Innehållsförteckning för October 2022 från Guitarist

Not every guitarist gets into using effects pedals (see cover story, page 54), but those who do often find them a lifelong interest that’s as much a part of their passion for guitars as a good Tele or a tweed combo. The first pedal I ever bought was from Dan Hawkins of The Darkness. We were teenagers then, long before he won fame with the band. Jamming in his garage, we played around with Boss pedals, which were new things to us then. Eventually, he sold me a DS-1, which was the first effect I ever bought. Like so many other pieces of gear I’d like to have back again, that one’s long gone and, truth be told, although it’s a classic, I wouldn’t have much use for one these…

FIRST PLAY FENDER PRO JUNIOR IV SE 1X10 COMBO £399 WHAT IS IT? 15-watt all-valve combo, finished in black Tolex with a silver grille Fender’s highly popular Pro Junior was an instant hit when it was launched back in 1993 and continues to be a favourite secret weapon for many top artists, regularly found hiding behind walls of 100-watt 4x12 stacks at live shows. We often talk about the classic tweed and black-panel designs dating back to the 1950s and 60s. However, the Pro and Blues amps from the early 90s are largely unaltered and still in production today, making them possibly the longest-running in Fender’s history. The latest Mark IV core version of the Pro Junior features lacquered tweed and a Jensen P10R Alnico speaker, which looks and sounds…

FIRST PLAY ACLAM THE WOMAN TONE £299 WHAT IS IT? A tribute in a pedal to one aspect of Eric Clapton’s sound during the Cream days We’ve all heard it, haven’t we? Eric Clapton’s ‘woman’ tone on Cream songs such as I Feel Free and Sunshine Of Your Love is legendary. Showcased by the man himself in the documentary of Cream’s 1968 farewell concert, it’s a fulsome rounded tone that sings with midrange while still being a touch edgy, and is achieved in part by rolling back the tone pots on the guitar. In the documentary Eric demonstrates it using his psychedelically painted 1964 SG Standard through his Marshall stack, but Aclam has rightly concluded that we haven’t all got this vintage gear and designed a pedal to get close…

NEVILLE’S ADVOCATE Now, I don’t want to bore you with why I now have a Les Paul Goldtop with P-90s, so I’ll just say I traded the Jazzmaster for it. It’s actually from the first ever run of 12 Tom Murphy aged ones, ordered by a big Japanese dealer in 2000. Mine was made just before Tom started secreting his initials in the cracks on the top, but it has been verified by GuitarGuitar, from where it initially came, and double authenticated by World Guitars, from whom I got it. Anyhow, I love it. But – the usual ‘but’ with a P-90 guitar – it’s pretty darned noisy. So, chatting to Aynsley Lister about his gig at the Cheese & Grain in Frome (where Macca recently played his infamous pre-Glasto…

STAR LETTER IN SEARCH OF THE SOUND I’ve been playing electric guitars since 1965. My first was a Futurama 3, played through an amp made out of a Regentone television. Although I have collected a really nice range of guitars over the years, for me it has always been about ‘the sound’. Over the years, often to the chagrin of my bandmates, I have used a series of combinations of guitars, pedals and amps to try to get ‘the sound’, but all too often failing. On a whim, in January this year, I bought a [Line 6] Variax 600, which was fitted with a Roland GK-3 pickup, plus a Roland GR-20 synthesiser pedal. Although I have certainly played much better guitars, the Variax gives me more than 20 guitar emulations…

HISTORIC HARDWARE We recently observed that the ES-225 is to a pre-1956 Les Paul Goldtop what a ES-335 is to a ’Burst. If you compare an ES-225 from 1956 with any pre-1956 Goldtop, you’ll notice identical pickups, potentiometers, tone capacitors, control knobs and switches. Assuming the guitar in question is original, even the truss rod cover and nylon nut are the same. ES-225 neck profiles and frets evolved throughout the 1950s, and they tracked the Les Paul models very closely. Besides the buttons, the Kluson tuners are identical, too, so that leaves the thinline body as the only significant point of difference. Even the trapeze bridge is a throwback to the earliest Les Pauls and it actually enhances the ES-225 – but more on that later. The Skinny During the…

G&L’s Doheny in Belair Green (£2,038) is a fabulous-looking offset. Its American basswood body, maple neck (with reverse colour-matched headstock) and rosewood ’board are classic fare, while highlights include its wide-bodied MFD pickups and Dual-Fulcrum vibrato. A vintage-styled guitar that plays like a high-class modern machine. PJD’s chambered St John Standard (£1,899) is another contender available with or without an f-hole on the light ash body. Features here include roasted maple neck with a compound 254mm to 305mm (10- to 12-inch) radius fingerboard, Cream T pickups and Gotoh hardware. While not an offset shape, Reverend’s Greg Koch Gristle 90 signature (£1,479) in Tosa Turquoise features a similar raised centre section to our Juliets. With its twin Fishman P90 pickups (see this issue’s Mod Squad) and Bigsby B-50 vibrato, the guitar…

J ROCKETT UNI-VERB £465 CONTACT FACE bvba PHONE +32 3 844 67 97 WEB www.rockettpedals.com What You Need To Know 1 Uni-Verb? That sounds familiar but different… Exactly! J Rockett has created its own version of the Uni-Vibe like it did with its Clockwork Echo version of the DMM, but it’s added a spring reverb emulation hence Uni-Verb – a perfect description of the pedal. 2 Okay, but why three footswitches? Well, there’s one footswitch for the Uni-Vibe and one for the Reverb, so you can use them independently of each other. The third footswitch toggles between the two modes: Chorus and Vibrato. 3 I like to put a drive pedal after a modulation effect but not after reverb… Can I do that here? There’s no…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money? “Well, it was actually a bass because I started off playing bass. And after learning to play on a homemade one, I then saved up and got a Höfner violin bass – you know, a Paul McCartney special. But as far as a guitar goes, it was a Fender Tele. I remember going into a shop in Sweden and I tried a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Telecaster. Of the two, I immediately went for the Fender; I found the Les Paul very, very heavy, much heavier than the Tele, and it seemed very unwieldy as well. It just wasn’t flying while I was playing it, you know? I felt it was very leaden. But the Fender…

New pickups, tuners, bridge and a top nut all add to the modding cost. So here’s a list of our spends (totalling £665.95): • Fishman Fluence Signature Series Greg Koch Gristle-Tone P90 pickup set: £375 www.fishman.com • PRS SE Locking Tuners: £89 • PRS Stoptail Studs (Metric) Unplated Polished Brass: £12 • PRS Stoptail Bridge (with studs) Unplated Polished Aluminium: £183 https://uk.prsaccessories.com • WD Music Bone Nut Blank for Gibson: £6.95 www.wdmusic.co.uk…

12-Bar Acoustic Blues NOW AND AGAIN, it’s good to put electric guitars and their associated paraphernalia aside and sit down with an acoustic to make some music. But keeping the rhythmic and melodic interest happening as a solo performer is a very different proposition to playing in the context of a band or, come to think of it, even a duo. I have unapologetically gone for E, the easiest key to execute these ideas, though it could be argued that I’m also following in the footsteps of the greats and playing to the strengths of the acoustic guitar! Of course, it’s perfectly possible to play in other keys while keeping lots of open strings by using a capo, but you do lose a bit of resonance that way. If anything,…

HARLEY BENTON FUSION-T HH ROASTED FNT £319 Affordable and high-spec, this flame maple-veneered T-type model has a Canadian roasted flamed-maple neck, stainless-steel frets, Wilkinson 50IIK two-point vibrato and Graph Tech Tusq nut. The humbuckers are the brand’s own Roswell LAF Alnico-5 models, and while the natural blonde may not be to everyone’s taste, it’s available in a number of finishes. www.harleybenton.com SQUIER CLASSIC VIBE ’50S STRATOCASTER £389 You know where you are with a Strat and this one from Squier’s Classic Vibe range has you covered from Hank to Frusciante. With its pine body, slightly homogenised C-shape neck and 241mm (9.5-inch) radius, it has all the hallmarks of a one-for-all workhorse: a trio of Alnico single coils, the five-way switch, six-saddle bridge, vintage-style vibrato, and four familiar finishes. www.fender.com EPIPHONE…

Guitarist isn’t just your 13-issues-a-year helping of guitar greatness. We also produce a stunning range of spin-off specials available both in print and in-app. And, as a taster for what we produce, we’d like to offer you a free digital copy of one of our most popular Guitarist Presents specials. We present some of the finest and rarest existing examples of milestone original instruments in this compendium of tone In Guitarist Presents: Historic Hardware, you can explore the beauty, craft and heritage of more than 66 stunning vintage guitars, from the 1933 National Duolian resonator to the legendary 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard. Our reference-grade companion is essential for all guitarists who want to immerse themselves in the history of some of the greatest 20th-century guitar makers. PLUS! FIND YOU…

FIRST PLAY POSITIVE GRID SPARK MINI £219 WHAT IS IT? A ‘connected’ practice amp with built-in amp and effects modelling, Bluetooth app and much more San Diego-based amp modelling master Positive Grid really found its stride with the Spark practice amplifier, which combined the brand’s amp modelling software with a clever app that put the fun back into learning an instrument for many thousands of happy customers. Now, there’s an even more compact version that promises the same fun in a clever scaled-down package: the Spark Mini. Small enough to fit on practically any desktop, the Spark Mini is reassuringly weighty, while sharing the same good looks as its bigger sibling. It’s available in black or pearl white Tolex, with gold piping and a choice of two speaker grille designs,…

CONFESSIONS OF A LUTHIER The wonderful thing about a hand-crafted guitar – especially an old one – is its uniqueness. It might be the addition of a flash of colourful veneer, the particular profiling of a brace, or the tactile transition of a heel: these details all bear the hallmarks of an instrument’s creator. Occasionally in the workshop I lazily delegate the background music to the algorithms of my mobile phone. Every now and again I will catch a piece of music I’ve never heard before, yet still be able to identify the musician from the idiosyncrasies of their playing. I like to think the same is true of a good guitar maker; you don’t necessarily need a label or fancy logo to tell the world who your guitars are…

INTERVIEWDom Martin “My father held me over a guitar the day I was born and I just kicked it and scratched it and cried on it. And it’s been that way for 31 years…” While this sounds like a voiceover at the beginning of a biopic, it may well end up that way if Belfast blueser Dom Martin’s career trajectory remains on its current course. Fresh from a UK tour supporting Eric Gales, armed with a partscaster Tele and backed by bass player Dave Thompson and drummer Laurence McKeown in the classic blues-rock power-trio format, Dom delivered performances that garnered praise from fans and critics alike. The tour embellished an already impressive list of endorsements and awards, but that’s not all. Dom is also a seriously good acoustic guitarist with…

Three years ago – virtually to the day – we were chatting to Seth Baccus for our review on a superb £4k Nautilus Classic. To say we were impressed with his craft is an understatement. To be fair, Seth had shipped his first custom-order guitar a decade earlier after 12 years in retail at Mansons Guitar Shop, with eight as the manager, and had built his first guitar in 2004. He’d also been an on-the-road tech for the likes of John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin’s reunion and local megastars Muse. Back then he was making around 20 instruments a year with an approximate build-time of nine months. Shortly after that, like many sole custom-guitar makers, he reached a crossroads. “I was turning away so much work,” Seth recalls. “[From] dealers…

Robin Trower has been a keen exponent of earlier versions of Fulltone’s take on the Uni-Vibe for quite some time. This latest iteration, the Fulltone Custom Shop Mini DejáVibe mkII (£219), is more pedalboard-friendly. Effectrode’s Tube-Vibe (£359) is a UK-made redesign of the classic Uni-Vibe that uses photocells and a pulsating filament lamp but substitutes valve circuitry for transistors. Nevermind Uni-Vibe and Reverb in one pedal, how about that classic combination of Uni-Vibe and fuzz for a familiar fuzzy psychedelic swirl? Carl Martin’s Purple Moon (£97) steps up to the job. Elsewhere, TC Electronic’s Viscous Vibe (£89) is equipped with TC’s TonePrint facility, meaning you can load this with factory or artist-created variations on the effect or create your own with the software editor. Jim Dunlop owns the Uni-Vibe name…

Pretty much every pickup maker produces its own version of the legendary Gibson P-90 single coil. For a pickup that has been in production since 1946, there are now zillions of different flavours to choose from. Some like their P-90s hotter, great for rockier-intended Juniors and Specials, not least at the bridge. Others might want something with a cleaner voice, like you might hear from a Gibson archtop or thinline in neck position: the sound of jazz in the late 50s. Then there’s the jangly P-90. On it goes… “Fishman’s Fluence Greg Koch Gristle-Tone P90 is a fully hum-cancelling active design” Pickup makers all have their own spin. They’ll create different versions, cool, warm, hot and hotter. Some offer tapped outputs for cool and hot from one pickup, and others…

Speaker Drivers When it comes to electric guitar tone, there’s the big stuff and the small stuff. The former may include our choices of guitar and amplifier, while the latter includes valves, cables, pickups, plectrums and so forth. While every factor in the tone equation is undeniably important, guitarists often sweat the small stuff while failing to consider the big picture. Given the enormous impact that speakers have on guitar tone, it’s surprising how little consideration they’re given. Studio and hi-fi amps and speakers are designed to be sonically neutral, but if you’ve ever tried playing guitar through a hi-fi, you’ll know how dreadful it sounds. Guitar speakers are non-linear lo-fi devices and their response is engineered to de-emphasise harsh high frequencies and roll off unnecessary bass. More importantly, though,…

Welcome to Guitarist’s Guitar Buyer’s Guide 2022 featuring our pick of the best-value and best-performing electric guitars currently on the market, plus a choice selection of quality acoustic guitars to round out your collection. Extensively updated and expanded for 2022, this guide features over 130 instruments, granting you a birds-eye view of the most compelling new guitars we’ve covered in Guitarist, with handy details of spec, price and unique features at your fingertips. The coverage starts with entry-level guitars costing less than £400 and ranges upwards to hand-crafted masterpieces that represent the pinnacle of guitar making in 2022. With each passing year, the gap between those two poles grows smaller as high-end production techniques and materials filter down into even the most affordable parts of the market. Who’d have thought…

IBANEZ AS73G-PBM £509 The AS73G-PBM brings home the classic semi-acoustic format for a steal. Two humbuckers, each with volume and tone controls, meet a Linden-wood top, back and sides, bound walnut fingerboard and traditional gold hardware. It comes in a choice of three eye-catching flat finishes (Black, Rose Gold Metallic and Metallic Purple) or gloss Prussian Blue Metallic. www.ibanez.com EPIPHONE SG STANDARD ’61 MAESTRO VIBROLA £549 A gem from Epiphone’s Inspired by Gibson Collection, this mahogany-bodied double-cut has a SlimTaper profile mahogany neck and a 304.8mm (12-inch) radius Indian laurel ’board with trapezoid inlays. Onboard are a Maestro Vibrola tailpiece with LockTone ABR tune-o-matic bridge, Epiphone Deluxe Vintage tuners, dual ProBucker pickups and CTS pots. www.epiphone.com JOE DOE BY VINTAGE PUNKASTER £599 Brighton-based custom builder Joe Doe Guitars is all…

FRIST PLAY MANSON META MBM‑2SF SUSTAINIAC W/ FUZZ FACTORY £1,349 WHAT IS IT? The latest Matt Bellamy model from the affordable Meta range, which packs in a Sustainiac and a custom-order Z.Vex Fuzz Factory In 2015, Manson Guitar Works teamed up with Cort to deliver a much-requested affordable guitar based on the Muse frontman’s stage instruments. The result was the MBC-1, which at the time was lavished with praise for being not only a great signature model but also an all-round superlative £500 electric. With its HS pickup configuration, kill switch, stealthy matt black finish and satin neck, it was hard for Muse fans and guitarists wanting a versatile instrument to find fault. A lot has changed since then. Hugh Manson has hung up his chisel and Matt Bellamy is…

FIRST PLAY FENDER AMERICAN ACOUSTASONIC TELECASTER ALL-MAHOGANY £1,749 WHAT IS IT? Latest in Fender’s Acoustasonic range of solidbody-sized electro-acoustics, with mahogany back and neck Typical of a new-design guitar in modern times, Fender’s American Acoustasonic Telecaster had the online world in a right ol’ lather back at its launch at Winter NAMM in 2019. It remains a polarising guitar, but strong sales have not only increased production space at Fender’s manufacturing HQ in Corona, it has also brought about a string of subsequent models. Both the Strat and Jazzmaster have received the Acoustasonic treatment, there’s a stripped-down Mexican-made Player version, and Fender seems to be regularly spicing up the range with things such as exotic-wood tops, paisley finishes and, announced earlier this year, an all-mahogany Telecaster and Jazzmaster. The Acoustasonic…

Artist: Robben Ford Album: Common Ground (MPS) The first time Robben Ford teamed up with Bill Evans in recent years was on 2019’s The Sun Room. Fuelled by the success of that album, both from the point of view of public interest and the musical synergy both displayed during its course, a sequel seemed a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, Robben’s landmark solo record, Pure [2021] was garnering high praise from all who heard it. Here, we discuss Robben’s new collaboration and take a look at his approach to improvisation and his plans to take time out from touring. How did you begin working with Bill Evans? “Bill and I had been working together off and on over the years. Just a little tour here, a little gig in New York there,…

SUBSTITUTE Having taken a look at 6th chords last time, this seemed the right moment to check out their minor counterpart – and, while we’re at it, clear up some of the confusion that often arises between the naming conventions for chords versus isolated intervals. Chord extensions are always named from their position in the major scale, even when applied to minor chords. The first three examples here are different voicings of Emin6. The ‘Emin’ part of the name tells us this is a minor chord, and the ‘6’ part tells us there is a (major) 6th also present, in this case C#. If we want to alter an extension, we don’t use the terms major or minor like we would when dealing with isolated intervals. We would say sharp…

The longest-running UK guitar ‘factory’, Gordon Smith has an impressive range from the start-up GS1 (from £899) through to its 2021-introduced Gatsby (from £1,299) offset and the new Firebird-inspired reverse and non-reverse Griffin (also from £1,200). All models have a substantial options list that can be ordered from the website’s drop-down menus. Canterbury-based Alister Atkin is known for his small team-built acoustics, but in 2021 introduced a range of well-received Fender-inspired obeche-bodied electrics priced around £2,999, depending on options, and has just introduced an original-style offset. Cream T’s second design, the Crossfire, is a classy offset with licensed Relish pickup swapping and Cream T pickups. It’s another new UKGB-built guitar that uses an obeche body, and the Standard costs £1,799 without pickups, £2,099 with two pickups and £2,299 with four…

For a company that has had considerable success with its Gibson-inspired electric models, such as the solidbody SB59/v single-cut and the more Junior-style SB55/v and SB55DC/v, not to mention the laminate thinline T64/v, the release of the Romeo looked a little out of place. That is, until we played the guitar. “A thoroughly modern take on the electric archtop, built exceptionally well,” we said after we’d tested it back in issue 459. Conceived by Otto D’Ambrosio, who heads up Eastman’s USA design and custom shop in Pomona, California, Romeo signalled a shift after Eastman founder, Qian Ni, saw the design in its prototype stage and stated: “This is the way the future of Eastman should look.” Along with another version, Romeo-SC – which swapped its custom wound Lollar Imperial pickups…

BLUEPRINT: Gibson Noel Gallagher ES-355 Noel Gallagher has played many iconic Gibson and Epiphone semis over the years, both with Oasis and in his solo work. But few are as significant as his beautiful Cherry Red ES-355, which, until now, had never been replicated by Gibson. But with the company’s Murphy Lab currently producing more accurately aged guitars than ever, the time seemed ripe to capture the detail of Noel’s original – a stunning 1960 model with an unusually slim neck – in a highly accurate limited-run replica of that celebrated 355, plus a more affordable Epiphone Riviera model based on another of his Oasis instruments. Lee Bartram, Gibson’s head of marketing operations EU and lifelong Oasis fan, tells us the story. How did the Noel Gallagher ES-355 project get…

Gibson Les Paul/SG TV Gibson entered the solidbody electric guitar market in 1952 with the introduction of the Les Paul Model/Goldtop. In 1954, the single-cutaway Les Paul range was expanded to include the top-of-the-line ‘black beauty’ Custom and the single P-90-pickup Sunburst finish Junior, while the following year saw the introduction of the dual-P-90 Limed Mahogany finish Special. Although the Junior was aimed at students, before the end of the decade Gibson was advertising the stripped-back, no-frills guitar as “a favorite with students and advanced players”. Indeed, the design has been seen in the hands of many pro guitarists over the years, notably Leslie West, Mick Ralphs, Steve Howe, Keith Urban, Billie Joe Armstrong and Charlie Starr. Expanding on the student theme, Gibson simultaneously produced ¾-sized Juniors during the 50s,…

No aspect of the gear world is more exciting than electric guitars. And the good news is that great electrics are to be found at all price points today. The rise of Indonesia as a high-spec manufacturing hotspot in recent years has been particularly significant, producing dazzling instruments at prices within reach of nearly all players. And as you go up in price, the choices only become more tempting… UNDER £500 The affordable end of the market is crowded with contenders for your coin like never before, which is why we’ve devoted a section of this Buyer’s Guide to the Under £500 range of electrics, a price band that today contains some astonishingly well-spec’d guitars. Stainless-steel frets, roasted maple necks, relicing and tolerably accurate reissues can all be found for…

CHARVEL PRO-MOD DK22 SSS 2PT CM £1,119 This Mexican-made Dinky-body bolt-on has all the key points of the ‘progressive’ guitar, from its graphite-reinforced caramelised maple neck, Gotoh Custom 510 vibrato, Seymour Duncan pickups and Luminlay side dots. Its relatively flat compound radius fingerboard suggests it’s just built for speed, but it’s surprisingly good in a cleaner world, too. www.charvel.com FENDER AMERICAN PERFORMER TELECASTER HUM £1,299 This oddly named model takes the standard Performer Tele and replaces its neck single coil with a covered DoubleTap humbucker that offers a single-coil mode, widening the tonal scope significantly. Tradition and modernity are balanced elsewhere between the three-brass-saddle bridge design and Fender’s ClassicGear tuners, which look and perform superbly. www.fender.com GORDON SMITH GATSBY FROM £1,299 Taking things in a different direction, the Gatsby is…

Welcome to the section of our 2022 Buyer’s Guide that is devoted to the craft and finesse of acoustic guitars. Unlike the electric guitars in the preceding pages, we haven’t broken the selection up into separate price bands but put our choices into ascending price order in one convenient place. Before plunging in, however, we thought it might be helpful to refresh your mind about the major types of acoustic guitar and the tonewoods they’re made of – as these details dictate so much about the sound and performance of the instrument. DREADNOUGHT The most easily identifiable acoustic body shape is the dreadnought – based on the classic Martin D-28 (rosewood body) and D-18 models (mahogany body) that were first built in the early 30s, though there were earlier precedents…