Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i Guitarist

This month’s cover feature on workhorse guitars runs a little deeper than it maybe first appears. There are really several separate pastimes to be enjoyed within the umbrella of being ‘into guitars’. Some people enjoy modding and maintaining guitars. Others get their kicks from collecting them. While other individuals are all about vintage gear. There’s so much to enjoy about guitars that sometimes it’s easy to forget the reason these instruments are made in the first place – to make music. One thing I’ve learned is that buying a guitar that fulfils a genuine music-making need – and which allows you to do more music than you did yesterday – is never a regret. It’s easy to get tunnel vision with guitar buying and focus solely on new toys that…

PRICE: £2,199 (inc hard case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Dreadnought TOP: Sitka spruce BACK/SIDES: Indian rosewood MAX RIM DEPTH: 127mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 406mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) TUNERS: Larrivée NUT/WIDTH: Bone/43mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 20 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony/56mm WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.21/4.88 OPTIONS: D-03 with mahogany back and sides is £1,899. Various pickup options are available – see website for details RANGE OPTIONS: There are plenty of dreadnoughts in Larrivée’s catalogue: the D-03H/A featuring Bhilwara back and sides with a moonwood top (£2,499), the mahogany and spruce D-02 (£1,799), the D-40 with mahogany and spruce (£1,999) and D-40R with rosewood and spruce (£2,279) LEFT-HANDERS: Yes FINISH: Satin 440 Distribution 01943 818599 www.larrivee.com PROS A good all-round dreadnought with everything you’d expect from this body size CONS We weren’t put off…

Just before the first lockdown I completed my first ever album of original material. And why I didn’t do it decades ago is a question I ask myself way too often. Concurrent with my recording, my mate Adrian Nash was in the same studio doing his. Many of the players were common to both projects – he played all the keys on my album and I played all the guitar on his, likewise with the drummer, saxophonist and pedal steel player – so we decided to put on a show at Komedia in Bath, playing songs from both. We also put the albums up on the streaming platforms the same day. With sights probably set way too high, we decided we needed backing vocals, pedal steel, saxophone and percussion, another…

Last month, I chatted with acoustic master Martin Simpson about the best way to reduce intrusive squeaks when playing fingerstyle acoustic guitar. Martin had some good advice on playing technique, but his main recommendation was to use coated strings. Martin has amazing tone and there’s no way he’d accept second best in that department – so have the doubters got it wrong about coated strings? For years, it’s been fashionable to cast doubts about the tonal qualities of coated strings. Sure, they last longer, people will say, but what about the tone? Detractors will often claim a loss of high-end detail puts them off and sometimes say that the playing feel of coated strings is off-putting, too. To the sceptics, the corrosion-free lifespan of coated strings isn’t worth the (alleged)…

During our lives as guitarists, instruments will come and go. Some will be sold in disgruntled disappointment a few days after purchase. Others will be let go in a moment of weakness and their loss regretted bitterly for years. But just a few guitars stay with us for life – or at least for a great many years. They are our go-to guitars, our reliable friends. Often, they’re not the flashiest instruments around, but that just means we’ll be all the more likely to gig with them and take them places. Every player needs such a guitar and, in the following pages, we’ve selected over 40 dependable electrics with great tone that we think might be ‘keepers’. So, what is a workhorse? Well, it’s the kind of guitar that genuinely…

Like a car that we know we’re going to cover a lot of motorway miles in, we need to know that a guitar we’re buying to be our mainstay workhorse electric for all kinds of musical scenarios is going to last the distance, perform well and get us from A to B in comfort and even a little style. But what section of the guitar market offers the best potential for finding a guitar that blends quality with utility? And how much do we need to spend to meet the brief? Who better to answer such questions than Jim Tuerk of online marketplace Reverb.com, which specialises in musical instruments and has thousands of guitars listed from sellers all over the world at any one time. Due to this, Reverb staff…

PRICE: £2,999 (inc case) ORIGIN: UK TYPE: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric BODY: Obeche NECK: Maple, lightly flamed with medium C vintage profile SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42mm FINGERBOARD: Lightly flamed 3mm maple veneer, 254mm (10”) radius FRETS: 22, medium fine, tall profile HARDWARE: Gotoh ‘drop-sided’ T-type bridge/tailpiece and pickup housing, Gotoh vintage 6-a-side tuners and strap buttons, lacquered black pickguard STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 55.5mm ELECTRICS: Atkin T-style bridge and neck pickup, CTS 250k pots, Sprague orange drop capacitor, Switchcraft jack, CRL 3-way pickup selector WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.9/6.4 OPTIONS: Call for options RANGE OPTIONS: Call for options LEFT-HANDERS: Not yet FINISH: Aged butterscotch nitro-cellulose, plus a range of vintage and special finishes to come PROS Great aged finish; ultra-light weight; authentic tones and feel CONS Some players might not be ready…

You can’t really go wrong with a simple circuit using quality components, and that’s exactly what we have here. Pots are CTS 500k, the volume with a treble bleed circuit consisting of a 150k resistor and a .001 microfarads Tube Amp Doctor (TAD) Sprague/Orange Drop cap wired in parallel. The tone cap on the TL is a large .047 microfarads ‘Mustard’ type, a “replica of the authentic Film-to-Foil Alu/PE design of the 60s Mullard/Philips capacitors”, says TAD. The TM model uses another Sprague/Orange Drop cap, this time valued at .022 microfarads. The volume and tone are wired modern-style using cloth covered push-back wire. Nicely done. The TL’s Kauffmann flush-pole bridge pickup at the bridge measures 9.42kohms, while the Cream T Banger & Mash at the neck reads around 7.28k at…

PRICE: £2,599 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Netherlands TYPE: Double-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: Double-bound paulowina NECK: Quarter-sawn roasted maple, rounded C profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42.92mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood,‘clay’ dot inlays, 254mm (10”) radius FRETS: 21, medium (Dunlop 6150) HARDWARE: Gotoh tune-o-maticstyle bridge with lightweight aluminium stud tailpiece, Gotoh SD91 vintage Kluson-style tuners – aged nickel plating STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51.5mm ELECTRICS: Cream T BFG Banger humbucker (bridge), Cream T The Duke P90 single coil (neck), 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, master volume and tone control WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.8/6.16 OPTIONS: The base price is approx. £2,399. Upcharges here are the double-bound body. Other options, sparkle finish, paisley finish, colour-matched headstock, Lollar Imperial and Cream T Whiskerbucker pickups RANGE OPTIONS: See Kauffmann TL LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Aged 3 Tone Sunburst (as…

TC Electronic is a well-established company with products covering studio and guitar, but the company started out in 1976 with just a single effects pedal – the Stereo Chorus Flanger (SCF), which has now been made available as the SCF Gold to celebrate its 45th anniversary. While the new pedal pays tribute to the original, it takes advantage of more modern technology, notably a new op-amp in the preamp stage, a standard nine-volt DC power socket replacing the hardwired transformer, and a larger, more easily seen LED. While it may boast more headroom, improved low-frequency response and a wider dynamic range, it is said to stay true to the original sound, still incorporating the essential Bucket Brigade Device circuit design. What the pedal offers is a triumvirate of effects –…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money? “A 70s Thinline Tele in black. My dad bought me my first couple of guitars, but the first one that I spent a decent amount of money on was that black Thinline ’72 Tele. I’ve always loved semi-hollow guitars, that’s always been a thing for me. My signature [PRS SE] model for almost the last 10 years has been a hollowbody and I don’t know… an f-hole in any guitar will get me. I don’t know why. They’re light and they play great and they play good acoustically, which is another factor that I really love. But that black Tele. I don’t know, there was something about it that made me really want it – and I wasn’t…

Get On Board Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal have so much to say that’s of value to guitarists that we’d pay to listen to them talk about music all day p52 PAF Secrets Vintage gear expert Huw Price lifts the lid on that most venerated of pickups, the PAF, in forensic detail on p126 A Feast Of Guitar Mascot Label Group has provided a dozen free tracks by some of the top guitar stars. For details on how to get your download, go to p8…

PRICE: £639 ORIGIN: Indonesia TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric guitar BODY: Alder with figured maple veneer top facing NECK: Roasted maple, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech Black Tusq/41.8mm FINGERBOARD: Roasted maple, compound 305-400mm (12-15.75”) radius, black face dots with Luminlay side dots FRETS: 22, medium jumbo HARDWARE: Chrome-plated Cort CFA-III 2-post 6-saddle vibrato with push-in arm, Cort staggered-post rear locking tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm ELECTRICS: Cort ‘Voiced Tone’ VTH77 neck and bridge direct mount covered humbuckers, 5-way lever pickup selector switch, master volume, master tone WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.67/8 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: The G Series starts with the new G110 (from £189); all are HSS except our review model and the G300 Pro (£799), which are both dual-humbucking LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Trans Black Burst (as reviewed),…

PRICE: £3,269 (inc hard case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: 000 size acoustic TOP: Alpine spruce BACK/SIDES: Koa MAX RIM DEPTH: 114mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 391mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) TUNERS: Open back 18:1 NUT/WIDTH: Bone/44.45mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 18 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony/57.15mm WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.58/3.5 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: The standard 000-44 with mahogany back and sides is £2,649, and the 000-44R with rosewood back and sides is £2,899. Various pickup options are available – see website for details LEFT-HANDERS: Yes FINISH: Satin PROS A special edition with superb build quality and a punchy, fingerstyle-friendly sound CONS The koa might deter those looking for a more traditional 000…

During a time when low-end guitars are continually surprising us with their build quality, style and sound, this Jazzmaster-ish knock-off from champions of the underdog Vintage is perfectly timed. To be fair, the V65 has been around a while in both hardtail and vibrato forms, but for 2022 you can get it in two ‘distressed’ colours. Thank goodness Vintage didn’t call it ‘aged’ because the body mangling is laughably inauthentic, and we did wonder if our courier was responsible. The guitar ships in a cardboard box with next-to-zero packaging, but pulling it out of its polystyrene bag it’s not only perfectly in tune but has been very well set up, too. We’re not laughing any more: we’ve had boutique-level guitars that have arrived less ship-shape condition than this. Exactly where…

Yamaha Revstar models From approx £399 CONTACT Yamaha Music Europe PHONE 0344 811 1116 WEB http://uk.yamaha.com JARGON CRUNCHING In Control Push-pull? That’ll be a coil-split then, right? Wrong. The Professional and Standard Revstars use Yamaha’s Focus switch, which is a passive boost that reacts like an overwound pickup. The Element features the classic Revstar Dry switch, which acts like a high-pass filter to thin out your sound without adding noise or losing power. Wait, is it 2015? I thought Yamaha already released the Revstar! No, it’s not – and yes, it did. But these aren’t just a few colour changes. Yamaha has taken the Revstar (which was its first new guitar design in over a decade when it originally launched) and overhauled it. Why are there three of them? In…

Artist: Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs Album: External Combustion (BMG Records) Since the untimely death of Tom Petty, Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell has kept himself busy. After touring extensively with Fleetwood Mac, he took to his home studio to record a second album with his band The Dirty Knobs. We catch up with him to find out how it all came together… This is only the second album you’ve made with the band, and yet you’ve been together for quite a long time. “Yeah, well, I was busy for many decades with The Heartbreakers and in between tours, I met these guys and we would record and play little clubs around town just for fun. These guys are really good, very patient. And so when my time opened up,…

What? Gretsch G5700 Electromatic Lap Steel, Tobacco Where seen? www.gear4music.com Price? £399 I mentioned Jim Martin above and his fabulous pedal-steel playing. In one of my songs I also namecheck Hank Williams, who I love. Now, lap steel is really nothing like pedal steel, but it did come about as an extension of the instrument so superbly played by Don Helms on Hank’s records. This Electromatic from Gretsch is a peach. With a mahogany body, white plastic fingerboard with circle, square, diamond and triangle fret markers, plus chrome ‘Art Deco’ control plate, it looks stunning in Tobacco gloss finish. Its lone single-coil pickup should pack a solid punch, and once you’ve gained a bit of accuracy on that 28-fret, 572mm (22.5-inch) scale neck, you will have a sound that could make…

SOLID STATUS I enjoyed reading ‘State Of The Tube’ in your April edition [page 75] – but how can a British magazine print an article about the evolution of the transistor guitar amplifier and fail to mention HH? The iconic IC100S, with its backlit fascia, was a great-sounding amp and appeared in the backline of many famous guitarists including Wilko Johnson, Marc Bolan and Bill Nelson. What is also strange is the timescale of the ‘more recent innovation of Class D amplifiers’, as they appear to have been available as far back as 1955. Class D amplifiers were designed to be very efficient at turning power to watts instead of heat – up to about 90 per cent efficient, as opposed to a good Class A amplifier, which is about…

Guitars are funny things. We ought to simply examine our musical needs, buy a guitar within our budget that fulfils those needs, and then just focus on getting better at playing. But, as Roger Daltry sang in I’ve Had Enough: “Things ain’t quite that simple.” It can be hard to shake the feeling that if we just bought that next guitar we might achieve more on the instrument than our poor backsliding selves have done to date. We might, if only we had that new guitar, turn our attention to practice with redoubled zeal. We might play more gigs. We might record that album. The fact is that, provided you have a serviceable guitar that sounds good and stays in tune, it’s probably not the instrument that’s holding you back.…

There’s so much choice for players looking for do-it-all electrics at an affordable price. But a workhorse guitar should be at your side for a long time, right at the centre of your musical life. Looked at from that perspective, it’s not the craziest idea to consider paying a little more to buy a no-frills model from a high-end maker. While the law of diminishing returns applies to boutique brands – where you have to pay a fair whack to achieve incremental improvements over mainstream production models – it tends to be the case that high-end makers take extra care over tonewood selection and all the little details, from rolled-in fingerboard edges to pickup choices. Given that a workhorse electric is the kind of guitar that might in time pay…

1 Atkin? Don't I know that name? You certainly do. Alister Atkin and his team in Canterbury, Kent, have been crafting superb remakes of various pre-war acoustics from the two best-known American guitar makers of the era. He’s recently decided to do the same with electric guitars – and Alister rarely gets it wrong. 2 Do we need another copy? Maybe the question should be: is there enough room in an already crowded market for more instruments based around the two most famous 50s guitar shapes? The answer will depend on whether the Atkin models catch on. He certainly sells enough acoustics so only time will tell. And they are not carbon copies; there are plenty of personal touches here, too. 3 These instruments look aged… They are. Alister has…

PRICE: £2,999 (inc case) ORIGIN: UK TYPE: Double-cutaway, solidbody electric BODY: Obeche (2-piece) NECK: Maple, lightly flamed with medium C vintage profile SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42mm FINGERBOARD: Lightly flamed 3mm maple veneer, 254mm (10”) radius FRETS: 22, medium fine, tall profile HARDWARE: Gotoh 6-screw vintage S-type bridge/tailpiece, Gotoh vintage 6-a-side tuners and strap buttons, aged, single-ply white nylon pickguard STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 56mm ELECTRICS: Atkin S-style bridge, middle and neck pickups, CTS 250k pots, Sprague orange drop capacitors, Switchcraft jack, CRL 5-way pickup selector WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.3/7.275 OPTIONS: Call for options RANGE OPTIONS: Call for options LEFT-HANDERS: Not yet FINISH: Aged two-tone sunburst nitro-cellulose, plus a range of vintage and special finishes to come PROS Great aged finish; ultra-light weight; authentic tones and feel CONS Some players might…

The Cozy is the first original design from Netherlands guitar builder Kauffmann Guitars whose owner, Albert Deinum, has been building guitars for the past few years. To augment the launch of the guitar last year, Albert and co-owner Paul van Bree thought it might be fun to invent a fictitious backstory for the guitar they’ve called ‘Cozy’. Head over to their website to enjoy that tall tale! 2 It looks a bit like Novo’s Serus… Yes, as we discuss with Kauffmann’s Paul van Bree later on, Dennis Fano’s style has been a big influence here, but the Cozy has a smaller body than the Serus. Similar to Novo’s style, the Cozy is offered as one body shape but with five different bridge/pickup combinations. 3 Who’s going to play one? If…

When did Kauffmann’s Guitar Store start making its own-brand guitars? “Albert [Deinum, Kauffmann Guitars owner] started building guitars around 2014. He was always tinkering with guitars and he had the guitar store by that time, but he wasn’t always busy so he started to use the spare hours to build his own guitars. He built a couple of them and people bought them, so he built some more – and that’s how it started.” Those were primarily T- and S-style guitars. When did you consider doing your own design? “Dennis Fano is a huge inspiration to us and we borrowed from [the look of] early Rickenbacker models” “I think we started off with the whole idea about three years ago: why not try to create an all-original model? We had…

Back in the 1950s, single-coil pickup noise was a big issue for players and all the major guitar manufacturers were aware of it. Gibson employee Seth Lover had adapted a well-proven humbucking circuit for the power supply choke in his GA-90 amp design and realised the same idea could be used to make a humbucking pickup. Ted McCarty gave Seth the go-ahead in 1954, and by the following year he had a working prototype with a plain cover and flat slugs. Seth considered P-90-style adjustable polepieces unnecessary but relented when Gibson’s marketing team argued it would give them a good selling point. Others were working on noise-free pickups, too, with Les Paul’s guitar tech, Tom Doyle, reporting Les using a hum-cancelling dummy coil in the 1940s and winding his own…

Spring 1958 21 frets; 2” depth; ‘toaster’ pickups; single-layer pickguard; 2x cooker knobs; 2x switches Summer 1958 Split level pickguard; 4x cooker knobs; 1x switch; natural and two-tone brown finishes Late 1958 Autumnglo(w) with brown sunburst finish Early 1959 Fireglo(w) with cherry red sunburst finish 1960 Kauffman Vib-Rola replaced by Ac’cent vibratos; Rick-O-Sound jack 1961 Large horns; lower waist; 1½” depth; wider headstock; blend knob; dual truss rods 1964 Unbound rounded tops; chequerboard back binding; bound soundhole; KK knobs Late 60s New finishes: Jetglo (1966); Azureglo (1967); Burgundyglo (1968) 1970 24 frets; Hi-gain pickups 2022 300 Series 360 and W Series 360W models available…

“This is a 1958/1963 Gibson Explorer. I’ve just come on the heels of delivering Big Ed [a 1958 Gibson Explorer] to Gibson. I delivered it by hand. [Edison] ‘Big Ed’ Thompson was a well-known blues guitarist. In 1958, he and his brother acquired matching guitars – Ed got an Explorer and his brother got a left-handed Flying V, which is one of a kind. I have it here at Well Strung Guitars. When Big Ed died [in 1993], Rick Vito from Fleetwood Mac bought both guitars and kept them together. They went from Rick Vito to a guy I know, and I bought them as a pair about four and a half years ago. They’ve always stayed together, and I had a deal in place to sell them to a…

ALBERT KING THE DEFINITIVE ALBERT KING Thanks to this being a compilation, there is ample opportunity to check out a variety of backing bands and styles, including a funky 1974 version of Crosscut Saw. Elsewhere, check out his phrasing over the very major sounding I-IV-V progressions on Don’t Throw Your Love On Me So Strong, The Sky Is Crying and I’ll Play the Blues For You (Pt 1), a minor blues that features a more modern production, but the same principles apply. ALBERT COLLINS TRUCKIN’ WITH ALBERT COLLINS Recorded at the tail end of the 60s, it’s interesting to hear Albert Collins’ surprisingly driven tone and confident rhythmic phrasing, leaving lots of spaces. Like Albert King, the guitar is not in standard tuning, but this leads to some interesting phrases…

It’s rather ironic that many of the mid-to-low price guitars we lust after are made by instrument manufacturer Cor-Tek, although its own brand is, we’d suggest, far from a first choice for many players. But back in issue 471, we were very impressed with the G300 Pro, not least with its stainless-steel frets, roasted maple neck and Seymour Duncan humbuckers – and it was even a featured winner in our 2021 Gear Of The Year awards in the sub-£1k solidbody section. The G290 FAT II – a V2 update of the model that was introduced a couple of years back – sits slightly below the G300 Pro, price-wise. It retains that guitar’s sleek offset Strat-inspired body outline, and is now made from alder instead of light ash. It has a…

PRICE: £449 ORIGIN: China/Vietnam TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: Alder NECK: Maple,‘soft C’ profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech NuBone/ 42.9mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, pearloid dot inlays, measured 241mm (9.5”) radius FRETS: 22, medium/jumbo HARDWARE: Tune-o-maticstyle bridge with roller saddles, offset-style vibrato tailpiece, aged Wilkinson WJ55 tuners – nickel/chrome-plating STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 51.5mm ELECTRICS: 2x Wilkinson soapbar single coils, 3-way toggle pickup selector, master volume and tone controls WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.5/7.81 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: In the unrelic’d Reissued series is the V65 Hard Tail with a 6-saddle bridge, also available with offset vibrato (both £419) LEFT-HANDERS: Vintage offers plenty of left-handed electrics but not for the V65 FINISH: Distressed Black (as reviewed) Distressed Tobacco Sunburst – satin aged finish to both body and neck John Hornby…

One of my favourite things about writing for Guitarist magazine is that I’ve been reading it ever since I was around 12 years old. I have a memory from around that time of an article called something like ‘One For The Mortgage’ featuring a guitar player, Les Davidson, who has since become my friend. Les has had a long and varied career, which has included playing with Paul McCartney, Scott Walker, Jeff Porcaro, Pino Palladino and many others. I caught up with Les to hear how the London session scene has changed since the 70s and 80s, and his general thoughts on the modern music business. What might a typical day of sessions in London look like in the 70s or 80s? “It could be anything from an 8.30am jingle…

A few months ago, Pedro – one of my guitar-making students – completed his first guitar. As anyone who has built an acoustic guitar will attest, this huge accomplishment is celebrated by first strumming a few tunes and then prompting the all-important question: “So, what do we build next?” My student’s answer was immediate: “A cuatro.” “Just like the ukulele, [the cuatro has] a type of reentrant tuning, meaning that the notes don’t just ascend as you pluck across the strings” If, like me, your first thought is “What is a cuatro?”, don’t reach for the internet search engines. Instead, let me try to fill you in. Although there are a few varieties, the cuatro – Venezuela’s national instrument – has a body shape and size not dissimilar to the…

When we look at how chords are constructed, there’s a tendency to stick to the linear patterns suggested by the conventional Root, 3rd, 5th/Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th and so on. This can sometimes be tricky for us on the guitar, where things do not always fall into place as easily as on the piano keyboard – or indeed paper! Odd groups of intervals can be hard to avoid in some cases it’s true, but this feature is about embracing this, rather than trying to seek perfect symmetry. In practical terms, we can also move shapes around the fretboard in a way there wouldn’t be a reason to do on the piano. An E shape moved to the 7th fret gives an Aadd9, for example. The adding of the 9th here…

“If the idea of finding a number one guitar that stays with you and becomes a lifelong friend appeals to you,” high-end British luthier Seth Baccus reflects, “then it might be worth focusing your resources into one really good guitar. There are so many wonderful guitars and guitar makers to be found out there right now – we are truly spoilt for choice. You may not have the aesthetic desire or deep pockets for what one might traditionally think of as a high-end or boutique instrument, but most higher-end makers offer a no-frills, more ‘stripped back’ model or two, some of which can still be custom-spec’d. “It can be a good way of buying a really great guitar that is built to last but perhaps with some choices to keep…

Just a few moments into our conversation and the reason for the pure unbridled joy relating to the new record becomes perfectly clear. Having been off the road for the longest time since he turned professional, Bryan Adam’s time in the solitary confinement imposed by the pandemic is drawing to a close and a world tour is in the offing once again. In fact, it was when an easing of restrictions looked imminent that he immersed himself in songwriting and took to the studio – practically single-handed, as it turns out – to record an album that positively shines with the bright light of optimism. It’s a fun, back-to-basics rock ’n’ roll affair that is bound to set pulses racing in stadiums across the globe when the tour kicks off…

Obvious rivals for both Atkin guitars are the instruments that originated their species. Try the Fender Custom Shop 1951 Heavy Relic Telecaster (around £3,999) if you need ‘that’ name on the headstock, in highly aged nitro over swamp ash with a one-piece maple neck. Similarly, the CS Heavy Relic Strat (around £3,999) with alder body and classic Strat appointments will be many players’ top choice. A great Strat alternative is PRS’s Silver Sky (around £2,620), John Mayer’s signature that features ’63-style single-coil pickups, an upgraded vintage-style vibrato, 22 frets on a 184mm (7.25-inch) radius maple ’board and an alder body. It comes in a range of beautiful finishes, too. G&L makes superlative S- and T-types. Designed by Leo Fender himself, the Fullerton Deluxe ASAT Classic Alnico (£1,299) comes in swamp…

After being so successful with acoustics, in the shift to making electrics why opt for these two ubiquitous model styles? “During lockdown I found myself looking at various S- and T-type models with a mind to buying one. After spending a lot of time looking I decided that we might as well just make some for ourselves. And with the success of our aged acoustics [including The Forty Three below], I also knew we could really do the finish justice.” You’ve gone for 22 relatively fine frets on a medium-radius ’board. They are ‘capped’ maple, too. What was the reasoning here? “22 frets is just one of those modern specs that we felt other makers weren’t offering with the vintage vibe. The narrow tall frets provide ease of string bending,…

Offset style is having an increasing impact on new guitar design. Here in the UK, larger makers such as Gordon Smith with its Gatsby (from £1,299) and PJD with the St John (from £1,950) are rather fine examples. While they don’t offer relic versions, plenty of others do. Elsewhere in this issue, for example, Vintage’s rather-good-for-the money V65V (£429) is now available in a pair of ‘distressed' finishes, illustrating just how the small-’shop boutique builders are influencing the ‘high street’. Bunting Guitars from Israel has its offset Melody Queen (from $3,450), which uses European spruce for its offset body with thin nitro, often aged, finishing and choice of single coil or mini-humbuckers. Vuorensaku Guitars, made in Finland by Saku Vuori, offers the T Family collection, which includes an appealing offset…

PRICE: £2,349 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Netherlands TYPE: Double-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: Paulowina NECK: Quarter-sawn roasted maple, rounded C profile, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42.89mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood,‘clay’ dot inlays, 254mm (10”) radius FRETS: 21, medium (Dunlop 6150) HARDWARE: Gotoh bridge with 3x ‘In-Tune’ brass saddles, Gotoh SD91 vintage Kluson-style tuners – aged nickel plating STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 54.5mm ELECTRICS: Kauffmann XL single coil (bridge), Cream T Banger & Mash humbucker (neck), 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, master volume and tone control WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.72/5.98 OPTIONS: The base price is approximately £2,199. Upcharges here are the Kauffmann/Cream T pickup set. Other options include double bound body, sparkle finish, paisley finish, colour-matched headstock, Amber and other pickups (all £POA) RANGE OPTIONS: CB, JM and VB versions – see website for details…

A few issues back in 479 I set out to do a shootout test of the best way to get electric guitar tone down on recordings in a home studio. A few years ago, mic’ing things up the old-fashioned way was still your main option. These days, however, the boom in modelling devices that emulate authentic amp tones as well as reactive load boxes – posh attenuators married to Impulse Response technology – offer the guitarist some excellent new ways to record great guitar sounds in a small studio. In order to conduct a longterm shootout test on the pros and cons of each approach, I assembled a pile of cutting-edge gear including a Two Notes Audio Engineering Torpedo Captor X reactive loadbox and a Neural DSP Quad Cortex digital…

Appearing in 1958, Rickenbacker’s Capri series of semi-hollowbody electrics comprises short- and long-scale models. Both follow the 300 series of model number designation. In the short-scale camp we have the 310, 315, 320 and 325; and in the long-scale camp we have the 330, 335, 340 and 345, along with the 360, 365, 370 and 375. Respectively, that’s three styles of Rick: short-scale, standard long-scale, and Deluxe long-scale. Each sequence of four ascending model numbers in each style denotes the guitars’ essential specs, in order as follows: two pickups, no vibrato; two pickups with vibrato; three pickups, no vibrato; and three pickups with vibrato. Hence, for example, a 325 has three pickups and a vibrato, a 330 has two pickups and no vibrato, and a 365 has two pickups and…

1. SERIAL NUMBER First digit (2) denotes number of pickups, followed by V (vibrato), then three digits (production number) 2. BODY Two-inch depth; unbound 6 1/8-inch slash soundhole; solid glued-on back; non-contoured edges; vibrato recess; bound top and back; Autumnglo sunburst finish front and back 3. NECK Glued-on; 24 ¾-inch scale; three-piece (maple/walnut/ maple) with walnut headstock sides; 21 frets; bound rosewood fretboard with large triangular markers; shaded finish 4. HARDWARE Kauffman Vib-Rola; Kluson Deluxe tuners; adjustable bridge with six adjustable saddles 5. PLASTICS Split-level gold lucite pickguard; gold lucite truss rod cover with black Rickenbacker logo; four ‘cooker’ knobs 6. ELECTRONICS Dual ‘toaster’ single-coil pickups; three-way pickup selector switch; independent pickup volume and tone pots; side-mounted standard mono output jack Guitarist would like to thank Martin Kelly and Paul…

Keep It Simple (Part 1) Tutor Richard Barrett | Gear used Knaggs Choptank & Vox AC15 C1 Difficulty  | 10 mins per example WE’VE ALL HEARD THE ‘LESS IS MORE’ ADAGE… I’m not sure that’s exactly what I’m saying in this month’s Headlines, but I am certainly looking to make more with less. The physical experience of playing can sometimes deceive us, even though we can hear what we’re playing (on most gigs, I would hope!). Recording and listening back is something I’ve recommended quite a few times in these pages – and here’s another situation where listening back without a guitar in your hands might help you develop the sort of style you hope to hear when you pick one up. Once we’ve achieved a certain amount of fluency…