Innehållsförteckning för Summer 2023 från Total Guitar

I’ve always found it extremely tough indeed to choose a favourite song “of all time” in any category or genre of music. Personally, my tastes change almost every day. However, when you ask Total Guitar readers and visitors to guitarworld.com for their opinions on music, the results are nearly always clearer than the inner workings of my own fickle mind. Back in June, we ran a poll on the website to get your opinions on the greatest acoustic guitar song of all time. We created a shortlist of 120 tracks, from early blues and rock ’n’ roll classics to modern pop hits, all with acoustic guitar as a significant feature of the original recording. Well, you voted in your masses! Over 75,000 votes were cast and here in this month’s…

WAH WAH Get your guitar talking with this mainstay of classic rock pedalboards the world over The most common wah pedal of all, the Dunlop Cry Baby, is named after the Vox Cry Baby that preceded it. It’s hard to overstate just how ubiquitous this wah pedal is. Chances are, if you see a black wah on a pedalboard, it’s a Dunlop Cry Baby. The Cry Baby is built around an active bandpass filter. The centre frequency of the filter is 750Hz, with 18dB of boost, and a range from about 450Hz to 1600Hz. However, this is just the GCB-95 version; there’s also a bass model which has a low-pass filter, and various signature versions with adjustable Q and boost. On the original, another key property is that the out-of-band…

Lineup changes can signal life or death for a band, but over their four-decade career, the Chilis have bounced back from personnel shifts on a few occasions. Numerous guitarists have stepped in throughout the years to tour and record with the band, but what stands out is how each player encompasses the style of their predecessors while introducing elements relevant to current musical trends. In the ’80s, Jack Sherman and Hillel Slovak established the band’s signature funk-rock styling while reflecting elements of pop. In the ’90s, John Frusciante maintained the ‘funky punk’ vibe while acknowledging grunge, while Dave Navarro forged a straight-ahead rock sound identifying with alt-rock. Josh Klinghoffer took the reins as a full-time member from 2009 to 2019, maintaining the wide pallet of sounds established by his predecessors.…

W hen singer-songwriter Ben Howard appeared on the scene a little over a decade ago, scoring a top 10 hit with his debut album Every Kingdom, his music felt special because it had an uncanny ability to transport those who listened directly back to the greatest summer they’d ever had. His idiosyncratic “pick and go” acoustic style and percussive lap tapping techniques intrigued general listeners and guitarists alike, and set him apart from the main crop of singalong strummers. Two Brit Award wins in 2012 made him a household name, and his homespun brand of beachy fireside folk pulled whopping festival crowds around the globe. But, never entirely at ease with his burgeoning pop star status – let alone the prospect of being forever typecast as Devon’s answer to Jack…

Whether you’re busking solo or you play in a band, making sure your acoustic rig is set up just right is key to delivering a great performance. There are countless potential pitfalls but we’re here to steer you in the right direction and ensure your gigs go to plan. We’re well into making our gig-lives easier here at TG Towers! Broadly, we’d say the following tips fall into the following categories: sonic improvements, tonal troubleshooting and set-up advice, essential gear purchases, and backups/preparation for those unforeseen gear failures. Read on as we help you get your acoustic rig gig-ready. 01 TRAVEL LIGHT WITH YOUR GUITAR We could fill the mag with acoustic guitar recommendations, but if portability is a concern then a travel-size guitar is a must. These tend to…

CLASSIC TRACK Shoot To Thrill features on AC/DC’s global smash comeback album, Back In Black. The backbone of the band’s sound comes from the dual guitars of sibling pair Angus and Malcolm Young. Their powerhouse rhythm parts are the perfect example of how twin guitar parts should lock and groove, with Angus’ solos providing the icing on the cake – hard-hitting blues-influenced licks delivered with killer tone and perfect time. The rhythm parts are based around open-position powerchords. G5 is the same as open G, but the fifth string is nearly always muted. D5 is based on that easy open D shape, but frequently played over a low A. Angus’ lead parts are largely pentatonic, but STT’s solos are much more than mere one-shape wonders, so be sure to read…

INTERVIEW DAVE MUSTAINE Rumours of Dave Mustaine ending his partnership with Dean Guitars were confirmed in February 2021 when a video of Megadeth mascot Vic Rattlehead brandishing a sword carved with the words ‘Rust In Peace’ was uploaded onto Gibson’s social media channels. So far there have been a handful of Gibson Flying V EXP signature electrics, as well as a Songwriter acoustic, and this year sees the introduction of new models to the American company’s other brands. Here, the Megadeth man explains all… Tell us about your relationship with Epiphone and Kramer prior to this… I can’t say I knew much about Kramer or Epiphone before this new relationship with Gibson. But I always felt Kramers had to be great if people like Eddie Van Halen were using…

Fender is a master of reinvention, and this new Tele – one of three Mexican-made Gold Foil models – is one of an increasing number of their classics that mixes up the influences. Historically, Teles never employed so-called Gold Foil pickups, but plenty of brands from the 50s and 60s did – like Teisco, Guyatone, Harmony and Kay – and in recent years, the Gold Foil has gained quite a following. There’s no one single recipe, though. Many originals were fairly basic single coils often with a rubberised magnet and sometimes with adjustable pole pieces that were for looks, not function. The pickups here, however, are mini-humbuckers, not single-coils, and Fender aims to “deliver iconic visual flair and distinctive midrange bite inspired by the dazzling aesthetics of those cult-classic pickups…

Building a substantial following online since the tender age of 20, LA-based singer-songwriter mehro (styled with a lowercase ‘m’, as he prefers to be “unassuming”) has quickly made a name for himself with a blend of intricate fingerstyle guitar work and dreamy falsetto vocals. This year he released his sophomore album, Dark Corners And Alchemy – the rich, multi-layered music tackling what he describes as “the duality of the human experience”, juxtaposing themes of despair and self-destruction (the ‘Dark Corners’ side) with hope and healing (Alchemy). If that sounds deep, well, it is – mehro is a self-professed “scholar of the human condition”, and he’s an artist of great depth and empathy. His lyrics are introspective but worldly. His videos – which he acts in and either directs or co-directs…

Let’s be clear! There’s no such thing as an ‘acoustic guitar chord’. If a guitar has a standard fretboard, then, acoustic or electric, all chord shapes are fair game. However, some chords do sound great when played on acoustic – and we’re looking at some of our favourites here. We’re looking at a particular category of guitar chords: open-string shapes. These are chords that include open strings, but aren’t necessarily played in the open position. The lush, ringing open strings give a richness to these shapes that really fire up any acoustic arrangement, solo or in a band. Right, let’s get strumming! 01 THE BIRD IS THE WORD Played famously by Paul McCartney on The Fab Four’s Blackbird, this sweet shape can easily be moved around the fretboard – the…

Multi-Grammy winner, Bond-theme co-writer and global superstar Billie Eilish has always collaborated with her brother Finneas O’Connell, who produces and co-writes the music – as well as taking guitar duties in live shows. This month’s track from Billie’s second EP release Guitar Songs is a laidback acoustic ballad with biting lyrics that tackle weighty issues like mental health, abandonment, broken relationships and abortion rights. It’s a beautiful song to play and relatively easy, too. If you’re playing unaccompanied, it’s an opportunity to work on getting your strumming in the pocket, timing-wise – and keep in mind that the slow tempo and sparse arrangement leaves the guitar somewhat exposed, so timing and feel really are key here. Alternatively, play along with our backing track. We’ve recorded it in full and kept…

The amp market is awash with different ways of letting us hear our guitars, and it can sometimes be a little overwhelming. Blackstar’s Debut 50R series strips things back to a time when our only real choices were valve or solid-state, head and cab or all-in-one combo. Except it goes a step further, as the Debut 50R – which joins the previously-released Debut 10 and Debut 15 – is only available as a self-contained, 1x12” 50-watt combo. "THE 50R IS VERY HARD TO FAULT AT JUST OVER £200" That might seem a little strange in 2023, where nearly every amp-based product we come across in these pages packs dozens of models, a fleet of effects, a USB interface and a software counterpart, but that’s not the Debut’s purpose. What we…

Danelectro might well have started building guitars back in the 1950s, but most of us will have experienced the Korean-made reissues that first surfaced back in the late 90s. The archetypal mail-order instruments, Danos were cheap ’n’ cheerful with a unique construction: a pine or softwood frame and centre-block faced, top and back, with Masonite (which we’d call hardboard) body material. They were pretty funky with, of course, their fabled ‘lipstick tube’ single coils, ‘coke bottle’ headstocks and aluminium top nuts. But they make superb slide guitars in particular, and are perfect for 60s stylists who love their jangle tones. On top of that, via a unique control circuit, those two single coils when selected together are in series, not the usual parallel, which for many is the trump card…

The images emblazoned in pop-culture’s memory of Jimmy Page in his pomp are electric. The dragon-embroidered bell-bottoms and 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard. The double-necked EDS-1275. The Telecaster and the violin bow. But just as Page changed electric guitar, he changed the acoustic, redefining its place in rock, using it to traffic in melodies inspired by Indian and Arabic music, to blur the line between folk and rock. To think that folkies were outraged at the electric Bob Dylan while Page was being similarly iconoclastic, re-contextualising folk through rock epics. From the beginning, the signs were there that Page had big plans for the acoustic. Page had long been a fan of Babe I’m Going To Leave You, the Anne Bredon folk song popularised by Joan Baez in 1962, and…

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 getting hung up on hokey mythology or nonsense marketing speak: we aim to bring you bullsh*t-free opinions on the gear you’re interested in. WE CAN’T BE BOUGHT TG review scores are a true reflection of our experts’ opinion on the product they’ve been testing. You’ll never find a rating in our mag that has been bought and paid for. REAL…