SUMMER NAMM • JULIANA HATFIELD
PETER HOOK • PICKUP PRIMER SEPTEMBER 2017
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I N NOVAT IO N. The Adamas Viper represents a 50 year legacy of design excellence and artistry.A patented IDEAÂŽ Aluminum Bridge, carbon fiber, mahogany and ebony become one.Each uniquely-versatile instrument made-to-order by the Ovation USA Custom Shop. Ovation,like nothing else.
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THE PROFILER “With profiling, Kemper changed the world for all guitar players, making it a better place indeed. Because all the best guitar amps in the world – with their tones meticulously designed, thoroughly mic‘ed and recorded in the best studios – are available with the Profiler. Ready to be taken to the studio, the stages around town .... and around the globe!” The Profiler comes loaded with the finest Rigs created by artists, producers and performers who are famous for their tone.
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Publisher Jon Levy EDITORIAL Chief Content Officer Shawn Hammond Managing Editor Tessa Jeffers Senior Editor Andy Ellis Senior Editor Ted Drozdowski Gear Editor Charles Saufley Art Director Meghan Molumby Associate Editor Chris Kies Associate Editor Rich Osweiler Associate Editor Jason Shadrick Nashville Correspondent John Bohlinger Nashville Video Editor Perry Bean Digital Designer Ben Kuriscak Photo Editor Kristen Berry Contributing Editor Joe Gore PRODUCTION & OPERATIONS Operations Manager Shannon Burmeister Circulation Manager Lois Stodola Production Coordinator Luke Viertel
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The information and advertising set forth herein has been obtained from sources believed to be Gearhead Communications, L.L.C., however, does not warrant complete accuracy of such information and assumes no responsibility for any consequences arising from the use thereof or reliance thereon. Publisher reserves the right to reject or cancel any advertisement or space reservation at any time without notice. Publisher shall not be liable for any costs or damages if for any reason it fails to publish an advertisement. This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Premier Guitar [ISSN 1945-077X (print) ISSN 1945-0788 (online)] is published monthly. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $24.95 (12 issues), $39.95 (24 issues) Call for Canada, Mexico and foreign subscription rates 877-704-4327; Copyright ©2017. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Premier Guitar is a publication of Gearhead Communications, L.L.C. CUSTOMER SERVICE: lois@premierguitar.com.
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STUNNINGLY ACCURATE . OR, MORE ACCURATELY, STUNNING. D ’A D D A R I O C H R O M AT I C P E D A L T U N E R
With its striking, full-color vertical display and quick, accurate response, the new D’Addario Chromatic Pedal Tuner helps you make sure not to miss the mark—even in demanding onstage conditions. Its slim profile leaves room on your pedalboard for all your effects, so it’s there when you need it, but out of the way when you don’t. D A D D A R I O . C O M / P E D A LT U N E R
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TUNING UP
Small Thoughts in a Big World BY SHAWN HAMMOND
H
ave you ever been listening to a tune for the umpteenth time and suddenly been struck by a newfound profundity in it? I guess that’s kind of a stupid question. Unpredictability and contextuality are at the core of art’s allure. Regardless, it’s still magical when the gleam of a previously overlooked gem grabs you. It might come from a more careful listen to nuances in a riff or layers in an artfully constructed soundscape— or perhaps it stems from a less-careful, less-musicianly listen. Or maybe it simply comes from the most obvious source, the lyrics. The latter happened with a song in my playlist that randomly came on recently. It’s a song from a band I like a lot, but to be honest this particular tune has never been a favorite. Not even close—in fact, I usually skip it. But this time something else happened to hold my attention and prevented me from hitting the fastforward button before the opening line came through. Guilty of small thoughts In a big world And later, a similar refrain. Guilty of being blind In a small world
When the words registered against the backdrop of softly strummed guitars and the rhythm section’s gentle shuffle, they
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@PG_shawnh
struck me as a perfect description of the pandemic of negativity sweeping the world these days, particularly via social media. In the past I sort of viewed this song’s sentiment as simplistic. Maybe even kind of cheesily New Age-y. Usually stuff like that elicits little more than an eye roll and a move to recuse myself from the sappy bullshit. (Clearly I am not devoid of negativity myself!) Who knows why I didn’t move on this time. I’m just glad it struck me. I mean, aren’t these fleeting moments of wonder why we’re music freaks? Anyway, back to the whole smallthoughts thing. To be sure, there are more than enough valid reasons for people everywhere to be pissed, scared, and despondent. Who are we kidding—that’s the plight of the human condition. If we go beneath the surface to look at why there’s so much apparent smallmindedness in the polarized, vitriolic comments we see everywhere, a charitable view could ascribe them to primal, gut-level responses spit out, virtually unfiltered, from the part of our brain that evolved to assure survival in the face of things deemed threatening. But we are thinking beings, are we not? We have risen above beasts (for now) on the strengths of our ingenuity and heart. We can and should subjugate our knee-jerk instincts to reason … though all of us slip up at least periodically. In a way, perhaps that’s what makes us lovable, I guess. So yeah, slinging shit is a big part of mortality’s theme. But so is the drive to overcome. And sometimes the best way to overcome the wild, overwhelming sense of powerlessness, fear, and/or exasperation that grips us via the myriad tendrils of modern life is to just simplify. Try to find the innocence and wonder again. Maybe even bask in the simple pleasures of something you might otherwise view as quaint, oblivious, or cliché. Sometimes that’s really the only way to carry on.
Sometimes there’s no other way to quell the bubbling pools of bile yearning to bellow up from our primordial cortexes. A recent incident brought this home to me, though not initially in such an explicit or fully formed thought. I’d just wrapped up a visit to the Fender booth at Summer NAMM, and when I turned to leave the company’s high-walled sanctuary from guitar-amp blare, out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of an adorable little girl plopped down, cross-legged on the floor, enthusiastically strumming a ukulele and quietly singing along to adeptly gripped chords. There was no grandstanding, no effort to show off—no attitude of, “Look at me, I’m a little girl playing an instrument. I should be a star!” There was no guile, just unadulterated love for music and no apparent self-consciousness whatsoever as she experienced the raw joy of expression through word and song. It struck me as so precious—a god-awful but so-true word if ever there was one!—that I had to ask her mom if I could snap a pic. When I mentioned PG, the girl’s mother quickly clarified that her daughter was actually captivated by bass, but the uke fit her 5-year-old-hands better. As I knelt to get a good view of her jamming, she momentarily let the on-the-spotness of it all get in her head, but only a few seconds passed before she dived into the music again, tuning out the weird man with the bad hairdo and mostly likely hoping he’d soon move on. Somehow, that minor incident refreshed me as I emerged to face the rising din created by fellow musicians much less innocent than the uke girl, but—upon deeper reflection—no less worth treating with humanity and heart, despite whatever differences we may have.
Shawn Hammond Chief Content Officer shawn@premierguitar.com
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FEEDBACK LOOP guitar in Tennessee Red. Thanks y’all! Aloha, —Eddie Herd,
Socialize with Us!
Kona, Hawaii
Protect Your Babies
My Father’s Final Words
I had a large shock yesterday, while reading the app version of the June issue. The Feedback Loop section had not one, but two letters from my father, Don Gray (one on the Tedeschi Trucks Rig Rundown, and one about John Bohlinger). The reason for the shock: My father rather quickly developed some serious health issues, leading to a three-week stint in the hospital, followed by one single day back at home. After that day, he took a turn for the worse and spent his final seven days back in the ICU. I had to check the date. On the one day he was back home, the Tedeschi Trucks Rig Rundown [March 15, 2017] was posted and he was impressed enough to write to the magazine about it. Seeing my dad’s passion and enthusiasm for music and guitar a few months after his passing, while also feeling like a gut punch, is an amazing inspiration to me. Thank you for publishing his letters—the last thing he wrote. Music has always been a shared passion, and I’m glad to have gotten to spend the last 10 years playing in a band with him. I’ve been trying to fill his
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shoes for the last couple months and now realize his amazing talent at rhythm playing. In that band, I took the foundation for granted. Now, I’m still learning from him after he’s gone. What an experience. —Eric Gray, Boulder, Colorado
Love for Laswell
Thank you for this [“Bill Laswell: Four Strings, Zero Limits,” August 2017]!!! Bill is one of my favorite bass players, albeit virtually unknown to the general public. You made my day!
That was a good read [“Last Call: Your Guitars Own You,” August 2017]! Wow, I’m so surprised you can’t get [guitars] insured because you play them? The insurance company I use here in Australia has a policy called “all risks.” It covers me everywhere in Australia, and as I understand it, under almost every circumstance. E.g, malicious damage—if some arsehole at a gig decided to take a screwdriver to it, accidental damage, theft, including in a car. I have a collection, too, and as much as I love to share my passion with people, I don’t tell many about my collection. Especially on social media. To me that just makes it dead easy for a thief. I agree with you when you say “the right guitar isn’t just a possession. It’s a relationship.” Spot on! —Mark Tonelli & The Main Offend, via premierguitar.com
—MyDamnedFutileHope, via premierguitar.com
Aloha!
I am enjoying a day off from work here in KailuaKona, Hawaii, and what better thing to have with me at our local beach than the latest issue of Premier Guitar magazine? This edition captured my wife’s eye. “That’s a really nice guitar on the cover. Who makes that one?” she asked. Now I’m a few steps closer to owning an Art & Lutherie Roadhouse parlor
Interesting article. On the bright side, it’s more difficult for thieves to sell stolen music gear than it used to be years ago. Also, here in the U.K. I use a site called immobilise.com on which you can have an account where you upload pics of any items of value along with serial numbers and any other related info. —Merv Simkins, premierguitar.com
Keep those comments coming! Please send your suggestions, gripes, comments, and good words directly to info@premierguitar.com.
Please @premierguitar continue providing tabs of my favorite johnny cash tracks —@dwarfcraft
You guys outdid yourselves on the most recent issue. Best guitar mag around, bar none. —@christeos_pir
#Bittersweet seeing @chriscornell in July @premierguitar. He used a #Gretsch Duo Jet in the band’s final gig. R.I.P. Chris —@gretsch
Excellent NAMM coverage. Thanks (thumbs up). Perry’s flesh-colored shorts made me think he was doing a Blink-182 thing. He is wearing shorts … right? hahaha —Kevin Suchy
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HPâ„¢2 Guitars
Made In The U.S.A.
CONTENTS September 2017 ARTISTS 53 Peter Hook
The singular, melodic bassist embraces his past in Joy Division and New Order.
63 Juliana Hatfield An alt-rock icon plays all the instruments except drums on her new album, Pussycat.
73 Descartes a Kant
86 Sólstafir
Icelandic postmetal frontman Addi Tryggvason analyzes his muses.
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LESSONS 93 96 98 100
Blue Horizons Decorate Like Django The Live Side of Jimmy Page Beyond Blues
REVIEWS 126 Rocket Surgeon Seratone 126 Elektron Analog Drive 127 MXL DX-2 127 BSM Supreme 128 Line 6 Variax Shuriken 131 BYOC Crown Jewel 135 Victory V40 Deluxe 138 Tanglewood Java TWJP 141 J. Rockett I.Q. Compressor
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107
Summer NAMM 2017
Guitar Pickups 101
Find out what new gear caught our attention in Nashville.
A beginner’s guide to the electric guitar’s most essential part.
145 David Norschohw Amplification DNA-800
149 Friedman Dirty Shirley Mini 152 Italia Maranello Cavo 155 Fuzzrocious Blast Furnace Top: Photo by Nikolai Puc
Sandra Petrova and Dafne Macías open up about the avant-garde Mexican band’s love for effects and no limits.
DISCOVER THE LEGEND Mike Keneally
(Zappa, Satriani, Vai)
“It’s not too often that I pick up a guitar and fall instantly in love, but that’s basically what went down with the Hampton. From the most delicate textures to complete over-the-top wailing. I freaking love this thing.” photo by Daniel Work
Island Series
TM
SuproUSA.com
On the Cover:
—Joe Gore, The Recording Guitarist, p. 82
Tuning Up
13
GUITAR & BASS REVIEWS
LINE 6 / FRIEDMAN / FUZZROCIOUS / J. ROCKETT / & MORE!
Reader Guitar of the Month Opening Notes Staff Picks Esoterica Electrica Last Call
GEAR 26 Rig Rundowns 30 Vintage Vault 32 Bottom Feeder 50 Tone Tips 124 Tools for the Task HOW-TO 80 Acoustic Soundboard 82 The Recording Guitarist 102 On Bass 104 Bass Bench 114 Mod Garage 116 State of the Stomp 118 Speaker Geeks 120 Ask Amp Man
Top left: Photo by Patric Carver
p. 26
SEPTEMBER 2017
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“Words are the mistress while the harmony is the servant— not the other way around.”
10 20 21 158 174 176
PETER HOOK • PICKUP PRIMER
SEPTEMBER 2017
CONTENTS September 2017
Clockwise from the top: Supro 1699RH Statesman, Swope Dakota, Fender Ed O’Brien
SUMMER NAMM • JULIANA HATFIELD
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GO ONLINE
ONLY ON PremierGuitar.com… Your guide to the latest stories, reviews, videos, and lessons.
FEATURED
Psychedelic Angels and Wong’s Euphoria
NEW FOOTAGE!
Behind the Cam at NAMM
We do it twice every year, and Summer NAMM 2017 was no different! PG editors busted their buttocks to get the deets on all the new gear releases in the guitar realm. New video demos and interviews are posting daily on our website and YouTube, with more than 70 videos shot in Nashville. Check out the editors’ picks (like Jason Isbell’s signature Martin) and the livestream videos from the floor at the end of each day, where Shawn Hammond, Jason Shadrick, John Bohlinger, Perry Bean, and Chris Kies went a little deeper into what fun toys caught their attention and why.
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Top: Photo by Alexandra Valenti Left: Photo by Jason Davis/ Getty Images for NAMM
The adventurous sounds of psych have come a long way since exploding from the womb of the drug counterculture of the 1960s. The Black Angels out of Austin, Texas, are one band carrying the torch properly into a new era. While the band’s four frontline men, Alex Maas, Christian Bland, Kyle Hunt, and Jake Garcia, swap between multiple instruments live and in the studio, handling the duties of bass, guitar, and various keys between them, the guitar is the bedrock of the Angels’ sound, and the band’s riff merchants take their roles seriously. We sat down with the whole crew to discuss Death Song, the group’s latest album, which serves as a masterclass in building moods and atmospheres over a foundation of guitar. They brought literally hundreds of pedals to do overdubs with producer Phil Ek in Seattle. Meanwhile, loop-master Dustin Wong is keeping it simple, or at least that’s how he puts it. Yet his collaboration with Takako Minekawa weaves a complex tapestry of contemporary, multilayered guitar, keys, vocals, and other effects. Head online for more details on the pair’s third album, Are Euphoria, which was released in June.
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GUITARDOM’S TOP TWEETS
Considering a new line of budget effects aimed at starting young kids off, whatcha think?? :D —@wamplerpedals
My brand new home made, no thrills (currently) pedalboard. It does what it’s asked of. Total cost..just under $35.00 - thank you goodnight —@ROBBYrockMILLER
When can I join @royalblooduk? Have fuzz pedal/ Will travel —@TheRyanAdams
Is your town in desperate need of rain? Simply schedule a NAMM show at your convention center, and watch the thunderheads roll in. —@dwarfcraft
Anyone else use music as catharsis? If I didn’t get to do this, I’d just stand at the side of roads screaming at traffic. —@jongomm
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PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 19
Capturing the Magic… one pickup at a time
Handmade in the USA
lollarpickups.com
206.463.9838
Lollartron
LOLMuConTHIRD2017
READER GUITAR OF THE MONTH Name: Frank Malitz Hometown: Chicago, Illinois Guitar: Short-Scale Magicaster
I’ve been a blues musician for 50 years in Chicago. At 71, I’m still playing and have no intention of stopping. I play better today than I did at any other time in my life. I played with most of the famous Chicago names and recorded at Chess records in the ’60s. Initially as a business, I started building Telecasterstyle guitars, but each had to be unique. So far, I’ve probably done close to 50. For my own use, I wanted to build a Stratocasterstyle model because I love the tone but found them difficult to play blues on due to the nature of their necks. I decided to build one after measuring the neck on my early ’60s Gibsons, which I found very easy to play, and duplicated the radius, frets, and scale for this Strat-style build. I started with a Japanese body from 1975 and upgraded the hardware, but kept the original brass saddles. Around 1976, I met Larry DiMarzio at a photo shoot of his handbuilt, then-new pickups. He gave me the pickup prototypes they were photographing. At that time, they were called “Fat Strats,” but I don’t think they were able to continue using that branding. The neck is from USA Custom Guitars using the same frets I have in my ES-335, with a 12-inch radius, and the short scale used on a Les Paul or ES-335. I merely reversed the middle and bridge pickups, leaving the wiring intact. Using that switching architecture, position No. 2 gives me neck and bridge only for an incredibly hollow Fender sound. At every gig, someone comments on the tone. DiMarzio deserves much of the credit. The guitar is easier to play than a standard Strat; bends are easier as well, but I lost some bass definition from the shorter scale. By the way, short-scale “Strats” are almost unheard of. The guitar is truly unique. Overall, I couldn’t be happier with this instrument. Send your guitar story to submissions@premierguitar.com.
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OPENING NOTES
Ben Harper May 27, 2017 Napa Valley Expo Napa, CA Photo by Rich Osweiler
Shifting gears from lap steel to flattop, Ben Harper fires up the main-stage crowd at Napa’s BottleRock festival with his No. 1 acoustic, a 2009 Martin HM Ben Harper. The signature model boasts a Fishman Ellipse Matrix Blend System, an Adirondack spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides, and features a 0000 body style, which Harper says is “larger than a triple 0 but still not a dreadnought.”
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PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 21
OPENING NOTES
Eric Gales
June 4, 2017 Vechtebad Schöppingen, Germany Photo by Nineke Loedeman
Blues-rock slinger Eric Gales lays it on thick at the Grolsch Blues Festival with his go-to, a Magneto Sonnet Raw Dawg II. Built to his specs in 2016, the one-off Strat-style axe has an alder body that’s a bit smaller than a standard Strat, features custom inlay and engraving work, and is loaded with a trio of Lollar Blackface single-coils. “I’ve always been drawn to Strat-style guitars—just have been since I was a kid,” says Gales. “I love the feel and the way this guitar gives back to me.”
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OPENING NOTES
Mike D’Antonio June 23, 2017 Marina de Montebello Montebello, Canada Photo by Darren Boucher
The Killswitch Engage bassist grinds out the low for the band’s Montebello Rockfest set with his signature-model MDB4 from Ibanez. Based on the company’s Destroyer model, the custompainted bass is packed with Seymour Duncan pickups—an SPB-3 in the neck and an SJB-3 in the bridge—and has been D’Antonio’s No. 1 road axe since he received it in April of this year. “The MDB4 is one of the most comfortable and angry basses I have ever played,” he says. “It has a very in-your-face, ‘attacky’ tone, and it sounds super pissed.” premierguitar.com
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OPENING NOTES
Cole Becker May 28, 2017 Napa Valley Expo Napa, CA Photo by Patric Carver
The SWMRS frontman brings the power-punk to wine country with “Ruth,” his 2016 Fender Mustang 90 that’s totally stock other than having some extra decorative paintwork on the body. “I’ve always loved the imagery of offset Fenders,” says Becker. “It’s a really approachable guitar, and maybe if someone sees me up there with that little thing, they’ll feel as if somehow they can do this too.” 24 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
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RIG RUNDOWNS
Paul Gilbert & Billy Sheehan
MR. BIG Click here to watch this Rig Rundown.
The mind-blowing, face-melting, sultans of shred, Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan of Mr. Big, met with PG during a recent Nashville date to talk tone. GUITARS
Top left: Gilbert has been an Ibanez artist since his teens. Today, his No. 1 is this new signature Ibanez FRM150 featuring a DiMarzio Air Classic Bridge, DiMarzio Area 67 (middle), and DiMarzio Air Classic Neck. Top right: For something with a bit more jangle, Gilbert goes with his Ibanez Custom Shop 12-string “Jazzmeister” with DiMarzio Humbuckers from Hell in the bridge and neck.
BASS
Bottom: Yamaha is currently on the third version of the Billy Sheehan Attitude bass. The bass incorporates all of the tweaking and modifying that Billy has done on his personal gear since the ’70s. Although Billy carries a spare, he tends to stick with one bass for the entire show.
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AMPS
Top: Sheehan runs three Hartke LH1000 heads for a total of 3,000 bonecrushing watts of power. A spare amp waits in the rack should something blow up. The amps run into three Hartke Hydrive 115 cabs. Middle: Gilbert plugs into channel 2 of a 100watt Marshall 1959SLP Super Lead head that feeds two Marshall 4x12 cabs loaded with Celestion 25-watt Greenback speakers. A second Marshall serves as a backup.
EFFECTS
Bottom: Gilbert’s signal chain starts with a small pedalboard (not pictured) that has a Keeley Looper, which is used for guitar swaps, and a Boss DD-3 delay for the “secret” function of infinite echo. That pedalboard feeds into his main board, which sports a Boss CS-3 Compressor, MXR Phase 90, Xotic Effects AC Booster, Catalinbread Karma Suture, TC Electronic MojoMojo, Catalinbread Callisto Chorus, and a TC Electronic Alter Ego V2. Everything is powered by a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus and sits on a homemade plywood board that leaves ample room for Paul’s big feet.
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PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 27
RIG RUNDOWNS
Brian Aubert & Nikki Monninger
SILVERSUN PICKUPS Click here to watch this Rig Rundown.
Guitarist Brian Aubert and bassist Nikki Monninger talk shop with PG’s Chris Kies before their opening set for Third Eye Blind at Nashville’s Ascend Ampitheater. GUITARS
Top: Guitarist, singer, and Silversun’s cofounder Brian Aubert’s main squeeze onstage is this 1994 Epiphone Sheraton. He swapped out the original pickups for a set of Seymour Duncan Antiquity humbuckers. This one is called “Daniel Craig”— his favorite Bond actor. Bottom left: Here is the second guitar that Aubert ever bought—a 1965 Gibson nonreverse Firebird named “Sean Connery.” Normally partial to the semi-hollows, he digs this ’bird because of how well the P-90s and solidbody construction handle all the crazy sounds he throws at it.
BASS
Bottom right: Starting out on the Fender P bass, Nikki was never quite satisfied with her tone until taking a Gibson Thunderbird for a ride and enjoying its power and sustain. Her No. 1 is a ’90s model, nicknamed “Pussy Galore,” is completely stock except the Thunderbird logo was converted into a giraffe for Nikki.
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AMPS
Top: When it comes to amplifying his signal, Aubert goes with a ’90s Fender Hot Rod DeVille 2x12 combo. Middle: Monninger brings tube power for her bass heads by using an Ampeg SVT Classic (and another for backup) that powers a matching Ampeg 8x10 cab.
EFFECTS
Bottom: On all of the band’s previous tours, Aubert pulled out a smorgasbord of stompboxes, but became a believer in the Fractal Audio Axe-Fx II XL after witnessing how Ken Andrews of Failure used one to cover complicated soundscapes. Now, having some stage time with the unit, Aubert says he loves it because it’s flexible, tweakable, and dependable.
premierguitar.com
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30 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
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VINTAGE VAULT
1960 Gretsch Chet Atkins Hollowbody Model 6120 BY DAVE ROGERS, LAUN BRAITHWAITE, AND TIM MULLALLY
I
n the early part of 1954, Gretsch special representative Jimmie Webster convinced up-and-coming virtuoso guitarist Chet Atkins to sign on and endorse the company by having a signature guitar. Atkins, seeing Les Paul’s success with his own Gibson Les Paul Model, agreed to collaborate with Gretsch on a guitar eventually known as the Chet Atkins Hollowbody. The new instrument had a 22-fret neck with a 24 1/2" scale length, although a few early examples had only 21 frets. The body was 15 1/2" wide and 2 3/4" deep. Since Atkins was mostly known as a country guitarist, Gretsch originally gave the hollowbody an over-the-top cowboy look, which included cow and cactus fretboard inlays and a “G” brand on the body. Atkins disliked the outlandish Western decorations and was able to get the guitar’s looks toned down as the years progressed.
The original DeArmond pickups were also offensive to Chet, with their strong magnetic pull and twangy sound. The single-coil, 60-cycle hum made capturing a clean, clear sound tricky while recording. Chet developed a relationship with amp builder Ray Butts, who eventually designed some experimental humbuckers for this guitar. Chet approved of the sound, and by 1958 the Butts-designed pickups were produced by Gretsch to be included on all their top-end guitars. The 1960 Chet Atkins Hollowbody pictured this month has the typical characteristics of 6120 models produced for that year. These include a bright orange “Amber Red” stained laminated maple top, back, and sides; a body depth of 2 1/2" (it was 2 3/4" until that year); an ebony fretboard with neoclassic inlays (which replaced hump-block inlays in 1958); Filter’Tron humbucking pickups (which also replaced DeArmonds in1958); a zero
fret, which negated the need for a brass nut starting in 1959; a V-style Gretsch by Bigsby tailpiece that replaced the regular black enamel-faced Bigsby; and a bar bridge, which debuted on the model in 1957. This guitar is among the earliest 6120s to have patent numbers on the pickups. The 1960 list price was $425. The current value for one in excellent alloriginal condition is $7,500. Sources for this article include Gretsch: The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company by Jay Scott, Gretsch 6120: The History of a Legendary Guitar by Edward Ball, 50 Years of Gretsch Electrics by Tony Bacon, and Ball’s Manual of Gretsch Guitars: 1950s by Edward Ball. DAVE’S GUITAR SHOP
Dave Rogers’ collection is tended by Laun Braithwaite and Tim Mullally and is on display at: Dave’s Guitar Shop 1227 Third Street South La Crosse, WI 54601 davesguitar.com Photos by Mullally and text by Braithwaite.
Opposite page: In 1960, the Chet Atkins Hollowbody Model 6120’s body depth shrank to 2 1/2" from its original 2 3/4" thickness. The horseshoe on the model’s headstock was the last vestige of the Western theme featured on the original production examples by the time this instrument was built in 1960. Left: When first introduced, the model had gaudy Western-style appointments, like cows and cactuses on the fretboard, and a “G” brand on its body. Chet Atkins was not pleased.
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BOTTOM FEEDER
Cry Baby Wah Guitar BY WILL RAY Photo 1: The builder of the Cry Baby guitar left its electronic guts exposed, like “a badge of courage,” says Bottom Feeder Will Ray. The circuit board, coil of wire, and 9V battery propel the theremin. Photo 2: Thanks to its S-style bridge, it was easy to lower the action on the guitar after it arrived, getting the strings closer to its single-coil T-style pickup. Photo 3: With a neck anchored by a metal plate and a bridge held in place by sheet metal screws and a shop-formed steel protrusion, this weirdo guitar is solidly constructed. Photo 4: A photo of the guitar on eBay inspired a double take— and an “Or Best Offer” posting inspired a savings of $25 off the initial asking price.
I
must admit I’m a bit of a sucker for oddball guitars. When I saw this baby on eBay, I had to do a double take. Was this actually a working guitar made out of a Cry Baby Wah pedal? And did it really have a built-in theremin? What mad scientist built this thing? As I examined the pictures carefully, everything to make a guitar seemed to be there. It had a neck bolted to the pedal chassis, a T-style pickup, a volume control, an S-type bridge, and an output jack. Plus, don’t forget the built-in theremin! The builder also left all the electronics totally exposed and visible from the front, like a badge of courage. The auction had a “Buy-It-Now” of $129.99 with only $10.97 shipping. But it also said, “Or Best Offer,” so I thought about it and sent an offer of $105. A few hours later I received a notice from eBay that the seller had accepted my offer. Cool! Bottom Feeder Tip #112: When making an offer, try not to lowball it too much or you might insult the seller, in which case he might not even respond. I received the guitar a few days later. The action was a tad high, but the S-style bridge allowed me to lower the action with plenty of room to spare. I also raised the pickup a bit closer to the strings. I was pleasantly surprised with how well this guitar was built. The neck felt solidly anchored to the wah pedal via a metal plate. The bridge felt solid because it was bolted to a metal protrusion using heavy-duty sheet metal screws. Usually these mad-scientist creations use whatever spare parts are laying around the workbench, but this guitar looked like the builder knew a lot about not only guitar construction, but also about machine shops. And the intonation, which I feared would be squirrelly, was spot on. The theremin had a switch to activate it, tripping a little yellow sensor, and its own output, too. A 9V battery, a small coil of wire, and a tiny circuit board got it kicking. In general, this was a well-thought-out guitar seemingly built
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1
4 2
3
Was this actually a working guitar made out of a Cry Baby Wah pedal? And did it really have a built-in theremin? by an experienced guitar maker. It was a joy to behold. So how did the guitar sound plugged in? Surprisingly good, considering all the metal on the body. Hey—it’s a wah pedal with a neck. Check out my sound sample. I have to say, though, it’s a difficult guitar to play. My right hand had trouble doing any kind of precision picking. There was very little real estate for my picking hand to anchor itself on. The action for the left hand is nice and low, and it’s easy to make chords on the fretboard. And the theremin? In a word: terrible. Listen to my sound sample
and judge for yourself. It’s really whiney, high-pitched, and obnoxious sounding, and totally unusable. But I wasn’t expecting much from the theremin anyway. So is it a keeper? Yeah, for now. Whenever I show it to someone, it always gets a wow, followed by a laugh. WILL RAY is a founding member of the Hellecasters guitar-twang trio. He also does guitar clinics promoting his namesake G&L signature model 6-string, and produces artists and bands at his studio in Asheville, North Carolina. You can contact Will on Facebook and at willray.biz.
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Music unaltered.
Make sure it’s you they’re hearing. Clear, natural, powerful sound delivered with room-filling 180° horizontal coverage. What else could a performer ask for? How about a quick, easy to setup portable unit that's lighter than most in its class. You ask, Bose L1 ® answers. BOSE.COM/L1SYSTEMS
Salivation Army
Premier Guitar editors highlight the most drool-inducing new axes, amps, and stomps out of the thousands spiritedly vying for our attention from the floor of the Summer NAMM gear show held in Nashville from July 13–15. BY THE PREMIER GUITAR STAFF
Look for this icon to click and watch a video demo. premierguitar.com
PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 35
Electric Guitars
LACE
Cybercaster USA Lace Cybercaster introduced their new handbuilt USA line. The modern-looking axes are built by Grover Jackson and feature a swamp-ash body and maple neck, Hipshot tuners and bridge, a Plek setup, and are loaded with Lace Hemi pickups. lacecybercaster.com
FENDER Ed O’Brien
Perhaps because the Fender Stratocaster is such a near-perfect design, it’s a killer platform for tweaking and tinkering. It’s no surprise, then, that Radiohead guitarist (and serial experimentalist) Ed O’Brien used the Strat as the basis for his signature edition. The big tweak is the inclusion of a Fernandes Sustainer in the neck position, which opens up a wrath of EBow-, organ-, and synthstyle possibilities. The soft-V neck is substantial but crazy comfortable and a great match for the narrow jumbo frets. The Sustainer also performs as a normal neck pickup, but you can also vary the intensity of the sustain effect and switch in or blend fundamentals and harmonics. It’s a lot of guitar—and expressive possibility—for just $1,099 street. fender.com
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EPIPHONE Les Paul SL
Epiphone showed up with a host of 2018 Les Paul SLs that are as visually arresting for their price—$99 street(!)—as they are for their summery colors and Melody Maker-esque pickup array. But don’t be fooled—the single-coillooking pickups are actually open-coil humbuckers. Other details include poplar bodies and maple necks with a D-shaped, 1960s slim-taper profile. They’re expected to hit stores this fall. epiphone.com
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NILE RODGERS Plays a different city every night. Brings NYXL to each one.
Guitars Cont’d
GREZ Mendocino
MARTIN D-18 Jason Isbell
As the singer-songwriter told us in our interview from the NAMM floor, the whole goal of his collaboration with Martin was to make the dread as loud as possible—even to the point of removing the pickguard to let the top breathe more. After a few steady strums of the instrument—which features an Adirondack spruce top and mahogany back and sides—it was obvious the mission was accomplished. Street price is around $4,799. martinguitar.com
The Mendocino is a lovely, resonant, smooth-togrowly exercise in guitar design restraint. Much of that ringing resonance is due to the routed, semihollow Honduran mahogany body and redwood top, which also makes the guitar a featherweight 5 pounds. The Lollar Gold Foils are a great match for the resonant body. And though $2,800 isn’t cheap, the sound, feel, materials, and quality make the price seem very fair. grezguitars.com
Bass Gear YAMAHA BB basses
Yamaha has both greatly diversified and drastically reduced the price of its iconic BB bass range. Composed of four series, it now features entry-level 200 models that begin at $299, as well as high-end Japanese-made models like the gorgeous 5-string shown here—which goes for $1,599 (well below previous topof-the-line versions)—not to mention stunningly wellequipped 400- and 700-level models in between those two extremes. usa.yamaha.com
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Bass Gear Cont’d
SEREK BASSES Armitage
This Chicago outfit’s modified take on a P boasts a standard 34" scale, a 2-piece maple neck topped with a pau ferro fretboard, Hipshot Ultralite tuners, and a single Curtis Novak BS-DS pickup. Prices start at $1,850 street. serekbasses.com
MODULUS
Funk Unlimited RevOLite
It was a treat for many at NAMM to check out the new RevOLite line. This Funk Persuasion 4 RevOLite is finished in seafoam green, packed with a Bartolini P-style pickup, and weighs just 6 1/2 pounds. And, thanks to the advanced carbon-fiberreinforced construction, the bass is able to maintain the signature tone that has long defined the company. Prices start at $4,599 street. modulusgraphite.com
SWOPE Dakota
Former Sadowsky and Gibson luthier Chris Swope came to his first NAMM under the auspices of his own brand with the 34"-scale, alder-bodied Dakota ($2,899 street). It features a quartersawn rosewood fretboard on a flatsawn maple neck, and straightforward passive volume and tone controls governing its single Swope humbucker. Aguilar DB-1 preamps are also available. swopeguitars.com
FENDER JMJ Mustang
Justin Meldal-Johnsen may be most famous for his tasty bass work with Beck, Air, and NIN, but he’s also an absolutely ace producer and arranger. His own straightest path to killer bass sounds has been his ’66 Daphne blue Fender Mustang bass, which is the model for his signature rig. Before Meldal-Johnsen himself snatched it away from our grubby, clinging hands, we were knocked out by how smooth and dazzlingly fast this short-scale thumper felt. The custom split-coil pickups are a touch hotter and punchier than standard Mustang units, and it has a flatter radius (9.5") than vintage units. With the set of flatwounds Fender put on it for the show, the JMJ felt fantastic. Look for it in October at $999 street. fender.com
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Effects MAD PROFESSOR Dual Blue Delay
Finnish pedal guru Harri Koski came to Music City with the deceptively simple Dual Blue Delay, which features both a vintage, Binson Echorec-ishvoiced short digital delay and a pristine-voiced longer delay. Cool hidden functions include the ability to use the voicings together or independently, the option to select buffered or true-bypass switching, and the unique capability of being able to change the phase of repeats to mimic the unusual variances found in some vintage echo units. mpamp.com
GAMECHANGER AUDIO Plus Pedal
NANOLOG The WaveFunction
Latvia’s Gamechanger Audio has been working on the Plus Pedal for two years now, and as a reward they brought the whole gang of seven or eight workers to Nashville to celebrate. Featuring a piano-style pedal, a side effects loop, a wet-only mode, and blend, sustain, rise, and tail knobs, the Plus yields truly unique freeze-and-hold functions that allow you to create multilayered soundscape terrors perfect for David Lynch-style film scoring. pluspedal.com
Hailing from Alberta, Canada, Nanolog brought this nice overdrive surprise featuring two “nanolog” clipping sections. What’s nanolog? It’s an azobenzebe-and-carbon means of conduction. Beyond that, well, it’s hard to explain. But what we heard from these clipping sections was exceptional and very uncommon sensitivity, openness, and dynamics, whether using pickingattack variation or volume attenuation. Price looks to be about $399, which isn’t cheap, but there are truly a lot of great overdrive sounds to be had here. nanologaudio.com
ALEXANDER Syntax Error
One of the freakiest/tweakiest pedals we saw in Nashville, this little filtering and bit-crushing 4-knob wonder features four presets (expandable to eight) and controllability ranging from simple expression-pedal connectivity to MIDI (both through the same 1/4" jack) and all the way to crazy-deep parameter wankery via USB connection to an app. All for $199 street. alexanderpedals.com
HUNGRY ROBOT Monastery
The hip new polyphonic Monastery octave pedal allows for both wacky tones (via two sets of wet/ dry and -/+ knobs, the latter of which controls the ratio of octave-up to octave-down tones) and quick cycling between the two presets with the right-hand footswitch. The Monastery will start brewing in August for about $200 street. hungryrobotpedals.com
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FOREVER CHANGING THE WAY YOU SET UP YOUR PEDALBOARD The new RockBoaRd® flaT paTch caBles: designed to optimize pedalboard real estate, these new RockBoard® flat patch cables feature a slim rectangular body and extra thin angled plugs to keep your setup tidy and neat looking. available in: 2”, 3 15/16”, 7 7/8”, 11 13/16”, 17 11/16”, 23 5/8”, 31 1/2”, 39 3/8”, 47 1/4”, 55 1/8” inches
The new BendaBle RockBoaRd® BendeR75 connecToR Much like its flat brother, the new RockBoard® Bender75 connector bends to your will without any excess cable to get in the way. It features a sturdy crafted body with the ability to turn and bend virtually in any direction. available in 2 15/16” inches
Amps
OLSSON Studio 18
Olsson Amps made the trek from Sweden for its first NAMM to show off the new EL84-based, 18-watt head called the Studio 18. It’s a small and lightweight (about 17 1/2 pounds) 2-channel amp that features separate EQs for each channel, an effects loop with separate, adjustable send and return levels, and a footswitch with channel select and loop on/off. olssonamps.com
SUPRO 1699RH Statesman
FENDER ’64 Custom Deluxe Reverb
Another treat Fender brought to NAMM was its gorgeously articulate new ’64 Custom Deluxe Reverb. Featuring special transformers, turret-board construction, a Jensen ceramic speaker, and a pine cab, the handwired 1x12 avails reverb and trem on both channels, though each is uniquely voiced. The price is around $2,500 street. fender.com
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Bringing modern functionality and flexibility to the vintage-vibed Supro amp line, the Statesman blasts 50 class-A or class-AB watts of 5881-derived juice through dual channels. One channel uses the preamp from the Supro Thunderbolt, while the other uses the dirtier tone stack and tube-driven reverb from the Comet—but you can also run the two channels in parallel. The Comet side also has an exceptionally powerful effects loop that, among other things, lets you send reverb to the red channel or use the send and return levels as a boost. The head goes for $1,499 street, while the 2x12 cab goes for $599. suprousa.com
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Amps Cont’d
VALVETRAIN Thunderball
ValveTrain’s bang-for-the-buck amplifier formulas typically leave us impressed, but from what we heard of it at the show, the new Supro Thunderbolt-inspired Thunderball may have the highest punch-per-dollar ratio the company has ever delivered. The $1,199 head (a $1,499 combo is also available) is a streamlined and simple monster packed with two 5881s, two 12AX7s, and a 5AR4 tube rectifier, and it features a variable attenuator, a bright switch, and a pentode/diode switch. valvetrainamps.com
ANALOG OUTFITTERS
Cadet
A few months ago, the folks at Analog Outfitters reached out to their fans for help in naming their latest creation. The newly christened Cadet is a 10-watt, class-A design that runs on a pair of EL84s and features a dead-simple design with a single volume knob that adds righteous, vintage-style breakup as you crank it up. The combo will street for $999 and the head will be $699. analogoutfitters.com
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miscellaneous
UNIVERSAL AUDIO Ox
One of the more stunning pieces of gear from the show was UA’s Ox Amp Top Box. At its core, it’s a reactive load that allows you to get gritty, tube-burning tones at whisper volumes. The “rig” control is the secret sauce that allows you to use the company’s acclaimed mic, room, and speaker emulations. With this you no longer need to wonder what a dimed Deluxe through an AC30 cab would sound like. It will be released later in the year and street for $1,299. uaudio.com
SAMSYSTEMS
Integral Close Miking System Samsystems has been testing this cab-/speakermounted mic for four years now, and it looks like it’s going to see the market late this summer. The center of the ring houses a hypercardiod dynamic mic that’s mounted off-axis to pick up a nice balance of speaker and cabinet tone. Installation is easy, and the options for both players and amp builders are intriguing, to say the least. At $99 and $109 street 10" and 12" versions, respectively, the price is right in line with the most popular dynamic guitar mics, as well. samsystems-uk.com
VHT Amps Vooster
Looking for a new way to power your stompboxes? VHT’s Vooster voltage booster ($29 street) works in conjunction with any 5V power bank (like your cell-phone charger), and converts the voltage to either 9V or 12V via the side-mounted switch. vhtamp.com
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The Kala Elite USA line features a variety of ukulele designed and handmade at the Kala Shop. The stylish and beautiful designs were born from a wide range of influences. Every aspect is meticulously designed to look, feel, and sound amazing. Visit the Kala website for more information.
Eac h K ala Elit e U SA Ukule le i s De signe d a nd Ha ndm ade at t h e K a l a S h o p i n P e ta l u m a, Ca Now Available at kalaelite.com
TONE TIPS
The Nitty-Gritty on Running Clean BY PETER THORN
M
any electric guitarists (especially those in the rock and metal camps) tend to focus primarily on distortion and overdrive tones. Pickups, amps, drive pedals, and speakers all come and go in what can seemingly be a neverending quest for the perfect grind. With that, I’ve noticed that clean tones can sometimes become sort of an afterthought, with many players making do with whatever clean sound their setup is capable of—biding time until they can turn on an overdrive or hit the distortion channel so the real fun can begin. But there’s no reason why your clean sounds can’t be just as inspiring and fun to play as your drive sounds. Pickups and pots. For me, the name of the game when it comes to pickups is not too hot. Hot single-coil pickups can work okay for clean sounds, but I prefer medium-output single-coils—especially with Strat-style pickups—because they will generally have more clarity. Wind them too hot, and they become what I call “mid bombs.” (It’s worth noting that because of their design, Tele-style bridge pickups can generally be wound relatively hot without sacrificing top end.) Likewise, I find that hot humbuckers will be all midrange without enough top end. They have a tendency to overdrive the front end of most amps, which makes it really hard to play truly clean. If cleans with clarity are important to you, I suggest sticking with humbucking pickups that are under 10k ohms. If your humbucking clean tones seem dark, be sure to check your volume and tone pots. New Gibsons sometimes ship with 300k pots, and these can dull your tone. With humbuckers, you’ll want pots rated at 500k. Also, while rolling down your guitar volume will clean up the tone, this can also dull the top end—even with high-quality 500k pots. If you’d like to roll down your guitar volume and still retain lots of chime and clarity, you can experiment by adding a treble-bleed
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circuit, which consists of a capacitor and resistor soldered between the input and output of your volume pot(s). A Les Paul with a treble-bleed circuit on just the neck pickup’s volume pot can be a versatile axe. With an overdriven amp, you can set the neck’s volume on 1 or 2, dime the bridge pickup, and then simply flip the pickup switch for clean to dirty. No channel switching required! Amps and tubes. Fender-style amps have always been considered the benchmark for terrific clean sounds, but British amps can achieve great cleans too. The classic Marshall JCM800 amp, renowned for its rocking overdrive tones, is a sleeper clean-amp as well. If you’ve never tried plugging into the low input of a JCM800, you’re in for a nice surprise. The reduced gain of the low input provides plenty of headroom for clean tones, with just a little breakup on tap at the highest preamp-gain settings. And you can always step on a fuzz or overdrive pedal for gain sounds. In fact, Billy Corgan used a KT88-equipped JCM800 in this fashion for his classic tones on Gish and Siamese Dream. Many amp manufacturers use JJ ECC83 (12AX7) tubes in the V1 preamp-tube position. They tend to be quite reliable and have low microphonics and noise. But, arguably, they can sound a bit dark and dull, and this can make for an uninspiring clean tone. It’s a quick and easy experiment to try replacing this tube with a new TungSol or Shuguang 12AX7 for more sparkle and extended top end. It might really breathe some life into your clean tone. Speakers. If your cleans are sounding lackluster, consider a speaker swap before you buy a new amp or cab. While I love the classic Celestion Greenback and its small 35-ounce magnet for overdrive tones, I much prefer the G12H types and their heavier 50-ounce magnet when going for cleans with a 12" British-style ceramic speaker. They produce more robust lows and extended top-end— perfect for full-frequency clean tones.
(Jimi Hendrix used the 55 Hz bass-cone version of this speaker.) When talking clean tone, I’d be remiss to not mention the classic EVM12L speakers with their heavy magnets and massive 200 watts of power handling. Stevie Ray Vaughan used EVM speakers and John Mayer recently told me that he really digs them too. Enhancing cleans with subtle compression. A good compressor can “pump up” your tone, giving you some of the same feel as when you are playing with drive—even when your amp is set totally clean. They help keep your guitar full and present (when set correctly), even in a dense mix. Many stompbox compressors on the market today feature a mix control, which allows you to blend the compressed signal with your dry guitar sound. This makes it easy to retain punch, attack, and dynamics while boosting quieter sounds and adding sustain. My general goal with a compressor is to set it so it enhances my core guitar tone, without making the resulting sound too obviously compressed. I set compressors so I don’t notice them too much when they are on, but I really miss them when they are off. I hope some of these tips will help you achieve your ultimate clean tone. Until next month, I wish you great tone! PETER THORN
is an L.A.-based guitarist who has toured with Chris Cornell, Melissa Etheridge, Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi, and many others. He released a solo album, Guitar Nerd, in 2011. Read more at peterthorn.com.
Photo by Kristin Burns
Huge overdriven tones are what Marshall JCM800s are best known for, but Billy Corgan has used one to great effect as a clean pedalplatform amp via its oft-ignored low-gain input.
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IN 1977 THE SPECTOR NS-1 CHANGED THE BASS WORLD FOREVER. NOW, 40 YEARS LATER, SPECTOR IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE EURO4 1977 – A TRIBUTE TO SPECTOR’S LEGENDARY DESIGN. HANDCRAFTED IN SPECTOR’S EUROPEAN WORKSHOP, THE EURO4 1977 FEATURES NORTH AMERICAN WALNUT WINGS, A THREE-PIECE NORTH AMERICAN MAPLE NECK AND A SINGLE DIMARZIO MODEL P PICKUP, JUST LIKE THE ORIGINAL. ENHANCED WITH A SPECTOR LOCKING BRIDGE AND THE COVETED TONEPUMP CIRCUIT, THE LIMITED EDITION EURO4 1977 IS THE DEFINITIVE SPECTOR BASS.
WWW.SPECTORBASS.COM
hi Bassist Peter Hook embraces the singular melodic sound and the songs he honed in New Order and Joy Division, and steps forward into the Light.
Photo by Mark McNulty
| BY ADAM PERLMUTTER |
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PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 53
S
ome of the most interesting developments in the span of rock history have come about accidentally, through abused or malfunctioning gear. In the late 1950s, for instance, the guitarist Link Wray poked holes in his speakers, for a gnarly, distorted tone, while the earliest use of fuzz arguably came from a messed-up preamplifier on the studio session for the 1961 Marty Robbins song “Don’t Worry.” Peter Hook, who for decades has had one of the most identifiable bass-guitar sounds in rock, owes his instrumental voice to a similar gear scenario. At the onset of his career, in the late 1970s, a crappy amplifier forced him to take a decidedly unconventional approach to the instrument. Hook is a founding member of Joy Division, the English post-punk band that also included vocalist Ian Curtis, guitarist
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Bernard Sumner, and drummer Stephen Morris. The group only recorded two full-length albums—Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980)—before Curtis was found dead from suicide in 1980. But decades later, Joy Division’s slim catalog remains hugely influential, in no small part owing to Hook’s high, singing bass lines on songs like “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Transmission.” After Curtis’ death, Joy Division carried on as New Order. Dance and electronic sounds were in vogue in the 1980s, and in incorporating these strains, the group began to rely more extensively on synths and drum machines. But on songs like “Blue Monday” and “Bizarre Love Triangle,” Hook remained committed to his melodic role on the bass. New Order has been known to disband on occasion, and after a particularly acrimonious split in 2007,
the group came back together—without Hook. Since then Hook has gotten sweet revenge by penning a tell-all book, Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division, and by performing Joy Division and New Order albums, complete and in sequence, with his own band, the Light, in concert. Hook and his group’s performances of Joy Division’s two albums and New Order’s Movement and Power, Corruption, & Lies were recently released as CDs and downloads, as well as limited-edition colored vinyl. The albums find Hook in top form as he revisits these post-punk classics with his band, which includes his son, Jack Bates, on bass, Andy Poole on keyboards, and Paul Kehoe on drums. Calling from a hotel in Denmark, Hook reminisced about that inferior amp, the working processes of Joy Division and New Order, and how these bands’ methods inspired maximum creativity.
Photo by Nikolai Puc
Above: Hook sometimes relies on this Shergold Marathon 6-string, which he punked-up with a slew of stickers. The instrument is inspired by the Fender Bass VI and has a 30-inch scale length.
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Josh Weaver/royal thunder
yamaha.com/revstar
I think the most disgusting thing I ever heard in my life was when our guitarist said to me, ‘Can’t you just follow the guitar?’ and I said, ‘No I can’t, actually.’”
You have quite the idiosyncratic voice on the instrument. Can you talk about how you developed that sound? It was quite simple. It came out of necessity. My first amplifier I ever bought was called a Sound City 120—a terrible amplifier that at $150 was quite expensive at the time. And my speaker was a single 18"—I don’t know what make it was; it didn’t have any labels on it—that cost me $15. My first guitar was an Eko copy of a Gibson SG bass, which cost $50. And basically, the rig sounded awful. As a bass player you’re presumed to only play low notes and follow the guitar chords and things like that, which didn’t appeal to me. It didn’t help that the sound of the low notes was absolutely awful— indiscernible. So, I started playing up the neck and developed that penchant, shall we say, for high melodies in Joy Division. Our singer—Ian Curtis, God rest his soul—loved it and encouraged me to do it more and more. And as my mother once said, it’s a debate whether it was through talent or luck that I sort of developed my own style. But whatever it was, it worked in Joy Division. And obviously, those high bass melodies, counterpoints to the vocals, also worked in the group’s next incarnation as New Order. My approach kind of became the mark of the group and I’ve been able to keep it and still utilize it now. Did you miss playing and hearing those low frequencies at first?
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No. I think the most disgusting thing I ever heard in my life was when our guitarist said to me, “Can’t you just follow the guitar?” and I said, “No I can’t, actually.” That was our first fallout. But yeah, I mean, I’ve never been very good at being told what to do. I wasn’t a musician until I was 20. I saw the Sex Pistols play in Manchester, and though I didn’t yet have a musical instrument, I became a musician right after the gig. So, I started late, and at the bottom, and I’ve never been what you would describe as a normal bass player. I prefer to strike my own ground, shall we say. How, if at all, has your approach to the bass guitar evolved over the years? It hasn’t really. I do feel guilty about it, time to time—especially when popping came in vogue and a very good friend of mine, Donald Johnson, tried to teach me to pop. After a couple of lessons, he said to me, “Okay, why don’t you stick to what you’re good at?” I took that advice to heart and have stuck to what I’m good at. You know, in the ’90s people used to say to me, “As soon as a New Order record comes on, I can always tell by the sound of your bass that it’s New Order.” At the time, I didn’t take that as a compliment, but now, at the ripe old age of 61, I think it’s a great thing. And to be asked to play on peoples’ records as I am, to lend that signature sound as a nod to Joy Division and New Order, is a
great honor. Especially if I get paid for it, which most of the time I don’t. What were the working processes of Joy Division and New Order like, in terms of songwriting and recording? We always wrote the same way. It was very equal in Joy Division. Each member wrote his own parts. It’d be very rare for any member to be encouraged, shall we say, or bullied into not writing his own part, so it was very easy, and always from jamming together. In fact, for the first year of Joy Division, we didn’t have a tape recorder. We couldn’t afford one. The only time the music existed was when the four of us got together to play, which is quite an insane thought in this day and age of ease with which everyone can record everything and change it to their hearts’ content. The wonderful thing about recording was how immediate the process was. You couldn’t change it much because of the analog format. You had to go along with it and work with it, and it made for some wonderful and wacky mistakes. It kept you very buoyant, very busy, and engaged. The lead singer wasn’t disappearing with the laptop for three months and bringing the music back with it sounding completely different. It was a completely different way of writing and recording compared to how you do it nowadays. And I don’t think most music is better for it. Today you
Photo by Nikolai Puc
Hook’s Eccleshall bass is the spitting image of a Gibson EB-2 with one prominent difference: a single pickup in the bridge position, in keeping with his preference for a bright, ringing tone.
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I’ve used the same guitar, a custom-built Chris Eccleshall, since the mid 1980s, so it’s practically a vintage guitar now.”
PETER HOOK’S GEAR GUITARS • Custom Chris Eccleshall bass • Yamaha BB1200S • Shergold Marathon 6-string
AMPS • Yamaha BE-200 • BS-100 cabinet with 2x15 JBL 4560s
EFFECTS • Electro-Harmonix Stereo Clone Theory chorus • Joyo JF-08 Digital Delay
STRINGS & PICKS • Elites Strings Stadium Series Standard Gauge IV (.045–.105) • Dunlop 1.0 mm nylon picks
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pore over the music for hours, weeks, years. And then somebody else pores over it. It’s a very strange process. When I was writing my book—which was the history of the band from 1980 to 2011—I was aware that the monumental change in recording came with the advent of computers like the Apple SE. In a nutshell, what do you think went wrong with New Order? You have to be careful with the way that you act in a group. You have to work on making sure all the members are included. One of the reasons New Order split up was because the lead singer decided he was in charge and started acting that way, and I just thought, “This isn’t a group anymore. This is like a dictatorship, and it’s a terrible place to be.” People shouldn’t do it to other people and neglect to see that a song always is, in my opinion, never more important than the band. To me the band is the most important thing in the world.
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That’s a really good point. What do you think has been lost in music as a result of today’s recording technology? Well, there’s the happy accidents, for a start. If you listen to a song like “Blue Monday,” which still is the biggest selling 12-inch in the world, it’s littered with mistakes. [One section might be] six bars [long], you know, 12, 10 bars [when repeated]. Sometimes even five bars or three-bar breaks and stuff. Because when you were laying it down, you didn’t count the bars properly, so you had a lot of weird and wacky timing, and odd little bits, which you don’t do now because now you just correct it on the computer. So you’d lose to that sort of intangible uniqueness: those happy accidents that happened in music. You’d have to work around it because you couldn’t afford not to, or didn’t have the technology to change the backing track. And as I’ve transcribed all the old Joy Division and New Order material, I’ve
realized those happy accidents actually gave it a unique feel. In music today, if you’re computer-savvy you have all the choice, all the time in the world to go, “Oh, that’s a mistake, let’s take it out.” I think because of that you tend to lose a lot of the immediacy, a lot of the wonderful and unexpected moments. And I listen to a lot of material now and think, “Oh, man. It’s just programed within an inch of its life.” There’s a huge difference between [an analog] 24-track recording and a digital recording, you know. And you miss it. I think the thing about the resurgence of vinyl is ... I think the human condition responds better to a little bit of softness and a little bit of warmth than it does to the cold sort of starkness of computing digital treatment. Also, I don’t want to start harping on about how the internet has certainly taken a lot of my earnings from me in the same way the journalists suffer— being appropriated without your
Opposite page: Peter Hook’s custom Chris Eccleshall bass weds the scale and feel of Hook’s 1981 Yamaha BB1200S with the semihollowbody design of a Gibson EB-2.
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Right: Live, Hook plays entire albums by Joy Division and New Order with his band the Light, and releases the shows on record. “I’m working through the whole of Joy Division and New Order’s back catalog, from start to finish, hopefully before I die,” he says.
permission. The internet really hampers our earning potential. But as with anything, there’s good points and bad points. The thing about it is digital recording is a lot cheaper than analog recording used to be— and a lot easier because anybody can do it in the bedroom. It’s literally the computer equivalent of the acid-house revolution that happened around 1986, ’87. The advent of the new cheap digital machinery would’ve helped a lot more people become musicians if it had been around in the early to mid ’80s. Electronic musicianship was the pursuit of the middle or upper-middle class only. You had to have very rich parents or a very good job to participate. What do you think are some of the advantages and disadvantages of how the cheapness of gear has made it more accessible? The advantage has to be the ease [of operation] and the ease of access for anybody. The disadvantage is you do get a lot of bad material. We all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in the same way that you get great chefs and bad chefs, it’s the same with music. But songwriting is a very underestimated art. A lot of artists that premiere today are propped up by a stable of good songwriters, you know. It’s become quite the norm for singers not to write their own material. I’m very lucky to be a songwriter, and I think it’s something you can’t teach. It’s still a very intangible art, which should be celebrated more. Which bass guitar are you playing these days? I’ve used the same guitar, a custom-built Chris Eccleshall, since the mid 1980s, so it’s practically a vintage guitar now. It’s a copy of my 1981 Yamaha BB1200S. And it’s also sort of bastardized into a Gibson EB-2, so it has all the attributes of the Yamaha with the body shape of the Gibson. Also, because it’s semi-acoustic, it allows me to use controlled feedback, which is quite nice. My dream guitar was a Gibson EB-2. Unfortunately, because they’re medium
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scale only, they don’t hold the tuning well enough for my purposes. So, the thing is, I wanted to combine all the great attributes of the Yamaha BB1200S—the EQ and the neck, which is straightthrough—but have the advantage of the hollowbody. It was just a matter of being able to afford to have my two dream guitars amalgamated into one. I should add that I’m very lucky to have been nominated for a signature model this year. Yamaha is building me some new BB1200Ss, which is a great honor. How did the new live album recordings come about? The live album project was quite a gift, actually. I was being courted on behalf of Joy Division by a merchandiser. And he didn’t get Joy Division, but he came to a gig and said to me, “Ah, your band plays really well. You should do a live album on my label.” I liked this guy—he’s Steve Beatty and works at Plastic Head, which is a big merch company in England. And I said, “Well, yeah, our keyboard player has been recording loads and loads of gigs—some 24-track, actually.” So, we were doing it for fun, which I think was a nice thing because it means that none of the gigs have the pressure and feel of being recorded for a special occasion. They’re quite relaxed. And we were able to choose from a hell of a lot of recordings. My gimmick, if you like, is that I’m working through the whole of Joy Division and New Order’s back catalog, from start to finish, hopefully before I die. The idea was to chronicle each LP with a release, and we’re up to the eighth and ninth LPs in the series. You play with your son, Jack Bates, in the Light. I’m very lucky in that he plays bass with me. In the group, he’s very good at emulating me, and that makes me very happy. We work quite well together. But I’m also glad he’s been able to leverage this work into getting a gig with the Smashing Pumpkins, where he plays in a completely different style than the one he uses with me. I couldn’t do that job. It
just shows how much more versatile my son is than I am. What’s it been like for you to revisit these Joy Division and New Order songs? It’s a bit different for me because I’m singing, whereas before I was just the bass player. I’ve had to look into the singer’s psyche and step into the singer’s footsteps. In Joy Division there was a lot of expectation, and Ian Curtis’ shoes were very big ones to fill. In New Order, Bernard’s shoes were a little bit snugger, shall we say. And because we’d written the vocals and the melodies together in New Order, it was easier to feel part of that. I gained an insight into the lyrics and the lead singer’s job. Has getting into the lyrics and the singer’s headspace changed the way you approach the bass lines? It hopefully hasn’t changed my personality, because we all know lead singers can be very difficult. [Laughs.] The thing is that the LPs were a great way of me getting to listen to the music, because when I’m singing I don’t really listen to the music. And it’s been nice for me to hear what the boys do. They play very well. I’ve played with them off and on since 1990. I’m very happy that guy [Steve Beatty] came along on that night. It was a real twist of fate, if you like. I never expected it to snowball in the way it has. It’s been fantastic. It just shows you that, as a musician in this world, you really do have to keep plugging at it, because even for me, with 41 years now of being a musician, I’m still coming across people who can be very handy. So, yeah, the best advice you can give any musician is to keep going.
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Working fast and playing all the instruments except drums, alt-rock icon Juliana Hatfield followed her muse to create her provocative new album, Pussycat.
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| BY EMILE MENASCHÉ |
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t’s clear from the first few lines of Juliana Hatfield’s bold new album Pussycat that this is a record with a mission statement. In today’s political climate, it’s easy to guess the intended target of songs like “When You’re a Star,” “Kellyanne,” and “Short-Fingered Man.” But what makes this rich 14-song collection more than just a momentary reflection of the times is that Hatfield rarely succumbs to sloganeering or naked attacks (the song “Rhinoceros” being one notable exception). Instead, her words vividly illustrate the personal impact of attitudes and behaviors in stark, often jarring terms. The issues she tackles existed before 2016 and will continue long after Twitter ceases to be the bully pulpit. Lyrical messages, no matter how cleverly drafted, don’t resonate for long without a musical framework. And Pussycat delivers there, too. Hatfield built her alt-rock bona fides long ago by being simultaneously tuneful and surprising. Both qualities are in full supply here. Starting with “I Wanna Be Your Disease,” the songs grab your ear before moving in unexpected ways, making you want to go back and listen again. Written and recorded quickly, with Hatfield performing everything but drums, Pussycat is also a showcase for her deft rhythm, lead, and bass guitar playing. Using a surprisingly small arsenal of gear (sometimes aided by a Korg keyboard synth), she creates a range of textures—jangling chords, slamming riffs, and syrupy melodic solos—that sit perfectly with her voice and sometimes serve as a counterpoint to the sweetness of her vocal harmonies. As a classically trained keyboardist and Berklee College of Music grad who emerged as a bass/guitar/vocal pioneer in the indie scene in the days when they called it “college rock,” Hatfield has always been an artist of many layers and contrasts. And despite the intensity of her subject matter, she was soft-spoken and introspective when we caught up on the phone earlier this summer. Then again, she’s never had to shout to get her message across. And as always, her guitar speaks loudly when she needs to wield the axe.
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Photo by Matt Condon
These days Juliana Hatfield is down to two guitars, one of which is this late-’60s Gibson SG Custom she’s owned for years.
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You wrote and recorded the songs on Pussycat in just a few weeks. Is all the material new or were you drawing on the archives? Musically, there was stuff I was taking from who-knows-when. I have these cassettes just filled with ideas. I’ll sit down and turn the cassette recorder on and start playing guitar—just endless little bits of things developing in real time. So I was going back to things from a couple of years ago or even more. But at the same time, I was coming up with new things on the spot. It was a bit of everything, just trying to note anything that caught my ear. A lot of things I’d discarded in the past, I listened to with fresh ears. Anything that stood out, that was catchy or gave me pleasure in any way, I was like “I’m gonna use that!” How did the relatively short production cycle influence your approach? I did a lot less second-guessing than I normally do—a lot less thinking and selfediting. I just grabbed anything I thought was cool and worked with it. I was a lot more open to using things that in the past I might have thought weren’t interesting enough. I learned that I haven’t always been the best judge of what’s good or bad because I’m happy with all the music I chose from the archives. When I’m recording my guitar into my Walkman, you never know how things will turn out once you add drums and bass. I was really working on faith. I think that was a good lesson to myself— if you have the right attitude and believe in it, you can make anything work. The songs are catchy, but they often go in surprising directions. How do you unlock those ideas? I have two acoustic guitars I use for writing. One is in normal tuning, the other is in “weird” tuning. I’m too lazy to retune when I’m writing, so I just keep one of the guitars in “weird” tuning. A lot of the songs were written in that tuning, which is C–G–D–G–B–E. How did you come up with that one?
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JULIANA HATFIELD’S GEAR GUITARS • 2010 First Act Delia LS with P-90 pickups • Late-’60s Gibson SG Custom
AMPS • Circa 1965 Ampeg Reverberocket • Circa 1965 Gibson Skylark
EFFECTS • ZVEX Fuzz Factory • Fulltone OCD • Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer (2) • Boss TU-2
STRINGS & PICKS • D’Addario XL-115 (.011–.049) • Fender 351 mediums (.73 mm)
I stole it after I tried out for a band called Verbena when they were looking for a bass player a long time ago. They’d made a record called Souls for Sale, and I was madly in love with it. I learned all the songs, and [Verbena guitarist] Scott Bondy showed me all the songs with this tuning. I borrowed it from him and I
love it. Having a different tuning helps kick-start the writing. The first three songs [“I Wanna Be Your Disease,” “Impossible Song,” and “You’re Breaking My Heart”] are all in that C–G–D–G–B–E tuning. I have to use my left hand in a different way to make all the notes work, and that limits
Top: Photo by Joshua Pickering
Hatfield performing with her custom P-90-equipped First Act Delia LS. “They made it for me a few years ago and it has become my favorite guitar,” she says.
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my fretting. There’s not a lot I can do with my finger shapes, so I’m just moving up and down the neck and trying to find somewhere else to go—sliding around on the neck trying to make the song move. The limitations of the tuning really opened up the songwriting in a way, which proves my theory that limitations can be really freeing. Do you use an extra heavy string for that low C? I don’t do anything special, and I never deliberately tried to make it less floppy. But I did switch to .011 gauge sets in the past couple of years on the electric. I used to use .010s.
That’s interesting, because “Everything is Forgiven” seems like a coda to the whole album—a response to the anger in the rest of the songs. Yeah, it’s the one song where I’m not exactly sure what I’m saying in it! I’m sure it’s already been misinterpreted. It’s probably more personal to me than some of the other ones.
Speaking of interpretation, listening today, it’s pretty clear you’re addressing the current administration in several of the songs. But if you remove that context, a song like “Kellyanne” might just come across as a generally frustrated relationship song. I was worried about that and also the song “Rhinoceros”—which
You played everything on the album except drums. It can be hard to declare something “finished” when working alone. Was that a problem? It was kind of opposite. One of the obstacles was financial. I was in a real studio [Q Division in Somerville, Massachusetts], where I couldn’t afford to waste time. At home, it’s different—you can take as long as you want. Part of why I wanted to do it away from home was so I’d have to go fast. I wanted to record in a state of only semiconsciousness, so my instincts would be working on overdrive. I have a tendency to over-think things and over-rehearse, and that can kill the spark. At the same time, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It’s not always like that for me. I think being alone made me feel more confident. Why is that? When there are other people around I’m too polite not to take in their opinions. But a lot of times, I end up trying out their ideas and think, “Eh, my instincts were better.” This time there was nothing stopping me from obeying my instincts. I just went in and got it done. Knowing what I wanted didn’t mean I had everything mapped out. It just meant that I was hyper-tuned into my instincts and let my unconscious work really efficiently. I felt I was obeying my muse. It’s interesting that the “go-with-the-flow” music is underpinning some very topical and often biting lyrics. Were they written before you started? Not all of them. There were a few songs I had to leave to the end to sing because I was still working on the lyrics. The lyrics for [final track] “Everything is Forgiven” came together at the very last minute.
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TIDBIT
To track Pussycat, Hatfield booked time in a pro studio. “I wanted to do it away from home where I couldn’t afford to waste time,” she says. “I have a tendency to over-think things and over-rehearse, and that can kill the spark.”
mentions Melania [Trump] by name. But with “Kellyanne,” it occurred to me that kids born now might listen in 20 years and think, “Oh, this is a cool song!” It wouldn’t matter that they don’t know who Kellyanne Conway is. It’s just a song about a complicated relationship with someone, and one in a long line of songs with women’s names like “Rhiannon,” “Michelle,” and “Roseanna.” “Rhinoceros” has some very dark and vivid imagery about sexual violence. Yeah, I still do worry about that one— maybe I shouldn’t have done that second verse. But I did it and I have to live with it. There are also some more universal themes in that song. I know—that’s why I worry. Did I cheapen the song by putting it into such a specific context in that verse? I don’t know. I could re-record the lyrics for that verse for a future re-release. But I think it does serve a purpose. It’s like a little
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nudge: “Hey, just so you understand where I’m coming from.” I deliberately put it toward the end of the album because I thought it would be too much at the beginning—too obvious or guiding people too much. I wanted people to find their way to that song. It gives people who are turned off by the subject matter time to abandon it before they get to that song. Overall, the imagery is kind of disgusting and some people probably don’t want to deal with it. Jumping back to making use of those idea tapes, do you enjoy going through all that material? I don’t do it for fun. If I feel the need to write songs, I go back and listen for work purposes. There’s a lot of junk on there— minutes and hours of that. But when I do sit down and listen to those tapes, it’s always so interesting. There’s stuff I have no memory of having played and I have to figure out how I played it. Sometimes that takes a while.
Do the parts you write on acoustic guitar change as you bring them over to the electric? Not so much the parts themselves, but how I play changes. I might play fewer notes or look for ways to get a different effect. How did you record the basic tracks? I played an electric guitar with the drummer, Pete Caldes, who’s recorded with me before. I was intending those to be scratch guitar parts, but we kept some of them. Once the drums were down, did you add instruments in a specific order? I had everything around me—guitar, bass, and keyboard—and would just go around from one thing to another and do what I felt needed to be done at any given point. I started recording a bunch of guitars, and a song would say to me, “I want bass!” Other songs would say, “I need a keyboard!” and I would suddenly hear a part in my head.
Photo by Greg Chow
To write many of the songs on Pussycat, Hatfield used a C–G–D–G–B–E tuning she learned from Verbena guitarist Scott Bondy. “Having a different tuning helps kick-start the writing. I have to use my left hand in a different way to make all the notes work.”
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The song “Sunny Somewhere” sounds like you wrote it on the bass, which is prominent in the mix. It was miraculous to me how that bass line came together. I had guitar chords and a melody, but then when I picked up the bass, the part just happened. And I recorded it so fast. It was like, “Boom—done!”
I sold my other guitars because I’m not a collector at all. I don’t keep stuff just to keep it. I get tired of things and have no problem letting go. I described it to a friend as a relationship: For years and years my main guitar was an SG Firebrand—it was like an extension of me. But then one day I woke up and looked at the guitar and thought, “I don’t love you anymore,” and I sold it. Just like that. It was over. I was over it. For years, I was experimenting and trying to decide what I liked best. I’ve finally figured out what sounds I like.
en as se
I wouldn’t call the sound “retro,” but there’s a vintage vibe to the guitar tones. What amps did you use? An old Ampeg Reverberocket that belongs to the studio. I always use it when I record there because I love it so much. There were also three little amps set up next to one another, and I also used a Gibson Skylark. But, aside from the Reverberocket, if it’s not my own gear, I don’t pay attention to equipment. Instead, I’m more focused on whether I like what I hear. There’s only so much space in the brain for tech things.
at
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Aside from the riffs themselves, the guitar tones stand out—sort of a mix of Sabbath-style grind with more modern textures. What electrics did you use? I was using a lot of my First Act Delia LS guitar, which has two P-90 pickups. They made it for me a few years ago and it’s become my favorite guitar. I got rid of most of my guitars a few years ago and now all I have is this First Act and a Custom SG from 1968 or ’69, which I’ve had for like seven years. Those are my only two electric guitars, and I think they were the only ones in the studio. Unlike when I’m writing, I retuned each one as needed for different songs.
If it’s not my own gear, I don’t pay attention to equipment. Instead, I’m more focused on whether I like what I hear.”
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How did you get that heavy “brokenspeaker” fuzz sound on “Wonder Why?” That’s a bit of gear I do know: the ZVEX Fuzz Factory pedal. They have a couple at Q Division studio and I finally bought one for myself. I just love it. I used it a lot on the album—it’s really good for soloing. It’s got a gate, which lets you get a heavy sound but with no sustain. It just cuts off at the end, like [makes a short tire-screeching sound]. I just love that effect. It makes it sound like the amp is breaking apart. “Touch You Again” and “When You’re a Star” have very distinctive riffs. Were they part of the song from the beginning? Riffs usually come later. On “When You’re a Star,” we had the guitar and bass recorded. Then with that riff, it was like a light bulb going on over my head—I ran into the tracking room and recorded it. That happens a lot. The song will be recorded and I’ll hear a riff, melodically, in my head. I just have to transfer it from my brain onto the guitar.
Do the vocal melodies come first? Not always. Sometimes songs start with just chord progressions. But usually, once I have any kind of chord progression, the melody comes also. I often have melodies written ahead of the lyrics, which makes lyric writing more difficult because I have to fit them into these melodies. I’ll get attached to sounds and then it takes a while for me to wrench my brain away from that and realize it’s okay to get unstuck. There were a couple of songs on the album where I was really stuck. “Everything Is Forgiven” moves around a lot. It was hard to fit words into that melody. Sometimes I have a title and a melody, and I’m like “I’ve gotta get this goddam title in there!” “When You’re a Star” had
to use those words: “When you’re a star, they let you.” It was like a puzzle. I figured out the only way to make it work was to change the order of the words around. “Sex Machine” and “Kellyanne” have longish instrumental outros. It’s almost as if there’s more to say, like you’re mulling over the conversation in your mind. I don’t know why I did that, but maybe it’s what you’re suggesting, as if I need to ruminate on this a little more, or groove on it, and get it out of my system. It’s also a kind of celebration—trying to make something good out of complicated issues—like you want to play music and make it all better and it’s hard to stop.
YOUTUBE IT
In this live-in-studio performance, Hatfield shifts between jangle and grit on her beloved late-’60s Gibson SG Custom. YouTube search term: The Juliana Hatfield Three - My Sister (Live on KEXP)
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Mexico’s Descartes a Kant subscribe to no single genre on the band’s U.S. debut concept album, Victims of Love Propaganda, using a giddy love for effects to express gloriously haphazard guitar riffs while maintaining a value for melody, songs, and a message. /// BY NICK MILLEVOI
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TIDBIT
Descartes a Kant recorded its U.S. debut, Victims of Love Propaganda, using an analog approach with legendary producer/ engineer Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. Before entering the studio, the band mapped out an ideal guitar sound and assembled a new pedalboard from scratch specifically for the album.
escartes a Kant’s Victims of Love Propaganda greets you with a pitch-shifted voice straight out of a nightmare, coughing and announcing, “Now, let’s take a moment to discuss the current theories about the biological basis of looooove...” Next thing you know, you’re being pounded over the head by the opening riff of a song called “You Assfucked My Heart.” Acting as the album’s overture, the distortion-soaked track cycles through a series of tight breaks, tense riffs, and a searing saxophone solo, never settling long enough to catch a breath. The songs that follow scream with the impulsive intensity of avant-garde bands like Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, and Naked City. While shock and awe leads the way in the Guadalajara, Mexico-based band’s music, it isn’t all
D
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Descartes a Kant is about. Their songs also exhibit a pop sensibility that rears its head in tight hooks that affirm the influence of indie rock legends and ’60s R&B. All of this comes together to form a concept album the band describes as “emotional porn,” taking a forensic look at romantic relationships. When Descartes hits the stage, the mayhem really gets unleashed. Guitarist/vocalists Sandrushka Petrova and Dafne Macías lead the group with frenetic energy, performing unison moves amidst flashing emergency lights, surrounded by the rest of the band members in hazmat suits. Their highpowered live show and deep embrace of varied sounds has helped Descartes a Kant secure gigs around the world with a diverse set of heroes, such as Sonic Youth, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Slayer, and Dave Lombardo’s Dead Cross.
While Victims of Love Propaganda is Descartes a Kant’s third studio album, it’s the band’s debut release in America. This time around, they worked with legendary engineer and producer Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, Jesus Lizard) at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. Albini’s analog recording approach helped give Victims of Love Propaganda a direct, in-your-face sound that serves to make the record sonically explosive. Premier Guitar sat down with Petrova and Macías to discuss their relationship-focused concept album, calculated songwriting approach, and elaborate live shows. While the band is obviously detail oriented, they keep their eyes on the big picture— unconcerned with obsessing over gear, instead considering how to get the most effective songs to deliver what they want to say.
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Photo by Andy McCormick
The trio of females on guitar in Descartes a Kant are a far cry from traditional performers. They’re constantly passing the guitar around onstage, each taking turns on riff duties. From left to right: Ana Cristina Mo, Sandra Petrova, and Dafne Macías. “It’s kind of complex,” says Petrova.
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How did the band form and how long have you been together? Sandra Petrova: I started this band in a non-pretentious way, not knowing it was going to be like a serious relationship. It started in the bedroom in 2001 in Guadalajara. In 2005, Androv the keyboard player, Dafne, and our previous drummer joined and we released our first album in 2007. To me, that’s when the band started in a serious form and we’ve been working ever since, like a functional/dysfunctional family. In 2010, Christy [Ana Cristina Mo], Mo [Memo Ibarra], and the drummer [Jorge Chavez] joined. Let’s talk about the band’s name. It’s two philosophers, Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant. Petrova: Basically, it’s like an analogy to this confluence of postures and ideological philosophy shit that is much like what happens with our sound. If you see genres like ideas, they all come together in this unique, alien, punk music that includes lots and lots of musical forms. Although they’re opposite, it doesn’t matter. What kind of scene did the band develop in? Were you playing with mostly heavier bands? Petrova: It was a local scene [in Guadalajara, Mexico]. We’re a band that plays with any kind of band. I think we’ve never felt like we belonged to a scene. That makes possibilities huge, to try to live with all this music that is happening in our country, so we can play one day with a ska band or…. what’s the craziest? Dafne Macías: Like a salsa band, mariachi.... Petrova: Mariachi in Russia! That sounds very weird. But, I think that that’s the cool part of this: like we don’t belong to one thing, but to everyone and everything. Your songs tread a lot of ground and seem to draw on a wide variety of material. A song like, “You Assfucked My Heart,” the first track on Victims of Love Propaganda, is based on heavy riffs, extreme vocals, and has a screaming John Zorn-style sax solo—it’s brutal! But
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then “Motion Picture Dreamboy” is almost like a ’60s girl-band song. How do you pull together such wide influences? Petrova: Yeah, as you said, the influences are very diverse. I see it almost as like a polyamorous relationship with music. And everything fits. It wasn’t this conscious process like, “Oh, I want to sound so weird and crazy and just put all this together like a collage.” But it was like, “What if we kind of fuck around with structure and we put all this stuff together and maybe it makes sense or maybe we can stop making sense.” Obviously, Mr. Bungle is a direct influence and I think every member of this band has a love for [Mr. Bungle vocalist] Mike Patton projects. A band like this is not a jamming kind of band. It’s not just like a huge accident that happens; it does have layers. I write a lot of the songs, but also this record was very collaborative because some songs or parts of them were written by the bass player, some lyrics were written with my brother and a friend of mine who is a psychiatrist, and then some arrangements, vocal arrangements, were written by Dafne. So, I think we came to this point to learn how to work together with an idea that probably I incept. How does the songwriting process work for you? Petrova: It’s a very intimate process to me. Songwriting is not jammy—it’s not coincidence. I’m not a jamming person at all. I calculate everything. But music comes after what you want to say. I think I trust a lot in the melody. Everything starts from the melody, which is the center element to me. I think this is the record where harmony has more protagonism. It’s more elaborated than in the other records. It’s more like a songwriter thing. You can play these songs with a guitar and vocals or piano and vocals and I think that wasn’t something that happened easily in the other records. I don’t wanna sound like or say it or admit, but I’m a control freak. I have to write everything and see that it’s perfect before I show it to someone.
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Does that leave a lot of room for you to create your parts, Dafne? How do you approach playing new songs when Sandra brings them to you? Macías: Sandra’s work is very diverse. Sometimes compositions are so structured that there’s no space to include my own part. The mission then becomes to achieve the necessary sound and interpretation so the composition sounds as it’s intended. Some other occasions, like for example, in “Lovely Lips,” Sandra would send a demo that, although it’s pretty clear, it does have some room. The ideas I develop are within the context of the musical discourse previously established, and the goal is to enrich this idea and achieve its maximum potential. I’m curious about your guitar influences. Petrova: In my case, for most of my life I was a very anti-solo person. I’m drawn to guitar playing that’s kind of fucked up and weird. I can say that one of my recent influences is Annie Clark and her way to just create this beautiful language with her guitar and her riffs and her fuzz pedals. Also [Sonic Youth guitarists] Thurston [Moore] and Lee Ranaldo. I think they marked us in very specific ways. Macías: Sonic Youth, Pixies, Pavement— that kind of sound was very important to me when I was young. Now there are a lot of feminine figures making interesting stuff with guitar, like a very particular sound. Annie Clark is one of them of course, and Kim Gordon [of Sonic Youth]. Even though she played bass for most of her career, now she’s playing guitar in what I think is a very interesting way, through feminine eyes. You recorded this album with legendary engineer Steve Albini at his studio, Electrical Audio. He’s worked with a lot of your influences: Has it been a long-term goal of yours to work with Albini? Petrova: I think we never imagined ... when we were on the plane heading to Chicago, I was thinking [Nirvana’s] In
SANDRA PETROVA’S GEAR GUITARS • Fender Jaguar • Fender Mustang
AMP • Fender Twin Reverb
EFFECTS • Eventide PitchFactor • Death By Audio Apocalypse • DigiTech Whammy • Electro-Harmonix MicroSynth • Fender Runaway Feedback Pedal
STRINGS & PICKS • Raven Picks .60 mm • Fender .009–.042 gauge strings
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Photo by Charles Pinet
Descartes a Kant’s principal songwriter, Sandra Petrova, gets serious on a Fender Mustang during a performance at Guadalajara, Mexico’s Teatro Diana in April 2017. Petrova prefers this model for all her guitar work, from writing songs to playing live.
Dafne Macías points to Annie Clark and Kim Gordon as guitar influences who play interestingly “through feminine eyes.” Macías doesn’t switch up her gear: she’s devoted to her Squier Jagmaster through a Roland Jazz Chorus.
Utero was my first album I paid for and that if someone told the young me that someday I was gonna be recording with that producer, I wouldn’t believe it. We didn’t even think that we would record out of Mexico. How did it come about for the band to record at Electrical Audio? Petrova: It just came out of nowhere because we started working with this New York manager. He’s someone who wants to help the band and he suggested it would be cool if we started work here in the States, and suggested someone like Steve Albini would be cool. I was like, “Haha, yeah, it would be cool.” The idea kept moving until it materialized.
Photo by Andy McCormick
Was the result everything you hoped for? Petrova: It was a mind-blowing experience for all of us that marked us in so many ways and made us learn and made us more capable and focused. Recording on analog is something we’d never done before and it’s way different in a time when we’re so used to the undo process! And undo and undo and let’s make another take and open millions of tracks and it’s very easy. We were thinking, “Hey, this is how old-school bands made records.” You have to play the whole way and the whole take and do your better take. You can’t waste your studio time or the tape. The sound of the record is huge! There are lots of really crazy guitar tones and wild effects. What was your setup like? Petrova: Something interesting to this record is that the sound of the guitars was worked out before going to the studio with Steve Albini. We were trying to find that every element in the songs sounded like it was going to be
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DAFNE MACÍAS’ GEAR GUITARS • Fender Squier Jagmaster
AMP • Roland Jazz Chorus
EFFECTS • Eventide H9 Max • Eventide PitchFactor • DigiTech Whammy • Electro-Harmonix MicroSynth • Boss OD-20 Drive Zone • Dwarfcraft Devices Eau Claire Thunder • Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor
STRINGS & PICKS • Raven Picks .80 mm • Fender .010–.046 gauge strings
recorded. We just got this new gear and we formed a new pedalboard from scratch and we started to search for this ideal guitar sound. To me this is the best guitar sound that we’ve ever made, and it’s like that live so it’s super cool. I have a very Eventide-phased sound. I think Eventide is essential for the songs coming out the way they came. It’s a very helpful, fun, crazy tool. For fuzz, I have an Apocalypse from Death By Audio, a [DigiTech] Whammy, and the
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[Electro-Harmonix] MicroSynth. We like that synthetic guitar sound. Crazy, but it seems like sometimes we don’t want a guitar to sound like a guitar in a traditional way. I have a very weird pedal that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s from Fender; it’s called the Runaway, and it’s a feedback pedal but the feedback is so beautiful. It’s very fun. It has this octave up or octave down or a fifth up, so I just use it in the song “Suppertime Rules,” but it’s totally worth it. Macías: I have kind of the same gear Sandra has, because it was a mission to accomplish the sound of the way she recorded the demos. I have an Eventide, a Whammy, I have a fuzz from Dwarfcraft Devices, an [Electro-Harmonix] MicroSynth, an [Eventide] PitchFactor, which I love, and a distortion pedal from Boss. I have a noise gate also because it’s very difficult to control all the feedback stuff. Petrova: Because in this band, silence is very important. It’s like it has the same importance as sound, so we have to shift
from very noisy to silence—so we need this kind of noise gate to silence everything. What about guitars and amps? Petrova: Fender, 100 percent. This album was written and recorded with the same guitar. Albini had a lot of guitars but we were like, “No, let’s take our guitars.” I prefer using a Twin Reverb live and in the studio. A Mustang seems to be my favorite right now. I have a Stratocaster and a Telecaster that are just asleep in the rehearsal room waiting for me to visit. The Mustang has this quality I got very used to when I was writing the songs, so I wanted the exact same sound. But, also anatomically speaking, it’s very light, so in our live performance that’s a very important factor because it allows me to have more movement onstage and to not feel like I’m carrying this super heavy thing. Macías: Like a Stratocaster! Petrova: Yeah, because, you know, it’s very theatrical and it’s very active and we’re like maniacs onstage, so when I
tried the Mustang it was like, “Whoa, this is my guitar. This allows me to be my better live version.” So, it’s important. I’m not very specific. I’m not a guitar nerd at all. Someone was asking me the other day about stuff I don’t believe I need to make songs. I could write my songs with any guitar, I just prefer these. When we use Marshalls, it’s like, we can’t do that. It’s like kissing someone and you don’t know what’s wrong but you know something’s wrong. So my approach to music is far from gear-ish and it’s far from technical. Macías: I use the Jagmaster. I love that sound—I love it! I think it has the best of the two worlds. It can accomplish a very clean and round sound, but also it can be very loud and have a very good response to distortion. So, I love Jagmaster. I want to marry one! I have a Jazz Chorus from Roland. I prefer to use Fender, but I don’t have one. I’m poor! But I like the sound of that amp because it’s the same idea as a Jagmaster:
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It responds to a very clean sound but functions very well with distortion. You’re both running around onstage a lot of the time. Do you consider the theatrical production while you’re writing and recording and deciding on your guitar parts, or does that come after you’re finished with the music? Petrova: Sometimes, before music or before arrangements, there’s this idea of, “What we can do live?” We admire a lot of artists, like David Byrne or Laurie Anderson, that can maintain this perfect balance between making this amazing weird show but also music that is impeccable. Writing the songs, you can see and visualize, “This has to have this performance,” so it doesn’t matter who plays the guitar. It’s not like, “I’m the guitar player, I have to play all the songs,” so that’s when Christy is very important in the equation, because she plays the riffs and we can express more actively what the song wants to say. Live we are changing guitars and just taking them on and off and passing them to Christy and Christy sometimes plays my guitar or Dafne’s guitar. It’s kind of complex. Victims of Love Propaganda is a concept album that you call “emotional porn.” Can you expand on that a little? Petrova: It talks about the way we live relationships and how our society has influenced the way we go through these relationships. “Until the Day We Die” is a very direct and emotional lyric that in four verses describes how a marriage or a long-term relationship can go fading out to the point that you just feel psychotic and questioning a lot of things in these rules of being in a couple and how sometimes if you pay attention, you will see this manipulation and wanting to control the other person. Ego is very involved in our decisions and the things that affect us as human beings in these relationships, so it does talk about romantic projections and this idea of wanting to be with someone ’til the day you die. Is that absolutely necessary? Is that something beyond our control, something we’re programmed with? So that’s one example of how the songs open these conversations. But it’s not pretending to be a conclusive work, because the subject is so complex and there are a lot of layers to talking about relationships and humans and the way we interact. So it’s kind of just having these questions and opening them to the world and showing the devastation behind it. It’s intense and it’s from a very female perspective. “Crime Scene” is a song about the death of a relationship. It talks about how when you get out
of a relationship, you’re like your own forensic team, researching. Whose fault is this? Who is responsible for being in this? And you just see this mayhem, and in a symbolic way, you just open your eyes and everything is blood, all over the place. And you’re looking at the injured people and you’re one of them, but also you’re like the victim and the victimizer and the perpetrator and everyone has their
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part and it’s your job to assume your part of the mess. When we perform it live, we all have these forensic suits and it’s someone waking up in the middle of a crime scene. I think, that’s the album: The register that something happened and it was lived from a specific way and from very tricky perspectives but the big metaphor is an exercise to see and to evidence a relationship.
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ACOUSTIC SOUNDBOARD
The Challenges of Wood Sourcing, Part 2 BY MARK DALTON Mark Dalton and Jeff Huss celebrate the merits of buying in bulk atop a 50-log score of red spruce in 2004—a purchase they’ve used to meet their bracewood needs for years since.
I
n the first installment on this topic [“The Challenges of Wood Sourcing,” December 2016], I focused on some of the current challenges small-scale manufacturers face when sourcing tonewoods for guitar backs and sides. This month, we’ll be looking into top woods. Like back and side woods, some top woods are harder to find in the best grades, but many are still readily available and show no signs of not being so any time soon. Sitka spruce. One of the more common and versatile top woods is good ol’ Sitka. Sitka remains one of the top dogs for reasons of tone and beauty, but also because we can still get it in very stiff and tight-grained sets. The main reason for this is the sheer size of the Sitka tree. They tend to grow very tall and straight, and in many places still grow to a large diameter. Because Sitka trees are often larger and straighter than other species, they also tend to exhibit less runout in top sets. (Runout is when a top looks darker on one side than the other, and then flips this shade when viewed from the other direction.) As far as supply goes, it seems that Sitka is pretty secure for the near future. Engelmann spruce. I’ve written previously about the tonal qualities of different top woods, so I won’t go into why we choose Engelmann for a guitar top. Insofar as sourcing, this one is a bit trickier. We can still get nice Englemann, but we have to sort through it more than Sitka to find tops that are quartersawn enough to not display runout. While runout in and of itself does not harm the guitar in terms of tone or durability, it can signal that a top is “off quarter” and may not be as stiff as needed—but not always. Englemann trees tend to grow in something of a twist, which means a top can be mostly “on quarter” and good and stiff, but will still display runout. The worst part about runout is that we often can’t tell if a top has much of it until the guitar is built and sanded out
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all the way for finishing. Because of this one issue, I often advise customers to not choose Englemann for a custom build when the appearance of the top is of the utmost importance. So, while we do still have nice Englemann tops available, one should expect to see a bit of the “flop” in the shading and coloration on them. Red spruce. Often referred to as “Adirondack” spruce, Appalachian red spruce is considered by many to be the holy grail of top woods. Its strengthto-weight ratio is the highest among common tonewood choices. But sourcing for red spruce is spotty at best. The trees were cut to near extinction in the early part of the 20th century, particularly during World War II. A lot of really nice stuff still stands on national forest land, but because cutting isn’t allowed, our suppliers have to find trees growing on private lands to harvest. Add to that the fact that the species only grows above about 4,000 feet and only in the Appalachian mountain chain, and you can see the issues developing. At Huss and Dalton, we use red spruce for some tops and exclusively for all our bracing. For many years, we’ve used a stash cut from White Top Mountain here in western Virginia that we bought in log form. This spruce was cut from federal land due to an infestation of pine bark beetle that was in some of it. We purchased about 50 logs in 2004 and still have some of that wood as I’m writing this column. Very little of it was suitable for tops, but we’ve had a terrific supply of brace wood for all those years from this one cutting. (I’m also happy to report that the select cutting of this stand worked and the beetle was beaten back from the remaining trees.) Red spruce trees grow fast, which often makes for very wide grain patterns, and, like Englemann, they tend to grow in a twist, which results in runout appearing. Most of our red spruce these days comes from the Canadian side of the border, and while we have a good supply,
we usually reject more red spruce than other top woods—often due to stiffness issues and runout. Going forward, red spruce will continue to be both sought after and hard to get in large quantities. Italian/German/European spruce. I lumped these together because they are usually the same species—just grown in different countries. Bachmann Tonewoods harvests trees from the Italian Alps that are of the highest quality and the company is a fantastic source for these sought-after tops. German spruce has not been readily available for some time, so getting any tops that are actually German is almost impossible. The good news here is that the Italian wood is as good (if not better) and is of the same species, so we tend to just call it all “European” at this point. We get some terrific tops to use, both of the plain variety and with beautiful bear-claw figuring. Overall, we are still able to get topquality tonewoods for guitar tops. With a little common-sense conservation, we should be able to continue to do so for generations to come. MARK DALTON is a founding partner of Huss & Dalton Guitar Company. When not building guitars, Mark and his wife, Kimberly, tend to the draft horses and mules that inhabit their farm in the Piedmont region of Virginia.
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THE RECORDING GUITARIST
Playing for the Song: A View from 1607 BY JOE GORE
T
his column is usually about tech details, not sprawling concepts. But I recently got sucked into one of those “playing for the song” debates on Facebook. Since creating musically appropriate parts is crucial for the recording guitarist, the subject seems fair game for a column. The problem is, it can be a very boring conversation. In the course of that Facebook thread, I wrote this: “Guitarists who truly want to play for the song should practice saying these words: ‘I don’t think we need a solo here.’” That sentence got more response than anything I’ve ever posted to Facebook. But while I meant those words, they didn’t advance the discussion in the slightest. Most of us already agree that heightening a song’s emotional impact is a loftier goal that displaying your monster chops. Really, the sentence is about as controversial as “Practicing makes you better” or “Gear alone won’t make you a great musician.” I’ve interviewed countless guitarists over the years, and I’ve yet to hear one say, “The most important thing is my solo.” Almost everyone stresses the importance of emotionally appropriate playing. (And no one stresses it more than the players who suck at it.)
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So let’s view the topic from a new perspective. Oh wait—make that an old perspective. We’re talking 1607, when Europe’s composers, musicians, and philosophers were engaged in an angry debate about music’s role when paired with words. Breakin’ the law. The years around 1600 were a crisis point in European music history. When the new Protestant churches had rejected Roman Catholicism over the preceding decades, a frequent complaint was the egotistical flashiness and unholy sensuality of Roman church music. Protestant Numero Uno, Martin Luther, composed simple hymns that the congregation could sing in unison, not fancy stuff that required musical pros. In response, the councils of the Catholic Counter-Reformation mandated a simpler, more rule-bound style. (At this time, churches dominated all cultural life, and the most important compositions were written for them.) Much great church music was written in this austere style. (Yo, Palestrina!) But increasingly, freethinking composers resented such limits. Music’s goal, argued the upstarts, was to move the emotions. If that meant stretching the rules, so be it. One of the leading rebels was Vincenzo
Galilei, a composer and lute player whose son, astronomer Galileo Galilei, would go on to have his own dangerous run-ins with Catholic dogma. The debate moved beyond religious music. Composers stretched boundaries using new, non-religious forms, often inspired by classical Greek and Roman ideas. The new battlegrounds were the madrigal (a free-form vocal composition with non-religious words) and a crazyass experiment that would eventually be known as opera. Trigger warning: opera content. We’re not talking opera in the modern sense, with Valkyrie helmets, sad clowns, and 300-pound sopranos succumbing to improbable diseases. This was an avant-garde experiment performed for intellectual circles in noble courts. The era’s leading composer was Claudio Monteverdi, whose L’Orfeo (1607) was the first great opera. In recounting the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Monteverdi introduced radical new techniques, such as specifying the exact instruments that would accompany the voices. Before that, composers would write out parts, but the parts might be performed by any instruments that could handle them. Monteverdi used every
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available musical technique to heighten drama. Heads exploded. But by then, one important head had already exploded. It belonged to composer/theorist Giovanni Artusi, who wrote a fiery criticism of Monteverdi’s “crude” techniques. Artusi already had a chip on his shoulder, because Galileo’s dad, Vincenzo, had criticized the conservative style of Artusi’s beloved teacher 20 years earlier. Paging Mr. Plato. Monteverdi replied to Artusi in the introduction to his next book of madrigals, basically saying that he was too busy composing masterpieces to debate Artusi’s dumbass comments. But Claudio had a surrogate: his kid brother, Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, also a composer. Expanding on his brother’s words, Giulio said that Artusi was mired in the old style, while Claudio represented the modern style. In the new style, Giulio wrote, the “words are the mistress while the harmony is the servant”—not the other way around. The words determine the emotional intent, which melody and harmony should follow. It was the 1607 version of “You have to play for the song.” And whom did Giulio whip out for intellectual backup? Plato, naturally. Giulio quoted the philosopher’s Republic: “The rhythm and harmony should follow the words.” And since the words represent the “disposition of the soul,” the rhythm and harmony should “follow and conform.” Those opinions date from around 380 BC! Giulio basically said:
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“Even Plato believes in playing for the song, so shut up.” That didn’t end the debate, of course. The musical battle has raged for centuries. In one corner: the poets and composers trying to combine words and music for the truest and most powerful dramatic effect. In the other corner were shallow audiences who just wanted to see someone in a colorful costume sing a catchy tune, and egomaniacal opera stars whose primary concern was flaunting their wicked chops. Generation after generation of composers bitched about singers who would depart from the score to indulge in egomaniacal technical displays. Chances are no one said, “I wish that wanker would just focus on the frickin’ song,” but countless composers felt something like that. Music vs. drama. Once of the most compelling takes on this ongoing conflict appears in the book Opera as Drama by musicologist Joseph Kerman. Like Orfeo, the book exploded heads when it appeared in the 1950s. Kerman evaluated centuries of opera, not just for the quality of its music, but in terms of whether it succeeded as drama. (He pissed all over some beloved operas, famously calling Puccini’s Tosca “a shabby little shocker.”) In Kerman’s view, only Verdi and Mozart achieved the perfect fusion of words and music. It’s usually a terrible idea to apply the values of one musical style to a different musical style. Still, I often think of Opera as Drama when concocting guitar performance in hopes of amplifying a song’s
emotional power. Sifting through ideas, you think, “Does it add to the drama or detract from it?” That’s why, in retrospect, my antisolo Facebook comment feels superficial. I’m not so much anti-solo as pro-drama. And occasionally, solos are good drama. When an opera character suffers a fatal stiletto wound, but doesn’t die until they’ve pranced around the stage displaying their vocal prowess, it’s bad drama. I feel the same way when songs with meaningful lyrics get overwhelmed by dick-waving guitar performances. Some guitar solos seem as dramatically inept as if Hamlet had interrupted his own soliloquy (which was less than a decade old when Orfeo debuted). To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub. But before we get into that rub, I’d like to bring out a clever little monkey. Zounds! See him juggle five walnuts at once! I’ll be back in a flash, good gentles. Don’t forget to tip thy wench! That might be a pretty entertaining show! But it would probably suck as drama. JOE GORE has recorded and performed with Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Tracy Chapman, Courtney Love, Marianne Faithfull, Les Claypool, Flea, DJ Shadow, John Cale, and many other artists. Joe has written thousands of articles about music and helps develop music tools for Apple and other clients. He blogs at tonefiend.com.
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BLEAK HORIZON C
Addi Tryggvason, frontman for Icelandic post-metal quartet Sólstafir, analyzes his twin existential muses— Ennio Morricone films and living on “a desolate island in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
Photo by Snorri Sturluson
BY PAUL KOBYLENSKY
ompiling a list of Icelandic bands that have successfully broken through to the U.S. music scene is hardly an exhausting undertaking. In terms of household-name fame, you’ve pretty much got Björk and Sigur Rós (and even that is probably stretching it a bit). But the four members of Sólstafir have also been doing their damnedest for more than 20 years now—and they’re doing so while holding fast to their Scandinavian heritage. Comprised of singer-guitarist Aðalbjörn “Addi” Tryggvason, guitarist Sæþór Maríus “Pjúddi” Sæþórsson, bassist Svavar “Svabbi” Austmanngot, and drummer Hallgrímur Jón Hallgrímsson, Sólstafir got its start in the 1990s as one of the first black metal bands to gain notoriety back in Iceland. But while Tryggvason and company’s love of, and immersion in, the black metal sound was on full display across their 2002 debut, Í Blóði og Anda (which translates as “In Blood and Spirit”), a careful listen would also foreshadow the sonic changes to come. Those changes came in a flood on the band’s sophomore outing, Masterpiece of Bitterness. They began delving into vast soundscapes such as the moody, sprawlingly epic 20-minute opening track, “I Myself the Visionary Head.” And in the ensuing years, it became abundantly clear that the ever-evolving music of Sólstafir has much more in common with the aural paintings of film composers like Ennio Morricone than with the black metal of Immortal. With the release of their most recent outing, Berdreyminn (which roughly translates as “A Dreamer of Future Events”), the band shows that—while they’ve retained their multifaceted signature sound—they have no intention of slowing their evolution. The atmospheric arrangements inspired by Iceland’s unforgiving-yet-beautiful landscape are still on full display, but there are also more unexpected turns such as the lovely, almost Allman Brothers-esque harmonized leads and echo-laden bass break on “Ísafold,” the forlorn vocal melodies and throbbing Wurlitzer piano of “Ambátt,” and the somber churchorgan intonations and clockwork riffing on “Bláfjall.” Which is perhaps why Tryggvason is quick to caution, “People hear an album and they think that piece is the whole picture—but it’s just a part of who we are.” Following is our recent conversation with Tryggvason about how Berdreyminn serves as a majestic example of what drives him and his Sólstafir cohorts, as well as what the future may bring for the quartet.
Opposite page: Besides the music of Italian composer Ennio Morricone, the sound of Sólstafir (from left to right: singer-guitarist Addi Tryggvason, guitarist Pjúddi Sæþórsson, drummer Hallgrímur Jón Hallgrímsson, and bassist Svabbi Austmanngot) is influenced by Iceland’s desolate terrain.
TIDBIT
Sólstafir worked methodically in the studio on their new album Berdreyminn. “We just start with a good drum track and bass,” says frontman Addi Tryggvason. “Then we bake the cake on top of that.”
You guys have been flying the flag for Icelandic music for a long time, and you still sing in Icelandic. Was it tough to decide to stick with that, knowing that singing in English might broaden your audience? When we started playing black metal, it was all in English. Then we saw that [Norwegian black-metal band] Enslaved was singing in Gammelnorsk—Old Norwegian—which is the closest you can get to Icelandic. So we thought, “if those Norwegians are singing in Icelandic, we’re going to do it as well!” And it’s more personal and from the heart to sing in the language that you think in. It’s unfiltered expression. We may go back to English later on. But we’re very comfortable with Icelandic right now. What types of subjects do your lyrics focus on? Desperation through depression, y’know? Severe depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and even domestic violence. Pretty much every member of this band has dealt with depression or addiction. So we don’t have to travel far to get subjects. Vastness, bleakness, and despair appear to have always played a big role in Sólstafir’s identity. Why is that? I think it’s where you grow up. I don’t think Black Sabbath would have sounded
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like Black Sabbath if they had come from Milan [Italy] or Saint Petersburg [Russia]. We grew up on a desolate island in the middle of fucking nowhere. Can you talk about the influence of Ennio Morricone and spaghetti western soundtracks on your music? Talking about Ennio Morricone is like talking about spirituality. If you watch the movie For a Few Dollars More, it’s like Pulp Fiction—you can watch it while only listening to the score. I still think it is the coolest score ever written. It was made in 1965 and I think it is god-like. It’s like reading Buddhism. There’s endless quotes and endless influence you can get from Ennio Morricone.
AÐALBJÖRN TRYGGVASON’S GEAR
GUITARS • Orn Custom Guitars Eagle V • 2003 Gibson Flying V • Deering Goodtime 4-string banjo
AMPS • Orange Thunderverb 200 with stock tubes • Orange 4x12 cab
EFFECTS • Heet Sound EBow • Boss OC-3 Super Octave • Boss RV-5 Reverb • Boss DD-3 Digital Delay • TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb
There are a lot of similarities between those films and scores and your music and videos—particularly the wideopen spaces and the use of sound to paint pictures. That is a really good way to put it.
STRINGS, PICKS & ACCESORIES
How would you describe the band’s musical growth from your last album, Ótta, to Berdreyminn?
• Dunlop .010–.052 sets with .056 or .058 bottom string • Dunlop .88 mm Tortex picks • Boss TU-2 tuner
Photo by Falk-Hagen Bernshausen
At the July 2017 Eistnaflug festival in Iceland, Tryggvason makes the very un-metal move of playing a banjo with a resonator ring. Along with the EBow, the banjo has become a hallmark of his group’s exploratory sound.
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I don’t think Black Sabbath would have sounded like Black Sabbath if they had come from Milan or St. Petersburg. We grew up on a desolate island in the middle of fucking nowhere.” 倀刀伀䘀䔀匀匀䤀伀一䄀䰀 吀唀一䤀一䜀 䔀儀唀䤀倀䴀䔀一吀 匀䤀一䌀䔀 㤀㐀㠀
I don’t know, man. Musical growth is between the ages of 12 and 18. That’s your growth. Between 41 and 44? Not so much growth, really [laughs]—just a few more gray hairs. We still have pianos, synths, and strings. We still have screaming vocals and soft vocals. We still have full-blown heavy metal guitars and distorted bass. So, I don’t know how I can describe the growth. It’s just our new album. To me, we always sound the bloody same. To me, our sound isn’t a little hole—it’s a whole fucking horizon. So when people just grab onto a little hole, that’s just a little piece of the puzzle. And yet, as expansive as the band’s sound is, you, Pjúddi, and Svabbi seem to prefer stripped-down, vintage-style guitar tones. I think it’s mostly trying to have a timeless sound. I don’t want people to be able to say, “This was definitely done in the era where everybody used the new Mesa/Boogie with a new EMG pickups in a new ESP guitar.” I like having a guitar tone that I can play a Neil Young riff on and I can play a Slayer riff on. I don’t like clean sounds. So I’ll have just enough gain so I can play some chords and I can do a riff. And we really
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PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 89
Tryggvason’s guitar named the Eagle was made by Icelandic builder Gunnar Orn and its body was then finished by a professional wood carver. It has accompanied its owner on at least 500 gigs, including this one at Iceland’s Eistnaflug metal fest.
wanted to have a very classic drum sound. Not too much EQ, there’s no editing. It’s just a classic sound. Do you guys track live in the studio to get that feel? I should tell you a story like Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction, where they went into the studio and, “one, two, three, four!” and that’s what you hear. But it’s not really like that. We just start with a good drum track and bass. Then we bake the cake on top of that. Yet you’re able to maintain a very raw and natural sound. Overproduced is not really our cup of tea.
Your EBow use has become a signature that adds a lot of ambiance to the Sólstafir sound. What inspired that? I think it was 2004, when I sold my first apartment and came across a little bit of money. I bought most of the pedals that I still use today and an EBow, because some friends of mine had been using it. I first used it on the Masterpiece of Bitterness album, and I’ve gotten pretty confident with it. There’s no gig without the EBow these days. Do you guys like to experiment with effects live and in the studio? I’m like a dinosaur—I have a Boss DD-3, I have the Boss reverb, I have a Boss octave, and I have a Boss tuner.
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YOUTUBE IT
Sólstafir’s willingness to experiment with instruments and techniques, such as banjo and EBow, are on full display in this in-studio performance of the title track off their 2014 album, Ótta. YouTube search term: Sólstafir - Ótta (Live on KEXP)
Photo by Falk-Hagen Bernshausen
What guitar amps did you use to track Berdreyminn? It’s an Orange Thunderverb 200. This is the first album where we used Orange. We tracked almost the entire album with it—I’d say 90 percent. I like the Thunderverb because it has two master-volume channels. I need two channels with volume and gain controls because I use the EBow [Heet Sound’s electronic infinite sustainer]. My clean channel is my EBow channel, and I need to be able to have gain and volume on it.
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60-year-old Deep Purple fans down to 18-year-old girls.
We can be playing a brutal metal festival in the Czech Republic, then we go to the Netherlands to play a familyoriented festival.” All the old stuff. I have a [TC Electronic] Hall of Fame Reverb, as well. So I have two reverbs, but I don’t use the effects loop. I’m pretty simple. I pretty much just use reverb, delay, and the amp drive. What’s the story behind the carved V-shaped guitar you’re often seen with? For years I was searching for a guy that would carve into my Gibson V, because I saw Lemmy [Kilmister]’s Rickenbacker—it just looked so amazing! But I never found him. Then this guitar maker in Iceland [Gunnar Orn] wanted to make a V that he gave to me. His friend was a professional wood carver who had exhibitions in Japan and stuff. It was a dream I had for 10 to 15 years. We call it the Eagle. I’ve probably done 500 gigs with that guitar. I can’t afford to bring multiple guitars for a single festival, but when we tour I’ll bring spare guitars. But most of the songs I’m only playing the one guitar. Do you record with that guitar exclusively? On this album, I used only the Eagle guitar. I’ve always used different guitars for different parts, but this time I just said, “Fuck it.” With you shifting musical styles, has your fan base changed over the years? It has changed significantly. We can be playing a brutal metal festival in the Czech Republic, then we go to the Netherlands to play a family-oriented festival. It’s completely different audiences. Our songs work for both. Before it was mostly German male blackmetal fans in their early 20s. Now it’s from
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Why do you think a band as unique-sounding as yours and that sings in a language not many people understand has been able to garner the success and longevity you guys have? When we started the band, we thought we probably wouldn’t get signed and
were never going to play live, because nobody would show up. We never got to be the flavor of the week, month, year, or decade. But we’ve never declined—we’ve always been on a very slow and steady rise. But we have had our obstacles. We could write a book about that. But we’ve survived it. Maybe it’s just because we like making music together, and that’s the only reason we’re still here.
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PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 91
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LESSONS
Blue Horizons: How to Mix Major and Minor Pentatonics BY DAVID HAMBURGER
C
ontrast offers a potent way to create sparks in your solos, and one of the simplest techniques for generating contrast is to play minor and major pentatonic scales off each other. In this lesson, we’ll check out a few classic examples of using contrast in blues, and then learn how to incorporate such contrast into your own playing. Like many guitarists, I began exploring lead by first learning the minor pentatonic scale. Initially, I simply pushed notes around on the fretboard with no real reference point for what blues was supposed to sound like. Next, I tried to figure out a couple of Eric Clapton’s Albert Kinginspired licks from Disraeli Gears. But it wasn’t until my best friend hipped me to B.B. King’s Live at the Regal that I finally had a definitive reference point for playing blues guitar. And one thing that really caught my ear was the opening to King’s solo on “Sweet Little Angel.” Turns out, that’s a perfect example of how to contrast major and minor sounds for maximum effect. King opens with a major-sounding statement, a phrase that leads into a double-stop on the downbeat, then immediately pivots with a minorsounding phrase into the IV chord. After that, he plays a variation on his opening lick to come back into the I. The minor blues sounds badass over the IV because it includes the %7 of the IV, while the kickoff and return to major sound equally good because they nail the major third of the I chord. It sounds something like Ex. 1.
Chops: Intermediate Theory: Intermediate Lesson Overview: • Learn when and how to use the minor and major pentatonic scales in a blues progression. • Understand how to phrase like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Freddie King. • Develop a better sense of call and response.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN
B.B. King’s Live at the Regal is a landmark album for many guitarists, including Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler. Recorded in Chicago in 1964, the album eloquently captures King’s informal stories between songs and his powerhouse band.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN
Click here for Ex. 1 The next album I really got into was Buddy Guy’s A Man and the Blues. On the title cut, when the band goes to the IV chord on the opening solo, Buddy starts out in an upper position of the minor pentatonic, then switches to major pentatonic in a way that anticipates the return to the I chord by a measure. Check out Ex. 2 to hear this technique in action.
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The title track from 1968’s A Man and the Blues is a complete masterclass on playing over a slow blues with just a hint of gain and tons of feeling.
PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 93
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN
Freddie King was a larger-than-life personality with a guitar tone to match. On this track from 1970’s My Feeling for the Blues, every one of his stinging phrases is steeped in mojo.
Taking this idea that contrast is good, we can make it tangible and readily available by choosing to consciously alternate major and minor pentatonic sounds throughout the blues form. Click here for Ex. 2 Finally, there’s the kind of ultra-cool maneuvers Freddie King executes on “Look on Yonder Wall.” Playing the fills between his vocals, he sticks to minor pentatonic for nearly an entire chorus until he sings the verse’s final phrase, at which point he grabs the 2, bends up to the 3, and throws in the 6 for good measure—all while hanging out in the basic minor pentatonic position. In terms of the last four measures of the 12-bar form, he plays minor pentatonic over the V to IV portion of the turnaround, then switches to major pentatonic for the return to the I. It sounds something like Ex. 3. Click here for Ex. 3 All three of these licks have one thing in common: the idea of emphasizing the minor pentatonic when you’re away from the I chord and emphasizing the
94 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
major pentatonic when you return to it. In the B.B. King example, this happens over the so-called “quick IV” or measure 2 of the form. In the Buddy Guy example, it happens over the IV chord in measure 5, and then the major pentatonic lick in measure 6 (which occurs while still on the IV chord) anticipates the return to I in measure 7. Finally, in the Freddie King example, the minor pentatonic licks fall over the V to IV of the turnaround, followed by major pentatonic licks over the I chord in measures 11 and 12. Beyond learning these three particular licks, we can also apply this idea in a more general way. After all, that’s the essence of improvisation— not simply building up a stash of licks, but also collecting a stash of concepts and approaches. Taking this idea that contrast is good, we can make it tangible and readily available by choosing to consciously alternate
major and minor pentatonic sounds throughout the blues form. In Ex. 4, the basic idea is to play a minor pentatonic lick and then answer it with a major pentatonic response, on all three lines of the blues. In this case, we begin each line with one of three related licks in 5th position, then use a different position of the major pentatonic sound in each line to answer. Notice that in measures 2 and 6, instead of bending to the C# of the A major pentatonic scale (A–B–C#–E–F#), we do half-step bends to C, which is the %7 of the D7 chord we’re playing over at the moment. Click here for Ex. 4 Next, let’s flip things around and open each line with a major pentatonic lick and then respond with minor pentatonic moves (Ex. 5). Click here for Ex. 5 Finally, we could create a longer kind of tension by sticking with the major pentatonic for the first two lines of the form before switching to minor pentatonic for the third line. This essentially mirrors the AAB structure of many blues lyrics, in which the third line is the punch line or turn of phrase—a big payoff for the lead up of the first two lines (Ex. 6). Click here for Ex. 6 Ultimately, of course, the idea is to create this kind of cotrast intuitively, which is presumably how the greats all do it. But if you want these kinds of sounds to come out of your fingers on the fly, consciously working through schemes like these is a great way to start heading in that direction. DAVID HAMBURGER has released four solo albums, toured the U.S. as the guitarist for Joan Baez, and composed music for the Emmy-nominated CNN series High Profits. He has authored more than two dozen books and videos for Hal Leonard, Alfred, Homespun, and Truefire, and is a contributing editor to Acoustic Guitar. You can find weekly video lessons from David at fretboardconfidential.com.
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Guitar Music Theory
Music Theory for Guitarists
by Chad Johnson
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask
Guitar Music Theory teaches fundamental music theory concepts in a fun, engaging way by using popular riffs and songs, including “Helter Skelter,” “My Girl,” “No Woman No Cry,” and “Smoke on the Water.” Written in easy-to-follow guitar tablature with online audio access to demos of every example. Topics include: intervals, the musical alphabet, the major scale, circle of 5ths, triads, dominant chords, and much more!
by Tom Kolb • Hal Leonard
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Comprehensive Chord Theory for Guitar by Douglas Baldwin
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Chords are the foundation of almost all of Western music, and sooner or later, curiosity or necessity leads us to try to understand chords a little better. This book will help you figure it all out! You’ll explore: the first steps in chord theory and practice; moveable chord shapes: barre chords and triads; the ‘5’ chord; color notes; extended chords: 9th, 11th, 13th and altered chords; and more. The CD includes demos of the chords discussed in the book.
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LESSONS
Decorate Like Django BY EMIL WERSTLER
T
he arpeggio can be a powerful ally on the journey to fretboard mastery. As a melodic device, it’s the most no-nonsense, straightforward way to convey the chords you’re playing over. Fast or slow, arpeggios spell out the chords to the listener, just as much as they do for the player. Using the arpeggio as an improvisational tool lets you get outside of a modal sound and control the harmony in flexible ways. It’s common to enclose the arpeggio with passing tones inside and outside of the key. The master of this approach is, without doubt, the great Gypsy-jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. What made Django’s style and sound unmistakable was his approach to harmony. This was partially due to the condition of his fretting hand, which only allowed him full use of two fingers. He would modify arpeggios to accommodate his fingering and picking, while simultaneously presenting a unique sound. Not only can this approach give you the ability to create compelling lines as you maintain the musical plot, it can also give your picking hand more options. In this lesson, we’ll explore a few Django-inspired ideas based on common arpeggios. We’ll also discover when and where you can use them in a common musical scenario: the 12-bar blues. The goal of these examples is to not only share a few cool licks, but also give you a new, fresh way to approach a common progression and breathe new life into its familiar changes. Ex. 1 is a simple 12-bar blues in A. The version we’ll be working with in this lesson has the IV7 chord (D7) in the second measure; this is commonly known as a “quick IV” or “quick change” blues. Assignment: Play this progression for 10 minutes straight without losing the form. Click here for Ex. 1 Remember: An arpeggio literally spells out the chord. In Ex. 2, we have a fingering for A7 (A–C#–E–G). Always
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Chops: Intermediate Theory: Intermediate Lesson Overview: • Understand how to artfully navigate the changes of a 12-bar blues. • Combine chromatic or “outside” notes with standard 7th-chord arpeggios. • Learn how Django Reinhardt turned a perceived weakness into an advantage.
keep track of the 3, because it’s the strongest resolution point. The root note is our vantage point and at times playing it can be vital to staying in key.
the pull-off on top. Keep in mind that stacking all three of these arpeggios in the same region of the neck will allow you to see harmony changing in real time.
Click here for Ex. 2
Click here for Ex. 4
Here we have a D7 (D–F#–A–C) arpeggio in the same position as the A7 (Ex. 3). Anytime I play an arpeggio, I make sure I can see the chord. It’s important to visualize the chord on the fretboard while you play these arpeggios.
The sound of Ex. 5 can be found in a lot of different styles of music. We begin spelling out the A7 chord by starting with a quick slide into the root. The decoration unfolds as we add elements of the Mixolydian mode (F#) along with the %5 (E%) from the blues scale.
Click here for Ex. 3
Click here for Ex. 5 This particular E7 (E–G#–B–D) arpeggio in Ex. 4 is tough on the fretting hand. The first thing you’ll notice when you work out full-chord arpeggios is the number of notes per string. Here, we move in groups of three adjacent strings before adding
Ex. 6 offers further melodic exploration. For D7, we’ll borrow from an F# diminished triad (F#–A–C). It’s common to use an F#dim chord in conjunction with D7 because of the shared chord tones.
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We open with approach tones leading into the 3 on the downbeat, followed by a tritone leap to start our descent through the diminished arpeggio. The added 4 (G) allows us to resolve nicely to the 3 (F#). Click here for Ex. 6 When it comes to the V7 chord—in this case, E7—skilled players often add more tension to build towards a stronger resolution. In Ex. 7, we start out with chromatic approach tones leading up to the 5 before descending through the lick with some enclosures. Whenever I see a single note on a string, it becomes a prime candidate for some decoration. Notice how I surround the D# in beat 2 and the G# on beat 4. Click here for Ex. 7 Learning a lick or concept is the easy part. Knowing where, when, and how you can use that lick or concept is what separates
good players from great players. Ex. 8 illustrates one way to apply the concepts we’ve been discussing to our quick-change chord progression. With a little effort and some imagination, you can adapt these ideas to other progressions and changes, and thus become better at writing and improvising on the fly. Click here for Ex. 8 Once you grasp these basic ideas, you can decorate the spaces between arpeggio tones to create a long line through the chord changes. To demonstrate this, let’s look at the most vital moment in the 12-bar blues: the turnaround. The turnaround is a potent section in any progression. Whether you want to convey the chords as they move by or just get as tense as possible before a resolution, the turnaround is where you can really flex your musical muscles. Ex. 9 demonstrates “filling in the blanks,” but also shows just how interchangeable these ideas are
in different positions. Here, I’m using chromaticism to fill in the spaces between each idea and create a continuous line. Click here for Ex. 9 Before you gain a firm grasp of harmony, or even a certain progression, it can feel as if you’re shooting in the dark when soloing through chord changes. These ideas are intended to generate a more chromatic sound while illustrating the advantage of interchangeability that most basic arpeggios provide. Remember, learning a lick is only half the battle. Knowing when and where you can use it will dramatically improve your musicianship. EMIL WERSTLER is the lead guitarist for metal bands Chimaira, Dååth and Levi/Werstler. He blends the elegant and clever sound of gypsy jazz with extreme heavy metal. Werstler is active as a clinician and endorsee for Paul Reed Smith Guitars and Xotic Effects, and he teaches lessons in the Atlanta area. For more information, visit emilwerstler.com.
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PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 97
LESSONS
The Live Side of Jimmy Page BY ARTHUR ROTFELD
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s one of the quintessential live bands of the ’70s, Led Zeppelin always gave their classic songs a unique spin onstage. Jimmy Page’s ability to expand, develop, and reinvent his already iconic guitar solos was always a highlight of any Zep show. In this lesson, we’ll investigate trademark elements of Page’s live approach and draw inspiration from such live Zep recordings as The Song Remains the Same and How the West Was Won. The studio version of “Whole Lotta Love” was baked in riffed-out glory along with Theremin and vocal effects, but when performing it onstage, Page took the opportunity to stretch the five-minute song into something much longer. Here, we’re not actually dealing with “Whole Lotta Love” at all—the band used the middle section to explore classic rockabilly and blues themes. This simple lick (Ex. 1) is in the spirit of the improvised call-and-response phrases Page and Plant would exchange in a slow, free tempo. Use an overdriven British amp setting, but dial back on your guitar’s volume knob to clean up the tone a bit.
Chops: Intermediate Theory: Intermediate Lesson Overview: • Learn how to play “over” the time while focusing on feel. • Create phrases that cycle six notes over a 4/4 groove. • Understand how Page used dynamics and improvisation in Zep’s live shows.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN
Click here for Ex. 1
Clocking in at just over 23 minutes, this version was recorded at the L.A. Forum on June 25, 1972. The whole middle section is a medley of sorts with the band touching on “Boogie Chillun,” “Let’s Have a Party,” and a few more.
A call-out to either Eric Clapton or Freddie King, Ex. 2 is a Page-like take on a ferocious blues break that features an E9 chord and sliding double-stop sixths. Pay attention to the alternate picking markings—they’ll help you shift smoothly between notes on the low and high strings.
part of the lick is a quickly picked phrase that shows Page’s ability to work a pattern through the chord changes. Pick every note and don’t worry if you miss a few. The idea is to create a sense of reckless abandon that only comes from working at the very precipice of your technique.
Click here for Ex. 2
Click here for Ex. 3
Rockabilly played an important role in Page’s development as a guitarist and is the inspiration for the licks in this chorus of blues in E (Ex. 3). The opening is a multi-octave presentation of a simple E6 (E–G#–B–C#) figure that jumps around the neck. The second
Whether in “Heartbreaker” or “Dazed and Confused,” Page was never shy about including unaccompanied solos in Zep’s live set. Ex. 4 shows how you can create a dramatic solo using some typical Page gestures—chiefly repetitive ideas to build tension. The blistering picking in the
32nd-note section is to be played as fast as you can muster, and then just a bit more! Accuracy is not the name of the game, so missing a few notes or hitting a clam is just part of the charm and adds to the overall frenzy. Those raucous raked patterns toward the end are classic Page-isms, as is the giant bend in the penultimate measure. Click here for Ex. 4
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Other than playing a custom double-neck to sold-out crowds in Madison Square Garden, what could be more fun than jamming out to a simple progression in A minor? Probably not much, so Page would take his sweet time and stretch out the
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“Stairway to Heaven” solo, which more than doubled in length live. Repetition is the name of the game in this 16th-note lick (Ex. 5). The idea itself is six notes long, so it shifts and rotates as it tugs against the 4/4 meter, achieving an almost hypnotic effect. Click here for Ex. 5 Ex. 6 is based on a climbing idea that appears in many of Page’s solos and is adapted here to fit the chord changes. The lick finishes with another feature found in live “Stairway to Heaven” solos: the pedalsteel bend. At the end of measure 2, barre the 1st and 2nd strings with your fourth finger and hold it steady while executing the 3rd string bend against the doublestop. Let all three strings ring out together. Click here for Ex. 6
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“No Quarter” is a D Dorian (D–E–F– G–A–B–C) exploration, not far removed from the modal stylings of late ’50s jazz. In fact, many of Page’s licks would suit a good tenor saxophonist playing on “So What” or “Impressions.” While the studio solo is great, the live ones from the mid ’70s truly shine. This sliding lick (Ex. 7) comprises a three-note motif in a descending sequence. The pitch material is mostly D pentatonic minor (D–F–G–A–C), but there are a few hints of the full Dorian mode, thanks to the E in measure 1 and B in measure 2.
Click here for Ex. 8 A spirited lick that uses all seven notes of the Dorian mode, Ex. 9 features some classic Page bend-plus-pull-off figures. The trick is to smoothly bend and release and then immediately pull off to the lower note. Remember, Page likes to play way behind the beat at points, so focus on the notes and feeling rather than the rhythm. Click here for Ex. 9
Click here for Ex. 7 ARTHUR ROTFELD is a multi-
Minor blues phrases work great over a Dorian vamp, as evidenced by Ex. 8. Page is an expert at huge bends, so to really capture his vibe, you’ll want to develop that skill, as illustrated in this example.
genre guitarist, who maintains an active teaching, writing, and performing schedule. You can find out more and contact him at rotfeld.com.
PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 99
LESSONS
Beyond Blues: How to Play “Bird” Blues BY LEVI CLAY
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big part of the bebop spirit was learning how to navigate through seemingly unrelated chords at speedy tempos. Saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker was a pioneer in the bebop movement and he combined his love of the burgeoning style with a deep appreciation for the blues. It’s easy to look at bebop in 2017 and think of it as a complicated and overly intellectual genre, but adding in a blues sensibility can make the changes a bit more approachable. When looking at a traditional I– IV–V blues, there’s not all that much harmonic information to outline, so bop players like Parker would add chord substitutions. His composition “Blues for Alice” is an example of what’s become known as “Bird Blues.” The changes Parker used on this tune of become so accepted that other composers have written contrafacts—a different melody written on the same changes. To fully digest these changes, it makes sense to examine the progression in small chunks and see how it relates to the traditional blues form. First, let’s look at the “Bird” changes to the right. (Remember, in jazz circles a triangle means a major 7 chord and a dash means minor 7 chord.) When looking at a traditional 12-bar blues in F, the first four measures are usually an F7 (I) moving to a B%7 (IV) in measure 5. In this version, Parker works backwards from the IV chord with a series of IIm-V7 moves that descend in whole-steps. Measures 4 and 3 are “major” IIm–V7s, but the second measure uses a “minor” version with a half-diminished chord for the IIm. Finally, Parker changed the chord in the first measure from a dominant 7 to a major 7 to place us squarely in the key of F. (It also helps with voice-leading across the first four measures.) Ex. 1 demonstrates one way to navigate the first four measures. Let’s break that down a bit. I stick entirely
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Chops: Intermediate Theory: Intermediate Lesson Overview: • Use IIm–V7 progressions to add interest to a blues progression. • Combine the blues scale with Mixolydian and Dorian to create swinging phrases. • Increase your rhythmic awareness by using triplets and syncopation.
(Medium Up Swing)
Blues For Alice
within the F major scale (F–G–A–B%–C– D–E) for the first measure. Easy enough. In the second measure, for the sake of simplicity, I am just implying A7 through both chords. The first two beats outline A7 (A–C#–E–G) and the remaining notes are plucked from the A Super Locrian scale (A–B%–C–D%–E%–F–G). Click here for Ex. 1
Charlie Parker
This next example (Ex. 3) takes cues from great piano players so it requires some quick position shifting. The first shift happens in the first measure, where we move from 5th position up to 8th on the “and” of beat 2. In the second measure, we imply an A7%9 sound using a B%dim7 (B%–C–E–G) arpeggio that touches on the #9 (C) and %9 (B%). Click here for Ex. 3
I’m using a similar concept in Ex. 2, working with the F major scale in the first measure and thinking A7 in the second. I’m using the D melodic minor scale (D–E–F–G–A–B–C#) over the third measure while targeting the 3 of Cm7 (E%) on the downbeat of the fourth measure. To create an altered sound over the F7%9, I use a Gbdim7 arpeggio (G%–A–C–E%) to nail the %9 (G%). Click here for Ex. 2
In the second and third measures of this example, we’re basically using the same concept. Because D Dorian (D–E–F–G–A–B–C) and G Mixolydian (G–A–B–C–D–E–F) contain the same notes, we’re simply adding some chromatic passing tones that help the chord tones line up on strong beats. Move the whole concept down a wholestep (to C Dorian/F Mixolydian) for the next measure.
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CLICK HERE TO LISTEN
using some outside notes that resolve to the root of the Am7 chord. At this point you should be seeing that a big part of the bebop genre is based on rhythm. The mixture of triplets and heavy syncopation is an essential part of the sound. Click here for Ex. 6
minor pentatonic (A–C–D–E–G) before coasting through an A%m7 arpeggio (A%–C%–E%–G%) for the last measure.
The final section of a blues in F usually goes: C7–B%7–F7–C7, but that’s too basic for beboppers. In Bird blues, we use a two-measure IIm-V7 progression before increasing the harmonic rhythm with F7–D7–Gm7–C7. In Roman numerals, this translates to I7–VI7–IIm7–V7. I find the best way to play over this section is to remember you’re playing a blues, so some blues scale ideas might not be a bad idea, as shown in Ex. 7. We’ve even included some slight bends!
Click here for Ex. 4
Click here for Ex. 7
The next lick (Ex. 5) demonstrates how you can use simple melodies to navigate this chord progression. The first measure is a simple lick based on the B%7 chord, then we create a melody just using the F major scale—it’s all about landing on the Gm7 chord at the right time.
This final example (Ex. 8) feels like another melody rather than something clever. Remember, we’re playing music, and often the best music is the type that your audience can sing along to. So don’t be afraid to hold off and play something melodic.
Click here for Ex. 5
Click here for Ex. 8
Our final example over this section (Ex. 6) is just as loose with the chords, but makes sure to hit them as they land. The first measure uses the B% major pentatonic scale (B%–C–D–F–G) before
Lastly, below is a short backing track to help you practice these ideas, and then come up with some of your own. Keep listening and copying and before long you’ll be soaring like Bird!
Saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker was the figurehead of the bebop era. Listen to his relaxed, swinging take on “Blues for Alice,” which is one of his most popular compositions.
The next section of a blues in F might look something like: B%7–B%7–F7–F7. Or, if you think of a traditional jazz-blues progression, it might be B%7–Bdim7– F7–D7. Looking ahead, Parker wanted to target the Gm7 in measure 9. What’s the best way to lead into that chord? Simply add a IIm–V before it. Parker used backcycling to create a series of descending IIm-V7 progressions that connect the B%7 in measure 5 to the Gm7 in measure 9. Rather ingenious, huh? While these chords are easy enough to play with basic chord forms, it’s much trickier to solo through them in an authentic way. Ex. 4 uses the Bb Mixolydian scale (B%–C–D–E%–F–G–A%) over the B%7 before moving to E% Mixolydian (E%–F–G–A%–B%–C–D%) for Bm7–E%7. In the third measure, we move to A
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PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 101
ON BASS
Siren Songs, Part 2 BY VICTOR BRODÉN Session greats David Hungate (left) and Joe Chemay carried much of the bass load for projecting Mutt Lange’s vision into the low end on many of Shania Twain’s top hits.
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n last month’s column [“Siren Songs,” August 2017], I shared the story about my affinity for modern popcountry and how it played a big part in my moving to Nashville 17 years ago. The female pop-country acts from the late ’90s and early 2000s were making albums with music, songwriting, and bass playing that really spoke to me on many different levels—especially the Mutt Lange-produced Shania Twain albums. Whether he programmed synth bass (as was increasingly common on her later albums) or hired bassists, Lange’s rigid, simple, and disciplined personal touch is very much heard in the low end on Shania’s material. David Hungate played the bass tracks on her first monumentally successful album The Woman in Me, and it was Joe Chemay who handled the bass duties for the following two multi-platinum albums, Up! and Come on Over. To continue our tour of excellence in popcountry bass playing, let’s take a look at a few more Shania songs that were played by these two session greats. “Whatever You Do! Don’t!” This bass line schools me every time I sit down to play it. The song is a deep album cut towards the end of Come on Over. I always play this line with a pick because it helps me with the evenness and rigidity it needs. The first verse is quite different for a Lange production since it’s pretty much just bass, drums, and vocals. The bass pattern is chromatically descending with perfect note length on the quarternotes, but there are also pickup notes surrounding the chromatic progression that help spice up the line and push it into the realm of funkiness. The second verse features the same chord progression, but with slightly different pickup notes. The choruses switch to a very legato approach, which completely opens up the song. The bass accentuates the shuffle feel by swinging the eighth notes throughout the chorus while also walking, using a great mix of chord tones and approach notes. The chorus seems like it is
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quarter-note based at first, but you can really feel how the bass shuffles while it walks the more you listen. “Love Gets Me Every Time” Last month, I touched on Mutt’s obsession with cutting the half-notes right where the snare drum hits, which effectively makes them quarter-notes. (The stiffest and most efficient of his grooves are all based on this approach.) Learning this song on Come on Over will take a minimal amount of time, though you might wonder at first listen why I use it as an example since it’s not necessarily eventful. But once you learn the simple chord progression and focus all your energy on simply cutting off every note exactly on the snare hits and exactly where it is on the recording, your feeling of being inside the seemingly simple groove will be hypnotic. You’ll also have a renewed sense of note-cutoff importance, which makes every bassist better. “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” This song on The Woman in Me is a master class in country music bass playing. Every single note of the bass part is completely locked in with the left hand of the piano for a classic, country shuffle feel that—unless you are a straight-up country bassist for your main gig—is not very easy to nail at all. The first thing to notice is how each note is cut off just slightly before the next note, instead of a completely seamless legato feel that is common in this type of groove. I would almost describe it as a sixteenth-note rest that makes the whole shuffle bounce a little harder, without sacrificing the fluidity the song needs. When it comes to note choice, there are some great discoveries to be made here.
The bass part is based on a root, 3, and 5 pattern on most of the chords, but the exceptions are notable and interesting. In the third chord of the chorus—a C minor—the part switches to playing root, root, low 5, and low %7. It’s a common pattern in many songs, but it really twists the ear in the middle of all those triads being played. History is full of great country shuffles, but this one has a touch of modern hipness to it while still tipping the hat to the tradition and rules of the style. “(If You’re Not in It for Love) I’m Outta Here!” The verse of this song on The Woman in Me utilizes a standard modern-country groove that is perfect in a variety of places. It’s a two-measure, fairly basic kick-drum pattern that has the bass playing with the kick on beats 1 and 3 in the first measure, and beats 1, the and of 2, and beat 3 in the second measure. Needless to say, the notes are all cut on the snare (you probably got that memo by now), but the song has a less rigid feel and even borders on swampy. I hope a few of you who would never think to practice to Shania Twain’s music take the challenge. There’s a good reason why the guy who produced these songs is one of the most successful producers in history. VICTOR BRODÉN is a Nashville
bassist and producer, and the host of The Lowdown Society Podcast. Victor has toured and recorded with more than 30 major-label artists, including LeAnn Rimes, Richard Marx, Casting Crowns, and Randy Houser. His credits also include Grammy-winning albums and numerous television specials and network talk-show performances. You can reach him at vbroden@yahoo.com
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BASS BENCH
Tone, Tops, and Trends Acer japonica, a colorful form of maple, and its future shape.
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n a recent Esoterica Electrica column, Jol Danzig wrote about the trend among builders and customers to gravitate toward highly figured tops for solidbody electrics [“The Knotty World of Figured Wood,” May 2017]. He pointed out that boutique builders in particular rely on the “wow” factor of dramatically figured tops to bring attention to their instruments, and how this type of wood, once reserved for the pricey furniture of the upper class, has become coveted by rock ’n’ rollers. With their focus on boutique creations, instrument expos like Berlin’s Holy Grail Guitar Show makes one question if these guitars are designed to create music or simply provide artisan self-fulfillment. Today, bassists are embracing modern class-D amps, active electronics, ultra-light cabinets with
Even though it’s hard to quantify what elements play a key role in great tone, there are ways to appraise whether a specific change is doing good or harm to the final signal. neodymium speakers, and programmable preamps and pedalboards, yet many of us still throw down vast sums of money to acquire instruments that look like greatgranddad’s veneered gramophone. Tastes differ and to each his own, but other than the “wow” factor, does this cash outlay have an impact on tone? Is there a sonic payoff to figured wood? Many elements contribute to the unique tone of a given instrument, but it’s difficult—or perhaps impossible— to figure out which of them play a dominant role in this elaborate sonic equation. In a solidbody instrument, not everyone is convinced that the body
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material has any tonal influence at all, relegating everything to the pickups and electronics. Another group believes tonal magic lies in the body’s wood, while a few others can even hear the amount of moonlight present when the tree was felled! This discussion is not going to end anytime soon. Even though it’s hard to quantify what elements play a key role in great tone, there are ways to appraise whether a specific change is doing good or harm to the final signal. For instance, some luthiers declare variations of “the string sends its vibrations into the body where sound waves resonate and finally return to the string.” Whether you think this picture is realistic or rather Dadaistic, we can predict how sound waves would be affected traveling in and through an isotropic medium versus a heavily nonuniform AAAA+ top. There are basically two effects at work: acoustic dispersion and sound impedance. The short explanation is that dispersion is about the separation of sound waves into their component frequencies as they pass through a material. Impedance describes the ratio of reflected and transmitted waves when they hit the interface of two different materials. This resembles sunlight passing through a prism: The light’s angle of incidence determines how much gets reflected at the interface, and the prism’s density determines how far the different frequencies are spread while passing through it. This light comparison doesn’t perfectly correspond to sound, but it offers an idea of what happens at the point of each big change in a top’s density. In other words, the more figured
and non-uniform the material, the greater the impedance and the less likely you’ll get anything back from that wave at all. Again, it’s not clear that you can actually hear these effects, but why spend so much money on figured tops when the tonal outcome is at least questionable? And if you’re one of those who’s as easily influenced by looks as the contestants in last month’s blind and non-blind listening tests of tropical and non-tropical woods [“The Local Tonewood Challenge,” August 2017], consider reserving that highly figured wood for the headstock or maybe even leaving it completely in the hands of furniture makers. HEIKO HOEPFINGER is a German physicist and long-time bassist, classical guitarist, and motorcycle enthusiast. His work on fuel cells for the European orbital glider Hermes led him to form BassLab (basslab.de)—a manufacturer of monocoque guitars and basses.
Photo courtesy of Atelje SD Konstintin Tonewood
BY HEIKO HOEPFINGER
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Guitar Pickups 101 Confused by terms like alnico, Formvar, and pole pieces? Dive into our primer to discover the history and technology behind the electric guitar’s most essential component. BY DAN FORMOSA
Y
ou learned everything you need to know about guitar pickups in your 5th grade science class. Or at least 90 percent of what you need to know. Reflecting knowledge dating back a hundred years, a pickup’s electromagnetic principles are rudimentary and covered in every grade-school science book. However, the other 10 percent—how to implement those principles and apply them to an electric guitar to make you sound like the musical god or goddess you are—is what legends are made of. Let’s review the first 90 percent; we’ll stick close to the basics and explain how electromagnetic pickups work, in case you were absent from class that day. To start, pickups are based on two separate but related principles: If you place a coil of wire near a magnet and induce a change in the magnetic field, electricity will be generated in the coil’s windings. Also, if you place a piece of non-magnetized ferrous metal near a magnet—a screw, nail, a paper clip, whatever—it too will become magnetic. There’s a chronological sequence of where your guitar sound starts and finishes. The energy from your fingers and pick is transmitted to your guitar strings, which disturb the pickup’s magnetic field, thus affecting a coil of copper wire within the pickup and generating an AC signal that trails out from the two ends of the coil to connect to any tone and volume controls your guitar may have. From there the signal heads to your guitar’s output jack and instrument cable, through any pedals, and finally to your amp and speaker. Every one of those stages will have a significant effect on the resulting tone. There is enough to discuss about this topic to fill a book—and in fact it has, many times. To begin to understand pickups, let’s look at those first few stages.
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It All Starts with Strings The first step in getting a pickup to generate any signal at all is to disturb the pickup’s magnetic field. Though electric guitar strings come in many varieties, they all share a common trait—the ability to affect a magnetic field as the string vibrates. Naturally, this means the strings need to be vibrating somewhere within that field. Depending on a pickup’s design, its magnetic field may span a small or wide area, and that’s good to keep in mind. Because strings are responsible for a significant portion of an electric guitar’s sound, it makes little sense to compare the performance of different pickups until you’ve done your homework with strings. You’ll want to be familiar with the basics, which includes exploring the differences between lighter and heavier gauges, nickel-coated steel or pure nickel windings, roundwound or flatwound construction, and round or hex cores. Consider buying a handful of different types of strings made by different manufacturers and spending quality time with each set. There’s a reason manufacturers offer so many string choices, and a little experimentation can yield big dividends. Tom Klukosky, whose “factory manager” title downplays his multi-functional role at DR Strings, points to three stringrelated variables that affect your sound: the string material, the winding technique used for the wound strings, and the string’s ability to vibrate. He points out that strings are the “singers,” the originators of your tone. If you don’t like the singer’s voice, changing the microphone isn’t going to help. Strings disrupt the magnetic field by vibrating within it, and a string’s material affects the strength of this disruption. And with wound strings, this becomes a key consideration. Unlike
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“Why bother staggering the pole heights? It’s simple: Different string types and gauges will perform differently.” nickel-plated steel, pure nickel doesn’t affect the magnetic field. Neither does stainless steel—the core is doing the work. In choosing strings, don’t simply go by what you might hear others say. For instance, strings wound with pure nickel have a reputation for “warming up” your sound. However, Klukosky prefers them because the plain (unwound) strings sound brighter in comparison to those wound with pure nickel, and this shifts the overall tonal balance toward the treble strings. Location, Location, Location String vibration is greater in the area of the neck pickup and less towards the bridge. The difference in vibration along its length means that different pickup positions result in readily noticeable variations in tone. If you ever get a chance to tinker with an archtop equipped with a floating pickup that can be readily repositioned between the bridge and the neck—such as the classic DeArmond Rhythm Chief—you’ll see how sensitive the positioning can be. If your guitar has multiple pickups, their positions (neck, middle, or bridge) will be taken into account by their maker. While two or more pickups might seem ideal in terms of tonal variety, these extra colors come at a cost. One advantage of a bridge-pickup-only guitar is the absence of magnetic pull on the strings that a neck pickup would exert. This pull can impede string vibration. It’s one reason why the single-pickup Fender Esquire, for example, has its fans. Mod Garage author Dirk Wacker put it nicely in PG’s April 2012 issue: “The Esquire is not a Telecaster with a missing neck pickup, but rather a distinct model with its own sound.” You can also do very well with just a neck pickup. Equipped with only a neck pickup, my 1955 Gretsch Streamliner archtop gets a lot of use. The absence of a bridge pickup, which would otherwise add mass near the bridge, allows the top to react more freely around this critical area, and this gives the guitar a nice woody tone. In evaluating pickups and related technology, just remember that a pickup
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is a sensor, and that the sound starts a few millimeters above it. Reinforcing that view, in the 1960s Gretsch referred to their pickups as “Electronic Guitar Heads,” borrowing the term “head” from tape recorders, which also rely on magnetic technology (Fig. 1).
1
Pickup Pole Pieces A typical pickup may contain six individual magnet poles (often referred to as pole pieces). Or it may contain six steel poles that have become magnetized as a result of their proximity to a magnet lying within the pickup. Dissect some pickups and you will encounter variations on these basic themes, such as a steel blade that runs across the pickup beneath the strings. Using magnets for poles and wrapping a coil around them is the most straightforward method of making a pickup, but this concept has a few limitations. If a magnet could be easily machined, pickup manufacturers would just turn them into screws to allow easy height adjustment. But they can’t. Or, more accurately, it has been tried, but abandoned. Therefore on a typical Stratocaster or Telecaster pickup, the individual magnet poles are not adjustable. The pickup may come from the factory with all poles set at an even height, or the heights may be staggered to anticipate the preferred string balance,
as shown in Fig. 2. But the only way to adjust a pole on a traditional Fender pickup is to raise all of them at once by raising the pickup itself. Harry DeArmond solved this problem with the DeArmond 2000 (aka Dynasonic), a pickup that employed a rather complex mechanism. Six small slotted screws, visible from the top, connect to adjoining magnetic poles, secured from within by teardrop-shaped brass rings (Fig. 3). Each pole has a spring that allows it to move up and down, so you can turn the screw to adjusts the pole height. Gibson’s “staple” pickup, developed circa 1954, follows a similar model.
3
Why bother staggering the pole heights? It’s simple: Different string types and gauges will perform differently. Your 2nd string will have approximately 50 percent more metal reacting with the pickup than your 1st string. An unwound 3rd string will have approximately three times as much. And although the amount of steel will be a contributing factor, it’s not the whole story. A .016 plain 3rd string isn’t going to vibrate the same way a .009 1st string vibrates. To ensure good string-to-string balance, it’s helpful to have height-adjustable poles. DeArmond’s adjustable mechanism is beautifully intricate, but there’s an alternative solution: use steel screws.
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Designing a pickup so that portions of the steel screws are near a magnet allows the screws to act as magnets that can easily be individually adjusted. Problem solved. Fig. 4 shows a single-coil P-90 pickup with two bar magnets and adjustable steel screws for poles. This design was patented by Charles F. Shultz in 1959. In the early days of electric guitar, adjustable poles were more of a necessity than they are now. As pickup maker Curtis Novak points out, strings made today are much better balanced than strings were in the past, so worry not—you and your pickups with nonadjustable-poles should get along just fine. When tinkering with adjustable poles, don’t simply set them to be as high as possible. Raising a pole means you are placing its magnetic field up closer to a string. Any perceived improvement obtained by bringing a pole closer to a string may be offset by a decrease in sustain as the magnetic pull dampens the string’s vibration. It’s well worth spending time to experiment with different pickup and pole heights. Many guitar manufacturers and pickup makers offer charts showing optimal spacing between pickup pole pieces and their corresponding strings. This information is based on a lot of testing and research, so it’s a good idea to at least start with the recommended settings. The Coil A coil, which typically surrounds the poles or the magnet, usually comprises 5,000 to 9,000 turns of super-fine copper
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wire. Fig. 5 shows the coil on a modern Strat-style pickup made by Seymour Duncan. Current manufacturing techniques automate the winding process, ensuring that the wraps are laid down evenly, and that the pickups coming out of the factory will sound identical. Pickups made in past decades were wound by hand, which meant less consistency in the number of windings and the evenness by which they were coiled. (Pickups made by hand today are similarly more variable, at least in some respects.) Does this inconsistency contribute to a more classic sound? It’s likely, since it’s more true to the winding techniques of the past. Is that sound any better or worse? It’s a lot like drinking wine: The best wine is the wine you like the best.
5 Like windings in a speaker or an electric motor, the coil wire is covered with a clear coat of insulation—otherwise it would just short out. That coating can be enamel, Polysol, or Formvar. The coatings themselves have no direct effect on a pickup’s sound, but the coating’s thickness can. Fender used Formvar back in the day, although its formulation has changed over the years, and some folks love to debate whether these changes produce sonic differences. When you see a measure of a pickup’s resistance, it’s a measure of the coil. It’s a factor that may receive a bit too much importance—there’s a lot more to consider. To be accurate, we should technically be discussing impedance, which refers to the ability of an AC signal (your guitar sound) to get through, as opposed to resistance, which is the measurement for DC. The important difference is that the coil’s impedance will vary with the signal’s frequency. Because resistance is much easier to measure using a simple multimeter, that’s what you commonly see in pickup specs.
In pickups, copper wire gauges— running thinner to thicker—are typically 44, 43, or 42. Thinner wire means increased resistance. To use a water pipe analogy, a thinner pipe requires more water pressure. With the same number of windings, thinner wire will result in a smaller coil. The smaller diameter of 44-gauge wire translates to 36 percent less copper per inch than 42 gauge. Tonewise, thinner wire is generally more midcentric, and high and low frequencies are not as prominent. Increasing the number of windings results in a hotter (i.e., louder) pickup. Therefore guitarists often request overwound pickups, which have a higher resistance measurement. But it’s a misconception that hotter pickups, or pickups with higher resistance, are necessarily more desirable than those with a lower resistance. Curtis Novak is among those pickup makers who play down the importance of resistance as a meaningful measure of performance. “Younger musicians will typically look for the hottest, loudest pickup,” he says. “As players get older, they get more into the nuances. You’d think older guitarists’ hearing would be degraded by many years of playing, but it’s the opposite—they’re more concerned with fidelity and intonation.” But be prepared, increased fidelity will also result in a pickup that’s less forgiving—you have to play more carefully. String-to-string separation will be clearer, but mistakes will also be more readily revealed. After trying what Novak considers to be his best-sounding pickup model, guitarists often tell him, “I feel like I have to work harder on my technique.” The bottom line: If you’re thinking about swapping pickups in your guitar, it’s more useful to discuss the sound you’re looking for with a pickup maker, as opposed to requesting a certain resistance or other technical specification. The Bobbin On some pickup designs, the coil is created by wrapping the wire around a bobbin—a separate oblong part that is then positioned to place the magnetic poles in the coil’s center. Pickups with
Fig. 5: Courtesy of Seymour Duncan
4
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6
adjustable steel screw poles typically use this configuration. Other pickups forgo the bobbin—the wire on Stratocaster and Telecaster pickups is coiled directly onto the magnetic poles. Without a bobbin, the pickup can be smaller. Sound is also influenced because lack of a bobbin brings the coil wire as close as possible to the magnet, strengthening the signal that the coil picks up. There are other non-bobbin designs. For example, a Danelectro “lipstick” pickup wraps the coil directly around a bar magnet, allowing both to fit within a small, cylindrical metal cover while keeping the number of parts to a bare minimum. Magnet Position and the Magnetic Field Looking at the pickup poles, one might easily assume where the magnetic field is located—directly above each pole. But it’s not that simple. Other metal in the pickup, and the location of the magnet itself, influences the size, shape, and
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position of the magnetic field. A pickup’s design that places the magnet within a metal C-channel extends the magnetic field to the edges of the channel. As described in a 1966 patent, one of Leo Fender’s pickup designs goes further by calling for metal “teeth”—formed by notches in the channel—on either side of each of the six poles to further control the area of magnetic force (Fig. 6). Other pickups using adjustable steel poles locate their bar magnets directly
beneath the poles. Simple; it just adds height. As an alternative, Ralph Keller’s 1954 design for Valco pickups places the magnet to the side of the coil and steel poles (Fig. 7). A similar configuration is used in the Hilo’Tron pickup from Gretsch. While the original Hilo’Tron included adjustable poles, it unfortunately didn’t provide for an easy way to raise the pickup body. Which is too bad, because bringing the magnet itself closer to the strings makes a world
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8
9
of difference. Proper adjustment on that pickup requires shimming the entire assembly to raise the pickup in a trialand-error manner—difficult but worth it. Alnico 2, Alnico 5, and Ceramic Magnets Alnico 2 and 5 are the most common forms of the aluminum/nickel/cobalt alloy magnet. Alnico 5 is stronger than alnico 2—as the numbers increase, so does magnetic strength. There are stronger versions, such as alnico 6 and 7, but they aren’t as useful because stronger magnets can create a harsh tone. To that point, ceramic magnets, which are less expensive to produce and easier to shape, were commonly used in inexpensive guitars arriving in the U.S. from overseas. There was an additional price advantage: The stronger pull of ceramic magnets meant manufacturers could use less copper wire in the coil. This was truly a cost-cutting measure with little attention paid to sound quality. As a result, ceramic magnets developed a bad reputation, but this may be somewhat unfair. In fact, ceramic magnets can be effective, if used with care. Seymour Duncan, among others, has developed pickups that employ ceramic magnets wisely, and they appear in several of his models. Curtis Novak has changed his opinion over time. “I used to turn up my nose at ceramic magnets, but I have found some really good uses for them. They can deliver a tone that is not shrill, spiky, and harsh. Using steel poles and a ceramic magnet won’t sound like a Strat, but you can make some really fine pickups by working with the coil and using different grades of ceramic.” That said, the properties of alnico 5 seem to hit a sweet spot. Too much pull in a magnet requires a weaker coil, too little pull requires a coil with additional windings. Novak’s observation: “When guitar manufacturers embraced alnico 2, it’s because they hadn’t come up with alnico 5 yet!” Single-coil and Humbucking Pickups Hum in a pickup results from stray electric signals reaching the coil.
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To counteract this annoying sound, humbucking pickups employ equal-butopposite coil windings that cancel the hum, or at least greatly reduce it to an acceptable level. Their invention is usually associated with Seth Lover’s design for Gibson (Fig. 8) and Ray Butts’ design of the Filter’Tron for Gretsch, which were both developed in the mid 1950s. However, origins of a hum-reducing pickup date to the mid 1930s. The pickup being developed then, patented by Armand Knoblaugh and assigned to the Baldwin Company, was intended to amplify pianos. Going even further back, in 1912 Western Electric created hum-cancelling technology for use in telephone amplification. (See Wallace Marx Jr.’s article, “The Pickup Story, Part III: The Road to the Humbucker” in the December 2009 issue of Premier Guitar.) The 1950s hum-cancelling designs placed equal-but-opposite coils side-by-side, essentially combining two mirror-image single-coil pickups. For a long time, you could easily identify hum-cancelling pickups by their larger size. But noise-cancelling, single-coil-size pickups were eventually developed to fit into Fender-style pickup cavities. Their coils were either stacked one on top of the other or positioned in line (with one coil wrapping around the poles for the three high strings, the other around poles for the three low strings). DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan have each been offering hum-cancelling single-coil replacements since the mid 1980s. Fig. 9 shows DiMarzio’s 1984 stacked-coil patent. Check—One, Two Our final topic concerns pickups that have become microphonic. In addition to the strings interrupting the magnetic field, voltages can be induced simply by
vibrating the coil or the magnet. If loose pickup parts begin vibrating with resonant notes or the vibrations in the body of your guitar, the pickup will act like a microphone, ringing unwantedly. In some cases, even yelling loudly into the pickup will transmit your voice through the amp. The solution is to “pot” the pickup by dipping it in melted wax, securing the parts to prevent them from vibrating. Many pickups have already been potted by the manufacturer. For other pickups that need potting, it’s a quick, simple procedure: Let the pickup soak briefly in a medium-hot wax bath, remove it, let it cool, and then reinstall it. As with so many guitar-related subjects, there’s plenty of debate about how potting can affect a pickup’s tone. Some guitarists prefer the liveliness of pickups that aren’t potted, but if you play really loud, potted pickups reduce the likelihood of screeching feedback. It’s a Wrap This is an introductory article, so there are plenty of topics we didn’t get to cover. For example, the rubbery refrigeratortype magnets and low winding count used in Teisco’s “gold foil” pickups, or the inner workings of DeArmond’s relatively flat archtop-mounted Rhythm Chief, which we mentioned earlier. But all electromagnetic pickups follow the same science-class principles, and once you understand the basics, it’s easy to dissect any pickup and figure out how it works … more or less. I suspect most pickup designers would agree that pickups, like many other topics, follow a general rule: The more you learn about them, you realize the less you actually know. With that thought in mind, class dismissed.
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GUITAR PARTS MANUFACTURERS & DEALERS INDEX Aguilar aguilaramp.com
Fishman fishman.com
Obsidian Wire obsidianwire.co,
Allparts allparts.com
Flying Mojo flying-mojo.com
Oil City Pickups oilcitypickups.co.uk
Amalfitano Pickups amalfitanopickups.com
Geppetto Guitars & Pickups geppettoguitars.com
Porter Pickups porterpickups.com
Angeltone Pickups angeltone.com
Gibson gibson.com
Reilander Pickups reilandercustomguitar.com
Antique Electronic Supply antiqueelectronicsupply.com
Guerrilla Warfare Pickups guerrillawarfarepickups.com
Rio Grande Pickups riograndepickups.com
Arcane Inc. Pickups arcaneinc.com
Guitar Fetish / GFS guitarfetish.com
Rumplestiltskin Pickups rumplestiltskinpickups.com
Bare Knuckle Pickups bareknucklepickups.co.uk
Harmonic Design Pickups harmonicdesign.net
Schecter Pickups schecterguitars.com
Bartolini Pickups bartolini.net
Homewrecker Pickups hwpickups.com
Schuyler Dean Pickups schuylerdeanpickups.com
Bill Lawrence Pickups billlawrence.com
Jim Wagner Pickups jimwagnerpickups.com
Seymour Duncan seymourduncan.com
Bloodline Pickups johnpageclassic.com
Joe Barden joebarden.com
Shadow Electronics shadow-electronics.com
Bourns bourns.com
Kent Armstrong Pickups kentarmstrong.com
Sheptone Pickups sheptone.com
Brown’s Guitar Factory brownsguitarfactory.com
Klein Pickups kleinpickups.com
Stewart MacDonald stewmac.com
BYO Guitar byoguitar.com
Lace Pickups lacemusic.com
Suhr Pickups suhr.com
Cellino’s Pickups cpickups.com
Lindy Fralin Pickups fralinpickups.com
Sunset Pickups sunsetpickup.com
CTS ctscorp.com
Lollar Pickups lollarguitars.com
ThroBak Electronics throbak.com
Curtis Novak curtisnovak.com
LR Baggs lrbaggs.com
TV Jones tvjones.com
Darkmoon Pickups darkmoon.nyc
Lundgren Pickups lundgrenpickups.com
Van Zandt Pickups vanzandtpu.com
DiMarzio dimarzio.com
Lust for Tone lustfortone.com
Voodoo Pickups voodoopickups.com
Dylan Pickups dylanpickups.com
Mad Hatter madhatterguitarproducts.com
Warmoth Guitar Products warmoth.com
Emerson Custom emersoncustom.com
MEC Pickups mec-pickups.de
WCR Guitar Pickups wcrguitar.com
EMG emgpickups.com
Mojotone mojotone.com
WD Music wdmusic.com
Fender fender.com
Nordstrand Pickups nordstrandpickups.com
Wolfetone Pickups wolfetone.com
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MOD GARAGE
The Triple-Threat, Solo Humbucker Wiring BY DIRK WACKER
H
ave you noticed more guitars are being designed with only one pickup? Fender’s La Cabronita Telecaster and Tom Delonge Strat, as well as Gibson’s classic Les Paul Junior and Melody Maker, are among the many models available with only one pickup. Plenty of other companies are following this trend, too. We explored single-pickup guitars in my series on Esquire wirings, but I receive lots of emails asking about other single-pickup wiring schemes, so that’s what we’ll focus on in this column. We’ve talked about wiring up a 4-conductor humbucker before, and also dealt with coil-split versus parallel wiring, so now you can apply this knowledge to hot-rodding a guitar with a single humbucker. This 4-conductor humbucker can be located in either the neck or bridge position—all you’ll need is access to the start and end of each of the two coils. Here’s the special sauce: Instead of adding an extra toggle switch to squeeze out all possible tones, we’ll simply use a standard Telecaster 3-way pickup selector. You can use the switching matrix of this blade-style selector to substitute for a 2PDT on-on-on toggle switch, which is the standard way to get all three possible sounds out of a 4-conductor humbucker. The wiring of the blade-style 3-way switch only needs a little twist and you’re done. We’ll end up with a single humbucker wiring that yields three
Here’s an important consideration: Splitting to the humbucker’s south coil, which is the screw side, is only recommended for a neck humbucker. Splitting to the north coil, which is the slug side, is recommended for a bridge humbucker, because it yields a fuller sound compared to the screw side. As usual, I’ll use the Seymour Duncan humbucker color code to illustrate the wiring. For other humbuckers, a little research will help you translate the Duncan code into that used by the manufacturer of your pickup. You can apply this wiring to virtually any guitar with a single 4-conductor humbucker and a standard 3-way Tele switch. Fig. 1 is for a bridge humbucker that splits to the north coil, which is the slug side. Fig. 2 shows the version for a neck humbucker. Here we’re splitting to the south coil, which is the screw side. That’s it, folks! Next time, we’ll continue with a very flexible mod for all dual-humbucker guitars. Until then ... keep on modding! DIRK WACKER lives in Germany
and has been a guitar addict since age 5. He’s also a hardcore DIY-er for guitars, amps, and stompboxes and runs a website on the subject (singlecoil.com). When not working at his guitar workbench, he plays country, rockabilly, surf, and flamenco. Contact him at info@singlecoil.com.
Fig. 2
Diagrams courtesy of singlecoil.com
Fig. 1
sounds, plus master volume and master tone. How cool is that? Let’s review. A 4-conductor humbucker offers three potential configurations: standard humbucker wiring (both coils together in series), single-coil-sounding humbucker wiring (both coils together in parallel), and coilsplit humbucker wiring (splitting to the south or north coil). Option 1 is the factory standard for all traditional 2-conductor humbuckers. It’s also the way almost every guitar that’s loaded with one or more humbucker pickups is configured. It produces a warm, loud, and fat tone with maximum output, and the hum-cancelling function is engaged. Option 2 gives you a quasi-single-coil tone, but retains the hum-cancelling function. You don’t get a crystal-clear Strat or Tele tone, but to me it’s at least in the ballpark—maybe closer to a P-90 than a standard single-coil. Option 3 splits the humbucker in half, shunting one coil to ground and leaving the other coil engaged like a true single-coil pickup. In this mode, the hum-cancelling function is defeated, so you’re subject to hum and noise, just as with any single-coil. But don’t expect a true Strat or Tele tone from this option. (If that’s your goal, there are humbuckers made from two real single-coil pickups. The downside of this special breed is they don’t sound great as a full humbucker. As always, it’s about compromise.)
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STATE OF THE STOMP
Come with Me if You Want to Live BY BENJAMIN HINZ
W
e’ve all read about it: The death of the electric guitar! What?!! (Pssst. It’s a clickbait headline.) A lot of articles (including a widely shared doomsdaying one in The Washington Post) describe this “death” from the big dogs’ perspective, perceiving a bleak future in the statistical tea leaves of the challenging demographic and financial situations faced by mainstay companies. But this supposed downward trend isn’t a statement of inevitable fact. It’s a warning to move forward or die. Coming into adulthood, parenthood, and business ownership has been a bumpy ride, but one of the many lessons I’ve learned is to let go of the past. Grownups don’t get to decide what’s cool anymore. We can spend millions forcing old-world ideas into magazines and making unskippable ads to place before YouTube videos, but it’s probably a waste. The evolution of culture and music is unstoppable and doesn’t care much about what mom and dad say about it. We don’t all play the harpsichord. Beethoven did. Things change. We can agree that most kids aren’t into Creedence or Clapton. They aren’t into guitar for guitar’s sake. The explosive bravado of the radio-rock, 6-string solo hasn’t aged well. That solo is increasingly masturbatory and irrelevant to young people. Even among my age group (I’m 34—too young to be old; too old to be young), it sounds a little stale. Before you think of me as some holierthan-thou music snob who’s too good for a rippin’ solo, I should clear things up. I still love a lot of classic rock. I love a lot of modern rock. Last week at band practice, I added a guitar solo to a song because I wanted to. But I can see it’s not the future of music. In June, I was lucky to attend Wisconsin’s Eaux Claires Music and Arts Festival. My contemporaries and I were unanimously more impressed with the hip-hop and dance acts. This doesn’t mean the guitar is being cancelled
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altogether. Radiohead is still huge, the Rolling Stones are still touring, and, maybe most important, just two years ago Kendrick Lamar launched into another echelon of popularity with a full band led by bass guitarist Thundercat. A great obstacle for the guitar industry is the price of admission. A beginner setup can be had for a few hundred bucks, but that won’t get you very far. However, for a similar price one can easily get a pro-level sampler or groove box that allows you to write the drums, bass, melody, and who knows what else—and won’t sound like hot garbage plugged directly into a PA. That’s without considering the world’s most powerful electronic instrument, which many families already have: the computer. Personally, I’d rather finish a song in GarageBand than practice my guitar part and wish the rest of the band was around. It makes for a very tempting alternative to the old guitar-based music. It’s far more important to make music than it is to play guitar. I don’t see the guitar ever disappearing, but its prominence might fade and, then, surge in popularity again. I’m reminded of the Great Banjo Invasion of the last decade, when many jam bands laid down their Strats and dove headlong into bluegrass—or at least a stoned imitation. As makers of instruments, our duty is not to our preferred genre, but to the art itself. So perhaps the guitar changes from the dominant sound to a supportive voice? Perhaps the guitar can once again primarily serve the song rather than the song serving the guitarist? Finally, let’s address the elephant in the room. Many companies only advertise to roughly half of their potential market. You can tell some folks are trying to change that, but a lot of the big players aren’t embracing women as a market beyond selling a pink beginners’ guitar. That isn’t the way forward. The future is not sexist advertising campaigns with half-naked ladies. The way forward is recognizing great players like Annie Clark (St. Vincent),
Brittany Howard (Alabama Shakes), and Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman (Warpaint) for their playing and not their looks. Praise is due for the Annie Clark signature Music Man model. It’s not often we see a guitar made to accommodate a woman’s body and hands. Lesson: If you want women to buy your gear, pay attention to them. Fender seems to have the right idea. They aren’t making guitars for women exclusively, but making more short-scale and lightweight instruments that smaller people (kids, women, and men) can use. I searched through a bunch of gear websites. A quick look at one company’s “News-Lifestyle” tab brought me to 36 classic-rock guys and three women. A small boutique builder’s artist page had 30 shaggy boys before I saw a single woman. About one-third of our own endorsed artists have women in their bands. Despite good intentions, we fall short. Representation matters (see Wonder Woman and the new Ghostbusters), so even though there may not be an equal number of women playing in bands yet, if women feel included and considered in the marketing and design, the pool of budding musicians will grow more diverse. I don’t care about clickbait headlines. I do care about pushing music and art forward—and there are a million ways for that to happen. Some don’t include guitars. And that’s okay. BENJAMIN HINZ is the Supreme Commander at Dwarfcraft Devices. In addition to experimenting with audio, he really enjoys Blade Runner and Tom Petty’s Wildflowers.
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POSITIVE FEEDBACK The DigiTech FreqOut Natural Feedback Creator allows you to get sweet, natural feedback at any volume, with or without distortion. The FreqOut automatically identifies the harmonic content of your chords or single notes and then “encourages” user-selectable harmonics to feedback. The FreqOut is perfect for situations where volume must be controlled like in the studio, with in-ear monitors, or lowvolume performance and practice. However, the FreqOut can also be used at gig volume to focus out-of-control feedback. The FreqOut also has adjustable onset, level, dry kill, latching or momentary operation, true bypass. ©2017 HARMAN
SPEAKER GEEKS
Tone Is in the Cone BY JOHN PAICE
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A consequence of the frequency of coil movement, a cone’s resonant flexing is the largest contributor to a speaker’s tonal signature. The better we are at designing and building the speaker, the more of the cone’s pure tonality we preserve and the fewer undesirable colorations we introduce into the output. Basically, we want the cone to vibrate in the most natural way possible. This requires careful consideration of how all the elements required to build the speaker, as well as the methods used to assemble it, will impact cone movement. It takes considerable expertise to find the most sympathetic way to integrate the other constituent parts with the cone. In addition to selecting the most appropriate materials, we might consider the surround, the “springiness” of the suspension, and the size of the voice coil and dust dome. There are many other small elements to consider as well, and taken together they can have a noticeable impact. We make these choices for practical reasons. For example, we’d select a particular voice coil to achieve a desired power-rating target. We know this choice will alter the overall sonic signature because of how it influences the cone’s movement, so the challenge is to ensure that the overall effect is positive. At low frequencies, when the cone is vibrating in the “piston band,” it moves as a single entity. At higher frequencies, the movement gets a lot more complicated. As frequency increases, neighboring parts of the cone begin moving in opposite directions from each other and become decoupled. Known as modes of vibration, these movements are generally predictable because they, too, are resonant frequencies of the membrane. The frequencies at which this occurs are dictated by the weight,
These laser scans show the cone behavior of a guitar speaker and a PA speaker at 300 Hz and 3000 Hz. The contrasting dark and light colors indicate the peaks and troughs in movement of points on the cone surface. Even at a relatively low frequency like 300 Hz, the guitar speaker shows significant break up, whereas the PA speaker acts more like a piston. At 3000 Hz, the woofer is coming to the end of its useable bandwidth and starting to break up, yet the guitar speaker still exhibits a great amount of cone resonance.
thickness, and density of the cone material, the cone shape, and the cone’s “boundary conditions” (how it’s clamped at the inner and outer edges). The cone will break up into radial modes that extend out from the center of the cone, as well as concentric modes that form circular patterns of movement on the cone surface. A speaker’s parts all influence how the modes’ vibrations manifest themselves over the cone surface, and this is where we see the impact of a given design. We’re looking for a smooth transition between cone modes. This is what delivers a tone free of unpleasant and unwanted colorations. It’s the complex interaction of the cone’s vibrational characteristics, summed into one harmonious collection, that yields great tone. Ultimately, the best thing we can do is let that cone sing! JOHN PAICE has worked in
product marketing at Celestion for nearly 14 years. With a degree in acoustics and another in physics, alongside a passion for guitar music, Paice figures it was somehow inevitable he would end up working in the tech end of the music industry.
Image courtesy of Celestion
Y
ou may have heard this before, but it bears repeating: The lion’s share of what we think of as “guitar speaker tone” comes from the cone. Specifically, it’s the complex movement across the cone’s surface that creates the tonal magic. More than anything else, the cone’s physical attributes—its shape, weight, density, and material—give a guitar speaker its unique sound. A speaker used for sound reinforcement, such as a woofer you’d find in a venue’s PA, is made to be stiff and unyielding so it behaves as much like a piston as possible. This piston-like action—theoretically the “ideal” behavior for a loudspeaker— allows it to more faithfully reproduce the input signal, while adding a minimum of unwanted coloration. A guitar speaker behaves very differently. To add complexity and desirable colorations to the output, we encourage resonances within the cone— we want it to “wobble about” rather than simply move back and forth. Imagine you’re throwing rocks into a lake: In a PA speaker, the cone’s movement is like a single rock hitting the water and creating concentric outward ripples. These resemble the predictable motion of a stiff cone moving forward and backward. But with a guitar speaker, the cone behaves more as if you’ve thrown a handful of pebbles into the water, thus creating a collection of interfering ripples. Complex patterns moving across the cone’s surface effectively add character and a broad coloration to the speaker’s sonic output. For the guitar speaker designer, the challenge is to find the best ways to guide and control—and not interfere with—that complex pattern of vibration. To discourage flexibility in a PA cone, we add such materials as polyamide or glass fibers to the paper mix and then make the cone thick. The guitar speaker cone has no such stiffening agents and is made as thin as physically practical to better encourage the desirable vibration across the surface.
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MINI JUBILEE, MAXIMUM TONE. 2525 COMBO, 2525 HEAD, 2536 & 2536A CABINETS
Inspired by the acclaimed JCM25/50 Silver Jubilee Series, the 20 Watt Mini Jubilee 2525 combines classic Silver Jubilee preamp tone, features and styling in a lower power, ‘mini’ design. This contemporary take on the Jubilee Series features an ECC83 & EL34 valve set, High/Low output switching (20 Watt to 5 Watt) and FX Loop. The Mini Jubilee 2536 cabinets are loaded with two Celestion ‘Vintage 30’ speakers. The 2525 and 2536 are designed and made at the Marshall factory in England. For more information, contact your Marshall dealer.
ASK AMP MAN
Modding for Headphones and an Effects Loop BY JEFF BOBER
Q:
QUESTION #1 Dear Amp Man, I’ve been maintaining and modifying my meager amp collection for a few years and studying amp technology/topology. You know … for fun. (Who doesn’t have a folder of Fender schematics near the john?) One aspect of modern amp design that I don’t understand is the headphone out—especially with respect to the load (the output not “seeing” the amp’s speaker). How does it work? Is it something that can be added to an amp? Would I want a wire connecting a Super Reverb and my ears? Cheers, Bill Fugate
QUESTION #2 Dear Premier Guitar, I’ve grown to appreciate your DIY pieces, and they’re well written to the targeted reader. I would like to get your take on the possibility of using the reverb “send and return” loop as an effects loop. It seems easy: An adapter cable changes the RCA plugs to 1/4". The cables go to your effects pedals and return, instead of the reverb can. The cool part is the reverb control would now mix the wet and dry signals. Will this work? Can you use “Y” cables and a switch to include the reverb as well? Are the impedances so far out to lunch that it’ll never work? Is that why I’ve never heard of anyone doing this? Wysong Perabula
A:
Okay, let’s get started with question #1. As far as “would I want a wire connected between a Super Reverb and my ears?” Well, that’s for you to decide, but if you choose “yes,” here’s how to do it. Fig. 1 is a simple circuit I came up with to allow you to play your amp through your headphones without
waking the kids or disturbing your neighbors at 2 a.m. So you can understand what’s happening, I’ll go through it and describe the function of each component. Jack 1 is the input from your amplifier’s speaker output, at left in Fig. 1. The resistance value should be as close to the output impedance of your amp
as possible. For a Super Reverb, that would be 2 ohms. If it’s not possible to get the exact resistance, it’s okay to go up in value, but not down. This resistor will be replacing the speakers in your amp, which need to be disconnected, so it will be absorbing your amp’s full output power. I recommend that the resistor’s power-handling capability be at least double your amp’s output power. A Super is rated at about 40 to 45 watts, so I recommend at least a 100-watt resistor here. Also, if you’re using the large, gold anodized aluminum resistors, they get very hot and need to be mounted to properly dissipate the heat. If you’re building this inside a Bud box or something similar, mount the resistor to the box and be sure to install feet on the bottom of the box so that the heat doesn’t damage what the box is sitting on—like possibly your amplifier. It would also be a good idea to vent the box. Next, the signal goes to the volume pot. A 1k-ohm, half-watt or higher, linear pot works fine here. A 22-ohm 1-watt resistor gets connected to the pot’s counter-clockwise arm to provide a little isolation from the amp chassis and add a bit of a signal drop. Then the signal from the pot’s wiper gets connected to the headphone output jack through a 100-ohm resistor. For testing, I used a set of Tascam headphones with a 32-ohm impedance, which is pretty standard today, and the 100-ohm resistor worked fine and provided plenty of volume. If you need a bit more level, decrease the value of this resistor. Also, the output jack should be
Fig. 1
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Fig. 2
The biggest difference between a normal effects loop and a reverb circuit is basically in the “send” department. insulated from the chassis because we’re trying to maintain a bit of isolation from input to output. A typical “British-style” jack works fine here. Just make sure it’s stereo and don’t forget to connect the tip and ring connections together. The last component you see is a 5 µF 50V nonpolarized cap. Since a resistive load on an amplifier causes it to react differently from a speaker load, amps tend to sound more “spiky” with a resistive load, so this capacitor helps smooth out some of the brittleness of the sound in the headphones. There you have it—a way to play your amp silently. Question #2 asks about the possibility of using the amp’s reverb circuitry as an effects loop. In essence, it already is an effects loop, but it’s optimized for use with the reverb tank, which is far
different from an effects pedal. We can, however, get it to work as a pedal loop. The biggest difference between a normal effects loop and a reverb circuit is basically in the “send” department. A typical Fender-style reverb tank has very low input impedance, and this requires a substantial level to drive it. This level is far too hot to feed into any effects pedal, so we must first tame the beast. Looking at Fig. 2, R1 serves as a load on the reverb drive transformer. Next R2 and R3 form a voltage divider to reduce the signal to an acceptable level for an effects device. Since the reverb drive circuit is actually a small amplifier output stage using its own little output transformer, removing the inductive load from the reverb tank and replacing it with the 100-ohm resistive load is similar to removing the speaker load from an
WARNING: All tube amplifiers contain lethal voltages. The most dangerous voltages are stored in electrolytic capacitors, even after the amp has been unplugged from the wall. Before you touch anything inside the amp chassis, it’s imperative that these capacitors are discharged. If you are unsure of this procedure, consult your local amp tech.
122 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
amplifier and replacing it with a resistive load. Things get a little “spiky.” To compensate for this, we add the .001 µF capacitor—identified as C1—to smooth out the sound. Now we have a signal that will be a better match for a pedal. Regarding the effects return, the effects can be connected directly to the reverb return (out) of the amplifier, either by 1/4" to RCA cable or, if you’d like to contain this all in a project box, simply connect the loop return jack directly to the reverb return jack, as most pedals should be able to comfortably drive its 220k input impedance. The loop can now be used for your time-based effects (delay, reverb, chorus, flange, phase, etc.). The reverb knob will mix in the amount of effect, so set your effects for 100 percent wet, if possible, to minimize any phase cancellation problems. The footswitch will now turn the effects on and off as well. As far as including the reverb tank back into the circuit, the output impedance is too low and would more than likely attenuate the output of the effects devices. Well, there you have it. Enjoy the experimentation! JEFF BOBER is one of the godfathers of the low-wattage amp revolution. He co-founded and was originally the principal designer for Budda Amplification, though he launched EAST Amplification (eastamplification.com) in 2010. You can catch his podcasts at ampsandaxescast.com or email him at pgampman@gmail.com.
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POWER. TONE.
Now you can have them both Vintage tone or high power handling? It used to be a choice – not any more. The new G12H-150 Redback combines authentic Celestion tone with a 150-watt power rating to create a 12-inch speaker capable of transforming a high power combo or cabinet. So now you can have it all.
150 WATT
celestion.com
TOOLS FOR THE TASK Look for this icon to click and purchase the gear.
Headphone Amps
Whether you’re on the go or in your bedroom, each of these 10 headphone amp options represent a quick and easy way to plug in for silent guitar practice—without having to look at that phone you’ve likely been staring at all day.
1
NADY AxeHead
1
Offering up to 15 hours playing time on a lithium-ion battery from each USB charge, this headphone amp houses controls for volume, tone, and drive to dial in clean to dirty. $29 street nady.com
2
LINE 6 Pocket POD With 32 amp models and 16 cab models onboard,
2
this battery powered, headphone-practice unit (and much more) can serve up tones to feed your inspiration whenever and wherever. $129 street line6.com
3
ELECTRO-HARMONIX Headphone Amp This plug-and-play amp from EHX is ultra-lightweight
3
and portable, and is built to handle high-gain pedalboard input so you can dial up your favorite tones and let it rip—silently. $45 street ehx.com
4
CARL MARTIN Rock Bug This 9V-battery operated rehearsal unit was designed to
4
deliver the audio sensation of playing through a good tube amp. Features include open- or closed-back cab simulation and an XLR out. $189 street carlmartin.com
5
JOYO I-Plug
5
This little amp with built-in overdrive runs on a pair of AAA batteries, has controls for volume, tone, and gain, and houses an auxiliary in for external devices. $15 street joyoaudio.com
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6
VOX amPlug 2 Clean
6
Boasting a folding mechanism that rotates 180 degrees, this little Vox was designed to deliver fat, boutique-
7
inspired clean sounds, and features effects for delay, chorus, and reverb. $39 street voxamps.com
7
OLD BLOOD NOISE ENDEAVORS Headphone Amp This pedal-sized headphone amp from OBNE will, of course, allow a guitarist to play silently, but also permits a buddy listener thanks to the second 1/4" output jack. $99 street oldbloodnoise.com
8
PHIL JONES BASS Bighead Designed for low enders, this amp features a 2-band EQ, has a runtime of eight hours on its rechargeable lithiumion battery, and functions as an interface or analog preamp as well.
8
$249 street pjbworld.com
9
ROCKMAN Guitar Ace
10
These headphone amps provide built-in compression and an auxiliary stereo input/output, as well as settings for clean and two different flavors of distortion. $69 street jimdunlop.com
10 9
SATURNWORKS PEDALS Headphone Amp This true-bypass amp is enclosed in cast aluminum and features a pro-grade switch for long life, Neutrik jacks, audio-grade active components, and military spec silverplated wire. $79 street saturnworkspedals.com
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REVIEWS
Quick Hits ROCKET SURGEON
ELEKTRON
By Rich Osweiler
By Shawn Hammond
If you aren’t familiar with Rocket Surgeon Labs, chances are you know Nordstrand Pickups—the company behind RSL and its first offering, called the Seratone: Mood Altering Bass Fuzz. The purple and green ray gun adorned pedal is a solid-feeling, pretty straightforward affair with dials for volume, lows, “mood,” and highs. The hand-built Seratone is all about the fuzz, so one thing you won’t find on the pedal is a clean/blend control. RSL contends that a clean blend would buffer the signal, rendering the effect of the fuzz circuit “less organic and engaging.” Engaging it was. With the three tone-shaping dials set at noon, I was served balanced natural- and alive-sounding grit that wasn’t compressed or thin in the least. The fuzz sounded like it totally surrounded my signal. The three controls play nicely together and through teamwork offer a superb range of flavors. (Try as I might, I couldn’t really make an unusable sound.) Whether I was boosting the lows for a thunderous, dirty dub storm or favoring the upper range of the highs dial for more bite and grind, the mood dial helped shape the, well, mood into the desired sweet spot through its mids manipulation. No matter the settings, the Seratone impressed with its degree of note separation, attack sensitivity, sustain, and smooth decay. (No fizzy fart-outs here.) Warm overtones and fuzz delish are abundant with the pricey but nicey Seratone, so if you have the means, check it out and see what it does to your temperament.
Guitarists have long been intrigued by the idea of using digital processing to get scores of tones out of one box. Early on, digital solutions—at least in the realm of distortion—couldn’t really hold a candle to analog options. Swedish effect outfit Elektron is one of the latest companies to try to remedy that deficiency in a compact stompbox format. The Analog Drive pairs eight discrete analog overdrive circuits with the ability to digitally recall 99 tonal permutations drawn from those circuits (10 of them factory-programmed). The Analog Drive doesn’t seem intended to generate bristling mayhem at low volumes. Even in “high gain” mode, many players of the thrashing persuasion will wish for more saturation. But this may be because the pedal’s primary purpose seems to be pushing hardworking tube amps over the edge rather than being an all-in-one distortion smorgasbord. The most impressive thing about the AD is that its circuits really do sound every bit as warm and inviting as a favorite ol’ dirt stomp—particularly the “dirty drive” and “clean boost” voicings. There’s absolutely no hint of digital grossness, and the lone fuzz voicing—a big, thick, sustaining sound—is a lot of fun for middle-of-the-road applications.
Seratone
TEST GEAR Orange O Bass, Gallien-Krueger 800RB, Orange
Tones Ease of Use
TEST GEAR Squier Vintage Modified Tele with Curtis Novak Tel-V and JM-V pickups, Schecter Ultra III with TV Jones Magna’Tron and Duncan Designed pickups, ’76 Fender Vibro Champ with WGS G8C, Jaguar HC50 with a ceramic Weber Gray Wolf
OBC212 cab, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4
$249 street, nordstrandaudio.com
Analog Drive
PROS Warm fuzz with gobs of sustain that didn’t spit or fizz out. Wide range of grit timbres.
$379 street, elektron.se
CONS No small investment.
Ease of Use
Tones
Build/Design
Build/Design
Value
Value
CLICK HERE TO HEAR this pedal.
126 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
PROS Organic-sounding overdrive. Mid-sweep control. Gain and mid-sweep expression inputs. MIDI jacks. CONS Some drive circuits seem very similarly voiced. Mid-sweep not very wideranging. Only one fuzz type.
CLICK HERE TO HEAR this pedal.
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MXL
BSM
By Jason Shadrick
By Charles Saufley
It can be easy to overlook one of the most important parts of the signal chain in both live and studio settings: the microphone on your amp’s speaker. MXL’s new DX-2 was designed specifically for those who need more than a one-trick pony. The secret is that there are two mics in the DX-2—a supercardioid and a cardioid. A single knob lets you blend between the two capsules on the fly, which is an incredibly handy feature. The supercardioid offered a response more typical of the sound of a closemiked cab, with increased response in the low-mids and bass frequencies. With my Fender ML 212, I usually kept the knob turned all the way to the left, which only engages the supercardioid capsule. Naturally, my Tele was on the bright side, so I usually only blended in a hair of the cardioid capsule. As you can hear in the included sound clips, the addition of the cardioid added extra air and brightness. If you have a “set and forget” approach to miking your cab, the DX-2 will offer some much-needed flexibility and an easy way to dial-out any unwanted frequencies.
Germany’s BSM is the brainchild of Bernd Meiser, a fellow you might call obsessive about treble boosters. He’s made dozens of variations—most from an enraptured perspective on Richie Blackmore’s killer Deep Purple tones. Meiser’s pedals are no-frills and a bit spendy. But as his sizable cult can attest, they are the real deal if you’re chasing the sweet-to-the-ear, singing leads of Blackmore, Gallagher, or Iommi. His Supreme overdrive plies the same waters, but instead of a variation on Blackmore’s Hornby-Skewes booster, the Supreme emulates the overdrive tones Blackmore extracted form his modified Aiwa reel-to-reel deck. Meiser has toyed with this concept before. But the Supreme is ostensibly a medium-gain version that retains the modified Aiwa’s signature cutting tones. The results are still overtly and satisfyingly hot. If you use British-style amps and like lead tones that walk the fences between sweet, stinging, and white-hot, the Supreme is a thing of wonder. It works less well with classically Fenderish amps. (My silverface Bassman, which can be coaxed into Marshall-y zones, was an exception, but Twin Reverb users should beware.) The “medium-gain” virtues of the pedal’s design are heard best when playing chugging chords—a task at which the Supreme excels.
TEST GEAR Fender Stratocaster, Gibson Les Paul, Fender Hot Rod
Deluxe, Orange OR50, silverface Fender Bassman, blackface Fender
DX-2
Supreme
TEST GEAR Fender Jazzmaster, Fender Jaguar, Fender Telecaster Tremolux, Fender Vibro Champ
Deville ML 212
$149 street, mxlmics.com
PROS Great value. Offers more flexibility than a standard mic.
$285 street, treblebooster.net
Tones
CONS No way to split the
Tones
Versatility
signals from the capsules.
Ease of Use
Build/Design
Build/Design
Value
Value
CLICK HERE TO HEAR this mic.
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PROS Growling, stinging overdrive tones. CONS Can sound less sweet with Fender-style amp circuits. Expensive.
CLICK HERE TO HEAR this pedal.
PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 127
REVIEWS
LINE 6
Variax Shuriken By Joe Charupakorn
L
ine 6 Variax modeling guitars are a cool application of modeling technology. They offer models of popular guitars, but also other stringed instruments, like banjo, resonator, and sitar. The latest Line 6 Variax is the Shuriken, an extended-range guitar designed with Steve “Stevic” MacKay of Australian band Twelve Foot Ninja. Model Behavior The Variax Shuriken’s wicked body shape and reverse headstock scream “metal.” It comes in a matte black finish over an alder body with all-black hardware, apart from the silver LR Baggs piezo saddles. The guitar’s control panel consists of four knobs—volume, tone, guitar model selector, and tuning selector. The indented model-selector and tuning knobs are embossed with names of specific models and tunings. To select,
you turn to the desired preset and push the knob. An LED indicates when the setting is active. There’s also a 5-way pickup selector switch, which lets you access five models from the chosen guitar bank or five pickup choices (if the bank only consists of one guitar type, as with the S-style and T-style models). On the model selector knob are labels for User I to IV, which enable access to the 20 presets that MacKay uses. These presets require the guitar be tuned to dropped D, and they feature unique guitar models and esoteric tunings. If you’re not interested in MacKay’s sounds, you can use the same banks to store your own presets. A Ninja’s Quest I tested the Variax Shuriken through a Mesa/Boogie Mark IV and started with some of MacKay’s unique presets. These presets
LR Baggs piezo system
Model selector knob
5-way switch selects pickup models or preset banks
Tuning selector knob
Tone knob
128 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
Volume knob
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are great for the curious guitarist, and can inspire you to go places you’d rarely go otherwise. That’s definitely the case with the Sick Riff preset, which is tuned to A–E–A–E–F#–B. The lowest four open strings make up two A5 power chords an octave apart. The tuning prompted cool call-and-response riffs between the 6th-string root power chords and the octave-up 4th-string root versions. I also mixed in some massive chord sounds by combing both sets of power chords. I probably wouldn’t have explored these ideas were the alternate tuning not so easily and immediately available. Another really cool feature of the Variax Shuriken is the ability to mute specific strings. The Post Modern Spank preset, for example, is D–A–D–G–B–E with the two lowest strings muted, and Collateral is A–E–E–E–E–E with the 5th string muted. Interestingly, on my test, the muted strings weren’t actually muted, but were much lower in volume (you could hear them clearly in isolation) and sort of swelled in with no attack. The banjo preset called Tumbi, which uses D–A–D–G–B–A tuning and has all but the 1st string muted, leaves all muted strings totally silent. Common Ground MacKay’s presets are only part of the Variax Shuriken’s capabilities. The Lester model (based on a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, 1955 Gibson Les Paul Special, and 1976 Gibson Firebird V) is great. With a little dirt, the Les Paul bridge and neck pickups sounded beefy with slightly more focused attack than my actual Gibson Les Paul Standard. Played clean, there was more acoustic-like clarity and depth, which sounded great to my ears. Les Paul purists
may like these minor deviations less, but I thought they were excellent. “Spank” (based on a 1959 Fender Stratocaster) sounds slightly meatier and brawnier than my actual Stratocaster, which lent presence in some situations. One weird thing was that on positions 2 and 4, which both offered a nice quack, the 2nd and 1st strings were distinctly lower in volume than the other strings. This was fairly noticeable when I played clean, but less so with a little gain in the mix. The acoustic models will probably be used a lot by jack-of-all-trades gigging musicians. The 1 position is based on a 1959 Martin D-28 and was surprisingly robust. I expected to hear the harsh, metallic sound that some piezos produce, so it was a wonder to hear such a thick sound come out of a solidbody. It also picked up the timbral nuances from my various picking approaches. The 4 and 2 positions of the acoustic bank are 12-string models, based on a 1966 Guild F212 and a 1970 Martin D12-28, respectively. Not surprisingly, acoustic models were the fullest sounding on open-position chords. It was a blast going between the modeled 12-strings (for chords) to modeled 6-string for mood shifts within a song. On the Fast Track A 27" extended scale length is used on Variax Shuriken to capture the low-tuned notes favored by many modern metal musicians. The C-shaped maple neck features 24 medium jumbo frets on a 12" radius rosewood fretboard, and was fairly comfortable to play, though it took some getting used to. Tracking is flawless, regardless of how wacky and low the tuning. Even
the speediest, EVH-style taps emerged instantaneously, and every lightningfast nuance of thrash-style, low-string 16th-note riffs was perfectly articulated. One thing to account for, if you go back and forth a lot through settings in real time, is that there are distinct changes in volume when switching between certain banks. But you can control these details, create tunings, and control properties of individual strings like volume and tuning (as far up or down as an octave) by connecting to Line 6’s custom Variax software Workbench HD—which lets you customize and save instruments, tunings, and settings. You can also connect to a device like Line 6’s Helix and have the ability to store up to eight snapshots— guitars, tunings, effects—that can be instantaneously recalled with precise volume levels between changes. The Verdict The Variax Shuriken is a great sounding axe that could change the landscape of modern metal in performance. But if you’re not a metal head and are dissuaded by the guitar’s metal persona, don’t be. No matter what style of music you play, if you exploit the full capabilities of Variax Shuriken, the sky really is the limit.
CLICK HERE TO HEAR this guitar.
Line 6 Variax Shuriken $1,399 street line6.com Tones Playability Build/Design Value
PROS Offers a world of instruments and tunings that you probably wouldn’t encounter otherwise. CONS Styling might be too metal for some.
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Bill Frisell and Collings Guitars
Bill Frisell at the Village Vanguard with his Collings I-35 LC Deluxe Serious Guitars | www.CollingsGuitars.com | (512) 288-7770
REVIEWS
BYOC
Parametric mids control
Crown Jewel By Joe Gore
Swappable booster circuits
I
f BYOC’s Crown Jewel was a straightforward stompbox, this review would be simple and favorable. It’s a finesounding overdrive with ingenious extras that provide uncommon range and flexibility. Thumbs up, BYOC! But Crown Jewel is far from a straightforward stompbox. A Bevy of Boosters Besides being an overdrive, Crown Jewel houses an independent boost stage. Drive and boost have their own footswitches, so they can be used together or separately. Here’s the twist: The boost section is assembled on a small circuit board that can snap free from the main overdrive board, permitting booster swaps. Changing booster modules radically alters Crown Jewel’s driveplus-boost character—and BYOC offers 11 different boosters derived from such classic circuits as Screamer, Centaur, and LPB-1. It’s a clever system that works splendidly (though you must unscrew the enclosure’s rear panel to change modules). One booster of your choice is included at the $219 base price—just pick your fave and plug it in. Additional modules sell for $24.99 for pre-built versions. Un-assembled modules start at $9.99. (The Mimosa is $5 extra and the germanium boost module is $10 extra in un-assembled or pre-built form.) A Clone of One’s Own BYOC (for Build Your Own Clone) is the leading manufacturer of DIY stompbox kits. They also sell preassembled versions of their kits. We reviewed the preassembled Crown Jewel kit along with all 11 modules, also preassembled. Preassembled versions of Crown Jewel and all 11 modules will set you back $483. Meanwhile, BYOC kits cost about half the price of preassembled products. Whether to DIY is a personal call, but after assembling many BYOC kits over the years, I can vouch that their projects are uniformly excellent—particularly their comprehensive build instructions. The Crown Jewel overdrive kit is probably too complex for beginners, but any of the modules would be a perfect starter project. And for more advanced builders, BYOC sells the $6.99 Experimenter—an unpopulated booster board for creating your own pop-in circuits. Drive On First let’s focus on the drive section. The core sound is a warm, IC-based overdrive in the Screamer/Centaur vein, but with
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Independent drive and boost stages
far more tonal range. The extraordinary tone-shaping features include nine possible clipping diode configurations. An onboard charge pump lets you run the pedal at 18 volts for greater clean headroom via a standard 9V power supply. (The power supply is not included, and there’s no battery option). The drive’s killer feature is its 4-band EQ section (bass, mids, treble, presence). The all-important mids control is parametric: You can set the emphasis frequency and choose from three preset bandwidths. Between this flexible tone stack and the diode options, you can mimic most IC-based overdrives, from Maxon to MXR to Klon. This drive circuit is ingenious. Its layout is easy to understand despite its many options. The build is excellent, and the clickless relay footswitches are a classy touch. Module Behavior The boost modules—straightforward clones of familiar circuits—sound and behave as expected. Some simpler modules, like the LPB-1, include the complete circuitry of the original pedals. Others, like the Klon and Screamer clones, use only the drive section, minus buffers and tone controls. (Which is fine. Crown Jewel’s tone controls are superior.) The 11 BYOC boost modules are, in alphabetical order: • 18V JFET (similar to the Keeley Katana) • Electra (a single-transistor circuit used in many boutique distortion pedals) • Fuzz (a silicon-transistor Fuzz Face clone) • Hard Clipper (the drive section of a Klon Centaur) • LPB (Electro-Harmonix’s LPB-1 booster) • Mimosa (a Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor clone) • MOSFET (similar to ZVEX Super Hard On) • Octave Up (a Dan Armstrong Green Ringer clone) • Soft Clipper (a Tube Screamer-style drive section) • Treble Booster (a Rangemaster clone) • 27V (a high-output clean boost)
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Changing booster modules radically alters Crown Jewel’s character. I compiled recordings of all 11 modules, heard first alone, and then in tandem with the drive section. I used the same drive settings for all combined examples: knobs at noon, silicon clipping diodes, standard 9V operation, and boost module before drive. (Yes, you can toggle the signal path from booster/ drive to drive/booster.) Using a ReAmp, I fed the same performance through each of the boosters. My constant drive setting may not be optimal for every booster, so bear in mind that you always have vast tone-shaping options on the drive side. However, the only control for the booster
modules is a volume knob, though some of the boards include trimpots for finetuning their response. The Verdict Despite heading a company with the word “clone” in its name, designer Keith Vonderhulls has a long history of innovative circuit design. His kits often expand on the originals, incorporating popular mods and cool new twists. Crown Jewel feels like the culmination of all that study and experimentation. Whether you plan to install your favorite booster and never reopen the enclosure or leave the back panel off and swap booster boards between studio takes, you’re guaranteed a large collection of cool and usable sounds. The preassembled pedal is solidly made. But players contemplating the DIY path won’t find a better gateway drug than these module kits. Crown Jewel is an ambitious and imaginative product that performs perfectly. It wins our Premier Gear award in a walk.
CLICK HERE TO HEAR this pedal.
BYOC Crown Jewel $219 ($483 as reviewed with all 11 preassembled boost modules) buildyourownclone.com Tones Ease of Use Build/Design Value
PROS Countless great overdrive tones. Ultra-flexible tone controls. Customizable configuration. Excellent build quality. DIY kit options. Great prices. CONS None.
(716) 630-7030 132 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
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Grace Harbor Guitars For the beginning student to the touring professional. Outstanding tone, playability and quality workmanship, California factory set up and inspection. Six models Solid or Laminate Top starting at $269 (with hardshell case and free shipping to continental USA address)
Buy yours direct at
GraceHarborGuitars.com Featured Artist Jess Meuse is playing a Grace Harbor Cutaway Dreadnought with Electronics (GHD-100CE) https://www.facebook.com/IdolJessicaMeuse/
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VICTORY V40 Deluxe By Joe Gore
W
ith so many American amp builders offering revisionist takes on vintage British amps, it’s nice to be reminded that such transatlantic traffic flows both ways. Example: the V40 Deluxe from England’s Victory Amps, an extraordinary handbuilt, Fender-flavored 1x12 combo. Fullerton, U.K. With its dual 6L6 tubes, the V40 Deluxe shares DNA with similarly powered vintage Fender amps such as the Bassman, Pro, Tremolux, Vibrolux, and Super. Those Fenders are beloved by players who want more clean headroom, presence, and bass muscle than you get from 2x6V6 combos, but with warmer,
easier-to-attain amp overdrive than you’re likely to pry from super-clean four-tube Fenders. Yet the V40 isn’t a Fullerton clone. You know how early Marshall amps “borrowed” the Fender Bassman schematic before branching off in their own directions? With its clever controls and flexible tone stack, the single-channel V40 can sound like the Fenders that influenced Marshall, or like the Marshalls that spun off from Fender—pretty much the entire tweed-to-plexi gamut. The V40 also evokes Fender-inspired Matchless amps in its superb workmanship, surgical tone controls, and ability to maintain punch and definition at all gain settings.
40 watts via two 6L6 power tubes
12" Celestion G12H-75 Creamback speaker
Solid wood cabinet
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Spring reverb Post-phase-invertor master volume
A Dream in Cream The V40 Deluxe is a brainchild of designer Martin Kidd, known for his previous work with Cornford Amplification. It’s descended from his earlier V40 Duchess—a head-only model, but in the form of a 1x12 combo with added tubepowered tremolo and spring reverb. With its redoubtable solid-wood cabinet, the amp weighs a bit over 60 pounds. The cream-colored vinyl and matching knobs look stunning with the faux-leather handles and corners. The hardware practically screams “quality.” Things look great inside as well. The hefty transformers are by Demeter Windings. The chassis is oriented so that the tubes face inward toward the speaker, lessening the risk of damage. A nice touch: A metal plate bolted to the cab’s back panel specifies the position of all the rear panel jacks and controls, so there’s no need to feel around in the dark. If I encountered this guide at a stressful backline gig, I’d be tempted to send Victory a dozen red roses. The components are arranged on hand-soldered circuit board with boardmounted pots and jacks, yet everything feels exceedingly solid and durable. Some boutique snobs might sniff at the circuit board, but the amp would have been more expensive with a turret-board build, and even costlier with point-to-point wiring. I’m agnostic about how much of a sonic difference those techniques might have made. But I evaluated its V40’s sounds before I knew what was inside, and I thought everything sounded sublime. The American/English Channel With the master volume wide open, you get magnificent Fender-flavored clean tones. The highs are scintillating, but never shrill. (A good thing, since there’s no presence control.) The master volume is situated post-phase-inverter, permitting convincing power-amp distortion at sensible volume. There’s also a switch to drop the power from 40 to 7 watts. Even at the low-power
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Expanded midrange controls
setting, you can dial down the master and achieve sweaty power-tube grind at neighbor-placating levels. Overdriven tones retain plenty of treble, giving the distortion a tough, gristly character that would thrive in a busy mix. Meanwhile, there’s enough headroom to keep the amp set clean and create distortion with stompboxes alone. Whatever your approach, the 75-watt, ceramic-magnet Celestion G12H-75 Creamback speaker is an inspired choice, providing shimmering highs and thumping lows without feeling stiff or glassy. The ranges of the bass and treble controls are more focused than on old Fenders, providing usable sounds through their entire ranges. But the secret weapon here is the enhanced midrange control, which is augmented by two adjacent toggle switches. The voice toggle takes you from a Fender-style spectrum (glistening highs and manicured mids) to a Marshall-esque one (more low-mid mass and upper-mid thrust). Meanwhile, the mid-kick toggle pumps up low mids and expands the bandwidth of the midrange control. These clever tools are largely responsible for the V40’s Fender-toMarshall shape-shifting skills. World-Class Wobble The amp’s tube-driven reverb and tremolo have an authentic ’60s Fender feel. The trem speed range is on the conservative/ retro side. I can imagine some coloristic guitarists wishing for faster-than-vintage pulsations—though altering the range would be a simple, one-resistor mod. Likewise, the maximum reverb setting is moist enough for surfing, though some players might wish for greater extremes here as well. Still, there’s ample range for most applications, and the sound quality is superb. The treble-chopping reverb tone control (less splish and more whooom) is a helpful addition. There are more useful features around back, including a series effects loop with a hard-bypass switch, external terminals
for setting tube bias without removing the chassis, and five speaker-out jacks that can accommodate any cab configuration. There’s also a stereo jack for connecting the tough, folded-metal reverb/trem foot pedal (included). The Verdict The V40 Deluxe captures the essence of mid-sized Fender blackface amps, but with greater range and definition. And thanks to its expanded tone controls, it evokes early Marshalls equally well. Its tremolo and reverb tones are glorious, and the amp is packed with playerfriendly extras. At 60 pounds, it may be a hernia risk. But thanks to its rugged construction, the amp is likelier to break you than the other way around. If you get your kicks on Route 1966, this impressive instrument will transport you in style.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH A REVIEW DEMO of this amp.
Victory V40 Deluxe $1,849 street victoryamps.com Tones Ease of Use Build/Design Value
PROS Magnificent ’60s-style Fender and Marshall tones from a single channel. Enough power and headroom for most gigs. Fine workmanship. Gorgeous reverb and tremolo. Fair price. CONS Weighs 60 pounds.
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REVIEWS
TANGLEWOOD Java TWJP By Adam Perlmutter
I
f you’ve never played a parlor guitar like the Tanglewood Java TWJP, you’ll likely be struck by how small, narrow, and super-light it feels. You might also be surprised to learn that in the 1880s, a guitar of its proportions actually would have been considered large. By the early mid-20th century, guitar was becoming more common in live ensembles, making big, loud guitars like the dreadnought a necessity and, in time, the most popular acoustic guitar design ever. But as sound-reinforcement technology makes an acoustically loud guitar less important on stage, the tone potential of the parlor guitar has been re-examined. There are plenty of stunning parlor options at the high end of the market by Bedell, Bourgeois, Collings, Martin, Santa
Cruz, and others. Now those guitars are inspiring offerings at the opposite end of the price spectrum. The Java TWJP is a fine example of this trend. It’s designed in England and made in Indonesia, and references both 19th-century instruments and modern boutique flourishes. If you’re looking for a small, affordable acoustic that generates unique acoustic tones and textures, this cool, compact instrument might be just the ticket. Wooden Tangents One of the first things sharp-eyed tonewood connoisseurs will notice about the Java TWJP is the unusual selection of woods used for its back and sides. The back is built from three pieces, like a Martin D-35. But instead of a traditional tonewood, like
Amara sides 3-piece mango and amara back
Sonokeling bridge
Solid cedar top
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rosewood or mahogany, the centerpiece is mango—a pale-colored wood with spalted figuring. The two outer pieces, also dramatically figured, are amara, which looks more like rosewood. Amara makes up the guitar’s sides as well. The top is built from solid cedar, which is a fairly conventional tonewood, but one that’s more common on nylon-string guitars and boutique steel strings. And then there are the tasteful wooden flourishes that lend an organic classiness to the instrument. Instead of the usual plastic binding, Tanglewood uses mahogany binding on its body and fretboard. There’s also a mango heel cap, and the slotted headstock lends a touch of old-world elegance. The build quality of inexpensive guitars seems to be continuously improving these days, and the Java TWJP shows how nicely built an affordable offering can be. Though the fretwork isn’t perfect—there’s a little roughness at the edges—it’s certainly neat enough. The kerfing and X-bracing appear tidily glued, and the polyurethane finish is smoothly buffed, without any obvious visual defects. Modern Moves The Java TWJP is a pleasure to play, with a neck that should appeal to a wide range of players and hand sizes. The C-shaped, nato neck is of moderate girth. At 43 mm (about 1.69"), the nut width is narrower
than the fashionable-for-fingerstylists 1.75". But it definitely feels spacious and is a good fit for players transitioning from the electric guitar to the acoustic. The guitar has a plastic nut and compensated saddle, instead of the traditional and more expensive bone, but the intonation is perfectly precise. The open-geared tuners, meanwhile, manage a vintage appearance while delivering smooth, accurate, modern performance. Moves to the Middle Like most folks, I’m accustomed to playing a larger-bodied guitar with a more traditional tonewood mix (in my case, an Orchestra Model with an Adirondack spruce top and rosewood back and sides), so at first I was a little underwhelmed by the projection of the Java. But it certainly didn’t take long for me to appreciate its abundant charms. The Java’s diminutive size isn’t the only factor in its unique tone makeup. Neck and body meet at the 12th-fret rather than the 14th. Most players and luthiers assert that this configuration improves bass resonance by moving the bridge closer to a sweet spot near the center of the top. And indeed the Java’s voice has a hint of warmth and sweetness that you could probably link to the 12-fret design as well as the cedar top. The low-end warmth is nice counterpoint to the guitar’s punchy mid-range focus, which lends itself well to old-time fingerpicking styles like
country blues and ragtime. And while the midrange is certainly the more powerful voice of the two, there is enough balance to create nice separation between notes. When I let a chord ring out, especially one that included a combination of fretted notes and open strings, I was impressed with the sustain and detail. The Verdict There are some inherent drawbacks that come with a guitar the size of the the Java TWJP—at least if you’re accustomed to the power of a dreadnought or orchestra model. Heavy strumming with a pick can induce a midrange-y wash (though it’s easy to imagine this sound making a cool rhythm track for more boisterous roots rock, country blues, or even gypsy jazz). And for many players, the lack of bass output will sound foreign and feel odd. But whether you’re new to the acoustic guitar or seeking more uncommon acoustic tones, Tanglewood’s Java TWJP has a lot to recommend itself. It pairs an old-school voice with modern reliability and build quality, and it’s a whole lot of fun to play. If you can work the lack of low-end punch into your sound, this little guitar can open up a world of unique and distinctive acoustic colors. CLICK HERE TO WATCH A REVIEW DEMO of this guitar.
Tanglewood Java TWJP Sonokeling fretboard
1.69" nut width
$399 street tanglewoodguitars.co.uk Tones Playability Build/Design Value
PROS Solid cedar top. Nice quality for the price. Punchy output. Cool tones. Nato neck
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CONS Bass response could be better; not necessarily appropriate for heavyhanded strummers.
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J. ROCKETT
I.Q. Compressor By Charles Saufley
W
hen I hear players express confusion or frustration about compressor pedals, it tends to be less about a sacrifice of dynamics (the devil’s bargain in any compressor) than a lack of control and perceptible benefit. But with its 6-band EQ, wet/dry mix control, relative transparency at flat levels, and relatively quiet performance, J. Rockett’s I.Q. compressor has the ability to be super subtle or powerfully transformative. You’ll rarely find a compressor that can so drastically alter the timbre of your instrument or lend so much creative control of the compression effect. Slide Away The heart of the J. Rockett’s flexibility is the six sliding boost/ cut frequency controls. Each is illuminated when the effect is on. The six frequencies under your control are 100 Hz, 200 Hz, 400 Hz, 800 Hz, 1.5 kHz, and 3.2 kHz, and each slider gives you 18 dB of boost or cut to work with. As you can imagine, the EQ and boost profiles you can create within that scheme can be pretty radical or specific depending on your need. The EQ section is situated before the compressor in the circuit. But the simplicity of the compressor section itself means you’ll need to use the EQ to do the lion’s share of the tone shaping. There are no controls for attack or release, and like the Ross and DynaComp, it uses a two-knob control scheme to control overall output and the wet/dry mix. That means the compression ratio and, to some extent, the attack and release are fixed. But just as on the Ross and MXR units, those limitations leave a lot of room for tone sculpting. And as it turns out, they are well tuned for the dynamic nature of the EQ section. In our experience, J. Rockett’s pedals are very well built, and the I.Q. is no exception. The enclosure is stout, heavy, and crafted from thick-gauge steel. The knobs, which look like the cool colored aluminum alloy used in Maglites and old BMX parts, turn with a smooth, satisfying resistance. It takes real intent to knock them from their settings once you’ve dialed them in. The circuit itself is a busy one—no surprise given that a 6-band EQ, booster, and compressor circuitry dwell within the compact pedal—and just abut every last millimeter of available space in the PC board is occupied by a component. The tight quarters mean the top-mounted jacks are board mounted, but you need not fear. The light artillery armor
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Wet/dry mix control Master output
that makes up the I.Q.’s shell means the components are well shielded from knocks. Creative Comping The coolest thing about the I.Q. is how interactive the EQ and compressor are. But that also means you’ll need to invest in some practice to suss how they work together. Even at a minimum wet/dry mix setting and with the EQ controls set flat, you still hear slight compression and a shift in the tone profile. You’ll also have to kick the pedal volume up to about 2 o’clock to reach unity gain. But watch the volume carefully as you boost various EQ bands. You’ll need to adjust it accordingly if you don’t want 18 dB boost/cut sliders a drastic boost in output—a function the I.Q. performs quite capably. In general, the mix knob is subtle—increasing the compression in small increments as you move through its range. In the dryer half of its range, the effect of the control is especially subdued, but that enables the kind of hyper-specific shifts that work well in a studio environment. In the wetter half of the mix knob’s throw, the compression effect becomes much more audible and tactile, evening out pick attack irregularities in a smooth, organic curve. At flat EQ settings, it lacks the surreal bloom that you can extract from pedals like the Boss CS-3. And though quick-picking flurries take on some of the same concise attack and release you’d expect from a DynaComp, the J. Rockett feels subtler and more natural. Extra sustain, too, feels more natural coming from the J. Rockett. But extracting more sustain from the I.Q. highlights the versatility and symbiotic nature of the EQ. I summoned a nice combination of sustain and top-end detail from various Fender single-coils by arranging the sliders in a gentle ski-jump shape—a slight bump in the 100 Hz and 200 Hz sections and
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a gentle dip and curve upward in the high end from there. The setting induced beautifully lingering finger-vibrato tones and subtly dovetailed and chiming arpeggio tones. More radical settings are a blast. The 18 dB boost is considerable, and maxing all the EQ controls and putting the signal through an amp at early stages of break-up creates monstrous, Godzilla-stomp volume and presence that lends mega-tonnage to bonehead riffs. Better still are extreme midrange scoops and high-end bumps, which can make single-coils lacerating in a mix and add combustibility and oxygen to muddy humbuckers. These more extreme settings also highlight another magical facet of the I.Q.’s personality: It’s very much at ease with a fuzz out front. And in this application, the J. Rockett can profoundly shift the voice of a fuzz pedal. I placed it after my Wattson FY-2—a throaty, buzzing Shin-Ei
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Companion clone that sounds fantastic, if occasionally one-dimensional. But by using the compression to smooth the fuzz’s output and the EQ to reshape the Wattson’s tone profile, I could concoct manically buzzing, thin, scathing, and meaty variations of the FY-2 flavor to fit precisely into any nook of a band or recording mix. This capacity alone, which expands on the functionality of a simple EQ pedal in very musical ways, will be worth the price of admission for many. The Verdict The I.Q. won’t be for everybody. Some will miss precise control of attack and release. Some might find the compression too subtle or the interactivity of the controls a bother. But for players that look to compression beyond its most obvious and cliché applications, the I.Q. is a tone-sculpting tool with the power to rival outboard studio gear. The sonic sum of this pedal’s parts are impressive, indeed.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH A REVIEW DEMO of this pedal.
J. Rockett I.Q. Compressor $229 street rockettpedals.com Tones Ease of Use Build/Design Value
PROS Precision tone-sculpting power with unique sonic outcomes. Works beautifully with fuzz and distortion. Relatively quiet. CONS Highly interactive controls mean steeper learning curve.
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T -S H I R T W E N G ET A ONTH E A CH M NDARY E G E L F ROM A HOP! S R A T I GU
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DAVID NORSCHOW AMPLIFICATION DNA-800 By Steve Cook
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hen David Norschow has produced bass gear, the results have historically been significant. The design veteran’s credits include stints with SWR and Eden Electronics—both hugely respected names in the bass universe. Now manufacturing under his DNA brand, each chapter of Norschow’s bass-amp legacy and 40-plus years of developer knowledge are built into each one of his meticulously crafted amps and cabinets. We recently looked at the class-D DNA800, a small but mighty 800-watt head with loads of personality and taste. The DNA of It All The DNA-800 is a small bass head, but it’s not in the micro family. I’d say it’s more like a micro amp’s beefy cousin, since it maintains some size yet only weighs a hair under 5 pounds. I appreciate that the DNA-800 is rackmountable, since I like to properly protect an investment as well as keep my load light. The front panel of the DNA-800 is straightforward: gain, shape, a 4-band EQ, a 2-knob compressor section, and master
volume—with pull switches controlling even more under the hood. The gain control doubles as an input pad, the shape control can be activated to post-DI when pulled, and pulling the threshold control disengages the compressor. The knobs are tight and precise, and the six LED indicators tucked under the knobs are super bright, which we like for the dark stages. The back panel is a lot busier than the front. The DNA-800 sports two Speakon speaker connections and a 1/4" speaker out. There is a DI with level control as well as an auxiliary input with level control. (I was a little baffled that the DNA800 sports RCA connectors for the auxiliary, since I suspect most folks have a lot more 1/8" cables lying around than RCA cables.) The back panel rounds out with a footswitch in, a slave in that allows a player to use the DNA to power an external preamp, effects send and returns, a tuner in, and, lastly, a secondary instrument input. The additional input can be handy in keeping the front panel clean when using wireless units and other rack effects. The only downside I see to this is if one needs to unplug or bypass a troubled unit in a hurry.
Shape control
4-band EQ
Input pad
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Compression section
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DI out with level control
AUX in with level control
DNA-Mite! When it was time to hear the DNA-800, I plugged it into an Eden D410XLT (the irony is not lost here) and employed both a Fender ’75 Jazz reissue and a fretless Music Man StingRay. I started out with the J, the amp’s shape control off, and the EQ dials set at 12 o’clock, which usually means at zero. The controls, however, are labeled 0 to 10, which can be a little confusing. There is a cut and boost for each EQ control, so don’t be misled: Straight up means inactive. With everything set flat, I was able to get a true representation of my passive Jazz, which is the mark of a great amp. There was no tone coloration with the DNA—yet. The shape knob is the secret sauce here. When I rolled it up, there was a subtle mid roll-off with a bass boost. It’s essentially a very detailed “smile” on an EQ that brings out subtleties of the tone. In easing this control up, my Jazz became more robust and sounded lively and active without added volume. The clarity was fantastic. I then eased on the compressor by setting the threshold and ratio about halfway, and found a vibrant slap tone. Somehow my bass sounded more alive, rich, and articulate. And I hadn’t even touched the EQ yet. Speaking of EQ, a little goes a long way with the DNA-800. Adjusting the controls just a couple notches in either direction, the cut and boost were pretty significant. I found a very nice setting with both the bass and high-mid controls
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up one notch. Was I Marcus Miller? In my mind I was. Every nuance of the bass could be heard. Another great feature of the amp is that the EQ can be toggled on and off via the optional footswitch, which can add another dimension to your playing, approach to the bass, and overall tone. The DNA-800 was just as at home with the fretless StingRay. The shape control was its friend here as well, but not as much adjustment was needed. The shape circuit was almost like an exciter at a lower setting—just enough to miss if it’s not on. Again, the EQ controls are effective, but with any and all bass, too much can muddy the waters and leave your tone fighting with lower frequencies and not being heard with the clarity it deserves. Such was the case with the Music Man. Too much shape or low EQ adjustment and, yes, I was shaking the ground, but the delicacy of the tone was lost. That said, I played my Music Man a lot longer than I have in a while, because the amp/bass combo sounded really, really nice once I had it dialed in. I even got a little crazy with the compression by setting the threshold high to squash my signal to a place I wouldn’t normally play, but I had a lot of fun with some percussive/tonal passages. The sign of great gear is that it inspires, right? The Verdict The DNA-800 packs power, punch, and personality. I love its light weight,
Slave amp in
and in the class-D range of amps, the DNA-800 is among the better ones I’ve heard. It’s crafted from top-quality components, which means the amp should serve a player for years to come. I personally would shuffle a few options around on the amp (and maybe include a headphone out for practice), but overall, the DNA-800 is a fine piece of bass amplification that will serve any level of player well if he or she is looking for an earth-shaking tone monster with great, yes, DNA. CLICK HERE TO WATCH A REVIEW DEMO of this amp.
David Norschow Amplification DNA-800 $749 street dnaamps.com Tones Ease of Use Build/Design Value
PROS Great sounding, portable, and efficient. CONS A headphone out would be nice. Controls could be numbered/labeled differently for easier reference.
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Custom Rig & Pedalboard Building Having A Pro Rig Has Never Been Easier Turnkey Integration Specify the gear you would like and let us do the rest of the work. With our numerous dealer relationships we can procure the gear you’d like and wire it together, for less than buying the gear a-la-carte.
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Made in the U.S.A. NEUNABER ICONOCLAST AD_JUNE_2017.pdf
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Introducing D’Addario CinchFit, the first-ever strap saver that adjusts to fit acoustic end pin jacks and eliminates the need to hack your strap. Designed for acoustic-electric guitars, CinchFit enhances strap security with a proprietary jack collar, cinching rope, and magnets for perfect alignment. So you can keep every performance on lock.
daddario.com/cinchfit
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www.neunaber.net
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The
Working Man's Guitar
Having The Blues... Never Felt So Good. Also Available In: VS6VW - Vintage White/Gold VS6VCH - Cherry Red w/Vibrola/Chrome VS6 - Cherry Red/Chrome VS6CG - Cherry Red/Gold
jhs.co.uk
International Enquiries JHS & Co. Ltd +44 (0)113 286 5381 export@jhs.co.uk
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VS6 One of the most popular guitars in the Vintage range, the VS6 features stunning looks, excellent playability and awesome tone. Accompanied with Wilkinson designed hardware and pickups, a solid mahogany body, along with a unique and ingeniously designed drop shoulder and offset heel for improved access to the upper frets. Last but not least, each VS6 has a pair of legendary Wilkinson MWVC dual coil pickups - giving you everything from mellow jazz to the heaviest rock tones.
VS6VGHB Gun Hill Blue w/Vibrola/Chrome
Exclusive USA Distributors of Vintage Guitars. VintageGuitarsUS.com RBimusic.com • 800-424-4724 • sales@rbimusic.com
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REVIEWS
FRIEDMAN
Dirty Shirley Mini By Ted Drozdowski
A
ny guitarist who has lugged around 4x12s, Super Reverbs, or other heavy-ass combos and stacks in search of big, meaty tones can appreciate the trend toward small amps that snarl. Amp guru Dave Friedman’s latest, the Dirty Shirley Mini, is a new addition to that genus. It’s the little sister of Friedman Amplification’s Dirty Shirley combo, which clocks in at 40 watts and 52 pounds, with a single 12" Celestion G12M Creamback speaker. The Mini is comparatively bantamweight—just 30 pounds and pumping 20 watts of output through a 10", 25-watt Celestion Greenback. It’s an ultracompact 9 1/2" x 15 1/2" x 16 1/2". The Shirley is no retiring kid sister. Playing a rough-andtumble gig in a small room with no amp miking, the Mini blasted
along with my trio loud and clear, and since the joint was all concrete and glass, the amp’s absence of reverb was irrelevant. In a bigger, classier dump—where amps would be miked and sound bounced around less like a caffeinated squirrel—the results would have been even better. And the Mini sounded really strong in my home practice space. Whole Lotta Shirley With a pair of EL84 power tubes and three 12AX7s pushing the preamp section, the Mini’s goal is clearly British-flavored classicrock tones. And there’s a lot of mojo in that preamp, thanks to a 3-way gain-structure toggle switch. In the middle, the amp is at its cleanest, with lots of headroom and a tone that’s
Two EL84 power tubes Three 12AX7 preamp tubes
10" Celestion Greenback speaker
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3-band EQ
3-way gain structure switch One channel
rich but doesn’t get nasty and spanking until the gain control climbs to about 7, with the master at noon. Flip the toggle downwards, with the master and the gain in the same spot, and you’re deep in Marshallville, with opulently ripe mids and a profile that reminded me of Ritchie Blackmore’s epic early-’70s sound. The toggle all the way up tells yet another story, with a brighter, gnarlier, more modern gain structure—good for gutpunching, chugging, and buzzing leads. Oh … and by the way. All three of those settings are loud! The 3-dial EQ is no-frills, but quite responsive. The power switch is a simple on/off with no standby. I missed the standby function when switching instruments, but my tuner pedal did the job amiably. Under the hood—or, at least, inside the well-built Baltic birch cabinet— is an effects send/return and additional 8-ohm and 16-ohm speaker outs. The panel for the returns and speaker outs is a bit awkward. It’s mounted upside down, so you’ve got to tilt the amp on its face to see it and plug in, which would be challenging on a dark stage. But that’s easily overcome with practice, and clearly that design choice helped keep the Mini mini. Also, the tubes are mounted horizontally to save space. They’re just above the underside of that panel, but easily accessible. The Dirty Shirley Mini’s look is signature Friedman: a recessed control panel at the top rear, silver-and-black grille cloth, and a spare but elegant exterior, with black vinyl snugly fitted to its sturdy
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cabinet. The Mini feels as if it could take a plunge at a load-in and still start right up (at least after the rush of horror from dropping a $1,799 amp faded). Plays Well with Others? Back at the homestead after the gig, I pulled three guitars: a modern Zuzu with coil-tapping, an early-’70s Fender Strat with the requisite single-coils, and an early’90s Les Paul Classic. All sounded fully and correctly voiced via the Dirty Shirley Mini’s Celestion, although the power, tonal depth, and sustain the amp exhibited with humbuckers was truly a joy. Since I’m pretty good at following directions, I started with suggested EQ settings at 5 for bass, 7 for mids, and treble at 5, and the gain toggle in the middle. That’s what the builder recommends in the manual, identifying that setting as “the Friedman sound.” I began with the gain/master at 5/5, and once I cranked the gain to 7, I’d have been perfectly content if I’d never touched a dial or switch again. But it was more fun to flick the gain stages around, roll off all the mids while cranking the treble and bass to 10, or to turn both those dials to zero and the mids to 10, or play with the treble on 10 and the bass/mids off, or just bass. With the Dirty Shirley Mini, it was impossible to get a bad tone, and the extreme EQ settings inspired ideas for studio sounds. With pedals, the lowest gain setting was, as expected, ideal. But OD, delay, phase, vibrato, and ambient reverb sounded clear with high-gain settings, too—although the overdrive
understandably had little effect on tone color in the Shirley Mini’s highest gain stage. Also, as expected, things were quieter when my pedalboard was plugged into the effects loop rather than straight into the front end. The only pedal that performed differently in the loop was my OD, which needed a bit more output for unity. Despite all that goodness, the lil’ Shirley’s 10" speaker does sound a tad less full-ranged to my 12"-speaker-conditioned ears, so I couldn’t resist unplugging the 10" and plugging the Mini’s power section into a Sam Hill custom pine cabinet loaded with a 50-watt 12" Eminence. To my ears, the results sounded a little more harmonically rich and lush. How cool is it to be able to add a 12" extension cab to the Mini? (I did, and the answer is “very!”) The Verdict The Dirty Shirley Mini rocks! It’s a well-built, great sounding, and compact alternative to 1x12 combos, with a big, flexible voice for its small size, and all the right bones for mean classic tones.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH A REVIEW DEMO of this amp.
Friedman Dirty Shirley Mini $1,799 street friedmanamplification.com Tones Ease of Use Build/Design Value
PROS Mighty but small. Variety of classic tones via three gain stages. Easy to use. Sturdy. CONS Rear panel a bit hard to access. No standby. No reverb.
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REVIEWS
ITALIA
Maranello Cavo By David Abdo
D
ue to their comfortable fretboard navigation, lighter string tension, or general feeling against the body, short-scale basses are the instruments of choice for many professionals and amateurs. Paul McCartney, Stanley Clarke, and Jack Bruce favored short-scale basses, and that tradition continues with modern masters like Matt Garrison and Owen Biddle. In turn, plenty of bass manufacturers have lent their vision to these playable powerhouses, which brings us to Italia Guitars—a company known for designs that are heavily influenced by classic styling. Their latest bass, the Maranello Cavo, packs a ton of vintage vibe into a 30"-scale
semi-hollowbody frame. And while it’s true that Maranello, Italy, is also the home of Ferrari, players will be pleased to know that the Cavo is priced to suit more sensible budgets. Nooks and Looks At first glance, one might assume that the Maranello Cavo was crafted by hip Italian builders who were influenced by trends of the ’50s and ’60s. The smooth single-cut shape is enhanced by white binding and a stunning racing-green finish that sparkled delightfully in the light and shifted to opaque hues (almost black) in darker settings. As its name implies, the Cavo (Italian
Italia Toaster humbuckers
TOM-style bridge
Modified f-hole design
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for “hollow”) utilizes a semi-hollow mahogany body. The split f-hole sweeping across the body is a cool take on a classic shape and a beautiful way to reveal the chambered interior. Italia also constructed the neck out of mahogany and topped it with a bound-rosewood fretboard. Classic aesthetics continue through the hardware and electronics. A Tune-o-maticstyle bridge paired with an Italia-branded stop tailpiece preserves the intended aesthetics while transferring string vibrations. The passive Toaster humbucker pickups are Italia’s take on the toasterstyle design, and are wired to a 3-knob configuration for volume, blend, and tone. Cave Dwellings In terms of balance, sitting with the Cavo was comfortable. It maintained a consistent position whether I rested the bass on my thigh or situated it in a classical-guitar posture. The 30" scale was easy to navigate and little accommodation was required when reaching for notes past the 15th fret. The Cavo did struggle a little when strapped, in that no matter the angle I placed the bass, it always wanted to settle back into a horizontal orientation. That said, this was tolerable with the short-scale instrument since my left hand could reach all of the notes with ease. And if you prefer a straighter playing angle, you won’t find this to be much of an issue at all. There is a unique spectrum of tones living in the Maranello Cavo. After plugging into a Bergantino B|Amp paired with a Bergantino HD112 cab, I rolled the blend knob all the way forward and
soloed the neck pickup, which produced deep timbres. This setting projected the characteristics of the semi-hollowbody design with a slight top-end sparkle. Cranking the blend control in the opposite direction revealed a pointed, mid-heavy sound from the bridge pickup that was impressively barky with a woody snap. Balancing the blend knob combined the qualities of both pickups and delivered a sound that, to my ears, could best be described as a fusion of acoustic bass guitar and piano. The MVP in the electronics department was the tone knob, which changed the shape of these sounds from present and ping-y to dark and warm with a quick twist of the dial. While I celebrated the style and sounds of the Cavo, I did have a couple of minor concerns. A few of the frets on our test bass had height issues, which caused some buzz. Any competent repairman could easily resolve this, but nonetheless, it’s a fix that costs money. And while I know Tune-o-matic-style bridges and stop tailpieces are appreciated by many, I personally find they’re not able to provide super accurate string-height adjustments, which can be a bit frustrating at times. Italia Nights I played the Maranello Cavo at a songwriter’s jam session, where a variety of styles tested the instrument’s versatility. The rig of choice was an Ampeg V-4B with an Ampeg 2x12 cabinet. A song heavily influenced by the Beatles was first, so I attempted to transform the Cavo into a Macca machine. Soloing the neck and dialing down the tone got
me close to McCartney’s famous Hofner timbre, and I was able to confidently serve the song with a thick, bouncing bass tone. This setting worked nicely for a Latin-inspired song as well, for which I applied a thumb-muting technique to replicate an upright bass. I also had a lot of fun playing an instrumental rooted in ’70s jazz-fusion, where I soloed the bridge pickup and delivered tight, Jaco-like sounds with a hint of acoustic resonance. By the end of night, the Cavo successfully provided enough tonal flexibility to satisfy the spectrum of songs. The Verdict Italia has crafted a fun instrument with style, sonic versatility, and pleasing articulation. The Maranello Cavo would be a great option for transitioning guitarists, those with small hands, shortscale aficionados, or a seasoned bassist looking to delve into the short-scale world. This is a bass that, despite a couple of minor concerns, could serve as a go-to instrument for a number of different musical settings. So if you’re looking for a comfy short-scale instrument that’s wrapped up in a very nice-looking semihollow package, place Italia’s latest on your must-try list. CLICK HERE TO WATCH A REVIEW DEMO of this bass.
Italia Maranello Cavo $959 street italiaguitarsusa.com Tones Playability Build/Design Value
PROS Cool looks, solid playability, and practical tones. Set mahogany neck
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CONS Fretwork could have used a little more finesse. Mild neck dive when strapped.
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WIN
A Bad Cat USA Players Series Cub Combo Hand-built in California. MSRP $1499
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REVIEWS
FUZZROCIOUS Blast Furnace By Joe Gore
T
here are various ways to obtain fuzz sounds far more extreme than you encounter in most commercial stompboxes. But whether the method is synth-style filters, 555 timer chips, or just stupid amounts of gain, you encounter similar issues: a near-total loss of dynamics and decaying notes that fizzle out rather than fade. But one player’s problem is another’s inspiration. For some adventurous tone-wreckers, brick-walled anti-dynamics and tones that start with a bang and end with a fart are features, not bugs. For fans of these gated fuzzes (yeah, I’m one) an abrasive kronk followed by a failing fzzzt is a fine expressive tool. And the new Blast Furnace from Fuzzrocious is a kronk and fzzzt superstar.
Echo regeneration
Fuzz volume
Hydrochloric Acid Rock Blast Furnace’s core sound is a full-frequency assault. Notes have harsh, instantaneous attacks, and they burn at maximum heat—at least till they sizzle into oblivion like bugs hitting a zapper. The tones may be hot as hell—they’ll burn through anything!—but no one would call them warm. A toggle switch selects between two profiles. One setting has no filtering: It’s extreme distortion across the guitar’s entire frequency range. The other position adds a radical midrange scoop. (A producer friend of mine calls this a “stoner vee,” because the faders on a graphic EQ form a V shape at such settings and because it’s a preferred EQ profile for stoner rock players.) Keep It Stupid, Simple The Blast Furnace has no gain controls—just a master volume pot. The distortion, meanwhile, is fixed at 11. And don’t expect to shape sounds with your guitar’s tone and volume knobs. You’ll barely hear a difference until your volume drops low enough for the fuzz to fizzle, which it was already planning to do anyway. You’re simply killing the notes before they kill themselves. Still, Blast Furnace is no unpredictable anarchy box. Those definitive attacks and unrelenting levels work brilliantly for
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Fixed-tempo slapback delay
Gated fuzz effect
fast, rhythmically precise riffs. Blast Furnace’s roar may not be a conventional punk or metal sound, but it can work well within those styles, or for any music that relies on both unbridled aggression and metric precision.
PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017 155
REVIEWS
Echoes of Destruction Blast Furnace has another trick up its filthy sleeve: a primitive delay effect. We’re not talking spacious echoes, but a fast slap with a fixed delay time and wet/dry mix. (You can tweak the delay time via an internal trimpot.) However, the feedback level is adjustable. At low regeneration, the echoes add eerie ambience. Medium settings leave smeary psychedelic skid marks, while high settings generate robotic glitch loops and screaming self-modulation. For such a simple circuit, it sure can do a lot of damage! Best part: The delay footswitch is momentary, so you can apply echo as “tastefully” as you like. This can add dynamics and variation to tones that, by design, have little of either. A cool, colorful illustration of an evil furnace adorns the pedal’s standard B-sized enclosure. (The graphics of our review pedal are decals, but Fuzzrocious
www
.
ns.c bour
156 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
om
aud o r p /
also sells hand-painted versions.) Soldering and assembly are clearly done by hand, but it’s nice, solid work. The fuzz and delay components reside on separate boards. (Actually, Blast Furnace uses the same board as Fuzzrocious’s Anomalies delay. Its heart is a PT2399— the chip that launched a thousand DIY delay projects.) The pedal runs on conventional 9V power supplies. There is no battery compartment. The Verdict You don’t need me to tell you that Blast Furnace isn’t for everyone. Is there room in your music for tones that not only turn heads, but incinerate them? If so, this may be just your cup of bile. To quote Alex, the anti-hero from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Blast Furnace will “sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence.”
CLICK HERE TO HEAR this pedal.
Fuzzrocious Blast Furnace $180 street fuzzrociouspedals.com Tones Ease of Use Build/Design Value
PROS Uncompromising, ultraviolent distortion. CONS Uncompromising, ultraviolent distortion.
io
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SET AND FORGET
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STAFF PICKS
Question & Obsession
Everyone needs a little guidance sometimes. Avenged Sevenfold’s Zacky Vengeance joins us as we recall the best advice received from a fellow player.
Zacky Vengeance
Charlie Plate
Guest Picker
Reader of the Month
A: A very wise guitarist once said not to deal in technique, but in emotion. That has always stuck with me.
A: Relax. Tense, heavyhanded, and unbalanced technique not only causes physical suffering, but can limit your range. We often excuse these tendencies as part of our style, but you can attack the strings light and precise with equal success as when flexed and strained. Observe classically trained virtuosos and take note of their posture while executing physically demanding music. Simply sitting up straight and relaxing your shoulders may make all the difference.
Current obsession: Elvis and all things Tennessee. I love the vibe in Memphis and Nashville as well as the stories and rivalries that set the foundation for all styles of modern music.
Current obsession: Alternatives to A440. This “standard” is historically recent; many timeless musical pieces were originally performed well above and below this pitch (careful being fooled by modern pitch correction). Feels like painting with a new tonal palette.
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Far left: Photo by Rafa Alcantara
What’s the best guitar tip you’ve received from a fellow player?
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Shawn Hammond
Jason Shadrick
Senior Editor
Chief Content Officer
Associate Editor
A: Best recent advice comes from Luther Dickinson. I love my tone and can get frustrated by backlines. Luther always has great tone and plays through lots of backlines. He told me lame backlines used to bother him until he decided to stay out of his own head about his sound while performing. I’ve embraced that.
A: Growing up as a really shy kid in a super-conservative place where hardly anyone I knew played guitar shaped me into more of an introspective guitar nerd. Even now, I don’t really get into nitty-gritty conversations about playing. For better or worse, I’ve mostly just kind of cobbled together ideas from personal experience and stuff I’ve read, and embraced a do-what-works-for-you-andscrew-the-rest mentality.
A: One day after an especially difficult lesson in college, my teacher, Jim McGuire, told me to leave my guitar at home for next week’s lesson. When I came back—sans guitar—we had a long, deep talk. I took some notes, recorded a bit of it, and tried to soak up everything he said, but the most lasting lesson from that session was his simple mantra, “Relax. It’s just music.”
Current obsession: Solo gigs. I love getting close to people, entertaining in a relaxed and natural way, and telling stories about the music. Performing solo requires opening your heart.
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Current obsession: Curtis Novak’s Jazzmaster Widerange pickups. They’ve got killer JM tones, plus a little more warmth and texture—minus the hum.
Current obsession: My name is Jason and I’m a reverb addict. I’ve been skirting around going into a deep wormhole of ambient tones full of shimmering, invisible surfaces, but it’s finally time. Wish me luck.
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Giveaways
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Enter @ PremierGuitar.com/Contests Void where prohibited. Read full rules on PremierGuitar.com. To enter our gear giveaways by mail, legibly hand-print your first and last name, address, age, and day and evening phone numbers on a 3”x 5” card and mail to:
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LOVE YOUR EARS
Alclair is committed to making the highest quality monitors with the best materials and craftsmanship at an unbeatable price. Not only do Alclair in-ear monitors help you hear yourself on stage, they are also safer for your long term hearing health than floor wedges when used properly. We want to help you hear both bo now and in the future.
ALCLAIR.COM/PG Š 2017 Alclair Audio.
The Kids Are Alright Loog is a line of small, 3-string guitars designed to make it fun and easy for anyone to play music. They pair with an app that gets children playing songs on day one. It’s the best guitar you can gift to a kid and it can also be a great addition to your own arsenal: tune it to Open A and use it to play slide or as a killer riff machine. Or simply let the constraint of having fewer strings unleash your creativity and take you to new musical places. Loog Pro & Loog Mini available now at loog.nyc. Use code PREMIER for 10% off.
ALLEN HINDS & THE XOTIC XSC-2 Xotic California ClassicÂŽ XSC-2 Lake Placid Blue Heavy Aged
“This guitar came from the factory set up and comfortable to play. Immediately felt like an old friend!" -Allen Hinds
Not only does our aging process give each guitar its own distinctive qualities and naturally attractive look, the nitrocellulose lacquer finish and roasted neck allow the guitar woods to breathe and resonate for a pure and highly sought after tone.
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“I didn’t want a faster horse. I wanted to build a rocket ship with a holodeck and a transporter, and throw in warp drive for kicks. It’s true, I’m dangerously obsessed, with pedalboards. Try something new and make your tomorrow better than today.” -Chris Trifilio/Chief Designer
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The Real Deal.
SALES • SERVICE • STRINGS • PARTS • RESTORATIONS
Restorations by Jeff Babicz
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Pro gear for pro players When you reach this level of professionalism, you simply can’t take chances, and it always pays to rely on that which is proven. Well here at Whirlwind we’ve made an industry out of over building anything with our name on it, from our indispensable DIs, to our lifetime warranty cables, to our tour beaten down, but come back for more medusa stage snakes, you’ll always get our promise of second to none sound quality, and unsurpassed durability. Catch Doug Wimbish and the rest of the crew from Living Colour as they continue to throw down with equal parts of precision, and unbridled thunder to whirlwindusa.com a city near you!
“Whirlwind, we know your gear will always work everytime we plug it in. Thank you! -Doug Wimbish Living Colour
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Sam Breckenridge plays Tim Reede Guitars Check out his new video “The Fighter”
@premierguitar 170 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
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PRO-SERIES October ’92, the one that started it all.
25 years later and the Traveler Pro-Series remains the standard against which all travel guitars are measured. Specs, features, and our full lineup of cutting edge travel guitars available online.
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172 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
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FEELS LIKE THE REAL THING
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ESOTERICA ELECTRICA
Why Neck Pitch Matters BY JOL DANTZIG The neck pitch evident on this instrument ensures that the strings clear the pickups and arrive at the bridge at the proper height.
O
ne of the most overlooked design considerations of electric guitar construction is the angle (aka incline) of the neck in relation to the body. This angle is typically called “pitch” (not to be confused with the frequency of notes) and is expressed in degrees. And despite its quiet existence on every one of your guitars, it’s a technical feature that drives many aspects of an instrument’s design. To visualize neck pitch, think of an upright bass. This instrument—along with the cello, violin, and viola—has an extreme and obvious neck angle that puts the strings’ contact point on the bridge high above the body. The result is a large amount of downward pressure on the bridge, and therefore the instrument’s top. (Think of it like an archer drawing an arrow back on his or her bow.) Builders discovered centuries ago that the downward pressure increased vibration transfer and enhanced volume and tone. To a degree, early guitar-like instruments followed this discipline for the exact same reasons it’s used on orchestral instruments. In the 1930s, electric pickups began appearing on guitars to take advantage of developments in electronic amplification. On guitars with lots of neck pitch, designers had to fashion ways to mount the pickups near the strings, especially as the addition of a “bridge pickup” became common. The size of the pickup sometimes required a hole to be routed in the guitar’s top if the strings were too close to the body. On a solid guitar with 3 to 5 degrees of neck pitch, the strings pass over the pickup’s face at an angle— closer at the neck side than the bridge side. Beveling the plastic surrounds used to mount humbuckers mitigated this. So, you can see that this pitch thing is already affecting other parts of the instrument. As electric guitars began to be commoditized in the late ’40s and early ’50s, builders like Fender and Rickenbacker sought to streamline their
174 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2017
production process in any way possible. One way to save money was to eliminate the angledneck feature, which was time consuming—and therefore expensive— to execute. To gain clearance for pickups and bridge height, Rickenbacker raised the entire neck (while still parallel to the body), whereas Fender chose to bury the pickups and design a low-slung bridge. The two companies also came up with different strategies for increasing the downward pressure at the bridge. In an inspired move, Fender sent the string ends downward through the body, whereas Rickenbacker inserted the bridge base into the body and later adopted a large trench rout that put the tailpiece lower than the bridge. In both of these cases, the remedy to one problem created a design paradigm that still exists today. Believe me when I say that it’s easier to hog out more wood than to construct a complex, angled neck joint—which is why so many builders do it. Another side effect of pronounced neck pitch is the floating pickguards seen initially on archtop jazz guitars, and later on solidbodies like the Les Paul, referred to as “finger rests.” (This is presumably because guitars are plucked with the hand rather than bowed, and these add-on parts provided a raised platform for the fingers.) Similarly, pickguards are present on solid instruments with little or no neck pitch, as they are a clever way to hide routing and provide mounting for switches, volume controls, and pickups. That also can eliminate back routing completely, since everything goes on the front. Remember that pickup-angle problem? Without pitch, as seen on Fenders and Rickenbackers (not to mention the majority of all guitars mass-produced
today), the issue of angling pickups is eliminated. This also reduces the steps needed to build the guitar. The height of the strings off the body is something we all sense consciously or unconsciously, and it can affect the way we attack the guitar, be it with a flatpick or fingers. The neck’s pitch angle also alters the relative position of our two hands ever so slightly. And this small difference can make one guitar feel more comfortable than another. As much as we’d all like to shop for an instrument based primarily on tone, shape, wood selection, or color, the geometry of construction has a big impact on why we bond with some guitars and not with others. I’ve met players who obsess over the top-wrapping tailpiece debate, yet never consider (or recognize) neck angle. Remember: How much angle a builder specifies has a lot to do with how a guitar feels to a player, so pay attention to which types of design philosophies create the right playing synchronicity for you. It can be just as or more important than those hardware or finish considerations. JOL DANTZIG is a noted
designer, builder, and player who co-founded Hamer Guitars, one of the first boutique guitar brands, in 1973. Today, as the director of Dantzig Guitar Design, he continues to help define the art of custom guitar. To learn more, visit guitardesigner.com.
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LAST CALL
Instagram Me, Wabi-Sabi BY JOHN BOHLINGER
T
hirty-five brainiac scientists studied the melodic, dynamic, rhythmic, and aural content of 1 million songs written between 1955 and 2010, according to a report published in 2012 by the Spanish National Research Council. This exhaustive study confirmed what you already know: Music is growing more homogeneous every year. According to the report, “Diversity of … note combinations … has consistently diminished in the last 50 years. Not only are the melodies of songs more similar than they used to be, the timbral palette employed—the sounds of the instruments—has also grown narrower.” In short, science says modern music is un-dynamic, rehashed melodies combined with limited tones. Personal experience confirms some of what these eggheads are preaching. I’ve worked as a music director in television for the past 15 years. In the last five years, roughly one-third of the charts I’ve written were I–V–VI–IV chord patterns. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticizing the wildly talented artists I work with. I’m just saying there’s an undeniable trend in modern hit songs. I just completed my ninth year leading the band for the CMT Music Awards and can say with some pride that my stage is always track-free, truly live live music. It’s kind of a big deal, because a lot of so called “live” music you see in a concert or a broadcast is accompanied by prerecorded tracks. Modern recordings are deeply layered with armies of guitars, loops, background vocals, and seductive ear candy. There’s a lot of pressure to sound equally big live, so the solution is to add tracks to your live instruments. In Nashville, we call it Hillbilly Vanilli. A track gives you perfection, but perfection is inhuman, and eventually we’re going to want something natural we can relate to. There’s a Japanese concept called wabi-sabi that celebrates the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete beauty in our naturally imperfect world. Let me put
wabi-sabi in terms you’ll understand: A 1954 Les Paul goldtop is prized because of (not despite) its cracked finish and green patina. Wabi-sabi is not autotuned, quantized, Photoshopped, or Botoxed. Wabi-sabi is about nature, and nature is unpredictable—not linear or symmetrical, but simultaneously growing and decaying. In our current culture that wants to straighten every crooked line, we’re mesmerized more than ever by nature doing its own thing. Maybe that’s why, for the past year, I’ve discovered more music on Instagram than anywhere else. Instagram is a great source for truly live, un-retouched performances. I’m sure there are some uptight artists who employ a hair and makeup team, an engineer, auto-tune, and the full vanity production in every Insta-post, but most people probably approach it like I do: put on some pants, pick up a guitar, play, and let the notes fall where they may. When I’m sitting around the house playing guitar and my infant daughter starts dancing along, Amy films it and posts it on the spot. When I’m on tour and our drummer Donnie Marple starts banging out a warm-up on a green-room couch, I’ll join in, film, and post. When I’m deep into a 4 a.m. buzz mixing hippie pedal steel and uncontrollable analog delay with a recording of Marty Stuart or John Mayer, I post it before I can sober up and have the good sense to keep it to myself. Replete with clams, my stuff is so wabi-sabi you couldn’t find a straight line or right angle in it to save your life. Yet, I find it strangely gratifying rather than embarrassing. Speaking of John Mayer, Instagram is where I learned that when he’s not playing music, he’s unwinding by playing music, working up Bill Evansstyle piano. Joe Bonamassa posts videos several times a week that feel like he’s my friend, sitting right across from me, blowing out these killer lines while demonstrating the tonal nuances of
another gem from a recent guitar safari. Check out @John5official to see the Telemaster slaying it in his pajamas. But besides world-renowned musicians, it’s inspiring to discover players like Mateus Asato, a 23-year-old Brazilian who is a master of the oneminute arrangement. Every post has a structure, with a beginning, middle, and end, and such perfect economy of notes they feel like musical haiku. Asato absolutely shreds, but his arrangements and melodic sensibilities will crush your soul with their beauty. There’s Sweden’s Emil Ernebro, who effortlessly blows through complex, funky fingerstyle songs perfectly in step with his racing metronome. I learn something every time I watch a post from my amigos Andy Wood, J.D. Simo, and Greg Koch—all virtuosos on everything from metal to bluegrass. There are compilation accounts like @ambientnotes and @pickupjazz, which scour Instagram and repost the best. I discover killer players every week that make me wonder why people keep hiring me with all this talent out there. For decades, there were gatekeepers like record labels, radio, and TV that decided what we got to listen to. Now we can see and hear music in all its ragged, wabi-sabi glory from anybody with access to a cellphone and one bar of connectivity. Enjoy the imperfection while you can. Nothing lasts. JOHN BOHLINGER is a Nashvillebased multi-instrumentalist best known for leading the band on NBC’s Nashville Star and serving as music director for the CMT Awards and specials on PBS and GAC. When not filming Rig Rundowns and gear reviews for PG, John plays pedal steel for Lee Brice.
Premier Guitar ISSN 1945-077x (print) and ISSN 1945-0788 (online) is published monthly by Gearhead Communications, LLC. Principal office: 3 Research Center, Marion, IA 52302. Periodicals postage paid at Marion, IA 52302 and at Additional Mailing Offices. © 2017 Gearhead Communications, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Premier Guitar are registered trademarks of Gearhead Communications, LLC. Subscribers: If the Postal Service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address. U.S. Subscriptions: $24.95 for one year. Call for Canada, Mexico and foreign subscription rates. Postmaster: Send address changes to Premier Guitar, 3 Research Center, Marion, IA 52302. Customer Service and subscriptions please call 877-704-4327 or email lois@premierguitar.com. Printed in USA. Volume 22 Issue 9 September 2017
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