Innehållsförteckning för December 2020 från Total Guitar

Few guitarists have had greater impact on rock than Brian May and Eddie Van Halen. And at the core of the guitar tones of these giants of rock are two very special instruments: May’s Red Special and Van Halen’s Frankenstrat. The former is perhaps the ultimate home-built instrument. While today, aspiring luthiers choose from countless off-the-shelf guitar bodies, necks and hardware for their self-builds, Brian and his father had no such options – the Red Special was hewn out of wood and metal the resourceful pair had at home. Only the pickups and machine heads were bought in. Eddie Van Halen took a different approach, preferring to refine established Gibson and Fender ideas before fine-tuning his hybrid creation to arrive at his own special design. These two hallowed instruments will…

Power Up (out now) is the long-awaited 17th studio album from AC/DC and the first following the death of founding member and guitarist Malcolm Young. “This record is pretty much a dedication to Malcolm, my brother,” Angus Young said recently. “It’s a tribute for him like Back In Black was a tribute to Bon Scott.” All you have to do to enter is go to the web address below and correctly answer the following question: The Gibson SG was first launched as Gibson Les Paul SG in which year? 1958, 1961, 1967 or 1971? http://bit.ly/angusSG Closing date: December 6, 2020. UK residents only. See online for full terms and conditions.…

STEP 1 : BRIDGE HEIGHT ADJUSTMENT Set bridge height by turning the thumbwheel adjuster. At the 12th fret, measure the distance between the sixth string and the fret and aim for 2mm. On the first string, set the clearance to 1.5mm. Do a final check for any string buzz. STEP 2 : INTONATION Trying a new brand of strings? They may need different intonation settings. Play a harmonic at the 12th fret then compare it to the fretted note at the same fret. If the fretted note is sharp, extend the scale length by moving the saddle farther from the neck. If it’s flat, move it the other way. STEP 3 : SET THE TAILPIECE Thought you were done, eh? The tailpiece bar controls a couple of things: the down…

Shortly after joining Ozzy, Rhoads had an idea for a radical guitar design. Wayne Charvel had sold his business to Grover Jackson, so Rhoads went to Jackson to build the guitar, a white, pinstriped asymmetrical V with a Strat tremolo system. It would have neck-through construction like a Gibson Firebird, where the neck and centre of the body are one piece of wood, with ‘wings’ glued onto the sides to make the rest of the shape. The entire guitar was made of maple. Grover didn’t think the design fitted the Charvel brand. Instead, they designed a new headstock, an angular take on the Gibson Explorer, and made the first Jackson. The first Concorde was impractically heavy, and fans thought Randy had just taken a saw to a Flying V. Rhoads…

The Telecaster was the first solidbody electric guitar in production, and for many players it’s never been improved. Even in stock form, there’s still no type of music the Tele can’t make a convincing stab at, and no genre where it can’t look at home. Country, soul, and indie are its mainstays but Tom Morello, Jim Root and Richie Kotzen show how far it can travel. Leo Fender saw what needed to be done and did it: the Tele offers solid tuning, great sounds, and playability. Its few shortcomings, like the difficult-to-intonate three-saddle ‘ashtray’ bridge and single-coil pickup hum, can be improved but not without compromising the classic tone. It is the ultimate workhorse guitar. MICAWBER Rolling Stones’ prolific riff machine Eric Clapton gave Keith a 1953 butterscotch blonde Telecaster…

Initially inspired by the funk sound of The Meters, Walk This Way started life as a soundcheck jam before being completed for Aerosmith’s 1975 release Toys In The Attic then later re-released in a collaboration with hip-hop group Run DMC. The song’s riffs are largely based around single-notes in E (the chorus) and C (the verse), punctuated by occasional A5 powerchords. Those riffs are relatively easy to play slowly, but their catchiness relies on a mysterious swagger in the 16th notes – not quite swing, but not quite straight either. You’ll need to be very precise with your picking, and a constant alternate picked approach is probably the best way to keep that 16th note groove in check. Have a listen to both the Rockschool recording and the original track…

BODY: Mahogany with carved hard maple cap with AAA flame maple veneer NECK: Mahogany with 50s Rounded Medium C, 12” radius SCALE: 628.65mm (24.75”) FINGERBOARD: Indian laurel FRETS: 22, medium jumbo PICKUPS: Epiphone ProBucker 1 (neck), Epiphone ProBucker 2 (bridge) CONTROLS: 2 x volume, 2 x tone with CTS pots and 50s-style wiring, 3-way pickup switch HARDWARE: Epiphone LockTone stop bar and Tune-O-Matic bridge, Epiphone Vintage Deluxe 18:1 machine heads LEFT-HANDED: Yes CASE: No FINISH: Metallica Gold (reviewed), Heritage Cherry Sunburst, Vintage Sunburst CONTACT: Epiphone www.epiphone.com…

Armed with just a Telecaster and a monster pedalboard, Julien Baker can take her songs to the kind of anthemic heights that normally require full bands. There’s no drummer on the two albums she’s released so far, so the songs feel like they’re floating, untethered to ground. While there is occasional support from strings, clarinet, and saxophone, on the whole Baker fills the entire sonic range with just a clean guitar and her stunning vocals. The tone comes from a Fender Blues Deluxe and a Fender Twin Reverb run at the same time, often with shimmer reverb from a Strymon Blue Sky and Walrus Audio Fathom, and analogue delay from a Walrus Audio Bellwether. She gets phenomenal dynamic range from this ambient core tone, so that when songs like Turn…

Brian May would sound unique even with an off-the-shelf guitar, but his instantly recognisable sound is thanks in no small part to his Red Special. Brian was just 15 when he began building a guitar with his dad, and they used parts they had available at home. The neck was from a fireplace and the solid core of the otherwise hollow body was from an old oak table. These timbers aren’t commonly used in guitar construction (even in later Red Special replicas) and have continually frustrated guitarists’ attempts to ape Brian’s tone. So formidable were the Mays’ engineering skills that they designed and built their own tremolo system from scratch, a marked improvement on contemporary designs. Again, they scavenged parts, rocking the tremolo against motorbike valve springs and using a…

Hollowbody guitars are lively beasts by nature. They're louder than their solidbody brethren and this makes them susceptible to feedback at high volume. Try out our tips and beat the noise. 1. GET STUFFED! Billy Duffy and Jack White stuffed their guitars with foam to tame feedback. Not too hard to do, but it can affect your guitar’s tone and sustain. 2. TAPE UP It ain’t pretty and it could damage the finish of your pride and joy, but taping over soundholes may reduce feedback. A bit. 3. PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN! A noise gate/suppressor pedal such as the Boss NS-2 could help you dial out those squeals. Alternatively, try cutting the feedback frequency with an EQ pedal. 4. TURN DOWN Feedback is caused by speakers vibrating the strings, which…

Rock has always welcomed misfits and rebels, and the electric guitar has long obliged with unconventional designs. Astonishingly, the Gibson Flying V and Explorer date to 1958, closer to the start of World War II than the first Metallica album. Offset designs were ahead of their time, waiting for the right music. Some say Fender’s Jaguar and Jazzmaster didn’t truly come into their own until the 1990s. As well as unusual looks, these guitars offer individual sounds. Although the Flying V and Explorer share SG hardware, their shapes mean they resonate with their own distinct voices. Fender, meanwhile, designed bespoke pickups for their offset guitars, guaranteeing a devoted fanbase. FENDER JAGUAR The definitive grunge guitar Kurt Cobain bought his 1965 Jaguar through a free ads paper in 1991. It was…

Rock couldn’t happen until the electric guitar was invented. Pickups and amplifiers meant the guitar could be heard with a drum kit, and they made distortion possible. Yet the electric guitar didn’t bury the acoustic, and almost every great rock album is full of both. Sometimes they’re double-tracked with distorted riffs for depth and clarity, sometimes they’re songwriting workhorses, and sometimes they provide contrast to the onslaught of electrics. Lists of all-time greatest rock songs are dominated by acoustics: Stairway To Heaven, Hotel California, Hey Jude, Brown Sugar. Strumming just isn’t the same on electrics, and sometimes a mix just needs an acoustic. Here are the acoustic guitars that rock couldn’t live without. GIBSON J-160E One of the first electro-acoustics The J-160E was Gibson’s first attempt at putting a pickup…

Me And You Together Song features on The 1975’s fourth album Notes On A Conditional Form released earlier this year. The track features simple yet effective guitar work courtesy of singer/guitarist Matty Healy and lead guitarist Adam Hann. The result is an intoxicating mix of retro indie rock and 60s jangle pop, never overplayed and always supporting the song. You’ll need a capo on the 7th fret to play the track in its original pitch. For the uninitiated, a capo is a device that clamps across the strings at your chosen fret, raising the pitch of your guitar. Our tabbed section tells you to play with a swung 16th note feel. Say ‘humpty dumpty humpty dumpty’ and you’ll get the idea of swing feel timing – you’ll just need to…

“A COST-EFFECTIVE WAY TO GET SOME OF THAT FRACTAL MOJO” In terms of modelling amp and effects processors Fractal is pretty much at the top of the tree with their rackmount Axe-Fx III. That said, it’s probably also fair to say that it’s out of the financial reach of most of us, especially if you add in the cost of a FC-6 or FC-12 controller for a fully functional setup that’ll work on stage as well as at home or in the studio. Now, though, you can buy into the Fractal experience with their FM3, a relatively compact stage-ready floor (or tabletop) unit - still not exactly cheap but a lot more affordable than a full Axe-Fx III rig and competitive with floorboard rivals. The FM3 has about half the…

Living up to its name, the TC Plethora offers a smorgasbord of options. It takes the algorithms and functionality from TC’s excellent TonePrint-enabled pedals and combines them into a workhorse unit. The Plethora’s large screen and on-board editor make it easy to build custom signal chains of TonePrint patches. The connectivity options at the rear of the unit leave no stone unturned, as you’d expect for a flagship unit. Though there’s an expression input, this went unused during testing, thanks to the USP of this pedal - TC’s MASH technology. On individual pedals, this pressure-sensitive switch negates - to some extent – the need for a traditional expression pedal. “IT NEGATES THE NEED FOR AN EXPRESSION PEDAL” The Plethora has a huge range of effects, and parameters are assignable via…

If there’s one thing that unites guitarists, it’s our love of our instruments. Yet choosing a guitar is a personal endeavour. We form special bonds with our guitars. The way your favourite guitar’s unique configuration of metal and wood ‘feels’ affects the way you play it. Like we say, it’s personal. The history of rock is littered with such cherished instruments. And the music made with each one just wouldn’t be the same played on any other guitar. Here, as we look at over 60 of rock’s most revered guitars, we consider just what made them great – and you’ll find some tips and lessons along the way. We’re starting with two of the most iconic instruments of all: Brian May’s Red Special and Eddie Van Halen’s Frankenstrat. Plug in,…

“He was the greatest,” Brian May says. “There was no one who could match him, no one who could come close. There will never be another one of him.” It is just a few days after the death of Eddie Van Halen that Brian is speaking to Total Guitar, and as he admits: “I haven’t really processed it at all. When I think about it I get this kind of physical shock. It’s punched a big hole in my heart.” They had known each other a long time, first meeting in the late 70s, when Brian was already a major star with Queen, and Eddie was the new kid on the block; his explosive displays on the first Van Halen album marking him as the most revolutionary figure in guitar…

By Queen standards, the arrangement of Fat Bottomed Girls is a stripped down affair, with just drums, bass and a couple of guitar tracks. Instead, the trademark Queen multi-tracking is reserved for vocals rather than the guitars. The song is based around open chords, mainly using D, G, F and A. The chords are linked together using 3rd-fret-to-open-string pull-offs on the two bass strings. Add some bluesy quarter-tone bends and you have all the ingredients for Brian May’s cool, sleazy hard rock riff. Practise the riffs slowly while focussing on accurately fretting the chord shapes. Although the song sounds loose with a relaxed strumming approach throughout, Brian has immense control over his parts. Although there isn’t a solo as such, there are some string bends accompanying the vocals in verse…

FEATURES: 3-Core ‘Griffin’ DSP with one ARM and two SHARC+ cores, 4-in/4-out audio interface, tuner, looper, MIDI, 512 preset slots CONTROLS: Level 1, Level 2, footswitches x 3, soft knobs x 5 (A, B, C, D, E), Value knob, 4-way cursor, buttons x 4, ground lift switch CONNECTIONS: Standard guitar input, standard stereo phones output, XLR Main outputs (L&R), standard Out 2/FX Send (L&R), standard In 2/FX Return (L&R), Pedal1, Pedal 2, FASLINK II, MIDI In, MIDI Out/Thru, USB x 2, S/PDIF digital out POWER: IEC mains supply DIMENSIONS: 281 (w) x 236 (d) x 103 mm (h) CONTACT: G66 PHONE: +49 461 1828 066 WEB: www.g66.eu/en www.fractalaudio.com…

It’s been quite a year for Epiphone; starting strong at January’s NAMM with a tour de force in the shape of the Inspired By Gibson range, we’re now able to take stock of models in isolation. And if we’re talking Gibson legacy, its 1950s Les Pauls don’t get much more hallowed in the halls of legendary guitars. Alongside the Standard 60s, Custom, Junior, Special and higher-end 1959 model in the Original Les Paul Collection, the range allows players to hone in on the specific Les Paul experience they want. But what is a 50s LP, and does Epiphone deliver it here? Firstly, like the era of models it takes inspiration from, there’s no weight relief body chambering here (you’ll need the Modern and Muse moderns for that). This weighs in…

For a compact MIDI controller, the Blackstar is hard to beat at this price point. It’s a flexible and well-thought out piece of kit that even has decent software - normally where equipment manufacturers trip up. It’s built like a tank, and ships with Ableton Live 10 Lite, since it’s an Ableton-approved device. After some fiddling with the editor, getting it to control Ableton is straightforward. Moreover, for heavy pedal users, the footswitch MIDI controller is a natural fit. Perhaps an engineer or producer would find it less intuitive, but for a guitarist it makes sense. Of course, it can be used as a general-purpose controller to manage any MIDI-enabled devices or even amps, live or at home. Though its capabilities as a live looper controller are touted by Blackstar,…