Innehållsförteckning för November 2015 från Guitar Player

E R N I E B A L L M U S I C M A N ST. VINCENT SIGNATURE Goodies Designed by St. Vincent and Ernie Ball. African mahogany body, EBMM tremolo, gunstock oil and hand-rubbed rosewood neck and fretboard, St. Vincent inlays, Schaller locking tuners, 5-way pickup selector, 3-mini humbuckers. Ships with Ernie Ball Regular Slinky strings. Price $1,899 retail More Info music-man.com KEMPER PROFILER REMOTE Goodies Designed to work easily with the Kemper Profiler, this rugged and full-featured foot-controller sports a large, easyto-read screen, instant access to five presets and four effects at a time per bank, an onboard tuner, tap tempo, a 30-second looper, and jacks for up to four expression pedals. Price $599 More Info kemper-amps.com AMPTWEAKER TIGHT FUZZ PRO DISTORTION Goodies Based on the…

FEW PLAYERS HAVE JOINED THE spirit of jazz and rock as successfully as Scott Henderson. The Los Angeles-based guitarist certified his jazz qualifications in gigs with Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul, while his menu of fuzz and distortion flavors—combined with a repertoire of blues licks—make his rock cred unimpeachable as well. Through recordings with Tribal Tech and HBC (his self-proclaimed “fusion Top 40 band”), Henderson consistently cranks out masterpieces of harmonic sophistication, overdriven energy, and tonal beauty. His latest outing, the self-released Vibe Station, is rife with enough massive and varied guitar textures to satisfy the pickiest sound hound and plenty of spectacular soloing for shred heads. And, for those that would like to try their hand at duplicating the Henderson magic, a play-along version of VibeStation is available on…

WHAT’S THAT JOKE ABOUT HOW many guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Well, forget about the malicious punch line for a moment—even if it’s dead-on accurate—because, right now, there is nothing competitive or selfish or remotely abusive about this collaborative convocation of metal guitarists. Each of the 12 players we contacted were more than happy to share their gear setups and musical insights with GP readers, and while the discussion is focused on metal, there’s a lot to learn for guitarists of all styles. So let’s meet the panel and identify their new releases: • Mark Tremonti, Cauterize [Fret12] • Dan Donegan of Disturbed, Immor¬talized [Reprise] • Willie Adler and Mark Morton of Lamb of God, VII: Sturm und Drang [Nuclear Blast] • Michael Wilton and…

I STILL REMEMBER THE DAY—YEARS ago now—when a singer/songwriter carried a sheet of plywood into my recording studio before a session. While we discussed the best approach for miking his guitar and voice, he said, “And you need to put a microphone on my board, too.” I stared dumbly, so he laid the wooden slab on the floor of the isolation booth, put a stool on top of it, sat down with his guitar, and then strummed while stomping on the board with his Doc Martens to keep time. “See—that’s my drummer,” he said. After that, it seemed as if an explosion of plywood sheets, old suitcases, and cardboard boxes were following singer/songwriters and Americana artists around, acting as timekeepers for downhome music. The challenge for studios and live stages…

CHANCES ARE, ONE OF THE FIRST B.B. King moves you ever copped (not to mention the months and even years you spent striving to achieve that “butterfly” vibrato, right?) was his infamous “dee-dah” lick—a now standard b3-to-root motif in the blues vernacular illustrated in Ex. 1a in the key of B minor. You may have even prefaced it with the 4-to-5 bend shown in Ex. 1b, or its quarter-note rhythmic displacement in Ex. 1c. But here’s the rub: While these versions were adopted by the minions, B.B. rarely phrased the lick this way, i.e., with two consecutive sixteenth-notes starting on a downbeat. Much more typical of King’s vocabulary are Ex. 2a’s dual eighth-notes, Ex. 2b’s double sixteenth-note re-phrasing starting on the and of beat two, and Ex. 2c’s gradually bent,…

NOW FUNCTIONING AS AN OFFICIAL custom shop under the Carvin banner, Kiesel offers a huge range of options for players who want one-of-kind instruments that are based on standard factory models. The SC6BH Bevel Top and SH550B semi-hollow on review here are very different instruments, but both are beautifully made and offer a lot of performance for the money. SC6BH With its sleek lines and beveled top, the SC6BH is a slick-looking through-neck design that arrived here loaded with a bevy of options and upgrades. It features a Deep Blue finish with an exposed flame maple strip that highlights the beveling across the top, and serves the “binding” around the rest of top’s perimeter. The maple neck sports a matching blue maple veneer on its reverse headstock, and it carries…

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE I CHECK MY Facebook messages. They range from “You rock, Joe!” to “You are an over-rated hack, Joe!” and maybe five times a year some cool gear-related message pops up out of nowhere. On a rainy spring day in Rockford, Illinois, I am on the bus checking my Facebook messages and lo and behold, a picture of a museum-grade tweed Deluxe and matching Deluxe steel is in my inbox from a gentleman with a story of how it had belonged to his uncle and was found in a closet upon his uncle’s passing. I make a call to the messenger directly and it turns out he lives in Iowa and is coming to my show in Rockford. I told him to bring it all and…

“WE’VE BEEN TOGETHER SIX YEARS AND made five records now,” declares Rival Sons’ guitarist Scott Holiday. “Our fan base is locked pretty tight, but we still try to grow it the old-school way—one show at a time, following the ‘albumtour-album-tour’ cycle. We still write and record by miking up everything in the studio and just going for it. Our entire catalog is available on vinyl, and we’ve consistently participated in the annual Record Store Day with a new limited edition release of some sort.” Considering that we live in an age where fame is just as likely—if not more so—to be bestowed on a viral video star than a dues-paying dedicated artist, the Sons’ retro approach has resonated with fans weaned on Led Zeppelin, the Who, Free, and other classic…

Michael Shaw wails at the keyboard as Eli Nelson harmonizes and frets his Trussart. “THEY DON’T WRITE ’EM LIKE THAT anymore.” If you think Greg Kihn’s words are as true today as when he penned them back in 1981, take heart. Michael Shaw, of the very descriptively named band An Intimate Evening with Michael Shaw, does indeed write ’em like that on his independently released debut, This Is It. If, of course, by “like that” you mean tunes with clever changes, big choruses, interesting parts for all the instruments, and melodies… gobs and gobs of beautiful melodies, counterpoint, harmonies, and more melodies. And, like the records that were created in the days of yore, AIEWMS did it without a click. That bears repeating: without a click! Who does that? Michael…

MADE WITH THE HIGHEST QUALITY phosphor bronze wrap wire, these new strings ($5.99 street) are designed to produce bright treble and deep, rich bass. Available in a variety of gauges, they come in a hermetically sealed package with each string in its own paper envelope. I tested a set of Extra Lights—which are gauged .010, .014, .020, .028, .040, .050—on a Bedell concert-sized flat-top and was impressed not only by how easily they played, but also by how they delivered deeper and tighter low-end response than expected given the lighter gauges. The highs sounded clear and sweet, and the midrange bloomed as nicely on this guitar as it did when strung with heavier gauge strings. I needed to make an adjustment to the trussrod to accommodate the lower tension afforded…

THEY MAY NOT WANT TO ADMIT IT NOW, but there must have been a few really nervous people in the Roland offices when the JC-120 Jazz Chorus debuted in 1975. The post-modern design, drab green-ish hue, and ultra-clean sound certainly appeared to be out of step with the mid-’70s rock scene. The radio waves and concert venues were powered by amp stacks and gritty guitar tones, as acts such as the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Queen, the Sweet, Bad Company, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Kiss, and others blasted out rowdy epics to kids in jeans and t-shirts. Of course, cleanertoned guitars that seemed readymade for the JC-120 were evident on chart toppers such as “Fame,” “Jive Talking,” and “Get Down Tonight,” and while disco was looming, no one cool really…

WE FIRST MET THE ANTARES AUTO-TUNE FOR GUITAR technology in the Peavey AT-200, which was reviewed in the December 2012 issue and again as an update in the November 2013 issue. The AT-200 succeeded in delivering an instrument that could get perfectly in tune at the touch of a button, and intonate flawlessly all the way up the neck thanks to its Solid Tune real-time intonation. You’ve also had the option of the Auto-Tune for Guitar Luthier Kit, which allows a qualified tech to install the system into whatever instrument you choose. Now there is yet another option for players who want to experience Auto-Tune for Guitar: The ATG-1 Floor Processor. This rugged floorboard not only gives you easy access to all the Auto-Tune options Antares offers, but it also…

THERE HAS ARGUABLY NEVER BEEN a better guitar than the mid-’50s Gibson Les Paul Junior for pure no-nonsense, open-throttled rock ’n’ roll fun. Dig it: Aren’t you just dying to wrap your hand around that chunky rounded-C neck, dismiss all befuddlement about switch settings and pickup selection, and unleash the almighty kerrrangggg that cuts all poseur bullsh*t to the quick? Yes—you know you are. The Les Paul Junior was unveiled in 1954, two years after the flagship carved-top Les Paul Model (aka “goldtop” and later Les Paul Standard). Designed as Gibson’s first solidbody electric “student” model, it might also have been intended as a rival to Fender’s Esquire: slab mahogany body (although maple was used on a few very early examples), single pickup, and priced to appeal to both beginners…

EVER SINCE HE FIRST APPEARED ON the scene in 1986, musical trends have come and gone, but Tony MacAlpine continues to stick to his original game plan: instrumental rock music with a focus on his exceptional 6-, 7-, and 8-string skills. The fruits of his labors can be heard throughout his new album, Concrete Gardens [Sun Dog], which was written and recorded at MacAlpine’s Pasadena, California, home studio (although the drums were tracked in Brazil, which is where drummer Aquiles Priester is based). It’s available in two different configurations: a Standard Edition that solely features the album’s 12 tracks, and a Special Edition that includes a bonus DVD of Mac-Alpine and his backing band playing all of Concrete Gardens live at EMGtv. Speaking to Guitar Player right around the release…

“IF THERE’S A 50/50 CHANCE OF SURVIVAL, I’M IN,” says Zoltan Bathory. It’s a fitting qualifier, because of Bathory’s many passions in life, playing raucous rock shows with Five Finger Death Punch is probably the least dangerous. Bathory is also a professional monster truck driver, he competes in martial arts championships, he’s an Army-approved Modern Army Combatives instructor, and he pilots fighter jets. Add to all that Bathory’s regular charity work helping veterans suffering from PTSD, and it’s hard for him to say which pursuit he is most passionate about. “I can tell you this,” says Bathory, who shares guitar duties in Death Punch with Jason Hook. “Guitar was the thing I started the earliest. And martial arts, which I started soon thereafter, has helped me with guitar, because in…

WITH THEIR ACOUSTICALLY DESIGNED curved wood backs and sides, the new Acoustic Pro and Acoustic SFX amplifiers are distinctive looking units that carry equally distinctive feature sets that could sway acoustic players toward one or the other depending on their needs and tastes. The Acoustic Pro is a straight-ahead amp with a stout power section and a speaker configuration consisting of a single 12 and a high-frequency tweeter. The Acoustic SFX features onboard DSP effects, Stereo Field Expansion circuitry (SFX), and a stereo power amp that drives a multispeaker setup. ACOUSTIC PRO This model features two independent instrument/mic channels, each with a set of Volume, Low, Mid Level, Mid Freq, High, and Reverb controls, along with a Phase switch. You also get 1/8" Aux In and headphone jacks, an FX…

SO FAR WE’VE SEEN AND HEARD HOW groups of fives can be subdivided into threes and twos, sevens into fours and threes, and nines into threes, fours, and fives. Not surprisingly, a pulse of eleven eighth- or quarternotes per measure offers even more potential for rhythmic subdivisions. This month we’re checking out seven ways to groove in 11/8, and applying each one to some real-life apps. (Keep in mind that all of the following examples can be adapted to 11/4 by halving the tempo and doubling the value of each note.) First up are the obvious lopsided 6+5 and 5+6 divisions (Examples 1a and 1b). Work on one at a time by establishing a tempo within the suggested range and tapping your foot to the notated accents while observing how…

FOR WHATEVER REASON, THE SUMMER MONTHS PRODUCED an excellent harvest of new and interesting picks. Here, we’ve profiled six of the season’s hippest options. DUNLOP PRIMETONE The Primetones sat around the Guitar Player office for a little bit before anyone thought to use them—we blame fear of our print deadlines— but once we did use them, we were beating ourselves up over all the live gigs, sessions, and rehearsals we missed having these picks in our hands. They are remarkable. On the face of it, they appear to be standard Ultex picks, but there’s some magic in these suckers. Perhaps it’s the hand-burnished edges? Who knows? I tried the Primetone 510P Standard Sculpted Plectra with Grip at 1.5mm ($4.95/3-pack), and it felt nice and secure in my fingers. I was…

VintageVibrato™ MannMade USA Available Now Fits vintage style Strat® guitars with no mods. Steel block for that authentic Strat® stink! Increased tone and sustain. Push-in Arm. Patented mounting system guaranteed to stay in tune. Smooth silky feel, less string breakage. All hardware included. Made in USA. MSRP: $160.00 www.MannMadeUSA.com/gp System 10 Stompbox Digital Wireless System Audio-Technica Available Now Featuring a rugged pedal-board mountable receiver with foot switch, two switched TRS balanced ¼” outputs and an output mode selector, the System 10 Stompbox provides unique functionality to guitarists. $349.95 Street Price www.audio-technica.com Roadhouse Overdrive Arteffect Available Now The Roadhouse is an articulate and responsive low to medium gain overdrive that feels like an amp, excelling at fat and punchy singing lead tones but can also get amazing lower gain chimey clean…