Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2017 i Guitar Player

THE MOST VALUABLE TOOL IN YOUR MUSICIAN’S KIT bag isn’t a magic guitar, or a fabulous amp, or a stompbox, or a digital processor. You have to know your stuff, of course, so please don’t send hate mail my way because you think I’m flying the flag for musical mediocrity. But if you believe awesome chops alone will keep you embedded in the community of musicians, you may be missing a key part of the big picture. In the 20 years I’ve been editing Guitar Player, the one thing I’ve found that can always be attributed to guitarists who stay essential parts of big bands, or get constantly called for sessions, is that they are good hangs. People simply like having these players around. They’re always enthusiastic, supportive, and collaborative.…

SOUND OFF! GET EXCLUSIVE NEWS. COMMENT. CRITIQUE. SHARE TIPS AND TECHNIQUES. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-NEWSLETTER. FACEBOOK.COM/GUITARPLAYERMAG TWITTER.COM/GUITARPLAYERNOW GUITARPLAYER.COM MICHAEL MOLENDA Editor In Chief mmolenda@nbmedia.com ART THOMPSON Senior Editor athompson@nbmedia.com KEVIN OWENS Managing Editor kowens@nbmedia.com JUDE GOLD Los Angeles Editor judegold@gmail.com JIMMY LESLIE Frets Editor jl@jimmyleslie.com DAVE HUNTER Gear Section & Video Contributor dhunterwordsmusic@yahoo.com PAUL HAGGARD Art Director phaggard@musicplayer.com…

M I THE MOST QUALIFIED person to write about hip-hop or rap? I think not. Until a few years ago, I usually found rap musically void with an absence of harmony and humility. If I could help it, I limited my listening sessions to the sound systems of cars stuck next to me in traffic jams. But even though it might appear out of my—and perhaps your—comfort zone, I think Cypress Hill is a masterpiece. Senen Reyes (Sen Dog), Lawrence Muggerud (DJ Muggs), and Louis Freese (B-Real) were the nucleus behind this 1991 Ruffhouse/Columbia release, and, by employing samples brilliantly, they created an organic, grooving audio collage that sounds like a house band in heaven. Samples include Jimi Hendrix, Grant Green, James Brown, Lowell Folsom, Albert King, Parliament, Junior Walker…

THE SOUND OF PLAYING GUITAR ISN’T just about the guitar and amp, but the room in which you’re playing. Commercial reverb hardware and plug-ins usually have a room algorithm, but these often tend more toward a reverb sound than the shorter, subtler echoes that occur in a small club or rehearsal space. If you’re recording your guitar direct or using an amp sim, wrapping a room around your guitar can make the sound more “real” and satisfying, as well as fit in better with other miked instruments that incorporate room sound, such as drums or piano. DELAYS MEET REVERB Reverb is multiple echoes bouncing around a room, so we’ll use delays to create our strippeddown room acoustics. You’ll need at least four delays, so a multi-tapped delay is ideal. I…

WE DISCOVERED NORWEGIAN GUItarist Fredrik Halland in 2011, when we selected him as one of the finalists for our 2011 Guitar Player’s Guitar Superstar competition. He wowed us then, and now, at 23, the former Musicians Institute student (he won a scholarship in 2009) has become a stellar Los Angeles-based sideman, either performing with, or appearing on records by Colbie Caillat, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Jason Mraz, Rihanna, Gavin DeGraw, and Michael Jackson (the King of Pop’s posthumous Xscape release in 2014). Halland is currently working on his first solo album. How did you start this crazy musical journey from Norway to the U.S. pop charts? Who were your influences? I was first inspired by my dad playing in his band, and, at seven years old, I picked up a…

NO LESS A LEGEND THAN TOMMY Emmanuel has mentored Joe Robinson, who Emmanuel name-checked as a “brilliant young player” in his August 2017 cover story. The 26-year-old Australian— who is equally mind-blowing as an acoustic fingerpicker and electric soloist—taught himself to play guitar at ten years old, and was a touring guitarist by 11. He released his first solo album at 15, won Australia’s Got Talent at 17 with his version of “Classical Gas,” and was named Best New Talent in GP’s 2010 Readers’ Poll. His YouTube videos display an astounding combination of taste, speed, cagey phrasing, and a clear, articulate, and sparking tone. Robinson now lives in Nashville, and is working on his fourth solo album. What’s your insider’s view on how to carve out a career as a…

One of the ways GP supports young guitarists is with our annual “Ronnie Montrose Rock the Nation Award,” which we offer to male and female players from 8 to 18 years of age. Past winners— who you can find by searching for the awards on guitarplayer.com—include Max Lazarus, Jess Araten, Geddy Franco, and Skye Emanuel. If you’d like to nominate a young player for the 2018 Montrose award, please alert me at mmolenda@nbmedia.com with YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and/or website links.…

A COVER BAND STAPLE SINCE ITS release on 1968’s Sailor, the Steve Miller Band’s “Living in the U.S.A.” still holds up as somewhat of a national anthem, and sports one helluva cool riff (or two). Though Miller doesn’t play the riff himself during live shows, relegating that duty instead to his organist and/or second guitarist, the original studio version does feature Miller and then co-guitarist Boz Scaggs performing the figure in tandem octaves. Miller’s wailing blues harp pervades the song’s intro duet with drummer Tim Davis until the full ensemble chimes in with the “Stand back!” lyric, in unison with the twin A7#9 hits depicted in Ex. 1 (Miller plays the first voicing, but either will do the job.) Bars 1 and 2 of the classic riff notated in Ex.…

UNIVERSAL AUDIO’S APOLLO TWIN MkII Quad is a desktop audio interface that offers two mic preamps and next-generation A/D and D/A conversion derived from UA’s well-respected rackmount units. Included is a bundle of proprietary plug-in versions of famous analog mixer channels, preamps, and effects through which you can track in real time with near-zero latency. The Twin MkII comes with digital emulations of the Teletronix LA-2A compressor, Pultec EQs, and other legendary recording tools of the analog world. In addition to its stellar sound, the Apollo interface offers the advantage of powering plug-ins with its own DSP, thus allowing you to keep the latency of your DAW very low. If that all sounds very “techy,” it is. The Console software that comes with the hardware offers complex enough routing possibilities…

ALTHOUGH WE ALL THINK “PLEXI” when “classic Marshall tone” is discussed, there’s a good chance that in many cases, our mind’s ear is in fact hearing the humble JMP50 2204 Master Model of the late ’70s. Having earned compliments for many years on his own particularly delectable 1979 Marshall Master Model— long the preferred test amp for the Custom Shop Les Pauls and other guitars he sells at his premises in Barrington, New Hampshire— Mark Bishop of Mark’s Guitar Loft decided to clone the amp to make it available for the rest of us. The result is the MGL Lead Master 50, an amp that soars from the crypt of these classic roots to do things that even the original never achieved. [See GP’s April 2017 Classic Gear for a…

I have played all sorts of guitars for the last 50 years. I own 25 of various types and qualities, but I have come to the conclusion that the search for tone is a fool’s errand. Tone—or your sound—comes from your hands and your heart. There is no guitar or amp or strings or capo that will make me sound like Jimi Hendrix. I will sound like me, and I am fine with that. Finally. — MICHAEL FORTUNATO Although it is great fun that we guitarists have all this gear available, I think some of us lose the big picture with too much focus on the next piece of gear, endless tweaking of components, etc. For example, once horn players have a good horn, they just focus on the music…

JONNY LANG AROSE AS A GUITAR HERO AT THE TENDER age of 15, with the platinum-selling Lie To Me. Influences like Albert Collins, B. B. King, and Buddy Guy were close to the surface, but the teenager nevertheless evidenced that rarest of things—a personal style. His sound has been honed over a remarkable two-decade career into an immediately recognizable one, with its go-for-broke-attitude and twisty take on standard blues licks. Though Lang never abandoned guitar solos on his records, recent releases have focused more on his spectacular singing and modern R&B/gospel songs. Signs [Say Rai Music], however, heralds a return to guitar-centricity, and, for this outing, he delved deep into early guitar influences such as Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf. “I have been appreciating how raw and unrefined that stuff…

SOMETIMES, WHEN I CAPTURE REFERENCE TRACKS AT BAND REHEARSALS WITH A TYPICAL recording app, something will be obscured—the second guitarist, the bass, the drums, a vocal or two— due to the positioning of my phone. The free Daisychain Music Recorder could solve this problem, as it claims to wirelessly connect up to four iPhones or iPads, essentially turning each handheld into a separate microphone, and offering a multitrack mixer for playback. Seems awesome. I could place one unit by the drums, another by the bass, the remaining two near the guitars, and signal bleed between the four “mics” would likely be enough to document vocals. But are the internal microphones on the devices hip enough to record loud music without signal-level distortion or other audio gremlins? Is the mixer on…

NEVER MIND THAT MORE PEOPLE around the world might know the face and the voice from his acting performances in hit TV shows such as The Sopranos and Lilyhammer, rock and roll is veritable lifeblood for Steven Van Zandt. From strutting stages as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, co-leading Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, and pursuing a sporadic yet trenchant solo career, Van Zandt has become a veritable compendium of the glories of the rock genre. He’s a member of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (and an inductee himself), and DJ of the syndicated radio show, Underground Garage. So if you need a quick hit of the transformational properties of rock and roll—spiritually, sonically, philosophically—you need look no further than…

IT’S THE DREAM OF THOUSANDS OF inspired young guitarists across the globe: Write some cool instrumentals, produce and mix a spectacular album entirely “in the box” on a home computer, get millions of plays on YouTube and Instagram, and become a world-renowned solo artist overnight. It’s a dream only a handful of players actually achieve. Plini made realizing that dream look easy. And, even if instrumental prog-metal isn’t your cup of tea, you’ll be hard-pressed not to be lulled into sonic euphoria by the masterful guitar layering that fills each song off Plini’s new album, Handmade Cities. Barely 24 years old, Plini has, in fact, already released three self-produced albums (garnering tens of thousands of sales), toured the world as a solo artist, and landed a signature-model guitar from Strandberg—…

AT JUST 24, MOLLY TUTTLE HAS ALREADY been performing on bluegrass stages for 13 years. (Do the math—that means she started her professional career at 11 years old.) So it was definitely time for the young but road- and studio-experienced multiinstrumentalist (and Berklee graduate) to release her premiere solo EP, Rise, this year—especially as the record debuted at #2 on the Billboard Bluegrass Albums chart, and Tuttle scored the April 2017 cover of Acoustic Guitar magazine with a bluegrass master class. In a genre historically saturated with acoustic shredders, Tuttle still manages to stun—such that bluegrass superstar Bryan Sutton brought her to our attention for this article. What are your main guitars? I play a Huss & Dalton TD-R Custom and a Huss & Dalton OM Mahogany with a sunburst…

If you think instrumental records featuring acoustic guitar are limited to smooth jazz riffing, new age noodling, or country cornpone, check out the Jon Stickley Trio. It’s not your father’s acoustic- guitar music—although Stickley’s pop showed him his first chords when he was 12 years old. Instead, Stickley’s Martin churns out a mixture of bluegrass, Chuck Berry, metal, prog, grunge, and assorted other genres—all thoroughly integrated into a personal style. “When I started playing, I couldn’t wait to get home and practice those three chords my dad showed me,” he recalls. “I got a white Squier Stratocaster and a little Crate practice amp for Christmas, and I learned all of Nirvana’s songs.” He soon left Nirvana’s music behind— along with his electric guitar—but the Jon Stickley Trio retains some of…

For our September issue, ZVEX Effects is contributing its Distortron to the birthday “gifts” we are giving away for Guitar Player’s 50th anniversary. Creator Zachary Vex, while admitting his “immodesty” with the following claim, calls it “the greatest distortion pedal of all time.” It includes a Gain Boost switch for extra buzz, as well as a Sub control switch with three levels to reduce mud and flubby lows. One lucky reader has a chance to add this cool distortion to their pedal collection. For a chance to win, simply send an email with the subject line “GP50 Distortron” to mmolenda@nbmedia.com. The deadline for entries is September 20, 2017. I’ll select the winner at random and announce his or her name in an upcoming issue. Please note that all gear is…

INTRODUCED IN 1996, THE EMPIRICAL LABS DISTRESSOR quickly became one of the most widely used professional compressors in the world. Twenty years later, its creator, Dave Derr, launched a compressor plug-in based on the Distressor that he dubbed the Arousor. In addition to more typical compressor controls, the Arousor features a Detector section that allows you to emphasize or de-emphasize particular frequencies, a Soft Clipping section with a variable Saturation control, and a wet/dry Blend control. But even if you don’t check out the Arousor, Derr’s user tips for his plug-in can work wonders for any application of compression on your guitar parts. Acoustic Guitars “To get a classic smooth sound on strummed background parts,” says Derr, “you often want to have a lightningquick attack (.9ms-2ms), a release time of…

RIVET PICKUPS ’63 AND ’64 Goodies Humbucker-sized bridge and neck pickups featuring mini-coils designed to boost tone with more bass volume and harmonics, or refocus mids and highs to accentuate your guitar’s attack. Because the mini-coils sit beneath certain groups of strings, they enhance the presence of those strings within the overall tonal spectrum. Included Connector Card controls coilroutings and allows solderless attachment of all necessary wires. Handmade in the USA. Price $180 (single), $329 (set) direct More Info rivetpickups.com C.F. MARTIN & CO. ED SHEERAN 3 Goodies The third Martin codesigned by Sheeran features a Sitka spruce top etched with the singer-songwriter’s album art, mahogany HPL (high pressure laminate) back and sides, and blue ÷ symbols across the fretboard and headstock. Comes with a custom interior label, Fishman Sonitone…

AS MUCH AS HE’S THE CONsummate musician, Steven Van Zandt is very much not a gearhead. He cares little for discussions on the intricacies of pickup types, effects pedals, and string gauges. He does, however, have a keen awareness of what a pro requires from his tools— as well as how to choose gear that gets the right sound for a song. A Stratocaster player from way back, Van Zandt pulled out some surprises to get the job done on Soulfire, selecting his 1954 Gibson Les Paul Custom and a Les Paul Standard for several tracks, including the searing blues soloing on “The Blues Is My Business.” He’s still very much “a Strat guy,” though, and you hear this characteristically wiry, stinging sound on the back-to-back solos on “I Saw…

IN THIS YOUTUBE AGE, TEENAGED technical wizards abound. But far from being a bedroom shredder, at 17 years old, Daniel Donato was a mature enough player to land a three-year stint with the famed Don Kelley Band at Robert’s Western World in Nashville. In doing so, he was stepping into the shoes of former Kelley sidemen Brent Mason, Johnny Hiland, Guthrie Trapp, Redd Volkaert, and J.D. Simo. When GP spoke to Donato in 2015, he had just left Kelley’s band, and today, at the ripe old age of 22, he is leading the life of an in-demand Nashville guitarist. “I’ve played on more than 15 records since then, for artists like the Wild Feathers and Lilly Hiatt,” says Donato, who, as an archetypical musician of the new era, is also…

TALL AND LANKY, WITH A CASCADE OF long blonde hair and a single-pickup Les Paul strapped to his shoulder, there’s no mistaking Jared James Nichols for anything but the embodiment of a classic rock star. And yet, the 28-year-old Wisconsin-born guitarist is far from an archetype off some retro-hip fashion spread harkening back to the ’70s. Nichols gets deep inside his influences— Leslie West, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter—to the point of researching their influences. The combination of image, smarts, and impassioned technique has won Nichols endorsements from Gibson, Seymour Duncan, Blackstar, and D’Addario; tours with Zakk Wylde, Blue Oyster Cult, Saxon, and UFO; a spot in the documentary series Uncharted; and enough of a fan base to release a second solo album, Black Magic, due September 2017. Who do…

JASON RICHARDSON MAY BE COLLECTing millions of YouTube and Instagram views as a solo artist and as a member of (or sideperson with) several progressive-metal bands, but that’s just the rock-star side of this 25-year-old guitarist. Richardson also gives back to the community by posting lesson videos and hosting a tab site for his music. In addition, the self-aware creative thinker is far more than just a super-sonically fast “technique geek.” “I’ve read a lot of opinions that there isn’t ‘feel’ in crazy shred stuff,” says Richardson, who didn’t pick up the guitar seriously until he was 12, “but I deal with that by making sure the chord progressions where I’m playing fast passages are something special that can grab a listener’s attention.” What’s your current rig? My Ernie Ball…

STEVE LUKATHER ONCE SAID THERE are “embryos” on YouTube shredding faster than anyone. It was a joke, of course, but when you come across blazing guitarists such as ten-year-old Yoyo (Liu Pinxi), you start musing that Luke might be clairvoyant. Yoyo’s formidable skills are forged through online lesson videos and a nurturing father and teacher—as well as her own desire to excel and improve. Whether the pre-teen sticks with the guitar or not, she proves that committed youngsters can develop remarkable technique and thrill hundreds of thousands of YouTube viewers. The future! (Thanks to Leiyu for translating Yoyo’s answers to GP’s questions.) What inspired you to take up the guitar, and how did you become such a shredder? When I was a baby, my father played guitar and sang children’s…

FOR YEARS, I’VE BEEN ATTEMPTING to emulate the savage guitar tones on Reeves Gabrels’ 2003 live album, live…late…loud. For the most part, it has been an exercise of “you can’t get there (Gabrels) from here (me).” I had given up the chase until I received the Pro Tone Reeves Gabrels Distortion Engine ($229 direct; a dual version offering two independent Engines is $359). Finally, a fighting chance at crafting that impossibly loud, barbaric, saturated, and yet coherent distortion sound! Gabrels says that he and Pro Tone’s Dennis Mollan designed the Distortion Engine to be as amp-like as possible, to produce a low-noise floor at extreme Gain settings, and to “sound authentically firebreathing in front of a loud, clean amp, such as a Hiwatt or Roland JC-120.” It definitely achieves the…

BASED IN KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, Ceriatone has been selling hand-wired tube amps to satisfied customers around the world for going on two decades now. Although the company, headed by Nik S. Azam, originally earned its reputation as a maker of amp kits and quality homages to several vintage and boutique amp models, Ceriatone has delved into original designs and concepts over the past several years, and appears to be earning an entirely new following as a result. Yes, the 2202 “lunchbox head” on review might be inspired by the legendary Marshall JCM800 2204 model of the early ’80s, but it boasts far more original and creative thinking than the Marshall-alikes of a good couple dozen boutique makers working today, including several features which coalesce to make this one of the…

AFTER NEARLY 50 YEARS OF CREATING stellar amplifiers for guitar and bass, Mesa recently turned its attention to acoustic instruments with the introduction of the Rosette 300/Two Eight combo. As the name implies, the Rosette packs a 300-watt class D power amp and a 2 x 8 speaker configuration with a 1" dome tweeter in a sealed-back cabinet. The unit is quite compact at 13.25" tall x 18" wide x 12.25" deep, and an easy carry at 30 lbs. The Rosette’s channels are basically identical, except that the upper Mic/ Pickup channel carries both XLR (balanced, P-12 phantom powered) and 1/4" pickup inputs, while the second channel has just one 1/4" input. Derived from high-end recording consoles, Channel 1’s XLR Mic input uses a dual-discrete transistor pair for the differential…