Innehållsförteckning för August 2017 från Total Guitar

It’s that time of year again, where the sun is (hopefully) shining, but being outdoors more doesn’t mean you have to play guitar less. In fact, we reckon that summer time and playing guitar go hand-in-hand. So, this month we’ve put together a raft of features to inspire you to pick up your acoustic and play more this summer. There’s everything from our guide to body shapes and tonewoods, 20 Tips To Help You Play Better, through guides on starting out with busking, getting a better live sound and how to use looper pedals. Elsewhere, there’s tab for Gary Moore’s masterpiece Parisienne Walkways, an acoustic arrangement of Mumford & Sons’ Little Lion Man, Rush’s The Spirit Of Radio and Catfish & The Bottlemen’s Cocoon. On top of all of this,…

GEAR Powerage Sometimes less is more, and that seems especially true with the size of units on pedalboards these days. The latest contribution to that ethos is Seymour Duncan’s PowerStage 170 (£445), a power amp that fits on your ’board and is designed to be used with its neighbouring stompboxes and modelling units. It can run into a speaker via its four-ohm output and offers the added versatility of a being a clean channel or general tone sculpter via its three-band EQ. WHEN Now LIVE True Vintage Any fans of gypsy jazz should make a beeline for the grounds of Eastnor Castle Deer Park this month for the Vintage Escape Festival. It’s a celebration of jazz and swing music with top players including Remi Harris (pictured), Gary Potter, Denny Ilett,…

1 “Not too long ago I used to play a Gibson and it was beat up, so for a laugh I tweeted saying, ‘Someone buy me a new guitar,’ and then Mark Hoppus from Blink-182 replied and said, ‘Hey, do you want me to talk to Fender?’, which was mental. We were like, ‘Yes please!’. Now they’ve gifted us with these new Offset guitars and we’re stoked. What a weird way for that to happen…” 2 “I like the size of these guitars, I think they’re 609mm (24-inch) scale and it’s really lightweight. I used to play a really heavy guitar and this is way easier to throw around. It fits well in my hands. I’ve got really small baby hands so it makes sense for me. I think my…

CHEAT SHEET… Appears at: 0:00-0:27 Tempo: 100-135bpm Key/scale: E Mixolydian / Chromatic scale Main techniques: Pull-offs / fast fretting Most of the action in Alex Lifeson’s classic intro lick happens on the first string at the 2nd, 4th and 5th frets, with pull-offs to the open string helping to give momentum. It should feel fairly natural to use your first, third and fourth fingers – and this leaves your second finger free to play the 3rd fret note on the second string. This means all your fingers are used in the order of the frets they land on. In typical prog fashion, the structure of the music isn’t obvious, so we’ve broken it down into short sections. Start by playing phrase 1 six times, then follow up with phrase 2…

Mike’s huge tone is the result of some canny signal splitting to multiple amps with octave effects – splitting the bass and effected tones. A layered sound filling the frequencies is something guitarists in a two-piece can benefit from with these three units that can help you to play two roles at once. Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, £194 Mike uses a POG 2 but there is a cheaper way down. This enables two signal chains and the potential for the guitar to provide two different roles in your sound at once: both guitar and bass. Go to one or two octaves down, or one octave up in your tuning. So you can effectively set it one octave down to bring in added bass girth alongside your guitar signal. Fender 2-Switch ABY…

Sitka spruce Native to North America and Canada this is the most common wood for acoustic tops. It offers a good mix of strength, clarity and dynamic range over a variety of styles and looks. German and Engelmann spruce varieties are less common and exhibit similar tonal qualities. German spruce is popular for classical and Engelmann is regarded as an upgrade to Sitka, for its lightness and richness. Adirondack spruce This is often found on premium models as a top wood (it’s rather expensive) but Taylor Guitars founder Bob Taylor claims that if it’s used on bracing alone with a Sitka spruce top you’ll still get 80 percent of the benefit. Another North American and Canadian wood, the springy qualities of adirondack means that it loves to be driven hard…

DIGITECH JAMMAN EXPRESS XT £85 The Express XT is a great entry-level looper, thanks to its easy-to-read rec/dub/play indicators, 10 minutes of looping time and ability to run on batteries or from a power supply. Plus, if you ever expand your rig, it can sync up with other DigiTech loopers, via its +function. TC ELECTRONIC DITTO X2 LOOPER £149 TC’s dual-footswitch’d take on its tiny Ditto Looper, the X2 boasts a separate footswitch for play/stop functions, as well as reverse and half-speed FX. Stereo operation, five minutes of loop time and the ability to import and export loops are also onboard. BOSS RC-300 LOOP STATION £465 The daddy of all loopers features three synchronised stereo tracks, expression control, 16 effects and the ability to record up to three hours of…

“There were lots of new techniques for me on Midnight,” says Lewis. “Ant came to the studio with the Teenage Engineering OP-1 synth and it opened a lot of doors for us. I was able to create synths to add atmospheric texture or fill-out a kick drum. Also in the studio they had a Hammond with a Leslie speaker and we would record four-minute segments of it spinning and pitch-shift it to the key of the song and just have it as an undercurrent. In a few songs it’s inaudible, but if we took it out, we’d miss it. Then we had this homemade compression pedal. It was just a silver box made by Chris the engineer’s mate and it sounded incredible. It sounded so sick and so warm in…

1 VOX AC30 RADIO Following in the footsteps of Marshall and Roland, Vox has launched its own radio and portable speaker with the company’s classic AC30 styling. What’s more, it’s got a clock and alarm but, then, you’d hope so for £65. Unusually, it’s an old-school AM/FM device, but it does boast a search function, an aux input and headphone output. The radio delivers a 2W output via two 3-inch speakers, and operates on six AA batteries. (£65, www.voxamps.com) 2 VIGIER V-GEAR CORDURA GIG BAG Famed luthier Vigier has begun producing its own accessories under the name V-Gear and first up is this crème de la crème of gig bags with a velour padded interior to keep your axe scratch-free, plus a waterproof Cordura outer material. The bag is bolstered…

“WELL-ENGINEERED WITH BAGS OF PERSONALITY” 1 TAILPIECE  The chunky Bigsby-licensed vibrato expertly treads the line between sensitivity and strength. The handle tucks away neatly, too, to avoid accidental brushes with your arm. 2 PICKUPS  Two Super HiLo’Tron humbuckers serve up a smorgasbord of interesting sounds. Everything from raw, edgy riffs to warm, mid-heavy solos are fair game here. 3 CENTRE BLOCK  A block of solid spruce goes some way to taming feedback and making high volume or high-gain performance a much more viable proposition. Gretsch exists almost as a window to a different era of guitars. You’d never look at a Gretsch and think it looks futuristic, but that’s not the point. A Gretsch guitar has always meant high grade and vintage-flavoured and they excel at this, but with great…

CHRIS BIRD As a big Gary Moore fan, Chris has relished the opportunity to play through TG contributor Steve Allsworth’s tab of Parisienne Walkways. “I’ll have to do a bit of woodshedding to master Gary’s lick at the end of the solo” says the big man, “it’s a monster line!”. MICHAEL ASTLEY-BROWN Mike has been busying himself with pedals this month. First, he set his sights on loopers and how to harness their almighty power in your acoustic rig. Then, after a brief breakfast biscuit break, he donned an electric once more to board the atmospheric waves of Mooer’s Ocean Machine. It was quite a trip. ROB LAING Rob’s had his head in a metaphorical soundhole this issue, contributing to our cover feature by attempting to deconstruct the knowledge you…

Having looked at the minor pentatonic scale last month, this issue we’re moving on to its close relative, the blues scale. We say ‘close relative’ because the two scales are almost identical – just add one new note to make the blues scale. There are two benefits: most players know the minor pentatonic scale already, so the new scale is easy to learn; and the additional note gives a dissonant but seriously versatile sound that’s heard widely in blues-rock, jazz and heavy metal in particular. It’s an edgier sound that’s hard to achieve using the steadier sounding minor pentatonic scale. Read on, and we’ll break it all down for you. 1 LEARNING THE NOTES TRACK 18-19 Here, we’re looking at the notes of the A blues scale. A, C, D,…

Dan Auerbach is perhaps best known for his love of D’Armond-equipped Harmony guitars and other freakish catalogue creations, but at the heart of many of his records is a more conventional workhorse. “It’s pretty much all of the same stuff on this album,” he tells TG. “I used the Telecaster that I’ve had for years. I used that more than anything. I’ve never toured with it, but I always recorded with it. It’s got a Bigsby on it and it’s all stock, except it’s got a brass nut. I bought it in Austin, Texas, years ago. It was more money than I’d spent on anything before but I’ve used it on everything. On the Dr John record, on the Lana [Del Rey] record. Everything I’ve done since I got it.…

Plug into the PA and away you go… hang on, not quite. Playing with your acoustic onstage can often feel like an afterthought compared to how we fuss over our electric tones, but there’s always room for improvement. You’ll be surprised at the difference it can make. 1 IT STARTS WITH YOUR PLECTRUM Let’s begin with something simple. Essential but often ignored. Your plectrum choice has a big impact on the feel and the sound of your playing, no matter what guitar you’re playing. With an acoustic it’s just as important. Heavy plectrums are going to make for a more percussive sound (too heavy and you could risk string breakages) but also volume. They’ll also help any picked parts cut through in a band mix. A softer option (around.60mm) could…

Chicago blues is a style popularised by legends like Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley and more. Coming to prominence in America in the 1940s and 50s, the genre saw electric instruments added to the more humble acoustic roots of blues. Valve combos were the new tech of the time so, for an authentic vibe, dial in a warm, lightly overdriven tone – your sound should break up a little when you play hard. Turn your guitar’s volume down to six or seven to clean things up if you want to lay back with some light chords. This month’s track uses the 12-bar blues progression, but in two slightly different versions. This is a 12-bar chord progression commonly used in many styles of music. It’s easy to solo…

The fifth single from Catfish And The Bottlemen’s 2014 debut album The Balcony, has proven to be an enduring favourite. Like many well-written songs, the powerful rhythm section and layered overdriven guitars work well as a stripped-down acoustic strummer – indeed there are plenty of YouTube videos of lead singer/rhythm guitarist Ryan ‘Van’ McCann performing on acoustic guitar. If you plan to play the rhythm parts in the same key as McCann, note that he uses a capo on the 3rd fret, so that you can use simple open shapes throughout, provided you employ the all-important capo. The chord shapes below tell you all you need to follow the songsheet. We’ve also tabbed out Billy Bibby’s catchy guitar solo for you. This is played without a capo, so you’ll need…

MODERN VINTAGE Martin’s new StreetMasters offer the played-in look We’re used to seeing artificially-aged ‘relic’d’ electrics and the debate they spark amongst players, but what about acoustics? Martin tested the waters earlier this year at NAMM with the $10,000 Custom 1937 D-29 Authentic Aged, but it’s pitching these new distressed satin-finished 15-series models at a more accessible price (£1,499, due October). The dreadnought and 000 all-mahogany D15-M and 000-15M have been popular models for a range of players, including Eddie Vedder, John Frusciante and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, and these StreetMasters offer a new spin on an understated design, which Martin says is a “respectful nod to the working musician”. The concept may divide opinion between players who appreciate the vintage touch and those who believe that the only ageing should…

Powerful, accurate strumming is vital in this tune and one way to improve your strumming is to get a feel for the divisions of the musical pulse – often the dividing line between great playing and getting by. If you’re counting the four rhythmic pulses in each bar, there is half as much chance that your strums will land in exactly the right place compared with a player who is feeling the eighth notes. Take a look at the opening bar of Rockschool’s arrangement and count ‘1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &’. The first chord is on beat 1; the second chord is on beat 2. The third chord is on the ‘&’ of beat 3 – and that’s where a mental grid of eighth notes helps you…

“THE QUESTION IS HOW DOES IT STACK UP TO THE BIG BOYS?” 1 SCREEN  This dinky display makes it easy to see what your two delays and reverbs are set to as well as navigate myriad menus of settings and reorder the effects signal chain at will 2 CONNECTIONS  Besides the usual stereo ins and outs, there’s MIDI and expression pedal capability, plus you can connect Mooer’s new C4 wireless footswitch for more control over looping and tap tempo 3 TYPES  The OM’s delay types run the gamut, and you can run two at once with different subdivisions and sync’d to the same tempo – a license to write rhythmically intricate riffs We live in a golden age of ambience effects, yet atmosphere junkie and visionary metalhead Devin Townsend wanted…

What’s most encouraging about a round-up like this is the choice on offer. Not just between each guitar, but within each guitar itself. All four feature a coil-tap, or a variation thereof, and each has a dynamic voice that can handle clean and dirty tones alike. Even the most vintage-voiced, the Reverend Double Agent, sounds great through an overdriven amp. The Cort feels like the all-rounder; its sculpted neck-heel, offering some upper-register access, is a nice modern touch, and the vibrato unit is sure to be a hit with those who might covet a Strat but are open to mid-priced alternatives. The Ibanez RC250, with its binding and mahogany warmth is a great option to pair against the Fender Duo-Sonic, whose snot-green pickguard and smaller frame make it just so…

“Tare no on any of my guitars!” notes John Petrucci before tonight’s sell-out show. And, yes, under close inspection, we can confirm these instruments are as immaculate as the technique of the man playing them. On the current run, the band are performing their 1992 album in its entirety – sandwiched in between two other sets – and, as one would expect, the guitarist is in total control of every aspect of his signal flow. Welcome to the precision-led world of Dream Theater… 1 ERNIE BALL MUSIC MAN MAJESTY “This pink/purple sparkly guitar is used for pretty much the entire Images And Words set. Though, occasionally, I might use the blue Majesty, which is the backup, for a couple of songs. I have a backup guitar…

There are key variables that affect how an acoustic guitar will sound – its projection and tonal characteristics in particular. The guitar’s body dimensions are a big factor and not all guitars are created equally, so there’s no hard and fast rules because manufacturer build (see Jargon Buster) and tonewood selections (see Into The Woods) all add flavour to the recipe – big or small, different shapes all bring varying qualities. So here’s the lowdown on spotting the main acoustic body shapes you’ll encounter out there in the wild. 000 / OM Shallower than a dreadnought (see right) at around 105mm (4.1") and narrower in width, the 000 (also known as an auditorium) brings the body closer to the player. As there’s not as much mass to curve your strumming…

Gary Moore’s best known song, Parisienne Walkways, includes the guitarist’s trademark ‘infinite sustain’ note that became a feature of live performances. Whereas Gary would use masses of distortion for live shows, on the original recording, the inherent sustain of the guitar (a modified Les Paul) and sheer amp volume are key. Wherever you’re playing, look for a sweet spot in the room where the feedback from your amp really sings – and stand there when it’s time for the sustain! Gary’s phrasing provides its own set of challenges, from wide string bends to a mixture of gradually-introduced and aggressive vibrato. String bends in particular are key to Gary’s beautifully-crafted melody lines and will need plenty of practice. CHORDS These are mainly open-position chords, but you may get caught out by…

It would be almost impossible to find an electric guitarist from the last 60 years that hasn’t been influenced by Chuck Berry in some way, knowingly or not. His attacking doublestop soloing style sounds as at home in the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen or AC/DC’s Highway To Hell as it did in Johnny B Goode. Signing to Chess records in 1955, Chuck had a string of hits to his name and was touring alongside stars like Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers by 1957, remaining a busy live artist well into his 70s, cutting a youthful figure onstage. He used Gibson guitars throughout his career, so you’ll find it easiest to emulate his tone with a humbucking bridge pickup. No effects are needed, though a little spring reverb…

“I didn’t want to be this bubblegum pop artist. I wanted to be a guitar-wielding musician” For many songwriters, Lewis Watson has lived the dream. Inspired by his hero Dallas Green, he picked up a guitar, posted some videos to YouTube and quickly gained a following. After the independent release of his 2012 debut EP, It’s Got Four Sad Songs On It BTW, he was scooped up by a major label and whisked through a whirl of touring, production and writing sessions, which culminated in 2014’s debut album The Morning . However, all was not as well... “I was signed from my first EP, which I released independently [aged 19] and it had four of the first six songs I had ever written,”…

Welcome to the GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome*) Station! Every issue, TG scours the market for the hottest new gear and brings you transparent reviews that you can trust. From the smallest of accessories that make your life easier, to big investments, such as brand new guitars, amps and effects pedals – if it’s worth your attention, you’ll find it here! HOW WE TEST CURATION Our product selection is driven by our love of gear. We select the most exciting products on the market every month to bring you opinions you can trust. FACE-VALUE REVIEWS We’re not gear snobs here at Total Guitar. We judge it on whether it looks good, sounds good and plays well – not by the name on the headstock. NO SNAKE OIL You won’t find us…

The 6P1 is a clever bit of lateral thinking from Vox’s parent company Korg. Vacuum Fluorescent Displays (VFDs) are the green displays often found on microwaves. They operate just like a valve – they have a cathode that streams electrons, an anode and a control grid, to switch display segments on/off. The 6P1, developed by Korg with Noritake Itron (inventors of the VFD) is the first intended for audio use. It’s a twin triode, so it’s similar in function to the popular 12AX7/ECC83, but uses much less power and generates almost no heat. Another side benefit of the low power consumption is long life – Korg quotes 10,000 hours. It performs just like a real valve – it clips and distorts in a pleasing way.…

Compared with other pedals like delays and drives, the humble compressor might seem a bit less glamorous – dare we say it, even boring. However, if you want self-assured rhythm playing with an even tone, drive pedals that respond in a consistent way, or just some clean country picking, then a compressor might be the secret weapon you’re looking for. Elsewhere, in technical metal and math-rock there’s been a resurgence of various tapping techniques, which also benefit from the compressor pixie dust. Since rackmount compressors made the jump into pedal form decades ago, there have been countless designs and iterations and now digital stompboxes can give anything analogue on the market a good run for its money. Don’t believe us? Step this way... BOSS CP-1X COMPRESSOR £125 SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL…

The first song I remember… Wreck Of The Old 97 “It’s an old bluegrass song and my dad would sit and play it. He’d sing tons of songs but that was the most interesting to me because the train conductor dies in the song and I was spellbound by that: ‘Somebody died?! Holy shit!’, so I would ask him to sing that one over and over.” The song that inspired me to play… Honky Tonk Women – The Rolling Stones “I think this made me want to play rock ’n’ roll. My dad was a traditional country and bluegrass music lover but my mum loved The Beatles, the Stones and Bob Dylan. They were divorced so I spent time between them but I remember thinking when I heard Honky Tonk…