Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2020 i Guitarist

This issue, we learned with great sadness of the passing of one of the few guitarists who genuinely deserve to be called ‘iconic’, Eddie Van Halen. Many of the extraordinary things that earned him that well-deserved status are detailed in our in-depth tribute to his life and works on page 60. But it’s also worth pointing out that it was his spirit as a player not just his mastery of the instrument that set him apart. For sure, his technical command of the guitar opened the door to the whole shred era – but I don’t think too many players would have been so eager to walk through it had it not been for the joyous, headlong energy of his playing on tracks such as Jamie’s Cryin’ or Ain’t Talkin’…

PRICE: £1,099 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Mexico TYPE: Single-cut solidbody electric BODY: Alder NECK: Maple, ’72-style medium C profile, three screw w/ Micro-Tilt bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Synthetic bone, 42mm FINGERBOARD: Maple, integral to one-piece neck, black dot inlays, 241mm (9.5”) radius FRETS: 21 medium jumbo HARDWARE: Chrome-plated Strat-style hardtail bridge with through-body stringing,‘witch hat’ knobs, Fender vintage-style ‘F’-stamped tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 54mm ELECTRICS: 2x revoiced Fender Wide Range humbuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector, individual pickup volume and tone controls WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.56/7.85 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: Other Vintera Road Worns include the 50s Telecaster and the ’50s and ’60s Stratocaster – all £999 LEFT-HANDERS: Not at present FINISHES: Daphne Blue (as reviewed), Olympic White – aged nitrocellulose Fender Musical Instruments EMEA 01342 331700 www.fender.com PROS Fuss-free player;…

Epiphone’s latest Joe Bonamassa tie-up, based on his three-pickup Les Paul Custom circa 1958, certainly comes across as a very complete package. It has vintage credentials, a great backstory, comes with a very tidy case and, oh, looks great! But it’s far from style over substance and is another reminder of the ever-increasing quality of the Asian-built guitar. The original Custom recipe is replicated here. This guitar is all mahogany with an ebony fingerboard. While it’s actually slightly lighter than Joe’s original, it’s chunky and weighty; there’s no weight relief and it’s well in line with numerous modern single-cuts we’ve tested. Of course, we’re not talking nitro finish, but the standard poly is perfect. It’s beautifully contrasted by the amber-tinted binding to the top and back of the body with…

PRICE: £749 (inc case) ORIGIN: China TYPE: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric BODY: Mahogany (non weight-relieved) NECK: Mahogany, 50s profile, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 628mm (24.75”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech NuBone/ 43.07mm FINGERBOARD: Bound ebony, pearloid block markers, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, medium/jumbo HARDWARE: Epiphone LockTone tune-o-matic bridge and stud tailpiece, vintage-style Epiphone Historic tuners – gold-plated STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51.5mm ELECTRICS: Epiphone ProBucker 2 humbuckers (neck and middle), ProBucker 3 (bridge), 3-way toggle pickup selector, 2x volumes, 2x tones WEIGHT (kg/lb): 4.23/9.3 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: The standard 2-pickup Epiphone Custom, in black or white, with Slim Taper neck and a gigbag costs £599 LEFT-HANDERS: Not this model FINISH: Ebony (as reviewed) Gibson www.gibson.com PROS Very tidy build with vintage-specific neck, fulsome PAF-alike sounds and unique mixed-position voice CONS More expensive than…

AC/DC POWER UP A TRIBUTE The late Malcolm Young is credited as a writer on every song of forthcoming AC/DC album, Power Up, and his younger brother Angus has confirmed a number of the album’s riffs originated from the writing sessions for 2008’s Black Ice. “There were a lot of great song ideas at that time,” Angus told Rolling Stone. “He said to me, ‘We’ll leave these songs for now. If we keep going, we’ll be overboard. We’ll get them on the next one.’ That always stuck with me. When I went through and listened to them, I said, ‘If I do anything in my life, I have to get these tracks down and get these tracks out.’” COVID SUPPORT FOR ERIC GALES Musicians including Joe Bonamassa and Walter Trout…

Something I’ve loved doing since I was old enough to work in bands, was to play bass. A lot of us guitarists do, especially with home recording so prevalent and easy these days. “The Mustang’s small neck allowed me to access intricate licks. It taught me how bass works, and, to this day, I hear the bass line first in any tune” In my 20s I played in a successful Top 40 band in Essex. We gigged all over East Anglia and I earned more from that than in my job repairing guitars at Gibson/Norlin/Selmer in Braintree, Essex. The gigs allowed me to buy nice gear and, one day, a mate had a bass for sale. It was a Blue Sparkle Fender Mustang with ‘competition’ stripes. Even though I didn’t…

If there is such a thing, Jason Lollar is a pickup maker’s pickup maker. The American winder is so often named in discussions of great pickups that he’s almost a kind of Old Master of the craft. His Imperial humbuckers have become something of a benchmark for how a modern recreation of a PAF should be, so we joined him to learn what the ingredients of the Lollar special sauce are. “I like the pickup to be able to follow any kind of input that the player puts on the string, rather than the pickup itself dominating the sound,” Jason begins, when I call him at his Tacoma manufacturing headquarters. “That takes a certain amount of attack and clarity,” he adds, “especially when you’re playing real close intervals. You also…

WHOSE HOFNER? When I saw the Hofner Senator on page 71 of Guitarist magazine issue 465 I had a bit of a shock as I thought it was a picture of mine till I saw the pickup and controls. My guitar is acoustic only and was built in Germany in 1956 and its serial number is 2841. It was originally bought from Yardley’s Musical Instruments in Snow Hill, Birmingham, but I obtained it in 1967. Neck like a baseball bat with no truss rod. Love the guitar, though. Richard Hollis, via email Thanks for sharing, Richard – editor Jamie used to have a Hofner Senator (who would call a guitar that these days, for a start?) and regrets selling it for £75 to an Edinburgh guitar shop many years ago.…

PRICE: £1,649 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: Roasted pine NECK: Maple, modern ‘deep C’ profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/43.2mm FINGERBOARD: Maple, black dot markers, 241mm (9.5”) radius FRETS: 22, narrow tall HARDWARE: Nickel/chromed-plated 2-point synchronized vibrato with bent steel saddles and pop-in arm and cold-rolled steel block, Fender Standard cast/sealed staggered tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm ELECTRICS: Fender V-Mod II DoubleTap humbucker (bridge), V-Mod II single coil Strat (middle & neck), 5-position lever pickup selector switch, master volume (w/ treble bleed), tone 1 (neck & middle), tone 2 (bridge) w/push switch coil split and aged white plastic knobs WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.45/7.59 OPTIONS: See ‘Colours & Woods’ RANGE OPTIONS: With an alder body the Strat HSS costs £1,599. The standard three-single-coil Stratocaster follows…

PRICE: £750 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Northern Ireland TYPE: Wee Lowden-Style TOP: Sitka spruce BACK/SIDES: Santos rosewood 5-piece laminate MAX RIM DEPTH: 95mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 335mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 610mm (24”) TUNERS: Chrome unbranded NUT/WIDTH: Tusq/44.5mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 21 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony/52mm ELECTRICS: LR Baggs Element VTC WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.9/4.25 OPTIONS: W01 cedar/walnut (£595), W03 cedar/rosewood (£805), W04 spruce/figured walnut (£840) RANGE OPTIONS: See S-Series Sheeran LEFT-HANDERS: Not yet FINISH: Satin PROS The cutaway and arm bevel in a great-looking package with a boisterous plugged-in sound CONS Again, the smaller body and scale length won’t suit everyone…

ZOOM G11 £699 CONTACT Sound Service GmbH WEB https://zoomcorp.com Zoom was one of the pioneers of the floorboard multi-effects processor, but it’s been several years since the company released a new one. Now, building on what the previous G5n offered, it’s back with this brand-new G11, which is certainly feature-packed. It comes equipped with an intuitive touchscreen display, two banks of footswitches and a pedal treadle. It has a stereo or dual mono effects loop for adding external pedals or for four-cable connection, and an input for an expression pedal. A USB connection allows operation as 4-in/4-out 24-bit audio interface as well as providing access to computer-based editing via the free Zoom Guitar Lab software, also accessible with an iOS/ iPadOS device by connecting a Zoom BTA-1 wireless adaptor. A…

VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra When we took a look at Walrus Audio’s Julia pedal back in issue 442, our only regret was that it wasn’t a stereo pedal. That appears to have been remedied now with the release of the Julianna Deluxe Chorus/ Vibrato pedal, which is not only stereo but also adds to the Julia’s feature set with a tap-tempo footswitch, a connection for an external expression pedal and more. The key to dialling in a sound here is the D-C-V knob that runs from totally dry (D) to totally wet (V for vibrato) with traditional chorus around the middle and nuanced blends throughout the travel. This is what makes the Julianna such a prospect for dialling in new sounds against rivals, which simply offer a toggle-switched choice between chorus…

“The idea for student model guitars came from [Leo Fender’s business partner] Don Randall,” says Terry. “He’d always been trying to put together a full line so that you could be a Fender user from beginner to pro. And in the mid-50s, the one thing that was missing was a proper student guitar. In 1955, when this idea came up, they had the [Esquire, Telecaster and Stratocaster] and one of the things Randall was doing was putting on contests for kids where they’d all play in little combos using Fender gear. There are lots of old pictures of little kids playing oversized guitars! There were also a lot of girls playing Fenders, which seems to be a missing part of 50s guitar history. The reality is there were a lot…

Welcome back to Reverb Rarities! This time we’re taking a look at a beautiful 1975 Gretsch 7595 White Falcon Stereo on offer from The Music Locker in Derby. Among guitar players and collectors everywhere, the Gretsch White Falcon is an undisputed classic. Designed for the 1954 NAMM Show by Gretsch’s main guitar designer (and car enthusiast) Jimmie Webster, the White Falcon was originally intended just as a showpiece – in the same vein that a concept car is built for a car show, with no real intention to mass-produce it. But everything changed once the ‘Cadillac of guitars’ made its debut on the NAMM floor. Music dealers flocked to the Gretsch booth in droves to add their names to the White Falcon order list, and in 1955 the White Falcon…

EDDIE VAN HALEN 1955 –2020 About once every decade, at the most, a player comes along who changes the whole landscape of guitar. In the 1930s it was Django Reinhardt, in the late 60s it was Hendrix, and in the late 70s it was Eddie Van Halen… To become such a groundbreaking performer takes more than being simply superb at playing guitar – relatively speaking there are plenty of people who are adept players. There has to be something more than that to become as iconic as EVH was. First, you have to innovate – to achieve a tectonic shift in the whole way people think about the guitar. Eddie Van Halen did that in just one minute and 42 seconds with his watershed instrumental track Eruption from Van Halen’s…

Every instrument has its pioneers – game-changing mavericks who push things forward – and if Jimi Hendrix kicked the electric guitar door down, Eddie Van Halen ran through it, picked up what was left, covered it in tape and built a stairway to the next level. Just like Hendrix, Clapton, Page et al, the idea of Eddie Van Halen doesn’t seem real. These people are heroes, otherworldly beings who exist solely on posters, album covers, stages and the imaginations of thousands of guitar players across the globe. Except Eddie Van Halen is real. We know this, because he’s sat next to us in 5150 Studios, playing the tapped part from Eruption. Eddie built the facility adjacent to his house in the early 80s and it has become the creative headquarters…

“I’ve only said this once or twice I think, how I came up with the tapping thing. I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan, and whenever they came to town we’d go and see them at The Forum. Jimmy Page would do Heartbreaker and he’d be up there going [plays semi-quaver triplet pull-off lick from Heartbreaker]. And I’m going, ‘Wait a minute, if he can do that then…’ So then I just reversed it, instead of this [points to nut] being the nut, I made my finger the nut. So then you can move it around wherever the fuck you want. But it was Page who inspired me. That’s where it came from, I’ve met him a few times and I always forget to tell him! “You know, people say,…

Fender launched its EVH brand in style with the release of the Frankenstein in 2007. This Custom Shop limited-edition run included 300 replica instruments, each rendered in fine detail to recreate Eddie’s iconic guitar with astonishing accuracy. Now highly collectible pieces of rock ’n’ roll history, they originally retailed for $25,000 each (and were all sold within 15 minutes). “We had quite a bit of success with recreating iconic guitars – Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Number One, for example,” recalls Brian McDonald who, at the time, served as Fender’s marketing manager for the Jackson, Charvel and EVH brands. “So it was natural for us to be inclined to do the Frankenstein. Pairing Eddie’s iconic guitar with our Custom Shop seemed like a great way to make a bold statement with the…

Top Lollar Few pickup makers have as much savvy and experience as Jason Lollar. Read his views on what makes a great PAF on p42 Kurt Vile A thoughtful songwriter and indie guitar-slinger, Kurt’s also a complete guitar nut. Hear his tales of guitars lost and found over his storied career p114 Road Worn Returns Fender’s Vintera range just got a little more exciting if you happen to like relicing, as the affordable Road Worn finish returns in style on p10…

HUGHES & KETTNER SPIRIT NANO £185 The debate between valve and digital will rage on forever, but even purists are being treated to convenient new tech, as our coveted light bulbs continue to evolve even now. Hughes & Kettner is the latest brand to embrace nano tubes for its new Spirit Nano trio of mini-amps. There are three in the range: the Spirit of Vintage, Rock and Metal, each offering 50 watts of power from its solid-state output section. The controls and features are common across the models, regardless of which flavour you choose. You get gain, tone, sagging and master volume controls, and each one is equipped with a four-ohm speaker output to drive a 4x12 cab. As well as this, Hughes & Kettner has included its famed RedBox…

Some rock-star deaths hit like a sledgehammer. On 6 October, as the black news ripped through social media, fans both illustrious and unknown found a thousand ways to echo the same sentiment. Not Eddie Van Halen. Death was so diametrically opposed to the life force in the Californian virtuoso’s fretwork. The black-and-white valedictory photos filling news feeds so drab compared with his kaleidoscope of DIY SuperStrats. The past tense of the eulogies so jarring when applied to the man who announced the future when he arrived in 1978, all megawatt smile and hands ablaze. “Eruption erupted through my radio as I was warming up on my guitar,” remembers Joe Satriani of the instrumental that marked the boldest line in the sand since Jimi Hendrix detonated the Bag O’ Nails nightclub…

1 Performer American Original and now , Ultra Professional , II? I still play an American Standard Strat. What’s going on? Keep up! If you’re that vintage guy, you can head to the American Original series. More of a modernist? It’s the American Ultra for you. And if you’re, well, quite normal then the American Professional is aimed at you, while the American Performer trims the cost of the USA experience. 2 Your Strat HSS looks like a 70s throwback, though… American ash, used by Fender since the early 50s, is now endangered. Fender has been looking into alternatives and has selected torrefied pine. It’s been used by Fender before, and pine is already used by a few makers such as Novo and other boutique-style builders. 3 What’s going on…

With a major range like this, you’d expect a broad colour choice, and combined with the two body woods – roasted pine and alder – plus maple or rosewood fingerboards, the actual choice becomes quite staggering. There are 15 Stratocasters, 10 Stratocaster HSS models, 11 Teles, five Jazzmasters and six Tele Deluxe models! So, the three-single-coil Stratocaster with a roasted pine body is available in its natural finish, called Roasted Pine (with both maple and rosewood fingerboard options), and Sienna Sunburst (maple only). All the other colours are over an alder body: Mercury with rosewood-only fingerboard, and Miami Blue and Black with maple only. The remaining colours – Miami Blue, Dark Night, Olympic White and Mystic Surf Green – are all available with both fingerboard woods. Our Stratocaster HSS is…

PRICE: £1,599 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Single-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: Alder NECK: Maple, modern ‘deep C’ profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/43.25mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, white dot markers, 241mm (9.5”) radius FRETS: 22, narrow tall HARDWARE: Nickel/chromed-plated strings-through-body or top-load Tele bridge with three compensated brass ‘bullet’ saddles and six-screw mounting, Fender standard cast/ sealed staggered tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 55mm ELECTRICS: 2x Fender V-Mod II single coil Tele pickups, 3-position lever pickup selector switch, master volume (with treble bleed) and master tone with knurled dome-top knobs WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.65/8.03 OPTIONS: See ‘Colours & Woods’ box RANGE OPTIONS: The roasted pine-bodied Telecaster costs £1,649, the same price as the new Tele Deluxe LEFT-HANDERS: We can expect a left-handed Strat, Tele and Jazzmaster early 2021 FINISHES: Mercury (as reviewed).…

1 Hang on, isn’t Ed Sheeran a Martin endorsee? He was, until fairly recently. Ed’s collaboration with the Martin Guitar Company produced models like the LX1E Ed, which had a solid sapele top, HPL back and sides and Fishman Isys T electronics. Like the Lowden-made models we have here, the body size was reduced to reflect Ed’s penchant for compact stage instruments. 2 Where are these models made? They’re made in Northern Ireland like the rest of the Lowden range. George Lowden consulted the aerospace industry to help design a production line that could deliver high-quality guitars that met Ed Sheeran’s desire to keep the retail price under a grand. 3 A smaller body results in a smaller sound, doesn’t it? Have you heard Ed Sheeran on the live stage?…

PRICE: £930 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Northern Ireland TYPE: Cutaway Lowden S-Style TOP: Cedar BACK/SIDES: Santos rosewood 5-piece laminate MAX RIM DEPTH: 102mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 374mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 630mm (24.8”) TUNERS: Chrome unbranded NUT/WIDTH: Tusq/44.5mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 20 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony/51mm ELECTRICS: LR Baggs Element VTC WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.9/4.25 OPTIONS: S01 Cedar/Walnut (£700), S02 Spruce/Rosewood, no cutaway (£880), S04 Spruce/Figured walnut (£965) RANGE OPTIONS: Lowden’s Sheeran models are either S-Style (see above) or W-Style (see opposite) LEFT-HANDERS: Not yet FINISH: Satin PROS Quality build at an attractive price point with a great amplified voice to boot CONS The smaller build may not appeal across the board…

JHS PEDALS Emperor V2 £195 Based on the sound of the vintage Arion SCH-1, this analogue chorus/vibrato with a tap-tempo footswitch features three selectable waveforms and an expression pedal input. BOSS CE-2W Waza £169 The original Boss CE-1 and CE-2 units are the much-revered pedals that started the whole chorus thing off, and this CE-2W recreates their original chorus and vibrato tones with ease. FENDER Bubbler £109 This pedal lets you switch between two independent chorus sections, each with Rate and Depth controls. A Sensitivity control offers dynamic control of modulation rate.…

In recent conversation with a UK guitar dealer, the term “a guitar for our times” came up, which really resonated with me. And the reason that particular phrase stuck was because of a light-hearted conversation I’d had with Fender’s Tim Shaw earlier this year at the NAMM Show in California. Fender had just taken the wraps off its Acoustasonic Stratocaster, a year after releasing the first Telecaster version, and we were discussing how lightweight guitars such as the Acoustasonics were just great to have at home. I’d put forward the point that, increasingly, the electric guitar – originally designed to be played live, loud and with a band – was being used less and less in this sort of setting, citing the endless YouTube videos of players noodling around on…

Gibson CF-100E Something of a hidden gem on the vintage market, the CF-100E has attracted the attention of several prominent musicians over the years including Jackson Browne and Bob Dylan, while, more recently, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr was snapped with a CF-100E when we caught up with him on tour last year following his Elastic Days release. “Gibson made them in the 50s. It’s the same neck as a Goldtop – that’s why I got into them,” J told us. “When Gibson did their [Centennial Collection] anniversary series, they had a different acoustic every month for a year and I got a [1994 Gibson 1950 CF-100E]. That was the first one I got. Now I have five altogether, with that newer one. Two are CF-100s and the others are…

Difficulty  10 mins per example Tutor: Richard Barrett | Gear used: Haynes 50s S-Type, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Vox AC15 C1 With Rory In Mind THE WISE GUITARIST should always approach any attempt to emulate Rory Gallagher with extreme caution – and perhaps the odd disclaimer. In fact, this solo does not draw specifically from licks or solos from Rory’s abundant recorded output; the aim was to capture a vibe, something Rory had in spades all through his career. The same could be said for Rory’s equipment, famously road-worn before such a thing became fashionable – most notably his ’61 Strat, reputedly the first in Ireland, which he managed to source when its original owner changed to one in the first preferred finish of Fiesta Red. Rory had no such concerns,…

When Van Halen took the Monsters Of Rock show at Donington by storm in 1984, a return visit of the sooner-rather-than-later variety seemed likely. As it is, the UK had to wait nine years to see the band in action, meanwhile enduring the tease of two live videos along the way. “Actually, it’s not just Britain; it’s Europe altogether… and we’ve never even been to Australia!” laughs Edward Van Halen, obviously not quite believing it himself. “I’m sure a lot of people are really pissed off, goin’, ‘Hey, fuck you – if you’re not going to play, I’m not going to buy your records.’ But that isn’t it at all. It was just an unfortunate chain of events.” We’re chatting during a break from the band’s rehearsals for the European…

We’ve said it many times before, but Fender’s simple Telecaster platform of slab body, bolt-on neck and basic pickups, switching and controls makes it the perfect candidate for ‘pimping’. Fender recognised this early on, with models such as 1959’s bound-bodied Custom, the Paisley, Blue Flower and Thinline of ’68, the Rosewood version from the following year, and many more. Come the early 70s and a tougher rock movement had ushered in the new decade. This time Gibson ruled the roost and for a change Fender found itself on the back foot. So it chose the good ol’ Tele to represent its vision of a thicker-toned and more powerful instrument. Enter the Custom and Deluxe, the former with single neck humbucker but retaining the Tele’s bridge single coil, and its double-humbucker…

“It was not mint… I got this guitar at the right price to do what I needed to do to make it a super-playable instrument” The Les Paul Custom surfaced in mid-1954 and introduced the game-changing tune-o-matic bridge. Of course, that was pre-humbucker, so the P-90 soapbar at the bridge was joined by the Alnico V ‘staple’ at the neck. The sales line was “The Fretless Wonder – the incomparable Les Paul Custom guitar”. Originally, the all-black-finished Custom, aka the ‘Black Beauty’, was all Honduran mahogany with no maple top, and an ebony fingerboard. The three-pickup version was introduced late in 1957, effectively the same guitar but this time with the famous trio of gold-plated covered PAFs. The Epiphone follows that style based on Joe Bonamassa’s ’58 model – “all…

“There were many different styles of music involved in this session, making the Kemper an ideal choice as you can switch between sounds” I’ve used a couple of projects I’ve had on this month to experiment with a new studio pedalboard setup. There are several great studios that I work in fairly regularly that aren’t the size of Abbey Road or AIR, and may only have a live room, control room and possibly one booth at most. Personally, I’m a real fan of these sized studios, but they do present the obvious problem of turning up guitar amps loud, or indeed having them at all. With budgets being increasingly tight in most businesses these days, sometimes studio space will be compromised slightly, and one of the first things to happen…

After finishing three years’ studying guitar-making, in 2011 I moved into my first workshop in Deptford, London. With only a handful of guitar builds under my belt and a slew of more experienced luthiers already in business in the big city, I decided I would need to do something a little different to make an impact. So I had a go at figuring out some of the intriguing new ideas I’d seen coming from the workshops of my favourite acoustic luthiers, and top of the list was the side soundport. “Rather than hearing most of the tone as secondhand reflections from the walls, it’s more like sitting in front of the guitar” Soundports are one or more holes cut into the sides of the guitar, typically on the bass side…

Taking the root, 3rd and 5th from a major scale and playing them together gives us a major triad, or chord. The other extreme might be to play every note in the scale at the same time, but that would not be harmonious! However, by adding to or extending chords with further notes from the scale, we can create complex and detailed harmony. Understanding this doesn’t mean every chord has to be an unwieldy fistful of notes – it can also feed into melodic composition and note choice when improvising. As we’ll see, extending the chord leads to numbers being added to the name, but not 1, 3 or 5 generally, as these are presumed to be present already. An E chord with the 6th note of the scale (C#)…

As the most popular and therefore most imitated electric guitars out there, finding your Strat or Tele fit is far from easy. Working your way through the four Fender USA Production ranges is hard enough, and don’t discount the Mexican-made Vinteras or Player Series. Some highlights if you’re looking for a viable HSS is the Ultra Strat HSS (£1,749) with its subtly more modern feature set, or the more affordable American Performer Strat HSS (£999), which uses the original version of the patented DoubleTap humbucker paired with two Yosemite single coils and a six-screw vibrato. Apply that to the Telecaster and we have the Ultra (£1,899) and Performer (£1,049), and dropping down to the Vintera series there’s the ’60s Modified at £879. Of course, if the name on the headstock…

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of the American Professional series, not to mention its sales compared with the other USA Fender production lines. “It’s the centre of gravity of the Fender line,” states Justin emphatically. “It is the number one series. It is the number one requested and used instrument by artists; it’s our best-selling, most important series. We have instruments that are more contemporary, more state-of-the-art like the Ultra with their altered geometry and Noiseless pickups, and then the Original, which are vintage, like they used to be. But American Professional runs right in the middle – the best of yesterday and today. It’s definitely the sun and the Ultra and Original are two planets.” “The American Professional is the number one series. It is the best of…

There’s a whole world of mini-me acoustics out there and first stop has to be Ed Sheeran’s once favoured Martin models, which are still knocking around if you care to explore the marketplace. Prices will vary, but a quick squint online reveals that you can expect to pay around £500 for an LX1E Ed, for instance. The more current non-signature Martin LX1E is around the same price. We loved the Martin Dreadnought Junior when we tried it and they can be found for between £500 and £600 if you shop around. While you’re out and about, you should definitely try Taylor’s sweet, punchy GS Mini for £529 or GS Mini-e for £649, too, if smaller-bodied acoustics are your thing.…

Considering that a major asset of Zoom’s G11 is its footswitching setup, its nearest equivalents really have to be units that are similarly endowed with plenty of footswitches and a treadle. Line 6’s Helix LT (£989) and the HeadRush Pedalboard (£739 street price), with its seven-inch touch display, or even the older Boss GT-1000 (£799 street price) all fall into that particular category. All of these, however, are more expensive options than the Zoom on review, but if you’re looking for something closer in price there’s Mooer’s GE3000 at £749 (with a £599 street price), the company’s flagship unit, offering a pretty comprehensive feature set, including its Tone Capture instrument matching technology.…

ORIGIN: China TYPE: Reverb pedal FEATURES: Multiple Bypass options (Buffered, Relay, DSP+FX or Kill dry), MIDI, 5 onboard presets, software editor CONTROLS: Mix, Gravity/Delay,Feedback/Q, Size/Depth, Lo/ Rate, Hi/Output Level, mono/ stereo switch, guitar/line level switch, secondary function button, Active button, Freeze button, Active (Bypass) footswitch, Freeze footswitch CONNECTIONS: Standard TRS input (mono or stereo), standard outputs 1 & 2, EXP, USB POWER: Included 9V DC adaptor, 200mA DIMENSIONS: 178 (w) x 121 (d) x 71mm (h)…

THE BACKGROUND HAROLD JACKWORTH, Via email I recently decided to invest in a full dream pedalboard. Now, my other hobby is high-end audio and the rule of thumb for that endeavour is that you should spend roughly 10 per cent of your system budget on interconnects/cables. Would there be a sensible rule for my guitar pedalboard? How crucial are high-end guitar cables? Is solderless cabling inferior to soldered cables? My pedalboard total is roughly £3,000 and so that would leave me with £300 for cabling. THE QUESTIONS 1 WOULD 10 PER CENT OF MY PEDALBOARD BUDGET BE A SENSIBLE AMOUNT TO SPEND ON GUITAR CABLES? 2 HOW CRUCIAL ARE HIGH-END GUITAR CABLES? 3 IS SOLDERLESS CABLING INFERIOR TO SOLDERED CABLES? THE ANSWERS Thanks for the question, Harold. I’ll try…

What was the last guitar you bought and why? “I was up in Massachusetts recently hanging out with the guitar god that is J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. It was pretty inspiring being around him. He’s a friend of mine and we’ve toured together. I happened to be up there when he was working on some music and a ’65 sunburst Fender Jazzmaster fell into my lap. It came from a friend of his.” What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money? “In my teens, I had a cheaper Les Paul called The Paul. My early recordings have that cool sound from The Paul, along with a Fender Vibro Champ and some filters. Around 2010, I was borrowing my buddy’s Martin dreadnought. I would always take…

1. SERIAL NUMBER FON (factory order number) ink-stamped on neck block 2. HEADSTOCK Pearl-inlaid Gibson logo and crown motif; unbound; black finish 3. BODY Flat solid spruce top; single Florentine cutaway; solid mahogany back and rim; 141/8 inches wide by 19 ½ long by 4 3/8 deep; three-ply (w/b/w) top binding; round sound hole with three-ply (w/b/w) rosette; single bound back; sunburst nitrocellulose finish 4. PICKUPS & ELECTRICS P-90 single coil pickup with adjustable polepieces; two pots and tone capacitor; rim-mounted jack 5. HARDWARE Rosewood upper-belly bridge; bone saddle and nut; nickel three-on-a-plate Kluson tuners 6. PLASTICS Mock-tortoiseshell celluloid pickguard; black pickup cover; white bridge pins; two barrel knobs; black ‘bell’ truss rod cover; white oval tuner buttons 7. NECK One-piece mahogany; glued-in; 14th-fret body join; 24 ¾-inch scale length;…

Difficulty  15 mins per example Tutor: Robbie Calvo | Gear used: Yamaha Revstar 720B, Line 6 Helix & Powercab 212 Plus Mixolydian Doublestops EVERY CHORD PROGRESSION you’ll ever play over will have a tonal centre and is therefore modal in nature. The tonal centre is where a chord progression resolves to and is often the first chord in a musical progression. Understanding tonal-centre resolutions will help you determine which scales and arpeggios to use when improvising. Furthermore, phrasing your ideas towards the tonal-centre chord and resolving your lines on a chord tone is key to sounding like a professional-level player. In this issue’s column, we’re going to take an A Mixolydian progression (a chord progression in the key of D that resolves to the V chord) and combine bluesy doublestops…

Van Halen gave Guitarist a sneak preview of their forthcoming tour when they invited us along to Docklands Arena to watch them rehearse. The band blazed through their lengthy set with all the dash and frenzy of megawatt stadium rock at its finest. The rumble and thunder of Mike Anthony’s bass rig – we counted no less than 24 Ampeg 8x10 cabs – and the might and mayhem of Ed’s array of Peavey 5150 stacks confirmed that when the band returns to the UK at the end of April, audiences can expect nothing less than a virtuoso rock performance.…

DWEEZIL ZAPPA “I was pretty good at listening to something, finding the notes and figuring how to play it [when I was young]. I also had the opportunity to play with some of the musicians I really liked – Eddie Van Halen ended up becoming a friend of our family, so when he came over to our house, the first thing I did was put a guitar in his hand [so he could] show me how to play Eruption and Mean Street! Seeing it up close made a big difference. “I always liked the Van Halen guitars and I tried to make my own versions of some of those, but he actually gave me two guitars – one of them he used on the Fair Warningtour.” JERRY CANTRELL “When we…

BRIAN MCDONALD Brian McDonald spent more than a decade at Fender serving as marketing manager for the Jackson, Charvel and EVH brands when Eddie’s first products were launched. “EVH was a brand I helped launch [in 2007]. I was there from the beginning. Matt Bruck was Ed’s guitar tech and assistant at the time. He’s a really cool guy. And there were other people at Fender who worked very closely with them both: [master builder] Chip Ellis was the guy who did the guitars, and Mike Ulrich did the amps. Mike and his team borrowed my Peavey 5150 to figure out how the Resonance function worked. It was just part of the engineering process. But I am not exaggerating in designating Eddie Van Halen as a genius when it came…