Innehållsförteckning för May 2022 från Total Guitar

As Line 6’s mean, green, delay machine approaches its mid-20s, the Calabasas crew has surprised us all with its long-awaited follow-up: the DL4 Mk II. Featuring twice as many delay models as the original, Line 6 has added 16 Helix-derived delay models which join all of the original sounds so that users can upgrade and keep their original patches. There’s massively-extended 240-second internal memory, expandable to hours via the new SD card slot. Plus, you can now loop vocals by connecting a mic to the XLR slot, add external footswitches or an expression pedal, and control the DL4 over MIDI.…

Back in 2015, Yamaha unveiled the Revstar: at the time its first all-new electric guitar design in over a decade, inspired by Yamaha’s Café Racer motorbike heritage. Fast-forward seven years, and Yamaha has scratched the infamous itch with a complete Revstar range overhaul with a simplified line-up spanning three different price points, and adding a number of features designed to reduce weight, boost resonance and improve your tone. The new Revstar range is split into the Japanese-made Professional (RSP), and more affordable Standard (RSS) and Element (RSE) ranges. Key to the build of all new Revstars, is a chambered body design which sees some pretty sizeable chunks of wood removed from the mahogany base either side of the pickups and extending into those horns. This not only reduces the overall…

Over the past decade, Halestorm have earned themselves a reputation as one of the hardest working rock bands on the planet, often performing as many as 250 live shows a year. Like most musicians, they had a tough time adjusting to an enforced life off the road, and guitarist/vocalist Lzzy Hale has described how she, in particular, “fell into a dark place and something of an identity crisis,” during the long, gigless months of lockdown. Throughout these potentially fallow times, however, some major milestones were reached - most notably with Lzzy being officially inducted into the Gibson family as its first female Brand Ambassador back in July of 2021. Now, with the promise of a new signature guitar on the horizon, Lzzy is happy to be back on the road…

Never stop pushing yourself The first couple of years I was in the Chili Peppers, I wasn’t really on the right path. I thought I could be like Flea where, in those days, he used to practise a half-hour a day, or some days not play at all. And every time he picked up his bass, an awesome thing came out of it. And so when I joined the band, I thought, ‘I could be like that!’ And it turns out, I can’t be like that – if I did that, nothing original would come out of me, I wouldn’t feel good about what I’ve done, I wouldn’t have fun on stage, I wouldn’t be able to write songs and be able to match his level of creativity. For me…

There’s a strong argument to be made that John Frusciante is the secret spice in the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ fiery funk-rock recipe. His second outing with the LA quartet (their fifth album), Blood Sugar Sex Magik, broke the band into the big time. After the commercial disappointment of 1995’s One Hot Minute (recorded with Jane’s Addiction recruit, Dave Navarro), John’s return to the fold in 1998 saw the band on a path to global recognition, with three increasingly successful albums culminating in 2006’s Stadium Arcadium which topped charts worldwide. Here we’re looking at some of our favourite Frusciantepenned Chili Peppers riffs.Can’t Stop will test your ability to groove. Scar Tissue offers Beatles-y chords with a fiercely tricky string muting technique. And, bringing proceedings right up to date, we’re looking…

1 SQUIER CONTEMPORARY ACTIVE JAZZMASTER HH The Contemporary range was only updated late last year but it’s doing so well there are already new additions; including this active HH Jazzmaster. There’s some undeniable Jim Root vibes with this Jazzmaster, but with the new finish twists of Shell Pink Pearl and Sunset Metallic. A roasted maple neck, 2-point trem with block saddles, sculpted neck heel and Squier SQR active ceramic humbucking pickups round out an attractive spec. £419 www.fender.com 2 HARLEY BENTON POWERPLANT ISO-3AC SAG Here’s a strange one; HB is expanding its great value pedalboard power supply range with one that aims to recreate the response of a dying battery. Why is this something a guitarist would want, you ask? Denying a drive pedal like a fuzz its required voltage…

Fender went for 7.25”; Gibson chose 12” and so from the early 1950s, the fingerboard radius debate began. This simple camber from the bass to treble side of a fingerboard can have a noticeable effect on a guitar’s feel and playability: the smaller more domed radius being the one for those that wrap their thumbs around the neck to fret the low E, the comfortable chording radius, while the flatter radius, at extremes, is for the thumb-behind shred brigade. The compound, or conical radius, as with our Cort, reflects the actual arch of the strings from the narrower width of the neck at the nut to the wider spread at the bridge. It’s often seen as a ‘modern’ feature when in fact it’s simply good guitar-making.…

In this issue of Total Guitar, Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale says of her role as Gibson’s first female Brand Ambassador: “The most beautiful thing about what I do now with Gibson is that you get to put yourself up there in a way that, for the generation of young girls that want to get into this instrument, makes the bridge to that dream just a little bit shorter - just like when I was younger and saw Joan Jett playing [the] guitar.” In 1982, when this photo was taken, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts held the number one spot on the US chart for seven weeks with I Love Rock ’N’ Roll - a brilliant version of a previously little known song by British group The Arrows. 40 years on, Joan…

Positive Grid has shrunk its award-winning Spark amp into an even more desktop-friendly version with the Spark Mini. The rechargeable battery-powered Spark addition also works as a Bluetooth speaker, hosts 33 amp models and 43 effects, and only features three controls on its panel for volume, backing track volume and selection of four presets. The rest of the control is via the free iOS/Android Spark app. As well as allowing you to design and edit your sounds, the app also unlocks PG’s Smart Jam auto-generating backing track feature, Auto Chords for figuring out songs, plus Video Capture for recording clips of your playing. It’s available to order now from www.positivegrid.com…

You might be familiar with Jet Guitars, thanks to a burgeoning following online as a relative newcomer to the budget end of the market. The brand launched in 2020 as the brainchild of designer Primoz Virant, with Chinese manufacture and QC overseen by Jet’s own team, with the goal of offering premium gear at affordable prices. Since then, Jet has steadily started making a name for itself with eight series’ of affordable electrics on offer. Here, we have a selection of three of the models from the 400 (Vintage Yellow HSS, £159), 500 (Silver sparkle HH, £289) and 800 Series (Black relic HS, £409) respectively. There are no prizes for guessing where the inspiration begins for these models, with Jet’s line-up also including T-style and singlecut models. But there’s more…

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN Hammer-ons and pull-offs Powerchords D standard tuning This month we’re looking at the main riff in Ghost’s Call Me Little Sunshine. The Tobias Forge-penned G minor riff is delivered by Opeth’s Fredrik Åkesson, who tunes down to D standard (DGCFAD here). We’ll focus our attention on the part that begins at 0:24 where the sweet clean tones of the intro give way to a heavier overdriven pre-verse section. The two parts are similar, essentially outlining the same melody, but with the typical palm-muted chug of powerchords once the distortion kicks in. For instance, whereas the intro kicks off with a pair of lush ringing G notes, in the heavier pre-verse, two chunky palm-muted G5 chords begin proceedings. You’ll also hear open third and fourth strings ringing…

Although funk can be traced back to the early days of James Brown, like all styles, it has evolved a lot over the last 60 years. With an increasing body of great rhythm guitar players on the live circuit as well as well as online, there’s never been a greater abundance of talent and innovation, that’s constantly pushing stylistic boundaries. Within this evolution, funk has crossed over into other styles such as RnB, neo-soul, fusion, gospel, and many more guitarists are becoming switched on to the beauty of using a clean sound and really working on rhythm and harmony. At its heart, classic funk is all about syncopation, space and generally static/simple chords. The crossover into neo-soul and gospel largely retains this element of syncopation and rhythm but tends to…

Your pedalboard is full... Something has to give. Well, not necessarily, you can just downsize to mini pedals. The prospect here is you’ll still get bonafide Bucket Brigade analogue modulated delay but at reduced real estate. It’s a reassuringly weighty little thing, packing in five different controls to the front panel, including the Feel button which gives the Constellator a distinct calling card in an increasingly crowded marketplace of delays vying for your attention. “THE QUALITY AND VERSATILITY HERE IS UNDENIABLE” The two MN3005 BBD chips inside are contemporary versions of the Panasonic Bucket Brigade variant. The potential of the spec is beautifully degrading repeats and chaotic oscillation if you want to push the repeats that way. No wonder BBD was regarded as the desirable alternative to larger tape delay…

From his home studio, which harbours in excess of 120 guitars, Shinedown guitarist Zach Myers discusses how he and bassist Eric Bass combined vintage instruments with an ‘anything goes’ approach on the band’s dark new album Planet Zero. What guitars do we hear on the album? Eric has two 70s pancake body Les Paul Deluxes that we used a lot. I have a ’65 ES-335 that’s been used on every Shinedown record I’ve done. I love that thing - it can sound like anything: a Tele, a Les Paul, a Strat. It’s so versatile. Then there were a couple of Teles, and that was the record. I think when you pick up a certain guitar, it has a certain feel. If I pick up a Tele, I want to play…

Pedalboard-based amps are big news, and Hughes & Kettner’s latest offers a fully-analogue, 50-watt solution at your feet. The StompMan aims to recreate the feel and response of a full amp head in a compact pedal solution by using the brand’s Spirit technology with Tone, Gain, Master, Presence and Resonance controls, as well as a Sagging control which changes the amount of power amp saturation. As well as this, there’s a footswitchable boost circuit labelled ‘Solo’ which can provide up to 6dB of additional volume. The StompMan also includes a switchable FX loop/ line out and speaker output. It’s available now with a full price of €199.…

Last month Paul learned to hold his guitar and pick, fret notes, and strum a chord. Then he played some riffs in open position. Now it’s time to work on chord changes. These are the biggest hurdle for most beginners, and they normally take quite a while to click. Just fretting one chord cleanly is a challenge at first, and it can be frustrating to get one right and immediately have to change. Jenna’s also designed a palm muting exercise with one chord throughout, so when Paul’s sick of fretting-hand struggles he can do something totally different. JENNA SCARAMANGA Jenna has taught guitar for 15 years at music colleges, schools, and IGF summer camps. She studied with Guthrie Govan at BIMM, and was classic rock columnist for TG’s sister magazine…

"I’M JUST ABOUT AN ABLE GUITAR PLAYER – I PEAKED A LONG TIME AGO!” Over the last decade, no new band has taken the world by storm quite like Swedish occult rockers Ghost. The group – masterminded by core songwriter and founder Tobias Forge, who is backed by a revolving door of ‘Nameless Ghouls’ – have gone from performing at London’s 500-capacity Underworld to headlining at the O2 Arena. Ghost’s debut album Opus Eponymous, released in 2010 on cult stoner label Rise Above, won them fans far and wide for its devilishly melodic doom, drawing comparisons to Blue Öyster Cult and The Doors alongside heavier influences like Black Sabbath. But it was their second album Infestissumam that saw them introduce bigger productions with more complex musical structures and arrangements, a…

When Warpaint convened in 2019, there was a plan. As guitarist Theresa Wayman recalls: “We were all anxious to record an album the way we used to when we were starting, together in the rehearsal space just writing and jamming and playing things over and over, really honing songs.” At first, this plan went swimmingly. In the earliest stages, the band set to work at drummer Stella Mozgawa’s home studio. “The best moment was when we got together in the first stages of writing,” Theresa says. “We all came in with some tracks we had started. We put those on and started learning them, bringing them to life. It was an ecstatic moment.” From there, they moved to a pro studio, Rancho De La Luna, in Joshua Tree, that fabled…

IBANEZ WH10 AND BOSS CE-1 CHORUS ENSEMBLE “I used a lot of the same things – the same Ibanez wah-wah pedal, the old one. And the same old Boss chorus pedal, the Chorus Ensemble.” BOSS DS-2 TURBO DISTORTION AND SD-1 SUPER OVERDRIVE “Normally, I would use the DS-2. But I also used the SD-1 – it’s less distorted. It’s not a super-extreme kind of distortion, but it can give you a powerful tone.” MXR SUPER BADASS VARIAC FUZZ AND CUSTOM BADASS ’78 DISTORTION “There was definitely a lot of MXR stuff on the album. They gave me a bunch of pedals early on. I used their fuzz tone quite a bit, not just for solos, but sometimes even for guitar parts for choruses or whatever. And a distortion pedal of…

When we asked TG readers to choose their favourite Chilis songs featuring John Frusciante on guitar, thousands of votes flooded in. Here we present the top 10 – with analysis of what John brought to each track. Some of the band’s biggest hits are missing – including Give It Away, The Zephyr Song and By The Way. But in these ten songs, the brilliance of John Frusciante shines bright. 10 CALIFORNICATION The intro to the title track of the Chili’s 1999 masterpiece uses open-position A minor and F major arpeggios with open string notes to add colour. Flea’s bass plays the melodic fills Frusciante would normally add himself. The end of the verse builds momentum by changing chords twice as often, through C-G-F-Dm. John plays soft, arpeggiated voicings, so…

Lo Moon’s sound is a wide, cinematic, layered soundscape that’s drawing comparisons with Talk Talk, Coldplay and Sigur Rós. With their latest album, A Modern Life, they’ve honed it into a unique balance of acoustic and electric guitars, drums, bass and synth. “It’s more of a collaborative record,” says guitarist Sam Stewart. “And more of a guitar record as well.” The range of Stewart’s playing is masterful; one moment counterpointing melodies with delicate, spacey arpeggios, the next propelling a chorus with stadium-sized lead lines. “When what we’re working on has made me think of a song or a band I like, I’ll grab two or three pedals that will get me in that zone,” he says. “Oftentimes it doesn’t sound like whoever I was trying to emulate, but it yields…