Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2023 i Guitarist

It’s been a bit of a shocking month or two for guitar. Not only have we lost some wonderful players, but there have been some seismic changes in the guitar industry itself, which some at least will perceive as the death of an era. Marshall has, for many players, long been the brand equivalent of an indomitable castle over which the British flag always flies. Last week, however, we learned that the Marshall family has sold the company to Zound Industries, a Swedish audio-electronics company that made its fortune with its Urbanears headphones. We’ll be chasing down the full story in coming issues but, in the meanwhile, the news certainly makes you reflect on the nature of change in our world of guitar. It’s ironic that Marshall made its fame…

FIRST PLAYDANELECTRO BLACKOUT ‘59M NOS+ We last caught up with Danelectro back in 2020, in issue 464, with a pair of typically funky six-strings: the ‘shorthorn’ ’59 Divine and the single-cut ’57. Then priced at £899 and £799 respectively, neither had that ‘impulse buy’ appeal that many readers will remember of the original reissues. To be fair, though, the so-called Stock ’59, which is based on the original 1959 3021, kicks off the current range at more wallet-pleasing £549 and features the classic two-pickup double-cut body with a long seal-shaped scratchplate, original-style wooden saddle, and four-way adjustable bridge. Now, while the ’59M NOS (£619) – what most of us would call the ‘Jimmy Page model’, with its modded Badass adjustable wrapover bridge – is still available in the UK, it…

Yes Mirror To The Sky InsideOut Music (release date: 19 May) 8/10 The ever-changing Yes story continues with an intriguing multi-textured prog release Over the years, Yes has undergone many line-up revisions. In fact, it’s part of the band’s heritage that, like King Crimson, a continuous recasting of roles is pretty much standard practice. But despite the dialogue between prog-rock enthusiasts that runs something like: “How many times can you change the members of a band before it becomes entirely counterfeit?”, Yes has survived every member change. This includes line-ups that saw Steve Howe replacing Peter Banks at the dawn of the 70s, through to the infamous ‘Buggles Era’ a few years later, to the reformation of the acknowledged ‘golden line-up’ of Anderson, Howe, White, Squire and Wakeman in the…

CONFESSIONS OF A LUTHIER Regular readers may remember that last issue I mentioned that I’d started running a group guitar-making course, helping students to realise their dreams of building their own acoustic guitar in a 14-day crash course of non-stop lutherie. Naturally, not content with watching other people have all the fun, I also built a guitar myself. To ensure completion in such a short space of time, the number one priority for my students and I was to close the soundbox as soon as possible. This meant bending the sides into shape (day one), assembling the back (day two) and finishing shaping the soundboard braces (day four) before clamping the “Day 12 was really only about one thing: sanding. Preparation is key when it comes to finishing, so every…

STAR LETTER DARK THOUGHTS Dear Guitarist, many thanks for your excellent piece on the 50th anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon – where did all that time go? – it was a worthy tribute indeed. However, reading about the numerous modifications to Gilmour’s famous black Strat brought a smile to my face, and as an ex-philosophy teacher I was reminded of ‘The Ship of Theseus’ – a thought-experiment about whether an object that has had its original components replaced remains the same object. And I wonder whether Mod Man Marten has a view on the matter? Keep up the great work! David Hughes Thanks, David – we’ve consulted widely among the Guitarist team – including our esteemed modding colleagues Dave Burrluck and Neville Marten – and we confess…

What should you prioritise if you’re looking for a 70s Strat? “Weight is the main thing. Then try to get one [built as] early in the decade as possible, with staggered polepieces – they’re really favoured, actually. Neck joints tend to be good earlier on as well. I mean, they changed everything [as the 70s wore on]. For example, the bridge was made out of that die-cast Mazak stuff. The only good [new] thing they introduced through the 70s was the five-way switch, and everything else was not an improvement, in my opinion. The finishes get thicker, and from about ’76 they go to that ‘thick-skin’ thing. They also started using ash [again] because of the natural finishes; I think ash was also more readily available [than alder, at that…

Paoletti has been crafting unique guitars in Tuscany since 2005. Its founder, Fabrizio Paoletti, has a background in electrical engineering and automation, shares Filippo Martini, Paoletti’s managing director. “Guitar was a passion for him and still is today,” Filippo says. “That passion is also for the guitar as an instrument – its components, the way it plays, its sound; it fascinated him.” Fabrizio started small, but now Paoletti’s operations are housed in a sizable modern three-storey building. “Where we are now – in the middle of Tuscany, very close to Florence – isn’t where the company was established,” says Filippo. “This is the third headquarters of Paoletti Guitars. The first one was like a garage; the second one was three times a garage,” he laughs. “We moved here about a…

What was the first guitar that you bought with your own money? “I started playing guitar with a Fender Lead 1. I really wanted a Strat, but this was back in Serbia and, of course, that was just a ridiculous amount of money back then. So I saved and my parents helped and my first Strat was a ’72. There was a friend of my dad’s who had a reissue ’52 Telecaster and we were just drooling over that instrument. Every now and then we would just get it, play it at home and bring it back. I really wanted a Custom Shop reissue, something better, and my dreams came true when my family decided to buy me a ’57 reissue and it’s been with me ever since I was…

Looking back many hundreds of years, early lutes were fretless, but they began getting frets from the late 16th century. These frets subdivide a fretboard so a string can be pressed anywhere between two frets and the note will have the desired pitch. Without them, extreme accuracy is needed for intonation. Lute builders, aka luthiers, tied lengths of gut or nylon around a neck with the knot placed at the top edge of the fretboard. In addition to making it easier for players to pitch notes correctly, these frets made it possible for multiple notes to be used simultaneously. This also allowed for chords as well as single notes – and frets soon became commonplace on guitar-like instruments. Lutes are still fretted in this way, and tightening and replacing tied…

This is a 1966 Mosrite six-string bass. Up at the top of the fretboard near the body where they put their serial numbers it says ‘6 001.’ ‘6’ indicates the model year, but ‘001’? I don’t know how many six-string basses Mosrite made, but they’re not in the catalogue. And there are no markings on it anywhere that indicate a model name. I’ve never seen another one like it. I bought this guitar several years ago from another dealer here in the United States because I said to myself, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever see another one of these things again.’ It wasn’t very costly, and it had the original brown Mosrite ’gator case with some original paperwork, which is kind of neat. “I have to say that I’ve…

FAITH FG20NCE PJE LEGACY NEPTUNE £2,109 Marking 20 years since Patrick James Eggle teamed up with distributor Barnes & Mullins for its Legacy series, this anniversary Neptune is something special, boasting a Canadian Sitka spruce top, select Indian rosewood back and sides, Macassar ebony ’board and a mahogany neck bound with koa. Throw in a Fishman Matrix mic-and-piezo blend and we’ve got a keeper.www.faithguitars.com TAKAMINE LTD2022 £2,450 Featuring a figured honey-tinted spruce top, koa back and sides, abalone appointments and gold tuners, this 60th anniversary model is dripping with luxury, and includes an onboard CTF-2N three-slider preamp system, echoing Takamine’s classic ‘Brownie’ model. A show-stopping acoustic with a heritage Takamine shape from the late 60s, fitting of the special occasion it marks.www.takamine.com TAYLOR 724CE KOA £3,995 Taylor is giving koa…

FIRST PLAYORIGIN EFFECTS M-EQ DRIVER In the world of drive and distortion, the midrange frequencies play a huge part in shaping the sound, so it follows that a pedal with a lot of control over that crucial area of the spectrum will offer real flexibility. This is especially the case if that pedal is based on some of the most respected studio EQ units in the business, the 1950s-designed passive Pultec units. These Pultecs featured highly musical EQ and a push-pull output stage that could be overdriven, and here Origin Effects’ aim is to put that mojo into a compact pedal form that guitarists can use. Besides the standard Level and Drive knobs you get a Mids knob that boosts the midrange at one of three selectable frequencies, while a…

NAMM 2023 Preview Hang on just a minute! It’s not January, the clocks have changed and we’re still digesting chocolate eggs. So how come we’re seeing a raft of new gear all of a sudden? That’s because the NAMM Show – the musical instrument industry’s equivalent of Christmas – moved closer to Easter this year. We’ll have a full report next issue, but for now here are some of the products that have already caught our attention… [SW] J ROCKETTARCHER SELECT £349 J Rockett’s Archer is already well regarded as one of the finest approximations of the infamous Klon Centaur, and now the pedal company has added even more strings to the Archer bow with the Archer Select. The update is based around the pedal’s clipping diodes and here J.…

Artist: Paul Gilbert Album: The Dio Album (Music Theories Recordings) Paul Gilbert first shot to fame in the guitar world for his formidable shredding back in the 80s – but his new instrumental tribute to Ronnie James Dio has found Gilbert exploring the opposite to “computer accurate” alternate picking, replicating the human voice on electric guitar. And when the voice in question is that of Ronnie James Dio, the challenge rises to godlike level. We join Paul to find out why the whole experience has been a learning curve, even for a player of his prodigious talents. Why did you choose to honour Dio with an album of instrumental covers? “What could be a better guitar lesson for me than to have Ronnie James Dio as my guitar teacher –…

RAISING THE TONE If anyone deserves the title ‘session legend’ it’s Michael Landau. He’s recorded with everyone from Miles Davis to Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. He’s admired as the quintessential taste-and-chops player by fellow guitarists, such as his friend and fellow LA session ace Steve Lukather, and he also enjoys a reputation as a bit of a tone-guru too. Based on this association, the many mods Landau made to what was, for many years, his number-one guitar – the infamous 1959 ‘Coma Strat’ – are inevitably of interest. And even more so now that Fender has launched a new signature model based on the Coma Strat, which forms part of its Stories Collection of guitars based on real-life instruments with a rich backstory. Before we get into the details,…

“I got my first electric guitar in 1986. I was in my early teens and back then, in the early 90s, you could pick up 70s Strats for £250,” Aynsley recalls. “People were just trying to get rid of them. And the ones I tried – I suppose they must have been late-70s ones – were quite heavy. So I ended up thinking, ‘Oh, Fender Strats are heavy,’ and I never ended up getting one. But a few years ago I thought, ‘Right, I really want to buy a nice old Strat,’ so I went on the hunt. I’d sold some gear, had a decent chunk of cash and tried a load of 60s Strats, but couldn’t find one I liked. But then I stumbled across that yellow [Olympic White]…

MARSHALL GUV’NOR, DRIVEMASTER, BLUESBREAKER & SHREDMASTER £169 EACH CONTACT Marshall PHONE 01908 375411 WEB www.marshall.com What You Need To Know 1 These look familiar… If you’re of a certain age, they may well do! These Marshall pedals were originally introduced more than 30 years ago, but have been out of production for quite some time. The company has now reissued them. 2 Are they the same as before? Absolutely! The look has been accurately recreated and the circuitry is exactly the same. The only difference is there are new pots and sockets because the originals are no longer available. 3 Are they all distortion pedals? Marshall describes the Bluesbreaker as a drive pedal and the other three as distortions, but in the world of dirt the boundaries…

Back in issue 496’s Feedback column, a reader shared his experience of a guitar coming to life – and starting to behave – after a somewhat extensive ‘bedding in’ timescale. But it’s not exactly a good point of sale, is it? “Thank you very much for buying your new guitar. Because it’s new, it’ll take a little time – maybe weeks or months – before it all settles down and actually works and stays in tune. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal.” It would certainly make the day job of reviewing guitars interesting. “Sorry, I haven’t finished my copy, I just need to leave the guitar for a couple of months before it’ll play in tune…” Mind you, that’s why vintage guitars are so good, right? They’ve been hanging around for…

We’ve all seen big stages where drum kits are flanked by walls of cabs, full stacks lined up as if to create a musical Stonehenge where we can worship the gods of rock. But is there any point to a 4x12 in today’s musical world? Does it just look cool? Has its time been and gone? By now, you should have noticed that the size and weight of equipment, especially amps and speaker cabs, has been decreasing, and although some compromises have been made along the way, it’s largely true that we’re getting great sounds in much more practical packages today. I’ll hold my hands up now: my first cab was a white model 1984A Marshall 4x12. I used it with a Marshall JCM800 head (non-master volume) and although it…

Jeff Beck Tutor Richard Barrett | Gear used Haynes Inflection, Keeley Boss SD-1, Vox AC15 C1 Difficulty **** | 20 mins per example FOLLOWING OUR TRIBUTE to Jeff Beck in issue 495, this Blues Headlines further celebrates the guitarist, who occupied his own sublime space outside the accepted structures of contemporary playing. Before we go any further, let’s acknowledge the impossibility of duplicating his style – I simply hope to capture some of the essence. Jeff coaxed his sound out of a variety of guitars over the years, including a modified Fender Telecaster and a number of Gibson Les Pauls. However, it was the Strat that became his mainstay in the mid to late 70s, with his unique touch on the whammy bar already evident. This would progress so much…

TAKAMINE GD34CE BLK £619 With a solid spruce top and mahogany back and sides, this sharp-looking cutaway dread inherits a lot of its design from Takamine’s high-end counterpart, the EF341SC. This affordable electro is packing above its price point, with a TP-3G FET preamp based on Takamine’s famed ‘Brownie’ model, promising warmth and a natural plugged-in sound with the bonus of a built-in tuner.www.takamine.com CÓRDOBA STAGE £624 The clue is in the name of this feedback-busting nylon-strung electro. Designed to allow you to cut through without the inherent issues of amping up a nylon-stringer, Cordoba has nailed it with a thinline single-cut body (of solid spruce top and chambered mahogany). Not only that, but the neck is electric-player friendly, making this a no-brainer for guitarists looking for a hybrid option.www.cordobaguitars.com…

EASTMAN E20SS/V £1,949 No, it’s not a rare pawn-shop find. This is manufactured mojo and it’s been done brilliantly. From the sleek headstock to the satin tuners, thin-skin ’burst finish and light ageing, this road dog is full of bite when you need it but can back off for more subtle moments, too. Featuring an Adirondack spruce top and rosewood back and sides, this slope-shouldered dread really roars.www.eastmanguitars.com GIBSON J-45 50S FADED £2,169 A cheap J-45 this is not. In fact, the only thing to be appreciably dulled here is the finish, with only a few hundred pounds difference between this 50s-spec Faded Series model and a full-gloss J-45. Beyond that, it’s ‘workhorse J-45’ all the way with a feel and tone pretty much as we’d expect, with growling, husky…

FIRST PLAYCORT G300 GLAM & RAW It’s becoming a bit of a cliché to say that the quality of guitars made in Asia just keeps getting better and better. But the proof is in the instruments themselves. When we looked at Cort’s G300 Pro back in issue 471, we concluded that it was “a difficult guitar to fault, the sort of instrument that spans pretty much every rock genre there is and quite a bit more… a real everyman instrument that could sit in a modern metal band just as easily as a function pop/soul ensemble.” Not bad since it’s currently priced at £749 – and comes in a rather fetching Metallic Gold for this year. And now it’s joined by an additional pair of G300s: the Glam and Raw.…

FIRST PLAYEVENTIDE H90 HARMONIZER Of all the Eventide pedals, the one most likely to be found on pro ’boards is the H9, a twin-footswitch pedal offering the brand’s ‘greatest hits’ of effects, with classy studio-quality reverb, delay, modulation and pitch-shifting. While it’s a potent asset for any pedalboard, the H9 only offers one effect at a time. Enter the H90: a triple-footswitch pedal that allows you to use two algorithms at the same time in either series or parallel. The H90 has pretty comprehensive connectivity allowing various mono and stereo modes of operation, as well as insert points to add other pedals that can be positioned anywhere in the signal chain. It comes equipped with 62 effect algorithms: new enhanced versions of all 52 from the H9 Max, plus 10…

Artist: Xander & The Peace Pirates Album: Order Out Of Chaos (BFD Records) Since being discovered on YouTube by former Gibson CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, guitarist brothers Keith and Stuart Xander haven’t looked back – and neither have their fellow ‘Peace Pirates’, Mike Gay (guitar), Joel Goldberg (bass) and Adam Goldberg (drums). Keith, who was born without a lower right arm and plays with a prosthesis and hook that has a plectrum on its end, has been touted as Liverpool’s answer to Stevie Ray Vaughan, and his band collectively play soulful blues-rock, with their second album, Order Out Of Chaos, gaining traction. “We all have different styles of playing,” says slide guitarist Mike, “which people could see as a negative. But it’s great because we couldn’t possibly sound like one person’s…

NEVILLE’S ADVOCATE Welcome to my monthly stream of (not necessarily connected or scientific) consciousness. I may have told you this before, but some years ago when I was driving to work, the DJ on the radio played a Rod Stewart track from one of the American Songbook albums. I forget what the song was, but every so often came these short acoustic guitar interjections. Instantly, I knew it was Clapton and, sure enough, at the end of the song my not-even-suspicions were confirmed – I knew it was Eric! So what was it about those few licks that gave the game away?It was an acoustic, so no signature Fender or Gibson tone, no obvious amp or pedal giveaways. It was his touch. His attack, where in the bar he placed…

SUBSTITUTE AUDIO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra When you’re looking at the conventions for chord naming, it’s easy to become confused around sus, add and altered chords. Here we aim to demystify some of this by taking a closer look at what an ‘add’ chord is – and isn’t! Though the name seems self-explanatory, it isn’t always quite that simple. After all, we don’t call C7 ‘Cadd7’, do we? The reason the ‘add’ suffix came about was to highlight additional notes that you would usually only expect to find in extended chords, which include the 7th (such as 9th-11th-13th), or any non-triad notes from below the 7th (add2-add4). Having said that, I can’t remember the last time I saw D6 being called Dadd6! In some cases, it can be difficult to decide what number…

Compared to the hallowed 50s or the swingin’ 60s, when it comes to guitars, the 1970s has long suffered from an image problem. The music might have been stellar but the era’s electrics have languished under a reputation for being heavier than depleted uranium, not to mention of doubtful quality and built to maximise corporate profits rather than player satisfaction. But recently, a more sympathetic perspective on 70s guitars has been emerging. As the price of guitars from the 50s and 60s climbs far beyond reach of everyday players, many have been taking a second look at 70s guitars – and finding, to their surprise, that excellent instruments can be found, especially from the earlier years of the decade. The key to finding a good one is to understand that…

HISTORIC HARDWARE1959 Les Paul Standard Last year, an undocumented 1960 Les Paul Standard miraculously appeared from the West Midlands. When we interviewed Joe Bonamassa about his latest purchase, he assured us “these under-the-bed guitars are usually pristine. And they’re still around, you know.” Well, Joe called it right because another unknown ’Burst recently turned up at Vintage ‘n’ Rare Guitars in Bath. Life Partner Henry Sylvester Andrew was never a famous rock star, but throughout his life he remained a one-guitar guy. That guitar just happened to be the Les Paul Standard he had long admired through the window of his local guitar store, Barrie’s Music in Durban, South Africa. Knowing it was his dream guitar, Henry’s wife paid the deposit as a gift soon after their marriage in 1959.…

VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra PAOLETTI 112 LOFT SERIES 2P90 £3,639 CONTACT Barnes & Mullins PHONE +44 (0) 1691 652 449 WEB www.paolettiguitars.com What You Need To Know 1 Paoletti? That’s a new one. Not as such. Fabrizio Paoletti founded his company in 2005, with its original premise centred on using chestnut wood reclaimed from wine barrels more than a century old to make the guitars’ bodies. 2 Interesting, what else? Paoletti’s Signature Series features instruments such as the Richard Fortus #1 and #2 signatures that have tops covered with leather. Our offset comes from the bashed-up looking Loft Series, but there are also semi and hollowbody models in the Lounge Series, while the Wine Series centres on natural finishes over that reclaimed chestnut. 3 Do we need…

Having reviewed this revised Revstar alongside its series-mates this time last year, our reviews editor finally gets to spend some more quality time with it. What took so long? Unbelievably, it’s been a year since Yamaha took the wraps off its redesigned Revstar II range. The series originally launched in 2015, the result of a lengthy design and evaluation process that – even for the careful, considered brand – was a rarity. The new range groups the guitars into three levels: the start-up Element, the mid-priced Standard (both Indonesianmade in Yamaha’s own factory), and the upper Professional level, which uses bodies and necks that are made in Indonesia but assembled, finished and set up in Japan. Outwardly, the new guitars don’t look very different from the original models, using a…

Q I noted that in issue 496 your reviewer is less than complimentary about the use of the zero fret on the Rapier and Saffire guitars. I appreciate that the pros and cons have been debated for decades and that the received wisdom, based on the fact that very few makers now employ the zero fret, is that it is a bad thing. Is this partially due to the fact that, historically, the zero fret is associated with cheaper instruments, despite the fact that makers like Gretsch, in the past, and Vigier, currently, use the zero fret? Many luthiers are supporters of the zero fret based on the advantages of string height at the nut and continuity of tone between fretted and open notes and so on. However, the big…

As far back as 1946, when it evolved from the K&F lap-steel/amp company, Fender was aiming products at music students. Prior to the 1950 launch of their game-changing “electric Spanish” guitars, the Esquire and Broadcaster, the firm continued to focus on lap-steel guitars and amps, branding products with aspirational names such as Champion and Princeton. However, by the mid-50s, the solidbody electric guitar had gained traction, with the Telecaster and Stratocaster leading the professional market. As the rock ’n’ roll era ushered in a new generation of players, Leo Fender’s business partner Don Randall thought it wise to expand their catalogue to include less expensive student-model equivalents. By 1955, a plan was hatched to build shorter scale solidbody electric guitars. Named the Musicmaster and Duo-Sonic by Randall, these 22½-inch-scale student…

There can be no more direct connection to guitar than through the acoustic guitar. For many musicians, that relationship can border on the spiritual, as with our cover stars for this unplugged special, Rodrigo Y Gabriela. The musical journey they undertook to complete their latest album, In Between Thoughts… A New World, was certainly influenced by the esoteric and it has yielded one of their finest works to date. CSN songsmith Graham Nash has also dug deep for his new long-player, Now. Masterly and moving, he joined us to talk about the art of songcraft and reflect on the passing of his bandmate David Crosby, with whom he had a fruitful but not friction-free relationship over the course of their illustrious careers in CSN. Staying with the theme of legendary…

HISTORIC HARDWARE | Gallotone Valencia Ever since the fresh-faced newcomers of the 60s Beat groups grew up into megastars, there’s been intense retrospective interest in the gear used in the early days of bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Numerous reference books have been written on the subject, aiming to provide a definitive account of what guitars were used for seminal gigs. One problem is that no one was taking notes at the time – and very few photographs, either. Another problem is that the beginner’s guitars that legends such as Keith Richards started out on in the 60s were often poorly documented budget instruments built in Europe, about which relatively little is known even to this day. A classic example is the Gallotone Valencia archtop Keef…

FIRST PLAYTAYLOR 417E & 412CE Taylor’s chief designer and CEO Andy Powers has been working his way through each of the company’s acoustic guitar ranges, upgrading and modernising them to the latest specs. This has included the launch of new body styles, such as the Grand Pacific shape featured in the American Dream Series and on the 417e we see here, adding the groundbreaking V-Class bracing system along the way, and sourcing alternative timbers such as urban ironbark, and some less outrageously figured koa. The 417’s longer scale on its 14-fret neck join feels as spacious and welcoming as the cutaway 412ce The 400 Series represents “the most accessible presentation of solid rosewood/spruce guitars in the Taylor line”, we’re told: a pairing of Indian rosewood and Sitka spruce. There are…

AUDIO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra It’s often said that a well-written song will stand up even when reduced to simple chords on acoustic guitar. But at some point, we’ve all heard songs in which complex or unusual chord voicings form an integral part of the harmony. Alternatively, both these approaches might co-exist within the same song – namely, regular major and minor chords overdubbed with a layer of more unusual or extended voicings. This can sound particularly appealing when played on two acoustics, panned left and right to form a stereo spread. Whatever approach you choose, the following chords will give you food for thought. Every key is represented, with a major and a minor chord for each. Also included within the 30 are six ‘bonus’ chords, for which there are no particular…