Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2023 i Guitarist

Ask any guitarist what they would choose if they could only have one electric guitar to cover all gigs, and chances are they’ll say a Strat. And it’s not hard to see why – it’s got a few more tones in it than a Tele, but, with a bit of help from overdrive, it can rock as hard as a Les Paul. And yet the near-universal popularity of the Strat wasn’t a given. In the late 60s, the Tele was outselling it and it took Hendrix to turn the tide – after Jimi, everyone wanted one. Today, most players have owned a Strat (or a guitar closely based on one) at some point or another. Despite this, I sometimes feel the Stratocaster is the most elusive of all electrics, when…

FIRST PLAY ORIGIN EFFECTS DCX BOOST Origin Effects has history with pedals that are based on classic studio equipment, with its Cali76 offering Urei 1176-style compression and the M-EQ Driver featuring Pultec-style EQ. Now we have the DCX Boost, inspired by the Universal Audio 610 recording preamp – DCX being the Roman numerals for 610. Described as a tone-shaper and drive pedal, the DCX Boost reimagines the 610 circuitry, optimising it for electric guitar and aiming to deliver the sort of sonic enhancement that the vintage circuitry would add with either a completely flat frequency response or some tonal tweaking. The pedal has two modes: EQ and the gainer OD. EQ is the go-to mode if you’d like some clean boost, although at higher settings of the Drive knob it…

Artist: Carl Baldassarre Album: Grand Boulevard (Carl Baldassarre Music) Cleveland, Ohio’s Carl Baldassarre has been practising music for over 50 years and is a renowned guitarist and composer. His YouTube channel dubs him the “Professor of Classic Rock” and focuses on guitar riffs and techniques, while his debut solo album, Grand Boulevard, sees him lead a rich and diverse set of rock, funk, R&B and pop numbers, not to mention his tribute work with Baldassarre’s Led Zeppelin Revival. This is a busy musician. “I’ve never really thought about why I’m prolific,” he says. “But it has to do with curiosity and the thrill of trying new things. Nothing is more exciting than the next thing you’re working on – and I’m addicted to that feeling.” Creative Progression This abounding creativity…

Peter Green was one of our most loved guitarists. He hit bullseye when it came to feel, note choice, touch and tone, and he stood apart from the crowd in other ways, too. His voice was special, and he exuded a spirituality that touched hearts all around the world. Peter’s estate recently auctioned off his collection of guitars, other musical instruments and ephemera, and the sale was handled by Bonhams in London. When Bonhams invited me, along with current editor-in-chief, Jamie, and former helmsman Mick Taylor to form a panel, pick one guitar from the sale and discuss its place in Peter’s musical history, we jumped at the chance. “My gladness for having chosen such a slow and ‘easy’ song turned into mild terror. Why? I suddenly had all this…

STAR LETTER CAVEAT EMPTOR Just recently I decided to change the gauge of strings on my three-year-old Les Paul from 10s to nines. I don’t play in a band, just at home, and so I hardly ever change strings; as long as they stay in tune I’m happy. I ordered three sets of Ernie Ball strings, including free postage, for £11 on eBay. The photos of the packets looked genuine, so naturally, in order to save money, that was what I went for. Firstly, the strings took three weeks to arrive. It merely stated “Free Economy Delivery” and that the strings were “Located in: Dunstable, United Kingdom”. In any case, after fitting the strings the A and D strings were buzzing terribly. I thought that since I’d dropped from 10s…

FENDER VINTERA ’60S STRATOCASTER MODIFIED £1,009 If vintage feel combined with modern features at a more affordable price is what you’re looking for, the Vintera ’60s Stratocaster Modified puts it all in one guitar. It has a retro look with a choice of the pictured Burgundy Mist Metallic finish or Olympic White, and the 21 medium-jumbo frets on the pau ferro ’board lean towards the classic, but the magnets are Hot ’60s Strat models wired to an S-1 switch. There’s a two-point contemporary vibrato and the neck is finished in a sweat-friendly satin. www.fender.com FENDER AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL II STRATOCASTER £1,769 The American Professional II series boasts a long spec sheet, bringing some additional features and modern touches to a US-made ‘workhorse’ price tag. There’s a choice of alder or lighter-weight…

Ultimate Strats There is nothing off-the-peg about the guitar playing of Rabea Massaad. Voluminous of hair, visionary of mindset and almost permanently viral for his jaw-dropping online videos, the FrogLeap guitarist was never likely to settle for factory-spec Strat coils. Sure enough, the search for a bolder tone led him to the door of Tim Mills, MD of Cornwall’s acclaimed Bare Knuckle, and to the birth of the Triptych set that is rapidly becoming the mod of the moment. There’s quite a buzz surrounding the Triptych. “Yeah, absolutely, it’s really taken off – in part because Rabea has just brought a different angle to Strat playing and introduced a lot of players to a new way of delivering tone from a Strat they wouldn’t necessarily think of. And that was…

Bonnie Raitt has been a constant presence on the international music scene for over 50 years, collaborating with many – from Sippie Wallace to Mavis Staples, John Lee Hooker to John Prine – and boasts a long list of best-selling albums, with 13 Grammy Awards from 30 nominations to her name, as well as the honour of receiving the Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2022. Not bad for someone who was discounted earlier this year as “an unknown blues singer” by a certain UK tabloid… Her own core band has been by her side for over 30 years, including guitarist and sometimes co-writer George Marinelli, Ricky Fataar on drums and James ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson on bass, while keyboard player Glenn Patscha joined the band a few years back in 2018. When George…

IK MULTIMEDIA TONEX PEDAL £399 CONTACT IK Multimedia WEB www.ikmultimedia.com What You Need To Know 1 Another amp modeller, then? It may be better described as a ‘capture player’ – IK Multimedia’s Tonex Pedal has amp and speaker sounds like an amp modeller, but these are sounds that have been captured or profiled, much like in a Kemper product. 2 So, it can capture the sound of your own amp? Not directly from the pedal, but that process can be carried out with the included Tonex software, and the resulting Tone Models transferred to the pedal. 3 Does it have effects as well? Tonex solely features amps, speaker cabs and dirt pedals, but you do get an onboard compressor, noise gate and reverb. Most readers of this mag will know…

Many years ago, I remember finding out that Gibson used nylon for its top nuts and thinking, ‘Hang on, that’s not going to work.’ But, of course, so long as you use the right blend – not an easy material to work with compared with bone – it certainly does. I inherited a friend’s Ibanez semi that had a TonePros tune-o-matic with nylon saddles and, again, the guitar sounds really good and I have no plans to change it. But materials that have direct contact with the string, not least the bridge saddle, are central to the whole way a guitar works in its seemingly simple but actually rather complex manner – and that goes for whether they might be regular or more unusual materials. Today’s thinking? Well, for electric…

“Beethoven described the guitar as a ‘miniature orchestra’ – but he never had the opportunity to hear or play the modern Gibson Harp-guitar,” says the firm’s 1923 catalogue. 100 years ago, this obscure hybrid instrument may have appeared modern, but double-neck guitars were, in fact, around long before Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Electric Spanish-style double-neck guitars were, however, a novelty when players such as Joe Maphis and Jimmy Bryant were using them in the 1950s. Subsequently, interest began to grow and in response to numerous requests for these unconventional instruments Gibson developed a pair of dual-necked electric guitars in 1957: the Double 12 and Double Mandolin. Unveiled at the July 1957 NAMM Show, these rare, custom-order thinlines were constructed with a carved/arched spruce top and laminated maple back and sides.…

Going For Gold Huw Price untangles the complicated story of the family of pickups we know as ‘Gold Foils’, which are more popular than ever, on p120 Mass Boutique The partnership of revered boutique acoustic maker Dana Bourgeois with giant Chinese maker Eastman has yielded superb results p92 Super Distortion We talk tone with Larry Dimarzio and learn how he invented the market for hot replacement pickups back in the innovative 1970s p108…

FIRST PLAY VOX MV50-BM BRIAN MAY LIMITED EDITION SET If you’re talking signature guitar tones, we’d wager there’s none more instantly recognisable than that of Brian May. Ever since Queen’s debut album five decades ago, a whole industry has grown up around ‘that sound’, with guitars, amps and effects all vying for the attention of hordes of Queen enthusiasts who want to replicate it. Aside from the ‘Red Special’, May’s unique homemade guitar, the other main component is, of course, the Vox AC30, which May plugs into via a variety of treble boosters. Now there’s a special Brian May signature version of Vox’s highly portable MV50 micro head, which includes a built-in treble booster circuit by Knight Audio Technologies, one of the most well-known Queen equipment specialists, with Sir Brian…

Repeatedly, old Father Time has proven to be an enemy of so many instruments; the unrelenting tension of taut steel strings will so often gradually buckle soundboards, warp necks and twist fingerboards beyond the realms of playability. While it’s often the case that a thorough setup by an experienced luthier may rectify these problems, replacing frets, levelling fingerboards and crafting a new nut or saddle may not always be enough to fix a guitar when its carefully aligned geometry has been pulled out of shape by the malevolent forces of time. A new beginning is required; the guitar must be subjected to an emergency procedure. “The true test of any aspiring guitar repairer is surely the daunting task of performing a ‘neck reset’ for the first time on a valuable…

Ultimate Strats “The CBS era [from 1965] was a hugely experimental time for Fender because they had the financial resources to try a lot of different things. They’d already hired Roger Rossmeisl [in 1962] and Phil Kubicki [in 1964] to come onboard and develop new designs. The guitar world was changing quickly and people didn’t necessarily want the same old same old. But the biggest problem they were facing was weight. From my understanding, the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States made it mandatory to use the entire tree, as companies that were harvesting wood were taking the wood furthest from the roots and leaving the rest of the limbless tree to die. So that heavier wood down at the base had to be used in the process, and…

VINTAGE V6 REISSUED ELECTRIC GUITAR £429 Persuade non-players to draw a guitar and they’ll draw this outline. But they won’t include the American alder body, American maple neck, rosewood fingerboard or Graph Tech nut. You’ll be lucky if they mention the pitch-returning, six-screw Wilkinson WCV vibrato, and we can be sure they won’t talk up the Wilkinson WVS single coils. Okay, so it’s very much derived rather than redesigned, but as far as S-types that’ll get you to the stage on a budget are concerned, your chariot awaits. https://vintageguitarsrus.com KAUFFMANN ’63 S HEAVY RELIC £2,199 Lake Placid, who? The heavy battering that this ’63 S has undergone reveals the level of detail in the craft here, spinning the yarn of a vintage refin with a gorgeous Sherwood Green over an…

“In the beginning, we had George Marinelli and Duke Levine together at rehearsals,” Bonnie tells us from California, “so Duke was able to watch and listen to the various guitar parts that George contributes to songs like Need You Tonight and Livin’ For The Ones, and the different songs that we cover. George often overdubs two or three parts – and it’s the same with keyboards, as there’s often three or four keyboards parts. So when you perform live and you only have a four-piece band, you have to figure out which parts you’re going to take. “Deciding which part of the song deserves this particular guitar part, or how you can make it an artful mix of the three guitar parts, is something George has been expert at because…

BLUEPRINT: DiMarzio Super Distorion Larry DiMarzio doesn’t do an awful lot of interviews. Which is a shame because he’s one of the most storied and rightly famous pickup makers and tone innovators in the world. Cutting his teeth in the late 60s and early 70s, repairing guitars for the busy and demanding pro guitarists of New York, he soon learned that professional guitarists needed pickups that offered higher performance than the factory units being made by Fender and Gibson at the time. After a stint working for Bill Lawrence, he went on to almost single-handedly invent the mainstream pickup market. His first foray into designing original pickups yielded the FS-1 – an eponymous ‘Fat Strat’ pickup designed to correct the tendency of traditional Strat bridge pickups to sound shrill and…

Open-String Blues Tutor Richard Barrett | Gear used Knaggs SSC & Vox AC15 C1 Difficulty | 10 mins per example WHEN IMPROVISING BLUES licks and solos, most of us would have to admit that, from time to time (or perhaps more often than that), we call upon on ‘stock’ phrases at will and vary these to fit over different chords, tempos and even styles if we go so far as to take things like tone/amp settings into consideration. The idea behind these four examples is to give a few ideas to incorporate into your internal ‘library’. I’ve chosen to use lots of open strings in the key of E as this sounds classic and allows you to create a complete‑sounding blues piece without having to rely on a backing track,…

Continuing a long run of pickup-pimped Telecasters, this 2023 release sees our favourite bolt-on in new dress and with a pair of Gold Foil pickups, which, says Fender, “combines the enduring charm of mid-century mail-order guitars with the style and playability of an authentic Fender”. Technically, there’s no such thing as a single-recipe ‘gold foil’ pickup; the style is inspired by various pawnshop-prize brands such as Teisco, Guyatone, Harmony and Kay (as Huw Price discusses further on page 118). The pickup itself – anything with a bit of gold metallic ‘foil’ on the front with a partial metal cover – came in a variety of usually single-coil styles, some using rubberised ‘fridge’ magnets. But, hey, they’re trendy and have been for some years with many pickup makers offering their own…

FIRST PLAY ELECTRO-HARMONIX LIZARD QUEEN For those of us playing guitar in the 1970s, the Electro-Harmonix range looked unique and quite exotic with those huge metallic enclosures, quirky graphics and, best of all, those names – Electric Mistress, Big Muff Pi, Screaming Tree, Bad Stone and so on. Bringing things up to date, in 2022 pedal nerd Josh Scott of JHS Pedals took on the task of creating a homage to that era: an Electro-Harmonix pedal that never existed but could have. EHX never actually made an octave fuzz, so Josh took up the challenge, dived in and came up with the Lizard Queen, with Daniel Danger providing the artwork. The next stage was EHX head honcho, Mike Matthews, getting involved and the pedal went into production. A limited-edition JHS-built…

Artist: Ralph Towner Album: At First Light (ECM) Apart from a solo career that began back in the early 1970s, nylon-string guitarist Ralph Towner has contributed to recordings from a wide range of artists, including Bill Bruford, Robben Ford and Weather Report. He also has the distinction of having had two craters on the moon named after his compositions, by the Apollo 15 astronauts. He’s a multi-instrumentalist, having begun his musical journey playing brass instruments before teaching himself to play piano, but it was to be the guitar that formed the main focus of his music. His latest album, At First Light, finds him playing solo nylon-string guitar on a collection of new pieces, plus jazz standards by Hoagy Carmichael and Jule Styne as well as a reading of the…

Regular readers will have seen that in the first part of this topic in last issue I was taking a look at the way chords can be varied and moved around the fretboard, sometimes opening up the possibility of alternative names due to the different inversions or potential context in a progression. Here in Part 2, I would like to realise that idea more fully by taking the well-loved major 7th chord and shifting it to various positions – with a few alterations here and there. The overarching concept is that while scales are incredibly useful, as guitar players we often relate more comfortably to shapes, whether this signifies the pentatonic boxes or the recognition of a chord shape traced on the fretboard when playing an arpeggio. We’ll also touch…

Ultimate Strats 1 DAN ARMSTRONG WIRING If you need a ‘Swiss Army knife’ guitar, but you don’t want to rout your Strat for humbuckers or drill holes in your pickguard, check out Dan Armstrong’s wiring mod. It connects all three pickups to the neck tone control to free up the middle tone control, which then becomes a parallel/series fader. In short, with the control at 10, you have five regular SSS combinations. Set to 1, you get a HSH configuration, with the neck and bridge pickups operating in series with the middle pickup for pseudo humbucker tones. 2 INDUCTANCE PLATING If you crave a bit more beef and output from your bridge pickup, try installing a steel inductance plate. Various pickup makers can supply them or fit one…

HISTORIC HARDWARE When it comes to the vintage market, few rules are set in stone. Consider the curious case of the Gibson Firebird. Launched in 1963 to a general shrug of shoulders, not even high-profile exponents like Brian Jones and Blind Faith-era Eric Clapton could boost the model’s sales beyond a desultory trickle. But as Mike Long of vintage specialist ATB Guitars explains, that same outlier status now makes the Firebird an excellent lower-priced entry point for first-time collectors. But when true one-offs come to market – like this stunning non-reverse III circa 1968, with its irresistible Led Zeppelin connection – all bets are off as to what they can command as collectible instruments. Can you tell us the story behind this Firebird and how it came to ATB Guitars?…

The alliance between Eastman and Bourgeois might mean that a great percentage of Touchstone construction is done in China, but it’s carried out under Dana Bourgeois’ strict supervision. Furthermore, his team in Maine is responsible for selecting, carving and generally engineering the guitars’ tops and carrying out the final setup when the completed guitars are returned to the Bourgeois workshop. We ask Dana how this arrangement works in a practical sense, beginning with the forming of the tops. What role does the top play on an acoustic guitar? “Well, in a nutshell, the way a guitar works is that we excite the strings of the guitar with the pick or fingers, the strings move the bridge, the bridge moves the top, and the top essentially pumps air that disturbs our…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money? “My first guitar that I bought was actually a Nash guitar. It cost – I’m going to try and convert it from Norwegian to dollars – maybe $1,200? It was a lot of money for me at the time and it actually got stolen after three years. That was heartbreaking. I had just started playing and I thought that I wanted to spend all my money on a guitar. And I thought I should try to have a really good guitar and not the bad one my dad had in his basement! I only listened to Michael Jackson in those days. He’s my number one, musically. I’m one of those fans – I know everything about him. But…

What is a Gold Foil pickup exactly? Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer because the only feature common to all Gold Foil pickups is a layer of textured-foil covered paper or cloth beneath cut-out metal covers. It serves no sonic purpose and is merely there to smarten up the look and keep dirt, sweat and debris away from the coil. ‘Gold Foil’ is really just a catch-all term for a range of pickups that often differ significantly in looks, construction and tone. They weren’t all produced by the same company and vintage examples were made in the US and Japan simultaneously and independently. As a result, there is much confusion about Gold Foils, compounded by relatively little in the way of historical documentation. Hot on the heels of our review…