Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2019 i Guitar Player

STEVE VAI, ERIC JOHNSON, Rudy Sarzo and Billy Sheehan were among the stars who headlined Sweetwater’s GearFest 2019 this past June. Held in the musical-instrument retailer’s home base of Fort Wayne, Indiana, the 18th annual GearFest featured live shows, clinics and workshops hosted by world-class music industry professionals, and, of course, truckloads of new instruments. In addition to the performers mentioned above, GearFest 2019 included session-master Pete Thorn, gristle-king Greg Koch, Courtney Cox of the Iron Maidens, YouTube sensation Rob Scallon and online Guitar Zoom educator Steve Stine. Rounding out the artists were a number of legendary musicians who performed, shared their knowledge of music and discussed career highlights. These included Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Dennis Chambers, Johnny A, Doyle Dykes, and country/bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs, who performed with his group…

BRAZILIAN INSTRUMENTALIST Lari Basilio is everywhere lately. If you haven’t caught one of her scorching live performances, just search YouTube and you’ll find clips of her jamming with Steve Vai or Kiko Loureiro, and playing blues festivals with Keb’ Mo’, to name just a few of her latest appearances. A big part of the buzz is her signature style. Basilio is one of those special players who combines outstanding technical ability with a whole lot of feel. Originally from São Paulo and now based in Los Angeles, Basilio made a name for herself with two well-received instrumental recordings, live shows and instructional videos/clinics, including opening spots on clinics by Paul Gilbert and Andy Timmons. This year she reached the summit of all guitar camps as an instructor at the G4…

GUITAR ENTHUSIASTS constantly rehash the birth of the solidbody electric guitar and how it revolutionized amplification of the instrument via Fender’s Broadcaster/Telecaster of 1950 and Gibson’s Les Paul of 1952. But prior to 1950, Gibson was already hip to the notion that an amplified guitar required a very different approach. In 1949, the company had even shredded the blueprint for how guitars were made and redrawn it for a new era with the introduction of the ES-175. Over the course of the jazz age, it had become clear that guitarists in large orchestras relied entirely on the amplified sounds of their big electric archtop jazz boxes, making the instruments’ acoustic tones redundant. That being the case, Gibson reasoned, it made sense to design a guitar with a more rigid, feedback-reducing…

ANDRÉS SEGOVIA WAS a classical guitar pioneer who popularized the instrument in the early 20th century, when it wasn’t accepted as a legitimate classical instrument. Ignoring the guitar’s limitations, Segovia magnified its strengths and in the process delighted large audiences for nearly eight decades. He thought of the guitar not as an inferior instrument but as a miniature orchestra. By employing touch — using fingernails for a brighter tones, fingertips for mellower timbres — and using techniques such as large and small vibrato, palm muting, and right-hand placement over the sound hole and next to the bridge, he produced extreme tonal variations. With just his two hands, he coaxed the tones of a violin, cello, French horn, piano, tuba, cornet, harp and more from a six-string guitar. I have more…

RICHARD FORTUS IS at his home in St. Louis, Missouri. He recently returned from a spate of club gigs with electronic rock experimentalists Headtronics and is currently in the midst of producing a new album for the Psychedelic Furs. After that, he’s heading back out on the road for an arena tour around the United States and Mexico with Guns N’ Roses, with whom he’s been playing since 2002. While being immersed in such a broad variety of gigs over the years, Fortus has constantly strived to refine his tone and find inspiration with new sounds, often in the form of new guitars. After all, “We’re pushed and inspired by our own tone,” he reminds us. Fortus opened his home to offer Guitar Player a rare look at some of…

“GAD, I WAS SO UPTIGHT when I was making this stuff. I should have been a lot more relaxed,” Steve Miller says with a chuckle when discussing his new release, Welcome to the Vault. The 52-song box set features 38 previously unreleased tracks along with a DVD containing 21 live performances. Taken together, they provide an unprecedented look into Miller’s creative processes via song demos, live cuts, outtakes and rehearsals. “Most of the stuff on this album I didn’t release myself,” Miller continues. “It took someone else, my wife Janice in particular, who would listen to these other versions of tunes and say that we should release them. As you grow older, you realize you’re kind of a perfectionist about your own work, and it gets kind of silly, but…

“THIS FEELS LIKE the last stand,” Bob Taylor says. “Other traditional ebony-producing countries, such as Madagascar, India and Sri Lanka, have been logged very heavily, with not a lot of thought for the future. But there’s still a lot in Central Africa, Cameroon in particular, that we can make last, if we’re smart about it.” Sometimes it can be hard to see the forest for the trees, but one thing is painfully clear: There is no forest without the trees. Taylor is on a mission to make sure guitar players never have to experience that sad reality. Using his personal finances, as well as the considerable resources of Taylor Guitars, he is saving trees and setting up his legacy with the Ebony Project. Having handed his company over to master…

Many jump blues guitarists also play jazz and are often inclined to approach blues changes with a wider range of harmonic tools. You’ll need to ensure that you can switch effortlessly between parallel major and minor pentatonic scales (built from the same root note), ideally both in shape 1. This will enable you to better acknowledge the tonality of the IV chord of the blues and play phrases across the changes and bar lines. You should also experiment with the minor-six pentatonic and the corresponding Mixolydian modes for the I, IV and V chords. Also, don’t forget the importance of outlining chord tones with arpeggios, as this too is a very effective melody-building approach.…

I DON’T LIKE being wrong, but I do like being pleasantly surprised. I proclaimed loudly and often during the Steve Vai Passion and Warfare years — an era that also gave us the likes of Korn and Limp Bizkit— that the seven-string fad would prove to be exactly that: a fad. I was partly right. Those bands didn’t age quite as gracefully as their initial success might have foretold, and Vai went back to the six-string for much of his Vai-style awesomeness. But the seven-string guitar did not go away. In fact, it continued to gain traction with rock and metal guitarists, and it remains a touchstone for players, guitar builders and pickup manufacturers alike. Countless guitarists love the extended range that a low B or a dropped low A…

CINCINNATI-BASED KSR Amplification was founded in 2009 as a custom manufacturer. The company segued into standard production models in 2011 and has become known for behemoth tube heads like the Colossus and Orthos, which have won fans in the heavy-rock market with their searing high-gain lead channels and tight, thumping lows. Founder and proprietor Kyle Rhodes has now packed several of his most popular sounds into the Ceres 3-Channel Preamp to create a pedal that could become the cornerstone of many rock warriors’ favorite fly rig. The first channel (Clean) is the most basic, offering controls for just level and tone. It can also be configured for simple buffered or true-bypass with no control functions. But it’s the second (Rhythm) and third (Lead) channels that will generate the most excitement,…

THE RIVERSONG G2 Special Edition’s dazzling looks and unique design command attention. Traditionalists might want to move on, but if you’re more adventurous or searching for an acoustic that looks and plays more like an electric, read on. The Ice Blue finish on the G2’s flame-maple top is stunning. It’s basically a burst that gradates from dark to light blue down the body’s length, with a clear pickguard that allows every bit of blue to shine through. Other aesthetic points of interest include an assymetrical headstock shape and wooden maple-leaf fretboard inlays honoring Riversong’s Canadian heritage. Unique build elements abound. They include a completely adjustable one-piece neck that runs to the 24th fret and continues through the entire body, as well as skeletal bracing, an additional topside soundhole and a…

Raid Dana’s Gear Stash! I love hearing from lucky winners and delighted guitarists who are some of Guitar Player’s most loyal readers. Many have said, “I never win anything. This made my day!” We’re happy to share our wares with the GP community and thrilled to know gear our own editors have played and reviewed will be gracing your pedalboards. Keep the stories coming! This month’s giveaway is the Cash Cow overdrive, from Danelectro’s Billionaire series. Designed to emulate the sound of a roaring 100-watt stack, the Cash Cow makes chords sound chunky and full-bodied while retaining plenty of clarity. For a chance to get this pedal on your board, send an email to nbmgearcoordinator@gmail.com with “Cash Cow” in the subject line. Deadline for entries is September 20. Note that…

CHRIS SHIFLETT’S LONG CAREER path has seen him perform in many bands and genres. After starting out with the punk rock bands No Use for a Name and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, he landed with arena rockers Foo Fighters and pursued a solo career playing twangy country rock. Through it all, he’s tapped into his deep, lifelong love of rock and roll. Although he’s often a lead player, Shiflett has an ear for a memorable riff. Here are the top five that changed his life. THE ROLLING STONES, “SHATTERED” “This record came out in the late ’70s, when I was, like, seven years old, and it was one of those records you couldn’t get away from. So many of the Stones’ songs can be grasped even when you’re…

LYING AWAKE UNDER the moonlight in rural Acadian Louisiana, Dylan LeBlanc absorbed the nightly riot of sounds rising from the nearby swamps. Hooting owls, a chorus of insects and the eerie shriek of wild cats made up the evening soundtrack outside the wooden shack where he wrote much of Renegade, his fourth album and his first for ATO Records. “It’s so quiet out there, but the insects and the animals are very, very loud,” he says. “I remember seeing a bobcat and hearing it scream, and just listening to the different sounds of nature.” You can hear the mystery and tension of bayou country all over Renegade, though not in the traditional sense. This is LeBlanc’s least-Americana sounding album to date. Ethereal vocals float above drums awash in reverb. Keyboards…

I MET CAROLYN Wonderland in her hometown of Houston, Texas, in the early ’90s, when she was still a teenager. The first thing that struck me were her powerhouse vocals, which harkened back to Janis Joplin and seemed far too big for her petite frame and girlish demeanor. But besides being a great singer, Carolyn is an amazing guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, who is also proficient on trumpet, accordion, piano, mandolin and lap steel. She released her first album, Groove Milk, in 1993, and issued her latest, Moon Goes Missing, in 2017. When she’s not on tour with her own band, she’s out walking in the footsteps of players like Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Coco Montoya and many others, touring and playing lead guitar with British blues legend John…

MAYBE YOU SAW this guitar in music stores and walked right past it. Or perhaps you tried it out, found it wasn’t set up properly and moved on, never giving it a second thought. It’s so easy to blow off a guitar that appears to be made out of plastic. Like, how good could it be? It’s made out of plastic! But while other players ignore such guitars, I, as a fan of all plastic instruments, run toward them. To be clear, this guitar, known simply as the Hagstrom 1, is made of wood, but the front and back of the two-piece body are wrapped in molded plastic and attached together with six screws. This is obviously a low-cost way to make a cool-looking guitar without resorting to expensive carved…

BILLY GIBBONS CAN EASILY REMEMBER THE FIRST SONG HE EVER WROTE AND RECORDED THAT MADE HIM SAY TO HIMSELF, “I’VE GOT SOMETHING HERE.” “IT GOES BACK to the Moving Sidewalks,” the ZZ Top singer and guitarist says, referring to the psychedelic rock act he founded in Texas in the mid 1960s. “Our first single, ‘99th Floor,’ was such a rewarding experience. Back in the ’60s, before you went into the studio to tackle the challenge of recording, you did a demo, which was a demonstration of the product. So we had a nice little demo for that song, and after going back into the woodshed and chopping wood until we had it really together, I felt quite confident about it. And then we landed on a pretty special moment when…

“WE LIKE THINGS THAT SOUND A LITTLE ‘OFF’ OR UNSETTLING,” PIXIES SINGER, RHYTHM GUITARIST AND PRIMARY SONGWRITER BLACK FRANCIS EXPLAINS. “WE DON’T WANT it to sound wrong with a capital W, but if you can get away with having one little thing that just kind of makes it a little bit weird, like, ‘What’s going on here?,’ that’s a good thing.” At this point, the Pixies have made a career — make that two careers — out of doing things that are a little bit weird. The Massachusetts-based band’s first run, highlighted by classic late-’80s albums like Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, established them as something of an indie-rock Velvet Underground — not especially successful in the mainstream, but massively influential to the generation or two of rock acts that followed…

THINK OF A famous rock guitar solo and chances are the minor pentatonic scale lies at its foundation. For many of us, minor pentatonic was the first scale we ever learned to play. But a lot of guitarists rely on only one pattern or position for the scale and are either reluctant or unable to venture out of its boundaries into uncharted territory. If that sounds like you, read on. In this lesson, you’ll be introduced to the five pentatonic box patterns and, more importantly, learn how to connect them like interlocking jigsaw puzzle pieces along the fretboard. With practice, you’ll soon be soaring up and down the neck at will and with the greatest of ease. For purposes of illustration, we’ll use the five-note A minor pentatonic scale, spelled…

HAVING SOME SINGING ability gives you an artistic leg up on guitarists who only work the fretboard, and it makes you more hirable and desirable. Whether you have a dynamite voice or can barely carry a tune, these tips can help you maximize your magic as a singing guitarist. PICK THE BEST KEY It’s normal to want to play a cover tune in its original key. But if the melody lies outside your vocal range — or if you’ve dreamed up an alternate melody that’s an unrealistic stretch for your vocal cords — you won’t do the song or yourself any favors by taking that approach. To find your vocal range, do this: Sing the lowest note you can hit well, and mark its location on the fretboard. Do the…

IT SHOULDN’T BE surprising at this point that Line 6 makes great-sounding digital modeling devices. The company has been in the modeling game longer than anyone else and has consistently pushed the envelope for realistic tone, more and better effects, and excellent price points. Those attributes sum up the Spider V 120 MkII perfectly. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone cramming more into a 1x12 combo, much less selling it for $429. I checked it out with a PRS Silver Sky, a Gibson Les Paul and, to get a feel for how the Spider handles low end, a MusicMan Jason Richardson seven-string [see review on page 92]. The first thing I noticed when I plugged in was that most of the presets — many of which are crafted by…

SURPRISING VERSATILITY FROM a three-knob OD pedal is what the Plumes brings, and several things are going on here to make that possible. For starters, the circuit uses JFET op-amps instead of the JRC4558 op-amp and bipolar transistors found in the classic OD-808/TS-808 and its clones. The Plumes has a higher input impedance of around 10MΩ, and it converts the nine-volt input power (from external adapter only) to +/- nine volts, all with the stated goals of reducing noise and increasing headroom, clarity and overall sonic dimension. The key function here is a three-way mode switch that, in position one (left) produces symmetrical LED clipping for nicely saturated distortion. Used with both a Telecaster and a Les Paul, it was easy to get a great overdrive tone through a Fender…

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THE INTRODUCTION OF Epiphone’s George Thorogood White Fang ES-125 TDC is a long-overdue tribute to the slide-wielding blues rocker whose badass-to-the bone guitar tone is one of the most recognizable around. Based on the vintage Gibson ES-125s that Thorogood has been slinging for decades, the White Fang ($899 street) has been optimized for the Delaware-born guitarist via a custom neck profile, Wilkinson Deluxe tuners, Epiphone ProBucker P-90 pickups, a wooden bridge and an eye-catching Bone white finish. Far from being just a sweet-looking signature model, however, the White Fang was born out of necessity. “I was kind of forced into it due to the fact that I had worn out all my old Gibson 125s,” Thorogood says. “They’re frail and they just kept breaking down, and we were spending thousands…

“IT’S BEEN A long time since I felt the urge to explore technique purely for the sake of technique,” says Guthrie Govan, possessor of possibly the most terrifying guitar chops on the planet. “I can’t necessarily play everything I hear in my head, but I can usually imagine a way in which it could be played, given the necessary amount of practice time. These days, I’m more likely to work on something technical only if it will help me to execute a specific passage of music.” Those passages of music are in full bloom on Govan’s latest offering, You Know What…?, a joint effort with his mates in the Aristocrats: bass savant Bryan Beller and drum monster Marco Minnemann. It’s an egalitarian and mind-blowing collection of nine tunes, three written…

MANY EFFECTS PARAMETERS, especially in amp sims, have tempo sync to parameters like delay time and tremolo rate. However, you may be using DAW plug-ins that don’t have tempo sync. So what if you want to sync, say, EQ cutoff or resonance variations to tempo? Or use modulation waveforms that your plug-ins don’t offer? Thanks to DAW automation, it’s often easy to create a “virtual LFO.” Some software programs (such as Steinberg Cubase, PreSonus Studio One, Avid Pro Tools and Cakewalk by BandLab) include a function to draw periodic automation envelopes, like sine, triangle, square, random and the like. In most software, the place to look for this function is the paint or draw tool used to draw and edit automation. (Note that while not all programs allow for drawing…

“It used to be you’d go to a music store and there would be half a dozen pedals. Now there’s half a dozen rooms of nothing but pedals,” Billy Gibbons says with a laugh. “But I think today, in the hands of a skilled user, there’s no end to what sounds can be dreamed up. It’s now reached a level that a certain sound can be so inspirational, it can actually create the germination of a new song. “And there’s some really good stuff out there. Now you can even do it on an iPhone. I suggest you get online and check out Korg Gadget. It’s an application you can actually put on the phone. Talk about a world of gear at you fingertips! It’s modeling amps, it’s drum machines,…

BLACK FRANCIS Guitars | 1954 and 1957 Fender Telecasters, 1963 Gibson SG Junior, two vintage Martin D-28s, vintage Martin D-18 (all acoustics fitted with Fishman Rare Earth humbucking soundhole pickups) Amps | Vintage Vox AC30 head and cabinet, vintage Vox AC30 combo, Marshall 1974X combo Pedals | MXR Sugar Drive overdrive, EarthQuaker Devices Dispatch Master delay/reverb, Fulltone OCD overdrive, Boss FS-6 dual footswitch, Boss LS-2 line selector, Radial BigShot AB switcher JOEY SANTIAGO Guitars | Gibson Les Paul Custom Gold Top with Bare Knuckle humbuckers, Gibson Les Paul Custom Black Beauty Reissue, 1965 Gibson ES-345, Gibson Memphis ES-335 Gold Top Amps | Marshall JCM800 Lead Series dual-channel head, Marshall 1960 cabinet, 1964 Fender Vibrolux Pedals | TC Electronic PolyTune tuner, Moog Moogerfooger MF-104M delay, Moog Moogerfooger MF-108M Cluster Flux modulation…

LAST MONTH, I presented the first part of our lesson in jump blues, an uptempo cousin of the blues that directly preceded the rock and roll explosion of the 1950s. In this second part of our two-part lesson, I offer a trio of extended musical examples inspired by three great jump blues practitioners — Brian Setzer, Hollywood Fats and Jeff Beck — that epitomize the signature techniques of their individual styles. As I noted in part one, jump blues has a strong backbeat groove that makes it closer to rock and roll than blues. Note and chord choices can range from simple “box”-pattern licks and stock dominant-seventh and -ninth chord “grips” to sophisticated melodic lines and jazzy voicings. But to sound authentic, it’s essential that you control your swing and…

HAVING REIGNITED THIS classic brand largely on reissues and reimagined classic-style amps, Supro has pushed further and further into original designs over the course of its revival, and the Galaxy 1697R head takes the name further into new territory than anything the company has thrown down the pike. Yep, it’s a channel switcher, from a name redolent of cranked-up, vintage-voiced, non-master-volume-style tone, yet it’s still Supro through and through. The Galaxy 1697R is a 50-watt all-tube head powered by a pair of 6L6GCs in the back end, with half a dozen preamp tubes up front for gain generation, reverb, the tube-buffered effects loop and the phase inverter. Rectification is provided by solid-state diodes. If this isn’t the first two-channel/channel-switching Supro to come along (the 50-watt Statesman earned that honor last…

FOR SOME 18 years now, Eastman’s acoustic guitars and mandolins have earned plaudits from players who have been impressed by their level of construction and relatively low price. As it happens, guitarists have been equally thrilled by Eastman’s electric guitars, in particular with the feel, tone and overall “wow” factor. Although the Eastman T484’s origins clearly lie with the seminal Gibson ES-335, upon closer inspection its closer to the ES-339, which has proved popular as a more compact alternative semi-acoustic. At 14 inches across the lower bout and 1 ¾ inches deep, the body is a tad smaller than the big-bodied 335, providing a more comfortable ride without losing the magical semi-acoustic voice that players love. The T484’s top, back and sides are made from laminated flamed maple, with a…

CELESTION BROADENED ITS color-themed lineup of Alnico speakers by introducing the new 12-inch Ruby at the 2019 Winter NAMM show. In doing so, the company created what might be the sweet spot for fans of these vintage-toned drivers. Previous offerings in this range have inevitably been discussed in general terms as an Alnico Blue that handles more power, but each variation has also brought its own voice and response characteristics, in addition to the ability to withstand increased amp output. The first addition, the 50-watt Gold, is known for its chimey, firm and somewhat barky delivery, while the 90-watt Cream is full, rich and smooth, but has plenty of snarl when pushed. As such, neither quite replicated the jangly, detailed, yet softened clean response and ragged aggression of the original…

> One of the most most popular classical guitarists, and a successful pop crossover artist, Liona Boyd has been hailed by no less than Andrés Segovia and Chet Atkins for her musical virtuosity. Born in London in 1949, and raised in Canada, Boyd began playing guitar at 13 and quickly excelled on the instrument. While a student at the Guitar Society of Toronto, she studied with classical guitar greats like Segovia, Julian Bream, Narciso Yepes and Alexandre Lagoya. “Segovia told me I was playing too fast… Julian Bream helped me with Bach… Lagoya, of course, concentrated more on tone,” Boyd told Guitar Player in 2006. “But the one thing all of these masters provided more than anything else was inspiration. It wasn’t just technical advice — they would get me…