imported into the UK in any significant number until the early 60s. As jazz and skiffle music became ever more popular in…

1. SERIAL NUMBER Four digits and model info (‘Verithin’/‘Bigsby’) ink-stamped onto white rectangular label located on inside back underneath bass side f-hole 2. HEADSTOCK Mother-of-pearl Hofner block logo and ‘bellflower’ inlays; single binding; black nitrocellulose finish 3. PLASTICS White knobs with metal caps reading ‘Volume’ and ‘Tone’; pearl/white tuner buttons; three-ply (w/b/w) nut; black pickup surrounds; black truss rod cover; two-ply (w/b) neck heel cap 4. HARDWARE Nickel-plated pickup covers and Bigsby ‘tremolo’ system; non-original adjustable bridge; six single open-back tuners; adjustable truss rod 5. PICKUPS Two ‘diamond’ logo Type 510 single-coil pickups with six adjustable polepieces; individual volume/tone controls; four pots; two 0.1uF tone capacitors; no pickup selector switch 6. BODY 1¼-inch deep; fully hollow; double Venetian cutaway; arched laminated spruce top; two single-bound f-holes; laminated maple back and…

PRICE: £999 ORIGIN: Korea TYPE: Single-cutaway hollowbody electric BODY: Laminated mahogany with bridge block NECK: Mahogany, Vintage Soft ‘U’ profile, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 629mm (24.75”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech NuBone/43.1mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony, pearloid dots, 241mm (9.5”) radius FRETS: 20, narrow jumbo HARDWARE: Gold-plated Adjusto-Matic bridge with stud tailpiece, Grover Sta-Tite open-backed tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52mm ELECTRICS: 2x DeArmond Dynasonic single coils, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, individual pickup volume and tone controls WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.78/6.12 OPTIONS: The Starfire II ST, with Guild LB-1 minihumbuckers, is available in Natural Brown at £819. A Guild polyfoam case costs £92; a humidified hard case is £139 RANGE OPTIONS: The Starfire III has the same thin single-cut design but with Bigsby, LB-1 humbuckers and wooden-foot tune-o-matic bridge from £1,090. The double-cut Starfires start with…

Brian Fallon 15 to 23 May Various UK dates Three solo albums in after the Gaslight Anthem’s recording hiatus, Brian Fallon is about to release his most intimate album yet with Local Honey. But the eight-track album wouldn’t have been possible without the work he’s put in as a guitarist looking to push himself further in the last five years. “Had I not had all those lessons, I wouldn’t have been able to play and write the songs,” he admits to us. But rather than a grandiose showcase of his chops, it’s the nuance and care to the mood of these songs with producer Peter Katis (The National, The War On Drugs). “We did so much work on adding things, taking away and moving things,” adds Fallon. A couple of…

Fender Lead Series II & III £599 CONTACT Fender EAS PHONE 01342 331700 WEB www.fender.com BODY The new Mexico-built Lead Series II and III guitars feature the same fixed bridge, through-body stringing format seen on the original ’79 to ’82-era models NECK Fender has given these reboots updated playability with 648mm (25.5-inch) scale, gloss finished ‘Modern C’ profile necks with 241mm (9.5-inch) radius maple or pau ferro ’boards and 22 medium jumbo frets SWITCHING The Lead II features an additional toggle switch to engage a phase option when both pickups are on. Its humbucker-loaded brethren comes spec’d with a coil-split switch to access single coil sounds HEADS UP The Mexico-built Lead IIIs come with 70s-era F-stamped tuners Q&A What’s all this, then? More parallel universe stuff? Alternative reality? You’re way…

These days the reality for a working musician is that you have to be diverse, and not just stylistically on your chosen instrument, but also with how you approach the business as a whole. Gone are the days when you could be a rock guitar specialist, for instance, purely making a living from swinging in and out of studios with your Marshall stack and a Les Paul, delivering hit-making Lukather-style solos… In addition to playing guitar, I also write what is known more colloquially as ‘library’ music (officially called ‘production’ music). This is kind of the audio equivalent of Getty Images, whereby, for example, if a television company doesn’t have the cash to commission specific compositions for a given production, they can pay a fee to sync music from a…

“This configuration will produce pleasant harmonics/distortion – an effect regularly exploited” With his head currently buried in writing a new guitar book, Guitarist editor, Jamie Dickson, is passing this issue’s Raising The Tone baton to our guest writer Dan Coggins as he brings us up to speed on some of the fundamental differences between amp class types. An electronics engineer by profession, Dan Coggins began his career in the music industry during the mid-90s as the circuit designer for stompbox legends Lovetone, before branching out independently with Dinosaural in the early 2000s. Now collaborating with ThorpyFX, Dan continues to push the envelope and explore new sonic territory, with several different designs having emerged in recent years. Always happy to share his rare insight and knowledge with Guitarist readers, Dan is…

TONEWOODS: A NEW VIEW Very interesting article on tonewoods and sustainability by Adam Bradbury in issue 455, especially the need for large good-quality trees within any species. We were travelling round Australia in October/November last year; the place is just massive, so is the variety of trees and wildlife. Luthiers there, led by classical makers, have been very experimental over the years. One of the solutions for acoustic tops is the bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii), which grows down the east coast. It is protected to a certain extent, but is quicker growing than spruce and is viewed as a top tonewood in Australia. Makers of acoustics seem to use this a lot over there now. When we were in Byron Bay in Queensland (just as the fires were catching hold…

Gengahr Sanctuary Liberator Music London indie rockers go DIY with vibrant third album… Following up their 2015 debut A Dream Outside and 2018’s Where Wildness Grows, North London indie quartet Gengahr return with a catchy, colourful and deeply textured new record Sanctuary. Produced by multi-instrumentalist Jack Steadman and imbued with the Bombay Bicycle Club frontman’s inimitable symphonic touches, Sanctuary was recorded independently out of the band’s own pockets and on their own time, allowing them to fully embrace their newfound sense of creative freedom. The result is a thoughtful and experimental collection of strong, melodic tunes that manages to retain the art of good songwriting, while simultaneously weaving in layers of atmospheric washes and minimalistic guitar phrases. [RB] Standout track: Everything & More For fans of: Bombay Bicycle Club, Coldplay…

Some 36 years after inadvertently forming Ozric Tentacles in a field in Wiltshire (and as many albums later) Ed Wynne released his debut solo LP, Shimmer Into Nature. Produced and mixed by Ed at his home studio in rural Scotland, it’s a genre-bending trip of an album that instinctively leans on the guitarist’s most essential influences of psychedelia, prog rock, world music and electronica (read: ‘for fans of Ozric Tentacles’!). During last year’s tour with the legendary Gong, we asked Ed what his plans are for Ozric Tentacles now that his solo career appears to be officially underway. “It’s on hiatus, and I’ll get back to it,” he told us. “But for now, I’m loving this incarnation.” In what ways does Shimmer Into Nature contrast with Ozric Tentacles, and what…

1 CHARVEL PRO-MOD DK22 £1,099 For higher than vintage-style performance, look to the Pro-Mod range. In the modern style but with a reined-in, more classic aesthetic, the new DK22 is a 22-fret (stainless steel) Dinky-sized double-cut with alder body and caramelised (roasted) maple neck with graphite reinforcement, a 305 to 406mm (12- to 16-inch) compound radius ’board, and two-point Gotoh 510 vibrato. There is a trio of direct-mount Seymour Duncans: Custom Hot Rails Strat SHR-1B at the bridge with Custom Flat Strat SSL-6 single coils at the middle and neck. The control layout is simple with master volume (500k EVH Bourns low friction pot) and a No-Load tone control, but there’s some interesting wiring from the five-way selector. It comes in two satin finishes, Electric Blue and Pharaohs Gold,…

When you have a range of state-of-the-art instruments, redesigning them is no quick fix.“The first thing we did was redesign the top’s fan bracing using the Yamaha Acoustic Simulation technology,” explains designer Yoshihiko ‘Yoshi’Tambara. “We wanted to increase the acoustic volume of the original NX guitars, and with a warmer sound, but also to keep the longterm stability of the guitar so the top won’t move over the years.” Another change is that the new guitars use walnut instead of rosewood.“It was an environmental decision,” says Yoshi, and one also influenced by the CITES restrictions on rosewood while the guitars were in development.“So we chose walnut, which is more sustainable. It’s a little more focused-sounding compared with rosewood, a little less low frequency. It’s a little lighter in weight, too,…

1 BEETRONICS FATBEE OVERDRIVE $189 Beetronics’ boutique prices may have been a little too high for some, but anyone wanting to buy into the quirky apian-themed brand should have more chance with its new smaller Babee series of pedals. Kicking off procedures is the Fatbee Overdrive with input from designer Howard Davis, the brains behind the EHX Deluxe Memory Man among others. It’s a JFET-based drive pedal that Beetronics says is designed for sweet and smooth valve amp-style distortion with Weight, Flavor and Honey knobs to set your sound. www.beetronicsfx.com 2 BLACK COUNTRY CUSTOMS SPIRAL ARRAY £TBA The trend for today’s chorus pedals is to provide more than one flavour of chorus – and that’s exactly what the Spiral Array does with perhaps the three most well-known and…

Gibson’s own Les Paul Standard ’50s (£1,999) is the blueprint for this model and is quite a bit cheaper. The maple top might be a more standard grade, but you could fit a set of Slash-style ’buckers to replace the more vintage-style Burstbuckers 1 and 2 and still be a few quid in pocket. PRS’s new S2 Singlecut McCarty 594 (£1,849) might have a contoured maple top but offers its detailed USA build at a very aggressive price point, not least compared with the Core-level Singlecut 594 (£3,699). You’ll have noticed Eastman’s vintage-y take on the Les Paul in the form of the SB59/V that, in the antique varnish finishes and Seymour Duncan Antiquities, costs £1,999. In gloss nitro with Duncan ’59s it’s £1,599 from main dealers.…

If you’re looking for a big Gretsch thing but can’t stretch to one of these Setzer articles, consider the more affordable Electromatic G5420 model. It has the looks and sound of a 50s classic – there’s a Bigsby, too, natch – and it streets around £650. You should also take a look at the highly regarded Epiphone Emperor Swingster. Okay, the name is a bit cheesy, but this Bigsby-equipped beauty has become the grand fromage of the affordable semi set. Series/parallel switching adds to the illustrious spec sheet. Expect to pay around £450 to bring one home.…

If you happened to have been at home on 19 February 1981, you were probably watching Top Of The Pops. That night, a Thursday of course, you would have seen a trio of feral-looking kids blasting through their latest 45. Something called Rock This Town. It’s a brilliant performance, the sound of rockabilly at a time when New Romantic was all the thing. Front and centre is this Brian Setzer character, with his sky-high pompadour and a big orange Gretsch G6120 Chet Atkins. First impressions: the kid can really play. And where the hell did he get that killer-looking guitar? “When I started out with the whole Gretsch thing I had no idea what it would sound like,” says Brian Setzer. “I just wanted to look like Eddie Cochran…” Constant…

THE BACKGROUND MAGNUS KRISTOFFERSON via email I’ve really gotten into effects pedals lately and to try to maximise the amount of pedals I could get, I’ve bought many of them used. However, I seem to have been unlucky as more than 50 per cent of the ones I’ve bought were faulty or seemed to detract from the sound I was already achieving (noisy, intermittent input…). Is it just bad luck or am I doing something wrong? Should I expect that sort of failure rate on secondhand pedal purchases? Is there anything I can do to better integrate pedals into my rig? THE QUESTIONS 1 IS A 50 PER CENT FAILURE RATE NORMAL FOR USED PEDALS? 2 ARE BROKEN PEDALS BAD LUCK OR AM I DOING SOMETHING WRONG? 3 HOW CAN…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money? “It was a ’68 Fender Telecaster, maple neck. It was probably blonde, but the previous owner had painted it black and put on a Bigsby. It still had the traditional Telecaster tray for the bridge pickup, but he figured out a way, drilling holes in the back of the tray, to get the Bigsby to work and thread the strings properly. Then he put some kind of a switch into the pickguard to do something, but it was inactive when I bought it. I played that thing for a really long time and before I traded it for, coincidently, another ’68 guitar, a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, which I believe was also a Gold Top that was painted…

1960 Introduced as Verithin (UK & Commonwealth); Russet Mahogany finish; ‘toaster’ pickups 1961 Cherry Red finish now standard; Type 510 ‘diamond logo’ pickups 1962 4x rotary controls replace rectangular control console 1963 Type 511 ’staple’ humbucking pickups 1964 Rebranded Verithin 64; Verithin Stereo available 1965 Double Florentine cutaway; rebranded Verithin 66 1967 Type 512 ‘blade’ pickups 1969 Type 513 notched ‘blade’ pickups 1970 Polyurethane finish replaces nitrocellulose finish 1972 Discontinued…

In recent years, new guitar models like the much-touted Fender Acoustasonic have given renewed visibility to the concept of an instrument with an electric-style body that’s capable of achieving acoustic-like tones. While efforts like the Acoustasonic have introduced 21st-century technology to the format, attempts to achieve this same sonic result go back almost as far as the solidbody electric guitar itself. Today’s Reverb Rarity is one such example: a 60s-era Danelectro Convertible on offer from Regent Sounds of Denmark Street. The Convertible was one of many high-concept designs to come forth from Danelectro in the 60s along with the likes of the Vincent Bell Electric Sitar and others. When plugged in, these guitars don’t exactly nail an authentic acoustic tone, but they still offer an interesting sound that pairs well…

Difficulty 10 mins Tutor: Richard Barrett | Gear used: Knaggs Choptank, Vox AC15 C1 Changing Keys THIS MONTH, I want to address an issue that is often avoided in this style; the situation when a chord change is non-diatonic – or to put it another way, such a significant change that holding onto the same scale or pattern will severely limit your options. In this case, the backing track’s main theme of shifting between Bb minor and Db minor means you’ll need to reflect those changes somehow. One way of doing this is to shift key with the chord changes, using minor pentatonic shapes in Bb and Db. This is completely valid, and the way I approach a lot of this solo, especially at the start, where I’m basically playing…

JOHN SCOFIELD A Go Go John Scofield is probably more known to jazz than blues, but he brings a lot of blues to his music in the form of string bends and distorted tones that would not be considered particularly jazzy! Check out his phrasing on the title track, which uses some of the same melodic devices as the examples (but over a static chord). This album makes for a great education in phrasing, but if you’re short on time, skip toJeep On 35 and Green Tea to hear John negotiate some tricky changes. JEFF BECK There And Back What a way to begin the 80s! Jeff is always ahead of the curve – check out Star Cycle to hear him manage some deceptively tricky changes.Also, The Pump – which…