Innehållsförteckning för December 2017 från Guitarist

Another year and another tempting cavalcade of tone-tackle to GAS over… Did you buy any kit that revolutionised your playing? I hope so, because while the most important thing is (to paraphrase Zappa) to shut up and play your guitar, sometimes a new pedal or an acoustic will inspire a dozen songs all by itself, or unlock inspiring sounds that get the creative juices flowing. My personal purchase of the year was a little Marshall 1930 Popular combo picked up through the readers’ ads pages. It’s by no means perfect: it has to be running full tilt before it sounds really good and it’s quite noisy – few would claim it boasts the greatest circuitry Marshall ever designed because they’re known to conk out frequently, too. But it still has…

This month I’ve been involved in a project that has proved more fun than many things I normally do: playing in the house band for the Children in Need Rocks. This 80s concert at London’s Wembley Arena included the artists Erasure, Mica Paris, Nick Heywood, Katrina and the Waves, Jason Donovan, an X Factor winner or two, OMD, Europe and various others. This has proved fun because a) The 80s are chock-full of comedy potential as well as some truly classic songs, and b) I don’t often get to play big rock guitar solos in arenas (then again, I’m not sure how many Persil adverts Kirk Hammett has played on recently, so horses for courses I guess). The general premise of the gig was slightly odd, as it was filmed…

We like to revisit the 12-bar blues structure quite regularly in Subsitute, simply because it’s such a flexible basis for experimentation, covering quite a wide stylistic range. In this case, we’re heading to the jazzier end of the blues spectrum. More specifically, we’re going to look at a few compact little shapes that either don’t have the root at the bottom, or don’t have a root at all. INa full arrangement, it’s less important for the guitar to play full chord shapes with the root note on the bottom. The bass will probably play the root at least some of the time, so the musical context is already there. Even playing on your own, with a familiar form like the 12-bar blues, your brain often fills in the missing context…

RAISING THE TONE Regarding the relic debate: 1. Some people prefer the look of a relic’d or roadworn guitar, others don’t. This is called personal taste. We should respect other people’s tastes. Most normal people don’t spend hours and hours locked in heated debate with strangers on the merits of stone-washed versus pristine jeans. 2. The effect of ‘tonewood’ on the character of an electric guitar. Who cares? It may or may not affect your tone, but non cork-sniffing members of the audience aren’t bothered, they have come to listen to the band playing. Half of them will be drunk anyway. 3. Maple fretboards versus rosewood fretboards. See the two points above. Martin Parsons, via email Thanks Martin. Switched-on luthiers often have really interesting things to say about how tonewoods…

The Rolling Stones Blue & Lonesome The Stones returned to their blues roots for this album, and in doing so, divided critics and fans alike. Some loved it, others found it to be the epitome of megastar self-indulgence. We thought it was really rather good… The thing that stood out for us was the sheer joy that was present throughout, the whole band clearly revelling in material like Little Walter’s Just Your Fooland Howlin’ Wolf’s Commit A Crime. Clapton guested on two tracks, adding to the blues-enriched atmosphere. A departure for The Stones, perhaps, but a welcome addition to the band’s rich history. The Magpie Salute The Magpie Salute Those of us hankering after a Black Crowes reunion were delighted to find this debut album from The Magpie Salute, featuring…

“Rowland Howard employed only a fraction of his technique…” The Birthday Party The Bad Seed EP Mute(1983) Nick Cave arrived in London with the Birthday Party from Melbourne, Australia in 1980, expecting a welcoming, vibrant music scene. Wrong city, wrong time! Frustrated, they moved to Berlin in 1982 and found what they had been looking for. Mick Harvey moved from guitar to drums, with this new, more focused line-up and producing a lean, taut foil for Cave’s wretched vocals. They unleashed the magnificent Bad Seed EP in 1983. More refined sonically than predecessor Junkyard, it perfectly illustrated the fractured beauty of guitarist Rowland Howard’s approach. Employing a fraction of the technique he possessed, Rowland stabbed, provoked, teased and tugged at the music, creating nightmarish squalls and ragged bluesy interjections, warped…

FENDER AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL TELECASTER DELUXE SHAWBUCKER £1,499 Fender’s successful upgrade of its American Standard range into the American Professionals covers most bases with Strats, Teles, offsets and basses. Using unusual mixed magnets in the mainly Tim Shaw pickup designs adds a boutique-style twist to this very mainstream range. This Tele though adds two ‘Wide Range’- style Shawbuckers, again designed by Tim, to create a bright humbucker voice that we haven’t stopped playing all year. If you haven’t played an American Professional, you really should. www.fender.com FRET-KING CORONA FLUENCE £749 Combine the huge production and design experience of Trev Wilkinson with the electronics nous of Fishman and here’s a slice of Strat-inspired guitar that punches so far above its price we questioned if we had the figure correct when we reviewed…

AS AN EX-GUITAR dealer I’ve been fortunate enough in recent years to have had the opportunity to play many a vintage Fender Jaguar and was always struck by their general inconsistency in terms of sound and feel, or general playability. Of course, this is entirely a matter of personal preference, but a bloody good set up, for one, can never go amiss, and all too often the type and gauge of string is overlooked. I recently acquired an old 1963 Fender Jaguar strung up with a standard set of 10-gauge strings (my regular option for electric guitars), although I couldn’t help but think there was still room for improvement and so I began to experiment with various types and gauges of string. Harking back to the tradition of heavy gauge,…

TAYLOR ACADEMY SERIES 12E £599 It’s very Taylor to decide beginner’s guitars needed improvement – and then design one from the ground up. The company’s Academy Series aims to provide ‘proper’ instruments at a tolerable price point for newbie and comfort-loving players – and so they came up with a great-sounding guitar with a plug-in-and-go pickup system, an arm rest for added comfort and huge playability. Aesthetically spartan, the 12e’s voice and features are deceptively mature and capable. www.taylorguitars.com MARTIND-16E £2,299 Nobody does ‘dreadnought’ quite like the company whose body shape has accompanied a million songs – and Martin’s D-16E proved to be no exception. All solid woods, including conservation-friendly sycamore back and sides, with a contemporary feel and bristling with new features this dread is a certified crowd-pleaser. Great…

EARTHQUAKER DEVICES ERUPTOR FUZZ £155 This pedal was the Holy Grail of designer Jamie Stillman, who worked on it for two years before pronouncing himself happy. So what’s so great about it? Well, it’s a vintage-voiced fuzz that can be used anywhere in the signal chain. To explain: real vintage Germanium Fuzz Faces need to be placed first in the chain, with no intervening buffered pedals, to sound at their best. Freed from that must-go-first imperative, the Eruptor sounds great before or after modulation, other drives and so on, which opens up masses of new sonic possibilities. It also reproduces low end without muddiness, is one-knob simple and sounds gloriously classic. Solid-gold innovation in sonic terrain that seemed mined out. www.earthquakerdevices.com STRYMONSUNSET DUAL DRIVE £299 It took Strymon a while…

SAMSYSTEMS IM12 £107 Here’s another idea so clever yet so simple you wish you’d thought of it yourself. Close mic placement at gigs and in the studio is always a bit of a faff and many readers will be familiar with the fiddly process of getting a stand-mounted mic pointed at the sweet spot of a speaker cone. What neater solution, then, than mounting a high-quality mic inside your cab, on a frame that attaches to your cab’s speaker mounting points? The IM’s microphone (functionally very similar to an SM57) terminates in a flush-mounted plate with an XLR chassis plug that can easily be fitted on the rear of any speaker cabinet so it’s always on the spot and ready to go. It’s a tidy and effective solution that helps…

The PRS mantra has always been ‘more sounds’ and over 30 years we’ve seen numerous pickup/ control set-ups that offer both humbucking and single coil sounds achieved in very different ways, with the 24-08, based on the multi-tap switching of the current 408, the latest. “We work on this everyday,” laughs Paul Reed Smith. “It’s a non-stop quest. Every time we learn we try to adjust it to the guitars. We learn, we apply. If I was the guy that got it exactly the way it was going to be for 50 years on day one… but that’s not us. We’re the baby-step company.” The original PRS recipe from 1985 featured two humbuckers, a five-way rotary pickup selector switch and a sweet switch (a preset tone roll-off ). That five-way…

1 What was the first pedal that you built and how did the design come about? “The Bax Bangeetar was the first pedal I designed for Orange. I just wanted to do something differently. It’s got four stages of amp-like gain with a Neve channel-style EQ strip. It’s got a lot of output and you can really hit the front end of an amp with it hard.” 2 What’s your favourite vintage pedal and why? “Probably the early 70s fOXX Tone Machine. It’s a great fuzz. I also like late 60s Fuzz Faces a lot. The old Boss DM-2 pedals are cool – I’ve got a couple of old original ones and one of the Boss Waza Craft reissues; I think they’ve done a great job on those. The original…

LOUDER NOT LOUDER I am a long-time reader of your fine magazine, but have never written in… Until now, because I am truly stumped. Like a lot of Fender Telecaster players (I assume) I am often struck by how spiky the treble pickup can sound. I finally decided to take the plunge and have the standard single coil replaced with a Seymour Duncan Little ’59 humbucker (albeit still single-coil sized). After fitting, the increase in power and ‘fatness’ was immediately obvious. “Just the thing!” I thought. However, at our weekly jam, I found that while the new pickup is certainly thicker sounding, the sound sometimes struggles to cut through even though it is pushing my overdrive pedals and amp harder (Boss BD-2, Tone City King Of Blues, Vox AC15 Custom).…

1961 Optional vibrato; dot inlays; black pickup covers; metal badge logo; tortoiseshell pickguard 1962 Single-parallelogram inlays appear; pearloid inlaid script logo standard 1963 Nickel-plated pickup covers appear; white pickguard 1964 Elongated headstocks appear 1965 Chrome-plated hardware becomes standard 1966 Sparkling Burgundy finish appears (often fades with UV exposure to greenish tint) 1967 Cherry finish available 1968 Black, opaque ‘witch hat’ knobs become standard 1969 Last Casino shipped from Kalamazoo 1970 Epiphone Casino E230TD production officially discontinued in USA…

Got Those Ol’ Modern Blues Dif ficulty 20 mins per example Tutor: Richard Barrett Gear used: Knaggs SSC, Freidman BE OD, Vox AC15 C1 MANY OF US ASK ourselves what direction modern blues is headed in. Soloing techniques, high gain tones, diverse mixtures of modern genres have all played a part in shaping the style, often moving away from the more traditional ‘12-bar’ format. For example, players such as Joe Bonamassa tread a line between the more traditional Chicago-style blues and amped-up Zeppelin style rock. Eric Gales adds his stylish, modern phrasing and sensibility to both well-known classics and his own new material. There are other modern players out there, but the one I have chosen to highlight for now is Gary Clark Jr. His combination of soulful high gain…

G&L LEGACY £1,899 WHAT IS IT? A Fullerton-built double-cut with a classic vibe but thoughtful refinements Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door, the saying goes. In guitar terms, building the MkII mousetrap was precisely the job that Leo Fender set himself when he founded G&L in 1979. The father of the Strat and the Tele decided that, despite their obvious popularity, he could refine certain aspects of his early masterpieces – and maybe build them a little better, too, given that Fender (which he’d sold to CBS in 1965) was deep in the doldrums at that point. Fast forward to the present and G&L are still very much a going concern, still offering an alternative take on Leo’s earlier designs. The guitar…

We have heard the ammunition by now. “Why pay an grand extra for someone to ruin a perfectly good guitar?”, “What’s wrong with letting it age naturally?”, “I want my guitars without a mark on them”, “It’s like buying pre-ripped jeans!” These are just some of the common complaints among those that just don’t get the relicing thing. And my guess – from looking at Guitarist’s Facebook page at least – is that the naysayers outnumber the pro lobby by some margin. Or perhaps they just shout louder. Well, as something of a relic myself I find this a fascinating topic. Now, I’m not saying that what I’m about to tell you had anything to do with it (the apocryphal story is that Keith Richards ordered a load of ’52…

“The solo in Whatever You Want isn’t an easy solo to make melodic. I play it every night and think, ‘This is a sack of shite!’” 1 What was your first guitar and when did you get it? “A Guild Starfire, a single cutaway. I was probably 11 or 12 – my dad got it for me, he was good like that. It was red and I used it very high up because at the time Gerry Marsden and a few others held it high. I still think that’s the way one should play but now it’s gone way down. In one of the bands who supported us the bass player wore his guitar so low he tripped over it on a couple of occasions, which was quite hilarious!” 2…

 What was your fi rst gig and how did it go? “Be who you are on stage. Don’t do the American thing and scream at the audience. Just enjoy yourself and do it from the heart” “I remember it clearly. My parents didn’t know that I played in a band – I was 13 – and we were going to play on a Sunday afternoon in a little building adjacent to one of the churches in Rotterdam, where I lived at the time. My dad didn’t want me to play electric guitar, I wasn’t allowed to have one, but I had an acoustic guitar so secretly I bought a pickup that I could connect to the radio and it sounded really distorted. I sneaked out that afternoon, but two of…

By now the news has sunk in: Tom Petty, the legendary songwriter, Traveling Wilbury and leader of his beloved band the Heartbreakers, died on 2 October, aged 66 in his adopted home of Los Angeles, after suffering a massive heart attack. His death, as unexpected as it was tragic, was yet another blow for fans of rock ‘n’ roll. We’ve lost so many legendary artists in the past few years it’s almost as though we are collectively numb. But even after losing David Bowie, Prince, Gregg Allman and so many others recently, Petty’s death still hit particularly hard. Perhaps it was because Petty had soundtracked so many of our lives, often without the accolades enjoyed by his contemporaries, or because he never seemed to lose the down home humility that…

How did the new songs on the album come together? “It’s all different processes because everybody [in the band] is playing all the time. People create little ideas and vignettes and bring them along. We sometimes marry up two totally different styles into one piece and modulate it a little bit. Mostly, everything that we do is based on groove – sitting just behind the beat and getting that really otherworldly thing going on.” How would you describe Justin and Skin’s guitar playing styles? “Stylistically and individually they’re from another place. They’ve developed this great empathy and there’s never any sort of musical tension. It’s a very amorphous and beautiful thing. "I mean both of them are pretty noisy, but stylistically they’re radically different. Skin has really got more in…

PUT TWO STRATS in a closed room together and the next time you look there’s five. That’s what I tell my wife, anyway. Between you and me, though, I was encouraged to expand my collection of Fenders by a chance encounter in a recording studio in Wales. Handed what I thought to be a US Relic by George Jones from the band Son Of Man, I remarked on how good it was and when he told me that it was a 2010 Mexican Roadworn Strat, I couldn’t have been more surprised. After all, it oozed Custom Shop, felt excellent in the hand and, George assured me, sounded brilliant. Smitten, I started patrolling Ebay on the lookout for one of similar vintage and colour and, after a few weeks, my instincts…

SUPRO DUAL TONE £799 Relaunched at the start of 2017, Supro’s new electrics reference the past… but don’t dwell on it. The Island Series solidbodies and American Series ‘Res-O-Glas’ semi-solids certainly do justice to the brand, adding a more refined build and excellent versions of Supro’s original-style pickups. Quirky as you like, of course, especially the Americana models like this Dual Tone that features a chambered mahogany back with a hollow moulded plastic top, there’s nothing that sounds quite like them for Chicago blues, more gnarly fuzzed out garage rock or Stones-y raunch. Every collection needs one. www.jhs.co.uk RIVOLTA COMBINATA DELUXE TREM £1,259 Boutique maker par excellence, Dennis Fano, teams up with retro-maker-for-the-masses, Eastwood, to produce a fine slice of ‘haven’t we seen that before?’ modern retro. Loosely based on…

633 DRIVE KING 50 HEAD £3,175 633 founder and designer Cliff Brown released his homage to the Dumble ODS this summer, after two years of research and development. The Drive King 50 head combines 633’s superlative craftsmanship and attention to detail with astounding tone and response. It was never going to be cheap, but compared to some heads that cost more, the Drive King is in a league of its own, a supreme fusion tone machine that raises the bar for this genre. www.633amp.com VICTORY SUPER COUNTESS V130 HEAD £1,329 Victory’s Super Countess head is based on the smaller version used by Guthrie Govan, with two dual-voiced footswitchable channels driving a meaty quartet of 6L6s. It’s also compact and very portable, with superlative boutique-standard tones thanks to clever circuit design…

WRITING AND RESEARCHING our Mod Squad column has been rather like going back to school. There would seem to be endless sources of online information but you really have to filter it and, in many cases, actually check that it’s correct. I’ve been drawn back to those old fashioned things called books. Adrian Legg’s Customising Your Electric Guitar is still hugely valid, not least some of its circuit ideas and general guitar education. One of my most thumbed tomes is Hideo Kamimoto’s Complete Guitar Repair from 1975. You see the guitar itself really hasn’t progressed very much and the basics of repair and set-up remain pretty similar even though today we have new fixtures, tools, glues and techniques. Dan Erlewine’s Guitar Player: Repair Guide is a must for any guitar…

LINE 6 HELIX LT £933 The full-fat Helix was a game-changer when it came out, but kudos to Line6 for following it up with a pared-down version that keeps the original modelling engine intact, and is almost £300 cheaper. Yes, the scribble strips – the backlit legends that told you what patch was assigned to each footswitch – were a nice feature of the original, but, after gigging the LT, we found it as intuitive to use thanks to its big display and new Performance View with real-time info. Even though the build differs to the original (the pedal is folded steel as opposed to cast aluminium), the LT is still robust and, crucially, the sonics seem identical. Overall, if you don’t need the extra I/O of the full-on Helix,…

EARLIER THIS YEAR, Mick Taylor of That Pedal Show, Nev Marten of Guitar Techniques and I took on the daunting but joyous challenge of performing Jimi Hendrix’s debut album Are You Experienced at the Bristol International Jazz & Blues Festival on the occasion of the album’s 50th Anniversary. Obviously we were all going to play Marshall stacks and in fact I was lucky enough to be loaned an early 70s 100-watt JMP head and vintage basket-weave 4x12 that sounded fantastic. I’d originally sought them out purely because it seemed the only fitting kit to use for a Jimi tribute. But the more I played through this vintage stack, the more I enjoyed it. I’d not played a big, powerful amp through a 4x12 cab for a while and I suddenly…

Currently offered by guitarguitar is the Pensa Guitars MK-1 (£7,499) that was famously adopted by Mark Knopfler and has plenty of PRS-esque style albeit more of a modern ‘Strat’ with a Gibson-like build. Gibson themselves have dabbled with a maple-topped offset double cut in the past and this year unveiled the Modern Double Cut Standard ($3,999), which looks clearly ‘inspired’ by PRS with its offset double-cut outline, dual humbuckers and master volume/master tone configuration. Despite asking, we’re yet to see one. More obvious competition comes from the numerous bolt-ons with dual humbuckers and vibrato (with or without maple tops) from the likes of Fender, Suhr, Tom Anderson et al.…

For many guitarists, Daniel Steinhardt’s The GigRig effects pedal switching systems have been a revelation in tone. As a professional player with a love for vintage stomp-boxes, Dan was frustrated by the technical drawbacks and lack of options he encountered in standard effects pedal chains and decided something needed to be done to solve the problems inherent with using a regular pedalboard. After a period of research in his native Australia, he gained an impressive knowledge of electronics and later teamed up with British engineer Dave Mapleston, culminating in the launch of The GigRig in 2003. The GigRig’s latest system, the G2, is an exercise in simplicity, enabling guitarists to turn multiple effects units on and off with the push of a single switch, while simultaneously eliminating any bypassed and…

Jamie Dickson Guitarist editor Jamie is as happy with steel wool in his hand as he is with Steely Dan in his headphones, and loves vintage-gear restoration and ambitious signal chains. Dave Burrluck Guitarist’s assiduous reviews editor is also the author of numerous guitar books. Very handy with a fret file and indeed any aspect of a finely fettled six-string. Mick Taylor Ex-editor of Guitarist, Mick has wielded Allen keys, screwdrivers and sandpaper from an early age. He also has a worrying obsession with pedalboards. Neville Marten Edited Guitarist for 13 years, after working for both Fender and Gibson as a repairer. From desirable Les Pauls to dream Strats, he’s owned and worked on the lot. Nick Guppy Guitarist’s amplifier specialist has built up a wealth of experience gained from…

Although Gibson-branded guitars tend to earn more on the vintage market. The Casino, introduced in 1961, is the exception to this and continues to rank as one of the most sought-after vintage Epiphone guitars across the board, largely due to its close connection to The Beatles. But the cult of the Casino goes beyond the Fab Four. The early 60s Casinos are actually more associated with Keith Richards, while more recently, it’s been embraced by players like Noel Gallagher, Jeff Tweedy and Dwight Yoakam. It all gives the Casino a place as a perennially popular vintage and modern guitar that’s commonly desired by experienced collectors and novice players alike. From Blue To ‘Burst Typically when we discuss vintage guitar pricing, we have at least a few historical sales from the…

Electrics FenderJapan Telecaster ’69 Reissue Blue Flower, very good condition, light home use. No case. £750. email migofer@talktalk.net Fender Strat, Team Built Custom Shop 1956 NOS in Fiesta Red, AA birdseye maple neck, vintage tweed case and candy. Never gigged, limited home use only, absolutely mint condition. Ill health forces sale. £1,700 no offers. paulcurtis1@btinternet.com or call 01296 435520. Aylesbury Gibson Les Paul Traditional 2010 Desert Burst finish, totally as new, never been played and genuine reason for sale in OHSC also as new. £1,200 ono. Call Barry on 01665 602343. North East England Gibson 1961 original double cut Les Paul Junior, no issues . Swap for your double or single cut with baseball bat neck. Call Ian on 0750166813 or email kossoff@btopenworld.com Suhr Classic Antique Sonic Blue, r/n, 3…

Extreme 13 to 20 December Various UK venues Nuno Bettencourt and Co have always had a loyal following in the UK, who were the first to embrace the band outside their home. But there’s been a long wait for fans who want to hear a follow-up to 2008’s Saudades De Rock. The guitarist is hoping that will finally be ready early next year, but in the meantime they have plenty of tried-and-true classics to deliver. And that applies to Nuno’s rig too; his signature Washburn N4s and a wall of Randall NB King 100 amps with a BOSS GT-8 – using four patches for the majority of the songs. “I am a creature of habit,” he tells us, “using just my classic rig, pretty much the same for decades. I…

Having been a pro for a very long time now, I have seen many changes, developments and innovations when it comes to new equipment – some spectacularly good and, on occasion, some spectacularly bad. As some of you will know, I’ve never really been an avid gear-freak outside of the basics. I’ve usually stayed close to a guitar, strings for it, an amplifier and a jack-to-jack lead to plug in. To me, when you actually break it all down, those are the real needs – and a plectrum of course. My first amplifier was a tiny Italian piece of work by a firm called Scala. It was very small and pretty useless, but I suppose that was the moment I joined the gear ladder. I remember one of the local…

FOR THE RECORD Week in week out we drive to countless gigs with our valuable instruments and equipment safe in the knowledge that the car we’re driving will get us there safely and get us home again in one piece. When we buy a car, we check out the paintwork, have a look inside and take it for a test run. We have no choice but to trust the salesperson when they tell us that it was looked after, wasn’t involved in any major accidents, was maintained on a regular basis, had quality replacement parts and didn’t have too many previous owners (rumour has it that the car was only used on a Sunday to take the old lady who owned it to church and back, hence the low mileage).…

David Crosby SkyTrails ( Jamie Dickson, Editor ) The master songsmith of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash has still got it, as this year’s Sky Trails long player attests. This moving and beautifully arranged collection of songs ranges from on-target critiques of corrupt politics in Trump-era America to an intimate cover version of what is arguably Joni Mitchell’s finest song, Amelia(go ahead and argue, she’s written so many wonderful songs). What joins all together is Crosby’s grizzled yet harmonious vocal presence and a pervading grace that imbues the album with tremendous poise and poignancy. With cameo guitar spots from Steely Dan session ace Dean Parks and others as an extra hook, Sky Trails is an album that lingers in the memory and does what all great songwriting ought…

Every year, we review hundreds of items of kit but only a handful instantly strike a powerful spark that ignites new musical inspirations. These days it’s pretty hard to buy poorly built guitars. That’s great, but the very uniformity of 21st-century manufacturing means that it’s also rarer for things to truly stand out. All the winners of our Gear of the Year awards first received either a Guitarist Choice or Gold award when initially reviewed. That was the price of admission to the shortlist. Then our writers got together to thrash out which of that already great list of guitars, amps and effects deserved the ultimate accolade. Here’s what we chose...…

PRS CUSTOM 24-08 FROM £3,565 The humbucking/single coil sonic options once again come under the spotlight with this new version of PRS’s workhorse. Unlike the five preset voices of the standard Custom 24, this version adds the Multi Tap versions of the 85/15 pickups (which originally appeared on the 408) to add, via two mini-toggle switches, three more single coil voices. A Custom 24 that leans on the single coil-side if you need more tonal textures. An exceptional piece. www.prsguitars.com PATRICK JAMES EGGLE MACON SINGLE CUT £4,200 Patrick started out with his eponymous PRSinspired electrics then turned his back to work on acoustics. As of 2017, he’s back again to focus on electrics and this superb Macon Single Cut illustrates just how good he is. With numerous options you can…

RESEARCHING A FEATURE on Supro’s return to the guitar market after a gap of nearly 50 years I’d had the pleasure of visiting Supro HQ in the US just before that election. While the rest of the USA, indeed the world, was wondering who would take that White House seat I was more concerned with the pressing matter that I knew bugger all about Supro’s guitars. So when a chance to buy a Supro Stratford from 1968, their last year in the guitar business, arose, I took it. Priced pretty similarly to the just-launched new Supro Island and Americana series, the Stratford was Supro’s attempt at an ES-335, albeit a bolt-on with three pickups, six controls, a row of rocker switches to select them and – why not? – a…

PAUL REED SMITH SONZERA 20 1X12 £699 After the extravagant excess of PRS’s JMOD 100 head, it was a welcome surprise to come across this highly portable 1x12 combo, which might be made offshore but has plenty of boutique credibility, with an extra-resonant poplar ply cabinet, a pair of 6L6 power valves and a well-sorted preamp that sounds just as good at low gain settings as it does with the dials maxed. The Sonzera is all about great tone at affordable prices and this little amp scored a major win on both counts. www.prsguitars.com VICTORY V40 DELUXE 1X12 £1,569 Victory’s widebody 1x12 combo is based on the V40 Duchess head, but with added tremolo and spring reverb, for an array of classic Americana tones that sound great with single coils…

I’D finished a tour at the end of 2016 where two of the artists I was backing used blonde Gibson J-200s. I’ve never owned one but these instruments gave me the ‘gear worm’ so I began scouring the ads for a True Historic or some such. Then I spotted a used one on Ebay. It was a blonde 2003 Historic, in delightfully flamed maple with a beautifully aged golden hue. It was immaculate, except the pickguard flowers had been worn away from strumming. I went to see it and bought it on the spot. It was stage-ready with an LR Baggs Element fitted, and it played and sounded great. But that faded guard annoyed me, so I emailed my Gibson contact, sending a pic of the guitar, the worn flowers…

ELECTRO HARMONIX CANYON DELAY AND LOOPER £132 Mike Matthews has a genius knack for bringing useful (and sometimes bonkers) effects together in colourful packages that don’t cost an awful lot. And what could be more useful than 10 powerful Electro-Harmonix delays, encompassing reverb and sample-and-hold functions, plus a 60-second looper? Unlike some of EHX’s compact multis, the interface is intuitive to use, while the more extreme settings offer greater scope for sonic experimentation than most pedal companies dare build. EHX remains committed to ear-opening effects that have solid utility at their core. The Canyon is a fine example of that – and it’s tap-tempo capable too. www.ehx.com SUPRO 1310 TREMOLO £229 Supro have been on a roll in the past year and it’s the fact they bothered to do something…

So many times this year, we’ve had cause to reflect on a deceptively complex question: what is the value of good tone? Too often the question of tone is treated like a whisky review – as if it were an amber nectar to be sampled and sipped in isolation. But the sound of a guitar (or, for that matter, that of an amp or effect) is something the player participates in much more than they do when merely tasting something. You are in the loop. If the sound of a guitar excites you then it drives you to new heights of expressiveness in your playing. And you have to say that the useability of a piece of kit has a hand in that sought-after feeling of being seamlessly at one…

The current Custom uses a five-way lever switch with the following ‘preset’ sounds: bridge humbucker; bridge humbucker with neck single coil; both humbuckers; neck single coil with bridge single coil; neck humbucker. All coil/pickup mixes are in parallel, as they are on the other configurations. The 24-08 swaps the five-way to a three-way lever pickup selector switch plus two mini-toggle humbucking/ single coil ‘mode’ switches, one for each pickup. This means we can also access just the bridge single coil (slug coil), the neck single coil (slug coil) and the neck humbucker with the bridge single coil. Aside from the sound differences, the way the single coil voices are created differs too. The Custom 24 simply splits the humbuckers, voicing the slug coil – the inner coils of each humbucker.…

“ I can see it holding its own against any high-end semi, Gibson or otherwise” D’Angelico Excel DC with Denny Ilett Writer DENNY ILETT Professional guitarist and tutor Denny Ilett started young, and as the son of a trumpet soloist, he began arranging horns at just 14. Shortly after, he discovered the guitar… He tours with Lillian Boutté and also teaches at IGF events Well, I’ve had this guitar for a few months now and have been able to take it out on several gigs as well as some studio work. My regular semi is an old Japanese Aria Pro II TA DLX and it was interesting to compare the two. This D’Angelico compares very favourably and can hold its own in a jazz, blues or funk setting, which is…

1. SERIAL NUMBER Six digits ink-stamped onto back of headstock; no ‘Made In USA’ stamp 2. HEADSTOCK Elongated headstock; pearloid inlaid script Epiphone logo 3. PLASTICS White pickguard; 4x clear bonnet knobs with metal tone and volume caps; white plastic tipped three-way pickup selector switch; nylon bridge saddles; ‘slashed-C’ Epiphone logo on black truss rod cover 4. HARDWARE Chrome-plated, raised diamond trapeze tailpiece; chrome-plated adjustable tune-o-matic bridge set into top; three-a-side tuners with metal buttons 5. PICKUPS Chrome-plated pickup covers; 2x high output single-coil P-90 pickups with adjustable polepieces; three-way pickup selector switch; 4x pots (2x independent volume and tone controls) 6. BODY 16-inch wide, fully hollow double cutaway thinline; laminated back and sides with pressed maple/birch arched top; single top and back binding; super-rare Pelham Blue finish (one of…

ORIGINALITY OF FINISH As with all vintage instruments, collectors value original, vibrant finishes on the Casino. Sunburst (pictured left) is the most common, with cherry or burgundy also cropping up. Epiphone also used custom finishes like the Pelham Blue, as well as a unique colour dubbed ‘Silver Fox’. These custom finishes can more than double the value over a standard Sunburst specimen. BREAKS AND REPAIRS As a fully-hollow guitar, the Casino is susceptible to breaks in the body, not to mention at the headstock (an endemic issue for all Gibson-made guitars of this era). Naturally, the extent of a crack or break and the repair done to it can vary widely, and issues like these can reduce vintage valuation from 10 per cent for a minor crack on soundboard to…

Joining The Rhythm Section Dif ficulty  10 -15 mins per example Tutor: Chris Corcoran Gear used: Framus Broadway archtop (with flatwound strings) through a Honeyboy 5 amp THIS issue we’re looking at how it’s possible to play an effective chord progression using three note chords. We can learn a lot here from jazz guitarists who will trim their chord voicings down in such a way that they don’t interfere with the other instruments in the band. This is particularly effective if you’re playing with a keyboard player or horn section, for instance The guitar is obviously a harmony instrument, but we have a comparatively limited musical range when compared to a piano, so playing economically is a good way of staying out of everyone’s way, but still keeping up an…