Innehållsförteckning för May 2015 från Guitar Player

IT’S TEMPTING TO CONSIDER THAT Miss May I’s 1.5 million Facebook Likes, 188,000 Twitter followers, and multi-million YouTube views are the sole product of big record company dollars spent to promote the Ohio metalcore act. Well, that didn’t happen. Instead, Miss May I developed its rabid following with the old-school, “bring it on the road” method. The band members— vocalist Levi Benton, bassist Ryan Neff, drummer Jerod Boyd, and guitarists Justin Aufdemkampe and B.J. Stead—have toiled like obsessed workaholic demons, and they have performed more than 900 shows since 2009. As the group continues to work its latest album, Rise of the Lion [Rise], through festivals, club gigs, arenas, and theaters, Aufdemkampe and Stead offered to detail some of the elements of their stagecraft. How did you develop your live…

CHARVEL PRO-MOD SO-CAL STYLE 1 HH Goodies One-piece quartersawn maple neck. Compound radius fretboard. Seymour Duncan SH-1 ‘59 (neck) and JB TB4 (bridge) pickups. Recessed Floyd Rose original double-locking tremolo and R3 locking nut. Price $1,199 retail More Info charvelguitars.com VOX AMPLUG CABINET G2 Goodies Successor to the amPlug cabinet with increased maximum output of 2 watts. Enhanced durability due to the use of an ABS molded cabinet. Accepts direct input from a guitar or mobile device (such as iPhone) due to the additional power amp, allowing it to be used as a conventional powered speaker. Price $29 street More Info voxamps.com GRAPH TECH LOCKING RATIO TUNED MACHINE HEADS Goodies Specific gear ratio for each string. One turn is about one whole-step on all strings, allowing you to go from…

IT’S NOT REALLY A “GUITARIST’S version” of the detective game Clue, but it could be. In our game, we have a truly obsessed tone freak, an impassioned inventor, AC/DC’s Angus and Malcolm Young, this very magazine, and a lost guitar sound. Let’s set up the crime scene… THE INVENTOR In 1975, Ken Schaffer released his Schaffer-Vega Diversity System—a wireless device for guitar that was adopted by major concert acts— including, as we will soon learn more about, AC/DC. Schaffer’s analog circuitry included an ingenious paired compressor/expander (called “companding”) that boosted the system’s dynamic range to more than 100dB, as well as adding some sonic voodoo to the processed guitar sound. Stricter FCC regulations for wireless systems and Schaffer’s own restless spirit caused the end of the SVDS in 1982, after…

FINDING A SUCCESSOR HAS TO BE A BIG HURDLE FOR anyone who has built a hugely respected company, and as Taylor Guitars reached its 35th anniversary several years ago, Bob Taylor faced precisely that dilemma when thinking about someone who could take the reins and create inspiring instruments for decades to come. Bob called it his “dear god” letter, in which he wrote out a list of qualities such a person would have. As Taylor recounts, it went something like this: “I need a guitar maker who’s a better builder than I am, a pro player, is self taught, has 20 years of experience, is in his 30s, and can make a lifetime commitment.” A wishful list for sure, and one that Bob says he put away for a year…

IT’S HIGH TIME THAT GUITARISTS UNITE AND EXPOSE JEFF BECK FOR EXACTLY WHAT HE IS—ONE OF THE GREATEST singers of all time! It’s true. While the rest of us mere mortals struggle daily with the cumbersome mechanics of guitar playing and amp tones, Beck has longsince transcended that process—he simply hears what he wants to play and voilà, out it comes, just like the greatest vocalists, the only difference being that his notes are channeled directly through fingers instead of vocal cords. It’s a divine talent every player aspires to, but few ever achieve. Though well known for unpredictable riffing and incendiary soloing, it’s Beck’s uncanny instinct for beautiful melodies that sets him far ahead of the pack, and nowhere is this more evident than on the 2014 DVD/Blu-Ray release…

GRETSCH AIMED ITS ELECTRIC-ARCHtop models of the early ’50s primarily at the jazz market, with the country scene a close second. Soon after landing its first star endorsement from Chet Atkins, however, it all took a twist in a surprising direction. While Fender’s Telecaster and Stratocaster and Gibson’s Les Paul seemed tailor-made for the new music that was brewing in the mid ’50s, Gretsch hollowbodies were arguably the most influential guitars on the rock-and-roll scene, and the 6120 Chet Atkins Hollowbody was, for a time, king of the heap. It makes sense. After all, rock and roll was born out of the confluence of slick and speedy licks being played by jazz and western swing artists such as Charlie Christian and Junior Barnard—all of whom did their thing on the…

“ON THIS RECORD I REALLY EMBRACED THE FACT THAT I COULD DO whatever the hell I wanted to do artistically,” says Richie Kotzen about his latest, Cannibals [Headroom-Inc]. “In the past, I always had that looming pressure of people at labels saying, ‘Everyone knows you as a guitar player. Make sure you have a lot of guitar on there and be sure to do a lot of solos.’ Well, I can’t really write music and worry about what the guitar is doing.” Fans of Kotzen’s amazing 6-string talents needn’t fear, however, because Cannibals has tons of great riffs and interesting solos. It’s just that Kotzen’s vocal melodies and lyrics are the focal points in tunes that span high-energy rock, old-school R&B, and introspective ballads. He covers stylistic ground that you…

“IT’S PRONOUNCED ‘LOUR’ [LIKE HOUR] WITH A ROLLED ‘R,’” SAYS Estonian guitarist Laur Joamets. He would explain how to pronounce his last name, but it is hopeless. “That’s why they call me Joe,” he says. “It is easier for everybody.” Estonia is right across the Gulf of Finland from Finland, but is considered part of the Balkans rather than Scandinavia. So how did a Balkan guitarist land the coveted gig with Sturgill Simpson—the hottest alt/trad-country artist in Nashville? Part of the answer is connections: Joamets’ rock band opened for the Rival Sons in Estonia, and he started hanging out and playing with the Sons’ drummer, Mike Miley. Miley suggested the guitarist move to Nashville and recommended him to Dave Cobb, who produced both the Sons and Simpson. Trans-Atlantic files were…

MANY PLAYERS WILL LUMP THIS BOX into the “output attenuator” category, but the Power Station is really grounded in Fryette’s reputation for building bold, transparent tube power amplifiers. Put it all together, and this thing performs a lot of tricks. Connect the speaker out from your tube amp of choice to the Power Station’s Amp In jack, and it hits a reactive load that will handle up to 150 watts, tapping it off to a line-level signal that feeds the unit’s own dual-6L6 power amp. The result lets you crank your master amp to achieve fully saturated output-tube tone, then either reduce the overall level at the Power Station’s Volume control, or boost the level to the PS’s maximum 50 watts. Do the former to rein in a loud amp…

THE DARK-HAIRED GUY IN HALL & Oates was playing guitar long before he wrote all those soulful hits. “I took my first guitar lesson at six, and I started by playing three-chord country music,” says John Oates. Like many guitarists coming of age during the ’60s folk revival, Oates learned the styles of Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Reverend Gary Davis. On his latest solo project, the DVD/CD combo, Another Good Road [Elektra Nashville], Oates’ performance of “Stagger Lee” recalls Hurt’s version without being a slavish imitation. “John Hurt did it in the key of D with a dropped D,” explains Oates. “I do it in a D shape in the key of E, and with a 5-string capo that leaves my E string open. It’s like dropped D,…

GENERATIONS OF GUITARISTS HAVE LEARNED TO PLAY SLIDE from Arlen Roth’s books and Hot Licks videos. For Slide Guitar Summit [King Mojo/Garage Door], the educator/player assembled nine fellow guitarists— some of whom grew up on his tutorials—to demonstrate the art of moving metal across the strings. Johnny Winter, Sonny Landreth, David Lindley, Rick Vito, Jimmy Vivino, Jack Pearson, Lee Roy Parnell, Cindy Cashdollar, and Greg Martin duel with Roth on tracks that run the gamut from roadhouse shuffle (Winter on “Rocket 88”) to Hawaiian exotica (Vito on “Paradise Blues”). Roth’s tasteful playing—honed in session work for Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan, among many others—and choice of classy cohorts ensured against indulgent cutting sessions. On January 20, Vito, Pearson, Parnell, and Martin joined Roth in Nashville for the record release…

At the risk of sounding like some tabloidpress doomsayer, 2014 was pretty much an “annus horribilis” for AC/DC. Legendary rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young—the band’s founder, creative backbone, and organizer—finally succumbed to dementia after years of subtle (and not so subtle) warning signs, and permanently retired from the group before it was scheduled to record its 15th studio album. Then, on November 6, 2014, things turned reality-show crazy as drummer Phil Rudd was charged with attempting to procure a murder (later dropped for lack of evidence), threatening to kill, and possession of meth and cannabis. Rudd was set to stand trial in a Tauranga, New Zealand district court on April 21, 2015, and his legal woes have definitely fractured his tenure in the band. Although Rudd completed his drum tracks on…

THE YEARNING TO CREATE MORE chiming textures has traditionally led many guitarists straight to the mandolin. But the obvious hurdle to making the transition from guitar to mando is that fact that the latter is tuned in fifths (like a violin) instead of (mostly) fourths, like a guitar. It’s a whole new thing, and when you throw in the mandolin’s four courses (8 strings), narrow neck, and tight fret spacing, the transition gets even tougher. Some years back, Joe Veillette introduced an acoustic-electric instrument called the Gryphon that was designed to deliver some of that mando-style magic, but in a form that would be way easier for guitar players to grok. A compact 12-string with a wide neck and an 18.5” scale fretboard, the Gryphon was tuned like a guitar,…

BACK IN THE DAY WHEN I PLAYED THIS song in a band called Joe’s Bar & Grill (our singers totally nailed it), I reckoned I had Stephen Stills’ guitar part down pat. I simply tuned my 1963 Gibson Firebird I (God, I miss that guitar!) to an open E chord—E-B-E-G#-B-E, low to high—and flailed away on the intro’s descending third intervals, played on the top two strings along with the remaining open strings. The open-position E6 chord in bars 3 and 4 required only a single fretted note (C# on the second string/second fret), while the verses used one-fingered A and B chords barred across all six strings, all of which could be suspended simply by raising the third string one fret. Or so I thought. As it turns out,…

BACK IN THE ’80S, I BOUGHT A GIMMICKY, super-stretch guitar strap by a long-forgotten manufacturer. I used it with my Les Paul, and I had all kinds of dumb fun pulling the guitar down to my knees and letting it snap back up to my waiting hands. And then, at one show, my Les Paul shot up and clocked me under the chin, knocking me silly and spraying the blood from a severely bitten lip all over my shirt, the stage, and a horrified bass player. I immediately retired elastic gear from my rig. A much safer method to change the length of your strap—at least if you’re clumsy like me—is offered by the Guitar Strap Shifter ($45 direct). The handmade-in-the-USA device can be easily affixed to any 2" nylon…