Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2016 i Guitar Player

THE COUNTRY SUPERSTAR not only graced GP’s August cover this year, he was also selected as the magazine’s 2016 Certified Legend Award winner. In a ceremony at Muriel Anderson’s All-Star Guitar Night at Nashville’s 3rd & Lindsley venue on June 25, Anderson presented Gill with our little gold medal. Past GP Certified Legend Awards have been bestowed upon Joe Perry, Les Paul, Duane Eddy, Nokie Edwards, Larry Carlton, Dick Dale, Lee Ritenour, Tommy Emmanuel, and other guitar greats. Held right after the close of the summer NAMM show, All-Star Guitar Night followed an unplugged theme with scorching pickers Johnny Hiland, Bryan Sutton, Thom Bresh, Jack Pearson, John Knowles, David Grier, and Daniel Champagne, as well as Anderson and Gill. The evening was sponsored by Guitar Player, Sam Ash Music, NAMM,…

“I WAS LOOKING FOR A MESA MARK III because I wanted that early Boogie tone, but I never figured I would find a IIC+, much less be able to afford the prices they fetch,” says Ross Davison, owner of the amp featured here. “I went looking around the Twin Cities music stores without much luck until I stopped in at Encore Music in Minneapolis. I knew the owner had some vintage stuff, and after looking around for a while, I spotted this amp under some other heads. I asked the owner about it, and he said it had been in his shop for a long time, but he couldn’t remember where it came from. He said it was a Coliseum model and wanted $1,799 for it. That night, I started…

TOURING MUSICIANS WHO LIVE IN Music City call it the “Nashville Christmas Present,” that joyful period just before the holidays when artists replace band members for a variety of reasons. I dodged that bullet for 20 years before the headliner I played for decided to take a year off. Well, better to be laid off than tainted as a band member who “didn’t work out.” But I still need to reckon with sudden unemployment, and hopefully salvage a music career for 2014. I finally realize that playing guitar for a headlining act for so many years has spoiled me. Once you’ve toured at the top, it’s depressing to think about going back to clubs, afternoon slots at festivals, or sad casino gigs. Given my AARP status, it is time to…

SPOILER ALERT: THE EXL-1A IS SIMPLY magnificent. If this guitar were an actor exiting a limousine during a Hollywood premiere, the crowd would be stunned to silence, mouths agape, transfixed by the heady glow of its dazzling beauty and charisma. There’s no fighting beauty like this. You just surrender. But, then again, we’re guitar players—not celebrity sycophants—and no matter how fabulous an instrument might look, it still has to deliver the tonal goods, right? If I could stop looking at the EXL-1A long enough, I guess I’d agree with you. Although the EXL-1A is a mid-priced archtop at a cost of around $1,300 street, D’Angelico didn’t seem to spare any sophisticated opulence in appointments and craftsmanship. There’s a sumptuous radiance to the natural finish, and the tiger striping on the…

GIVEN THE NUMBER OF VERSATILE classics in the company’s standard-sized lineup, Ibanez’s new Mini range has a lot to draw from and promises to be enormously popular given the current trend to conserve pedalboard space. As with all the series, these two pedals are ruggedly built and feature metal jacks, sturdy stompswitches, and true-bypass switching. CHORUS MINI Descending from a big brother conceived in an era still beloved for its lush analog modulation sounds, the Chorus Mini ($99 street) maintains an all-analog signal path and the essential controls of the format: Depth, Speed, and Level. Two of these have cleverly been fit to the diminutive casing with the use of mini-pots, although the knobs on these could really use better visual indicator lines for easy settings confirmation. Get out your…

IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, FOCUSRITE has been a champ at recasting its pro-studio technology for home-studio musicians. Having the company’s awesome preamps available in light, portable, easy-to-use, and affordable configurations offers guitarists (and other instrumentalists) a path to recording greatsounding tracks without breaking the bank or losing valuable creative time to reading manuals and fussy setup gymnastics. When an idea hits, you want to get it documented ASAP, and any impediments are frustrating. And the last things you want to be dealing with while crafting and recording brilliant guitar licks are angst and mental distraction. The Clarett line—which includes the 2Pre ($499 street) reviewed here, as well as the 4Pre, 8Pre, and 8PreX—not only delivers the pristine sound we’ve come to expect from even the “musician range” of Focusrite…

THERE HAS BEEN NO MORE INFLUENTIAL nor more widely imitated electric guitar ever made than the Fender Stratocaster. Released in 1954, when rock and roll was at the forefront of a post-War cultural revolution and a curvaceous solidbody electric guitar seemed about as radical a work of design-art as could be imagined, the Stratocaster has survived astoundingly well. Indeed, this screwed-together creation in ash and maple remains all the guitar that many players will ever need. And clearly its timeless appeal comes down to the extent to which Leo Fender and company got it all so very right from the start—even if the new model nearly fell at the first hurdle. Around late 1952 or early ’53, with the Telecaster having solidified its place in the market, the need to…

SINCE THE LATE 1970S, LOWDEN HAS been building fine guitars in Northern Ireland that utilize carefully selected tonewoods, unyielding attention to voicing of the internal bracing and soundbox profiles, and lots of hand craftsmanship to ensure that its instruments deliver unhindered sustain, volume, and balance. We recently had an opportunity to test three new Lowden guitars, and we were mightily impressed with the quality, sound, and playability of these high-end instruments. LOWDEN F-50 Well, you’ve got your great guitars and then you’ve got your flat-out amazing guitars, and this F-50 is amazing on every level. Let’s start with the cosmetics. This guitar exudes class from stem to stern, with the understated elegance that Lowden does so well. The clean fretboard—devoid of position markers, which are found on the side—is dressed…

660 GUITARS CT/52 Goodies Handcrafted, one-piece, aircraft-grade aluminum body with a 16" radius solid graphite/carbon fiber neck, Hipshot USA bridge (Kahler Tremolo bridge optional), DiMarzio Dominion humbuckers, and Hennessy Secure strap locks. Powder coat finish available in a variety of colors. Price $3,400 retail More Info 660guitars.com TC ELECTRONIC WIRETAP RIFF RECORDER Goodies Pedalboard-friendly recorder that allows you to capture up to eight hours of 24-bit audio at the stomp of a switch. The included WireTap app (Android and iOS) lets you trim, tag, name, and share recordings, and also functions as a standalone recorder. Price $99 street More Info tcelectronic.com TODD SHARP AMPS JOAT 30RT Goodies Handmade in Nashville and based on the same circuit as Sharp’s 20RT, this 30-watter features two optimized pairs of 6V6s and EL84s, each…

OKAY SURE, IN A POST-JAMES BROWN UNIVERSE, CALLING someone “the hardest working anything in show business” is a bit of a cliché. But avant soul-jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter might just be a viable candidate for the title. Debuting in 1992 with ground-breaking hip-hop act Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Hunter then went on to forge a distinguished solo career releasing and/or appearing on dozens of CDs as a solo artist, bandleader, collaborator with ensembles T.J. Kirk, Garage a Trois, and Coalition of the Willing, and sideman notching guest shots on records by John Mayer, D’Angelo, and Snarky Puppy among others. As if Hunter’s prolific artistry and lengthy discography weren’t enough, through his career the San Francisco native (who currently resides in Montclair, New Jersey) has played some variant of a 7-or…

CHORD ENCYCLOPEDIAS USED TO BE a common tool to look up and memorize different chords. It can be a nice fingeryoga exercise, but it’s an arduous and inefficient way to learn. There is much more value in an understanding of our chords vs. memorization of anything. So how do we gain that understanding? LEARN THE CHORD TONES Too often chords are memorized fistfuls of notes that we learn as one giant shape. Fig. 1 shows an open-position A major chord that beginners learn without ever knowing why it’s called an A chord. Learning the function of each note within a chord is valuable for several reasons. What kind of chord is this? What needs to be changed in order to morph this chord into another one? Do you really need…

I’VE BEEN ON A SEMI-HOLLOWBODY and hollowbody kick for a while. It’s not that I don’t love solidbodies—because I do—but I also dig the airy shimmer, resonant mids, and constantly on-the-edge-of-feedback stance you get with a cool guitar that isn’t a solid plank ‘o’ wood. Another benefit is that I play differently holding, say, a Gretsch Chet Atkins than I do when wielding a Les Paul, so switching between the two designs not only gives me some tonal diversity, it provides a chance for my fingers to discover new licks, riffs, and dynamic options. Although we assembled just four new instruments for this roundup, diversity is also the buzzword to describe the intimate group. For one thing, the price points span from a budget-friendly $449 to an upscale $4,050. Then,…

THE “THINLINE” TELECASTER WITH its hollowed-out body and f-hole has long been a popular choice among Tele aficionados and others who want a light, resonant guitar with a classic solidbody outline. Over the years, Fender has released myriad thinline variants across its production and Custom Shop lines, and the most recent is this U.S.-made version that’s part of the new Elite Series. This guitar features a gloss-finished semi-hollow ash body and a satin bolt-on maple neck with a compound-radius slab-maple fretboard and a cutaway heel. The 22 frets wear a high polish, and the setup and great feel of the neck make this guitar inspiring from the moment you pick it up. The AESTT also debuts Fender’s Suspension bridge, which is independent of the bridge pickup mounting plate and designed…

“THE SUMMIT CT CONVERTIBLE IS designed to deliver vintage vibe with the playability you’d expect from a modern guitar,” says Godin’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Mario Biferali. “It’s the best of both worlds, like a classic muscle car that drives like a Ferrari.” Godin introduced the original Summit CT in 2008, did a major overhaul including a new body shape and a set neck for the Summit Classic CT in 2015, and then only produced a couple hundred of those before slightly refining the shape in 2016 to retain more of what Godin calls its own identity. The CT stands for “carved top,” which in this case is maple with a high-gloss gold finish that looks very classy. The Summit Classic CT sets itself apart from classic single-cutaway…

REEVES AMPLIFICATION IS BEST known as heir apparent to the military-spec rock machines produced by Hiwatt founder Dave Reeves and company in south London in the late ’60s and ’70s. But that hasn’t stopped this Cincinnati-based company from adding some new inspiration to the formula. One of the company’s newer creations is the Space Cowboy, which springs from the same Hiwatt DR-504 circuit as Reeves’s flagship Custom 50 and 100 models, but adds a few twists to the preamp: a built-in footswitchable Boost with rear-panel Level control, and two-knob, tube-driven spring reverb with controls for Send and Mix (footswitch for Boost and Reverb included). In addition to the three 12AX7s and one 12AT7 that get all these front-end duties done (with another 12AT7 in the phase inverter), the Space Cowboy…

WE MET NORWAY’S AALBERG AUDIO a few NAMM shows ago, when GP columnist Jake Hertzog said he was doing demos for “this cool pedal company that lets you control parameters from your guitar.” Sure enough, we saw the “Hey Jazz Guy” star playing his hip future-jazz through a delay pedal that he could manipulate with a wireless controller that was Velcroed to his instrument. It took a little while, but we finally got our hands on Aalberg’s stompboxes and controller, and they were worth the wait. There are basically two inter-connected stories here: the effects and the wireless Aero controller. First, the effects themselves. EKKO DELAY This smart-looking delay features a blue top panel with LEDs that pulsate at the selected tempo, and three blue illuminated bars that show settings…

Backbone Guitar Resonance Enhancers for Tele and Strat Style Guitars Backbone Guitar Products Available Now Backbone connects the neck, body, bridge and strings, immediately increasing core resonance for more sustain and improved tone. Easy, non-invasive user install. “You could literally feel it without the guitar plugged in.” - Texas Blues Alley MSRP $49 to $69 www.get-a-backbone.com infogp@get-a-backbone.com Ratio InvisoMatch™ Mounting Plates Graph Tech Guitar Labs Available Now With InvisoMatch™ Mounting Plates, you can have a perfect installation of Ratio Machine Heads in about 10 minutes by using the existing screw holes. 5 plate patterns available that fit approximately 80% of guitars on the market. US Patent# 9240166 B1 MSRP per set: $5.95 (Brushed Aluminum), $9.95 (Chrome, Black, Nickel), $18.95 (Gold) www.graphtech.com 1-800-388-7011 sales@graphtech.com Shredneck BelAir Models Shredneck LLC Available Now…

In 1993, I got a phone call from my friend Gary Burnette in Nashville, telling me he had met Gail Pollock, who was Scotty Moore’s companion and business partner. So I called her, and I went on and on about how much Scotty had influenced me, and how much I would like to meet him. She eventually gave me Scotty’s fax number, and I wrote a letter to him. Two days later, he called me. I told him I was coming to Nashville, and, about two months later, we met for dinner with Gail and Gary. We asked him, “How did they record at Sun? How many mics? What kind of mics? Where did they set up? What amp did he use?” After that, we became great friends. I had…

Paul and John, Backstage at Detroit’s Olympia Stadium, August 13, 1966 SADLY, HISTORY DIDN’T UPHOLD MY NAÏVE DREAM, BUT this is one of the ways I’d like to remember the intimate personal bond that once existed between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They’re just warming up their fingers before hitting the stage—the silent photo doesn’t betray what they’re actually playing—but John appears to be lost in the music, eyes heavily lidded as his subconscious weaves some kind of spell. Paul, however, is wide eyed and focused, scanning his musical partner for inspiration, harmonic clues, or perhaps a slight nod of approval. These are two creators in perfect tune. If only we could have frozen them in time. In a partnership with the Bob Bonis Archive, Guitar Player is thrilled to…

TO PARAPHRASE THE GRATEFUL DEAD, THERE’S MORE than a “touch of grey” gracing the features of Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford and on and off Ted Nugent vocalist/guitarist Derek St. Holmes. But if you close your eyes and listen to the duo’s new album Reunion [Mailboat], all that grey just melts away. The new album—which dropped 35 years after the only other Whitford/St. Holmes release in 1981—is loud, rude, powerful, exuberant, edgy, impassioned, ferocious, and chock full of meaty and thrilling guitar work. It’s an album of youth—rather than music created by two musicians who put their first AARP cards in their wallets before some of the contestants on The Voice were even born. In a year where even the oft-maligned Monkees can deliver a critically acclaimed album that reached number…

“MY THIRST FOR ADVENTURE IS STILL KICKING,” SAYS Carlos Santana, who turns 69 in July. “Santana IV is very vibrant and energetic. We don’t sound our age, and Neal brings a fire that’s like a vortex—a tornado of light.” The larger story of the new Santana IV [Thirty Tigers/RED Distribution] is about a classic Santana lineup reuniting, with Carlos Santana and Neal Schon returning to the dual-guitar attack they unleashed on 1971’s Santana III and 1972’s Caravanserai. And that partnership wouldn’t have ever happened if Eric Clapton had successfully recruited the teenaged Schon, who found himself having to choose between Clapton and Santana before he was even old enough to drive a car. “I had been playing with [Santana keyboardist/vocalist] Gregg Rolie, and I was hanging with the Santana band…

HELLO AGAIN, MY MUSICALLY LITerate brethren and sistern. Last time around we examined a super-cool chart that had a little bit of everything in it. We talked through counting the rhythms out loud, as well as using every bit of info on the page to make finding the notes easier. Those clues included the key signature and the chord names above the staff. When you put all those things together, we can demystify notation like Ex. 1. Two sharps, right? A descending melody that starts on the top line of the staff, composed of three eighth-notes and an eighth-rest, followed by four sixteenths that ascend. What else do we see? A Dmaj7 chord for the first two beats, and an A7 for the next two. You should be able to…

BASED IN TEL AVIV, ISRAEL, B&G Guitars is a company founded by Eliran Barashi and Yotam Goldstein, both of whom go to extraordinary lengths to build fine quality instruments that strive for consistency in sound and playability. To control the manufacturing process the B&G makes almost everything in house, casting their own brass tailpieces (which are designed by jewelry artist David Weizman), using thick brass pickup covers to better isolate the coils of their hand-wound pickups, creating paint and nitro-lacquer formulations, making their own glue and grain filler, and maintaining a stock of carefully aged woods. Based on parlor guitars of the ’20s and ’30s, the Little Sister features a neck made from reclaimed Honduran mahogany (African mahogany is standard), which has a mild V shape, and transitions into a…

IT USED TO BE SO SIMPLE. IF YOUR guitar said “Gretsch,” it was a coveted uberprofessional model from a seminal and revered guitar company. The word “Electromatic” announced you were rocking a very fine, yet affordable, player’s model from the same maker. At Winter NAMM 2016, however, Gretsch introduced three brand-new lines (Vintage Select, Player’s Edition, and Streamliner), and easy identification of your Gretsch tribe went somewhat wiggy—especially as the new Streamliners are less expensive than the Electromatics, and, as of June 2016, the Electomatic hollowbodies no longer say “Electromatic” on the headstock. Well, although the model differentiations may be confusing, there’s nothing baffling about the fact the Streamliner G2420 is one hell of a guitar for under $500. And, yes, it absolutely channels the Gretsch vibe. There are only…

WHAT GOT INTO THE DRINKING WATER over at Danelectro? For years, since the Evets Corporation revived the brand, Danelectro has produced delightfully oddball guitars with unique-sounding lipstick pickups. Every Dano was eye-catching and affordable (currently available models are in the $400 range), making them things of beauty for iconoclasts and indie rockers, those wanting an inexpensive standby guitar for the stage, and/or collectors always on the prowl for unconventional or vintage-styled instruments. But The ’64, while it obviously shares the DNA of its forebears, is a massive leap forward in production design, sophistication, and quality, and its $799 street price pretty much telegraphs the news that this brilliant new Danelectro is not just a cheap and cheerful thrill. Evoking the wonkified silhouette, control knobs, and pickguard of a ’60s Mosrite…

FOUNDED BY GUITARISTS AND ENGIneers Lars Dahl and Sebastian Jensen, T-Rex Engineering has been making guitar and bass effects since 1996. The Danish company now has a broad product line that also includes power supplies, cables, and pedalboards. Recent introductions include the two pedals on review here, which showcase T-Rex’s dedication to improving the performance of classic effects. SHAFTER WAH This versatile pedal features a sturdy metal enclosure and does not use a potentiometer in the rocker—a factor that takes a wear-prone part out of the system, as well as the scratchy noises that pots often create. A 3-way switch on the top panel selects Wah 1, Wah 2, and Yoy Yoy—the latter being a reference to the vintage Schaller Bow-Wow Yoy-Yoy pedal that produced the kind of vocalized “wah”…