Innehållsförteckning för May 2020 från Total Guitar

When we first considered putting Jimi Hendrix on the cover, our thoughts turned immediately to his influence. Of course, Jimi’s a guitar hero, perhaps the ultimate guitar hero, so he’s earned his place! But in 2020, a full 50 years since his tragic and untimely death, we wondered if we could truly say Jimi is an influential guitarist. Well, here at TG Towers, we’d say the answer is a definitive ‘yes’! Before I even mention Jimi’s musicianship, there’s his tone to consider. Own a multi-fx pedal? Or a software amp/fx sim? Chances are there’s a Jimi Hendrix patch. Scratch that! The chances are there are several. Marshall amps, Uni-Vibe pedals, wah wah, fuzz and octave-fuzz effects were key to Jimi’s tone, and manufacturers have been modelling them for years. Jimi…

There are only believed to be about 250 examples of the original Fender Broadcaster – Fender’s first solid body electric guitar with a truss rod and two pickups. A few months after its release in 1950, Gretsch, which owned the BroadKaster trademark, took legal action and ended Fender’s use of the name. This led to the “Nocaster” period in early 1951, when Fender snipped the Broadcaster decal from the headstock of the guitars, and then to the model being renamed the Telecaster that summer. Now, Fender has revived the original two-pickup guitar with the 70th Anniversary Broadcaster. Features on the new model include an ash body with a Blackguard Blonde lacquer finish, ‘U’-shaped one-piece maple neck with a 7.25” radius fingerboard and 21 vintage-tall frets and Custom Shop-designed ‘50-’51 Blackguard…

For many guitarists, music theory is often considered a bit of a grind. TG’s opinion on this thorny subject? We would argue that theory can help you become a much better player. Understand a few essential basics and you’ll fuel your creative fire in new ways. All of which brings us on to the subject of this month’s tutorial. As guitarists, we all play minor chords every time we pick up the instrument – they definitely count as essential basics! The thing is, those chords can be played in countless different ways. For instance, they can be broken down into arpeggios where you play the notes one at a time. Or, alternatively, if you know how a chord is built, you can use it as a pool of notes to…

Jack Garratt might have been weaned on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s heroic blues, but he is the sort of player who eschews fretboard pyrotechnics. Maybe that’s because with synth and drums, trombone and piano, Garratt has enough going on, but it an guitar . He would probably resist the term, but he’s surely okay with being unconventional; it is what makes his sound his. After a hiatus, Garratt is returning with his much-anticipated sophomore record, Love, Death & Dancing, a record that sees his one-man polymath approach to songwriting write large across two volumes of music. While he was in Bristol for an intimate set at Thekla, he took a bit of time out to talk songwriting and where his guitar fits in. He’s worth listening to, because his control over…

In the early 70s, bands such as The Stooges, New York Dolls, MC5 and the Ramones pioneered a US-centric kind of punk, later influencing acts like Green Day, Rancid and Guns N’ roses. US punk was different from its UK counterpart: these trendsetters were inspired by the blues and rock ’n’ roll bands of the 50s and 60s, and, although many tracks feature the high tempos and aggression generally associated with the punk genre, many of the songs sound quite different to what we know from a modern interpretation of the word. Tone-wise, aim for a hard-edged overdriven sound that isn’t too distorted. Avoid modern high-gain sounds associated with metal. Punk is all about attitude and delivery, so worry less about accuracy and concentrate on playing hard! This month’s Jam…

Performance can be the hardest skill for a musician to master. No matter the size of the venue or the occasion, there’s an emotional intimacy to performing that you will have to reconcile with. There is an immediacy, too, an ephemeral, protean energy that’s impossible to replicate. As Frank Turner describes it, there is an art to performing that’s distinct from the ability to play. Turner came out of the UK post-hardcore scene at the turn of the century with Million Dead, going solo in 2005 once the band split, putting a folk spin on his punk sensibilities and embracing his acoustic as the primary medium for his message. He says you can tell which artists have played their share of bad shows and pushed through to the other side.…

1 AMP TYPES The four banks of presets are arranged into seven amp types: Acoustic, Bass, Clean, Glassy, Crunch, Hi-Gain and Metal. You can override the factory models with your own choices but the categories are useful for getting a taste of the Spark’s quality and versatility with BIAS straight out of the box. 2 MUSIC VOLUME You’ll be using this control with the Output knob a lot when you start playing a long to streamed audio through the app and getting the mix right between your guitar level and the song. If you’re playing along to YouTube through the app, you’ll get to see the video alongside the transposed chords to keep you entertained. 3 TUNER The Spark’s tap tempo button doubles as a tuner if…

This is the same guitar, but with P-90s. Does that make much difference? Massive. Where the 490 humbuckers offer you enough rounded PAF cream to cause an arterial block, the P-90s are a more about being all sharp and vinegarish top-end and a pugnacious mid-range. You’ll get a lot of joy from blending these together and playing around on the tone controls. There’s a lot of tone here. Won’t they be noisy? They might not be as quiet as humbuckers but they are wax-potted to kill microphonic hum, which is the worst. Don’t be put off by the fact they are singlecoils; these are totally mean. If you are looking for a rock ’n’ roll machine... So this is just a rock guitar? It could be. The P-90 and mahogany…

The riff that made me want to play... Walk This Way – Run-DMC feat Aerosmith In 1986, when I was 11, my grandmother bought me a Phillips ghetto blaster and some money to spend on tapes, so I bought Run DMC’s Raising Hell and a Huey Lewis & The News album. Raising Hell is a really rocking album, but of course the real highlight guitar-wise is Walk This Way, which got me into Aerosmith and got me into rap as well. And when I was 14, and Aerosmith’s Pump came out, that changed everything for me. Oh my God, I listened to Pump all the time... The riff I want to be remembered for... I Believe In A Thing Called Love – The Darkness Most of the riffs in The…

JONATHAN HORSLEY TG always keeps Jonathan pretty busy and this issue has been no exception. As well as interviewing Frank Turner and Amy Love of the Nova Twins, the man generally referred to as ‘The Horse’ got up close and personal with four of Gibson’s 2020 range of solidbody electrics. Find out what he thinks on p98. STAN BULL “I got into Hendrix through my dad’s CD collection,” says Stan. “But Jimi always stood out as being several degrees cooler than the his contemporaries. To this day, I find myself inspired by his otherworldly tones and unusual mixing style of having the guitar front and centre. To me, Jimi still sounds like the future.” AMIT SHARMA As ever, the sheer number of guitarists and bands Amit speaks to for a…

1 “It’s a black Gibson Les Paul Classic with a white pickguard. I changed the knobs, they’re white now, though there’s one which is red. I actually thought about the finish before I got it and realised it had to be black. Black with white feels seamless – you can use it any context and it will not stand out. It won’t be overlooked, either, being such a beautiful instrument. I wouldn’t go with an all-black guitar though, the white elements and details like the binding are very important. None of my heroes played a Les Paul, I guess. I didn’t really want to go for a classic colour like Sunburst or Lemonburst, because that’s all been done!” 2 “I was a Strat guy my whole life. I only played…

“I think it is important to care about the things that other people won’t necessarily notice. It will make the difference in somebody’s response to something, in someone’s reaction. The reason that my favourite producers are my favourite producers is because there are guitar riffs in Stevie Wonder records that I did not notice until my twentieth listen. If the guitar riffs were there on the first listen my reaction wouldn’t be different. If you are not going to think about details then why should I trust that you have thought about anything else?”…

SPLURGE 01 FENDER CUSTOM SHOP JIMI HENDRIX STRATOCASTER IN OLYMPIC WHITE £6549 street The acme of Hendrix guitars for deep-walleted players – the “Izabella” Woodstock Strat – has been meticulously recreated by the Big F. Those hand-wound ’69 single-coils will electrify your ladyland with premium tone voodoo. 02 MARSHALL 1959HW PLEXI HAND-WIRED SUPER LEAD HEAD + MARSHALL 1960AHW HAND-WIRED 4X12 ANGLED CAB £2337 street Ideal for those home practice situations when you keep on screwing up Little Wing and need to vent your fury by turning all the way up, Jimi-style, and clearing the neighbourhood with volume. 03 FULLTONE MDV MKII MINI DEJA VIBE £255 street Get that super-psychedelic warble with this photocell, all-analogue UniVibe clone. Now rehoused in a more pedalboard-friendly chassis, the Deja Vibe is…

Swing feel (aka ‘shuffle feel’ or the ‘blues shuffle’) is a core blues rhythm groove. Sure, there’s plenty of non-swing ‘straight’ feel blues around too, but you can listen to practically any artist to hear a shuffle in action. A great place to start is with the man who supposedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his guitar talents, Robert Johnson – check out Cross Road Blues or Sweet Home Chicago. Other legends include BB King (Every Day I Have The Blues) and Stevie Ray Vaughan (Pride And Joy). Looking for contemporary players? Check out Erja Lyytinen (It Hurts Me Too), Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram (Outside Of This Town) and Ana Popović (Fearless). All these songs share that shuffle feel. The explanation is simple too. Straight feel music…

TYPE Digital modelling combo for guitar, bass and acoustic with BIAS Tone Engine and app integration for jamming OUTPUT: 40 watts SPEAKERS: 2x4” custom designed TOP CONTROLS: Amp Type, Gain, Bass, Mid, Treble, Master, Mod, Delay, Reverb, Output Volume, Music Volume, four programmable Preset buttons, Tap/Tuner button ONBOARD EFFECTS: 30 Amp Models, 40 Effects SOCKETS: 1/4” guitar input, 1/8” aux input, 1/8” headphone, Bluetooth audio, USB connectivity for recording 2 In x 2 Out DIMENSIONS: 350mm [w] x 180mm [w] 190mm [d] WEIGHT: 5.2 kg…

1 CONTOURS  The Espada has clearly been on a body sculpt workout, with an almighty forearm contour, plus rear belly and heel cuts. 2 PICKUPS  Expect wild tones from the bridge ’bucker, with warmer tones from the neck. 3 NECK  A 16” radius fingerboard and contoured neck heel make the Espada a great potential shred machine. It may have taken six decades, but offset guitars have finally come of age. From global awards ceremonies to your local pub, there are just as many Jazzmasters and Mustangs hitting the stage as Strats and Teles. But offsets were never exactly designed for more technically-demanding playing styles... Enter Balaguer Guitars. The Pennsylvania, USA firm has spent the past six years equipping familiar outlines with ergonomic tweaks and contemporary features at…

That finish is amazing... It is. It is Faded Pelham Blue, and it dates back to the early 60s when Fender was taking inspiration from classic automobiles and rolling out a host of cool solid-block colours, and Gibson wanted in on the action. Introduced on the budget Gibson Melody Maker line of SGs, it’s now a cult favourite, championed by the likes of John Shanks and Dave Grohl. You mentioned 500k CTS audio taper pots. Why is this good? One of the coolest feature of any guitar – and one that is still criminally under-explored by so many of us – is how tweaking your tone and volume controls unearths all those extra magical tones. With inferior pots, you are lucky if there are two usable tones. Here you’ll find…

A Les Paul, made in the USA, and you’ll get change from a grand? Yes, there’s no catch. You might even find these discounted online. The Les Paul Tribute is kind of somewhere between a Standard, a Classic and a Studio. Like the Studio, there’s no binding on the neck. Like the Classic, this has 490 humbuckers and it has extensive chambering to make it lighter. And you’ve got the chrome-covers on the pickups to give it that Standard vibe. It’s classy. Tell us more about the weight relief... Gibson’s Ultra-Modern weight relief process is an evolution of its nine-hole and chambering patterns that have been used on guitars such as the Les Paul classic. It features a number of chambers around the body’s perimeter. If you’re playing live a…

RIP Rainey Sacred Reich guitarist and founding member Jason Rainey dead at 53 Jason Rainey, who founded and played guitar for Phoenix, Arizona thrash metal act Sacred Reich, died of a heart attack on March 16th, aged 53. The news was confirmed by his former band, who said in a statement posted to the official Sacred Reich Facebook page: “It is with deep sadness and broken hearts that we must announce that our friend, guitarist and founding member of Sacred Reich, Jason Rainey has passed away. “Jason started the band after only playing guitar for six months. With sheer determination and will, he lead us through the early years of the band. He worked tirelessly. Sacred Reich was his life. In recent years, he faced some serious medical issues. He…

If you’ve ever played in a two-guitar band, you’ll know how tough it can be to make both guitars ‘fit’ without treading on each others’ musical toes. As it turns out, there aren’t many bands who do this better than grunge pioneers and survivors, Pearl Jam. From the band’s early 90s heyday – and most notably before switching to a three-guitar lineup – guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard would dial in clearly distinct tones and play their parts in different areas of the neck. The result was a typically expansive, orchestrated sound, often including some pretty clever chords and harmonic tricks. For gear nerds, Pearl Jam also played their part in the vintage boom, helping to bring Strats, Les Pauls and single-channel valve amps back into fashion after the…

in many ways, it’s like the electric guitar didn’t really exist before him. Of course, Jimi Hendrix had his influences – Muddy Waters and Albert King to name just two. But it was Hendrix who radically revolutionized the instrument once and for all, and the impact he made in the late 60s has not been surpassed in all the years since. It was Jimi who turned the six-string into a weapon, with its bullets cast in a melting pot of hot-rodded blues, molten fuzz and screaming psychedelia. No longer did the guitar feel like it was in the background, accompanying the rest of the band or adding melodies to help reinforce a lyric. It was now the undisputed star of the show. The guitar hero had arrived. Born in Seattle…

•Jimi’s raw amp sound is fairly balanced. If you’re using a Strat dial in a little extra bass (around 7), keep the midrange at 5 and experiment with a treble boost. Not using fuzz distortion? Wind up the treble a bit to simulate the unruly top end of the Fuzz Face. •Turn your humbuckers to single coils. Using humbuckers? This EQ trick may get you closer to Jimi’s single coils. Switch to a middle pickup position, roll the bass down to about 2 (instead of Jimi’s higher setting), keep the mids high, say 7 or 8, and treble at 8 or 9. Instant single coils! Well, roughly! •Okay, you’ll need the price of a set of strings here, but Jimi famously used ultra-light gauge strings in the bass. Either mix…

Still need convincing just how deep Jimi Hendrix’s influence runs? Well, as it turns out, the guitarist who’s recently returned to the Chili Peppers fold, John Frusciante, is a massive Hendrix fan. And Under The Bridge? Frusciante has said publicly how the opening lines draw inspiration from Jimi’s classic Little Wing. You don’t need to be a guitarist to hear the influence. The major chords, the little flourishes and ad libs, the break up in the ‘just-off-clean’ guitar tone... You do need to be a decent guitarist to tackle the tab, however! We’d describe this tune as deceptively tricky. Sure, there’s no widdly solo, but Frusciante’s fingerstyle lines have their own challenges. If there’s one tip to take onboard, it’s to learn the chords first. That might sound obvious, but…

At the heart of the AC/DC rock machine is Malcolm Young’s pounding downpicked rhythms and younger brother Angus Young’s slightly more fluid style. The surprise element in the equation is the duo’s preference for easy open powerchords. So much riffage from such modest chords – and this month’s Rockschool track from the band’s 1977 Let There Be Rock album is a great example. Rockschool’s arrangement differs from the original recording a little, halving the intro and making a bit more of the ‘pedal tone’ technique during the verse. It’s all to suit the requirements of the Grade Five exam, but there’s enough info in the tab for you to learn most of the song. A lot of guitarists fall into the trap of adding too much distortion when playing AC/DC.…

1 STRAIGHT EIGHTHS Here are two eighth notes (aka quavers) ‘beamed’ together (beaming just keeps the notes tidy!). In most music there are eight eighth notes in each bar of music. Count ‘1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &’ for an eighth note pulse. 2 ‘TRIP-A-LET’ FEEL Unlike eighth notes, triplets have three notes for every beat instead of two. Try saying ‘1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a’ to count out the rhythm. Some people say ‘trip-a-let’ instead. 3 SHUFFLE FEEL The blues shuffle is based on triplet feel, but using only the first and third notes of each triplet (the number and the ‘a’). Say ‘humpty dumpty humpty dumpty’ to get the feel. 12-BAR BLUES…

Godin has announced the Imperial Laguna Blue GT EQ acoustic guitar, a dreadnought-shaped model with concert hall depth. The new acoustic sports a solid Sitka spruce top, solid mahogany back and sides, mahogany neck and Richlite fingerboard. Electronics are an LR Baggs Anthem system, and the guitar is finished in a Laguna Blue gloss. There’s also an ebony bridge, Graph Tech nut, custom 12th fret inlay and Godin acoustic pickguard with matching headstock. The Imperial Laguna Blue GT EQ comes with a Deluxe TRIC case for $1,395. For more information, head to www.godinguitars.com…

The title track from Sam Fender’s 2019 debut album, Hypersonic Missiles tackles the spoils of consumerism, overpopulation, war, and the potential end of the world whilst also alluding to the themes of a love song. Clearly the North Shields guitarist has the songwriting chops to match his tidy playing, then. Though this month’s tune is primarily an electric guitar song, those jangly arpeggios are ripe for an acoustic arrangement. You’ll need to downtune your guitar by three semitones to C# standard to play along with the original recording as Sam himself did. It does make learning the chords a bit of a bind; they’re not hard to play, but, of course, when you change your tuning all the chord names are different. Focus on learning the shapes though – like…

IK MULTIMEDIA IRIG PRO DUO I/O 1 As the iRig celebrates its 10th birthday, this feels like the ideal landmark for the mobile recording interface – it’s two-channel for audio and MIDI with new and improved mic preamps offering more gain with reworked volume controls. There are two analogue combo 1/4”/XLR inputs for simultaneous recording and dedicated PC drivers to improve performance on laptops and Surface tablets. But, of course, it can also be used on iPhone, iPad, Android and Mac devices. [£209 www.ikmultimedia.com] DANELECTRO 3699 FUZZ 2 Danelectro owner Steve Ridinger has revived his FOXX 3699 Tone Machine fuzz from the 70s and given it a whole new lease of life. This reissue with ‘wear and tear’ finish includes independent octave that’s foot-switchable with a more pronounced shift. A…

There’s no initial up-selling going on here; with 30 amps included for guitar, bass and acoustic it’s pretty easy to get lost in the Spark’s BIAS engine straight out the box. As usual with modelled amps, there’s a familiar array of classic Orange, Marshall, Fender and Mesa/Boogie. We found ourselves gravitating to the rock versatility of the Plexiglas and JM45, especially when we were playing with the Smart Chords or improvising. High-gainers will find plenty to enjoy here with the Treadplate and 5153 leading the charge. But Positive Grid go further with the Tone Cloud community – users can post their tones for download/uploads via the Spark app. There’s 10,000 so far – plenty to keep you inspired.…

1 SHAPE CONTROL  The shape control here feels very much in the Dark Terror’s wheelhouse, and it’s vital to tweak it for your pickup and cab type – we found it very effective for bringing out the best of our Tele’s neck humbucker and keeping our bridge’s single coil tamed. 2 OUTPUTS  As well as a line out and speaker output for 8 or 16 ohms, the pedal also offers a headphone output with a 4x12 cab emulation for going to PA or cans. 3 EFFECTS LOOP  Orange even give you an effects loop just in case you forget this is indeed a tiny amp! “ORANGE TONES AT A GREAT PRICE AND ALL AT YOUR FEET” The emergence of pedalboard-based amps isn’t just significant for portability, it’s…

What’s the difference between this and the Les Paul Tribute? Here, there is no maple cap. This saves the maple for the neck, which is glued to a solid mahogany body. Both have a satin finish in a nitrocellulose lacquer that on this review model still feels a little oily, and this will settle down as you rub the ‘new’ off it. We’ve seen those pickups before, right? These open-coil Gibson 490 humbuckers have been kicking around since the mid-to-late 60s. They feature an Alnico II magnet and were wound to create a more versatile PAF ’bucker that could work better with high-volume amps and new rock styles, and were often wired so they could be coil-tapped. They have a soupçon more upper-mids than the PAF. A maple neck? That’s…