Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2020 i Total Guitar

We’ll kick things off by marking the fact that TG is 25 this issue! It’s rare these days that a magazine can say that, but thanks to the support of you readers TG has reached the quarter-century landmark. 327 issues in, we aren’t going to slow down any time soon. Starting with this issue. We’re celebrating our birthday by bringing you 25 ways to play better. We’ve aimed to make this month’s cover feature accessible, with stuff for you to try regardless of what level of ability you’re at. From tidying up your fretting, to learning more chords, or, if you’re feeling like getting a head for shred, we have lessons on how to nail the lead techniques used by the pros! Basically, we want you to reach for your…

1 SIXTH-STRING ROOT NOTE The lowest note is on the sixth string here. If you prefer, hold down both the fourth and fifth strings with your third finger. 2 FIFTH-STRING ROOT NOTE This shape is the same as the first one. All you have to do is move it so the lowest note’s on the fifth string. 3 FOURTH-STRING ROOT NOTE With the root note on the fourth string you’ll need to stretch a bit here. 4 THIRD-STRING ROOT NOTE Again, there’s a bit of a stretch to play this shape. Tackle it by laying your fourth finger across both treble strings.…

Many guitarists spend a lot of time working out how to solo over chords. Well, the opposite is also a common stumbling block. So, instead of starting with a chord progression and figuring out what to play over it, you’d be starting with a melodic lick that you want to put chords to. Your first step is to work out what key you’re in. It’s usually easy to pin down the root note by ear. Next up, decide whether you need a major or minor sound. Playing any notes three frets above the root? Then it’s minor. Four frets and it’s a major key. Read on and we’ll show you how to choose some chords. 1 ROCK BALLAD LICK TRACK 11-12 This rock-ballad-style lick is in the key…

St George’s, Bristol is an unlikely venue to find Devin Townsend - the 19th century former church is more used to playing host to orchestral recitals and polite folk music rather than Hevy Devy. However, tonight it couldn’t be more suitable. Devin is here solo, armed only with his acoustic guitar, Axe FX and a laptop to perform songs spanning his career, interspersed with Q&A sessions with the audience. During his soundcheck, we witness a fittingly chaotic take on Mr Blobby (“He was big when I moved here in the 90s”), while Devin’s ambient guitar sounds bounce around a room that is renowned for its acoustic response. When it’s time to check the vocals, Devin effortlessly flips between orthodox choral singing techniques and guttural screaming, perfectly encapsulating the diverse and…

Like many blues giants, Walter Trout was playing professionally from a tender age, initially in his native New Jersey area during his late teens, before a move to Los Angeles in the early 70s facilitated his eventual ascent as a solo artist. Early on, he was a sought-after sideman, playing with John Lee Hooker and Joe Tex, before Canned Heat and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, Walter would pursue his long-held dream to be an artist in his own right. His playing comes from the Buddy Guy/Mike Bloomfield school of thought; fiery and unpredictable, with nods to Jimi Hendrix’s raw, aggressive style, but also some of BB King’s sweeter phrasing. He’s undoubtedly a guitar great. Wanna take a listen? Well, you’re not short of choice!…

Christie Lenée is the sort of player who makes you rethink your approach to the acoustic guitar. She might well make you rethink the whole instrument. Her style is percussive and kinetic, melodically adventurous, almost neoclassical, and from the outside it’s hard to know where to start, what element of Lenée’s techniques to unpick first and try to incorporate in our own playing. There are elements to her playing that call to mind maverick fingerpickers such as Tommy Emmanuel, but Lenée’s style is her own. What she doesn’t have, however, is downtime. Lenée has just got back to her home in Florida, where she’ll have just 36 hours or so before packing a case, grabbing a guitar, and heading out on the road again. She’s just back from a guitar…

“IT PACKS MORE THAN ENOUGH PUNCH FOR HEAVIER PLAYERS” 1 PICKUPS  Incorporating the Seymour Duncan ‘59/ JB set may have added to the overall RRP, but they’re definitely worth it 2 FINISH  This Bleached Ocean Blue Burst is a great budget alternative to the Lagoon Blueburst options in the Pro-Series 3 TUNE-O-MATIC BRIDGE Famously used on Gibson Les Pauls throughout the years, this bridge helps the Panthera Supreme stay in tune Though they’re perhaps better known for being the guitar brand owned by Warwick, the Framus legacy is one that stretches back all the way to violin making in the mid-40s. It was founder Fred Wilfer who cunningly realised that the Sudeten German luthiers expelled from Czechoslovakia following the Second World War could put their skills to…

There is a reason why maple veneers have been used increasingly by guitar producers for budget ranges over the last decade – they offer the aesthetics of the most beautiful tonewoods on the planet at a fraction of the cost. Veneers are typically very thin layers of wood, usually only one or two millimetres thick, so tend not to affect the sound of a guitar in the way that a much thicker cap or top does. Veneers are more of a visual addition to a guitar – recreating the elegance of those mouth-wateringly exquisite custom shop finishes, renowned for their incredibly detailed quilts and flames, without breaking the bank.…

CHRIS BIRD Having been on the team for almost half of TG’s quarter-century, our resident tab and tuition expert has been ruminating on his own time on the mag. “I’ve been lucky to meet several of my heroes,” muses Mr B, “but there’s still one guitarist I’d love to talk to – Mark Knopfler. Who knows? Maybe in 2020!” STAN BULL Joining us for this month’s mag is our new Production Editor Stan, a lifelong reader of TG. “It hasn’t taken me long to get my bearings”, he says. “Being so familiar with the magazine has meant that I felt right at home. Working for TG is a dream come true!” ROB LAING As this month’s issue began production, TG’s former Editor and Musicradar gear hound was pulling night shifts…

There are a handful of guitarists who appeal to players of all genres - Hendrix, Clapton, Page... One such name that doubtlessly deserves to be counted in that category is Peter Green – his influence cited by everyone from Aerosmith to Radiohead and Noel Gallagher, not to mention that his compositions have been covered by the likes of Santana, The Black Crowes and even Judas Priest. It’s fitting, then, that the former Bluesbreaker/Fleetwood Mac member is set to be honored by a cast of rock royalty - orchestrated by Mick Fleetwood himself - for a one-off show on February 25th 2020. The gig is set to take place at the London Palladium, billed as ‘Mick Fleetwood and Friends’. What’s more, a donation will be made from every ticket sale to…

1 I was at the NAMM Show and I was supposed to do a demo but the guitar I had… I think I didn’t feel confident playing it. It was a six-string Strandberg that I’d never played before. I’m used to more traditional scale-length and neck width. I ended up going up to Ibanez, “I need to borrow a guitar”, so they handed me this sunburst Talman. I had a Talman at the time that was a Tele pickup configuration that they made for me. So I did the demo with it and I really loved that guitar. I remember playing it and everything just felt so smooth to me. The neck was a really nice, unfinished maple and I think my Tele had a little bit of gloss to…

Adam Hann uses a Gibson Les Paul Jr with a P-90 pickup. Though fuller-bodied than a standard single coil, P-90s share the biting top end, so a Fender Telecaster or other single-coil equipped guitar may also suffice. For the distortion tone, we recommend using a fuzz pedal into the drive channel of your amp. Aim for just a little bit of sizzle from your amp and use the fuzz pedal to generate the grinding, gritty tone. A little spring reverb is the icing on the cake. EFFECTS Fuzz distortion…

Now discontinued and accordingly expensive, the POG was originally the affordable, non-rack polyphonic octave pedal. Pitch-shifting units like the Whammy had been around for some time, although their sometimes erratic tracking and alien warble wasn’t suited for all players. Moreover, they weren’t polyphonic, meaning that you couldn’t play chords without getting a mashed, bitcrushed version out the other side. Meanwhile, in the octaver camp, there had been analogue octavers, like the MXR Blue Box, around for decades, though digital units had the same issue as the Whammy - an artificial-sounding tone, monophonic-only operation, and often lacklustre tracking. Moreover, having more than one active harmony, was limited to rack gear. A LESS ‘ARTIFICIAL’ SOUNDING PITCH SHIFTER THAN WHAT CAME BEFORE IT The POG blew all of this out of the water…

Those following Volbeat closely might spot some familiar choices in frontman/guitarist Michael Poulsen and lead guitarist Rob Caggiano’s rigs. This tour sees Poulsen favouring his Gibson SG GT and Caggiano sporting a Jackson prototype in vivid purple, a colour choice rolled over from his ESP days, running into a Fryette Sig:X. But as shows have got bigger, so has the demands on their gear, and rigs have grown more complex. Poulsen’s tech Tue Bayer says that Poulsen’s beloved Marshall JCM800, a cornerstone of his sound, is “a fiddly old lady”, and so has persuaded a reluctant Poulsen that a Kemper Profiler will be more consistent. Caggiano, meanwhile, is using a custom switching and rack system built by his tech Jerry Carillo that incorporates some Neve 1073 mic preamp secret sauce…

I have obsessed about my gear for as long as I have been playing, and I have finally decided that the Axe-Fx III – a single Axe-Fx III and one as a redundancy – with the FC12 [foot controller] and a single expression pedal is almost without question a perfect rig for me. “I have now made my own cab sims. I work really closely with Fractal, and have everything that I wanted it to do throughout all my career: the patch changes, the spillovers, different tones, effects, routing, having consistent sound, having something I can travel with, having something that’s modular, having something that I can have a reliable backup for, powering my pedalboard without an external power. I just realized over the past six months that this is…

DISCOVER THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT CHORDS IN MUSIC The ‘one-four-five’ is one of the most common chord progressions in rock and pop. ‘One-four-five’ refers to the order of the chord names: A, D and E are the first, fourth and fifth chords in the sequence: A B C D E, and this is sometimes written as Roman numerals (I-IV-V). G, C and D are also a I-IV-V progression. Don’t worry about the theory for now, just remember that the progression can be found in countless songs, including: The White Stripes – Hotel Yorba Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop Led Zeppelin – Rock And Roll The Troggs – Wild Thing Jake Bugg – Lightning Bolt We’ve prepared a backing track that uses A-D-E-A chords so you can practise your first I-IV-V progression…

Keith Richards describes the guitar sound he and Ronnie Wood create together as the “ancient art of weaving”. Listening to this classic Stones track, it’s easy to see why – the two distinct parts interlock seamlessly, creating the perfect backdrop for Jagger’s swaggering vocals. Neither Ronnie nor Keith plays exactly the same thing twice here, so feel free to ad lib around the verse and chorus with your own ideas. Ronnie’s part is played in standard tuning, but Keith famously prefers open G tuning with his sixth string removed. Don’t worry, this isn’t essential! Just tune your guitar to DGDGBD from low to high – the notes of a G chord. If you’re new to open tunings, don’t be put off. You’ll be creating that big, unmistakably Stones-y rhythm sound…

Appearing on Soundgarden’s epic fourth studio album, Superunknown, Fell On Black Days features various musical elements that the band became famous for. Learn the track and you’ll get a better understanding of how Cornell, Thayil and co achieved their signature odd-time riffs. The song starts predominantly in 6/4 time, before moving to 4/4; there’s even a solo in the somewhat unusual 10/4 time signature. You’ll also encounter powerchords, drone strings, octave shapes and some fantastic rhythmic devices all played with a lightly overdriven guitar tone. Take care not to pull the B5 chord sharp and aim to keep those two strings in tune with each other as you perform the bend. Basically, you need to bend both strings by a semitone. As ever, work on each section slowly, paying attention…

BODY: Mahogany w/ AAAA Flamed Veneer top NECK: Mahogany SCALE: 628 mm (24.75”) FINGERBOARD: Tigerstripe Ebony FRETS: 22 PICKUPS: Seymour Duncan ‘59 SH-1n Chromecover (neck), JB SH-4b Chromecover (bridge) CONTROLS: Three-way pickup selector, 1x volume, 1x tone HARDWARE: Tune-O-Matic Bridge, Warwick security locks, Framus machine heads LEFT-HANDED: Yes FINISH: Bleached Ocean Blue Burst [as reviewed], Burgundy Blackburst and Nirvana Black Transparent CASE: Rockbag Student Line Plus Gig Bag CONTACT: High Tech Distribution htd-uk.com…

1 CONTROLS  You don’t get a lot of control, but what you do get is just what you need to coax some brilliant overdriven and bluesy tones 2 NO-FX  The only thing we were left wanting from this amp is a bit of reverb. Plug in your favourite pedal and you’ve got a mini tone monster! 3 BOOST  While the Blues King 8 is a single-channel amp, the gain boost can be operated from the panel or a footswitch to act like a pseudo second channel “ENGAGING THE BOOST TAKES US FURTHER INTO PUNK ROCK” Cast your mind way back. Actually, just cast it back a few years, specifically to the early/mid part of the last decade. For a while it seemed like we couldn’t go to…

The flagship in this new line, the Classic Vibe, could very well be the best semi-hollow out there for under £500. Don’t be fooled by the small ‘Crafted in Indonesia’ print on the back of the wonderfully oversized headstock, it’s the kind of weapon that could quite easily hold its own against American-made instruments retailing over four times as much. Before being plugged in, this particular model in a walnut finish (also available in Natural and Three-Tone Sunburst) feels exceptionally loud for a semi-hollow electric – with remarkable sustain and powerful acoustic resonance. It also oozes class, thanks to the combination of its stylish bound f-holes, 3-Ply black pickguard, retro skirted amp control knobs and tinted gloss urethane neck finish. The most obvious difference between these revamped Starcasters and the…

The first song I remember… Daddy Cool – Boney M “My grandpa used to only have two tapes in his car, – Boney M’s Greatest Hits and a Willie Nelson live album. I was just a kid at the time, so I found the Willie Nelson tape so boring. I’d ask for Boney M because the music was so upbeat and melodic! I guess it was the first time I was choosing something instead of just being spoon-fed music.” The song that made me want to play guitar… Rape Me– Nirvana “During my first year in high school, blink-182 were in the charts, Jackass was on TV and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was the number-one selling PlayStation game. I was knee-deep into that Californian pop-punk lifestyle. It took me a…

INPUT Controls the input volume before it hits the main digital pedal circuit. DRY OUTPUT Controls the volume of the dry output. Functions in some ways like a mix knob, allowing you to blend the dry and wet signals. SUB OCTAVE The sub octave is one octave below the dry signal, with this slider controlling the volume of the sub octave. +1 OCTAVE One octave up, exactly as you’d expect. The slider controls the volume. +1 OCTAVE DETUNED A detuned and modulated version of the single octave up. The detune is fixed to a small amount above and below the target note. +2 OCTAVES As on the single octave patch, this adds a second octave above the fundamental. +2 OCTAVES DETUNED The same as for the single octave up, this…

TOTAL GUITAR IS BORN DECEMBER 1994 ISSUE 1 The one that started it all at the tail end of 1994. In it, there was a bluffer’s guide to Jimi Hendrix (of course), a sweep-picking masterclass, Steve Hackett’s guide to multi-effects and even bass reviews. Back then, we were also calling the Parker Fly the guitar of the future – nothing’s changed. YOU’VE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD JANUARY 1995 ISSUE 2 Our group test led with the question: can you get a decent electric guitar for under £400? Nowadays, we all know you absolutely can; guitar gear has never offered you so much bang for your buck and choice, but in 1995 it wasn’t so clear-cut, and Aria’s AR Standard (£379 back then) ended up coming out on top. WHEN…

Read on as TG’s super easy beginner guitar lesson takes you from tuning your instrument and strumming your first chords through to playing your very first lead-guitar licks LESSON 1 TUNING UP BEFORE YOU GET DOWN TO BUSINESS YOU NEED TO TUNE YOUR GUITAR SO EVERYTHING YOU PLAY SOUNDS SPOT ON USING AN ELECTRONIC TUNER You should tune up every time you play, so TG recommends using an electronic tuner. Hardware tuners start at about £5 and there are several free smartphone apps you can use, too. Simply play an open string on your guitar – the tuner detects the note you’ve played and will show you whether the pitch of the string needs to be higher or lower. All you have to remember is the order of the…

“ I had the chance to spread my wings a bit more,” says Phil Campbell of the new music that makes up his first solo record Old Lions Still Roar. Truth be told, the man sat with Total Guitar today will always be predominantly known as Motörhead’s longest-serving guitarist, who, upon joining in 1984, would stay by Lemmy’s side to the very end. His latest recordings, however, show a different side to the all-guns-blazing approach he’s long embodied – delving into new worlds of country rock, piano ballads and film score instrumentals... “Lemmy never gave me any limitations as such, but in Motörhead there was only so far you could stray,” shrugs Campbell, admitting his old band knew exactly how to play to their strengths. “It was all about that…

If you’re into prog metal, you’re probably already experimenting with extended range guitar parts. And, though players like Fredrik Thordendal (Meshuggah), Misha Mansoor (Periphery), Devin Townsend, Tosin Abasi (Animals As Leaders) and many others will use seven- or even eight-string guitars, there’s nothing to stop you down-tuning your six-string to go low. The easiest drop tuning is drop D. It’s as simple as it gets – just tune your guitar’s sixth string (the fattest one) down two semitones from E to D to give DADGBE. The ‘DAD’ strings in this tuning give a handy three-note powerchord shape that you can play with just one finger. With drop D under your belt try going lower, down-tuning all six strings a further semitone for drop D b (D b A b D…

Since the brand’s arrival in 2004, Faith has gone from impressive newcomer to a guitar shop standard, consistently delivering above and beyond our expectations when it comes to acoustic guitars. Now, in a move that surprisingly treads new ground for the company, Faith has unveiled the Lyra: a nylon-string acoustic aimed at making playability more accessible to steel–string players. Central to the guitar’s design is a ‘hybrid’ neck profile - a slimmer design that still allows for more traditional finger-style technique. As well as this, the all-solid Lyra features a traditional Red Cedar top, mahogany back and sides, an ebony bridge and rosewood inlay decorating the soundhole. The guitar is equipped with a Fishman Sonitone pre amp and pickup, designed specifically to respond to nylon strings, with its volume and…

Released in 1972, Starman marked the end of a fallow period for Bowie – well, in terms of hits, at least. Although continuing to release material in the meantime, David’s previous hit had been as far back as 1969’s Space Oddity. As it would turn out, Starman was perhaps the most important release of Bowie’s career, paving the way for a wave of chart-topping singles and albums that would catapult the singer-songwriter into new realms of superstardom. You’re going to need 17 chord shapes to play the song and, yes, five of them are barre chords. But before you groan, spare a thought for David himself, who played them all on 12-string acoustic - quite the finger workout for any guitarist! We’ve printed the chord shapes here for you, but…

ROMBO PICKS Germany-based Rombo has unveiled a new series of guitar plectrums, the Eco-Black range, made from 100% recycled waste. According to Rombo, the material boasts “high mechanical strength, excellent impact resistance and superior aesthetic properties”. The Eco-Black range consists of four pick models: the Origami (0.75mm), Diamond (2.0mm), Waves (1.25mm) and Classic (0.45mm), all with an erganomic micronodule grip structure and polished tip. (£8.57 per pack of four, rombopicks.com) TECH 21 SANSAMP PSA 2.0 A new portable pedal version of the company’s classic rackmount unit. The PSA 2.0 uses the same analogue circuitry as its predecessor, along with digital programming and memory sections, and you can run the preamp into a power amp, or go direct to a PA system. Additionally, a Performance Mode option turns the PSA 2.0…

GIBSON LES PAUL TRIBUTE Though it sits at the bottom of the Gibson Les Paul hierarchy, there’s a lot to be said for getting an American-made instrument at virtually the same price point. PAUL REED SMITH SE 245 STANDARD Manufactured in South Korea, the SE series is the PRS answer to producing classy guitars that almost everyone can afford. ESP LTD EC-1000 DELUXE Though it’s only available in vintage black, complimented by gold hardware and vintage yellow binding, this EMG-loaded ESP will be tempting for higher-gain players.…

1 COIL SPLIT  The Ultra Max’s tone control doubles as a master push/pull coil split, and the resulting tones are among the most convincing we’ve tried in recent times 2 SCALE  Many singlecuts follow the Les Paul tradition of a shorter scale length, but the Ultra Max’s 25.5” scale means down-tuneing and convincing single-coil tones are within easy reach 3 FEATURES  Hagstrom includes a number of its own innovations on many of its guitars: the H Expander truss rod, Sustain Block tailpiece and Resinator fingerboard, to name a few “SLIMMER THAN A LES PAUL WITHOUT FEELING SVELTE” It’s been 15 years since Swedish guitar manufacturer Hagstrom was revived, and the brand shows no sign of slowing down. Since Hag’s second coming, we’ve grown familiar with a number…

Just as its name promises, the Contemporary Active Starcaster brings a very classic design into the modern age. The most noticeable changes on these models are the inclusion of Squier’s SQR active ceramic humbucking pickups, black chrome hardware, a PPS nut instead of bone, no pickguard and no f-holes. Instead, the body is sealed body for minimised feedback. There’s also just one overall master volume and tone control instead of a pair for each pickup, as on the Classic Vibe, but that shouldn’t matter too much: this is very much an instrument designed for rock and metal musicians who prefer everything louder than everything else – as Deep Purple once famously asked their soundman. This particular Surf Pearl finish is certainly eye-catching, as is the Ice Blue Metallic version, though…

With this latest line of Squier Starcasters, Fender have done incredibly well to reimagine an old tradition, capturing the spirit of the originals while also modernising and upgrading to various degrees. As per the 70s Starcasters, each of the models feature the selector toggle underneath the pickups themselves, which some players may find takes some getting used to. If the Classic Vibe wasn’t so moderately priced, the Affinity perhaps may have fared better in this test – and regardless still offers unbelievable value for money. But the financial margin between the two models is so small, it’s almost negligible, and that’s precisely what makes the flagship our hands-down winner here. Both guitars are incredibly versatile and noticeably less dark-sounding than the mahogany-necked Gibsons that inspired them, courtesy of an all-maple…