Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2021 i Guitarist

By the time this issue of Guitarist hits the shops, Britain will be emerging cautiously from lockdown with the hope, still fragile, that the worst of Covid-19 is behind us. The pandemic has caused untold heartbreak to those who have lost loved ones or their own health to the virus. And it has also blighted livelihoods, not least among musicians who depended on gigs for their income. Now, as the prospect of live music returns, Guitarist is proud to support the return of music as it should be played, live and in the moment, in front of a real audience. Of course, things won’t return to normal overnight and there will continue to be health restrictions for public gatherings for some time to come, even supposing we don’t have any…

PRICE: £1,249 (inc case) ORIGIN: Mexico TYPE: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric BODY: Alder NECK: Maple, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Synthetic bone/42mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, white pearloid dots, 184.1mm (7.25”) radius FRETS: 21, vintage/tall HARDWARE: Nickel/chrome Tele bridge 6 stainless steel saddles, Deluxe cast locking tuners with vintage-style buttons STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 54mm ELECTRICS: Fender Vintage Style ’50s Single-Coil Tele pickups, master volume, master tone, 3-way pickup selector lever switch WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.2/7.12 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: Check out Fender’s Vintera ’60s Tele Modified (£939) for another Mexican-made hot-rod Tele LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Faded Ice Blue Metallic – Road Worn nitrocellulose Fender Musical Instruments EMEA 01342 331700 www.fender.com PROS Vintage specs; authentic 60s tone; drop-dead gorgeous looks CONS Just because we’ve made peace with the skinny neck doesn’t mean you will…

The two questions I get asked most when I’m teaching are: ‘How do you learn to sight-read?’ and ‘Do you have a practice schedule?’ In terms of my experience with guitar, a lot of my skills are perishable – and this has become particularly evident during the pandemic. I’ve played guitar a lot, but because a lot of sessions have been done remotely, there isn’t the same time pressure, playing wise. A client will usually say something along the lines of,‘Here is the track. I need it done by lunchtime tomorrow,’ which gives me a good few hours to experiment on my own with parts and sounds and so on. Obviously, if I’m booked for an in-person session then the timescale is much reduced and there’s a lot more immediate…

Since I started working as a guitar maker, I have always taken on repair and restoration jobs. As well as helping to establish a steady income stream in the feast-or-famine world of guitar making, repair work has allowed me to see first-hand the successes and failures of various guitar designs. Given the physical abuse players dole out to their beloved instruments, it can take some serious creative problem solving to fix the multitude of crises that present themselves. If you asked me to summarise my decade of experience so far in this field, I would propose there are two types of guitar repair: those you have done before and those you haven’t. “Considerate guitar restoration is sometimes about preserving things that are ‘wrong’ at the expense of a more convenient…

Compared with the piano, the guitar’s potential to play a variety of chords may seem limited, but these supposed restrictions force us to explore its scope for mixing the tones of open and fretted strings, creating unusual voicings that contain scale and chord tones out of sequence, as well as unison ‘drone’ type effects. In the late 70s, when Rush were closer to their original power trio format than the more heavily layered synths of the 80s, Alex Lifeson pioneered a way to create a fuller, wider sound by incorporating lots of ringing open strings, suspended chords and arpeggiated patterns. This was aided by the relatively new Roland Jazz Chorus amps – primarily for clean tones at first – then the Boss CE-1 to widen the powerchords on Hemispheres. From…

Just before the world fully felt the impact of lockdown in 2020, Pierre Bensusan released a new album, Azwan, and embarked on a US tour to promote it. These best-laid plans were soon scuppered and Pierre was forced to make the dash back to France to rethink the immediate future. While few people are yet to hear it live, this album remains his best for years, with intense and evocative compositions delivered with a remarkable level of finesse. “My intention is every action and behaviour contributes, supports and adds value to our interconnectivity, especially through music” Tell us about the concept of the album… “The concept of Azwan came from observing bees, those solar insects working in the darkness together as one, and by observing flocks of birds flying and…

STEVE VAI Steve Vai started working for Zappa at the age of 18. In the beginning he was transcribing Zappa’s music, some of which was published in The Frank Zappa Guitar Book (Munchkin Music, 1982), but in the autumn of 1980 he became a fully paid-up member of Zappa’s recording and touring band and can still remember the level of culture shock that was to ensue… How did you get to know Zappa? “I was so innocent and naïve. I was a kid that grew up in a teenage bedroom on Long Island listening to the progressive rock music of the 70s, but had an interest in composition from a very early age. And I discovered Frank. When I moved out to California, it was a bit of a shock.…

FRANK ZAPPA  We'll leave the final words to the great man himself. This extract was taken from an exclusive interview Zappa did with Guitarist in March 1993 and offers some insight into his playing as well as some of the gear that passed through his hands during his spectacularly leftfield career. Tell us about your first ever guitar. "It didn't have a make on it - it had been kinda sandblasted. My brother got it for $1.50 at an auction and it was an archtop, f-hole, ugly motherfucker with the strings about a half-inch off the fingerboard. "My father had a guitar, which he kept in a closet, but I didn't really decide to mess around with the thing until we got this godawful thing at the auction. That's why…

GIBSON LES PAUL STANDARD ’50S APPROX. £2,199 Many of us want the right name on the headstock, and in recent years Gibson’s revitalised management has upped the ante on its USA production models. Available in ’60s or ’50s versions, it’s hard to argue with the proposition. Weights on the non-weight-relieved bodies vary, but the Alnico II loaded Burstbuckers (1 and 2), vintage wiring, not to mention the chubby neck profile, all add up to a lot of single-cut guitar, which comes in a trio of nitro gloss colours – Gold Top, Heritage Cherry Sunburst and Tobacco Burst. www.gibson.com PRS MCCARTY SINGLECUT 594 FROM £3,849 The result of over two decades of forensic research, PRS’s Singlecut remains hugely popular with artists, not least Robben Ford. As its name implies, the 594…

“Wood, like a lot of woodworkers, does not like to be hurried or stressed,” David tells us from his base at Luthiers Supplies. “Going abruptly from green to dry in a kiln can distort or even collapse the cell structure, in which case vital elasticity and strength will be compromised. To quote Irving Sloane: ‘A guitar put together under stress will come apart under stress.’ If the wood was stressed, unstable and forced into place, the guitar will likely fall apart. “Not all wood deserves to be called tonewood. A spruce soundboard should sound lively when tapped and whisper a little of its potential when you slide it between your fingers. The wood should be from trees that are straight and cylindrical, have even growth rings and were felled when…

If you’ve never dropped below your nines and 10s, you might be surprised by the choice you have. Our Rotosound set (£5.49) is gauged at 0.008, 0.011, 0.014, 0.022, 0.030, 0.038. Like all our set suggestions here, the bottom three are wound, the tops are plain. This seems a pretty popular set gauge, with most of the main string brands – including Ernie Ball and D’Addario – offering the same. Of course, Billy F Gibbons has his own quaintly titled Rev Willy by Dunlop sets (£6.99) at slightly different gauges: 0.008, 0.010, 0.012, 0.020, 0.030, 0.040, and he also dares to drop to 0.007, 0.009, 0.011, 0.020, 0.030, 0.038. Other artist sets we stumbled across include the Fender Yngwie Malmsteen set (£7.99) at 0.008, 0.011, 0.014, 0.022, 0.032, 0.046, while…

When it comes to guitar design, one of the hardest nuts to crack is making an acoustic guitar sound natural when plugged in. This is particularly important for touring pros. They don’t necessarily need their stage guitars to be the lushest-sounding instruments when unplugged – but they do need guitars that are strong yet responsive platforms for performing on the amplified stage. Such guitars need to be able to cross continents and climates without losing their stability and playability. They must sound good, of course, but above all they must be reliable night after night, from stage to stage, with a pickup system that translates every nuance of the player’s touch into rich, gremlin-free sound. This is the tough challenge that luthier Ciaran McNally took on when he designed this…

As Jimi Hendrix’s right-hand man in the studio during the recording of 1967’s Axis: Bold As Love, Roger Mayer knows what it means to be at the cutting edge of studio effects. Shortly after Roger’s 21st birthday, the pair hit it off while discussing guitar pedals. “I introduced the Octavia to Jimi back in early 1967,” recalls Roger. “We were both into new and innovative sounds and I mentioned I’d helped out Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page with some of my stuff for their hit records. Jimi asked me if I had anything new and I told him about this new pedal – the Octavia. “He asked me to bring it along to a gig he was playing at Chislehurst Caves [in Kent] and he tried it out through a…

Mdou Moctar Afrique Victime Matador Records 8/10 Unique fusion album When we receive a press release describing an album as being “Saharan rock meets Van Halen guitar style” we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t investigate. And in the case of Mdou Moctar’s new album, we’re really glad we did. Lyrically, the album explores political issues, decrying the exploitation of Mdou’s culture and raising awareness of women’s issues in his country, but he’s chosen to get the message across with the most interesting fusion of music cultures we’ve experienced. Using both electric and acoustic guitars to seriously great effect, Mdou gathers his influences together to deliver a powerful and engaging album. If you enjoy music that draws from a very deep well of diverse musical traditions, look no…

Last issue I spoke about a self-induced equipment malfunction that left me a tad red-faced. In response we’ve received several emails detailing your own ‘pilot error’ moments, which have made me feel somewhat better about my own faux pas over the years and got me remembering other incidents, too. I was recently talking with a luthier friend about my history doing guitar stuff. I mentioned how, when Norlin switched Gibson’s distribution centre from the UK to Rotterdam and no longer needed a repair department, Martyn Booth and I had taken over the premises with all its equipment, and carried on as Don’t Fret Guitar Repairs. I got to thinking more about those heady days. I loved it, as much as anything I’ve since done. Sadly, our business burned down when…

Guitars, like clothing, go through fashions and trends. Right now, we’re seeing a revival of interest in small acoustic guitars – from vibey vintage parlours to grab-and-go contemporary designs such as Taylor’s hugely popular GS Mini. In the past, such guitars have often been seen as niche instruments whose depth of tone is limited by their size. People will say, “Small guitars lack bass,” or “small guitars aren’t very loud”. But one day you may encounter a small acoustic that confounds these expectations. For example, a few years back, Guitarist reviewed a high-end parlour made by Patrick James Eggle that was rich and full of voice, with abundant volume, too. Taylor’s new mid-size GT range of acoustics is the same, sounding both fuller and louder than size alone suggests. So,…

STAR LETTER PLAY, BUILD, REMEMBER I recently sent an email to Guy Fletcher asking some questions about album production, which he kindly answered the next day! I started the email with “Late in life I’ve found an interest in music production…”, and he ended his reply with the sentence “Never too late to make music!” For me, this answers your question of “What’s motivating you on guitar in 2021?” My father passed away two years ago. He was 94 and I was 59. He was a wonderful man and a skilled woodworker. He left his family with a lot of woodworking pieces – carvings, furniture, musical instruments and more. At roughly the same time, I started playing guitar again, having played a bit when I was younger. When I lost…

It was well overdue. Since Zappa’s death in 1993 there has been a yawning gap where a film about his life should be, and actor/ director Alex Winter found it hard to believe that nothing had been done to fill that space so far. “It seemed striking to me that there had yet to be a definitive, all-access documentary on the life and times of Frank Zappa,” he said. “We set out to make that film, to tell a story that is not a music doc, or a conventional biopic, but the dramatic saga of a great American artist and thinker – a film that would set out to convey the scope of Zappa’s prodigious and varied creative output, and the breadth of his extraordinary personal life. First and foremost,…

MIKE KENEALLY  It’s amazing to think that the guitar isn’t Mike Keneally’s first instrument. He originally approached Zappa to audition for keyboards, but finding that role already filled he decided to go for the guitar position instead. Having proved to Frank that he could handle the most complex music thrown his way, Mike joined Zappa’s band for the 1988 tour. When you first started the tour, how did you manage the leap from keyboard to guitar? “I quickly had get up to speed. It’s not just executing notes on an instrument, which was kind of the way I approached it at the time, because as a keyboardist initially, I sort of conceptualise the fretboard as just like a different version of a keyboard. So for me to play guitar with…

First Guitar “I had a Kay acoustic guitar. A piece of wood with strings on it, man. Five bucks maybe. I struggled to make this thing make noise. My parents made it into a lamp for my 21st birthday, as a joke, because at that point I had a hit record and all this stuff.” Getting Better All The Time “All of a sudden it made sense to me. My fingers all of a sudden went, ‘Yes, I know how to do this.’ And I started playing all the 1st position chords over and over. ‘Ding, ding, ding.’ I was like, ‘Wow, man, you’re a little teeny kid, you play chords.’ And then I got the bug and it all started from the germ of seeing The Beatles on The…

There are few top makers who don’t have a single-cut in their ranges and Knaggs is no exception. The Kenai is no stranger to these pages and is a part of the more Gibson-inspired Influence Series. It has been a key model since master guitar maker Joe Knaggs set up on his own in Greensboro, Maryland – a relative stone’s throw from the home of his previous employer, PRS Guitars – and started shipping guitars in early 2010. But unlike many, the Kenai is very much Joe’s own take on the hallowed Gibson recipe, a very different Tele-meets-Les Paul outline that’s broader across its body and is wedge-shaped in profile with substantial rear-chambering in contrast to the carved top. The co-joined Influence bridge provides a subtly different voice, too. Very…

PRICE: £5,399 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Single-cutaway, carved top, solidbody electric BODY: 1-piece mahogany with carved Tier 1 maple top and back NECK: Mahogany, Knaggs ‘C w/Slight V’ profile, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 629mm (24.75”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/43.38mm FINGERBOARD: East Indian rosewood, modern morning star inlays, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, medium jumbo HARDWARE: TonePros tune-o-maticstyle bridge and stud tailpiece, Kluson Revolution tuners w/ ‘keystone’ buttons – all nickel-plated STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51mm ELECTRICS: Seymour Duncan Custom Shop ‘Candy’ covered humbuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, individual pickup volume and tone control WEIGHT (kg/lb): 4.05/8.91 OPTIONS: The US base price is $7,000, but check with Peach Guitars on the actual price you’d pay and to discuss any options, all of which are listed on the Knaggs website RANGE OPTIONS: The Knaggs…

You might just prefer one shape to another, but while these models share the same DNA, each very much has its own character. Fender’s Tim Shaw gives us some pointers… “First off, there’s the ergonomic factor and that can’t be overstated,” says Tim.“Certain guitars just feel better to different people’s bodies. I’m actually a little small for a Jazzmaster. I love what it does, but when it’s on my lap it’s a little bit big for me. So you need to bear that in mind. “The sounds – even the rosewood dreadnought voice, which all three of them share – have a different voice on all three guitars because, as we’ve discussed, the body does make a huge difference to the sonic modelling. So, of the three, the Strat’s voices…

ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Reverb pedal FEATURES: True bypass, 24 presets, 12 reverb types (Room, Spring, Plate, Reverse, Echo, Trem, Mod, Dyna, Auto-Inf, Shimmer, Polyphonic, Resonant) CONTROLS: Reverb Type selector, 2x parameter knobs, Fx Level/Inf Level, Predelay/Send Level, Time/Lo Fi, Tone/Tide, buttons for Exp Mode, Moment, Tails, Function, Mode and A/B Select, Reverb A footswitch, Reverb B footswitch CONNECTIONS: Standard inputs (L/Mono, R/Return), standard outputs (L/Mono, R/Send), EXP/FSW POWER: Supplied 9V adaptor (not supplied) 150 mA DIMENSIONS: 119 (w) x 97 (d) x 60mm (h)…

What was the first serious guitar that you bought with your own money? “The first guitar I bought was from a catalogue. It was a Kay bass guitar and it didn’t have a name on it, and I remember I paid 65 quid for it. I believe it had copper strings on it for some reason, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. I used to sweat while I was learning and I’d end up with blue and gold fingers. I think it got sat on and the neck snapped. After that I got a Rickenbacker 4001 – that was a huge jump up. My dad bought me that. I must have proved to him that I meant the music thing. But unfortunately I got rid of that as…

1954 Chet Atkins begins collaborating with Gretsch Autumn 1957 First batch of 50 manufactured; single-cutaway; dual Filter’Trons; ‘stairstep’ Grover tuners 1958 Advertised alongside 6119, 6120 & 6121 signature models 1959 Zero fret; bone nut (replaces metal nut); Gretsch-branded Bigsby 1961 Double-cutaway; standby switch; double-mute; padded back 1964 Filter’Tron (bridge) and Super’Tron II (neck); ‘kidney bean’ Grover tuners 1966 Dual Filter’Trons; single mute; model name on pickguard; black finish (rare) Early 70s Redesignated model 7670; open f-holes; adjustable bridge; no mute Early 80s Rebranded Southern Belle (model 7176) Current Players Edition G6122T; 3x Vintage Select models (G6122T-62, G6122-6212 & G6122T-59)…

“This is a very interesting instrument. It’s a beautiful piece. It was part of a really nice collection we bought of around a dozen Fender VI guitars in all sorts of custom colours. Burgundy Mist is a DuPont Lucite acrylic colour that dates back to 1959. It’s not a DuPont Duco nitrocellulose colour, although the Fender guitars will have a nitrocellulose clearcoat. It’s a pretty rare colour. In the 1960s, most of the electric guitar players were men, and so Burgundy Mist Metallic along with pastel shades like Shell Pink proved to be less popular. The most popular custom colours were Candy Apple Red Metallic, Olympic White and Lake Placid Blue Metallic. Fender made a lot of custom colour VIs because of that whole push in the surf era. I’ve…

DEEP PURPLE MACHINE HEAD Recorded in 1971, this album still stands tall as a pioneering fusion of blues and rock, with some strong hints at what was to come later in terms of neo-classical touches, particularly evident on Highway Star. Maybe I’m A Leo combines a bouncing funk/blues riff with Ritchie’s unique take on a bluesy solo. We all know about Smoke On The Water… so we’ll skip ahead to Lazy for the last word in the fusion of classical, blues and rock with some exemplary playing in Ritchie’s extended solos. DEEP PURPLE MADE IN JAPAN Spawning the priceless line “everything louder than everything else”, this album also showcases Ritchie at the top of his game and gives us an insight into how he translated some of his complex lines…

PRICE: £3,999 (inc Mono gigbag) ORIGIN: Northern Ireland TYPE: Cutaway electro-acoustic Orchestra Model TOP: Sitka spruce BACK/SIDES: Walnut MAX RIM DEPTH: 102mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 380mm NECK: Single-piece mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 645mm (25.4”) TUNERS: Gotoh open-back tuners NUT/WIDTH: Bone/44mm FINGERBOARD: Santos Rosewood FRETS: 20 BRIDGE/SPACING: Santos rosewood w/bone saddle/55mm WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.9/4.2 OPTIONS: An Adirondack spruce/ Honduras rosewood OM Cutaway ‘Studio’ version of the Shane Hennessy OM Signature with lighter bracing, optimised for pure acoustic performance, is available for custom order (£5,115) LEFT-HANDERS: Yes, no extra charge FINISH: Thin matt natural cellulose (as reviewed) McNally Guitars +44 (0) 2838349811 https://mcnallyguitars.com PROS Superb stage tones from a beautifully executed, specialist design; superb intonation; great pickup system CONS It’s a bit niche and not cheap; needs better battery housing – but we’re…

As leader of The Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde has been behind more hits than La Cosa Nostra. I Go To Sleep, Don’t Get Me Wrong, Back On The Chain Gang, 2000 Miles, I’ll Stand By You… The list goes on and on. As a guitarist, Chrissie has been utterly faithful to the Telecaster since she founded The Pretenders in 1978. It’s fitting, then, that Fender has taken the opportunity to reward that loyalty with a new Telecaster release. It’s not a signature model as such. It hasn’t been spec’d from the ground up. No, this is far more interesting. The Chrissie Hynde Telecaster is a replica of her cherished ’65 original. Aside from a few tweaks, which we’ll go into shortly, this Mexico-sourced model is all classic 60s. Things kicks off…

MELVYN HISCOCK: 1957-2021 We were saddened to hear of the passing of Melvyn Hiscock in February this year. Melvyn was the author of the pioneering book Make Your Own Electric Guitar (Blandford Press, 1986) and a great many luthiers have been influenced by his work over the years. He had recently completed a revised and expanded third edition of his book – find out more at www.melvynhiscock.com GEAR FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN NEED Glasgow-based social enterprise 12Guitars recently donated instruments and equipment to the Teenage Cancer Trust ward at The Beatson hospital in Glasgow. UK music charity Music For All donated a number of high-quality guitars for 12Guitars to distribute with Rotosound supplying new strings for each of them. “When we approached the Teenage Cancer Trust at The Beatson in…

Artist: Marty Friedman Album: Tokyo Jukebox 3 (Mascot Label Group/The Players Club) Regularly hailed as one of the most innovative and explosive guitarists in the rock arena since his appearance on Cacophony’s 1987 debut album, Speed Metal Symphony, Marty Friedman went on to spend 10 years in Megadeth from 1990. For many, the albums Megadeth released with Friedman onboard are the best in their catalogue. Marty left Megadeth in 2000, stating that he felt restricted by the boundaries of traditional metal and that it was counter-productive to his evolution as a musician. Life after ’Deth included a move to Japan in 2003, where he had already experienced success while in Cacophony and Megadeth. Since then he’s become a huge multimedia star in his new home-country, appearing on more than 800…

ALEX WINTER  The documentary’s director and lifelong Zappa fan, Alex Winter, is probably better known to the world as Bill S Preston, Esq from the Bill & Ted movies. Zappa was a labour of love that took years to complete, and two key elements to its existence were a successful fundraising campaign and, more crucially, unlimited access to Zappa’s infamous vault – an enormous autobiographical archive of film, video and audio. How did you begin your work with the archives? “Access to the vault began a two-year process of doing excavation and preservation work on the media that was down there before we even got around to being able to make the film. It was a mammoth undertaking. Thankfully, it’s media that we were really happy to be looking at.…

THE IDIOT BASTARD SON – MOTHERMANIA (1969) MIKE KENEALLY: “Mine is the specific version of The Idiot Bastard Son that Frank prepared for the Mothermania compilation. The tape is running at a different speed from the [We’re] Only In It For The Money version, there’s no weird talking section in the middle, and the mix is completely different. It’s very haunting sounding, with more flutes in the mix, and just feels like a complete world unto itself defined by Frank’s musicality and harmonic sense.” TWENTY SMALL CIGARS – CHUNGA’S REVENGE (1970) ADRIAN CLARK : “I could so easily have picked my favourite solo break, because there are so many, charting the uniqueness and gradual evolution of Frank’s playing: Hungry Freaks, Daddy, Transylvania Boogie, Inca Roads, Rat Tomago. But for me,…

“I did the record in eight days,” says Steve of his new album, I Found The Sun Again.“We’d go in, no rehearsals, no demos, no click tracks, no lockup with a computer. I wanted to do it like they used to in the early 70s: play the track, do the solos live, overdub the vocals. I wanted to see if I could pull it off. Literally a month before lockdown I got everybody in the studio. It’s real grand piano, drums at the end of the piano – you can hear the ambience in the room.And Bogner amps, cranked. I only add a little bit of extra sauce if I want. Generally, most of it comes from the guitar. I do use a boost – it’s great on stage and…

1 Joe Knaggs we know, but Eric Steckel? Eric Steckel was something of a child blues guitar prodigy – touring and recording with John Mayall when he was barely into his teens. Check out our interview with the guitarist at the end of this review to find out more. 2 It’s a lot of money… Of course it is, but it’s a lot of guitar, too. The Knaggs Kenai starts a lot lower, then there’s a Junior version (see the spec list at the end of the review). The thing is, aside from Joe Knaggs’ colossal guitar-making experience, the rest of his team are virtually all ex-PRS Private Stock makers with the sort of experience that most small-’shop brands can only dream of. 3 It seems prices at the high…

Joe Knaggs’ business partner, Peter Wolf, has been around guitars and guitar players all his life. “You gotta hear this guy,” he exclaimed to this writer a few years back when a mutual friend had sent him a video of Eric in action, playing a Knaggs Severn X. Indeed, Eric has quite a backstory, playing with John Mayall when he was 12 and touring with him the following year, as well as contributing to Mayall’s 2005 Road Dogs album. But the old Strat and Fender Super Reverb of his teens gave way to more modern tastes and, as he recounts today, he had been a Tom Anderson player since his Feels Like Home album, released in 2008. By 2015, Knaggs had started to register on Eric’s radar. “I was going…

The unique nature of the Acoustasonic means the Jazzmaster’s closest rivals are the others in the series, the original Telecaster and the Stratocaster. It’s also worth noting that the Telecaster is available left-handed and there’s an exotic version of the Stratocaster (£2,999). Taylor’s solidbody-size T5z Classic (approx. £2,200) is based on the larger T5 and starts at a similar point with its braced top and trio of pickups: a visible magnetic humbucker at the bridge, a body sensor and a hidden neck humbucker. A five-way switch controls the sounds, too. Preamp aside, there are no tricky electronics involved. Taking the more usual ‘electric guitar with added piezo bridge pickup’ style route, PRS’s SE Hollowbody II Piezo (£1,349) is a fine slice of classic-semi style with a very good PRS/ LR…

PRICE: £1,879 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Double-cutaway offset-style 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/54mm ELECTRICS: 3-pickup configuration: Fishman under-saddle transducer and bridge plate body sensor Enhancer, Fender Acoustasonic Shawbucker humbucker. Master volume, Mod knob, 5-way Voice Selector lever switch. Single mono output with USB battery charge WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.93/6.45 OPTIONS: Colour only RANGE OPTIONS: The Acoustasonic Telecaster and Stratocaster both cost £1,779; the Ltd Edition Stratocaster is the same spec but with various exotic wood combinations at £2,999 LEFT-HANDERS: Telecaster (£1,779) FINISHES: Tungsten (as reviewed),…

We’re living in the golden age of audio. It’s never been easier to achieve great-sounding high-quality recordings in the comfort of your own home, and many of today’s guitar effects can effortlessly produce sounds far more complex and hi-fi than ever. But have things simply become too precise? Too clean? Too ‘perfect’? Because more than ever, it seems like we musicians are searching for that vintage vibe. You know, that slight wobble, irregularity and warm gritty character that helps glue a track together so well. This has only become more apparent with the volley of lo-fi pedals released in the last couple of years. Whether it be warbly vinyl emulators, fluttery tape saturators or 8-bit resampling machines, I’m all about it. I can’t get enough of one-stop lo-fi solutions such…

“I’ve got two Blackstar combos that have got Peter Blake artwork put on them. Then I go into my effects ’board, which is quite old-school. I’ve got quite a lot of Boss gear: a delay that I use for reverse delay, two distortions, an RE-20 delay, and also the Boss [RT-20] Leslie[-style] double pedal. Then I use either my Gibson 335 or my Les Paul, and I’ve got a Gibson ES-195, an orange one, that I’ve been using recently. So I would use one of those three guitars.”…

We get lots of questions about neck relief – the slight forward concave bow that allows a pretty buzz-free action. Some players, not to mention makers and repairers, like more relief; others prefer to keep things virtually straight. It’s easy to check. Simply capo your guitar at the 1st fret and hold down the G string (and check the high and low E strings) at the top fret. You should see a slight gap – about the thickness of the top string as a visual guide – between the top of the 8th or 9th fret and the underside of the string. Do the same with the G and low E string. Of course, you can measure the gap with a set of feeler gauges, but developing your own visual…

The Gretsch model 6122/Chet Atkins Country Gentleman is more often referred to simply as the ‘Country Gent’. First shipped in 1957 for the 1958 model year, it followed the appearance of the 6120/Chet Atkins Hollow Body and 6121/Chet Atkins Solid Body models in Gretsch’s 1955 full-colour catalogue Guitars For Moderns. The more budget-friendly single-pickup 6119/Chet Atkins Tennessean similarly made its advertising debut in 1958, completing this set of four classic Gretsch signature guitars. Hailed by Gretsch as a recording sensation and TV star with “an army of enthusiastic admirers”, Chet Atkins (Chester Burton Atkins, 1924-2001) was, in more ways than one, instrumental in helping the electric guitar gain mass acceptance during the post-war years. In a similar vein as his friend Les Paul (Lester William Polfuss, 1915-2009), Chet widely promoted…

1. SERIAL NUMBER 26431; one of 50 guitars from first batch made (running 26400 to 26449); serial number appears on the headstock nameplate 2. HEADSTOCK Single-layer white binding; black finish; T-roof Gretsch logo; metal nameplate reads ‘The Chet Atkins Country Gentleman 26431’ 3. BODY Hollowbody archtop; 17 inches wide; 2¼ inches deep; laminated maple; single-cutaway, trestle bracing; four-layer (w/b/w/b) bound top and back; transparent-brown stain finish 4. PICKUPS Two Filter’Tron humbuckers with blank covers; three-way selector switch; three-way tone preset switch; independent volume pots (lower treble bout); master volume pot (upper treble bout) 5. HARDWARE B6 Bigsby vibrato, metal bar bridge; ebony bridge base; gold-plated Grover Imperial ‘stairstep’ tuners; three ‘arrowthrough-G’ knobs; side-mounted jack socket; two thumbscrew strap buttons 6. PLASTICS Two-layer (b/w) laminated truss-rod cover; gold pickguard with T-roof…

RITCHIE BLACKMORE has long been associated with the neo-classical/baroque lines that inspired the young Yngwie Malmsteen and Randy Rhoads. Indeed, he has continued on this path somewhat with the Renaissance-inspired Blackmore’s Night, though this generally involves the use of acoustic instruments rather than his trademark Strat. However, Ritchie’s early influences were very much in the blues vein, particularly Eric Clapton, and this remained a prominent feature in his riffs, melodies and solos throughout the Deep Purple and Rainbow years. Watching Ritchie’s technique closely reveals a surprisingly delicate touch and refined technique (when not smashing Strats against a wall of burning Marshall stacks!), which undoubtedly served him well in his career as a studio/session man in the 60s. This solo takes its inspiration from the Deep Purple ‘Mark II’ era circa…

THE AEOLIAN MODE is the sixth mode of the major scale and can literally be seen as the natural minor scale, the relative minor scale to the parent key, A. The A major scale contains the following seven notes: A B C# D E F# G# A The F# Aeolian mode contains the same seven tones as the A major scale but it starts and resolves on the sixth degree, which is F#: F# G# A B C# D E F# Playing the A major scale from the sixth degree produces the F# Aeolian mode, which is a minor scale with a minor 6th degree. Harmonising The Scale When we harmonise the major scale (build chords from those tones) we produce seven chords. Chords are built by stacking consecutive 3rd…