Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2018 i Total Guitar

Even after several years on this mag it feels especially fitting to be moving into the role of editor for this acoustic issue. Because back in the day (aka the 90s), getting my old Yamaha dreadnought was a turning point for me as a player. I was disheartened after deciding I knew best as a beginner, wading into the deep end attempting to tackle my favourite Metallica songs on my brother’s Ibanez X Series without guitar lessons or guidance. Progress was slow, and I grew disheartened. But then I changed tack; discovering Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, learning Come As You Are and buying a mate’s acoustic. Suddenly, I felt like I was getting somewhere. I was playing whole songs. Learning more chords I found in TG’s song transcriptions was a eureka…

RIP Danny Kirwan We were saddened to hear of the passing of former Fleetwood Mac guitarist and vocalist Danny Kirwan last month, aged 68. Kirwan joined Fleetwood Mac in 1968 and went on to contribute to four albums with the band after his first appearance alongside Peter Green on the No 1 single Albatross in 1969. When Green departed in 1970, Kirwan and guitarist Jeremy Spencer became principal songwriters for that year’s Kiln House before Kirwan took on a leading role as writer for 1971’s Future Games and 1972 album Bare Trees. ALBUM Deaf Tones Deaf Havana’s James Veck-Gilodi experimented with a new creative process for pop-embracing fifth album Rituals.He worked backwards; picking the song titles before writing. “It feels quite self-indulgent,” the frontman admits. “I understand that I might…

1 “I’d always played Fenders growing up when I was playing electric and they sit so differently. I loved single-coil guitars and I’d never got on with Gretsches, even though I loved the idea of them because they look amazing. One day I picked this up and fell in love with it. It’s a limited-edition finish, a homage to the drum finishes Gretsch has.” 2 “The Filter’Trons are unlike anything else, I’m a huge fan. They have a kind of chime and are in between a humbucker and a single-coil as a lot of you will know. They have a certain resonance and when I tune down and I’m doing arrangements of traditional tunes, the Filter’Trons help those notes to ring out in a way they just don’t on a…

Scales give you a small group of notes that sound good when used in solos. The minor pentatonic scale sounds great in minor-key rock, metal and blues over minor (Gm, Cm7 and so on) and ‘dominant’ 7th chords (D7 for example). The major pentatonic scale works in pretty much all major key music – try it in country and Southern rock jams. Move the shapes up or down the fretboard to start on a new root note and play in another key. Our tab examples below use the G minor pentatonic scale.…

XVIVE W3 £129 Bringing a reissue of the original BBD chips that powered the DMM to market must have inspired Xvive, and Howard Davis, the designer of the original unit, was tasked with creating a new delay pedal using the reissued chips. The result is the now discontinued W3, a surprisingly cost-effective, if aesthetically unremarkable unit. But don’t be fooled by its looks - the sounds produced are the real deal! CHASE BLISS AUDIO TONAL RECALL £399 One of the most innovative boutique equipment manufacturers, Joel Korte’s Chase Bliss Audio have redefined the boundaries of the possible with analogue circuits, marrying them to a plethora of additional controls driven by a digital ‘brain’. The Tonal Recall offers up to 550ms of delay time, supplied by a pair of reissued MN3005…

“Well, I grew up in Georgia and it was kind of hard not to hear some type of blues, even if it was really inauthentic because most of the people I was playing with were white. I did see old blues guys playing, actual African-Americans who were 70-years old. I was never a blues player, but I knew the form and I play it pretty well. It kind of seeped out on my solo stuff. I mean, the songs I write are not blues songs but I’ve written a couple that are dancing around the form. It’s always in my life, I’ll sit in the morning and put on a Jimmy Reed record or something. Blues has just always been there. “I liked the idea that I was on the…

Eric: “I use my signature Reverend model, it’s pretty cool to have gotten this so early on. I bought a very similar guitar with the same body shape about six years ago – Jake Woodruff from Defeater is how I initially found out about them. The owner was super-nice and hands-on, he drove the guitar to me and ever since then, he’s been a really good friend in the music business. He will literallydo anything forme,that’s what cultivated our relationship and years later when he was thinking of bringing the guitar back and potentially make it my signature, I thought it sounded fuckin’ awesome. I use Railhammer pickups in all the guitars – a Chisel bridge and a Hyper Vintage neck. People don’t notice this, but my volume knob is…

Nashville tuning duplicates the higher set of strings on a 12-string. It’s great for breathing new life into even the most simple parts and is lots of fun to play alongside someone in standard tuning. The Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses is a great example. Here’s how it works: 1. Remove your guitar’s sixth, fifth, fourth and third strings (E, A, D and G respectively). 2. Replace them with the ‘octave up’ E, A, D and G strings from a 12-string guitar set. 3. Tune them to E, A, D and G, you guessed it, an octave higher than normal. 4. Be careful of the third string. This will be pretty tight, so tune up to pitch slowly. It can help to tune your guitar to E b A b D…

Kurt Cobain’s opening riff forms the backbone to this classic track from Nirvana’s groundbreaking 1991 album, Nevermind. It’s a single-note line played on the fifth and sixth strings (the guitar’s bass strings). All of the playing is achievable for any guitarist, especially as Cobain plays the chord parts very loosely, without being too concerned about playing full or partial chords, hitting the odd open string or changing the rhythm slightly here and there. Note that the original track was recorded with the guitars tuned down a tone to D (DGCFAD), but for your convenience, we’ve recorded our version in standard (EADGBE). The tab is shown in standard tuning too. There’s plenty of meat for tone-hounds here. For best effect, dial in a clean tone on your amp and use a…

One of Free’s most succesful singles, Wishing Well is a classic song with a strong riff and it’s easy to play if you’re following Rockschool’s Grade 1 arrangement. The opening riff is based on an important building block of pop and rock, the E minor pentatonic scale (the notes are E, G, A, B and D) and the guitar part uses a mixture of these. Following some chords, in bar 12 of the tab you’ll be playing a two-note shape (aka a doublestop). It’s a quirk of the guitar that sometimes playing fewer notes can sound more powerful than bigger chords. Perfect for bands without a keyboard player or second guitarist filling out the sound. In bar 16 the tab switches to arpeggios and in bar 19 the open sixth…

What is tab? Tab is short for tablature, a notational system used to give detailed information as to where notes should be played on the fretboard. Tab appears underneath conventional music notation as six horizontal lines that represent the strings of the guitar, from the sixth (thick) string at the bottom to the first (thin) string at the top. On these lines, numbers represent which frets you place your fingers. For example, an A note on the 2nd fret, third string, will be shown as a number ‘2’ on the third line down on the tab. Unfretted strings are shown with a ‘0’. The key and time signatures are shown in the notation. TG also includes a timestamp to tell you where in the original track you’ll find each example…

BOB DYLAN HURRICANE CHORUS Use a sharp downstroke for the chord stabs at the start of bars 1 and 2, muting the strings with your picking hand to create the staccato effect. Although Dylan uses standard open-position chords, they come thick and fast in bars 5 to 7, so practise the changes slowly and gradually build up to speed. BACKING TRACK (TRACK 71) This song comes with a backing track (minus guitar) on your CD. Simply insert the disc in your player, press play and jam along, guitaraoke style!…

Having learned the lessons of the first wave of digital modelling, several gear giants have re-emerged on the scene with flagship floor modellers. Coincidentally, this comes just after the tech-metal crowd spent the better part of a decade rehabilitating the image of digital modelling with the Axe-Fx and Kemper. The Boss GT-1000 is Roland’s upmarket attempt to bring the Boss brand back into that conversation in style. After the success of the DD-500, RV-500 and MD-500 units, a floorboard combining the three should be a no-brainer. So then, does the GT-1000 deliver? “SOUND-WISE IT PUNCHES ABOVE ITS WEIGHT IN CLARITY” Physically, it’s a beast. Sleek and modern, Boss’s latest looks like it would survive a fall down a flight of stairs. To the rear, there’s the usual array of inputs…

LINE 6 HELIX LT The little brother of the all-singing and all-dancing Helix, the LT brings much of the same power in a leaner form factor and with fewer frills. HEADRUSH PEDALBOARD For amp modelling, the HeadRush is hard to beat, and the addition of a touchscreen on its front panel makes it uniquely accessible. LINE 6 HX EFFECTS If you’ve already got a workhorse amp and don’t see the need for amp modelling, the HX packs the effects of the LT into an attractive, affordable package.…

WIDESCREEN, CRYSTALLINE SINGLE-COIL SOUND IS PRESENT HERE IN ABUNDANCE The Jaguar has always been a curio among Fender’s range, and its Player edition is one of the line’s more intriguing offerings. Rather than the traditional SS layout, Fender has spec’d an Alnico 3 humbucker in the bridge and Alnico 2 single coil in the neck. The plot thickens with that diddy plastic switch on the upper horn, which splits the humbucker for wiry single-coil tones. It’s styled after the original’s underused rhythm circuit, which is wisely absent here – we’d rather have a coil-split any day of the week. The tweaks don’t end there: a Mustang bridge replaces the original Jag setup, which was prone to popping strings with aggressive or fingerstyle playing. Returning is the floating vibrato and trademark…

The first song I remember noticing… Smoke On The Water – Deep Purple “That was probably one of the first songs I loved. That and Iron Man, Go Go Godzilla [Brian Setzer]. I always liked the cool, dark riffy tunes. And from then, anytime a song broke down to just a guitar and nothing else, I was sucked in.” A song I’ve just covered… Sanitarium – Metallica “I just did this press run up in New York where we had to do a cover song for satellite radio and I covered this. We did it on acoustic guitars and the reason I really love that song is that it’s the one that turned me into a music fanatic. My brother Dan and my brother Mike lived upstairs from me. Mike…

CHRIS BIRD TG’s tuition editor has been busy recording the audio tracks for this month’s regular lessons. Tasked with explaining the Lydian mode in What The F (p26), Chris opted for a Joe Satriani style approach, tabbing out a simple arpeggio and a lead lick for you to try out. Less experienced players can learn the ropes of basic improvising on p22. MICHAEL ASTLEY-BROWN Our resident gear guru has been having quite a month; being one of the first to test Fender’s new Player Series (p98) before heading for a grunge pilgrimage to London for gigs from Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam on consecutive nights. He’s now returned to TG headquarters buzzing with inspiration. ALEX LYNHAM For this issue of TG, Alex has been busy, getting hands-on with the…

Bloodstock WHEN 9–12 August bloodstock.uk.com Judas Priest, Gojira, At The Gates, Emperor, Cannibal Corpse… if you love metal and you’re not making your way to Derbyshire for this then you really should have a serious word with yourself, pronto. John Moreland WHEN 31 July-5 August johnmoreland.net The Tulsa-born American folk songwriter proves how powerful an honest voice and an acoustic can be in the right hands. Hear for yourself on these UK headline dates, plus Cambridge Folk Fest set. Downs Festival WHEN 1 September thedownsbristol.com The Modfather and The Chief unite! That’s Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher, by the way, who between them have a very heavy songbook of classics. Bristol’s Downs should be the perfect setting for their anthems with local heroes The…

The guitar sound is very in your face and dry, so use your guitar’s bridge pickup for a bold, present tone. Matt often references analogue synth sounds as inspiration for his tones and PIB has an element of this approach. We’ve used a scooped fuzz tone with a subtle chorus effect to enrich the notes slightly. There is also a pitch shifter adding an octave below the played notes; this is mixed very low at around 10 percent of the main guitar signal. Chorus: Rate: 10% Depth: 15% Octaver: Mix: 10% -1 octave…

Peter Buck’s distinctive, jangling rhythm style was a key part of REM’s sound, from their emergence on the alternative rock scene in the early 80s until their eventual split in 2011. One of the true greats at creating memorable parts with a bare minimum of notes, Peter Buck’s carefully understated, minimalist style hooks the listener in whilst also offering us guitarists a valuable masterclass in songwriting as well as riff writing. Buck’s trademark Rickenbacker 360 is at the core of his tone, but you don’t have to own one to get close to his style of playing. Just make sure you plug into your amp’s clean channel, select your bridge pickup and roll off a little of your guitar’s tone to keep it sounding sweet. Have a go at our…

Reba: “The balance of our three guitars works really well. My tone is definitely the deep-sounding one, while Dom is more shimmery and then that all gets topped off with synth pads in the background [provided by Eric], creating a clean layer that is a contrast to our heavy shit.Atthebeginningof Bleeding…, there’s that fog going on and I almost need it in order to envisage how my guitar will cut through. It’s hard to say why I ended up with Vipers, as a kid I just got what was there. I wasn’t picky, I didn’t have a dream guitar… it just fell into my lap and I grew to love it. To me, the guitar is less about all the little features, when you’re up there you just want something…

TRACK 26 OPEN CHORDS Open chords are played in ‘open position’ (the guitar’s first three frets) and are perfect for acoustic guitar. You can strum them, pick them or a mix of both. You can bash them out Frank Turner style or barely touch the strings like Kurt Cobain on Something In The Way. Whatever you decide to do, the natural resonance of open strings has a full sound that makes playing acoustic guitar a joy. Countless greats, including Noel Gallagher and Johnny Cash, have based their rhythm styles on these essential shapes. Try them out... SIMPLE STRUMMING TRACK 27  This simple open-chord strum pattern is similar to something Jake Bugg might play. There’s nothing too challenging here, but make sure you vary how you play. Experiment with strumming hard…

There are few more intimate relationships in musical life than a player and their acoustic guitar, but not all instruments are created equal and some are more suited to your specific needs than others. No matter what your aesthetic or musical style is, there’s an acoustic out there waiting for you and we can help speed your search with this handy buyer’s guide looking at the main shapes, their tonal traits and some of the best value options available for each. THE ALL-ROUNDER DREADNOUGHT, GRAND AUDITORIUM The classic acoustic shape and the most commonly seen out there in the marketplace, the dreadnought shape tends to vary between two main types; square and slope-shouldered. That’s an aesthetic difference with the top of the body being flat with square shoulders, while slope…

Transcriptions from Rockschool’s Hot Rock series can be used as Free Choice Pieces in Guitar Grade exams and in public exams such as GCSEs. For more info, visit: www.rslawards.com WISHING WELL Words & Music by Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke, Tetsu Yamauchi, John Bundrick & Paul Kossoff © Copyright 1972 Keepers Cottage Music Limited, Cayman Music Incorporated & Island Music Limited Universal/Island Music Limited All rights in Germany administered by Universal Music Publ. GmbH All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured…

One of Dylan’s best-known protest songs, Hurricane follows a long narrative with no recurring chorus lyrics – in fact, the lyrics change in every ‘chorus’, allowing the song’s story to unfold. As the guitarist it’s your job to support the lyrics with careful control of your dynamics, playing loudly or softly as appropriate. The song begins with Dylan strumming four bars of alternating Am and F chords before the band join in. The eight-bar verses continue the Am and F chord progression from the intro with loose eighth-note strumming patterns. After each chorus comes a four-bar violin solo, then the verse/chorus/solo form repeats all the way to the end of the song. Dylan’s playing is quite loose and fluid, varying the strummed rhythms here and there. Make sure you follow…

Welcome to the GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome*) Station! Every issue, TG scours the market for the hottest new gear and brings you transparent reviews that you can trust. From the smallest of accessories that make your life easier, to big investments such as brand new guitars, amps and effects pedals – if it’s worth your attention, you’ll find it here! HOW WE TEST CURATION Our product selection is driven by our love of gear. We select the most exciting products on the market every month to bring you opinions you can trust. FACE-VALUE REVIEWS We’re not gear snobs here at Total Guitar. We judge it on whether it looks good, sounds good and plays well – not by the name on the headstock. NO SNAKE OIL You won’t find us…

1 NECK  The A2.6’s premium-quality, neck-through construction not only facilitates access to the upper frets but helps deliver heaps of durable sustain 2 HEADSTOCK  The lethal-looking reverse headstock completes a super-aggressive S-shape that’s all but identical to Englund’s previous signatures with Washburn PX Series 3 BODY  Allied to the A2.6’s contoured body are two of the most aggressively shaped cutaways you’ll ever see on an S-style electric No-one should be surprised when they take the Solar A2.6 out of the case. Sure, you might gasp at how anyone could make a hot-rodded S-style electric look like the sort of lethal weapon you wouldn’t be allowed in the venue with, far less play a show with, but this is exactly the sort of design Ola Englund has had on his mind…

THE TELE INSTANTLY WINS POINTS FOR ITS SATIN MAPLE-FINISHED NECK The humble Telecaster remains the guitar world’s most enduring workhorse, and its Mexican-built 2018 incarnation is in rude health. Key additions this time around include a 22nd fret, all-purpose 241mm (9.5") fretboard radius (which appears across the range), a set of old-school bent-steel saddles and Alnico V Tele single coils. Besides this maplefingerboarded spec, you can also get a pau ferro ’board for an extra tenner, while the hot-rodded dual-humbucker Tele HH comes in at £579. The Player Tele instantly wins points for its satin maple-finished neck, which handles like a dream. It makes a welcome change from the over-glossed necks that once populated Fenders in this price range and below, and it’s hard to imagine a guitarist who wouldn’t…

The Player Series marks a real commitment to the mid-priced market from Fender, particularly given there are no unpleasant price hikes to contend with – although we would argue that you’d expect an included gigbag at this price. Of course, there are more versatile guitars available in this territory, too, but that’s what Fender’s Deluxe series is for, and for anyone wanting the real deal – and we know there are a lot of you – these instruments represent a marked improvement on the Standard line. The Jaguar, true to form, is an acquired taste, but the Strat and Tele are absolute no-brainers, thanks to a range of punchy, usable tones and trouble-free playability, which is sure to inspire players of all levels.…

The Deluxe version of the Memory Man delay from Electro Harmonix, released in 1980, was the fifth iteration of the Memory Man design, which made its debut in 1976. Key to its significance were two additions that made for an organic delay sound - a knob to control the preamp level, and a dedicated knob for the chorus and vibrato effects that had been introduced on the two previous versions of the pedal. Although a delay time of 300ms is short by modern standards, it was pushing the bucket-brigade chips inside the unit to the limit. Bucket-brigade devices, or BBD for short, are discrete capacitor arrays that were used to pass analogue audio signals before buffer-based digital delays were available. As the signal passes down the array, treble content is…

Essentially, a mode is a scale that doesn’t start on its root note. For example, the Lydian mode starts on the fourth note of the major scale, so C major (C D E F G A B) gives you F Lydian (F G A B C D E). What’s the difference? Well, despite sharing the same notes as the major scale, modes have different intervals, giving each mode its own special sound. The vital interval in the Lydian mode is the #4th. In the C major scale the root (C) and 4th (F) are five semitones apart; in the Lydian mode the root and #4th are six semitones apart. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN How the Lydian mode relates to the major scale The character and feel of the Lydian mode…

Dominic: “I guess not many people use Strats in this kind of heavy music. I’ve had different EMGs I’ve been trying out since I started in the band. The guitar I’m playing tonight has a 57 in the bridge, that’s the only pickup in there. In my other guitar, there’s an 81 plus a neck and middle pickup, but I ended up realising I never needed them. I didn’t even touch the tone knobs so I decided to keep it simple: one pickup, a kill button and a volume knob.”…

Progressive metal has become one of the most forward-thinking genres for guitar playing with bands like Meshuggah, Periphery, Animals As Leaders and Tesseract not only pushing the boundaries of composition, but of the instrument itself – eight-string guitars and innovative pickup designs have brought new tonal possibilities. This music requires the tightest heaviest distorted tones, crystal clear cleans and smooth buttery leads. This month’s backing track may sound rhythmically complex at first, but this is due to syncopation rather than any complicated odd time signatures. The riffs often move across the 4/4 backbeat, but chords in the verse and chorus follow a straightforward ‘four beats per chord’ rule; have a listen to the hi-hat for the quarter-note count. The chorus is in an odd time signature, however, you can count…

Kurt plays the solo using the C# minor pentatonic scale (C# E F# G# B) on the third string, and it is actually quite a clever choice. The root chord in the solo is F#m, so Kurt isn’t simply using a scale that follows the root – F# minor pentatonic would be a more obvious choice on that basis. Of course, Kurt was a ‘feel’ player and the solo is more likely the product of a burst of creative energy than a deliberate scale choice. It’s interesting to see how it all comes together though.…

Born in 1984 in Austin, the musical heart of Texas, Gary Clark Jr plays a lot more than just pure blues. Though he has appeared alongside legends like Eric Clapton and BB King, Gary also has interests in funk and soul, which informs both his playing and singing style. Tone-wise, he opts for a mix of Fender and Gibson guitars through Fender amps with a small selection of pedals. In this lesson, we’ve gone more with the fat Gibson tones than the brighter Fender sound, though there’s no reason why the licks shouldn’t work with single-coil pickups too. As a general rule, you’ll need to dial in a slightly higher gain tone with more mids and bass to fatten up the tone if your guitar has single coils. Volume also…

“I THINK THERE ARE TOO MANY GUITAR PLAYERS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!” Roots music is poorly named. To call it ‘roots’ suggests that this is where music starts – that mankind has not been manipulating melody and rhythm to document thoughts, feelings and events as long as we’ve had consciousness. Ketch Secor, the founder, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist behind Grammy-winning roots stars Old Crow Medicine Show, views music as an evolving, communal voice – a theme reflected in the title of their recent album Volunteer . But while you might not believe it from their string-laden, dust bowl jams, it was the voice of Michael Jackson that first caught the young Ketch’s attention. “We all felt in 1984 that Michael Jackson was the greatest musical accomplishment…

Boss has long held the crown of compact effects king, and many players will have owned a Boss multi-effects at some point. Though looked down on by some, the practicality of the all-in-one floorboard – even an older one – is hard to ignore. In fact, when TG faves Karnivool last visited these shores, we found Mark ‘Hoss’ Hosking using a GT-6 in his fly rig. As the Strymon line-up and new Boss 500 series have taken root on the boards of many pros, the conversation has started to go the other way, with guitarists wondering if multi-effects might simplify their rigs. With units now delivering sample and bit rates that would previously have only been possible with high-end rack gear, it’s no surprise digital modelling effects are back in…

1 FISHMAN PRESYS + PREAMP Alongside the three-band EQ and tuner, a brilliance control allows you to dial down or enhance higher-end detail, which is especially useful for dealing with finger noise, while the phase switch can be used as a bass boost and the notch can address feedback 2 SCRATCHPLATE  … or is it a scratchplate? In reality, it’s a removable transparent matte sticker that doesn’t really want to commit either way. 3 NO SECOND STRAP BUTTON Bizarrely, there’s no second strap button, which is just plain odd on a modern electro cutaway that’s designed to be played live. A disappointing omission “TONALLY, THE LOWS ARE MEATY AND MIDS ARE MUSCULAR” It’s always interesting when we discover an unfamiliar name in guitar, especially one with a back story involving…

THERE’S A HUGELY USABLE SET OF TONES ACROSS THE STRAT’S FIVE-WAY SELECTOR When it comes to its pride and joy, Fender really goes to town, and the Player Strat is no exception. Like the Tele, a pau ferro ’board is available for an additional £10, while the 22nd fret comes for free, but there are also HSS, HSH pickup configurations, as well as the flame maple-topped Plus Top and HSS Plus Top, which – appropriately enough – top out the range at £719. All of them pack an updated two-point vibrato design, plus three new Alnico V single coils. Our traditionally spec’d review model is in the new Buttercream finish – the jury’s out over whether it looks like a more saturated Vintage Blonde or freshly dolloped custard, but we’ve…

Of all the boutique pedals produced in the past 30 years, the Klon Centaur is probably the most infamous. Originally produced by Bill Finnegan between 1994 and 2000, getting your hands on one of the original units could set you back over £1,000. As a result, it’s no surprise that a number of Centaur clones, or ‘klones’, as they’re now known, entered the market once the supply of originals dried up. Bill briefly returned with a modern version, the KTR in 2014. Defiantly emblazoned with the caveat/maxim, “kindly remember that the ridiculous hype that offends so many is not of my making” the KTR was still costly and hard enough to get hold of that the klone market is still booming. Here, we’ve chosen four of the best to examine…