Innehållsförteckning för January 2020 från Guitarist

As we were putting together this month’s cavalcade of GAS-worthy gear, the Guitarist team got talking about about the guitars we regretted letting go – and the guitars, often laughably short-lived, that we bought with the proceeds instead. Nev Marten, editor of Guitar Techniques, still regrets selling a pair of John Cruz-built Custom Shop Fenders (a Strat and a Tele) he once owned, both were Sunburst and had consecutive serial numbers. Rather less grandly, I regret a Charvel Model 7 that was sold to me by Dan Hawkins of The Darkness when we were teenagers, the first proper electric guitar I ever owned. It was an odd fish, like a Telecaster but with a neck so thin that it should have been supporting an Orange Mivvi ice-lolly instead of frets.…

PRICE: £3,378 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Grand Concert 12-string cutaway acoustic TOP: Mahogany BACK/SIDES: Mahogany MAX RIM DEPTH: 111mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 381mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 632mm (24.8”) TUNERS: Taylor nickel NUT/WIDTH: Tusq/47.6mm FINGERBOARD: Ebony FRETS: 18 BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony w/ Micarta saddle/70mm ELECTRICS: Taylor Expression System 2 WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.7/3.7 OPTIONS: Taylor gold-plated tuners, pickguard (black, clear or tortoise), 3-piece back – all at no additional cost. Sitka spruce top, Tobacco or Honey Sunburst finishes, short-scale neck, Gotoh tuners, all at additional cost (see website for price list) RANGE OPTIONS: None, the 562ce is Taylor’s first 12-string guitar with V-Class bracing LEFT-HANDERS: Yes, at no extra cost FINISHES: Gloss Brown Edge Burst Taylor Guitars +31 (0) 206 676030 www.taylorguitars.com PROS Sharply built compact 12-string with great clarity, sustain…

PRS 2020 SE Models £599 to £999 CONTACT PRS Europe PHONE 01223 874301 WEB www.prsguitars.com You might recall us mentioning an outfit called PRS Guitars in this magazine from time to time. Well, the brand founded by Paul Reed Smith in Annapolis, Maryland, will celebrate its 35th year of business in 2020. To mark this momentous anniversary, PRS is introducing special editions and new models to its US and import SE ranges. We’ll bring you up to speed on the American guitars in forthcoming issues. In the meantime, let’s take a peek at some seriously sexy SE stuff... [EM] PRS SE MIRA £599 With its 35th anniversary in the post it’s no surprise PRS wants to hit the ground running with some new models. First up is the SE Mira.…

The Black Crowes’ Robinson siblings have put aside their six years at loggerheads to reform the band with new members. Frontman Chris and guitarist Rich Robinson will begin a 46-date US tour in June playing their 1990 debut, Shake Your Money Maker, in full. They will not be joined by co-founding drummer Steve Gorman, or indeed any other former Crowes. “That was the first thing Rich and I agreed on,” Chris Robinson told Rolling Stone. “We don’t want anyone from the solo groups. We don’t want anyone from the past.” The new line-up is completed by drummer Raj Ojha, bassist Tim Lefebvre, guitarist Isiah Mitchell and keyboardist Joel Robinow. Pete Townshend will consider smashing a guitar again on stage with The Who… but only for a good cause. “I haven’t…

Sometimes you’re just bowling along, more than happy with the guitars you already have, knowing that you absolutely don’t need anything else. And then – boom! – the dreaded GAS comes a-calling. And so it happened again to me this week. I have a lovely ‘home’ acoustic. It’s a Martin D-28 1937 Authentic. They are an absolute arm and a leg to buy new, but I got mine secondhand by trading in three guitars. So I really don’t need (and my acoustic playing doesn’t deserve) anything better. Then I happened to be in a shop to check out a 1960s Epiphone for Marty Wilde, but it was sold. They said, “Try this 1947 Gibson J-45 instead.” I knew Marty wanted something much fancier looking, but I tried it anyway. Bloody…

THE LEARNING GAME I recently saw the CEO of Fender say that although guitar sales to new players are healthy, 90 per cent give up within a year. He also said if just 10 per cent stayed with it, the effect over a playing lifetime could double the size of the industry. The Fender strategy appears to be adding to the already sizeable online resources for developing players through their Fender Play and Fender Songs applications. The problem is not attracting new players but retaining them. I have no idea whether these claims are accurate, but it got me thinking about whether drop-out rates have always been so high. I received my first guitar some 60 years ago, a cheap acoustic with heavy strings and an action designed to cripple…

School Daze “I was nine when I got my first guitar – a little acoustic with steel strings. I learned to play with a pick and by the time I was 12 I’d got quite good. My first electric guitar was a Watkins Rapier then finally I managed to get a Fender Stratocaster – my first pro guitar – in ’67. I think it was either a ’62 or a ’63. I gradually found my own thing through a long series of experimentations with tape recorders and later on I started getting into tape echo and various echo boxes. That’s how I really developed my personal sound and style. “When I was about 16 or 17, I would commute on the train every day from Chingford to the City of…

By far the most useful bit of gear I’ve bought in the last year must be the Line 6 Helix. I’d owned a Kemper before and while I loved the amp side, I wasn’t overwhelmed with either the user interface or the effects. At first the Helix rather trailed the Kemper in basic amp sounds, until – and this is the magic bit – I downloaded the Michael Britt presets. I’ve since used it playing with Robbie Williams and Anastacia, and for films at Abbey Road Studios, and have had positive comments from all involved. Very importantly, I can edit the effects section very quickly to the satisfaction of whomever is running the session. Well done, Yamaha and Line 6 – if the engineers at Abbey Road say it sounds…

The pursuit for optimum tone obsesses many. How can I get my Mexican Strat to sound like a Custom Shop Strat? And my Epi Les Paul like a ’Burst? All good, but you and I know that while you might be able to narrow the gap, you ain’t ever gonna close it. I’d been going down that rabbit hole with a secondhand Tokai ‘Les Paul’. Yes, I was getting closer – but, really, I was a chasm away. So when Mod Squad reader Alan Kirby donated a pair of TV Jones Classics to the cause, I thought I’d give ’em a go on that Tokai. I didn’t need to worry any more about maple spacers and butyrate bobbins or any of the vintage PAF fiction and folklore. Nope, I had…

This is the year I finally came to terms with the guitarist I am: I’m a throwback. This big, fat, happy stick in the mud is a born-again minimalist – and that need to simplify things extends to my gear. I’ve ditched the convenience of the gain/master volume tag team for the retro warmth of a valve amp pushed into overdrive by a treble booster pedal. To that end, I decided to dust off the Retroman Beano that had been languishing in my spare room. This thing is a boutique take on the classic Dallas Arbiter Rangemaster used by Eric Clapton, Brian May and Rory Gallagher. I can heartily recommend a life free of patches, modelling gubbins and master volume knobs. Like me, you might just stumble upon the tone…

FREE THE TONE STRING SLINGER SS-1V £368 Sometimes, here at the Guitarist office, we play a game of pedalboard ‘Battle Royale’. The game involves A/B’ing two overdrive pedals with the winner staying on each time. Well, the String Slinger recently beat all comers out of the ring bar the Hudson Electronics Broadcast-AP, which does something so different but complementary to that they’re both going to stay on our pedalboard, possibly forever. Hailing from the exacting workshop of Japanese designer Yuki Hayashi, the String Slinger nods to the tone of high-headroom Dumble-style amps. But all you really need to know is that this thing absolutely sings – it’s got punch and definition in spades but also grit and soul. It chops through mixes like a cleaver but never sounds hard on…

Once upon a time, the copy and the companies who made them were seen as pariahs, cloning others’ designs to make a fast buck. Today, very few successful – and big-selling – brands have survived without producing models that, if not direct copies, are certainly far from disguised. What’s happened? The classic electric guitar designs are no longer the intellectual property of the companies that originally created them. Instead, these benchmark designs are blueprints for the contemporary instrument. “Hold on!” you say. “Aren’t these classic Fenders and Gibsons protected by trademarks and the like?” Without getting into the specific legalities, it’s mostly no. The simple evidence of the number of guitars in the market, at every price point, suggests you can create a guitar that is remarkably similar to a…

Given the Panthera II Supreme’s conceptual proximity to a Les Paul Standard, Gibson’s icon is a good place to find a rival. Take a look at the 2019 spec Les Paul Standard ’60s (£1,999). The slim neck, mahogany carcass and maple top make it a tough customer for Framus to beat. Ditto the highly rated Eastman SB59/V (£1,999). The model designation is a good clue that this beautiful guitar is aimed at the those looking for a late 50s ‘Sunburst’ vibe. Fender has a number of Stratocastershaped and prettier stumbling blocks for the Diablo Pro to negotiate. Consider the humbucker-loaded Dave Murray Signature (£899). You don’t have to enjoy Dave’s Iron Maiden stuff to appreciate his guitar’s 241 to 356mm (9.5 to 14-inch) compound radius rosewood fingerboard, Seymour Duncan Hot…

GRETSCH G5220 ELECTROMATIC JET BT £450 At £499, Epiphone’s Les Paul Standard PlusTop Pro is a bit of a no-brainer for sub-£500 humbuckerfuelled thrills. But don’t forget Gretsch’s G5220 Electromatic Jet BT. Packing a pair of Black Top Broad’Tron ’buckers into a lightweight chambered body, this gem is topped off with the super cool V-shape stop tailpiece. Think a Gretsch is a one-trick pony? Malcolm Young did his dirty deeds on a Jet. This BT let’s you do yours dirt cheap, too. www.gretschguitars.com GUILD NEWARK ST COLLECTION S-200 T-BIRD £745 Guild found its niche in the electric blues scene of the 60s and 70s: the underrated Robert Lockwood Jr played a Starfire 12-string; Buddy Guy used a six-string Starfire when he wasn’t clutching his Strat; and Muddy Waters had his…

THE BACKGROUND CARL FOSTER, YORKSHIRE via email I’ve recently begun to escape the clutches of my bedroom practice by joining in at my local blues event where I just take my guitar, plug in and go. But I’ve really been struggling to use my bedroom sound live. It’s not that I can’t EQ and adjust the ’board to sound right for volume, it’s more that I’m struggling to keep up when making the changes on the fly. I have about 12 pedals – boost, drive, compression, delay, modulation, etc – on a small, neat ’board with two rows of six pedals. Typically, each song uses between two and four pedals at once and it’s just too hard for me to get them all on in time. I’ve considered moving…

1942 J-45 introduced; round shoulders; 24¾-inch scale; firestripe teardrop pickguard 1943 Tortoiseshell celluloid teardrop pickguard 1946 “Only A Gibson Is Good Enough” headstock banner discontinued 1947 Modernised script Gibson headstock logo replaces longhand script type 1949 Upper belly bridge standard 1955 Longer pickguard (extends along fretboard) with point facing upper treble bout 1956 Height-adjustable saddle available (standard by 1960) 1969 Lower belly bridge standard; square shoulders; 25½” scale 1970 Double X-bracing 1982 Discontinued…

At least the air miles are stacking up. Jennifer Batten’s continent-hopping career means her diary is always full: a clinic tour here, her renowned solo show there and, recently, she’s even found herself in demand from Michael Jackson tribute acts, having toured with the man himself for 10 years back in the 80s and 90s. “Yes, I’ve done so many different things,” she tells us as we settle down in the Guitarist studio. “It’s almost like you never know – when you wake up, there can be an email that just shows up and I go, ‘Okay. Well, that’s what I’m doing in March.’” Spending so much time travelling has meant that she has refined her gear to be flight-friendly – we were impressed by the fact she knows the…

Difficulty  # 10 mins per example Tutor: Richard Barrett | Gear used: Knaggs Choptank, Vox AC15 C1 Moody Blues THIS MONTH’S HEADLINES is based mostly a single-note (E) shuffle bass line, with some overdubbed chord swells adding a sense of movement. These could be omitted if you were willing to add a few in along with your soloing, but for the purpose of building up confidence when playing in this very exposed style, I’ve left them in. You should bear this in mind for future jams and experiments, though… Depending on your viewpoint, there is only one scale used here: the E blues in various positions. However, you will notice that C# and F# appear fairly frequently. Strictly speaking, this would make E Dorian, but thinking of it in this…

Jennifer Batten We chat to the ex-Jeff Beck band virtuoso, who shares how to play guitar faster, better and more fluently p136 Robbie Robertson The Band’s legendary guitarist shares his advice on letting go of clichés and writing guitar music that really matters p50 Future Fenders Fender’s Tone Master Twin and Deluxe Reverb amps seriously impressed us with next-gen modelling tech that sounds vintage but plays modern p22…

Carlos Santana has been playing PRS guitars virtually exclusively since the early 80s. He’s mainly preferred the pre-production style that Paul himself made before he redesigned both the body and headstock shape to what we know as the Custom – the basis for the modern PRS guitar. Initially, it was a little odd that you couldn’t buy a replica of Carlos’s guitar (that came a little later), but when PRS finally decided to make a more affordable offshore range, the SE, the first model was a Santana signature. The peaks and troughs of Santana’s career aside, we’d guess more people have seen and heard a PRS in the hands of Carlos than any other. In recent years, however, he’s switched from that original-style double-cut to the later Singlecut design, most…

GIBSON CUSTOM SHOP ALVIN LEE ES-335 ‘69 FESTIVAL £5,999 Alvin Lee’s set with Ten Years After is an oft-quoted high watermark of the 1969 Woodstock Festival. To mark the late, great man’s impact on rock folklore, Gibson has released the Alvin Lee ES-335 ’69 Festival model. Only 50 of these doppelgängers of Lee’s iconic Big Red will be ‘going home’ with lucky punters. The ’69 Festival features a pair of classic-voiced CustomBucker Alnico III units separated by a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 single coil. A Bigsby B7, Aged Sixties Cherry nitro finish and reproduction stickers add to the authentic Big Red vibe. Says Alvin’s friend and fan Tony Iommi: “Really happy to hear that Gibson guitars are doing a limited-edition 335 in honour of Alvin Lee. He made a major impact…

After 46 years on the road and on record with Status Quo, Francis Rossi’s 1957 Telecaster is up for sale. It will go to auction at Bonhams of Knightsbridge on 17 December with an estimate of £100,000 to £150,000. Rossi has owned the guitar for more than 50 years and only retired it from stage use in 2015, using a custom green Status graphite T-Style as its replacement. In 2014 he told us about the guitar he paid £75 for in 1968: “I’d like to say it was such a wonderful instrument that I wanted to keep it,” Rossi said of his first impressions, “but I said to our roadie, ‘Which one should I keep?’ There was a blonde one and this was the sunburst. I kept this one and…

Maybe I won’t back down? What? Rickenbacker 660-12 Where seen? PMT Online Price? £2,739 Description? Well, looky here. I’ve always loved the ‘cresting wave’ style of the 620 and 660 Ricky 12 models as often played by Tom Petty, more than the bulbous 330 or 360 preferred by George Harrison, Pete Townshend and REM’s Peter Buck.And this 660-12 in Ruby Red, with the gorgeous chequerboard binding and gold plastics, is simply stunning. With two slightly higher-output single coils than the old ‘toaster top’ types and a comprehensive tone and switching circuit that allows clever and musical blending of pickups, it’s a most appealing proposition. Sadly, this one is ‘to order’, but there are several 620-12s around in black and Fireglo Sunburst.Yes, they are pretty much a one-trick pony, but when…

Sometimes a strummed chord sequence is all a song needs – songs are generally all about the vocal, after all. However, the guitar’s role in popular music has always been more complex than that, whether we’re talking about funky rhythmic chord fragments, heavy metal riffs, or fingerstyle acoustic progressive rock. What these things have in common is the harmonic content is usually more complex than can be illustrated in a simple chord progression. When played in order, this selection of shapes based around the A major chord demonstrates a descending pattern (we’ve omitted the regular A major shape for space purposes). It’s a bit like Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds – or reverse to an ascending pattern for Raining In My Heart. There are lots of other examples, too.…

Ariel Posen How Long Independent The Canadian slide maestro stepped out from his regular gig with The Bros Landreth to deliver a solo album rich in scorching guitar tone and mature songwriting. Kirk Fletcher Hold On Independent Effortlessly tasteful blues phrasing and a voice that growls and purrs in equal measure, Kirk’s first album has been deservedly nominated for BMA’s best contemporary blues album of the year. Jason Becker Triumphant Hearts Music Theories Recordings Former shredder Jason has overcome innumerable odds to continue his career as a musician, this album calling on the talents of players such as Vai and Paul Gilbert to voice his compositions. Eric Gales The Bookends Provogue Hailed by his contemporaries as one of the greatest guitarists on the planet, Eric’s recent appearance at London’s UK…

What was the first gig you played and how did it go? “That’s a tough one. If I remember correctly then it was playing for a band at the local community centre, across the street from where I grew up in a small town on the Jersey Shore. I was playing baritone saxophone and my brother was conducting this little band and I can’t even imagine how horrible it sounded. That was the first gig I remember, but not playing guitar. “I certainly remember the first electric guitar I got and working with my own little band called Highway. Our best gigs were opening for Bruce Springsteen, because he was a local and he used to play our high school dances, which was pretty wild.” Describe your current stage rig……

This year I’ve owned a pair of Fender Custom Shop NOS guitars, a ’69 Stratocaster and ’51 ‘Nocaster’, two Rickenbacker 330s (birth years 1980 and 1996), a Gibson R8 Les Paul ‘Lemonburst’, a Rock N Roll Relics Thunders II and many, many more. 30 years ago, I could never have dreamed of owning, well, dream guitars like this. I had a secondhand Squier ‘JV’ Tele I snagged for £150. Yet none of the big-buck guitars above hung around long enough to require a string change, let alone pick up any fret wear. Frustrated, I bought a Fender Baja 60s Telecaster for £500, an early one with a rosewood fingerboard. I haven’t put this fantastic guitar down since it arrived. Sometimes you need to go back to basics to find what…

A couple of weeks ago, one of our reviewers wrote in to tell me that he’d heard from a  well-known parts retailer that one of the few remaining factories that manufacture valves was possibly facing relocation to a new site by order of the Chinese government. If true, it’s hard to see how that wouldn’t affect the availability of the valves we all know and love, as there are surprisingly few factories left in the world. There’s one in Russia, Reflector Corp, a couple of makers in China, some specialist makers in the States that mainly supply niche military valves, and JJ in the Czech Republic. But that’s about it – the seemingly wide variety of valve brands all being sourced from one of these remaining factories. The world won’t…

HUDSON ELECTRONICS BROADCAST-AP £189 Keen-eyed readers will have guessed the Broadcast-AP is an offshoot of Hudson’s original Broadcast, a superb ‘always on’ preamp/overdrive that could also do fuzz as well. The twist here is hinted at in those initials, which belong to Canadian guitarist Ariel Posen. Ariel was a devoted user of the stock Broadcast pedal who, after using it extensively on stage and in the studio, suggested some tweaks – this is the potent result. Gone is the germanium transistor, replaced by a silicon one that imparts a subtly more focused and toothsome drive tone. The pedal has also been designed around the lower of the two gain ranges the original could operate in – but the exclusive focus on those warm, blooming low-gain drive tones simply prioritises what,…

1 Asia-made knocks-offs! What are you writing about them for? Hold your horses. Yes, they’re made in Asia and, yes, they are modelled on obvious inspiration. Copy? Well, they’re all above board and legal after a settlement with Gibson a couple of years back. 2 Isn’t Trev Wilkinson involved in their design? Yes and no. He certainly helped to shape the Vintage line for the originators John Hornby Skewes here in the UK. As of 2019, however, he’s concentrating on his world-class own-brand hardware. 3 These are a bit cheap for Guitarist, though, aren’t they? And the problem is? As we conclude in our review, these are good pieces that would make excellent starter guitars, spares or modding platforms for those of us who like to tinker.…

PRICE: £429 ORIGIN: China TYPE: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric BODY: Mahogany with carved maple top NECK: Mahogany, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 627mm (24.7”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech NuBone XB/42.3mm FINGERBOARD: Single-bound Lignum Rosa, trapezoid inlays, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, medium jumbo HARDWARE: Wilkinson tune-omatic-style bridge, stopbar tailpiece, enclosed tuners– gold-plated STRING SPACING/BRIDGE: 52mm ELECTRICS: 2x Wilkinson W90 SK single-coil soapbars, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, volume and tone for each pickup WEIGHT (kg/lb): 4.3/9.46 OPTIONS: None with this pickup configuration. With twin-humbuckers and gold hardware the all-black V100BB is £399 RANGE OPTIONS: The V100 range kicks off with the NBTSB (£339); flame-top versions cost £399. The three-humbucker V1003 comes in Cherry Sunburst (£379), Arctic White and Boulevard Black (£429) LEFT-HANDERS: Not this model – see V100MP (right) FINISHES: Gloss black (as reviewed)…

FRAMUS PRO SERIES PANTHERA II SUPREME & D-SERIES DIABLO PRO £2,204 & £773 You gotta have some front to call your new electric guitar ‘Supreme’. It’s like a boxer nicknamed ‘The Killer’. The minute he’s stretchered from the ring unconscious, the game is well and truly up. In this instance, Framus has given its Panthera II Supreme contender every fighting chance to live up to its name with some high-spec gestures. Taking its cue from the mighty Gibson Les Paul Standard, the Panthera features a mahogany body with a thick and fabulous AAA maple cap. The top benefits from some beautiful German carving, which lowers the level of the volume and tone controls on the treble side, and on the bass side where the three-way pickup selector toggle switch resides.…

PRICE: £2,204 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Germany TYPE: Single-cut solidbody electric BODY: Mahogany with AAA flame maple top NECK: Mahogany fat profile, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 628mm (24.75”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech Black Tusq/43mm FINGERBOARD: Tigerstripe ebony, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, extra high jumbo HARDWARE: Chrome Tone Pros tuneo-matic bridge and stop tailpiece, Graph Tech Ratio locking tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52mm ELECTRICS: Seymour Duncan SH-11 Custom Custom humbucker (bridge), Seymour Duncan APH-1N Alnico II Pro humbucker (neck), individual pickup volumes, master tone with push/ pull coil split function, 3-way pickup selector toggle switch WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.7/8.3 RANGE OPTIONS: Panthera II Studio Supreme with Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro humbucker (neck), Alnico II Pro Staggered Single Coil (middle) and SH-5 Custom humbucker (bridge) in various colours (£2,294) LEFT HANDERS: Nirvana Black Transparent…

VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra Released more than 40 years ago, the original Maxon OD808/ Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer circuit is still considered a benchmark among overdrives. Tube Screamers and Tube Screamer-style pedals have endured as a pedalboard staple, with many builders compelled to put their own spin on the design. It can be tricky to navigate the marketing hyperbole, but in the overpopulated world of overdrive, EarthQuaker Devices’ Plumes stands out as a straightforward and genuinely worthy addition. Right now, EarthQuaker’s 808 kudos couldn’t be much stronger following Maxon’s official seal of approval. Soon after the Akron, Ohio firm released the Plumes ‘Small Signal Shredder’, a collaboration with Maxon was announced in the form of a limited run of 400 ‘Signal Shredder’ modified OD808-40E Overdrives to commemorate the original pedal’s 40th…

Writer DAVID MEAD, Guitarist, Deputy Editor After the CG-TA performed so well in his last two reports, David decided it was time to take it on a road trip… There’s nothing quite like a day out. I’d heard that acoustic master Richard Smith was going to be at Yamaha HQ in Milton Keynes and it seemed like an unmissable opportunity to place the CG-TA in the hands of a true maestro and hear what he could do with it. After all, it had to be better than subjecting it to yet more of my noodling. If you’re at all unfamiliar with Mr Smith’s skill, I’d urge you to proceed straight to YouTube and prepare to be amazed. If you’re into players such as Chet Atkins and John Knowles then you’re…

1. SERIAL NUMBER Factory order number (FON) comprises four-digit batch number followed by two-digit instrument rank number ink stamped on inside/back; ‘J45’ ink stamped on back brace 2. HEADSTOCK ‘Made In USA’ impressed into upper rear; gold silk-screened modernised Gibson logo; black nitrocellulose finish 3. HARDWARE Three-on-a-plate single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners; Brazilian rosewood upper belly bridge with fixed saddle 4. NECK Single-piece mahogany glued-in neck; unbound 19-fret Brazilian rosewood fingerboard with mother-of-pearl dot markers 5. BODY 16 inches wide; round shoulders; flat spruce top with Sunburst finish and three-ply (w/b/w) binding; w/b/w soundhole rings; single-bound mahogany back; mahogany sides 6. PLASTICS Black bridge pins; white tuner buttons; tortoiseshell celluloid teardrop pickguard; black ‘bell’ truss rod cover…

JEFF BECK There & Back Jeff’s album of the 80s retained some of the fusion feel of the previous decade, though Jan Hammer’s keyboards must have seemed futuristic at the time. Check out Jeff’s phrasing on Star Cycle with its tricky chord changes. The Pump has become a classic, with Jeff combining blues with some more Mixolydian (b7) ideas. The Final Peace is in the same tradition of Where Were You, but is more practical for those of who haven’t quite mastered extreme whammy. JEFF BECK Live at Ronnie Scott’s Recorded in what must have actually been quite challenging conditions on that tiny stage, Jeff nonetheless delivers a masterclass via his extensive back catalogue. High points are Angel (Footsteps), Nadia and a breathtaking version of The Beatles’ A Day In…

Electrics Fender Telebration Old Pine Whitewash Telecaster made from 100-year-old pine, very limited home use. £1,295. Contact Dave on 07966 217971. Durham Fender Telecaster USA Standard 2009, Trans Candy Apple Red, maple neck, chromed steel mirror scratchplate, original hard case, excellent condition. £800. Call Trev on 07813 257667 or email trevor.jessop@ntlworld.com. Swansea Fender ‘The Edge’ Signature guitar, used a handful of times, as new. £950. Contact 07902 198340 or email r.lomas925@btinternet.com 1980 Gibson Flying V, natural in excellent condition, though has slightly later Gibson HB pickups. £2,600. Contact 07773 276815. Cumbria Gibson Nighthawk Cherry, 3 pups, no Bigsby, jazz/blues delight, hard case. £825. Pickup only. Contact 01277 626595. Essex 1974 Gibson SG Standard Cherry, totally original, a few dings but in great condition, plays and sounds superb. £1,750 ono. Contact…

Building an acoustic guitar isn’t exactly rocket science, or is it? Spend a few minutes talking to Andy Powers, Taylor’s chief designer and father of the company’s V-Class bracing system, and you might begin to think otherwise. Tuning a 12-string is, for many, an onerous task, and the end result is often a compromise, but Taylor might just be offering frustrated 12-string veterans a little light at the end of the tunnel with its new 562ce. It’s the first 12-string in the catalogue that includes the V-Class bracing system, but the refinements haven’t stopped there. Andy has thought the entire process through and made a few design tweaks here and there that could usher in a brave new world of tuneful 12-string sonority. The eagle-eyed might have noticed the first…

PRICE: £799 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: Indonesia TYPE: Single-cutaway solidbody electric BODY: Mahogany NECK: Mahogany, Wide Fat profile, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 622mm (24.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Friction reducing/42.83mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, pearloid bird inlays, 254mm (10”) radius FRETS: 24, medium HARDWARE: PRS patented vibrato (cast), PRS designed tuners–nickel-plated STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm ELECTRICS: PRS TCI ‘S’ Treble and Bass humbuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, master volume and tone WEIGHT (kg/lb): 4.12/9.1 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: The double-cut 24-fret SE Santana also costs £799; the Core Santana Retro starts at £3,900. Other single-cut models with vibrato include the SE Mark Tremonti Standard (£475), SE Mark Tremonti Custom (£799) and Core Tremonti (from £3,499) LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Egyptian Gold only (as reviewed) PRS Europe 01223 874301 www.prsguitars.com PROS Big, beefy tones with clarity and definition;…

The Aristocrats 21 to 25 January Various UK arenas While his work with Hans Zimmer’s band has seen Guthrie Govan in a huge ensemble cast, his main band with Bryan Beller and drummer Marco Minnemann allows Guthrie’s playing imagination to run riot. He’s changing up his tones, too. While the Charvel player was instrumental in the development of Victory’s original V30 Countess head, he’s embraced the MkII model’s new Crunch mode. “That setting Americanises the sound a little bit,” he says. “Generally, I think of the Victory range as a hot-rodded Marshall kind of thing. The V2 mode is a bit more middle of the Atlantic; there’s a higher midrange focus. I’m glad they incorporated the switch so you still have the choice of reverting to the V30 of yesteryear,…

In 2019, I spent a good proportion of time at Abbey Road Studios recording the music for the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats. It was a real pleasure spending an extended period in such a legendary venue, especially at a time when the London session scene found itself being dealt a blow with the closing of Angel Recording Studios, one of the three main venues large enough to host a film orchestra (the third being Lyndhurst Hall in George Martin’s old studio AIR in Hampstead). This was the second time I’ve been brave enough to turn up to a film session without an amp and just use my Line 6 Helix with the tweaked Michael Britt presets. I reckon once you’ve had the okay from a couple…

“I’ve learned a lot in this process by not having any preconceived notions. Every string that we made was built from trial and error” We’re all familiar with boutique and custom guitar makers, but maybe you don’t think of string makers in quite the same way. Most of us grew up playing strings made by big-hitters such as D’Addario, Rotosound and Ernie Ball. As fine as their products are, as guitar players’ appreciation of the fine detail of tone and playability increases, a market for quality strings from alternative makers has flourished, too. With endorsees including Kirk Fletcher and Matt Schofield, Curt Mangan strings are fast acquiring a reputation for being a tone-conscious pro’s choice, especially if you’re looking for something a little different. Curious, we picked up the phone…

GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY Being a fan of rock music and having learned to play guitar in the late 70s/early 80s, my guitar heroes were (and still are) the likes of Alex Lifeson, Angus Young, Randy Rhoads, et al. Nevertheless, your interview with Molly Tuttle (issue 449) left me intrigued and so I decided to explore some of her work. Suitably impressed, my wife and I were then lucky enough to obtain tickets for her recent show at Bush Hall, London. Although not my usual musical genre, surrounded by her band of accomplished musicians, Molly engaged effortlessly with her audience, and her warm voice and beautifully crafted songs were an absolute pleasure to behold. However, it was her excellent guitar work that held me in awe and, thanks to Guitarist,…

Robbie Robertson, former backing guitarist for Bob Dylan and six-string mainspring for The Band, has a confession to make. He’s not really a rock musician. “You know, sometimes I have felt over the years – and maybe now more than ever – that in the songs I write, it’s almost like I’m scoring the songs [as if for a movie] instead of following some kind of rock ’n’ roll tradition,” he says, explaining that his richly emotive playing is often inspired by imaginary film scenes played out in his imagination. “There’s a mood, there’s a sound, there’s a heartbeat. There’s a thing going on that takes me inside the story and takes me inside this little movie that I’m writing. “It’s kind of a second nature for me,” he admits.…

Between ’86 and 2003 I worked in a music shop in Glasgow called McCormacks. The boss, the late Neil McCormack, visited the Fender factory in Fullerton in the early 1960s. He often recalled that Leo Fender told him heavy Strats and Teles were keepers; the featherweight ones were duds. Mr McCormack didn’t play guitar, neither did Leo, yet I’m sure that little piece of trivia has influenced many of my guitar-buying decisions. Fast-forward to today and thanks to a burgeoning love affair with a 2008 Custom Shop 50s Thinline Telecaster, I’ve changed my thinking. This thing is light enough to defy gravity yet is obese with tone and sustain. Okay, I have to coax it off the ceiling with a broom whenever I open its case, but I’m glad I’ve…

MESA ENGINEERING CALIFORNIA TWEED £2,550 The word Mesa evokes hot, hard-edged gain-slathered tones for many players, but, as it demonstrated with last year’s Fillmore 50, Mesa can do clean and crunch very ably indeed. This year, Mesa went further into the realms of tattered Tweed and vibey cleans with this little number. It’s powered by a quartet of 6V6s in the power stage – a lower-output counterpart to the 6L6, if you will, that breaks up a bit more organically and lies at the heart of many classic small US combos from the Princeton to the Deluxe Reverb. So far, so conventional. But the cool thing about the California Tweed is how deftly it harnesses those vibey little bottles to give you not only a range of output levels but…

PRICE: £399 ORIGIN: China TYPE: Single-cutaway, solidbody electric BODY: Mahogany with carved maple top NECK: Mahogany, glued-in SCALE LENGTH: 627mm (24.7”) NUT/WIDTH: Graph Tech NuBone XB/42.07mm FINGERBOARD: Single-bound Lignum Rosa, trapezoid inlays, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, medium jumbo HARDWARE: Wilkinson tune-o-maticstyle bridge, stopbar tailpiece, Grover 102 tuners with keystone buttons – gold-plated STRING SPACING/BRIDGE: 52mm ELECTRICS: 2x Wilkinson WOHHB uncovered humbuckers, 3-way toggle pickup selector switch, volume and tone for each pickup WEIGHT (kg/lb): 4.44/9.77 OPTIONS: None with this pickup configuration RANGE OPTIONS: Other artist-inspired models include the V100PGM Lemon Drop (£449), the V100AFD (£439) and the V100 Midge Ure (£499) LEFT-HANDERS: Not this model, but LV100s start at £399 in a choice of colours FINISHES: Natural – maple gloss (as reviewed) PROS Again, tidy build for the price;…

1 I thought Framus made basses… The German brand, established in 1946, attracted attention when kids like Bill Wyman and Ronnie Lane were spotted using its basses in the 60s. The brand ceased trading in ’75 before being revived 20 years later by Warwick. Framus is now established as predominantly a guitar brand. 2 Why are these prices so far apart? Framus guitars come in three series: there’s the Custom Shop Masterbuilt in Germany guitars; the Pro Series, Teambuilt in Germany; and the Standard D-Series, sourced in China. 3 Who’s playing these things? Endorsees include Motörhead icon Phil Campbell, Mick Jagger sideman Stevie Salas, and Phil X, Richie Sambora’s successor in Bon Jovi.…

PRICE: £773 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: China TYPE: Double-cut offset solidbody electric BODY: Basswood NECK: Maple, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Graphite/43mm FINGERBOARD: Tigerstripe ebony with dot inlays, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 22, jumbo HARDWARE: Chrome Framusbranded Wilkinson vibrato, Framus die-cast tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 54mm ELECTRICS: Seymour Duncan TB-4 JB Trembucker (bridge), Seymour Duncan SSL-1 RW/RP Vintage Staggered single coil (middle), Seymour Duncan SCR-1n Cool Rail humbucker (neck), master volume, master tone with push/pull coil split function, five-way pickup selector blade switch WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.6/8.1 RANGE OPTIONS: Other Diablos include the Supreme (£809) and Diablo Progressive X (£790) – both available left-handed, too LEFT HANDERS: Nirvana Black Transparent Satin finish only (£773) FINISHES: Natural Transparent Satin (as reviewed), Nirvana Black Transparent Satin, Burgundy Red Transparent Satin PROS The Seymour…

VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra Origin Effects’ RevivalDRIVE Custom pedal was something of a revelation to us when we reviewed it in issue 434. Here was a superbly engineered analogue drive pedal that we concluded felt and sounded like playing through a sorted vintage amp, with an ability to mimic several different ones. To allow all the nuanced adjustment of parameters that it was capable of, though, the pedal was absolutely covered with knobs and switches, and its eye-watering price (£559; £459 for the standard version), although justified, must have put it out of reach of many potential users. Perhaps something more compact, easier to dial in and less expensive would find itself gracing more pedalboards? That pedal is now here in the form of the RevivalDRIVE Compact, a single-channel pedalboard-friendly pedal…

1 What was the first pedal you built and how did the design come about? “I took an electronics program back in 2003 and one of my instructors showed me how transistors can be used to make simple guitar effects. So I got onto Aron Nelson’s pedal forum [www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum] where there was a booster pedal project. That was where I got started and the first time I’d built anything I plugged a guitar into. “After cutting my teeth with that stuff, I decided to make something that was a big, mean fuzz guitar tone and around 2004 I came up with the [Dr Scientist] Frazz Dazzler.” 2 What do you think makes Dr Scientist unique? “Dr Scientist is a value-focused company and I think we try really hard to give…