Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i Guitarist

The Telecaster numbers among the innovations that poured from the Fender factory during the 1950s and many would argue that Leo’s first solidbody guitar design was his best. Players from many different music genres sing its praises as it seems perfectly happy to adapt to any given music style you can name. Personally, I was late to the Tele party, resisting its charms on the basis that it was a country player’s instrument – completely overlooking its thunderous presence on Led Zeppelin’s first album, of course. For me, my early wishlist comprised a Les Paul and the rest of the guitar universe was blinkered out. Fast forward a few years and my taste in guitars was a lot more liberal and I found myself in a band that decided to…

FIRST PLAY KERNOM RIDGE There is a type of pedal that delivers variations on its overdrive voice via a switchable selection of clipping options – and this certainly offers versatility. But the Kernom Ridge goes further by delivering its clipping options via a rotary Mood knob, the actual overdrive voice being determined by the knob’s position. The new technology behind this, ‘analog morphing core’, is said to control the non-linear elements of the clipping stage, changing their threshold in real-time. Kernom says the Mood knob is roughly divided into five segments, running from a clean and open sound through transparent overdrive, a more coloured overdrive and high gain, to ‘almost fuzz’. We found that those descriptions are accurate, but it’s not a totally seamless shift through them as there’s a…

PRS SE DGT From £979 CONTACT PRS Guitars Europe PHONE 01223 874301 WEB www.prsguitars.com JARGON CRUNCHING DGT ‘S’ humbuckers Central to the DGT’s design is the PRS Patented Trem, but as well as that, the pickup controls add individual volume blending to the McCarty-bodied family. What may seem like a fairly obvious feature is actually only available via the DGT models in this configuration. Last time you featured a PRS DGT in these pages it cost more than my car. What’s this? ‘This’ is great news for anyone who’s a fan of PRS’s DGT model – the signature guitar for session ace David Grissom (Dixie Chicks, Buddy Guy, Bob Dylan and more). That’s because for the first time ever, the DGT model has made its way into the brand’s more…

Artist: Aynsley Lister Album: Along For The Ride (Straight Talkin’ Records) Like any hardened blues musician, it’s been a case of relentlessly touring over the years for UK’s Aynsley Lister. Along For The Ride is his eighth studio album on the Straight Talkin’ label that he co-founded with his wife, Stephanie. There are 13 tracks of in-your-face blues rock with everything on 11 and it’s certainly one of his finest albums to date. We tracked Aynsley down on the road in Europe to find out the story behind the new recording. What’s your process for writing? “When I used to write, when I first started out 20-odd years ago, it was very much about the guitar. The guitar was always front and centre, but I think, as I’ve written more,…

RAISING THE TONE Opinion Not so many years ago, the tone secrets of vintage guitars and amplifiers were closely guarded by a select few. It was an era of mystery, superstition and wonder. Little did we know the internet was coming… It all began with newsgroups and rudimentary chat rooms, and the flow of information soon became a torrent. Schematics of long extinct amps and pedals were unearthed and could be downloaded in mere minutes. The types of tonewoods that great manufacturers once used became common knowledge. Groundbreaking websites, such as GuitarHQ.com, began appearing with paint codes, decent enough photography and breakdowns of features that charted the year by year evolution of most classic guitar models. This had a profound effect on guitar manufacturing. With better informed customers, the big…

STAR LETTER OLD GOLD Times are hard, everything costs a packet and we may not be rushing out to buy new gear quite as quickly as we were. Well, how about digging out your old stuff? I just read about Bill Nelson in the best pedals feature [issue 490] still using a Pod 2.0 and thought, ‘I have one of those somewhere!’, dug it out, even read the manual, which I never did when I bought it, and I’m spending time realising what an ace bit of kit it actually is. It’s got 16 amps I never found before and I’m spending some time carefully getting the best out of it rather than my cursory approach back in 2001 or thereabouts. Having said that, one of the Pod’s big selling…

It’s not easy to upstage Marty Stuart. Since 1989, when the Mississippi bandleader signed his star-making deal with MCA and set out to “put the image back into country”, he’s walked the boards in scarves, rhinestones and hand-stitched bolero jackets, with that get-up topped off in later years by a shock of silver hair that makes him resemble an avuncular werewolf. “When you come out dressed up like Porter Wagoner and call your band the Fabulous Superlatives,” he drawls, “you better be able to do something.” “[My love for the Tele] was from Luther Perkins’ playing. And to this day, my favourite record of all time is ‘At Folsom Prison’” Of course, the main event at a Stuart show is the bob and weave of the man’s picking, which drove…

Readers of this column will recall the ‘Quick-ish Connect’ system that I recently installed in that big ‘swimming pool’ rout, providing a versatile pickup-testing platform. And so the world is now my oyster – we do like a bit of choice in The Mod Squad, after all. Having been involved in a fair bit of recording over lockdown and out the other side, I seem to have been adopted as the guy that gets different sounds. In the early lockdown months, the first thing I did was borrow my mate’s Rickenbacker 620 [pic 1]. I don’t own one myself and never seem to be able to justify actually buying one, not least that their specific (peculiar?) feel and sound has never fitted into my usual bluesy, rocky gigs. But on…

We’re all used to seeing and hearing 12-inch speakers (drivers) in guitar combos and cabinets, but these days 15s are quite rare to find and 10s can often wrongly be considered as cheap alternatives to their big brother the 12. In this article we’re going to have a brief look into situations where these speakers can really work. Ironically, I seem to spend as much time trying to convince bassists that 12-inch bass speakers can sound great as I do pointing out to guitarists that there are other sized speakers than the usual 12s. Maybe we have become so familiar with seeing 8x10s, 4x10s and 1x15 cabs behind bass players that we have forgotten how common it was to see 4x12 rigs being used by bassists the world over. Perhaps…

If you were playing guitar back in the late 80s and liked your gear, you would have undoubtedly come across Gary Levinson, the creator of Blade Guitars. To some, they were just another Strat-alike in some pretty contemporary colours, but virtually every facet of the benchmark design was re-evaluated, not least the dual-block Falcon vibrato and the onboard active VSC circuit, which offered a combined treble and bass boost or a midrange solo boost. For those pristine rhythm parts or gained leads – essential voices for the time – the Blade was the near-perfect tool. Back to today and Gary’s latest design venture is Sceptre, a mini-range of three electrics and a pair of basses commissioned by UK-based Tanglewood Guitars, known for its value-for-money acoustics that are distributed worldwide. Now,…

FIRST PLAY FREE THE TONE COSMIC WAVE CW-1Y The Cosmic Wave retains the sound quality of Free The Tone’s Flight Time and Future Factory delays but is a much more compact pedal. Despite its small footprint, though, it still manages to fit in a pair of footswitches plus mono and stereo operation, and MIDI and expression pedal inputs. What you’re getting is a pedal with pretty comprehensive control over the character of its repeats via the application of multiple filter functions. While the top three knobs may seem to be standard for a delay pedal, controlling Dry/Wet Mix, Feedback and Tone, they can each adjust two further parameters (mainly relating to modulation and EQ) when the relevant operation screens are called up by the Home switch. The Delay Time knob…

Artist: Ed Clarke (Brave Rival) Album: Life’s Machine (Self-released) Lead guitarist Ed ‘The Shred’ Clarke is one fifth of Portsmouth blues-rock outfit Brave Rival, who formed in 2019. Underpinned by some particularly silky guitar licks, the band deliver big when it comes to power and energy. As such, you’d be forgiven for thinking Ed came into this world with a Strat strapped onto him, but his first route into the instrument was much more humble. “My uncle gave me a three-quarter-sized classical guitar when I was about six,” he says. “I didn’t know what to do with it, but then I saw him playing electric guitar in his band and I thought, ‘Wow! I want to do that.’ I learned some basic chords, until someone played me Guns N’ Roses’…

NEVILLE’S ADVOCATE As the years go by one inevitably starts thinking back to halcyon days. My memory of the specifics is often dreadful, so I link memories to where I lived, what job I had, or what band I was in at the time. Some of my happiest days were working as a guitar repairer for Selmer/Norlin. When Gibson moved its European operation to Rotterdam I commuted for a couple of years but then that stopped, so Martyn Booth and I set up Don’t Fret Guitar Repairs in Gibson’s old facilities. We had to build a business but luckily knew lots of local players (including one David Mead) who would bring their guitars for us to mend. “I veneered the headstock in mahogany and the front in rosewood. It was…

SUBSTITUTE AUDIO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra The novel-esque title above may be appropriate in that the Lydian tonality is like a mood or atmosphere you can dive into as and when you please. You may even notice that the opening scenes of many movies feature Lydian chords and melodies in their soundtracks – as does The Simpsons’ opening theme. You’ll likely have heard of the Lydian mode, but what makes a chord ‘Lydian’ by nature? To answer that question comprehensively is no simple task, but let’s start by reminding ourselves of the Lydian mode in the key of A (to match our chord examples): A B C# D# E F# G# A. In other words, a regular A major scale with a #4 (D#). This single change brings in an element of…

INTERVIEW Andy Fairweather Low first stepped into the spotlight and released a solo album 17 years ago. More accustomed to being a sideman to the likes of Roger Waters, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and George Harrison, he’s gone on record in the past declaring that he is more comfortable in that role rather than bandleader. Beginning his career back in the 60s with the band Amen Corner, his solo career in the 70s was a busy one, with albums such as Spider Jiving and La Booga Rooga achieving cult status among fans. Now, he’s set to release Flang Dang in February of this year, although it wasn’t something that was planned. Once again, the trials that lockdown and the pandemic brought upon the entertainment world caused Andy to take a…

What does the Telecaster mean to you? “As simple of a design as the Telecaster is, it’s the most versatile guitar out there. It just works with any style, any amp, any pedal you put in front of it. The Telecaster works so well because it’s just a guitar. When you add switches and knobs that do crazy things, you start getting away from the actual point of an electric guitar, which was to be loud enough to be heard over drums. Some guitars push you in a direction, and when you fight against it, it doesn’t work as well. But the simplicity of the Telecaster allows you to find your voice. It’s a desert island guitar.” Who were the first artists to make you aware of the Telecaster? “I’m…

We’re talking to a series of great guitarists about the Telecaster… “Well, I’ll find you someone who can play one! You really need to be a shit-hot player to make a Telecaster sound good. Particularly when playing lead. I never thought I did. I still don’t. People think I’m looking for compliments: ‘Oh no, you’re a player.’ I fuck up so badly. I know a lot more than I did, but I still look at the fretboard when I’m in the midst of the gig and think, ‘Oh God…’” How did the Telecaster come into your life? “We were touring with Badfinger. Pete Ham had this Grimshaw and he said, ‘Do you want to swap?’ So I swapped my Gibson Stereo for this very average Grimshaw. Within a week or…

While the current Professional series G6131T-62 Vintage Select ’62 Jet with Bigsby is the closest that modern Gretsch gets to the 1961 to ’69 double Jet, Malcom Young’s 1963 guitar – nicknamed ‘The Beast’ – differed with its Burns vibrato, which was apparently used by Gretsch for a limited period when Bigsbys were in short supply. Among the early mods to the guitar was an added (Gibson) humbucker placed in the middle position between the two Filter’Trons and a Gibson ‘harmonica’-style bridge – and that’s the period that the new G6131G-MY-RB Limited Malcolm Young Signature Jet (£3,179) celebrates. Head over to YouTube to see the original in action, circa 1976, on AC/DC’s original video for It’s a Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll). His ‘mid-modded’…

PRS HORSEMEAT, MARY CRIES & WIND THROUGH THE TREES £269, £229 & £369 CONTACT PRS Europe PHONE 01223 874301 WEB www.prsguitars.com What You Need To Know 1 As in the PRS? I thought they only made guitars… And amps, of course. But no pedals until now. These three are the Maryland brand’s first foray into a rather different world. 2 Why start now? Paul Reed Smith says the pedals idea came about when the musicians recording in his home studio were looking for tones and textures that they couldn’t get straight from the guitar – and so they started building devices with the help of some friends. That led to the first pedal prototypes and the decision to offer them to more players. 3 Just three pedals, though?…

The word ‘impedance’ is commonly used in the context of guitars, but how many of us understand what it actually means? In this issue’s column, we’ll steer clear of complicated equations and heavy electronics, and instead explore real-life scenarios. Many of us will be familiar with speaker impedance and high-impedance instrument inputs on audio interfaces. Whether we’re aware of it or not, impedance can be an issue when we’re running long cables, using vintage amps, employing multiple stompboxes or combining fuzz and wah pedals. An understanding of how impedance affects the way items of equipment interface can help to get the best out of our gear and optimise tone. Once you’re aware of the rules, they are simple and easy to follow. Let’s start with a simplified explanation of what…

Gibson’s SJ-200 acoustic guitar first appeared in the 1930s. Around this time, Gibson and Epiphone were going head to head in a size war – each trying to outdo the other under the premise ‘bigger is better’ while equating instrument dimensions with power, projection and, ultimately, status. This spirit of competition led to several developments, notably Gibson’s 18-inch-wide Super 400 and Epiphone’s 18½-inch-wide Emperor. These supersize archtops were deemed flagship models, and both sat at the top of their respective price lists with a $400 tag. Along with the Super 400, Gibson unveiled its Jumbo flat-top (named after the colossal elephant) in 1934 in order to compete directly with Martin’s large-body Dreadnought design (named after the gigantic battleship). Also in ’34, Gibson’s seminal L-5 archtop (which celebrates its 100th anniversary…

“This is a pretty neat guitar. I stumbled across it almost by accident, but it has an amazing story. This is a prototype from ’57, with no serial number. It’s an EDS-1275 hollowbody with a spruce top. It has a Polaris White finish and features a six-string neck and a 12-string neck. It has four PAF humbucking pickups and switchable necks. It’s not so much that it’s different from the regular production guitars – more that this is likely the one pictured at the 1957 Chicago NAMM Show. “The original owner (I bought it from her son) was Jeanette Dixie Lee Fogel, and she was in a band called Dixie Lee and the Rhythm Ramblers. She got to play this double-necked Gibson after her husband backed over her Kay guitar…

Leslie West Tutor Richard Barrett | Gear used Knaggs SSC, Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe, Vox AC15 C1 Difficulty | 10 mins per example IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE what it must have been like hearing Leslie West tear into his set with Mountain at Woodstock in 1969. The most enduring image today is West playing his Les Paul Junior with a driven tone and sustain – which still sounds great, even at a time when such sounds have become easier to achieve and are relatively mainstream. Rolling Stone’s suggestion back then that Mountain were a “louder version of Cream” wasn’t entirely without merit, but Mountain definitely brought their own take on blues and rock to the mix – and played through stacks of Sunn amplifiers modified for higher gain, which was pioneering…

CONFESSIONS OF A LUTHIER Perhaps it’s not entirely unfair to imagine your stereotypical guitar maker as a hermit-like creature, crouched over a gloomily lit workbench among dozens of half-built instruments and forgotten projects: a grumpy rejection of the outside world, wordlessly conversing with wood rather than people. And while there is still plenty of time – for me, at least – to shrink away into full-time seclusion, this past month actually saw me actively engaging in guitar shows and festivals all over the country, travelling well over 1,000 miles to exhibit guitars, meet makers and chat with guitar enthusiasts. It’s been a thrill to meet many like-minded luthiers from all corners of the UK; the lutherie scene is fizzing with talented, passionate – and young – individuals. “If you’ve ever…

WILKO JOHNSON July 1947 – November 2022 Jaw clenched and eyes bulging. Skittering across the stage, bolt-upright and belligerent. Shouldering his black and red ’62 Tele in the style of a machine gun to mock-strafe the crowd. The sight of Wilko Johnson in full flight – a spectacle so visceral that only the antics of Pete Townshend come close – would have been electrifying at any point in rock ’n’ roll history. In the early 70s, when the presiding guitarists of prog stood statue-still and studious, nobody could take their eyes off the late Dr Feelgood guitarist. “His playing was angry and angular,” wrote Billy Bragg after the news broke of Johnson’s death on 21 November. “But his presence – twitchy, confrontational, out of control – was something we’d never…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money? “My first guitar was a Telston semi-acoustic that my mother bought me when I was 14, and which I’ve still got hanging on my office wall. It was from a pawnbroker and it cost £12 and 10 shillings in old money. Then I got a hire purchase agreement for a Telecaster, which is one of those that I wish I still had, but I had to exchange it for a Les Paul Black Beauty, which I had flown over from Kalamazoo to a shop in Bournemouth called Eddie Moors Music. And, really, that’s the first one that I actually bought with my money because I took a job for a year in an export company up in the…