Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i Guitarist

Future Publishing Limited, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA Telephone 01225 442244 Email guitarist@futurenet.com Online www.guitarist.co.uk Hello Guitarist readers. I was honoured to be asked to contribute to this edition, celebrating the magazine’s 40th anniversary and the 70th birthday of the Fender Stratocaster. For my ‘editorial’, I thought I’d share a few thoughts about Strats and other guitars I’ve used over the years. Leo Fender got it so right with the Strat. The contoured body is so comfortable, and one volume knob controls the three pickups so there are no level discrepancies when switching between pickups. The double-cutaway gives superb access, and the three pickups provide a variety of tones, either singly or in combination. The whammy bar, when set up correctly (as mine are), does not affect the…

Artist: Nat Myers Album: Yellow Peril (Easy Eye Sound) Nat Myers is a Korean-American Kansan who is making waves as a badass bluesman. With the snappy Dan Auerbach-produced debut album, Yellow Peril out in the wild, Nat has plenty of hours logged on the road, and when we meet he’s keeping Willie Watson company. “Willie was one of the first fellas to take me on the road,” Nat begins, with his distinctive drawl. “We’re like two peas in a pod and I can’t get him to shut up right now. I love listening to him talk and he knows it.” Solo Performance Although there are accompaniments heard on Yellow Peril, Nat’s preferred touring setup is him solo, a decision that suits his old-school sounding blues. “Yeah, I’m just by my…

NEVILLE’S ADVOCATE It’s true. I’ve always aspired to lovely guitars and have owned quite a few – vintage and new – from all the best makers. Amps, too, have been a thing with me since I bought a giant Fender Dual Showman 2x15 stack when I was just 22, nabbed one of the first Boogies in the country a few years later, and graduated in 1994 to a Matchless DC30 that was used by Hank Marvin on kids’ TV (in an all-star line-up alongside Suzi Quatro on bass). I know this because when I bought it from Mansons Guitar Shop in Exeter they gave me a VHS video of said performance, clearly showing Hank playing through the green combo they’d loaned him for the event. And which was now mine.…

SUBSTITUTE The term ‘light and shade’ might be well used, but it does describe some very important qualities in music. For example, the ‘tension and release’ of Dsus4 to D major, or even a V-I progression such as C7 to F. Taking this concept a bit further, film score and classical composers often use dissonance, tension and release to build and resolve suspense. Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No 5 is a masterclass in this. However, the examples here focus on using dissonance within a single chord and how sometimes the rest of the chord can balance it out, forming a kind of resolution in itself. For example, a major 7th interval (the root and 7th of a major scale played simultaneously) can sound pretty jarring in isolation, but as part of…

Fender 70th Anniversary Master Builder Which is the greatest era of Strat in your personal opinion? Paul Waller: “For me, it’s early 60s. I think that’s when the Strat really started to come into its own. Putting the rosewood on there, slimming out the neck, and the pickups started getting dialled in to really make what pure Strat sounds are for me.” Austin MacNutt: “I like the late-50s Strats – just the classic look. They all look great, but I feel like they really got it right, right out of the gate.” What do you regard as an ideal weight for a Strat? Paul: “I personally like just under 8lbs – maybe 7¾lbs.” Austin: “Yeah, that’s a good range. I’m not terribly picky about it, honestly. I’ve got Strats all…

You will have read many times in Guitarist’s pages that no two Strats are the same. And if you own more than one of these game-changing guitars you’ll appreciate the truth in that statement. Ash body, alder body, rosewood or maple fingerboard, hardtail, traditional or floating vibrato; these apparently minor changes all impact the tone, albeit in subtle ways. Pickup height, string action, neck carve, and roller or conventional nut also play their part in how the guitar feels and sounds to each of us. Back in the day, pretty much every operation to build a Fender guitar was carried out by workers who hand-sanded, hand-wound and hand-finished every aspect. And while much of this still happens in today’s Corona California facility, modern production techniques mean tolerances are much tighter,…

BLUEPRINT: Lerxst Amps Nearly a decade after the band’s farewell tour, Rush’s music continues to resonate with millions. But for guitarist Alex Lifeson, the journey doesn’t end there. With a flourishing side project called Envy Of None, and Lerxst – an amplifier, guitar and pedal line launched in partnership with Mojotone of Burgaw, North Carolina – Lifeson shows no signs of slowing down. We sit down with the legendary musician and Mojotone CEO Michael McWhorter to discuss their collaboration and creative process on the Lerxst amplifiers, along with Lifeson’s enduring love for the craft and what the future holds for one of rock’s most iconic figures. Alex, how did the Lerxst brand get started and how did you develop a partnership with Mojotone to build the amps? Alex Lifeson: “My…

When we talk about echo, it might make you think of vintage effects, which may be dirty, distorted and lo-fi in character. In contrast, ‘delay’ started becoming the standard term when digital technology made it possible to manufacture cleaner and quieter-sounding effects with a full frequency range and longer delay times. Whatever the nature of the effect, delay mimics something you might experience in a large empty building or a canyon. The time interval between a sound being generated and the sound that bounces back is long enough for the ‘echo’ to be heard as clear and distinct repeats. Reverb is related, but these multiple repeats occur so quickly that the reflected sound is perceived as continuous, rather than something separate. Studio designers could build dedicated reverb chambers because the…

We all love an anniversary, and so it was a great pleasure to join in with Taylor Guitars’ 50th celebrations by talking to co-founder Bob Taylor and master builder and CEO Andy Powers. Over the years we’ve seen how the company has introduced innovations that have streamlined modern building techniques, including the daring move away from traditional X-bracing in favour of its own V-Class system. So I’m sure you’ll join us in sending hearty congratulations to everyone at Taylor on their half century – and wish them plenty more! Elsewhere in our special Acoustic mini-mag, you’ll find a look at a trio of J-200s and note that, by coincidence, Gibson is celebrating its 130th year as a guitar maker in 2024. We also take into consideration the often-overlooked role that…

TAKAMINE GD34CE BLK £619 This black electro-cutaway is based on the stadium-filling acoustic used by Bon Jovi and Springsteen, and with solid spruce for the top and laminated sapele back and sides, it’s ready to be amplified by the TP-3G preamp, which sprinkles everything with a bit of studio-style tonality. For those about to rock (sensitively), it’s got great sounds and looks to match. www.takamine.com FENDER HIGHWAY SERIES DREADNOUGHT £919 With a shallow body depth of 57mm, the Highway Series was born to work on stages. It’s got a mahogany back and sides, spruce or mahogany top, and the familiarity of a C-shape profile and 648mm (25.5-inch) scale length. The dual-sensor system lets you blend big, boomy sounds with a more cutting tone: it’s an excellent all-rounder for smaller ensembles…

SUBSTITUTE The acoustic guitar remains one of the most popular instruments among singer-songwriters, as well as solo instrumentalists. Admittedly, this is probably in part due to it being so portable, but beyond such everyday practicalities, there is an enduring fascination in getting so much from an instrument that, in theory, could seem quite limited. We have just six strings to work with, but, if anything, this seems to encourage us to push the boundaries – and it’s not uncommon for seasoned players to discover new chords and voicings that have been hiding in plain sight for decades! If we move beyond the standard tuning, these possibilities multiply, as suddenly we’re able to access voicings that are impossible – or even painful – in regular tuning. We can use the open-tuned…

FIRST PLAYMANSON GUITAR WORKS VERONA JUNIOR What’s this? Is Manson Guitar Works celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Gibson Les Paul Junior? No, clearly not, but that ‘Junior’ moniker is applied to many single-pickup guitars and that’s the proposition here. The new Manson Junior comes in the brand’s classic modern T-style MA shape and the new Verona outline we have here, obviously based on the Stratocaster and a request from Manson majority shareholder Matt Bellamy. The Ashburton-based Brit maker, who currently has nine staff and an output between 200 and 300 UK-built guitars annually, took a close look at every manufacturing process to hone it down to the base essentials without compromising quality in the least. Like many makers, particularly those in the UK, Manson is using lightweight obeche for…

FIRST PLAY DANELECTRO NICHOLS 1966 What were you doing aged 14? Chances are it wasn’t quite what Steve Ridinger was up to, which was designing the circuitry of a fuzz-meets-distortion pedal, building the units and selling them on. In 1966, Ridinger, current Danelectro boss and founder of Foxx pedals, was living with his parents in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, where he came up with the circuit at the heart of this latest pedal release. Named the Liverpool Fuzz Tone (and selling 3,000 units at the time), the design has now resurfaced as the Nichols 1966 and joins the Eisenhower Fuzz and 3699 Fuzz, among others, in Dano’s range of vintage-based pedals with distressed enclosures. A Volume knob sets the output volume, while a Tone knob offers a wide range of variation…

PRS S2 2024 Series £1,925 to £2,675 CONTACT PRS Europe PHONE 01223 874301 WEB www.prsguitars.com JARGON CRUNCHING Scarf-jointed necks PRS saves on production costs and waste material with the S2s by using a scarf joint (a join of two pieces) to attach the headstock to the neck, rather than making the whole lot out of one piece. The S2 series has been around for a while, hasn’t it? It has. In fact, the S2 series celebrated its 10th birthday in 2023, having been introduced in 2013 to offer a lower-priced, USA-made range of PRS electrics. So (in a nutshell and ignoring some of PRS’s upgrades and subcategories) we have Private Stock at the very top of the production tree, followed closely by the Core and Bolt-On models, then S2, and…

CONFESSIONS OF A LUTHIER For me, making bespoke acoustic guitars is all about crafting a unique instrument that looks as special as it sounds. But how exactly is this achieved? Every maker has their own style; just like the brushstrokes of an artist, every pass of a luthier’s chisel carries the identity of its maker. But sometimes we have to look for other ways to stand out from the crowd. Back in 1989, William ‘Grit’ Laskin was the first builder to introduce the concept of an arm bevel to an acoustic guitar. This feature was designed to alleviate the pressure on the picking arm by breaking up the corner of the instrument with a deep chamfer. Soon after, luthier Kevin Ryan developed this idea into the ‘transitional’ bevel, a similar…

STAR LETTER EYES WIDE SHUT I wanted to share a recent experience, which may help other readers. I was getting in a rut jamming along with songs and coming up with my own solos, it was then that I realised I was looking at the fretboard and going to my ‘safe areas’ with the same old string bends, hammering on, etc. So I tried with my eyes closed and, after a few missed notes, I suddenly started playing different stuff and in ways that were beyond my musical pay grade/ability. I was moving up the neck and, amazingly, getting the right notes! I’ve always admired seeing pros playing with their eyes shut but never expected I could do it. I then tried using some trem and found I was in…

Back in the 60s, the template for a protest singer was set as an earnest fingerstyle folkie, regaling a cross-legged audience in a Greenwich Village coffee house. 5,000 miles away, and a half-century later, Mdou Moctar didn’t get the memo (in fact, as the African guitarist tells us today, almost no Western media whatsoever made it to his childhood city of Arlit, Niger). As such, seventh album, Funeral For Justice, finds him chronicling the travails of his devastated nation with a fiery, feedback-soaked Stratocaster, revving up the musical traditions of his Tuareg ancestry and, critically, making audiences dance like there’s no tomorrow… Told through a French translator, his backstory takes some beating. Having built his first guitar from stray wood, bicycle brake-cables and tuners fashioned from the keys for opening…

Hank Marvin What Strat moment on a recording inspires you most? “Going back to my school years, hearing the intro and solo of The Crickets’ That’ll Be The Day on a jukebox was a revelation, and motivated me to try to copy this ‘new to us’ American style of rock ’n’ roll guitar. As regards my own playing, I thought The Theme From The Deer Hunter (Cavatina) was special as it’s a beautiful composition written by Stanley Myers, and also my performance was recorded in one take, except for one note where there was an odd distortion. I dropped in and replaced the note. “A couple of other recordings that I like for different reasons are Hot Rox, which I wrote with my son Ben; it was fun for me…

Bill Nelson is not your average guitar hero. Looking at his extensive back catalogue – from the early solo work, through Be-Bop Deluxe, Red Noise and beyond – shows an artist who maintains a youthful sense of curiosity and a disregard for the categories that can become a creative straitjacket for many. Bill operates outside the mainstream, in a similar way to Jeff Beck or Mike Oldfield in having all the instrumental skills you could wish for but seeking to use these purely for musical expression, rather than as an end in itself. Collaborations with artists such as David Sylvian, Gary Numan, the Skids and Yellow Magic Orchestra, to name just a few, further demonstrate this. Since 2000, Bill has released an impressive number of albums on his own label,…

GIBSON LES PAUL LITE £1,499 Priced the same as the high-end Epiphone models, such as the Kirk Hammett ‘Greeny’ 1959 Les Paul Standard, the Lite is a very stripped-back thin-bodied LP with a standard-radius rosewood fingerboard. There are no pull-push switched extra sounds here, but the uncovered 490R (neck) and 498T (bridge) humbuckers deliver a vibey hot-vintage voice. GIBSON LES PAUL CLASSIC £2,399 The internet tells us this Les Paul is out of production, but Gibson doesn’t. Either way, there’s reasonable in-store stock and we reckon this one is a bit of a sleeper. All the Modern sounds are here with Quick Connect zebra-coiled ’61 Burstbuckers but with standard-radius rosewood fingerboard and some old-school colours, such as this Heritage Cherry Sunburst. GIBSON SG MODERN £2,399 This pimped SG-meets-LP adds an…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money? “My dad got me a piece of crap, and then I got a Hagstrom, which had much better action, but I didn’t like the pickup; it didn’t have the power of a humbucker because it had single-coil pickups. After that, I got a Telecaster, but that didn’t last too long. Then I got a Mustang that I modified and put a humbucker in. I got a Marshall, and that was the sound I’d been looking for. Once we [KISS] signed our record deal with Casablanca Records, I got a Honeyburst Les Paul and a Marshall stack – and we were off to the races.” What was the last guitar you bought, and why? “It was a Gibson Les…

“Several features make this example unique. Firstly, there’s the colour, because I’ve never seen a sunburst one before. It’s like a two-tone tobacco sunburst; I’ve had a Les Paul SG that was the same colour. It had to be custom-ordered and that’s why there’s a ‘custom’ engraving on the truss rod cover. Then there’s the ebony fingerboard with genuine mother-of-pearl block markers. Every other EB-6D I’ve seen had a rosewood fingerboard with ‘mother of toilet seat’ celluloid dot markers, but this is more like a Les Paul Custom board, minus the binding. “There’s a pearl plug where the jack socket would normally be. The original owner, who must have ordered this specially, requested that the jack socket be mounted on the control coverplate. They must have done this to prevent…

HISTORIC HARDWARE Gibson J-200 Sometimes referred to as a ‘narrow waist jumbo’, the J-200 is the model that unites Roy Rogers with Elvis, Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Noel Gallagher and countless others. Since the very first one was presented to Ray Whitley in December 1937, it has been a constant in Gibson’s product line barring a brief pause during America ’s participation in WWII. Ray Whitley was a singing cowboy film star during the 1930s. When appearing at the Madison Square Garden rodeo, he got together with Guy Hart from Gibson to discuss ideas for a new acoustic guitar model. Ray’s dream guitar was a flat-top version of Gibson’s flagship 17-inch L-5 archtop, and he spent a week at the factory helping to design it. As…

FIRST PLAYVICTORY THE DEPUTY COMPACT HEAD There’s been a flurry of activity from Victory recently, with a new MKII version of The Kraken lunchbox head, designed in collaboration with Rabea Massaad. Just a few months later and here we are looking at another new ‘designed in collaboration with’ Victory amp. This time it’s Peter ‘Danish Pete’ Honoré, formerly a world-class session player (working for artists such as Lionel Richie and Tom Jones), and now video manager and YouTube presenter for the well-known guitar store Andertons. Victory is continuing the USA law enforcement nomenclature, calling its new amp The Deputy. This isn’t the first Victory amp Honoré has been involved with – there was a tweaked version of the Duchess lunchbox head a few years ago called the DP40 – but…

FIRST PLAY WALRUS AUDIO SILT HARMONIC FUZZ We’ve been seeing more fuzz boxes released than any other kind of pedal lately, several with a claim to having special characteristics. The latest from Walrus Audio is no exception, but its special characteristic is plain for all to see: a valve lit up in a front-panel window. The idea behind the pedal was to create a fuzz with the rich, harmonically complex texture that a real valve can provide, so Walrus Audio teamed up with valve expert Jim Hagerman to develop this design based around an ECC82/12AU7 preamp valve. It’s a tidy-sized pedal, with sounds dialled in by three knobs and a three-way toggle switch, and it sports an extra footswitched Harmonic mode for some octave action. Starting with the Gain knob at…

KNAGGS CHENA A £TBC Joe Knaggs knows a thing or two about building guitars, but he also knows about playing them, too. The Chena A model was born out of a suggestion by Knaggs artist Larry Mitchell that Knaggs should produce a guitar to suit Joe’s jazz style – a jazz box with integral bracing, a spruce top and a mahogany back, which is 3/8-inch thicker than a regular Chena model. The neck is also mahogany, with a rosewood fingerboard, and electronically it’s fitted with a Lollar dog-ear P-90, as well as a Fishman piezo. It’s available now: check the Knaggs website to find your nearest dealer. www.knaggsguitars.com LINE 6 CATALYST CX AMPS & POD EXPRESS FROM £285 & £199 You might have noticed, but gear brands really want to…

Artist: Tracii Guns Album: Medusa (Frontiers Music SRL) Tracii Guns has long slung his Les Paul in bouts of rock ’n’ roll excess as a longtime hair-metal icon with his namesake band, LA Guns. But lately he’s been branching out through several side gigs, one of which features Jack Russell of Great White. Tracii joins us to dig into the tones behind his latest collaborative record (and beyond), Medusa. What tones did you have in mind when you started the Medusa project? “That record was really weird because, number one, I didn’t initially write anything. And number two, they [Frontiers Records] leaked the songs over to me one at a time. So I never had an overall picture of what I thought that record would sound like; it was like…

RAISING THE TONE While many of us agonise at length about what the perfect set of pickups for our Strat or 335 might be, fewer devote the same amount of deliberation to strings. This is a bit unfair, I think, as not only do strings influence the tone of our guitars more than we give them credit for, but they’re also our tactile interface with the instrument. Looked at that way, we should be treating them like tone-making royalty and, crucially, trying out different makes, types and gauges of string – not so we can select one and have done with it for the rest of our lives, but to find the set that best fits each guitar we own. At the very least, we owe it to ourselves to…

Want to join in the Stratocaster’s 70th birthday celebrations and win a fabulous Lake Placid Blue Vintera Strat while you’re at it? It really couldn’t be simpler. The Vintera II is kitted out with all the traditional features you would find on a 1960s Stratocaster – the synchronised trem, rosewood ’board, triple laminate scratchplate and three single-coil pickups. All the famous Strat tones are present and correct thanks to a five-way selector switch, so anything from SRV to Dire Straits will fall from your fingertips with effortless ease. In order to win this fabulous instrument, provided by our friends at Fender (www.fender.com), all you need to do is answer the question below and then click the link (or scan the QR code above right), and follow the online instructions. Good…

Imagine you are musician walking past a shop window in 1954. You stroll past, take a glance... and then stop dead in your tracks. Behind the glass is what seems to be a rocket ship, its sunburst finish glowing like polished amber. The guitars around it seem bulky and cumbersome by comparison – even that upstart solidbody, the Telecaster, you first clapped eyes on a few years before, now seems like a tractor parked beside a Cadillac… In 1954 there was no guitar like the Strat. More remarkable still, in the seven decades since, no other new guitar has had such a transformative effect on the guitar scene. Today, a Strat looks as familiar as a tree or a drinking glass. But 70 years ago, it had no real precedent.…

ROSS PEDALS £189 EACH CONTACT Sound Affects WEB www.rosselectronics.com What You Need To Know 1 Ross? Never heard of them… The brand had been defunct for a very long time and was never a massive presence in the UK. But now it’s back and available here. 2 Why the return now? Pedal aficionado Josh Scott at JHS Pedals thought it would be a good idea and took on the design and manufacture of the revived brand, with the new Ross pedals being manufactured at JHS Pedals’ facility in Kansas City, Missouri. 3 Are these exact copies of the vintage pedals? Not exactly, there are differences, although the distinctive look has been retained, albeit with the socketry now placed in a ’board-friendly top-end position, rather than on the sides of the…

Judging by the number of emails we’ve received recently, there’s definitely more interest in slide guitar at the moment than I can remember for some time. But what’s the best way to set up a guitar for slide? Good question – and it’s been a while since we’ve shone any light on this topic (as far back as issue 430, to be precise). So, c’mon, let’s slide on down. I’m going to focus on electric slide guitar in this month’s Mod Squad and start by saying that while there are no set rules for slide guitar setups, there are quite a few things to consider. Most obviously, there are plenty of ways to approach playing slide and to a certain extent that’ll affect how you could set up your guitar…

David Gilmour Tutor Richard Barrett | Gear used Fender Stratocaster (with EMG DG20 pickup set), Keeley Boss SD-1 & Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue | Difficulty | 15 mins per example FEW PLAYERS have taken the blues vocabulary and incorporated it into progressive/psychedelic rock with such eloquence. David Gilmour’s tone, note choice and sense of rhythm elevated Pink Floyd to a different level when he joined the band in 1967. As the era of the epic guitar solo dawned, David established himself as a soloist few could match, with a strong sense of melody and a knack for creating memorable parts – even in some of the more ‘out there’ free-form jams that were so characteristic of the early Floyd. From this time up to and including The Dark Side Of…

TAYLOR BABY TAYLOR £431 The Baby Taylor delivers a true three-quarter-size dreadnought, with a scale length of 578mm (22.75 inches), and it can still project thanks to its solid top – spruce (pictured), mahogany or koa – and arched sapele back (laminated). Each variant of the Baby Taylor comes as either an acoustic or ES-B-equipped electro (£599), so whether it’s a first acoustic for a smaller player, or an alternative for travel or different tunings, the Baby continues to prove its place. TAYLOR AD24ce £2,375 Want a US-made Taylor Grand Auditorium but at a lower price point? Look no further than the American Dream Series. This Grand Auditorium model ticks a lot of boxes for less with a neo-tropical mahogany top and neck, sapele back and sides and ES2 electronics.…

INTERVIEW Tommy Emmanuel Tommy Emmanuel has been a working professional musician from the somewhat staggering age of six, when he toured his native Australia playing rhythm guitar in his family’s band, living on the road in their cars and rarely going to school. He was inspired to play after hearing the Travis picking style of Chet Atkins on the radio, a lightbulb moment and one that he still remembers vividly. Six decades on, Tommy is widely regarded as one of the world’s finest acoustic fingerstyle players, a guitarist whose emotive playing and impeccable feel are matched by his sublimely dextrous technique. He sets the bar high for himself, and his incendiary live shows regularly wow audiences in venues across the globe. Who better, then, to offer advice on how to…

STRING THEORY Acoustic guitars don’t have the tone-tweakability of electric guitars, so your choice of strings is especially important. The good news is that advances in string-making technology have granted guitarists more choice than ever before. But that very diversity also makes choosing the right set of strings more daunting. We join Jack Dunwoody, a product expert with Rotosound, to get his advice on what you need to know about strings to make an informed, tone-enriching choice the next time you string up your acoustic guitar. “A new set of uncoated strings has a certain brightness that you just can’t get with coated strings… [but] coated are consistent for longer” Let’s start with the basics. The most common types of string for acoustic guitar are phosphor bronze and 80/20 bronze,…

FURCH VIOLET MASTER’S CHOICE GC-SM £1,109 There’s a lot of innovation happening at Furch HQ, as evidenced by this Violet Master’s Choice model. The Sitka spruce top has undergone Furch’s voicing treatment, the end result being a top that’s tuned to wring out every last drop of tonal richness and sustain. It’s joined by Furch’s CNR System that sees the truss rod housed in a carbon tube and adjusted bilaterally for greater stability. https://furchguitars.com JWJ ‘THE HOG’ £1,249 It might be JWJ’s entry-level model, but The Hog is bringing home the retro bacon. The construction is Honduras mahogany throughout, with an AA-grade example saved for the top. Inside, the Sitka spruce bracing (hand-carved, just like the top) has been torrefied for added stability, and the whole lot is coated in…