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Win! A vox Ac10 Amp Worth £435 p.78 Issue 425

OCTOBER 2017

at

cel ebr at ing si x dec a de s of l egenda r y bri t is h t one

featu ring

def leppard

George

harrison

On the guitar tOne secrets Of ‘hysteria’

Rosewood tele & AC30 Combo!

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brian hank r a diohe a d POrti sh ea d rare vintage amps vox history and much more!

interview

vintage

gear insight

rich a rd t homp s on on A C ous t iC gui tA R

195 9 ep ip hone C oRone t

Joe b on a m a s s a on his l i v e Rig

Future Publishing Limited, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA Telephone 01225 442244 Email guitarist@futurenet.com Online www.guitarist.co.uk

The Sound of History This month, we celebrate the pioneering sounds of Vox, the trailblazing British company that gave birth to some of the most viscerally exciting tones in rock history, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. It’s a massive achievement given the ups and downs of the industry in Britain over the past six decades. To read the whole quintessentially British story, in which E-Type Jags, chip shops and pure engineering talent all play their part, turn to page 58 — I’m sure you’ll join us in wishing Vox a happy birthday.

While we were making the feature, we got talking about the ex-George Harrison AC30 explored in detail on page 74 and other famous bits of kit that have stepped from the floodlit stage of history into the relative obscurity of private ownership.

In this case, those closed doors were kindly opened up to readers by owner Carl Nielsen for our feature. But what about the less well-documented gear once played by famous guitarists that slipped into obscurity without a trace? It’s a tantalising thought that some ‘lost’ guitar amps and effects used on classic albums are probably being played right now by some unsuspecting owner. Bernie Marsden, of Whitesnake fame, who tackles the mysterious subject of why some guitars have mojo in his column on page 36, reckons that guitars should come with logbooks like cars, which each new owner must stamp and keep to pass onto the next picker. We all thought it was a great idea.

On a sadder note, as we went to press with this issue we learned of the death of Steely Dan’s Walter Becker (see obituary, page 31). A very fine guitarist himself, Becker had the additional distinction, along with writing partner Donald Fagen, of coaxing some of the finest guitar playing we’ll ever hear from stellar players such as Larry Carlton and Elliott Randall. And what songs....Becker was a major dude by any reckoning. Look out for a full tribute to his ’Dan work next issue. In the meantime, I’ll be putting The Royal Scam on and remembering.

Jamie Dickson Editor

Editor’s Highlights Richard Thompson

The former Fairport Convention man is one of the greatest guitarists these shores have produced. He discusses his first love, the acoustic guitar, on p52

Crowning Glory

The ‘59 Epiphone Coronet Rod Brakes examines in this issue is the quintessence of stripped-down cool. Where do we get one? p88

Def Leppard

Phil Collen’s candid interview reveals in detail the struggle to achieve sonic perfection on their landmark album Hysteria on its 30th anniversary p82

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Future Publishing Limited, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA Telephone 01225 442244 Email guitarist@futurenet.com Online www.guitarist.co.uk

EDITORIAL Editor

Jamie Dickson

Art Editor

Reviews Editor

jamie.dickson@futurenet.com

Luke O’Neill

Dave Burrluck

luke.oneill@futurenet.com

Deputy Editor

Managing Editor

david.mead@futurenet.com

Senior Music Editor

Group Editor-In-Chief

jason.sidwell@futurenet.com

dave@daveburrluck.com

David Mead

Lucy Rice lucy.rice@futurenet.com

Jason Sidwell

Daniel Griffiths daniel.griffiths@futurenet.com

Contributors Michael Astley-Brown, Richard Barrett, Rod Brakes, Adrian Clark, Trevor Curwen, Chris Francis, Adam Goldsmith, Nick Guppy, David Hands, Martin Holmes, Richard Hood, Rob Laing, Bernie Marsden, Neville Marten, Roger Newell, Elliott Randall, Adam Rees, Davina Rungasamy, Mick Taylor, James Wootton, Henry Yates In-House Photography Joseph Branston, Olly Curtis, Adam Gasson, Neil Godwin, Joby Sessions Advertising Clare Dove clare.dove@futurenet.com director of agency sales Matt Downs matt.downs@futurenet.com head of strategic partnerships Clare Jonik clare.jonik@futurenet.com senior advertising sales manager Lara Jaggon lara.jaggon@futurenet.com account sales director Leon Stephens leon.stephens@futurenet.com account sales director Alison Watson alison.watson@futurenet.com advertising sales manager Simon Rawle simon.rawle@futurenet.com commercial sales director

MArketing Sharon Todd sharon.todd@futurenet.com subscriptions marketing manager Will Hardy william.hardy@futurenet.com head of marketing

Print & Production Mark Constance mark.constance@futurenet.com production controller Frances Twentyman frances.twentyman@futurenet.com senior ad production coordinator Gemma O’Riordan gemma.oriordan@futurenet.com head of production uk & us

head of licensing

Licensing Matt Ellis matt.ellis@futurenet.com circuLAtion Michelle Brock 0203 787 9021

trade marketing manager

Future PubLishing LiMited Graham Dalzell graham.dalzell@futurenet.com art & design director Ross Andrews ross.andrews@futurenet.com creative director Aaron Asadi aaron.asadi@futurenet.com chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne zillah.byngthorne@futurenet.com

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Contents

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Guitarist october 2017

Contents ISSUE 425 october 2017

reGulars 003 ......... editor’s Welcome 026 ......... the Wishlist 029 ......... the lineup 034 ......... opinion 039 ......... Perfect 10 040 ......... readers’ letters 044 ......... New Music 046 ......... one For the road 112 ......... subscribe 119 ......... tone Makers 120 ......... board Games 132 ......... longterm test 137 ......... Gear Q&a 140 ......... classic Gear 143 ......... Next Month 144 ......... old Gold 152 ......... reader ads

cover Feature 058 ......... Vox 60th anniversary

Features 048 ......... obituary: Glen campbell 052 ......... richard thompson 082 ......... Def leppard’s Phil collen 088 ......... Historic Hardware: 1959 epiphone coronet 126 ......... Workshop: raw state’s Neil Perry

cover feature

NeW Gear

58

010 ......... Fender George Harrison rosewood telecaster 016 ......... Charvel Guthrie Govan signature 022 ......... Danelectro ’66 092 ......... 633 Engineering Drive King 50 Head & Jazz & blues 1x12 combo 102 ......... Guild M-40e & M-240e troubadour acoustics 108 ......... Mooer red truck 114 ......... Boss Ms-3 116 .......... Bigfoot Engineering Yak Face Xl 118 .......... Electro-Harmonix operation overloard allied overdrive & tone corset 122 .......... Fibonacci chiquita 124 ......... Seymour Duncan Powerstage 170

60 YEarS oF Vox a look at the history of this famous british brand, with commentary from Hank Marvin and brian May and the story of George Harrison’s beatles backline ac30…

tecHNiQues 147 ......... Jump blues bootcamp with chris corcoran

viDeo & auDio cover photography by

Neil Godwin

to enjoy all of the video and audio content in this issue, type the following link into your browser and follow the instructions in the post entitled ‘Guitarist video and audio’: http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

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f i r st p l ay

FENDER GEORGE HARRISON ROSEWOOD TELECASTER £2,289 An understated look but uniquesounding tribute to one of The Beatles’ most iconic moments

By George!

We get back to where we once belonged with this limited edition Telecaster that evokes a legendary rooftop gig from 30 January 1969 Words Neville Matrten Photography Olly Curtis

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lmost 50 years since The Beatles brought London’s West End to a standstill with a free concert on the roof of their Apple building in Savile Row, and where George Harrison debuted an unusual dark-brown Telecaster, Fender is issuing a limited edition model to honour George, the gig and that guitar.

The legendary instrument, put together

by Roger Rossmeisl (of Rickenbacker design fame) and Phil Kubicki (who went on to create the fantastic Factor basses), was the prototype of a short run or two of instruments that has become hugely collectable. Built from solid East Indian rosewood it was a sultry looking creation that reflected its recipient perfectly: dark, handsome, and understated, but under that subtle exterior lurking a top-class music maker. Fender gifted it to Harrison for his 25th birthday, the same day Eric Clapton presented George with the Leslie cabinet that he used on the Let It Be solo itself (the ‘single’ version).

Of course there have been rosewood reissues before, including the brilliant 80s ones from Fender Japan; and master builder Paul

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http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

FENDER GEORGE HARRISON ROSEWOOD TELECASTER

first play

with thanks to resolution records in bath for the loan of ‘let it be’

Video demo

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FENDER GEORGE HARRISON ROSEWOOD TELECASTER

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1. Although from a distance (or from the street below!) the rosewood Tele looks rather Plain Jane, up close a thing of real beauty emerges. Nutty brown and black hues from the rosewood itself look great against the black guard. George used that little neck pickup a lot, too

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Waller’s stunning 2013 recreation with specs taken direct from Harrison’s own instrument.

But this limited run of 1,000 is special in its own right: after the latest CITES regulations rosewood will be scarcer than ever; the model has received a couple of popular player updates including a flatter radius ‘board, bigger frets and chambering to reduce weight; and it’s pretty realistically priced, too.

Among the many Tele adaptations, the rosewoods look the least ostentatious. From a few rows back it does seem like just a brown guitar (ornithological ‘twitchers’ talk about ‘little brown birds’ or ‘LBBs’ signifying a variety of similarly plain-looking species) but as with this Tele, some of those LBBs are fine, rare and beautiful in their own right. So think of this as the Blyth’s reed warbler of guitars!

As stated, the entire guitar is built from rosewood, save for the thin maple veneer or ‘binder’ that separates top and back, both of which are two-piece spreads. Like George’s original the body is finished in satin polyurethane. The neck features a thinner,

more open-pore urethane and feels nicely drag-free to the touch.

The pickups are grey-bottom ‘64-style single coils – the staggered-pole rear unit housed, of course, in the classic three-saddle ‘ashtray’ bridge (actually the ashtray was the bridge cover, but let’s not split hairs), while at the neck is that diminutive chrome-covered affair that divides opinion – people say it’s either a waste of space, or a thing of sonorous beauty; we fall into the latter camp. Controls are basic master volume and tone governed by a three-way blade switch, all mounted on the simplest chrome plate. Tuners are F-stamped Klusonalikes while the four-bolt neck plate carries a George Harrison signature and ‘Om’ symbol.

Black-white-black pickguard, artificial bone nut and chrome string ferrules complete the elemental inventory.

Feel & Sounds

Anyone who’s played one of Fender’s mid60s-style, C-shaped necks with a 241mm (9.5”) radius and 6105 frets, knows how natural it

Video demo

http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

FENDER GEORGE HARRISON ROSEWOOD TELECASTER

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2. Fender released more than one early rosewood Tele run. While George’s had the glued-on ‘board of the time, the later releases (and the 80s Japan ones) opted for one-piece rosewood with maple skunk stripe and headstock plug – a perfect negative of the era’s maple necks

first play

3. You’ll notice no skunk stripe here, but you can just see the neck’s more open-pore urethane finish, and the guitar’s subtle overall satin look. Also check out the ‘George Harrison’ signature and ‘Om’ symbol stamped into the four-bolt neck plate with its ‘V’ serial number

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feels in the hand. Even those used to the 184mm (7.25”) vintage radius and thin frets will take just minutes to acclimatise – although in our experience it’s harder going back. Of course, the Telecaster is so ubiquitous that this is no mere ‘Beatles guitar’. It will take virtually anything that any player throws at it – think of just a few Tele players, from James Burton to Ted Greene, Danny Gatton to Richie Kotzen, Jim Mullen to Albert Collins, Jimmy Page to Muddy Waters and so many more.

Short of whammy bar antics it will deal with any technique without batting a musical eyelid, and that couldn’t honestly be said about an original.

Sound-wise, compared to our own Custom Shop ‘62 Tele it’s perhaps a tad lighter toned, but that could be the steel threaded saddles compared to the brass of the ‘62… or indeed the rosewood body’s

chambering, which we know can increase top and bottom while scooping an ounce or two of middle.

Through Guitarist’s resident Vox AC15 and this reviewer’s Blues Junior, there was hardly a sound it couldn’t muster. At the neck it delivers warm jazz and sweet Hendrix-y rhythm (check out George’s lovely playing on Don’t Let Me Down), while conjuring a dark, angry bark or crystal clear ‘clang’ at the bridge. And of course you get those super funky, spiky country or Zeppelin-style leads in the middle. Clean or dirty it handles everything with class – no wonder the Tele has fuelled some of the finest music for almost eight decades.

Verdict

To be honest we were initially a bit sniffy about this guitar. We felt the modern tweaks that Fender has introduced simply altered things too much to make it a true

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FENDER GEORGE HARRISON ROSEWOOD TELECASTER

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FENDER GEORGE HARRISON ROSEWOOD TELECASTER

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4. Note the staggeredpole bridge pickup and threaded bridge saddles on the classic Tele ‘ashtray’ bridge 5. The late 60s originals weighed a ton and the 80s reissues carried quite a clout, too. But this limited run has been chambered for weight relief. The maple veneer that binds the top and back halves is still in place, detectible by the white line around the guitar’s body

artist model. But spending time with the instrument and thinking about what Harrison himself might have said – prior to receiving his rosewood model he wasn’t a Tele player at all, but jumped in with both feet to play it live in front of potentially millions – we’ve revised that view.

We think George would have loved how easy and rewarding the neck is to play; and enjoyed the beautifully dynamic tone that chambering has brought to bear (not to mention the reduced weight on those diminutive shoulders). We also reckon he would have applauded Fender for keeping it a limited edition but maintaining a

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reasonable price – remember it’s a grand less than the latest Custom Shop Relics are making with the most recent price hike.

Best of all though, a bit like issue 424’s Brad Paisley Tele it’s such an easy guitar to live with that we could see George sitting round happily noodling on it – just as we have done for the last couple of weeks. And if there are any Beatles fans who fancy a George-style guitar that’s immensely cool in its own right, is inherently one of the most versatile instruments ever but that won’t completely break the bank, we can’t think of a better place to begin that long and winding road.

PRICE: £2,289 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Single-cutaway, bolt-on electric BODY: Solid rosewood (chambered) with maple centre veneer NECK: Solid rosewood (with openpore matt urethane finish), bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”) NUT/WIDTH: Synthetic bone/42mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood round lam; pearl dot inlays, 241mm (9.5”) radius FRETS: 21, medium jumbo (6105) HARDWARE: Chrome vintage-style Tele bridge with three threaded steel saddles, F-stamped Kluson-style sixa-side tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52mm ELECTRICS: Fender custom wound grey-bottom ‘64 Tele bridge and neck pickup, 3-way lever pickup selector, master volume and tone WEIGHT: 4kg/8.8lbs OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: Fender’s 2017 Artist range that includes the Jimi Hendrix Monterey Strat (£776), Ed O’Brien (Radiohead) Sustainer Strat (£949), and Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Paramore) Mustang bass (£969) LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Clear, matt polyurethane Fender Musical Instruments EMEA 01342 331700 www.fender.com

9 PROS Iconic model; understated looks; great range of sounds; modern, playable neck CONS Although versatile it might be just too ‘Beatles’ for some

f i r st p l ay

Charvel Guthrie Govan SiGnature £3,029 Latest of two Guthrie signatures, this one has a caramelized ash body and caramelized flame maple neck and is loaded with player-centric features

uber axe If your jaw drops when you see and hear Guthrie Govan play then prepare for your wallet to open for his latest guitar Words Dave Burrluck Photography Olly Curtis

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art of the Fender empire since 2002, Charvel’s reputation was founded by making custom guitars for great players. It’s currently signature home to Warren DeMartini, Joe Duplantier, Jake E. Lee and our own Guthrie Govan, who’s first signature model appeared in 2014 after two years of development.

Earlier this year two Charvel Guthrie Govan Signature models were announced with virtually identical features and price, the difference lying primarily in their woods. It means the full title of our reviewed model is the, deep breath, Charvel Guthrie Govan Signature HSH, Caramelized Ash, Caramelized Flame Maple Fingerboard, Natural – the other being the Charvel Guthrie Govan Signature HSH Flame Maple, Caramelized Flame Maple Fingerboard, Natural. Bonkers. But name length aside there’s nothing bonkers about the guitars: our caramelized ash body model is up there with the finest bolt-ons we’ve ever played. How so?

Unlike the basswood/flame maple top version, the construction here is intended to

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Charvel Guthrie Govan SiGnature

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Charvel Guthrie Govan SiGnature

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1. Inside the neck are dual graphite rods for extra stability. The ‘super jumbo’ frets are stainless steel while the side dots are luminous

by Luminlay 2. This ‘secret’ switch activates a passive filter for the humbuckers, creating a surprisingly single coil-like voice that’s still humcancelling. All it takes is a simple capacitor!

3. Nicely contoured at the heel with inset neck screws, combined with the rear cutaway contour top fret access is a breeze.

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have a bit more character, at least tonally. The body is two-piece, centred joined ‘caramelized’ ash (yet another word for torrefied timber), which with its thin lacquer finish shows off the bold wavy-striped grain. It doesn’t appear to be grain filled and is hugely textured.

The similarly caramelized maple neck has a bold striped figure on the back that’s only slightly milder on the separate fingerboard.

It certainly adopts a thin depth flat ‘C’ and if the spec sheet didn’t tell is it was coated with a hand-rubbed urethane gel we’d suspect it was oiled. Under that fingerboard, however, are dual graphite rods – to increase stability – and, of course, there’s a two-way adjustable truss rod with body-end wheel adjustment.

The fingerboard face has a compound radius, 24 big stainless steel frets and clear contrasting position dots and Luminlay luminous side dots. The neck is extremely tight-fitting and held in place with four screws, each recessed into the contoured heel.

The bridge, initially, looks like an early Floyd Rose (without fine tuners) but is a USA-made Charvel design that centres around a thick brass inertia block, steel top plate and large saddles into which the strings are locked via those long Allen key bolts; once intonation is

set each saddle is firmly locked in place. It’s back routed too and the whole unit is recessed into the body so the top of the bridge plate is flush with the top of the body. A Tremol-No is fitted so you can prevent upbend, lock it in place as a fixed bridge or, as supplied, just use it as a free floating vibrato with a huge range from floppy to an upbend of approximately a fourth on the G string (it’ll go a bit higher but we stopped there).

Perhaps surprisingly a typical locking nut is replaced with a classic bone nut and Sperzel locking tuner,yet even straight out of the case the tuning stability was hugely impressive, not least with that wide range. Even the stainless steel arm has been ‘tuned’: it’s a tight push fit into a plastic collar (with tension adjustment) but with zero free play.

Matching the caramel colour are the centre single coil’s cover and bobbin tops of the uncovered neck and bridge humbuckers – which are firmed screwed to the body with no intended height adjustment; the middle single coil has a little more movement but not by much.

Like any HSH set up you have huge choice on exactly how you wire it – this is no different.

While the outer positions select the full

Charvel Guthrie Govan SiGnature

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humbuckers, position two voices bridge (slug single coil only) and the middle single coil; position three gives us bridge and neck (both slug single coils); position four offers the screw single coil of the neck pickup with the middle pickup. There’s no provision for voicing the solo middle single coil, or any way of coil-splitting the two humbuckers but via a ‘secret’ two-way mini toggle that is simulated by an old-school passive filter (a 0.1 microfarad capacitor). Internally the circuit features EVH 500k pots, and cap/ resistor in parallel on the volume control.

The guitar is full of subtle details. Along with those luminous side dots we also get dome-topped Luminlay control knobs with clear luminous numbers around each base.

A Strat-like dished output jack is placed close to the base strap button so plugging in and threading your lead through your strap is really easy. Even the strap buttons seem over-sized.

4. Charvel, being part of the Fender empire, can happily use that famous headstock shape. Note the locking Sperzel tuners and the traditional bone nut

Feel & Sounds

In many ways this feels more like high performance rifle, not a guitar. It gives

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Charvel Guthrie Govan SiGnature

5. The Tremol-No means you can lock the vibrato as a hard-tail bridge or limit it to just down-bends for those country-style dual string bends

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7. Designed by ex-Fender guru Michael FrankBraun, the HSH layout pickups controlled by a 5-way, 4-pole ‘Super Switch’

6. Based on the original Floyd Rose the strings lock into those big block saddles but there are no fine tuners and there’s no locking nut. Despite the huge travel, tuning stability is exceptional

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off a tuned-to-perfection vibe that’s like an instrument you’ve owned for a while, gigged, modified and tweaked. Which in reality is exactly what it is only Charvel and Guthrie Govan have done it for us.

The big surprise here is the neck which, certainly in Fender terms, feels skinny with a depth at the 1st fret of 19.9mm and 21.1mm at the 12th. Yet it has a very comfortable, flattened ‘C’ profile with nicely rolled fingerboard edges that is hard not to like.

No, it doesn’t feel like a big necked old-style Fender but it’s great for thumb around lefthand styles unlike some modern shapes which seem overly flat-backed. The big frets (approximately 2.79mm wide x 1.3mm high) keep the strings (and your fingertips) just off the face of the fingerboard and make for superbly slippery bends. It feels like its strung with .010s and has plenty of fight.

The compound radius is far from vintage but just doesn’t fret out anywhere – it just lets you play, effortlessly. For someone like Guthrie there’s plenty of money up the dusty end and the tapered heel and rear contour on the back of the treble cutaway allow effortless access if you need.

How you drive it, of course, is up to you.

But don’t dismiss this as a virtuoso rock shredder axe. Yes, if your technique is up

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to it, you won’t have a problem there and using just the bridge pickup you’ll probably have all you need: big and ballsy, a hint of a cocked wah-like high end it’s certainly in the JB area. But it’s offset by a pokey PAFlike neck voice, tube-y and soupy but far from one dimensional. If that was it, we’d be smiling. But there’s plenty more...

The ‘single coil’ switch barely drops any volume and gives a subtle but sonically significant Fender-esque texture that moves the guitar into a different space and style and with some light crunch fits right into that powered Stones-y raunch, especially if you pull back the volume.

Position two, and especially four, certainly suggest a Strat, position two being a little more steely perhaps that again loves cleanboosted crunch. It holds up well to other Strats we had to hand but none matched this one’s playability, string-to-string balance or indeed even response right across the board.

But we’re not done yet. Switch to a clean Fender amp, knock the edge off the tone and the neck pickup does a more than usable jazz box. Switch back to position two and there’s pedal-steel like sheen.

Clean, crunchy or gained we couldn’t find an unusable sound; throw in the effortless

playability and really wide stylistic voice and this is a real blues-to-rock-to-metal to wherever you want to take it journeyman guitar that is so hard to put down. We’re completely absorbed.

verdict

Guthrie Govan’s vision for an all round workhouse that’ll stand up to the rigours of professional touring is superbly realised in this signature. Every detail is wonderfully considered: the over-sized strap buttons, the Strat-like dished output jack placement, the hugely intuitive drive, that secret ‘single coil’ switch, the impressive tuning stability (and startling range) of the vibrato, not to mention the wood choice, graphite reinforced neck and a really unposh working player’s vibe. Is there anything Guthrie hasn’t considered?

Well, at £3k, a Fender style bolt-on in far from classic livery won’t wash with everyone. There are certainly other top makers out there that would at least allow you a choice of finishes with a similar specification at similar or lower prices – Vigier, for example, springs to mind.

So, no, it’s not a cheap date but it’s an astonishing guitar: a player’s tool of the highest calibre.

Charvel Guthrie Govan SiGnature

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Charvel Guthrie Govan SiGnature PRICE: £3,029 (inc case) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Offset double-cutaway San Dimas-shaped solidbody electric BODY: Two-piece caramelized ash NECK: Caramelized flame maple with graphite reinforcement, bolt-on SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5inch) NUT: Bone/42.93mm FINGERBOARD: Caramelized flame maple, ebony ring with maple dot centre inlays, 305-406mm (1216”) compound radius, Luminlay side dots FRETS: 24, ‘super jumbo’ stainless steel HARDWARE: Recessed Charvel locking vibrato (w/ Tremol-No), Sperzel locking tuners STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm ELECTRICS: Charvel MF humbuckers (bridge & neck); MF single coil (middle), 5-position lever pickup selector switch, master volume & tone (w/ knurled domestyle Luminlay numbered knobs), 2-way ‘single coil’ mini-switch (bridge and neck pickups only) WEIGHT: (kg/lb): 3.28/7.22 OPTIONS: None RANGE OPTIONS: The other GG Signature model is identical save for the flame maple topped basswood body, again only in natural finish LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Natural – satin lacquer (body); hand-rubbed urethane gel (neck)

9 PROS Everything! From the wood choice through to the fine details, it’s superbly considered CONS It’s pricey; there are no colour options or lefties: what you see is what you get

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f i r st p l ay

Danelectro ‘66 £999 WHAT IS IT? Dano’s reboot of a mid-60s Mosrite is a (semi) hollow victory

Semie’s Semi

The legends of affordable retro venture once again into Mosrite territory for a new take on an obscure Semie Moseley classic...

Words Ed Mitchell Photography Olly Curtis

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ou might recall the occasion last year when Danelectro released its ‘64 model, a guitar that betrayed very little of the brand’s own heritage. In fact, the ‘64 owed the lion’s share of its features to the late Semie Moseley’s Mosrite classics as brandished by instrumental cats The Ventures and punk icon Johnny Ramone.

Say you eyeballed the ‘64 and thought ‘I’d be all over that if only they axed the Bigsbyesque vibrato and made it a hardtail.’ Well, the new ‘66 model should make your day. With this latest release, Dano have spec’d a chunky six-saddle, wrap-around bridge/tailpiece with intonation adjustment. The other metal bits of note including the small UFO volume and tone knobs, and a set of vintage Kluson-style machineheads.

The ‘66 is actually based on a lesser known Mosrite beauty, first released in the year of The Beatles’ Revolver album as the Combo model.

The guitar was available in six-string, 12-string and bass formats. Like the original, the new

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Video demo

http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

DANELECTRO ‘66

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october 2017 Guitarist

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first play

DANELECTRO ‘66

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4 ‘66 has a bolt-on maple neck. You also get 23 medium frets – that’s including the zero fret – tightly hugging the contour of the 356mm (14”) radius rosewood fingerboard.

If the ‘f’ hole punched through the guitar’s body hasn’t given it away yet, the ‘66 features a semi-solid body, which we can confirm is crafted from alder. The shadow this guitar throws is predominantly Mosrite, with that instantly recognisable ‘upside down’ body and its ‘German carved’ bevelled edges. The illusion is shattered by the headstock shape, which isn’t Mosrite correct but then the double coil lipstick tube pickup at the bridge is an even bigger giveaway that this is a Dano.

Yeah, okay, the headstock logo is a pretty big clue too...

The neck pickup is a fat single coil that looks like a classic Mosrite job. Like the bridge unit, it’s wired through a master volume, master tone and a three-way pickup selector toggle switch. The tone control has a pull-push coilsplit function that works in conjunction with the bridge humbucker. It’s here that we find one little niggle. The knobs are compact and

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Guitarist october 2017

cool but the tone’s coil-split switch is hard to operate unless you dig a nail under it.

Feel & Sounds

The ‘66 has a slim C profile neck and a low action. The zero fret might be a throwback but it does a great job of regulating the string height. This thing couldn’t be better set up.

Plugging in, the combination of that semihollow alder body, the 635mm (25”) scale and the perky lipstick bridge pickup makes for bags of jangle, a sound not a million miles from a Rickenbacker. We actually prefer the single coil option on a clean setting, and that preference continues when we add some dirt.

Beat on the strings hard and you’re in Ramones territory; dial in some Germanium-fuelled filthy fuzz and you’re slap bang in garage band land for some Detroit-flavour rock. Bent notes snarl and harmonics pop off the strings with glorious unpredictability. Think Stooges, Count Five and the MC5.

The neck pickup has a fat voice that works great for jazz and blues, basically sounding like a P-90, so you can see how tonally versatile this

1. The ‘66’s old school vibe is enhanced by a zero fret. This gives the guitar a perfect string height 2. As cute as they are the metal Mosrite-style control knobs are small and slippery. The push/ pull coil split on the tone knob is tough to lift 3. The ‘f’ hole and upside down alder body are nods to classic Mosrite 4. While the bridge humbucker is Dano, the neck single coil has the DNA of a 60s Mosrite 5. The Lipstick-fuelled bridge humbucker can be split to a single coil by pulling up the tone knob

Video demo

DANELECTRO ‘66

http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

first play

Danelectro ‘66

5 guitar is. Sonically, we love the clarity and note separation on all positions on the ‘66.

Verdict

“The semi-hollow construction gives a bright and lively resonance while the robust hardtail makes the Dano fun to pound on”

If you can find an original Mosrite Combo you won’t pay much more than Dano are asking for their new Korean-made rendering. Like its ‘64 catalogued brother, the ‘66 impressed us on just about every level. It’s well-made, tonally versatile and easy to play. We like the bright and lively resonance of that semi-hollow construction and the fact that the robust hardtail makes the guitar so damn fun to pound on with your right hand.

The only thing that bugs us is the price. The ‘64 was too expensive in our opinion and the ‘66 is guilty by association. A quid shy of a grand is a lot of money for this guitar. You don’t get a case at that price either, and there is the ever-looming competition from the likes of Eastwood who offer Mosie-flavoured gear for less lolly. Our advice if you’re smitten by the ‘66 is keep ‘em peeled for a good deal. Dano’s semi-Semie could certainly rock your world if the price is ‘rite.

Price: £999 Origin: Korea Type: Twin-cutaway semi-hollow electric guitar Body: Alder Neck: Maple, bolt-on Scale length: 635mm (25”) Nut/width: Aluminium/42mm Fingerboard: Rosewood, 356mm (14”) radius Frets: 23 (inc zero fret), medium Hardware: Chrome six-saddle wraparound bridge/tailpiece, and vintage style tuners String spacing, bridge: 50.8mm Electrics: 1x twin ‘Lipstick’ humbucker (bridge), 1x single coil (neck), 3-way pickup toggle switch pickup selector, master volume, master tone (with pull-push coil-split switch) Weight (kg/lb): 2.8/6.13 Options: None Range options: None Left handers: No Finishes: 3-Tone Sunburst (as reviewed), Gloss Black, Transparent Orange, Transparent Red John Hornby Skewes 01132 865381 www.jhs.co.uk

8 PROS: Quality construction, great playability and a bunch of usable tones back up the pretty pawnshop prize looks CONS: The price tag is a bit heavier than the guitar can bear but the fiddly knobs are the only other niggle

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wishlist

Gibson Memphis 1961 ES-330 VOS With Bigsby

theWishlist

Dream gear to beg, borrow and steal for…

GIBSON MEMPHIS 1961 ES-330 VOS WITH BIGSBY £3,699 ContaCt World Guitars Phone 01453 824306 Web www.worldguitars.co.uk

Words Jamie Dickson Photography Neil Godwin

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1. Full, warm with a prominent and woody midrange, the 50s-style dog-ear MHS P-90s on the ‘61 ES-330 sound so right for vintage blues and R&B 2. Simple plastic tuning buttons echo the no-frills feel of the original early 60s 330s authentically 3. The gorgeous figured top of this ‘61 replica is not in fact very faithful to vintage examples, but when it looks this good who’s counting?

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4. The B-7 Bigsby fitted on this model makes those atmospheric shimmers easy to nail and fits the look and character of the guitar beautifully

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5. Wiring has been upgraded to mirror that of original vintage 330s more authentically 6. The light VOS ageing lends a gentle lustre to the hardware, which includes a ‘no wire’ ABR bridge, imparting an appealing but not OTT vintage vibe.

Period correct plastics complete the look

Guitarist OctOber 2017

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Gibson Memphis 1961 ES-330 VOS With Bigsby

wishlist

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he hollow body ES-330 is an under-appreciated guitar, though shrewd players have long admired it for its warm, blooming tone. Unlike it’s better-known sibling the ES-335, the 330 lacks a centreblock, which imparts a distinctive and lively resonance to it that is, for many, an advantage that offsets its increased vulnerability to feedback at louder stage volumes. In practice, that lack of centreblock gives a vibrancy to the voice of the guitar that you really should try if you’ve only played centreblock semis in the past.

With clean vintage examples steadily increasing in value, one way to experience the unique virtues of the ES-330 is via the guitars of Gibson Memphis, the division that makes the company’s hollow and semi-hollow models, which has garnered a reputation for quality and compellingly authentic vintagespec instruments. This svelte blond example currently resides in the showrooms of World Guitars at Stonehouse, Gloucestershire . The spec is modelled on that of a ‘61 ES-330 and retains the fuller ‘Micky Mouse’ horns that were slimmed down from 1962, resulting in a sleeker but arguably less classic outline.

One departure from tradition, however, is gloriously evident: the lush figuring of the 3-ply maple/ poplar/maple top was not a feature of original vintage examples, which were rather plain by comparison, but looks superb and entirely fitting – especially with the subtle VOS ageing. It remains one of our favourite takes on the relic-ing concept because of the understated vibe of having been nicely played-in that it imparts to Gibson’s guitars.

The neck has a slender Slim 61 profile that’s pleasant and undemanding to play, while the guitar weighs in at a little under 7lbs, making it no hardship to wear through the course of a long session. Evocative and just a little different, you could do a lot worse than giving a 330 of this calibre a try if you’re in the market for a classic Gibson semi.

OctOber 2017 Guitarist

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The Lineup Don’t miss it! Must-see guitar goings-on for the coming weeks…

Mansons Guitar Show 2017 Exeter Corn Exchange, 11 November

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here’s two lots of good news for Mansons Guitar Shop this year – the Exeter store isn’t just bringing its show back for 2017, it’s also celebrating its 25-year anniversary. With guitar shows in the south of England becoming more rare, this one is looking to be Mansons’ best yet. Alongside a host of gear exhibited by top names, the last show in 2015 hosted a performance by Steve Howe and the launch of a new Mansons Guitar Works’ Matt Bellamy model. We spoke to Manson Guitar Works and Mansons Guitar Shop MD Adrian Ashton about this year’s event.

It’s great to see the show returning – is there anything you want to do differently this year?

“Thank you. We’re celebrating our 25th anniversary as Mansons Guitar Shop, so we definitely want to run the show as part of those celebrations. The format of exhibitor stands combined with an almost-constant run of live music has stood the test of time, so we don’t intend to change that from previous shows. We have some exhibitors on board that haven’t exhibited before plus a healthy return of many previous exhibitors.”

What can people expect from a day at the show?

“Guitar heaven, basically! It’s strictly a guitar show and, with the exhibitors attending, one should be able to get a great fix of guitar gear from pedals to instruments to amps.

There are big names and smaller boutique companies too. One will need to juggle that against the performances that take place in a separate room, which allows players to get up really close to the performance action – be it a trio or or solo performance.”

Are you able to reveal any guest artists who will be making an appearance yet?

“Not just yet, but soon! Looking back historically, with band members from Led Zeppelin to The Levellers (and just about every style in between), we hope to have a great line-up again for 2017.”

The last show saw the announcement of the D-R1 Matthew Bellamy Numbers Edition model, could there be another launch or special model for this show?

“It’s the million-dollar question that I can’t reveal at this stage. Surprises, however, are certainly guaranteed.”

You must have seen plenty of buying trends with guitar gear over the past 25 years. What current buying habits are you noticing with customers?

“And haven’t we seen some! It does appear quite mixed at present. Having been around for many of the buying trends such as multi-fx 80s, and then the 90s electro-acoustic boom, followed by electric guitar mania spurred on by Brit Pop bands, such as Oasis and Blur, it has now settled into a real mix. The acoustic guitar market is still really vibrant. Small low-wattage amps have filled a gap in the slow-down in large 100-watt stacks that used to sell all day long, while lightweight bass gear has kept the bass market strong. What we tend to see now, especially in younger players, is a passion for ability in all stringed instruments whether electric, acoustic or bass. Which of course, coming full circle, is how Mansons started off, specialising in those areas.”

Browse the store and get all the latest updates about the show at the Mansons Guitar Shop website: www.mansons.co.uk

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The Lineup

What’s Goin’ On

All the best guitar events happening over the next few weeks, in one place John Mayall 17 October to 26 November Various UK venues

Thomas Leeb

PhotograPhy by DaviD gomez

It’s remarkable enough to see an 83-year-old musician undertake a UK tour as encompassing and intensive as this, despite the fact it was John Mayall himself who helped define the sound of British blues 50 years ago. If 36 dates with scarcely a day off between them would give most players pause for thought, it certainly isn’t phasing Mayall. “Being out on tour is very easy for me, it always has been,” Mayall tells us. “People coming out to the tour will have a good time; that’s my mission,” he adds. “Every time I get up on stage I just want people to connect with the music and be part of the excitement.” The tour is in support of John’s recent album, Talk About That and Mayall’s trio for the dates is completed by bassist Greg Rzab and drummer Jay Davenport. www.johnmayall.com

Seven Decades

Eric Gales

The Magic Band

The Clapham Grand, London

Cork, Holmfirth, Poole & Worthing

Various UK venues

Following live dates in Derry, Ulster, Belfast, Haverhill, London and Nottingham, Leeb will join Stuart Ryan just outside Bath for his annual, and now sold out, acoustic guitar weekend. Fans of percussive and fingerstyle acoustic styles really need to see this Austrian virtuoso in action. www.thomasleeb.com

We’ve covered their superb collection of guitars in the mag before – now the superb Seven Decades show is back, telling the story of rock through a live show played on period-correct vintage guitars, from ‘58 Les Paul Sunbursts to ‘63 Strats. The show has been updated extensively and features live narration from Joan Jett. www.sevendecades.com

His UK tour earlier in 2017 was clearly a success as he’s back for round two.

Gales is one of the most gifted blues players around and so it’s a chance to follow up issue 423’s masterclass with an in person demonstration. www.ericgalesband.com

Several shows for this farewell tour are already sold out or close to it, with a second Manchester date being added at Band On The Wall. The band is led by Captain Beefheart’s original Magic Band MD John ‘Drumbo’ French, who was persuaded to play one last UK tour before retiring. www.beefheart.com

Newton Faulkner

Hot Club Of Cowtown

Various UK and Ireland venues

Various UK venues

Faulkner is looking at two different setups on this tour. “One complicated all-feet-all-hands to do stuff from earlier albums, and I’m also going to have a proper purist one; one mic and one line coming out; just guitar and vocal,” he says. www.newtonfaulkner.com

Texas’s western swing/hot jazz trio, featuring the formidable guitar skills of Whit Smith alongside violinist/ vocalist Elana James and double bass player Jake Erwin, will be bringing their harmonies to the UK in support of 2016’s Midnight On The Trail. www.hotclubofcowtown.com

26 September to 8 October

10 to 12 October

26 to 31 October

4 to 26 November

Various UK venues

14 October to 1 December

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Guitarist OctOber 2017

25 October to 12 November

Kenny Wayne Shepherd 27 October to 1 November Various UK venues

Robert Plant

16 November to 12 December Various UK venues

Another bluesman making a UK return – and another recent Guitarist guest lesson – Kenny Wayne is supporting his recent CD, Lay It On Down, with stops in Poole, London, Leamington, Cardiff and Manchester with VIP packages available that include entry to soundcheck and a meet and greet with Kenny. www.kennywayneshepherd.net

As Plant returns with his Carry Fire album on 13 October, he’ll be hitting the road the following month with his band The Sensational Space Shifters – who make their second recorded appearance with him on the album – and an impressive choice of support act in the form of Seth Lakeman. www.robertplant.com

Wa lt er beck er 1950 – 2017 the steely Dan guitarist died on 3 september 2017, aged 67. His work in the pioneering jazz-rock band leaves behind a legacy of studio perfection and a string of beloved albums

t the time of going to press no cause had been attributed to the death of Walter Becker on 3 September. The news broke initially on Becker’s website, sending shockwaves across social media, many believing that the lack of any accompanying information indicated a hoax. Sadly, this was not the case as his bandmate and friend, Donald Fagen, issued a heartfelt statement confirming the news later the same day.

“Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967,” he said, referring to the facility at Annandale which features in the Steely Dan song, My Old School.

After leaving college in 1969 and moving to Brooklyn to try their hands at songwriting in the famous Brill Building in Manhattan, whilst playing in bands together in the locale, the pair decided that their joint futures lay in relocating to LA in 1971, which is where the nucleus of Steely Dan was formed.

Initially, the band featured Denny Dias and Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter on guitars with Jim Hodder on drums, David Palmer as second lead vocalist with Becker and Fagen playing bass and keyboards/lead vocals respectively. The first album, 1972’s Can’t Buy A Thrill yielded two

hit singles, Do It Again and Reelin’ In The Years, both becoming FM radio favourites, the die being cast for future success. Countdown To Ecstasy followed in 1973, Becker and Fagen gradually introducing session musicians into the band’s studio lineup, giving them a reputation as principally a ‘studio band’, something that became firmly fixed when the decision was made to cease touring in 1974. Around the same time, Becker switched to playing guitar with the band, Pretzel Logic being the first album to feature his six string contribution.

Becker and Fagen became renowned for their perfectionism in the studio, which saw session players occasionally being asked to do around 40 takes. The radical finessing certainly paid off, with fans generally agreeing that 1977’s Aja was The Dan’s masterpiece. The follow-up, Gaucho, released in 1980, marked Becker’s descent into drug addiction and shortly afterwards the band split. “His habits got the best of him by the end of the 70s, and we lost touch for a while,” Fagen remembers.

A subsequent move to Hawaii saw Becker stop using drugs and he and Fagen embarked on a number of projects, including Becker taking on production duties for Fagen’s second solo album, Kamakiriad in 1993, Fagen returning the

favour in 1994 by co-producing Becker’s first solo album, 11 Tracks Of Whack.

Steely Dan began touring again, releasing Live In America in 1995, but the event that fans really wanted to see occurred in 2000, with the release of Two Against Nature, their first studio album in 20 years, followed by Everything Must Go three years later. Years of intense touring followed, Becker missing this summer’s gigs in the US, having undergone what Fagen referred to as a “small procedure”.

A renowned gear head, Becker could be seen with a number of guitars over the years, latterly preferring Sadowsky solid bodies. On Two Against Nature, he played several Sadowskys, sporting DiMarzio single coils and Sadowsky’s own homebrewed humbuckers. His choice of amplification for the album was similarly elitist, comprising Bogner, Top Hat and Bruno heads with various 4 x 12, 2 x 12 and 1 x 12 cabs loaded with Celestion speakers, plus a Mesa/Boogie Maverick combo.

He’d come a long way since playing the solo to Black Friday where he used Denny Dias’s Telecaster and an Ampeg V4 amp!

In his touching salute to his old friend, Donald Fagen has vowed to keep Steely Dan’s music alive and, as far as we know, the October dates in Dublin and London will still go ahead. We will be featuring a tribute to Walter in the next issue.

october 2017 Guitarist

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No Logo

too many of us ‘listen’ with our eyes. We hear what we see. What, wonders Dave burrluck, would we do if we based our judgements solely on what we heard and what we felt with our hands?

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ecently, I was playing a gig and an old friend, who just so happens to be an excellent guitarist, was in the audience. I was playing a new Japanesemade bolt-on with a pair of humbuckers and a clearly non-Fender shape. For the fourth number in the set, as planned, I switched to an original series Fender Road Worn ’60s Strat; halfway through I caught my friend’s eye and he was giving me a big thumbs-up. Chatting between sets he said that when I’d picked up the Strat it sounded really classic – just right. “What’s that other guitar you’re playing?” he then asked.

It made me wonder whether my friend was making his judgement on sound or looks. Possibly both. A non-classic looking guitar is never going to sound right is it?

Let’s be honest, we’re all guilty of doing the same. Some of us are vintage-fixated.

Old is better. Some of us are simply snobs.

Brand A’s pickups are ‘better’ than Brand B’s. Master-built is better than productionbuilt. It’s made in China it can’t be any good.

There are plenty more examples… But when it comes to modding, to be successful and not just swap parts for the sake of it, you really have to be honest with what you’re hearing and/or feeling.

I decided to put it to the test. I had an old Strat-style neck and body hanging around that I decided to put together with the help of my partner’s 10-year old grandson (who’d showed an interest in the mechanics of a guitar). We heavily aged the body – lil’ ‘master builder’ enjoyed the ‘bashing it up a bit’ part. It was a classic bits-box build and when we were done, I was surprised at how good it sounded and looked. Not the greatest ‘Strat’ I’d ever played but not the worst either. Over the following weeks I tweaked and refined it but purposely left the headstock bare.

‘What is it?’ asked a mate who’d popped in to get one of his guitars set up. ‘Do you like it?’ I replied. He continued his inspection: ‘Nice neck… what pickups are on it?’

He plugged it in, and listened. ‘Sounds good,’ he said. To me, he was making the right judgements – his own experience, his hands and ears. Then he noticed the slightly un-Fender-like head: ‘Oh, it’s one of those Trev Wilkinson Vintage things, a

For some, no logo is no doubt when it comes to sound

cheapie from China’. Suddenly his attitude changed. His assumption was supported by a Wilkinson logo on the vibrato bridge plate (I’d swapped to some plain ‘no logo’ saddles). ‘Oh, I’m surprised you didn’t fit a Callaham bridge,’ he said.

Initially, I was annoyed with myself. I should have used a neck with an invisible, generic headstock – no indication of its brand. Likewise, that bridgeplate. But then I realised both these oversights completely justified my point. As soon as my mate had clocked them, his opinion changed from liking and being impressed, he’d then downgraded his opinion because of reputation and not sound and feel…

Take the bridge, for example. Trev Wilkinson designs ranges of hardware

at various levels and prices. However, the Wilkinson ‘6 Screw Classic Vibrato’ with chrome steel block is a killer for just £47. That Callaham bridge would cost nearer £150. But, immediately, my friend made a judgement based on Callaham’s excellent reputation, not his experience of its sound. His assumptions continued with the ‘cheap’ neck, which he’d previously said felt good. I wasn’t letting on any further though but he was caught. Even if the pickups were originals from ’54, he was already thinking they were off some no-name instrument. For the record they weren’t. And even though we compared the ‘No Logo’ guitar with other Fender and bits bolt-ons – and it certainly held its own – he’d made his mind up.

That lot should keep you busy till next issue.

In the meantime, if you have any modding questions or suggestions, drop us a line at: guitarist@futurenet.com

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Guitarist october 2017

Opinion

SeSSion diary Offline Presence

a da m Goldsmith

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hen thinking about what to ramble on about this month, it occurred to me that what I’d been doing (playing in the house band for a new television series for the BBC, recorded at their facility in Manchester) was pretty much exactly the same as what I’d been up to in the previous month – with exactly the same gear setup (the Boss MS-3 still in heavy use and performing excellently for those of you who’ve been paying attention), so therefore not of huge interest to anyone who happened to read last month’s column.

In fact, save for iPads and some different gear, the basic process of this kind of TV work hasn’t changed a huge amount since I started doing it around 20 years ago. Except for one unexpected thing, I now usually take pictures and post them on the internet via various social media outlets. Which got me thinking, why am I doing this? Is it helpful for the business end of things? Is it just a vanity project? Or, is it, in fact, a very negative thing for me to do and affects work adversely? Does the aspiring studio or session musician need to do this?

Being 40 years old I’ve seen the internet go from something that was a bit of a curiosity when I was at university, through to the allencompassing beast it is today. I see that a lot of musicians I know, and almost all the younger ones, have social media accounts. With one slightly odd exception, for the most part when I’m doing sessions they don’t get put on the internet, and a lot of the busy studio musicians don’t even have social media accounts.

I will, however, make a couple of disclaimers here. First, I love YouTube and Instagram, and hearing about what other people are doing and all the new gear etc. In no way do I wish to be negative about people who post regularly.

Second, there seems to be a bit of difference when you look at our cousins in the US. Pete Thorn and Tim Pierce spring to mind, where they are obviously brilliant guitar players and busy musicians with or without the internet, and I am a follower of both.

To this end I came off Facebook a few months ago, although I do maintain Instagram

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Guitarist october 2017

session guitarist Adam Goldsmith discovers why social media and studio work don’t have to mix

and Twitter, both of which I’m not very prolific on, don’t check very often and have a pretty limited number of ‘followers’. Has it immediately affected the amount of work I have? Definitely not, I’m busier than ever. Has it contributed to a vague feeling of missing out and the possibility that everyone else’s life is amazing and I’m dried up and finished?

Definitely yes. I’m aware that one’s relationship to the internet is fairly generation specific, but this has been my experience.

For the most part, the internet ‘personalities’ in the guitar world (with apologies to the obvious exceptions) are not the people doing the studio work in real life, and, in my very humble opinion, these now seem to be two

Adam definitely sees the advantages of session players utilising the power of social media but doesn’t think an online presence is a necessity for all

almost separate industries. A couple of the younger guys I’m starting to see in studios maintain almost zero internet presence, while some people who crop up regularly on YouTube etc, I’ve never met in person. Again I want to emphasise that I don’t think this is either a bad thing or a good thing, just that, in my experience, I’m not sure these two halves of a seemingly connected business are actually that connected at all. And if you’re after a career as a professional musician, outside of blagging some free gear or telling everyone how amazing you are, the best thing you can do remains to be get in a band, do some practice and meet as many people as you can in glorious technicolour real life.

Opinion

The TwAng! To Be Concise

r a n Da ll

A

s you might have guessed by now, I very much enjoy musing on the myriad topics of ‘Guitarism’. So, for this month’s instalment, I thought it might be interesting to explore the subject further.

In my initial Guitarist column, I offered this phrase as food for thought: “Hey, take it easy – you’re not getting paid by the note.”

And we’re off...

When I was a young fella back in NYC, like so many of my guitar-playing peers, I wanted to be ‘the fastest gun in town’ (and the loudest too). Maybe it had to do with age and inexperience… To be clear, most of the playing I do these days is related to the genres called ‘Rock’, ‘Blues’, ‘Pop’ and ‘Jazz’. In all of these, I have found a certain type of simplicity works beautifully. For me, it’s not about dazzling the audience with virtuoso speed and complexity. What it is about is finding the path to the listener’s heart, leaving them with a memorable melody or two after the event.

I’m not taking away from the incredible writing and playing of complex music. It all has its place. It’s all valid. In the development of one’s style, there are choices to be made. I’ve made mine. Of course, if I’m hired to do a recording in which the guitar parts have been written where I must be uber-speedy and accurate, that’s not a problem (I practise!). That said, I have my own personal preferences, as I’m sure you do. Our preferences may be on opposite sides of the debate, but that’s what makes the world go round. I love listening to Manitas de Plata, Segovia, Wes Montgomery – all of whom can blow the listener away with incredible technique and speed. Bless ’em all!

The difference between light and sound is really interesting. They are both about vibrations. Sound is measured in Hz through kHz (Hz denotes vibrations per second; kHz denotes thousands of vibrations per second).

Light and colour are simply measured in a higher part of the frequency spectrum – in mHz (millions of times per second).

This should give us a new insight into The Beach Boys’ recording of Good Vibrations…

I also think about the artist Rothko. His body

steely Dan’s Elliot Randall waxes musical on simplicity, soloing and the ‘space between the notes’

of paintings, in my opinion, is a masterclass in simplicity. His shapes are usually deceptively simple, allowing his bold vibrating colours to create veritable symphonies!

“Music is the space between the notes” is a quote generally attributed to Claude Debussy, though some scholars might argue that the phrase was uttered by Mozart or Ben Johnson or Miles Davis. Author aside, it’s one I find myself requoting somewhat frequently.

It’s interesting to analyse the solos of Jimi Hendrix. Most were not full of speed – but they were filled with a rainbow of tone. He’d often hit one note, find its feedback counterpart from his amplifier, then let it sing. David Gilmour is another example of this mindset.

Please don’t misunderstand me – there’s nothing wrong with an inspired cascade of complex and speedy soloing, but as I like to say: ‘It’s all about appropriateness’. Hey – I’m still in search for the perfect one-note solo.

…And away And, with that, I sign off for an unspecified duration, as my production workload will be dominating my life for a while. We are baking, digitising and remixing some cool music from another era. I very much look forward to coming back and sharing more views with you all. In the meantime, keep up that search for the lost chord!

Ciao for now and... twang!

The simplicity conjured up

by Gilmour is hard to replicate

Photo by Larry huLst/MichaeL ochs archives/Getty iMaGes

elliOtt

OctOber 2017 Guitarist

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Opinion

Here I Go AGAIn Got My Mojo Working

bernie marsden

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or as long as I can remember, I’ve always played Got My Mojo Working

by Muddy Waters, and about ten years ago in Mississippi, I was given my own personal mojo by a blues musician I had met in Clarksdale. He gave me a little black bag and said that the “Mojo” would take care of me out on the road. That little black bag has hung on the side of my travel bag ever since. The bag holds all the vital travel items: passport, a bit of local currency, a notepad, plectrums, toothpaste, a spare toothbrush, that kind of thing, but it also has my ‘mojo’ attached to the side.

More than ten years on since I was given the small bag and I still haven’t looked inside.

I don’t know what is in that bag, and if I’m

this issue Whitesnake legend, Bernie Marsden, attempts to put his finger on the eternal question – what is mojo?

honest I don’t know if I want to know, but I like knowing that it’s there after the musician gave it to me in good faith.

So, what is a ‘mojo’?

It seems that the word ‘mojo’ is early 20th century, around 1926. I’ve done a bit of research and although the word is mainly associated with the USA, it’s likely to be of African origin. There is an African word ‘moco’ that means ‘witchcraft’, and this adds up seeing as ‘mojo’ is believed to be a talisman, magic charm, helper, or a kind of spell. Well, I’m not sure that any of that is right but I do know that some guitars I have owned and handled over the years certainly do have a kind of mojo.

I was recently in Hamburg and visited a friend’s store for a guitar weekend. During the weekend, he took me to one side and proceeded to take a guitar out of a large iron safe. The door creaked open and he handed me a brown Lifton guitar case. Inside the case was a 1957 refinished Gold Top Les Paul. It was no longer gold but refinished in a cherry sunburst as many of those 1950s guitars are.

I plugged the guitar in, and it felt as if I had been playing that guitar for 20 years; it sounded magical through an old Fender Twin. The guitar certainly had ‘mojo’. The owner then informed me that the guitar was formerly the very one Dickey Betts had played for many years in The Allman Muddy Waters sang about getting his mojo working and Bernie reckons that some guitars have it too

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Opinion

Brothers Band. I have played many Les Pauls over the years, but this one just had something about it. Exactly what it is I don’t know, and I was then told that Joe Bonamassa had also played it a few days before me and had the exact same reaction.

I was then given a Sonic Blue early 60s Stratocaster, formerly owned by Keith Scott, who plays with Bryan Adams, and once again the guitar had a special feel to it. It was a player’s guitar, not in perfect original condition, but easy to play and a fab sounding guitar.

As I flew back from Hamburg, I remembered other guitars over the years that have stood out for no apparent reason, and I now realise that they had a kind of mojo about them.

I’m sure you know that Gary Moore was a good mate of mine. Back in the 70s, after Gary acquired Peter Green’s Les Paul, Neil Murray brought it to my flat in London. Neil was about to change the pick-up positions on the guitar and I was aghast. I said that it would change the sound, which was incorrect of course, but Neil carried on and changed them to the accepted position. In no time at all, however, Gary sure enough reversed them back! I played that guitar quite a lot in those days, but I had The Beast at the time and was still beside myself about owning my very own original Les Paul.

Looking back now, I wonder if the famous Green/Moore guitar had special mojo. I did own another very famous Gibson Les Paul for a short time, but I can say that that one never had the mojo I felt with the other guitars I have mentioned. For details, you will have to read my book, Where’s My Guitar?.

Is the mojo a figment of our imagination?

Arguably, but I don’t think so, as it’s something everyone in a room can feel. I played a very old and very worn acoustic guitar at a friend’s house many years ago,

· “Is mojo a figment of our imagination?

I don’t think so, as it’s something everyone in a room can feel” bernIe mArsden

·

Bernie was the first person to play Rory Gallagher’s strat on stage after his death, and felt the instrument had a certain magic

and was very surprised by how good it immediately felt. I was then told after that Big Bill Broonzy and Muddy Waters played and used that guitar.

One time when I felt a 100 per cent bond with a guitar was at the Buxton Opera House. I was invited to play the Rory Gallagher memorial concert and so I took a Stratocaster with me – I thought it was the thing to do. After a few songs, Rory’s brother Donal walked onto the stage behind me and was met with a huge roar of approval from the audience. I turned around and Donal had Rory’s battered Strat in his hands. He smiled at me, took the microphone in his hand and said, “I think my brother would approve of this.” He passed me the fabled guitar.

I was the first person to use the guitar on stage after Rory’s passing and I can tell you without exception that the guitar was soaked to the core with mojo. The strings were old, hadn’t been changed since the great man’s passing, but when I plugged the guitar in it was as though it was on fire. I looked into the crowd and witnessed tears rolling down faces as I went into one of Rory’s songs that night.

I managed to control my emotions on the stage. Playing Rory’s guitar was a deeply special moment for me, and I know that when I loan The Beast out on occasion to people like Joe or Warren Haynes, they get the same feeling.

Once again, Joe Bonamassa has played that guitar, and he was sensible enough to put new strings on it – I don’t think I would have changed the strings even if I could. Joe sounded fabulous with the guitar and we both agreed that there was something incredibly special about the instrument.

I recently recorded with my 1952 Gold Top, and I was taken aback by the sound and feel of it. It’s a guitar I’ve owned for a few years now, but it had stayed in the case until that recording session. Well, that’ll now change for sure. Peter Green once told me about an early 50s Gibson Les Paul Gold Top that Duster Bennett and he both played. He said that it was very special, had something about it, and was told that Muddy Waters possibly owned that guitar. As the great man once said, it “Got my mojo working”.

See you next month, folks.

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Chris Rea

The gravel-voiced slide maestro survived the road to hell, but how will he handle the 10 questions we ask everybody?

1

What was your first guitar and when did you get it?

“It was a Hofner Sunburst V3. I got it in a pawn shop in Middlesborough and that would have been 1971. The story behind it was a seaman put it in over the weekend because he’d run out of money or something, and I thought, ‘I wonder if it was bought in Hamburg?’

Romantically, it was like, wow! – because of The Beatles connection.”

the alarm going off. At the end of the gig, the first thing you do is light a fag. But it’s exactly a year this week that I stopped smoking and, last November, I did my first ever vocal in my entire life without a cigarette. It wasn’t easy…”

7

What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you on stage?

“A nosebleed! I bent down to adjust the volume pedal and it just came. I was then cued to sing and couldn’t get it to stop.

In the end, we had to stop and I plugged it and carried on with only one nostril, which was hell on earth. I lived in fear for many, many gigs after that it was going to happen again. You learn how to adjust something on the floor without bending down.”

2

If the building were burning down, what one guitar from your collection would you save?

“I would save the blue Italia Maranello.

Funnily enough, it’s the cheapest guitar I’ve ever bought. When I plugged it in and played slide on it, it was just beautiful. It’s got great sustain and obviously the strings are quite high off the frets but that doesn’t matter, but it sounds like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve since found out that it’s semimicrophonic; the inside is light and it’s almost like an acoustic – and I fell in love with it. I pick it up every day.”

3

What’s the oldest guitar you own?

“I was doing a project about four years ago that needed an acoustic and I got an old black Gibson. I don’t know the model but the Gibson logo is hand done; people tell me it’s very old. I didn’t make enquiries as to how old it was; all I knew was it sounded absolutely beautiful.”

8 · “Last November, I did my first ever vocal in my entire life without a cigarette.

It wasn’t easy” ·

4

When did you last practise and what did you play?

“The last time I practised was this morning, because I had a stroke a year ago and it really affected me a lot. We’ve got a tour coming up and I’ve really got to get my shit together, you know? I’m having trouble with the wedding ring finger and the little finger, getting them to go where I want them to go. So I’m actually doing proper practice, just to play what I used to play.”

5

If you could change one thing about a recording you’ve been on, what would it be and why?

“I’m never happy with anything I’ve done!

If you sat me down and played everything I’ve ever recorded, I’d just sit there going, ‘No… that could be better’. That’s something

you live with; and I also think if you started thinking you were good, it’s all over. I think half the quest is to get something you can hear in your head and be satisfied with it.

That hasn’t happened to me yet.”

6

What are you doing five minutes before you go on stage and five minutes afterwards?

“Before the stroke, it used to be have a fag, which was getting extremely difficult on the last tour with all the smoking laws. Me and the piano player, Neil Drinkwater, who is a bit of a scientist, would invent ways in which you could have a last fag without

What’s the closest you’ve come to quitting music?

“It would have been 1983 and they were about to drop me from the label. I had started looking for a place to turn into an Italian restaurant. The family always did it and that’s what I was going to do.”

9

What aspect of playing guitar would you like to be better at?

“Eric Clapton’s scales. When he comes off a high note and it’s time for a refrain or a little bit of a rest, he peals off scales going downwards that are so good it’s unbelievable. Still, when I watch Clapton, he’s awesome. A lot of his image and stuff has become massive and sometimes we forget what made him what he was.”

10

What advice would you give your younger self about the guitar if you had the chance?

“Start earlier. I didn’t start until I was 21 and most people I know were 13 when they had their first guitar – I missed that time where you sit in your bedroom all day for years and accidentally you’re doing classical training, although you’re not thinking of it that way.

It’s not as easy, as you get older, to do all that kind of practice.” [DM] Chris Rea’s new album, Road Songs For Lovers is released on 28th September via BMG www.chrisrea.com

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Feedback

Feedback

Your letters to the Guitarist editor. Drop us a line at guitarist@futurenet.com

Cave DweLLer

Star Letter No reaL aLterNative?

I’m writing in about the Different ‘Cuts review by Dave Burrluck issue 424. In Dave’s appendix about the real Les Paul Standard, he makes the point that this guitar is better than ever.

When I was gigging in my teens, my dad bought me a new Japanese-made CSL (Antoria) Les Paul Custom copy, on the basis that he couldn’t afford the real thing, which was almost four times the price.

That the CSL was a great guitar in its own right – the gigs using it funded my first Gibson and many other musical things – is not the point. Back then, there were only two choices: a cheap Japanese copy, or the real thing. Both made equal sense, and still do in the world of Epiphones and non-Gibson owned clones.

What arguably does not make sense is to pay the same or more money than the real thing when, as Dave says, it’s still getting better. If I were to buy a Godin, for example, I would want one of their own creations, not their take on a Gibson singlecut. I appreciate the market for very limited edition ‘super singlecuts’ like the Patrick James Eggle beauty, but at the ‘mainstream’ £1,500-£2,000 level does it really make sense?

Steve Broadhead, via email Thanks for your thoughts, Steve. Can any of us leave the logo at the door and choose a guitar purely on its own merits? It’s very difficult but if you’re buying with a £1,500£2,000 budget in mind, we’d argue you’re looking at a pro-spec instrument that’s meant to be played: in other words, a quality workhorse not a boutique collector’s piece. On that pragmatic basis, we strongly urge anyone in that position to try all of the possible contenders at first hand. Reviews help narrow down the field of course, but you just won’t know what connects with you as a player until you plug in and play.

We’ve been surprised, both positively and negatively, in the past by that first in-theflesh encounter with a guitar we’ve thought of buying – so we’d strongly advise trying out guitars like the Eastman and the Godin as well as Gibbos. No, they don’t have that classic name on the headstock nor, perhaps, the same solid re-sale potential – but you might just have that hand-in-glove moment when you pick one up.

Each issue’s Star Letter wins a Korg Pitchblack Custom – a smart pedal tuner with ultra-high +/-0.1 precision for sharp visibility and pinpoint accuracy right at your feet. www.korg.co.uk

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Guitarist OctOber 2017

I guess I’m not the only one, but I started a very long-overdue covers band for my 50th birthday party having spent eight months rehearsing songs (last played when I was 18 and not very well – but the power of YouTube and the Internet sorted that!). It was meant to be a one-off, but somehow for the last seven years we’ve been gigging regularly and rehearsing off the back of it. I wasn’t expecting it, but it’s been great fun!

However, as with other readers I imagine, I am sadly banished to a spare bedroom to practice. This has been met with, shall we say, annoyance from the wife! Especially the foot tapping on the floor, which apparently pounds through the ceiling whilst she is watching TV, and allegedly is not conducive to a relaxing evening. Equally she’s not too impressed with my backing vocals whilst I have headphones on either… can you feel my frustration?

Cue the only solution: man cave.

In desperation to save my marriage (slight exaggeration, but not bad reasoning), I converted one half of my double garage into a rehearsal/music room.

It has opened up a whole new chapter of my life. Guitars on the wall that I can look at in all their glory; amps and foot pedals laid out where I want them, rather than having to move them when people come to stay – very annoying, I preferred not to have anyone round – my own space to play, sing along, practice stage moves, and have a few beers without annoying everyone, all for a reasonable outlay, bliss! I would certainly recommend it to fellow frustrated guitarists Kenny Wayne Shepherd in a textbook ‘guitar cave’ room

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who find themselves in the same situation.

Now the only minor problem is that my wife is starting to complain that she doesn’t see me as much. Oh well, you can’t have it all can you!

Rob Griffiths, via email Haha, well it’s a known fact that guitarists of either sex generally get asked to go somewhere else while they’re making a racket – sorry, sweet music – and we’ve seen some ingenious solutions to the problem. Years ago one of the Guitarist team used to jam with other turned-outof-doors musos in the hold of a converted trawler. Thankfully the smell of herring had abated but carrying amps down the rusty ladder from the quayside was an interesting challenge! Have any other readers got any unusual little nooks where they retire to to be at one with their instrument, as it were? Send us your pics of your guitar cave and we’ll print the best ones here...

LemoN aiD I’m just writing to follow up recent letters about the merits of different string types.

Over many years of reading interviews with various players in Guitarist magazine, speaking to other guitarists and personal experimentation, I resolved to string the different guitars of my six-strong collection with different sets of various gauges, from very light 0.008s to beefy 0.012s with a view to suiting the needs of each instrument and what style I use it for. The results?

Well, in my experience of gigging regularly and frequently swapping instruments

· “One thing I do find crucial is the use of lemon on the fretboard.

It is astonishing how much easier string bends can be” · between songs, muscle-memory seems to take care of the small differences in bending technique required. And the more you play, the stronger the fingers become and the easier bends, even on heavier gauges, become. Trying to stay calm does help prevent over-bending with the lighter gauges, especially when playing to a full house.

Can any alternative make rival the authentic charms of Gibson’s most famous singlecut?

But one thing that I do find is crucial and which is mentioned by Elliott Randall in his column, is the use of lemon on the [rosewood] fretboard. For a few pounds it is astonishing how much easier string bends can be. It has even made me reconsider re-fretting an early PRS electric in my possession that I was literally ‘fretting’ over with indecision and for me is not now needed.

Thanks Guitarist for keeping on keepin’ on!

Peter Williams, via email Thanks for the tip, Peter – though we’ve encountered techs who think lemon oil is over-used, a judicious drop applied to a rosewood board never fails to add to the tactile pleasure of playing and if string

bends come easier as a result then so much the better.

SheDDiNg Doubt I have been a subscriber to your esteemed organ for about a quarter century, gleaning many useful tips and parting with infeasibly sizeable amounts of money on GASinduced binges en route. I have even been a contributor back in the day, not to mention improving my gig-fitness on the journey.

However, what are you guys on? You keep blathering on about ‘woodshedding’ being indispensable for improving technique and stamina. So OK, I’ve trusted you down the years, and took your advice to heart. I built

OctOber 2017 Guitarist

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Feedback Are the learning benefits of the woodshed overrated?

a nice solid wood shed in my back garden, stacking it high with logs from a local forest.

And I have left my road-worn custom acoustic propped against it for hours at a time. But still I encounter the same old limitations when I come to play it. All of this, I’m sorry to say, leaves me with serious doubts about you advice concerning the soundness of investing in ‘woodshedding’.

Dr Mark Everard, via email Damn – we’ve been rumbled! In fact, someone has filled our woodshed so full of logs that we can’t actually fit any guitars inside at all. And we’re also slightly worried that if we did leave a guitar in there to soak up the ‘positive waves’ generated by the shed environment then it might be gnawed by rats or mistakenly taken away to be burned by some over-zealous furnacestoker in the bowels of the Guitarist building. As a result, we’ve decided to do all our practising indoors now instead, in the study. But we’ll probably keep using

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the term ‘woodshedding’ anyway because ‘studying’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? Oh, wait a minute...

make SpaCe In the past couple of weeks I have seen two country-rock stars in concert. Miranda Lambert hits the stage with five guitars, keyboards, drummer and a backing singer.

It swamped every audible frequency and although she was well-liked by her fan base it was truly awful sound and the vocals were almost inaudible. Contrast that with Lucinda Williams’s four-piece band in which there was lots of space for the musicians to shine.

Stuart Mathis on lead plays beautiful fills and solos and coaxes the most amazing tone from his guitars – it was the best I’ve ever heard.

Trevor Barstow via email Silence and space are under-used but powerful musical tools. Not for nothing did composer Claude Debussy claim that “music is the space between the notes.”

Music

The month’s best guitar music, plus top players in the studio Gregg Allman Southern Blood Rounder Records

Steven Wilson

To The Bone (caroline international) Neo-Prog’s finest delivers knockout fifth solo album Hailed by its creator as an affectionate nod towards the progressive pop and rock albums he enjoyed during his formative years, including works by Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Tears For Fears and Talk Talk, To The Bone is all that and more. Not being one for repeating himself in his solo work, Steven Wilson steers this album towards more commercial territory and shuns the extended instrumental workouts of the past – only one track, the dark and brooding Detonation clocks in at over nine minutes, the rest of the album featuring shorter and more concise works. During its course, the album also tips its hat to the prog masters of yore with trace elements of Floyd (To The Bone), Crimson (Refuge) and Genesis (The Same Asylum As Before) woven into the fabric of the sumptuous arrangements.

But it’s always done in a respectful way – almost like Mr Wilson is offering fans of prog’s golden 1970s reign some kind of sanctuary within his own music.

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8

Powerful farewell from renowned southern rocker One of the principal architects of southern rock, Gregg Allman passed away in May. Despite rapidly failing health, he had just completed what was to be his final album, recorded at the renowned Fame studios in Muscle Shoals with Don Was taking care of production.

“Muscle Shoals is hallowed musical ground,” Don says. “Fame was the place where Gregg’s brother Duane first started making waves in the music world and where the seeds of the Allman Bothers were sewn.” The album opens with My Only True Friend, co-written with The Allman’s guitarist Scott Sharrard, who contributes some fine guitar work throughout the CD’s 10 tracks. Maybe Gregg’s vocals don’t have the power and range of his career peak, but they have a poignancy here and represent an artist who was determined to give his all right up to the end. [DM] Standout track: Blind Bats And Swamp Rats For fans of: ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd

9

Unlike the previous solo albums, Steven plays a lot of the instruments himself, rather than calling on the services of his touring band. So no Guthrie Govan or Dave Kilminster fretwork here – although the latter stringsman turns up on a couple of tracks performing backing vocals.

Instead, co-producer Paul Stacey provides the fireworks with a show-stopping solo on Refuge and David Kollar steps up to the mark on Detonation, all other guitar work being performed by SW. Despite being aimed at a more mainstream marketplace, To The Bone succeeds on all levels as the fifth chapter in a remarkable solo career. The arrangements are consistently sublime and the production is impeccable throughout. On release, the CD instantly topped many of the album charts across Europe, its success well deserved. We now await, eagerly, the ex-Porcupine Tree man’s live shows next year! [DM]

Standout track: Pariah For fans of: Porcupine Tree, Genesis, Yes

Ten Years After

A Sting In The Tale Ten Years After

7

Classic band returns with new helmsman Ten Years After’s founder member Alvin Lee, whose stonking 335-fuelled rendition of I’m Going Home was a truly incendiary highlight of Woodstock, sadly left us four years ago. But here, a revised lineup sets out to keep the flame alive with the estimable Marcus Bonfanti as frontman and guitarist. He’s joined by original members Ric Lee and Chick Churchill plus UK bass legend Colin Hodgkinson to deliver a set of old school blues rock. Perhaps the fire of the Alvin Lee era isn’t quite matched but there is much here to enjoy and contemporary blues rock fans will find the album an engaging experience. [DM] Standout track: Two Lost Souls For fans of: Savoy Brown, Canned Heat

William Patrick Corgan Ogilala

Martha’s Music / BMG

5

Smashing Pumpkin’s lead man’s second solo effort If you’re familiar with the thick fuzz riffs of early Smashing Pumpkins, Corgan’s

second solo album will be a bit of a shock, albeit a mellow one. Now using his full name William, rather than Billy, the use of piano and acoustic won’t be new to the band’s fairweather fans, but producer Rick Rubin’s guidance seems to have encouraged even more of his fragile post-2007 vocal vibrato.

The minimalist back-to-basics production in these personal songs is intimate and the consistent vocal focus feels like a new perspective for Corgan across a whole album. But that can sometimes leave it a little one-note and sparkless, especially on The Spaniards and Antietam. [DH] Standout track: The Long Goodbye For fans of: The Smashing Pumpkins

Jamie Lenman Devolver

Big Scary Monsters

8

Former Reuben man strikes gold again on riff-rich second solo album The words ‘underrated’ and ‘underdog’ have followed Jamie Lenman around like flies since his post-hardcore trio Reuben dissolved in 2008, after three fine albums that unfortunately failed to receive the recognition they deserved. But lamenting their demise shouldn’t distract us from the fact their lynchpin, Lenman, continues to write inventive rock music that never loses touch with the power of its core principles.

Following the ambitious hardcore-meets-jazz of the double album Muscle Memory, he’s absorbed some of Trent Reznor’s spirit in the driving rhythms of Mississippi and Hardbeat with his old riff fire burning bright in Waterloo Teeth and Hell In A Fast Car. Meanwhile, his infectious poppy instincts are moving into new areas in the funky bursts and orchestration of I Don’t Know Anything and slow-burning synth build of the title track. Somehow he’s combined all of this into what emerges as his most cohesive and compelling record to date. [DH] Standout track: Personal For fans of: Biffy Clyro, Nine Inch Nails

The White Buffalo

Darkest Darks, Lightest Lights Earache

7

Americana man brings some more rock into his roll Jake Smith’s faith in the art of storytelling with a dreadnought has served him well as The White Buffalo, with a baritone that carries gravitas and sincerity. But he’s brought longtime producer Bruce Witkin’s electric guitar further into his sound here to create a rockier and riffier drive to Avalon, the Thin Lizzy-fied The Heart And Soul Of The Night and blast of Nightstalker Blues. It’s a natural step, not a curveball. The jazzier strut of Robbery is more unusual for Smith, but fans of his earlier acoustic intimacy will find their fill with The Observatory and the tender If I Lost My Eyes. [DH] Standout track: Nightstalker Blues For fans of: Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Lynott

RYAN JARMAN THE CRIBS ROTOSOUND PLAYER

Backtracking

The motherlode from glam-rock’s prince of riffs T-Rex

The Vinyl Collection (Edsel/Demon)

8

Marc Bolan remains a difficult figure for posterity to pin down. He had the stylistic verve of Bowie but, arguably, less substance – and yet he gave us some of the most iconic riffs committed to vinyl, from Get It On to 20th Century Boy. He’s also rather underrated as a guitarist and it’s telling that modern luminaries of primal riffage, such as Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, cite him as a key influence. Now, on the 40th anniversary of Bolan’s death, Demon’s boxset of T-Rex’s album output grants the chance to reassess his legacy at leisure. The classics are all here of course but also glistering, psychedelic stompers such as Buick MacKane and Venus Loon, and instrospective chamber-pop pieces such as Diamond Meadows that deserve a reprise on your turntable. [JD] Standout track: Buick MacKane For fans of: The Black Keys, early David Bowie, Led Zeppelin

STRINGS PLAYED

BY LEGENDS SINCE 1958 WWW.ROTOSOUND.COM

Music

Joe Bonamassa blues-rock’s favourite son talks about long-haul flights and why you should never run out of Diet coke…

Words

David Mead

What was your first gig and how did it go?

“My first paying professional gig under my own name would have been 8 November 1989. It was $5 at the door and we had about 600 people show up. We ended up earning $3,000 which, after paying the band and expenses, I netted $500. I bought a Super Nintendo games console and a set of Joe Barden’s pickups – then I was broke again, which basically, over the course of 30 years, has been the story of my life.”

Describe your current stage rig…

“I use four 80 watt Tweed Twins, three of which are from 1959 and one is a 2016 prototype of the Joe Bonamassa 80 watt Tweed Twin, which will be out by the end of the year. I use a Cry Baby wah-wah pedal, a Joe Bonamassa one, and a Doubleland special, which is basically two Overrated pedals in one. My guitars are a 1951 Nocaster, Terry Reid’s 1952 Telecaster set up the same way as the Nocaster with a humbucker in the front and the stock pickup in the back.

I have a ‘55 hardtail Strat that I’ve played

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Guitarist october 2017

for years; a ‘58 Mary Kaye Strat with gold parts; a Custom Shop Gibson Les Paul with Firebird tuners; a Custom Shop Gibson Firebird V in Pelham Blue; a ‘59 Les Paul, which is the Skinner ‘Burst; and I have a ‘58 Flying V.”

What piece of gear is most essential to your live sound?

“Essentially, the trick to my sound in 2017 is the 80 watt Twin. The thing is when you put Celestions in them – and, by the way, this wasn’t my idea, it’s Keith Richards’ idea – they take on a very Marshall-y type of sound.

People are stunned, quite frankly, at how much gain and how big a rock sound you can get with a little yellow box; I mean, they’ll shake the ground!”

What non-musical item couldn’t you do without on tour?

“Diet Coke. You’ll never see me have a freakout until there’s no Diet Coke. Then all production, sound, lights, music… the entire operation grinds to a halt while I personally go out and buy myself a six-pack.”

What’s the nearest you’ve come to a Spinal Tap moment on tour?

“We did a club tour in 2001 and we got a tour bus for the very first time. We packed all our gear in the bus and were driving around like pretend rock stars. We were showing up to these clubs in the Mid Atlantics and the South while about eight people were showing up to the gigs. The tour went bankrupt in 10 days! I remember, about eight days in, watching Spinal Tap on the bus TV thinking, ‘Their tour is going better than ours…’”

What’s the best venue you’ve played in from a musician’s point of view and why?

“There are two categories: inside and outside.

Inside it’s the Royal Albert Hall, hands down my favourite venue. I just love the place. I’ve played there four or five times and every time you step foot on that stage you just go, ‘How lucky am I to have the fans show up every time and put me on this stage?’ and it’s really true. The best outside venue is Red Rocks. We just did it two days ago – to 10,000 people!

Photos by Christie Goodwin

Music

Joe (right) with Black Country Communion bassist/singer Glenn Hughes (left) on a more successful tour than his Spinal Tap aping days

There’s some great medium-sized venues: I’m still partial to Mr Kyps in Poole in the UK, I like the Olympia in Paris, and The Fox Theatre in Detroit.”

worth every mile and I’d do it twice to play with Jack.”

What’s on your rider?

“Here’s a thing – the audience responds to

“I don’t really have a rider so basically we carry two wonderful chefs on the road that make lunch and dinner for everybody. In my dressing room there’s a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon (in case I decide to take a nip of it before the show), and about six Diet Cokes and six waters. I pretty much try and go through all the water and two of the Diet Cokes before I leave and that’s pretty much it.”

What’s the worst journey you’ve had to or from a gig?

“I spent about 29 hours in the air and about seven or eight hours in limbo flying from Adelaide, Australia to London to play with Jack Bruce in 2011. It was just after Gary Moore had passed and Gary and Jack had booked a gig at the Royal Festival Hall. When Gary passed away they asked me to fill in and I said, ‘You had me at hello,’ but some of the flights were delayed and I became a nocturnal creature for the next month because I was so flipped around. But it was

What’s your best tip for getting the audience on your side?

· “I was watching Spinal Tap on the bus thinking that their tour was going better than ours” · enthusiasm. If they see that you’re into it then they’re going to be into it. And it doesn’t matter if they particularly like your form of music; if you’re passionate about what you’re selling then they’re going to buy right into it.

If you go up there thinking you’re too fucking cool for school and you’re too calculated and

you’re doing everything that’s supposed to be done because people tell you that’s how to be cool then you’re dead in the water.”

What do you do to warm up?

“I had this epiphany. We do this song in our set now called Slow Train. It’s an old song from five or six albums ago. It happens to be in the key of F, and I took Terry Reid’s old Tele and tuned it up one step. With 11-52s on it this thing is not easy to play but it sounds great for the song. So what I’ve been doing to warm up is playing that guitar because it’s so hard to play, but when I get down there for the show and I get on my regular tuned guitars it’s like butter.”

What’s your favourite live album?

“My favourite live blues album is Live At The Regal by BB King. My favourite live rock album is Humble Pie Rockin’ The Fillmore.

There’s an electricity that comes off that thing and it’s all out of Steve Marriot – there’s a guy who really, at that point in time, was untouchable as a singer and an artist.” [DM] Black Country Communion release the new album BCCIV on 22 September via Mascot Records www.bccommunion.

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obituary

Glen Campbell

Glen Campbell 1936 – 2017 Just as we were going to press with the last issue of Guitarist we heard the sad news that country giant, TV star and brilliant guitar player Glen Campbell had died. We look back on his life and career…

W

here most people might associate Glen Campbell with hit country songs such as Rhinestone Cowboy, Wichita Lineman and By The Time I Get To Phoenix, many will know that he was also a stellar guitarist. He was, at one time, a member of The Wrecking Crew, a group of first-call session players based in LA during the 1960s, however, back at the beginning, things were very different indeed…

Glen Travis Campbell was born on 22 April, 1936 in Billstown, Arkansas. He was the twelfth child of a sharecropper John Wesley and Carrie Dell Campbell, entering the world in the depths of the Great Depression. His parents’ farm grew a few basic crops including cotton, corn and potatoes. The going was tough and, later on, the young Glen would help supplement the family income by picking cotton on neighbouring farms.

Meanwhile, his musical talents had begun to make themselves known while he was just little more than a toddler, resulting in his father buying him a five-dollar guitar from the Sears & Roebuck mail-order catalogue

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when Glen was just four years old. Initially taking lessons from an uncle and learning songs he heard on the radio, he began to flourish and by the time he reached his teenage years, he was earning money playing gigs and appearing on local radio stations.

A move to Albuquerque, New Mexico at the age of 17 saw him find regular work by joining his uncle’s band, Dick Bills And The Mountain Boys, later forming his own band, the Western Wranglers. But the big break appeared on the horizon when musicians passing through the town persuaded him to move to Los Angeles in 1960.

Wrecking Crew It was in Los Angeles that Campbell joined the infamous Wrecking Crew, working with artists such as Elvis, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra. The Wrecking Crew’s bass player, Carol Kaye, is on record as saying that while Glen couldn’t read music, having had no formal training, he possessed a phenomenal ear. In sessions where reading was required, he would ask her to quickly play his part and it would generally only take

one pass for him to pick it up and play it back to the producer’s satisfaction – and when you consider that one such producer was the renowned perfectionist Phil Spector, it gives Carol’s comments some perspective!

Songwriter Jimmy Webb recalls Glen was “a secret weapon in the armoury of 60s record producers”, having the rare ability to play in many different styles and genres.

It wasn’t long before the studios couldn’t hold him and, having already released a string of singles and albums with little or no success, TV beckoned and he began regular appearances on shows such as Star Route.

A multi-instrumentalist who was equally at home playing banjo, bass and mandolin as well as guitar, Glen joined the touring band for The Beach Boys in 1964. He played bass and provided harmony vocals in place of the recently retired-from-touring Brian Wilson, before going on to play guitar on the band’s seminal Pet Sounds album.

Solo Career By the mid 1960s, Campbell had been trying to break through as a solo performer without

obituary Glen Campbell

much success, to the extent that Capitol was considering dropping him altogether.

However, a collaboration with producer Al De Lory brought about the country hit Burning Bridges in 1967, which was followed by Gentle On My Mind and the Grammy Award-winning

By The Time I Get To Phoenix – breakthrough singles that would propel him well and truly into the public’s gaze. Around the time of Wichita Lineman, written by Jimmy Webb – who insists to this day that the song was never finished – TV picked him up and The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour saw him invite a list of illustrious guests onto the show including The Beatles, The Monkees, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. He even invited Cream to appear, and the band performed Sunshine Of Your Love on the show in 1968.

Campbell was often to be seen playing 6- and 12-string Ovation acoustics but could also be seen in the company of Gibsons, Martins and Mosrites. His most longstanding instrument, however, is said to be an Epiphone Zephyr Deluxe Regent archtop which he owned for 62 years.

His tenure as multi-award-winning musician saw him release in excess of 70 albums, selling 50 million copies and winning six Grammys, a Lifetime Achievement award from the Academy in 2012.

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Final Bow In June 2011, at the age of 75, Campbell was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, shortly after the release of his album Ghost On The Canvas. Initially undeterred, he undertook a final outing on the road, titled The Glen Campbell Goodbye Tour, playing 151 sold-out shows with a band that included some of his children. The tour was filmed for a documentary entitled Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me and won him one last Grammy for Best Country Song, I’m Not Gonna Miss You, and an appearance at the 2012 awards ceremony.

From then on, the progression of the disease meant that his faculties slowly declined and he was admitted to a long-term care and treatment facility in 2014. Recent reports related that he had lost the power of speech, after which the decline was a more rapid one, resulting in his death in Nashville on August 8th.

With accolades pouring in from people as diverse as Brian Wilson, comedian Steve Martin and shock-rocker Alice Cooper, we’ll leave the final comment to his friend and collaborator Jimmy Webb, who said of Glen Campbell’s talent as a guitarist that he could “play with any guitar player in the world, from George Benson to Eric Clapton”.

· “As a musician, he released in excess of 70 albums, selling 50 million copies and winning six Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement award from the Academy” ·

Richard Thompson

interview

RichaRd ThOMPSON The release of an all-acoustic album featuring newly recorded versions of songs from Richard Thompson’s extensive back catalogue was an unexpected success back in 2014, prompting this year’s eagerly-awaited sequel…

Words David Mead

PhotograPhy by DaviD KaPtein

T

he annual Cropredy Festival in Oxfordshire is a high point in the folk rock calendar and this year’s event was especially significant as it marked hosts Fairport Convention’s 50th anniversary. So, naturally, when we found ourselves sitting in an out-ofhours restaurant with Fairport founder member and all-round folk legend Richard Thompson, our opening gambit was to ask how the momentous occasion had gone for him on a personal level. “Cropredy was fun. Historic 50th year… this means we must have started when I was three.” he deadpans. “We were always friends, which is a nice thing. Even people who left the band didn’t drift too far away. It’s always a joyful thing to get back together and play with those guys.” Resident now in the US, Richard’s appearances at Cropredy these days are sparse. “I did it every year for a while in the 80s,” he continues. “It was a bit like my life flashing before my eyes; a year never seemed to be a year long. It’s Cropredy again. Oh, here it is again; oh, and again! So I spread them out a bit more and maybe do it every two or three years.”

With his solo career outside of the Fairport family now established, we’re here to talk about the release of the next chapter in his Acoustic Classics series.

Was he surprised at the success of the first instalment? “The first one was really designed for the merchandise table.

Someone comes to a concert and on the way

out they say, ‘Have you got a CD something like what I just heard?’ So rather than have a live CD – I’m not always comfortable with live CDs – I thought I’d just record a popular selection; the kind of thing I’m playing live right now. It was never going to be generally released but my management heard it and said they’d like to put it out as well. Then the record company in the UK picked it up and it was a top 10 album in the UK. At that time that meant you’d sold 22 copies! But, nevertheless, top 10 is top 10.

So there was obviously a kind of hole there.

Hence volume two.”

So the two albums are a sort of Best Of…?

“I suppose so, yes. I’m not picking songs that I’ve recorded solo too much before.

If there’s been a gap of maybe 20 years, 30 years, I’ll go back and revisit an acoustic song, but often these are songs that, in their original incarnation, were with a band or with somebody else singing.

There’s two Fairport songs on this one, so I’m preferring to put on reinterpretations rather than rehashes.”

There are acoustic versions of songs that you’ve performed using electric guitar with a band. Is there something that marks a new song as either acoustic or electric?

“I think if it’s a good song it could be either. A lot of songs are open to both interpretations, acoustic or electric, and if I’m working up to a band album then

I’ll be thinking, ‘Okay, what works for a band?’ If I’m working up to an acoustic album – I don’t make that many acoustic albums – I’ll be thinking about acoustic, acoustic, acoustic. If I’m playing acoustic live then I think, ‘I can adapt this song off the last record acoustically’. So there’s some flexibility.”

While you’re revisiting your back catalogue in this way, is there a temptation to meddle or rearrange songs?

“It depends on how satisfied you were in the first place. If you thought it was a definitive recording then you probably wouldn’t record it again or you’d just leave it alone and say that’s it. Know when to stop.”

Did you use your Lowden signature model for the album?

“Yes, this is the Lowden signature model for the whole recording. George Lowden approached me about doing a signature model and said, ‘You’ve been with us a long time and we’re doing one for Pierre Bensusan, we’re doing one for Thomas Leeb’. Over the years, I’ve tried various Lowdens and George would say, ‘What do you think of this one?’ and I really liked ziricote and cedar because it was kind of punchy – punchy and very even, kind of warm. It’s just a great fingerstyle guitar and incredibly responsive from quiet to loud – and then you push it and it will go louder and kind of keep going in a way I’ve never

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interview

Richard Thompson

Richard’s road-weary Lowden signature model is currently enjoying semi-retirement in his studio at home in LA

· “I think you can dream a song as well. You can hear the whole thing in your head and then you have to get back to that point” ·

heard a guitar do before. It’s not a guitar I take on the road right now – that one stays in the studio – and, for live, I use a walnut and cedar Lowden, which is also a great guitar; very even response, so it’s good to use with pickups.”

Was the choice of walnut yours or did George advise you that might be a good tonewood to explore?

PhotograPhy by DaviD KaPtein

“I just said to George, ‘My road Lowden is getting seriously clapped out…’ and that’s what he sent me and I thought, ‘This sounds great’. I hardly have to EQ it live because it’s got such an even response. Usually, with an acoustic, there’s a couple of spots where you have to dig in a little bit with EQ just to even stuff out.”

You use a soundhole pickup, don’t you?

“Yeah, I use a Sunrise soundhole pickup and a small condenser mic inside the guitar.

Then that’s blended through a Gas Cooker, which is a two-channel tube pre-amp made by Ridge Farm Studios and it’s just an extraordinary box. There’s nothing like it for warming up the electronics of guitar pickups. The magnetic pickup you can crank up forever – that has a lot of volume – and the mic gives some air around it.”

What’s your preference for electric guitars at present?

“Strats and Teles that are assembled for me by my guitar tech Bobby Eichorn.

He kind of throws these together and puts in the combination of pickups that I like.

I don’t know what they are; I think in some positions he uses Rio Grandes. He throws in different things and I don’t know what they are, I just say, ‘This sounds great!’

Bobby made me a three-pickup Tele

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and he’s just finished a three-pickup Tele 12-string, which is great.”

What about amplification?

“In the UK I keep a ’65 Fender Deluxe, which is sounding really good. I just used it at Cropredy and it sounded wonderful.

I forget what speakers are in there right now – I think they’re Celestion Vintage 30s in there. In the States I use my favourite go to stage amp, a Divided By 13, which has two different Celestion speakers in it – a Gold and a Green, I think. If I’m renting I’ll just rent a couple of Fender Deluxes – or perhaps three – and one of those usually works [laughs].”

Where does a new song begin with you?

“You either have the lyrics that are looking for a tune or tunes that are looking for lyrics, and sometimes you get an idea of the whole thing at once. So you might get a line and the melody that goes with the line and you can expand from there in both directions.

Otherwise you might write down a lyric and add the melody later, which gives a different flavour. Sometimes, you find to fit the lyrics in, you don’t want to change anything, so you might be dealing with half bars of music, which gives you a different approach to song writing. Sometimes I’ll just write down anything for a lyric; just write rubbish or incredibly clichéd lines and figure out

interview

Richard Thompson

The acoustic series of CDs will soon see a third instalment in the form of Acoustic Rarities, released in October

PhotograPhy by olly Curtis

Fresh from Fairport’s 2017 Cropredy Festival where Richard joined his former bandmates as well as playing a solo set

something more interesting later. I think you can dream a song as well. You can hear the whole thing in your head and then you have to get back to that point; I can’t quite reach it but it’s there and I get the general idea but now I just have to write it down and that can take months to get to the actual nitty gritty.”

· “I’d be too lazy to put the pick down to go to fingerstyle – then I discovered there’s things you can do with hybrid you can’t do with other techniques” ·

Do you actually write melodies out?

“I do, yes. I write tunes out in notation just so I don’t lose them. Sometimes I’ll go back through my notebook and they’ll be a melody from a year or two ago and I’ll think, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ So what I’ve started to do much more is to use my phone as a kind of a shorthand storage device for tunes and I find that much better. I can hum something in or I can sing a lyric in and it’s got so many more components of what I want as a finished result. I can hear the feel that I’m intending. It’s much easier to go back to those little reference cues and figure out what I was thinking at the time. Because what you think at the time is so important and it’s getting back to that point again and not losing that.”

You use hybrid picking on acoustic guitar, don’t you?

“I use pick and fingers. Sometimes I use a thumb pick and fingers on acoustic for some songs because, after 57 years of playing the guitar, fingers one and two are still stronger than fingers two and three. So some things I

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can do on one and two I still can’t do on two and three. But there you go.”

Do you do the same on electric guitar?

“Yes, I probably started hybrid picking on the electric, really. I never thought, ‘This is a great technique, I’ll use this…’ I think it was just laziness, you know? I’d be sitting watching TV and be too lazy to put the pick down to go to fingerstyle or something so it just became a thing. Then I discovered there’s things you can do with hybrid that you can’t do with any other technique. You can pick up and down on the lower strings and add things straight or syncopated with fingers – a whole new world that suits the style that I play because I play a fairly aggressive style of acoustic guitar.”

and a lot of G modal, which is CGDGBE. I’ve other tunings but predominantly those are the three that I use. It just makes things easier. Makes it more streamlined.”

Do you use tunings on electric?

“I only use Drop D on electric. It’s just too messy to have arrays of electric guitars all in different tunings, I’m not sure it’s practical.

I mean, the thing about open tunings on acoustic is that you’re trying to get more size from the instrument. You’re trying to get more notes ringing over and just generally a larger accompaniment sound. On electric it’s really not necessary. You have volume and you have accompanists; you’ve got bass, drums and maybe another guitar going so you don’t need all that.”

What tunings do you use?

“I try to limit myself with tunings so I’m not retuning every song. I use a lot of Drop D – I’m most always in Drop D, I’m hardly ever in straight tuning. There’s a lot of DADGAD

Acoustic Classics II is available now on the Beeswing label via Proper Distribution www.richardthompsonmusic.com

feature

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Vox at 60

Guitarist october 2017

Vox at 60

feature

at

words ed mitchell, david mead & rod Brak es pictures Neil GodwiN, jesse wilde

celebrating six decades of tone I n 1 9 5 7, t w o m av e r I c k s f o r m e d a n a m p company that would defIne the sound of BrItIsh rock. we look Back on 60 years of vox Earlier this year, a commemorative blue plaque was unveiled at the site of the first Vox factory in Dartford, Kent. It reads: “From these premises, music entrepreneur Tom Jennings and sound engineer Dick Denney produced the first Vox amplifier, changing the sound of popular music forever.”

Actually, one of the first Vox products was a poorly-selling 3.5-watt practice amp with a 6.5” speaker. The only thing it changed was Dick Denney’s mind when he chose to upscale the speaker chassis to an eight-inch version. Even then, it was poorly equipped to take on existing combos like the WEM Clubman…

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Vox at 60

Early adopter: Brian Jones of the ‘Stones with Vox teardrop solidbody and backline

he real breakthrough, the amplifier that would establish what we now celebrate as ‘The Vox Sound’ was the AC15. The momentum created by this landmark 15-watt combo led to Rolling Stone Brian Jones’ MKVI ‘Teardrop’ guitar, the Vox wah, the Tone Bender fuzz, and the greatest British backline treasure of them all, the iconic AC30.

It was in 1956 that Dick Denney first showed Tom Jennings his homebuilt 15-watt amplifier. A little over a year later, the entrepreneur and the engineer pooled their experience in a new venture called Jennings Musical Industries aka ‘JMI’. It was a landmark moment but it’s not the beginning of the Jennings story.

As former Vox employee, celebrated electronics genius and ‘Father of British EQ’, John Oram explains, the origins of JMI can actually be traced back to the end of World War II and an outfit called Jennings Organ Company.

“A lot of people who know Vox for the guitar side don’t realise the company was running years before the amplifier thing, just on Tom Jennings selling accordions... and teaching accordion. That was down at Dartford, next to a fish and chip shop.”

Oram began an apprenticeship at the JMI parent company Royston Industries in 1964.

Just about the last man standing from the original lineup at JMI in the 60s, he worked on the Vox wah, the AC50 and early solidstate gear like the Super Beatle stack. He’s an invaluable source of anecdotes, not to mention an excellent tour guide into a very different world.

“I first saw Tom when I was about five or six years old,” says Oram. “He used to wait for kids to come out of school, and he would follow them home, with an accordion on his back, riding a bicycle. He would wait ‘til you’d gone in, usually with your mum, cos at

t

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that age you were escorted home. You’d get in and there would be a knock on the door and – this actually happened to me, so I’m speaking from experience – mum would answer the door and Tom would be there with his accordion, playing it. With a big smile on his face!

“He’d say, ‘Madam, I see you’ve got a very nice little boy there. How would you like him to be able to play accordion like this?’”

Sadly for Jennings, by the mid-50s, few kids wanted to be seen dead with an accordion. The skiffle craze, led by Chas McDevitt and Lonnie Donegan, had British ‘yoof’ pestering their parents for acoustic guitars, or raiding garden sheds or the local dump for tea chests and washboards.

In 1956, Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel effectively signed skiffle’s death warrant, although it took another year or so for rigour mortis to set in good and proper.

When Paul McCartney first encountered John Lennon at a church fete in Woolton, Liverpool in 1957, his future Beatle bandmate was still playing skiffle with The Quarrymen. It wouldn’t be long before kids like John and Paul were turned on by the sound of amplified guitar courtesy of Elvis sideman Scotty Moore, Chuck Berry and a Lubbock, Texas kid called Buddy Holly.

Holly electrified the imagination of a generation of kids when he appeared on the cover of his album The “Chirping” Crickets cradling a sunburst Fender Stratocaster.

Vox at 60

feature

hank marvin

vox & the shadows hank on how scre amIng crowds gave rIse to t he ac30…

Did you choose Vox or vice versa?

“We did a gig with the John Barry Seven and I’m pretty sure that Vic Flick had a Vox amp. So somehow we managed to obtain Vox amps; whether Cliff’s management got onto them I don’t know, but we got some AC15s which we started using. They were way better than the little Cornflake packet of a Selmer I had been using, but with the amount of screaming for Cliff we couldn’t hear ourselves on stage. I spoke to Dick Denney and asked him if it was possible to make the amps twice as loud; I said, ‘Can’t you put two of these together?’ and he said, ‘It doesn’t quite work like that!’

“He went off and a little while later we had a call saying that he’d designed this new amplifier, an AC30, which was quite a lot louder than the AC15. So they knocked us up a couple and we started using those.”

Did you have to have them flat out?

“From memory the amp was never flat out because it would start to distort which, at that time, was not a sound that was considered pleasing to the ear. I would just set up my amp for the sound I was trying to achieve, which was a clear sound with a bit of guts in it. If you listen to Man Of Mystery and a couple of the others you can hear a little bit of distortion in the amp. I didn’t always have the guitar full on, sometimes I’d back it off just a touch.”

What was Vox like to deal with?

“They were always on the case and Tom [Jennings] was very hands-on with us, as

Were the amps voiced specially for you?

“As far as I know they were just absolutely standard amps and it was a question of fiddling with the tone controls until I got the sound I was trying to achieve and that was it, really. I think, in those days, they didn’t think of those things.”

Did you set your amps up differently when you were in the studio?

“Again, I just used to set the volume to sound good to my ears. That’s all I did, but Norrie [Paramor – The Shadows’ and Cliff’s producer] went to the USA at some point and he was doing some research while he was over there and he went to quite a few recording sessions. He came back and said he was surprised by how quietly the session musicians were playing in the studio. I remember after that we talked about it and we decided to back off a little bit in volume in the studio, to see if it would improve things.

“Bearing in mind that we all recorded together and the only thing separating the amplifiers was a baffle board about four feet high in between. Separation was not easy, and I guess the louder you play, the less separation you’re going to achieve. So that was one of the advantages of laying back a little bit. As I say, with some of the stuff, I can hear it on the records, where there’s just a hint of distortion beginning to happen.”

What did you think of the later Top Boost variants of the AC30?

“They said, ‘Hey, look we’ve got a little improvement on the amp, it’s a Top Boost – you can get more top with it.’ They brought them along and we tried them out and it just gave a little extra sparkle, but it was a dangerous knob because you could make it absolutely ear-splitting. I think you had to be quite discerning about it and not overcook the Top Boost.”

You told us recently that you’ve now come full circle and used Vox amps on your latest record.

“I have used them before on the previous album, Hank, and when we did the reunion album [Cliff Richard And The Shadows Reunited, 2009] and we did all those Cliff and the Shads things, I used Vox on that. I had someone look at the Vox just a couple of weeks ago and he couldn’t find anything wrong with it; it was working perfectly.”

was Dick Denney. Once we started having all that success with Cliff and Apache and the subsequent records took off, everyone seemed to be interested in having the equipment that we were using, such as Fender guitars and Vox amps – and I can understand that.

“But they were definitely ready to oblige.

We found that on stage, if the amps were on the floor, depending on the venue, you could get a bit more bottom end out of the amp, but also it was harder to hear them. So we ended up putting them on chairs so we could hear them and that led to us speaking to Tom – ‘Any chance of making a stand?’ and that’s when those chrome stands came out, which I think The Beatles had as well.”

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Vox at 60

brian may

killer wat ts Queen’s legendary guItarIst on why he uses nIne ac30s In hIs lIve rIg… What was your first Vox amp?

“I bought two from a shop in Wardour Street in about 1969. It was the end of a quest to find the sound that was already in my head. I had tried various amps but I had come to the conclusion that the sound of Mullard valves being overdriven could not be reproduced using transistors, no matter how clever the circuits. I had also had a chat with the wonderful Rory Gallagher, a great hero of mine, at the Marquee Club. He was typically gracious and patient, and I asked him what was the secret of his fabulous sound. He told me the key to powerful but clear chords and sweetly sustaining single notes was a Vox AC30 driven hard on the input, using a treble booster.

“My dad was an electronics genius so he was able to explain to me that the AC30 was unusual in that its power output stage used the valves in the Class A configuration and without the negative feedback that was used to make hi-fi amplifiers of the day reproduce signals accurately.

“The result was a smooth ‘characteristic curve’ (the graph of output volume versus signal input). For small input signals – with the volume control set low on the guitar – the curve is a nice straight line without any of the kinks inherent in a push-pull configuration. But, as the signal increases, the output begins to reach a limit, a plateau.

So as you go on turning up the volume on the input, the output saturates. This is what sounds like distortion, but while in normal push-pull amps this saturation comes about suddenly, in the case of the Class A Vox, it

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happens very smoothly and gradually. So instead of a harsh, fuzzy overload you get a very smooth saturation which sounds more like a human voice than a fuzz-tone. That ‘voice’ was the voice I wanted, and once I found it, it became part of me. It was all thanks to Rory. And Vox!” Why the multiple AC30 set-up?

“I wanted to achieve clarity and breadth when using effects – most of the time I use chorus and delays. In both cases, the pedal or processing device gives you a nice clean companion signal which wants to be heard alongside your original signal. But if you mix it back into the same amp that the original goes through, it doesn’t work very well. The stereo opportunities are lost, and worse, at high volumes the two signals intermodulate and make an ugly distorted sound. The beauty and clarity of the single note saturation is lost.

“So my solution was to feed the processed signals into entirely separate amps, hence my three amps at ground level, the centre one handling the ‘straight through’ signal unmodified, and the outer two transmitting the two different delays in use, or the stereo chorus signals, slightly altered in pitch. No matter how far up I turn the guitar, those amps are still handling one note each, and it sounds clear and warm.

“In the early days it was often a struggle to hear the guitar, so I took to having another set of three on top of the first ones. The second three also serve as spares and the same applies to the top row. For that feeling

of comfort I still like to see the whole array of nine AC30s behind me, I can’t remember the last time I needed to have them all turned up.”

What mods are done to your amps?

“These days we have them all rewired without printed circuits, to make them rugged enough to survive long tours. We also take out all the elements that I don’t use – the tremolo and ‘bright’ channels. This optimises the power to process my signal with minimum losses. We also use one traditional ‘Blue’ speaker in each cabinet and one Celestion G12H vintage reissue.”

Which era AC30 is your favourite?

“My absolute favourites are the old cream ones. They sound damn good. Like guitars, even if they are all identical in design, every amp has its own character, born of slight variations in materials and, apparently, what day of the week they were made.”

What would you say are a Vox AC30’s distinctive characteristics?

“The great quality – pretty much inimitable – is that unique ability to put you halfway between chordal clarity and full-blown sustaining single notes. It’s a big part of my style. And the delicate spot where the notes are just beginning to break into saturation but are still sharp and warm is pure magic.”

Why have you remained faithful to Vox over the years?

“There is no substitute!”

Vox at 60

little brother

feature

Adrian Ultley’s venerable but toneful AC10 combo

portIshead guItarIst adrIan utley on the magIc of hIs vIntage ac10 Atmospheric textures and evocative tones are your trademark as a guitarist.

What drew you to the little Vox AC10?

“I first had a Vox AC10 when I was about 17 or 18. I had two Vox AC30s and an AC10. I loved the AC10 but it just wasn’t loud enough on stage at the time, because back then we didn’t mic amps up, so I switched to an AC30, which was too loud! So I used to turn it around facing the wall and crank it. Most of the things I do these days are pretty quiet, so the AC10 is great for that, but in fact it can still get surprisingly loud.

“The AC10 I have at the moment is in my studio a lot of the time, I’ve used it on quite a few records and I’ve taken it out to play live with because it’s reliable. I think Vox amps are reliable. The AC10 is small and light so it’s easy to move around.

I really love it, in fact it’s very simple and it has a sweet spot when it gets up to a certain level. It takes pedals really well, although it possesses a good, basic sound without any of the pedals switched on and it sounds really lovely if I add a slight bit of reverb to it.

The vibrato sounds great and, though it doesn’t have a bearing on the sound, it looks cool – it’s got Vox written on it!”

Whatever the kids had been into up to that point was finished, British rock was in the post and, what’s more, there was an embargo on American goods. Tom Jennings and Dick Denney’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The engineer set about refining his prototype.

Originally designated the AC-1, the amp that would become better known as the AC15 was unveiled in 1958. Denney nailed the classic Vox formula with the AC15. For a start he plumped for EL-84 output valves, which, when pushed hard, distort due to their low headroom. In the 1950s, distortion was still considered a fault and an engineer like Denney would reduce unwanted fuzz using a ‘negative feedback’ circuit, a device that sends some of the amp’s signal back into the power amp.

The eureka moment came when Denney decided he didn’t like the effect these problem-solving gubbins had on the sound of the amplifier. Drop kicking convention to the wind he engineered his new Class A combo without the circuitry. The AC15 would now produce overdrive when pushed hard.

As John Oram reveals, Dick Denney always had the last say on a new amp’s ‘voice’ despite having one key disadvantage.

“Dick was always hard of hearing,” Oram says.” You’d speak to him at a normal level and he wouldn’t know you were talking.

You’d have to yell at him. I’ve always said that when Dick Denney voiced the sound

· “When Dick Denney voiced the sound on an amplifier he probably wasn’t hearing what we were hearing.…” · on an amplifier he probably wasn’t hearing what we were hearing at all. He was hearing a more mellow sound perhaps. He had to tweak it so it was crisp for him. That created the Vox sound.”

Dick Denney wasn’t the only one that heard something special in the AC15. Artist endorsement was in its infancy in the late 1950s but JMI trumped the competition

when it supplied three of its new amplifiers to The Shadows to replace their existing Selmer backline.

“Charlie Cobbett used to be the artist liaison manager for Vox,” says John Oram.

“He was the one who used to go out and find the bands that Vox could give their gear to. That’s why they became so popular.

They used to run adverts that said ‘95 per cent of bands played Vox’ but the top bands were given the gear for free. In exchange, whenever they went for a photo shoot, or if there was any TV show or whatever, there had to be Vox amplifiers on stage, even if they weren’t being used.

“When The Shadows and Cliff Richard did Sunday Night At The London Palladium, in those days they had a rotating stage. And when it came round, the Vox amps would be there, all clean and tidy, glistening. And in use, of course. At that juncture, it was all live. But when they went to the Ed Sullivan Show in America, they didn’t play in the first show. They were just interviewed but they had to have those Vox amps in the background behind them. That was the rule of the game.”

Vox became the go-to brand for, of course, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and just about every provincial beat group

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Vox at 60

Destructive habits: The Who were very short-lived ambassadors for Vox amps

with a recording contract. Most used their free Vox gear with gratitude and without incident. That is, until a bunch of louts from Shepherds Bush rolled up.

“The most unsuccessful band for Vox were The Who,” sighs Oram. “Charlie Cobbett nobbled them and got them signed up. They came, took the gear away for a gig on a Saturday night. On the Monday, the driver was back. There’s the gear, all smashed up. I think Tom put up with it for three sets of kit and then, in his own terms, said ‘You guys can fuck off!’”

Legend has it that when Who guitarist Pete Townshend visited the Rickenbacker factory back in the day, he was shunned by the workforce due to his habit of gleefully destroying the fruits of their labours for the amusement of pilled-up mods.

“It was just so disrespectful what The Who did,” agrees Oram. “Bloody idiots!”

The Shadows never trashed their gear, of course. Even if they were hankering for more power from their AC15s. By mid-1960 The Shads took delivery of a new beast, the four input, 30-watt, 2 x 12” AC30/4. Denney had increased the power output from 15 to 30 watts with a second pair of EL84 valves.

The most important British guitar combo of all time was now a reality, and it would

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be relentlessly tweaked over the following few years.

The first generation AC30/4 amps supplied to Hank and the boys were in a throwback ‘TV front’ layout but production

· “The Who came and took the gear for a gig on a Saturday night.

On the Monday, the gear was back, all smashed up...” · models featured the now iconic split panel format. There were four inputs of course, two for the ‘Vibrato’ channel, the remaining pair for the ‘Normal’ channel. The speakers were Celestion G12 Alnico ‘Blue’ items although a small number of early examples had tan coloured versions of the ‘Blue’.

By 1961, the AC30/6 was unveiled as a replacement for its four input predecessor.

In those days, it wasn’t unusual for band members to share an amp, and so Vox had it covered.

In 1964, the same year he sold JMI to Royston Industries and moved to Erith, Kent, Tom Jennings secured JMI the European distributorship for Fender guitars and amplifiers. By that point, JMI had been selling its own range of guitars.

The first was a Vox-branded, Guyatonebuilt version of the Antoria LG-50 that a pre-Fiesta Red Strat Hank Marvin played in The Shadows.

1962 found JMI selling rudimentary plywood student guitars built in the UK

by Stuart Darkins & Company, a furniture builder based in Shoeburyness in Essex.

The following year production shifted to G-Plan, a well-known manufacturer of sofas based in Hemel Hempstead.

The truth is Vox nailed their best guitars when they got weird. The iconic white two-pickup Mark VI model managed to make Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones look even cooler than he already was. The Mark VI’s ‘teardrop’ body and the twisted coffin vibe of the Phantom model were the result of JMI’s desire to build guitars that

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Vox at 60

1. A rare EL-34 powered Vox AC100 head with black, not brown, cloth and copper control plate.

Early examples had a thin edge to the cabinet

2. The battered AC30 used by Vox’s own R&D team as the template for a newseries of ultra-authentic reissues.

Review next issue

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3. The hybrid UL760, made from 1965 to 67, featured a solid-state preamp but a KT-88 powered power stage as Vox transitioned to the solid-state era

4. The ‘Long Tom’ Echo Deluxe MKII tape delay unit was most famously used by Hank Marvin, running a 22-inch loop of ¼-inch tape

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looked nothing like their competitors. Job done. Yet, it was a brave manifesto given the collective shrug that had greeted the Gibson Flying V and Explorer just a few years before.

Vox guitars caught the attention of teenage US Anglophiles who traded the reverb-drenched sound of the surf music of Dick Dale for the repackaged electric blues of The Stones, The Yardbirds and The Animals. The garage rock uniform of Chelsea boots, polo necks and Brian Jones haircuts was sonically backed up with the angry-sounding swarm of fuzz guitar. When Keef played that riff on (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction every kid within earshot felt a

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psychotic reaction. The Human Riff used a Gibson Maestro stompbox on Satisfaction, a unit that had been languishing on shelves and in stock rooms since 1962. That changed thanks to Keef.

Tom Jennings would always say to Dick Denney “we need new noises”, hence the creation of treble boosters and wah pedals.

One of their smartest moves was to source Sola Sound fuzz boxes [built by engineer Gary Hurst] from Music Exchange in London’s Charing Road, which were then rebadged as the Vox Tone Bender. So, Vox became legendary for the sound of fuzz tone thanks to a pedal it didn’t design or build. The Maestro faded into obscurity.

Given the cultural impact of its amps and guitars, not to mention the ‘new noises’ emanating from its stompboxes, Vox appeared unstoppable. Yet trouble was brewing. 1967 may have played host to The Summer Of Love but there was little love lost between Tom Jennings and the board at Royston Industries that year.

“The situation was that Vox was making more money than the rest of the group,” explains John Oram. “Obviously, it’s annoying when you’re pulling all this money in and it’s all going into this bottomless pit that’s paying all these people and propping up weaker companies. Tom liked to think he was in control of his own

· “For years, I used a Vox AC30 – which is the best all-around European amp I’ve ever come across...” rory Gallagher ·

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Vox at 60

r a dio f riendly

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radIohead guItar man ed o’BrIen on how vox Is a Bedrock of hIs sound What Vox amps do you rely on in Radiohead – and why?

“I love Vox amps. The Vox amps that I really like are the AC30s and I used one for years. Thom [Yorke] has got the old ones – he’s got the 60s ones, which are great. We had brand-new AC30s quite a few years ago and they got rebuilt

by David Petersen, who is the same guy that rebuilt Brian May’s [Vox AC30] for We Will Rock You. He took everything out and converted it to a single, normal channel for me. Fucking hell, they’re loud! Brian [May] can obviously turn up – he’s the only guitarist and that’s part of the sound, but it wasn’t working for me, so Daniel Steinhardt [of The GigRig and That Pedal Show] modded it.

I said ‘Listen, Daniel, I love AC30s but they only sound good when you crank them,’ and he said ‘Well, I can get a mod done for you and it will sound great.’ So my Vox AC30 has been modded twice now.

Last year I was using a [Fender] Vibro King, which I also love, and an AC30 and the two together were just beautiful, but our sound engineer [Jim Warren] was complaining that it was all too loud and we had this whole scale-down of the gear for the production. That forced me to look elsewhere and so I’m not using the AC30 as much right now.

Lately I’ve been using Audio Kitchen amps – I’ve got two Big Chopper heads and a 1x12 cab: they’re just amazing!”

domain, and when you’re in a corporate structure, with a board of directors, you cannot do just what you want to do. That’s a fact of business life.”

Jennings had established the Thomas Organ Company in the US in 1965, and seen Vox-branded products manufactured in Italy. The brilliant but bonkers Phantom XII Stereo 12-string was built by EKO there.

Jennings was an entrepreneur par excellence but the bottom line is, JMI was not his company anymore and he was about to clash with the Royston board head on.

“Tom used to treat himself, fairly regularly, to a new Jaguar car,” says Oram.

“He’d gone through the range. He’d had the Mark II. He had the Mark X. Then he decided that he wanted a silver E-Type. He was at a board meeting and happened to let it slip that he’d ordered one. The board went crazy. ‘You don’t need a new car!’ they said.

“Now, when Tom was with ENSA [Entertainments National Service Association] during the war he had worked very closely with a chap called Sidney Ives.

Sidney had become the in-house company accountant. Tom sent him down to the bank to withdraw some cash, walked round the corner to Beadles, the main Jag dealers, and he got his E-Type.”

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“They sacked him,” reveals Oram. “He came over to the research department over the road, where myself, Dick Denney and a few others were. He had tears running

· “‘Where are we going Tom?’ we asked.

He replied,‘We’re going back to the chip shop in Dartford Road’...” · down his face and said, in words to the effect of, ‘those bastards have kicked me out of my own company.’

“He said, ‘I’m going to start again. Dick will you come with me?’ Dick said, ‘Yes, guv.’

He said, ‘John will you come with me?’ and I said, ‘Well, yes.’ ‘You can become my chief engineer,’ he said.”

“’Where are we going Tom?’ we asked.”

He replied, ‘We’re going back to the chip shop in Dartford Road.’”

If Tom Jennings harboured any lingering anger for Royston Industries, he didn’t have to wait long for karma to oblige. By 1969, his one-time parent company was bankrupt. So began a gradual decline in the fortunes of the Vox brand, albeit with occasional blips of hope, like when it was purchased by onetime Gibson and longtime Rickenbacker distributor Rose Morris in the 80s. Since the early 90s, Vox has been owned by Japanese company Korg, the brand’s safest pair of hands since it was driven by Tom Jennings.

Today you can buy highly-regarded UK and Chinese-made Vox gear.

Even through the darkest periods for Vox – the stack-obsessed 70s, the rack-mounted geekdom of the 80s – the AC30 secured its place in the backline of the likes of Brian May of Queen, Irish blues icon Rory Gallagher, U2’s The Edge, and Paul Weller during his tenure with The Jam. The AC30 encapsulates everything that’s electrifying and timeless about ‘The Vox Sound’. Sixty years after the birth of JMI it’s the ultimate tribute to that decade when an accordion teacher and a half-deaf engineer did their bit to change the world.

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Vox at 60

timepieces We take a look at some of Vox’s seminal gear... arly to mid-20th century electronics evolved to include the arrival of the rectifier tube in 1927 (converting AC to DC voltage, thus enabling powerful amplification from the AC mains); the electromagnetic pickup, popularised initially by Ro-Pat-In from 1931; and the early production amps from Gibson and K&F/Fender in the 1930s and 1940s respectively. These advancements in music technology were crucial and laid the foundations for Jennings Musical Instruments/JMI’s subsequent line of amplifiers.

Following World War II, JMI founder Tom Jennings rapidly progressed from a humble radio repair workshop in Dartford, Kent and in 1951 released JMI’s first guitar compatible device, the Univox organ (manufactured by Weil & Co) followed by, in 1956, their in-house designed (by Derek Underdown) G-Series amps, although no known examples of the Univox or G-Series amps are currently now in existence.

Gigging musician and electronics whizz Dick Denney, having joined JMI in 1957, spearheaded a dedicated guitar amp design and the newly Vox branded AC1/15 (later named the AC15) was proudly released commercially as a JMI-made amplifier in January 1958, marking a crucial turning point for the company.

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1960 Vox Ac15

The first AC15 amplifiers, much like the post’woodie’ Fender amps, are often referred to as ‘TV-front’ due to their appearance (up until the split-front fawn amps arrived in late-1960), with the control panel located on the top facing the rear, as guitarists normally sat behind the amps in those days – before the ‘backline’ stage set up. Its fledgling model name, AC1/15, derived from: mains/alternating current powered (AC), first Vox amplifier (1/) and 15 watts (15), although it was in fact slightly more powerful.

Two-piece wooden back, from 1960, exposes the rear of a 12", 15 watts, 15 ohms Goodmans Audiom 60 speaker

Black escutcheon control panel of third circuit version (EF86) with 4 inputs over channels I and II and 6 round knobs including vibrato control

a potted history of hoW the Vox sound took shape 1951

1958

1959

The Univox, a monophonic synth/organ with a built-in valve amplifier and loudspeaker, is launched. Inspired by a popular French product called the Clavioline, the Univox is allegedly used on the Joe Meek-produced 1962 hit Telstar.

By some accounts Jennings had tried to re-cycle the Univox’s valve circuit for guitar use without much success

The AC1/15 amp launched in January, Thomas Jennings’s first big success. Re-named AC15, it featured a Denneydesigned circuit using a pair of EL84 valves driving a single 12" loudspeaker, in a cabinet designed by Jennings.

According to legend, the AC part of the name stood for Amplifier Combination. It also conveniently stood for Alternating Current

Vox hit on a masterpiece with the concept of a ‘double AC15’; four EL84s powering two 12" loudspeakers, called the AC30. Hank Marvin stayed with the AC30 as it took a further step in development, adopting a version with a built-in treble boost circuit, which Vox christened the AC30 Top Boost

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Vox at 60

1. Cream and diamonds covering, aka Rexine, was used from January 1958 until two-tone grey appeared in 1960, although it was briefly reintroduced in ‘60

2. The diamond/lattice pattern grillcloth was originally selected by Tom Jennings from the Radio Spares Company and later became a protected design exclusive to JMI

3. TV-front cabinet measuring 20¾" x 20¾" x 10¼" made from Baltic birch plywood with two piece wooden back and protective vertical centre strip in front of speaker cone

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4. Moulded plastic Vox motifs replaced single lettering DIY motifs on AC15 amplifiers in the latter part of 1959 as production volume increased

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Vox is approached by Brian Epstein, manager of a band from Liverpool, who were struggling to impress EMI’s George Martin. Sales manager Reg Clarke was initially taken aback when he realised they weren’t just asking for a discount – he wanted the amps for free. A deal was done, and the then unknown Beatles scored a pair of AC30/6s, in return for a guarantee that they would use them exclusively for as long as Epstein managed them

Vox was growing too quickly, money was needed to fund expansion, and Jennings sold his controlling interest to the Royston Industries electronics group and the American rights to the Thomas Organ Company. Royston treated Vox as a cash cow to fund other less successful brands. Sales began to decline. Denney left in 1965 and Jennings and Underdown were fired in 1967. Royston Industries eventually filed for bankruptcy in 1969

After a period of being owned by several banks and finance groups Vox is purchased by CBS-Arbiter in 1973. One of the first things Arbiter did was replace the printed circuit board versions of the AC30 and some other models with hand-wired tag boards that were quite faithful to the original design

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Vox at 60

1962 Vox Ac30

With the success of the AC15, professional musicians were beginning to demand more volume and so JMI’s Dick Denney pushed for a more powerful and gig-worthy amp. This culminated in the release of the single speaker AC30 in 1959, followed by the double speaker AC30 Twin in 1960.

1. Fawn covering, three leather (originally!) handles, three brass vent louvers and copper anodized escutcheon control panel, from 1961 on

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2. Metal badge serial number plate (on the rear of the amp) displays model name and serial number, along with some good advice!

3. Two-piece back panel exposes the rear of two Vox branded 12" 15 watts, Celestion Azure blue T.530 speakers 4. Control panel featuring six inputs across three channels and six ‘chicken head’ pointer knobs

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Rose-Morris’s infamous distribution deal with Marshall ends. Looking for another brand as a safety net, they negotiate to buy Vox from Arbiter. Rose Morris tinkered with the AC30 several times and there were a few new models, among them the Venue and V125, but they were mostly forgettable

Vox purchased by Korg, who began to sell off the old Rose-Morris AC30s with a view to returning the amp to its original design. A significant historical moment sees Korg’s Vox AC30TB and AC30TBX models (manufactured under license in Marshall’s Bletchley factory) arrive on the market in 1993. Despite the printed circuit board construction, they were far closer to the original Denney circuits than their predecessors...

...And at Vox’s request, Celestion reissued the famous alnico ‘Blue’ loudspeaker associated with vintage AC30s for the 1992 AC30TBX model, while the AC30TB used Celestion Greenbacks. A limited edition launched in late 2002 marked the last UK-made hand-wired AC30

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Vox at 60

1962 Vox shAdow

In the late 1950s Hank Marvin’s Shadows were making waves in the British music scene as Cliff Richards’ backing band, and he soon became one of the most highly influential guitarists of all time. Hank initially used Selmer amps but quickly switched to using a JMI Vox AC15 in 1959, thus marking a strong association with the Dartford firm.

The Vox LG-50 Shadow Guitar was released in 1960 and in 1962 JMI introduced the double Vox V-1 pickup Shadow with a Les Paul body-style in a choice of red or white finish.

Interestingly, these early guitars all featured a TV aerial-style coaxial input, as opposed to the later, now standard, ¼" jack input.

mid-60s Vox Ace

This mid-60s Vox Ace bears more than a passing resemblance to a Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster. These are synonymous with Hank Marvin and were unmistakably influential in terms of later Vox designs which filled a gap in the UK market due to the embargo imposed on American goods imported into the UK. With a 25½" scale, double steel rod reinforced neck and two newly upgraded single coil Vox V-II pickups with Strat-like exposed polepieces, these guitars were fitted with a patented Vox DeLuxe tremolo system. The bodies and necks were manufactured by furniture makers: firstly Stuart Darkins and Co of Shoeburyness, followed by G-Plan of Hemel Hempstead in 1963.

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e A rLy-60s Vox BAssm As ter BAss

Much like the Vox Ace, the Vox Bassmaster Bass was strongly influenced by Fender’s solid body electric guitar designs – in this case the Precision Bass – including their unmistakable headstock shape. The bodies and necks were also sourced from UK furniture manufacturers Stuart Darkins and G-Plan, before being assembled at JMI. Bassmasters were offered in a choice of finishes including red, white or sunburst (a very dark sunburst is pictured) and were equipped with a compensating bridge assembly and two unique Vox bass pickups featuring one volume and one tone control.

Some Bassmasters were fitted with the old-style coaxial input, while others had a standard ¼" jack input.

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Designed with input from acclaimed New York boutique builder Tony Bruno, the 2002 hand-wired AC30s had a substantially different preamp circuit. They were greatsounding amps, although not particularly well-received

by Vox fans. Spiralling production costs were making the British-built AC30 increasingly expensive, particularly in the key USA market. The last UK-made Vox AC30s shipped in 2004, ending 45 years of British manufacturing

Chinese-made AC30CC2 and AC30CC2X hit the market.

Production was subsequently moved to Vietnam, along with other hybrid and solid-state models previously made in Korea, including the Valvetronix range. The vitally important relaunch was a success, returning Vox to the world stage. Reinvigorated as one of the top international guitar amplification brands, the quality and consistency of the modern range is better than ever

Vox’s innovative and great-sounding MV50 micro amps range launched with the unusual 6P1 Nutube preamp – effectively a flat, highly compact triode valve – while continuing to please traditionalists with the current version of the AC30, which is just as good, if not better than the originals. Happy anniversary Vox, here’s to the next 60 years!

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Vox at 60

The star Vox amp once belonged to George Harrison, which he passed on to a support act after a gig with The Beatles in 1963

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Vox at 60

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I, me, mIne

A rAre AC30 t hAt once upon A t ime migh t hAve reverberAted to the sounds of pleAse pleAse me, from me to You And she loves You… Words David Mead Photography Jesse Wilde

e’re chasing the side of the stage by Chas through the himself. Clearly shown is an leafy lanes AC30 on a stand behind George of the Surrey – quite possibly the one before countryside us now. in search of a piece of Vox “It’s got a lovely, warm tone to memorabilia from the early it. It’s got a sound all of its own 1960s. It’s an AC30 from the – it really is nice,” Carl enthuses. company’s highly sought “Earlier this year, when Vox after early period, and quite a did the plaque ceremony at valuable item in its own right.

Dartford, I got asked to go down But this particular amplifier to Radio Kent and play it over has an additional pedigree the air, which was fun. It was in that we’re told it was once at 7 o’clock in the morning and part of The Beatles’ backline, I had to get up at five, take it belonging to none other than down there and play House Of George Harrison.

The Rising Sun for them and it Arriving at our destination, sounded amazing!” the house of Vox collector and managing director of Croydon’s Ain’t she sweet Rockbottom music store, Carl Neilson, we’re shown some Taking a look around the amp, precious rare items from Vox’s we can see the white panelled past, including an early black Top Boost mod cut into the rear panel AC100 head and a pristine panel. “This is the Top Boost 1968 AC30. One AC50 from mod, which Vox did in the early The original Vox AC30s were beige, but when The Beatles asked for black ones the the mid 60s is “a rare model” 60s and they put it in the back. company subsequently changed its palette according to Carl. “It was built There’s been quite a few mods –

by Triumph Electronics; Vox even I made a few 20 years ago. awaiting his restoration skills. But it’s the commissioned Triumph to build a few It’s quite simple, it’s just an ECC 83 with George Harrison amp that takes centre and this is one of them. Copper top with a few resistors and a capacitor on a bit of stage today. “I bought it off a guy called the diamond-shaped inputs with a valve angled metal and you just screw it into the Chas McDevett,” Carl explains. “He was the back. Cut a hole and put it in the back, so it rectifier – they usually have diodes – and it sounds better, in my opinion; it’s got a better opening act for The Beatles and, at the end was easy to do. The original mod – properly of the gig it was passed onto him. George punch to it.” engraved in the back on the white panel – said, ‘I’ll get a new one…’ or something. I The house is, in fact, a virtual amplifier has been done later; the original was four don’t know what year that was – probably museum, full of untold treasures. In one input and then they put the Top Boost in 1963 or 64 or something.” Our research cupboard alone, there are around six and it does sound really good.”

Hiwatt heads and Carl tells us that his loft is reveals some Super 8mm footage of the During the time the AC30 has been in Fabs on tour in Blackpool in 1963, shot from Carl’s hands, it’s attracted some celebrity bustling with decommissioned Vox amps,

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Vox at 60

1. With the back panel off the original circuit is visible plus a retro-fitted Top Boost, centre, adding an extra ECC 83 valve

2. The first AC30s would have used Goodman speakers, replaced later on with Celestion G12s as shown here

3. A big hit with players, Vox’s Top Boost mod introduced some highend sparkle to the sound of the AC30

4. The Harrison AC30 has won some accolades for its warmth and power from players like Status Quo’s Francis Rossi

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fans. “I actually lent it to Francis Rossi. We did a programme called Vox Pop, Brian May was on it and I got Francis involved. I took it to his studio because they did the filming round there and as soon as Francis heard it he said, ‘How much is it?’ I went, ‘It’s not for sale… you can borrow it’ and that was it. That was about five or six years ago. He liked it; it’s just got that sound.”

We’re curious as to how Carl’s interest in all things Vox began. “I’ve always loved AC30s,” he says, “playing through them myself with my band, playing with different bands over the years. I think the first time I ever tried an AC30 I was about 11 or 12. I lived in Bournemouth and my friend bought one, plugged in and I thought, ‘Bloody hell, this sounds amazing!’ So that was it and it went off from there, really.

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“My first amplifier I built myself. I couldn’t afford a proper Vox and so I bought myself a kit amplifier from a small radio components type of shop in Crystal Palace, it was a 30 watt, metal clad amp called a Veritone 30 – a bit like a Linear Conchord – and then I just used that when I was a kid.”

triumphAnt test The electronics bug having well and truly bit, Carl’s interest in amplifiers deepened.

“Absolutely, yes. My stepfather had an electrical shop, so I was always interested in electricity – I got a buzz out of it, if you know what I mean!” Strangely enough, Carl’s first job had a Beatles connection, too.

“I went to work for Triumph Electronics

when I was 15; just left school, literally the next day I was at Triumph. I told them I could wire amps up and they tested me by getting me to put a transformer in a Vox 7120 amp belonging to The Beatles and then they said, ‘Yeah, okay, you’ve got the job. You start on Monday’ and that was it. I got £4 7s 6d a week! I worked for Triumph for about a year and then I went to work for Macari’s in London – the Vox shop.”

Around this time, the original set of Vox AC30s were supplied to The Beatles. They were beige-coloured, but were returned with the request that the moptops wanted them in black. “That’s what I was told,” Carl says. The story continues that Vox subsequently started supplying AC30s in black – another instance where four lads from Liverpool changed history!

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Vox at 60

Final thoughts hoW INDepeNDeNCe AND prIDe CArVeD out A VoICe IN guItAr t hAt ’s s t Ill gAlVANIC t oDAy

uring the dreary post-war period, when imported American guitars and amps were embargoed, Vox earned their place in history as one of the few instrument makers around to sustain the burgeoning British rock ‘n’ roll scene in those lean years.

Their great triumph was that they weren’t just making amps and effects that ‘would do’ until something better came along, but technically unique, stunning-sounding kit that remained a first choice for players such as Rory Gallagher and U2’s Edge long after the floodgates of commerce opened to Fender, Gibson and the other ‘Big Boys’.

It’s also touchingly indicative of the pride that Vox’s 1960s staff took in their work that they scorned The Who for smashing up what had taken them such care to build. But as much as Vox remains a resonant name purely in terms of British guitar heritage, it’s pulled off the trick of staying innovative — undoubtedly helped by Korg ownership.

The recent line of MV50 mini amps (see review, issue 421), with their flat Nutube triode valve, were compellingly original even as they nodded to the company’s past.

It’s a reminder that the great institutions

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Vox’s diminutive MV50 heads may be smaller than their forebears but are no less progressive in spirit

of British tone were mould-breakers and trailblazers when they started out, and as much as we’re looking forward to reviewing a limited run of ultra-authentic handwired Vox classics next issue, it’s the

company’s preference for being progressive and sonically distinctive that’ll mean those diamond-weave grilles should still be sparkling in another 60 years. We wish them many happy returns.

competition WIN! A Vox AC10C1 Worth £435 If this month’s cover feature has whet your appetite for that biting Vox sound, why not enter our competition to be in with a chance of winning the company’s best-selling amp – the compact but potent AC10C1 combo? With a Celestion VX10 speaker and a brace of EL84 power valves, plus the celebrated Top Boost circuit on board, it’s got that chiming-but-warm Vox voice in spades but wrapped up in a package that’s easier to carry from the car to the gig than its big brother, the redoubtable AC30. To be in with a chance of winning this juicy little tone machine simply answer the question to the right correctly on our online competition page at bit.ly/2wKGxv3. Good luck!

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question

WhICh IrIsh guItArIst WAs fAmous for usINg AN AC30 WIth A DAllAs rANgemAster treble boost?

A the eDge B gAry moore C rory gAllAgher

Def Leppard

tH 30 anniversary

interview

Hell nd B ck

Before it stormed to 25 million sales, 1987’s Hysteria cost Def Leppard three years, $5 million and a drummer’s arm. Guitarist Phil Collen remembers the mayhem, tragedy and skyscraping ambition of one of the era’s classic albums Words Henry Yates

PhotograPhy by JosePh branston

I

t was August 1987, and Def Leppard’s newly released fourth album, Hysteria, had all the makings of a cautionary tale. Over three agonising years, the Sheffield rockers had clawed forwards through a hail of bombshells, ranging from fired producers to a horrific car crash that cost drummer Rick Allen his left arm. “You really did start to think,” frontman Joe Elliott muttered in one interview, “that we were cursed.”

Now, with the final studio tab nudging $5 million, the band toured Hysteria across the States to discover if the fans who’d bought 1983’s Pyromania had deserted them. “You’re out there touring, you’re in debt, no-one’s showing up,” reflects Leppard guitarist Phil Collen. “I remember, when we’d just released Hysteria, we played the Tacoma Dome, Washington, and got 11,000 people in. Which is great. But it holds 30,000. We played in Kentucky, where it held 23,000 and we had 3,000 in. And it was like, ‘This is depressing. We’ve got this great album. Where’s everyone gone?’”

But then something happened (and it wouldn’t be the first time an 80s rock band was saved by strippers). Recorded as an afterthought and belatedly released as Hysteria’s fourth single, Pour Some Sugar On Me was adopted as a pole-dancing anthem. It then spread to MTV, before hitting No 2 on the Billboard chart and kickstarting the album’s march towards 25 million sales. The numbers are huge, agrees Collen, but what resonates today is Hysteria’s musical ambition, from the forest

of multi-tracked guitars to the masterclass of song construction. “Looking back,” he says, “we almost created a new genre of music.”

Thirty years down the line, how do you feel about Hysteria?

“I think it’s the best thing we ever did. It was our commercial and creative zenith. Most of the credit goes to Mutt Lange [producer], because he really pushed us to do something different. The first thing he said was, ‘We can’t make ‘Pyromania 2’, because every other rock band in the world is doing that. We’ve got to dig a bit deeper, and it’s gonna be a lot of hard work.’ Jimi Hendrix probably could have done it in his sleep. But us mere mortals have to work hard at it. But it paid off. Because here we are, 30 years later, still talking about it.”

They say great music comes from great suffering. Would you say that was a fair description of Hysteria?

“Obviously Rick went through the wringer: it was awful for him. Then Steve Clark [guitarist] suffered later. Yeah, it was hard work at times, and there was some shitty things going off. But I was so inspired by Mutt. It was a learning curve working with him. People say, ‘Oh, he’s a taskmaster’, but he’s not. It was all about discovery. The thing is, a lot of guitar players, they all read from the same book, play from the same licks. With that album, we worked. We went somewhere. Mutt taught us how to sing, how to play guitar better. I came out of Hysteria a better player, without a doubt.”

What was different about the approach you all took on Hysteria?

“The melody was king. And you can totally fuck that up. So the guitars were there to enhance it. Y’know, Hysteria does sound like an 80s album, but it was trying to. It was trying to cross over, and hard rock bands didn’t really do that.

There was a big difference between, say, Priest, Maiden and us. We were more in the area of The Police and Billy Idol and even ZZ Top, who were a blues band, but they’d done this electronic album, Eliminator [1983], and had their biggest hit.

It wasn’t about trying to be a big, macho rock band. It was about trying to create great music.”

How about your philosophy on guitar?

“The ego thing gets in the way with guitar playing. So if you can get that out of the way, you’re on the path to making great music. A lot of bands will have two guitar players but they don’t really utilise that. They just play exactly the same. It’s uncreative and uninspired. Me and Steve Clark did the opposite. We were trying to develop this harmony chord thing. We’d be muting the strings and we’d have a counterrhythm and counter-melody going off.

Lots of different things. Gods Of War had five different sections and hit every note on the fretboard. On the song Hysteria, there’s probably eight guitar parts going off at the same time on the chorus. Maybe even more. Not to be gratuitous, but to add something to it.”

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Def Leppard

Collen and Steve Clark’s guitar partnership peaked on Hysteria

Images: Getty

People always cast you as the ice-cold virtuoso and Steve as the sloppy genius.

Do you agree?

“Not even slightly. I’m about the sloppiest player you could possibly imagine, especially when I’m playing acoustic. I struggled.

“Mutt made me a way better rhythm player, because I was racing and dragging, not on the snare. This was both of us, me and Steve. Mutt changed that. But yeah, Steve had more swagger than anyone I’d ever seen. His whole thing was that he wasn’t a standard player. He’d come up with ideas that other guys wouldn’t do. Like the solo in the title track. We actually both played that together live, at the same time, plugged into a Rockman each. But he came up with the whole melody and it almost reminded you of a Japanese garden. It had these weird note choices, really beautiful. The middle section of Pour Some Sugar On Me, Mutt said, ‘Do you remember that thing Steve was playing in the studio a year ago?’ We just pulled it up on one of the demos and played it into the song.”

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· “I’m the sloppiest player you could imagine, especially when I’m playing acoustic” · Were you two still causing mayhem?

“By Hysteria, it had kind of mellowed out.

At the end of the Pyromania tour, we started writing the Hysteria songs in Dublin, and one of the classic moments was that me and Steve borrowed Joe Elliott’s car, went out, got so shit-faced drunk… y’know, I bought a Rolex, he bought a car, we had our ears pierced. And we were driving around – which is so uncool – got back, and later on, Joe was like, ‘Fuck, you left my car parked sideways, left the radio on and everything!’

I had no idea. And my ear hurt because I had this new earring. And I thought, ‘Shit, I’ve got to stop drinking.’ So that started me stopping. Shit, it made such a difference.

The playing got better. Everything got better when I stopped drinking.”

There are some great riffs on Hysteria…

“Yeah. I came up with that Animal riff, and I did this palm muting thing on the bridge section that I’d got from Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love by Van Halen [sings riff ] and changed to a groove and a counter-melody.

And it just worked a treat. I like Rocket.

That was a bit quirky, it had this weird riff, and a drum pattern reminiscent of Burundi Black, this African tribal thing from the 70s. Mutt actually came up with that Pour Some Sugar On Me riff. He’s a country fan, so he was playing it with his fingers. But y’know, my fingerstyle really sucks and I use a metal pick, so that was my interpretation. I still kept that great phrasing. But instead of being more staccato and doing a chicken-picking thing – which you would as a country player – it was more fluid and less staccato.”

Def Leppard

interview

Hysteria tested the lineup – but left them a better band

enjoying a moment of triumph following some serious adversity

Leppard’s lead man adopted a Jackson shortly after Hysteria’s completion

Were those parts easy to pin down?

“The hardest thing was playing some of those guitar parts live while you’re doing a vocal. I really struggle with it, to this day. I remember, we’d never done Love Bites as a band. Y’know, it was strictly a studio song.

But it went to No 1 in the Billboard charts while we were on tour in America, so it was like, ‘Shit, we’re gonna have to learn it.’ We booked a rehearsal studio in Vancouver for two days, and we were frantically learning it, like, ‘What’s the most prominent guitar part and how can I play that and sing it?’ It was scary. Like, ‘This sounds terrible, we’re fucking it up.’ It’s funny, because now we kill it every night.”

What about the solos on Hysteria?

“Hysteria wasn’t too heavy from a solo point of view. I preferred the stuff on Pyromania like Stage Fright, Photograph, Foolin’, all that stuff. On Hysteria, the guitars had to enhance the songs, so the solos took a back seat. I liked Run Riot.

That was cool. I wanted to do it again, because there were a couple of mistakes.

But Mutt was going, ‘Leave it’, because

it had the right vibe. I do like the solo in Animal. I still remember the room – I had a Rockman plugged into a Marshall 50-watt.

It was just a guide, really, but it ended up going on the record.”

How do you feel about your guitar tone on Hysteria?

“It wasn’t traditional. That’s what was great about it. This was the 80s, so drum sounds were changing, and you had the Fairlights and Synclaviers, all this stuff. Sonically, there was a different area we had to cover. The traditional guitar tone, with Marshalls and 4x12s mic’d up… it would have got lost. It would have just been this massive fuzz. We ended up using the first version of the Rockman, mainly, and that was great ’cos you could actually hear everything.

Everything had its space. You could get sounds that worked in the context of these huge bass and drums, and when you tracked them up, you could hear all the parts. We used the odd thing like a Randall through a Marshall cab, and, at the beginning of Animal, I remember standing

on top of this Gallien-Krueger, cranked up, just to get the feedback. I never used any pedals on that record. But I remember, Brian May gave me a boost pedal he’d made himself and actually used on Killer Queen, which was totally cool. I used it on the rhythm part of Run Riot, and it really did alter the sound, made it more aggressive.

It was great to get Brian on the album, one way or another.”

How about your Hysteria guitars?

“The main guitar was this 78 Japanese Strat called Felix that I got for my 21st birthday. It had a Kahler and a DiMarzio Super Distortion. All of Hysteria was pretty much done on that. Even Steve used it a lot, because the intonation was perfect, and Mutt was such a stickler for guitars being in tune. So many guitars, you can go up the neck and they’re wonky and the intonation is out. But this guitar was just bang-on.”

Would it have made a difference if you’d had your signature Jacksons?

“Yeah. I got my first Jackson – this cracklefinish Soloist with a Super Distortion – and

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· “Alice Cooper said, ‘Whenever I go into the studio, I throw Hysteria on, just to hear how the room sounds.’ That’s a wonderful honour” · that’s what I used on the intro of Pour Some Sugar On Me. But if I’d had my PC1, oh God, yeah, it would have been amazing. Because they’re just the best recording guitars ever.”

Famously, Mutt recorded your strings individually on the title track. Can you tell?

“Well, it was only on the ‘I gotta know tonight’ section. He wanted that part to have clarity. When you play it as a chord, there’s a slight arpeggio-ness to it. So we wanted to get rid of that. And we didn’t want it to sound like a keyboard. So you’d hit each note, track that up, double-track everything, so it would be six strings double-tracked. So it didn’t sound like it was plucked, it didn’t sound like it was arpeggiated and it didn’t sound like a keyboard. It’s a great song to talk about, because it had all the elements of the Hysteria recording process.”

Older and wiser: Phil considers Hysteria to be Leppard’s peak

How did you deal with the circus after Hysteria stormed the charts?

“Well, it didn’t happen initially. It tanked.

We’d spent almost $5 million on Hysteria, and it came out and we hadn’t broken even – and it stopped selling. And it wasn’t until Pour Some Sugar On Me came out that it kinda kicked in. When we released Pyromania, and MTV was in its infancy, and Photograph was all over the place – that was Justin Bieber time. We would literally get mobbed. Whereas Hysteria took a real long time to get going. So it was humbling.

When Hysteria broke, it was actually more like, ‘Thank fuck for that.’ We were grateful.

That we’d finally got there. It was a long, hard slog. But it’s always been like that for us, I have to say. It’s always been a struggle.

It’s never been a breeze.”

Steve died from alcohol poisoning four years later. Do you think Hysteria’s success caused his problems or deepened them?

“I think that stuff would have happened anyway. Y’know, I was able to stop drinking and getting fucked-up – and Steve wasn’t.

We actually sat down and talked about it. Because all of a sudden, we weren’t

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going out together every night. When I started blacking out and not remembering anything, for me, that was pretty dark, so I stopped drinking. We went to see Steve in hospital once and one of the doctors was talking about addiction and alcoholism and what it does to your body. Some people just can’t stop. And if they ever have a drink, they go straight back to where they were.

And this doctor said that 70 per cent of people who get to that stage end up dying, either from crashing the car, falling down a ladder or whatever. Steve was in that category. So I think whatever happened, it would have happened at some point, the way he was going.”

Would you change anything about the Hysteria guitars if you could go back?

“No, I actually wouldn’t. They were perfect for that album. I mean, I’d like to hear them sound a bit more aggressive.

The last five albums I’ve done with Guitar Rig 5 and it sounds more aggressive, like a real amp. I’d like to do that… but I actually don’t think the Hysteria album would

benefit from it. I think it was perfect the way it was. It was a time and a place.”

Do you feel that Hysteria gets the respect it deserves as a classic guitar album?

“No, not really. Well, more so now.

Especially when you have guitar geniuses like Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai and Brian May actually saying to you, ‘That is amazing guitar work.’ Y’know, Prince has mentioned it, Stevie Wonder has mentioned it. Alice Cooper actually said to me, ‘Whenever I go into the studio, I throw Hysteria on, just to hear how the room sounds.’ That’s really cool and a wonderful honour. I trust their judgement. Because you just don’t know, as a guitar player. You just follow your gut. But Hysteria has had such a far-reaching influence. You knew that you’d done something right…”

Def Leppard’s Hysteria 30th Anniversary Edition is out now on Mercury. www.defleppard.com

historic hardware

1959 Epiphone Coronet

sInglE mIndEd Raised from the ashes of New York and Philadelphia and born in Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory, we take a close look at one of Epiphone’s seminal electric solid-body guitars, the Coronet...

Words Rod Brakes Photography Olly Curtis

I

n the late 1950s, Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory experienced an unprecedented increase in its range and production of solid-body and semi-acoustic electric guitars.

Having ventured into manufacturing this new breed of instruments in 1952 with the introduction of the Les Paul Model in addition to its traditional archtops and flat tops, Gibson became increasingly experimental with regards to guitar form. Not only was the well-established Les Paul range – including the Custom, Model/Standard, Special and Junior models – beginning to alter in appearance, but some fairly radical designs had also just commenced production, such as the ES-335, Explorer and Flying V (all released in 1958).

Gibson’s owner, CMI (the Chicago Musical Instrument company) had, in 1957, acquired the Epiphone brand and in addition to their own range of Gibson branded guitars, production of a new range of Epiphone solidbodies was started at their Kalamazoo factory, beginning with the Coronet and Crestwood in 1958, followed by the Wilshire in 1959. Early examples of these guitars represent a unique moment in time as the musical landscape shifted into a colourful new era and a creative explosion of ideas and designs took shape. They also tell a story about a sharp transition in Epiphone’s history – one of today’s most successful brands whose legacy stretches back to 1873.

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Early solidbody Epiphones from the late-50s are rare. It’s difficult to find them in clean and completely original condition (especially in the UK), so it was with great interest that we dropped in to visit Phil Harris, a vintage guitar specialist based in Kent, whose collection of over 800 guitars has now been carefully whittled down to a small handful of choice specimens, including this 1959 Epiphone Coronet. As favourite guitars go, they’re off the radar for most people, but that may have as much to do with the fact that relatively few players have even heard much about them, let alone had the opportunity to play one.

“Normally you only see them in America as they were never exported to the UK,” begins Phil. “I’ve had it for 20 years and I’ve never had it set up! It’s totally stock down to every last screw. There’s no re-fret, no re-finish; it’s as it came, brand-new. The cases that these came in were just a grey coloured piece of cardboard. The body is a single piece of Honduran mahogany, as is the neck (with the headstock wings added, obviously). The neck shape is bonkers! It’s got a really strong v-profile – this almost ‘57 Fender-y, triangulated profile. That was one of the things that sold me on it. And you’ve got this really wide, flat ‘board with the same fret wire they used on ‘Bursts. It’s like a deformed Les Paul Junior – different shape (but the same depth body) and with the New York pickup instead of a P-90.”

It does indeed bear more than a passing resemblance to a late-50s Gibson Les Paul

Junior in terms of basic spec and with its choice of tonewoods: a Brazilian rosewood fingerboard and single piece Honduran mahogany neck and body with 1¾-inch depth. The single bridge pickup with single volume and tone pots further add to its similarity to a Les Paul Junior, although its character is markedly different in terms of sound and playability. This is in large part due to the New York pickup – so named after Epiphone’s previous Manhattan, New York location, where earlier Epiphone production was based before it moved, firstly to Philadelphia in 1953 and then to Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory, following CMI’s 1957 acquisition.

The last of these Epiphone parts were eventually phased out during the late-50s, as vintage guitar expert, George Gruhn, explains: “At the time of Epiphone’s acquisition, CMI was interested as much as anything in their upright basses. When they acquired them they also acquired a number of parts and work-in-progress, and they did use up some of the old necks and pickups – they didn’t continue to manufacture the New York Epiphone pickups and the Kalamazoo factory just used up leftover ones. Epiphone had previously never put [New York] pickups on a solid-body guitar; those were leftover pickups and as soon as Gibson ran out of them they started using pickups of their own.”

The fact that Gibson decided to use up the remaining stock of Epiphone parts following the takeover is exactly what

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1959 Epiphone Coronet

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historic hardware

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1. “Judging by the serial number on this guitar I would say it could be dated to around mid1959” (Phil Harris) 2. The control cavity shows a black, striped ‘bumble bee’ tone capacitor/filter, along with the volume and tone pots

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3. The metal ‘bikini’ badge headstock logo plate and black pressed metal truss rod cover, as seen on older Epiphone ‘New York’ arch tops 4. The ‘New York’ Epiphone pickup, sometimes referred to officially as the Tone Spectrum, is an under-wound, waxdipped, single coil type with a pressed metal cover

makes the initial run of Epiphone solidbody electrics so unique. These early examples were only in production in limited numbers for a very small amount of time, as by late 1959 Coronets were fitted with a Gibson P-90 pickup as standard and by 1960 the body shape had changed from a 1¾-inch slab to a thinner, rounder design. Although production of the Coronet continued throughout the 1960s and was eventually ceased in 1970, they were a distinctive turning point for a brand that to this day, inspired by its Gibson heritage, continues to produce a sizeable range of solidbody electric guitars.

“This is one of the first solidbody guitars that Epiphone ever made, so it’s actually very symbolic, historically,” confirms Phil. “It’s like the Fender Broadcaster of Epiphone – the company’s first ever solidbody electric guitar. It was intended as a student guitar, but nowadays they’re often the best ones! People used to say they had a Gibson Les Paul Custom and it was the most expensive and therefore the best solidbody electric guitar that Gibson made, but I’d play them and think ‘What are you on?’

They’re not always the best.”

Tonally, one might expect something quite different from a late-50s New York pickup, slab-body Coronet, as there’s little else to compare it to in terms of specification. When Phil plugs it into a Lazy J tweed amp, turns up and plays, we are immediately taken aback by its

power and versatility. With a comparatively low output often measuring between 4.5K ohms and the low 5K ohms range, New York pickups aren’t renowned for their exquisite character. As George Gruhn rightly notes: “Many people criticise [New York pickups] and I haven’t heard anyone rave about them.” However, this is more often than not in the context of playing an archtop guitar. In a solidbody guitar it is evidently a very different picture altogether, as the amp volume can be dialled in high and tuned to a sweet spot, without suffering the problems associated with feedback in a hollow-body guitar.

Phil best describes the sound as “like a Telecaster on steroids. Although it’s cutting, like a Fender, it’s got a midrange push and it’s not tinny. With the volume backed off it cleans up whilst retaining plenty of cut and twang. With the volume full up you’ve got plenty of cut and a drive – as they say on Spinal Tap: ‘It goes to 11.’ With P-90 Coronets you get the power and grunt, but with these [New York pickup] versions it’s a much more open sound and very different, tonally. When they used up the New York pickups they did away with the slab body and they didn’t make a P-90 equivalent.”

Despite the obvious similarities to a Les Paul Junior, aesthetically it retains a strong air of individuality due to its numerous, albeit soon-after discontinued, Epiphone parts. Part Epiphone, part Gibson, it’s the true embodiment of a transition guitar of

the time. “It’s a bit of a mix and match,” agrees Phil. “The wood from this guitar is Gibson stock, as are the machine heads. The nickel plated tailpiece is typical of a ‘59 Les Paul Junior, as is the tri-laminate, square edged jack plate and the strap buttons have the big centre bolt, which are associated with ‘Bursts. But the pickguard, knobs and pots aren’t typical Gibson and neither is the pickup or the truss rod cover. The pressed metal truss rod cover is the old style that Epiphone used on jazz guitars. The pots are different in order to fit the typical Epiphone Bakelite ‘radio’ knobs, while the ‘bikini’ metal badge headstock logo is what you would see on some of the earlier Epiphone archtop guitars.”

Although somewhat of an unknown quantity to most guitarists due to their scarcity and lack of notable endorsement, these transitional guitars are certainly not without their fans. Keith Dunnell, a vintage guitar specialist and collector, happens to be one such admirer. “I love those guitars!” says Keith. “You get these wonderful hybrids; a kind of cross-breed of Gibson bodies with these amazing New York Epiphone necks, which are v-shaped, so completely different. The interesting thing is that Gibson saw Fenders had narrow necks and they started to put narrow necks on Epiphones very early on. The factory almost used Epiphone to try things out, rather than tamper with the Gibson brand, until they were sure it would work.”

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633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD & Jazz & Blues 1x12 ComBo

Guitarist october 2017

633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD anD Cab, Jazz & blues 1x12 Combo

review

Loud & Clear 633? The only number you need to know for great tone? These two new amps from one of the UK’s finest makers prove it’s certainly one...

Words Nick Guppy Photography Joseph Branston

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633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD & Jazz & Blues 1x12 ComBo

Video demo http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD & Jazz & Blues 1x12 ComBo £3175 & £3100 ContaCt

633 Engineering Phone 01788 822289 Web www.633amp.com

What You need To Know

1

Who is 633 Engineering?

633 is amp builder Cliff Brown, formerly chief designer for Blackstar Amplification and, before that, chief designer for mixing-desk supremos, Soundcraft. Away from his lab and workbench, Cliff is also an accomplished guitarist and travels all over the country fronting the Cliff Brown Band.

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What’s makes 633 amps different?

The exceptional build quality and craftsmanship, as well as superlative tone from simple control layouts.

Every 633 customer benefits from Cliff’s years and ears, with the opportunity to have their amp tweaked by Cliff to match their personal requirements.

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What type of players are they aimed at?

Professionals and dedicated amateurs who want the very best and are prepared to pay for it. 633’s are best-suited for experienced players who cross over between blues, jazz, classic rock and country styles and understand how to drive an amp from the guitar, although they take pedals really well too.

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i

t’s been a busy year for 633 founder and chief designer, Cliff Brown. He’s moved 633 into a new factory, developed new models, and fulfilled a growing order book, all while continuing a second burgeoning musical career fronting his own band.

However, 633 Amplification continues to be Cliff’s main focus and this month we’re shaking down the two latest designs to taxi out onto the runway, the Drive King 50 head and the Jazz & Blues combo.

The Drive King 50 is a new addition to 633’s more-or-less standard range, given that every new build can be significantly customised to suit its owner. Meanwhile the Jazz & Blues combo is a better example of 633’s bespoke work – taking a customer’s demands and turning them into a product that meets, if not exceeds, all expectation.

Visually, the Drive King 50 is pure 633, looking a little meaner in all-black vinyl, but still with the same illuminated badge.

633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD anD Cab, Jazz & blues 1x12 Combo

review

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1. The two-button footswitch effects loop has two pre-set levels for rack and stompbox effects 2.633’s Headroom feature progressively raises or lowers the amp’s output in five steps, going from 8 watts to 15, 22, 32 and 50 watts 3. The three-position voice switch adds more flexibility in Drive mode, emphasising highs or mids, with a centre off position

A closer look at the controls reveals a similar layout to the Dumble ODS and its many clones, with volume, high, mid and low controls joined by an overdrive section with separate drive and level knobs. There’s a three-position voice switch that emphasises mids or highs in Drive mode, together with a level control for digital reverb. On the right is a global master volume and 633’s trademark headroom control, with five settings that progress from around 8 watts up to the amp’s full output of 50 watts.

The simple back panel has a pair of speaker outlets with an impedance switch and a series effects loop with a bypass switch and a choice of two trimmable levels for rack and stompbox effects. There’s also a locking XLR socket for the Drive King’s two-button footswitch, which changes channels and toggles the effects loop.

Build and parts quality are exceptional, with the weight of a substantial pair of Hammond transformers offset by the aluminium chassis, which helps keep the Drive King head portable, as well as offering superior grounding. The 633’s internals look more like those of a high-end recording desk, which isn’t surprising as Cliff was chief design engineer for Soundcraft in a previous incarnation. Overall, high performance meets solid reliability, and the head looks the part on top of its specially designed open-back cabinet, which houses a quartet of Celestion G10N-40 speakers.

The single-channel Jazz & Blues combo was originally developed for American

as is typical of 633 the build quiality is exceptional and the parts first class Guitarist october 2017

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633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD & Jazz & Blues 1x12 ComBo

4. The Jazz & Blues is a straightforward singlechannel design 5. The simple rear has speaker outlets and an impedance switch 6 The controls help achieve superb clarity 7. The brown motif is based on early 60s Fender amps 8. The loop was specially designed to allow the use of pedals without affecting tone

4 blues supremo Kirk Fletcher, and includes controls for volume, highs, mids, lows, reverb and presence, together with a bright toggle switch and headroom rotary headroom switch. The combo’s cosmetics are none more brown, with rough Tolex harmonising with the engraved control panel and knobs. On the rear panel, there’s a pair of speaker outlets with an impedance switch, and a pair of send and return jacks for the effects loop. This isn’t the standard kind of loop that sits in between pre and power amp sections, instead it sits right at the front of the amplifier, behind a unity gain buffer stage. This lets you use pedals that wouldn’t normally sit in a loop, like wahs and overdrives, without affecting the guitar’s tone. The loop is footswitchable and the footswitch incorporates a power outlet as well as a remote EQ switch, letting you tweak the EQ when the loop is activated.

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5 While the Drive King uses 6L6GC’s, the Jazz & Blues is equipped with a pair of 5881s, driving a single Celestion Alnico Gold 12” loudspeaker. The 5881 valve was originally developed in the USA by the famous Tung-Sol company of Newark, NJ, as an upgrade to the contemporary 6L6WGB; it was standard equipment in Fender’s higher-powered tweed amps from the 1950s, prior to the arrival of the more powerful 6L6WGC in 1959. Like the Drive King, the Jazz & Blues is built to an exceptionally high standard inside and out, using similar construction methods.

Sounds

As with the Californian design that inspired it, the Drive King 50 isn’t an instantgratification amp. Because the clean volume control cascades into the drive section, you need to determine the most useful

overall balance between clean and drive levels. On other D-style amps we’ve used, we tend towards slightly distorted cleans, which can be tamed by backing off on the guitar’s volume control. It’s common for the optimal gain window in such amps to be quite small, however, the Drive King’s range is very wide, going from sweet, almost clean Carlton-esque tones to the more characteristic D-style midrange squawk of Robben Ford and Matt Schofield, all the way to a respectable scooped thrash that will flatter any detuned or baritone guitar. However, it’s in the low-to-medium gain ranges that the Drive King really excels, focusing the guitar’s character and reproducing it with unparalleled clarity.

This is 633’s sonic calling-card – a multidimensional tip of the hat to tweed Fender and Dartford Vox, combined with extended highs that remain sweet and balanced,

633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD anD Cab, Jazz & blues 1x12 Combo

review

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8 unearthly sustain and a player-friendly dynamic response that flatters any guitar plugged into it. On some boutique designs, it’s common for every tiny mistake to be magnified, forcing the user into an all-ornothing approach to every note and chord.

However, the 633’s addictive dynamic response smooths out imperfections, putting the music first and making the whole playing experience rewarding and great fun. Special effects, such as pinched harmonics, double stop bends, scrapes and slides are almost too easy to pull off and sound totally musical.

The Jazz & Blues combo sits in more traditional vintage Fender territory, with a tone that can shift from tweed to blackface, depending on midrange. The clever front-end loop takes drive pedals well, with little or no extra noise and the remote EQ switch restores tone that effects in the

loop can remove. We liked its no-nonsense controls; there’s no master volume, so the headroom switch needs to be balanced with the volume control to achieve the right amount of clarity. Used with a band, we found that the second switch stop (15 watts) was more than enough for our needs, leaving plenty of headroom for bigger cleans if needed. On both amps, the superb digital reverb rounds out the sound for a truly professional result, saving you the cost of at least one effects pedal.

633 has produced two superb new designs that could be the amps of your dreams

Verdict

It’s been practically impossible to find fault with any 633 we’ve tried, and this pair is no different. They blend a range and clarity that we haven’t experienced on any other amp, with superb player-friendly dynamics.

On the thorny subject of price, it’s important to keep things in context. Firstly, the parts cost of a 633 amplifier has already increased by around £200 post-Brexit, and is set to continue rising. We’ve tried all the popular boutique D-style amps, which mostly have similar price tags, including one that was over double the price.

The competition doesn’t even come close, simply because the Drive King 50 is in a class of its own, yet costs no more than an entry-level Custom Shop Gibson or Fender.

We think the Drive King’s sublime tone, exceptional performance and build quality more than justify the price, and our top

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633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD & Jazz & Blues 1x12 ComBo

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10 9. The single Celestion Alnico Gold 12” loudspeaker gives the Jazz & Blues a vintage Fender quality 10. This switch for the Jazz & Blues combo’s cooling fan, is one of several optional extras and ideal if an amp spends most of its time on hot stages with no air circulation

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award. We think it raises the bar for this amplification genre.

The Jazz & Blues combo does what it says on the can. It’s perfect for jazz, blues and a lot more – an ideal partner for the keep-it-simple guitarist who wants a backseat grab-and-go combo. It’s also expensive, but it’s in the same ballpark as some of its closest competitors. It’s built in the UK and unlike the competition, you can talk directly to the designer and vary its spec to suit your own personal needs.

For either of these two, the result should mean it’s the last amp you’ll ever buy.

At the apex of pro-guitar amplification, we’re spoiled for choice with an everincreasing list of boutique brands covering everything from simple vintage replicas to modern multi-channel versatility.

In this crowd, an amp has to be really special to stand out – 633 have produced two more superb designs that take on the best there is and send most of them packing. If you’re in the market, our advice is don’t delay. With short odds on more Brexit-related austerity, there’ll probably never be a better time to buy the amp of your dreams.

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633 EnginEEring Drive King 50 HeaD

633 EnginEEring Jazz & Blues 1x12 ComBo

PRICE: £3,175 (inc two-button foot switch and cover) ORIGIN: UK TYPE: All-valve head with digital reverb OUTPUT: 50 watts VALVES: 4 x 12AX7, 2 x 6L6WGC DIMENSIONS: 231 (h) x 515 (w) x 214mm (d) WEIGHT (kg/lb):15/33 CABINET: Birch ply CHANNELS: One, with footswitchable overdrive CONTROLS: Volume, highs, mids, lows, drive, drive level, reverb level, master volume, headroom. Threeposition voice switch in drive mode boosts highs/mids/normal FOOTSWITCH: Two-button switch toggles drive mode, effects loop ADDITIONAL FEATURES: High quality digital reverb, footswitchable effects loop with variable send level OPTIONS: A non-reverb model costs £2,935, including footswitch and cover. Various circuit and finish options are available, contact manufacturer for details RANGE OPTIONS: The Drive King 4x10 cabinet is specially developed for the head and costs £830

PRICE: £3100 (inc footswitch and cover) ORIGIN: UK TYPE: All-valve combo with digital reverb OUTPUT: 45 watts VALVES: 4 x 12AX7, 2 x 5881 DIMENSIONS: 480 (h) x 650 (w) x 250mm (d) WEIGHT (kg/lb): 23/49 CABINET: Birch ply CHANNELS: One, with footswitchable effects loop CONTROLS: Volume, highs, mids, lows, reverb level, presence, 5- way headroom rotary switch. Bright switch FOOTSWITCH: Single-button switch toggles effects loop ADDITIONAL FEATURES: High quality digital reverb, footswitchable effects loop with remote EQ function and remote DC pedal power feed OPTIONS: Various circuit and finish options are available, contact manufacturer for details RANGE OPTIONS: None

10 PROS Unreal tone and sustain, with greatly expanded range for this type of amp. It’s simply one of the best heads we’ve ever plugged into CONS It’s expensive, but you get what you pay for… and then some

9 PROS Huge Fender-inspired vintage tones, with spine-tingling reverb CONS It is expensive (though you certainly get your money’s worth); quite hefty for a 1x12

review

633 EnginEEring Drive king 510 HeaD anD Cab, jazz & blues 1x12 Combo

Cliff on stage with his selfbuilt Telecaster

Cliff’s bespoke amps are a far cry from the first he built as a 12-year-old

Cliff Brown

633 Engineering’s main man tells us about the appeal of his bespoke amps and his approach to getting the perfect tone Tell us about the new Drive King 50.

I started the Drive King project two years after playing through various D-type clone amps. I was curious why the cascaded gain topology appeals to many guitarists. There were qualities I liked and some I didn’t but that I thought could be fixed. In this type of amp the tone stack precedes the switchable drive section, so there’s often a compromise.

I was interested to see if I could improve this. I think it’s one of the most satisfying design journeys I’ve been on; the amp can do so many things with a simple feature set.

And how about the Jazz & Blues?

The combo was built for Kirk Fletcher to use at the Bristol Jazz & Blues festival in February. I figured we would be running between different locations, so it was built as a reasonably lightweight 1x12 combo, with a nod to the 60s Fender ‘Brownface’ amps Kirk is fond of. The front-end loop was something I’d been thinking about for a while, as I’ve always been disappointed with pedalboards killing my tone.

like a Carlsbro Stingray or HH Musician.

That was my first rig and it got used pretty much every weekend for around four years.

It never let me down other than when the cab fell over and the weight of the speaker ripped out the screws holding the baffle to the rest of the cab. After that I used bolts!

What makes 633 amps unique?

Firstly, every 633 amp is bespoke, developed from a dialogue with the customer. This isn’t just cosmetics – the feature set, switching options, the voicing and response of the amp and the customer’s playing style, guitars and pickups are all considered.

Secondly, they’re designed to last, with a very high level of attention to detail and hours of testing at proper volume levels.

Which notable players are using 633 amps?

American blues giant Kirk Fletcher, James Litherland of Colosseum fame, the legendary Micky Moody, Ash Wilson and session player/side man Stuart Dixon.

When did you build your first amp and why?

What are your favourite recorded amp/ guitar examples of great tone and why?

It was 1977, I was 12. I’d auditioned for a 40s-style big band on guitar and got the gig, but they didn’t have a bass player and my dad said bass was more important.

So, I built a guitar and bass head using a solid-state ILP HY120 power amp module and a preamp complete with fuzz, using Veroboard. I tried my best to make it look

Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland (disc 1 track 4) Voodoo Chile, blew my mind when I first heard it. What a huge guitar sound, amazing reverb. That hammer-on at the start is haunting. Larry Carlton with The Crusaders on Those Southern Knights. A beautiful example of a lead tone produced by an amp just breaking up.

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What’s your best amp tone tip?

Start at the source. Getting your guitar’s nut, bridge and frets cut and profiled properly will have a massive impact. These parts of the guitar define the note’s attack. A good lead, decent strings and lower output pickups coupled with an amp turned up enough to drive the power tubes will help produce a very musical, singing clean tone.

When the amp is working like this, the tone controls define the amp’s dynamic response rather than acting as filters.

What exciting 633 products are coming?

I’ve had several requests for a 633 amp-ina-small-box and for a drive pedal. I may combine both and provide something with a bit of a twist. I’m also developing a couple of interfacing gadgets, which may prove to be useful additions to many players’ rigs.

What’s your rig with the Cliff Brown Band?

My prototype Drive King head and either a 1x12 open-back cab with a Celestion G12-80 or a 4x10 open-backed cab with G10N-40s.

For trio gigs, I have a pedalboard with a Boss OC2 octave down and a couple of delay. If I play a different set with a Hammond or second guitarist, I go straight into the amp with no effects, or use just a drive pedal.

Guitars are usually my self-built ‘Tele’ with Fender Nocaster pickups, a gold-top Les Paul with mini humbuckers and a Koreanmade Epiphone Joe Pass archtop. www.633amp.com

review

GUILD TROUBADOUR M-40E AND M-240E

Slight Returns Guild welcomes back a small-bodied favourite with new twists and hosts the return of another familiar name, too…

Words Rob Laing Photography Joby Sessions

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GUILD TROUBADOUR M-40E AND M-240E

Guild M-40E and M-240E Troubadour £1,785 & £445 ContaCt

Selectron UK Ltd Phone 01795 439835 Web www.guildguitars.com

What You need To Know

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M-40 – is this a new model?

Yes, and no. It’s the guitar formerly known as the F-20, a concert-shaped folk guitar from the late 60s and 70s.

With the help of master luthier Ren Ferguson, Guild are promising the same vintage character.

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What kind of character are they promising?

Guild calls it a “delicate, well-rounded tone that is perfect for fingerstyle playing and light strumming”. And the old F-20s were known for a sound that punched above their smaller stature so we hope to see that lineage continued, this time with an LR Baggs Element VTC to add versatility for stage use.

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So where does the M-240 come in?

This is an affordable take on the M-40 dimensions, with laminate mahogany back and sides. But instead of an undersaddle pickup, it has a removable magnetic soundhole unit that also happens to be the first new DeArmond product in a long time.

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ack in the late 1960s Guild enjoyed a golden era, building concert-sized guitars that attracted a wealth of folk players. Alongside the all-mahogany M-20, associated with Nick Drake after its inclusion on the cover of his 1971 album Bryter Layter, the spruce-topped F-20 and the longer scale F-30 won favour for their surprisingly full sounds. But for years they remained something of an underrated gem on the vintage market.

Now the old Troubadour has returned with a new name and the expectation of recharging its reputation. Alongside it there’s a more affordable Westerly Series option that also hosts the surprise 21st century return for DeArmond. For the gigging player, these two guitars offer distinctly different experiences beyond the obvious build, spec and price comparisons.

This isn’t the first time the F-20 design has returned to Guild’s line-up, but it is a Californian debut. In 2012 Guild, then under Fender ownership, recognised the growing interest in parlour-sized acoustics and began producing the standard model again in its facility in New Hartford, Connecticut.

Two years later the factory ceased production, and those models are hard to find, but with ownership of the Guild brand passing to the Cordoba Music Group and the New Hartford machinery moving to Ventura County in the Golden State for production in 2015, a Californian F-20 now makes a return. Of sorts. Unlike Guild’s M-20, it’s now under a new moniker.

The ‘M’ denoting the body size and the 40 signifying spruce top/mahogany

body. So, can this new edition uphold the reputation?

Joining it is a new model under the Chinese-made Westerly series, an affordable take on the F-20 blueprint with an interesting twist; a new DeArmond product. The first new design from the Guild-owned brand in this century, no less. And fittingly from the company that brought players the first attachable magnetic pickup, it’s a passive soundhole affair. A rare addition indeed for an out-of-the-box acoustic.

With the more understated charms of satin finishes still very much in demand amongst players, Guild has adopted to change from the F-20 gloss tradition and adopt it for both models here, with the M-40E available in this natural and an antique sunburst.

For our Californian Guild it brings a contemporary touch to the tradition, and it works well here with the minimalist pinstripe rosette and purfling. The tortoiseshell scratchplate also ties in pleasingly with the dark mahogany back, sides and neck.

The M-40E is a lightweight guitar but its neck is an interesting blend of

The old Troubadour has a new name, but can this edition uphold its wellearned reputation?

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The rivals

Fender PM-2 dEluxE Parlour all MahoganY £699 This Sitka spruce/rosewood model with Fishman’s bespoke Paramount system is said to be tailored for each model. With ebony fretboard, solid construction and deluxe hardcase, the PM-2 furthers Fender’s commitment to the acoustic sector. www.fender.com

1 1. The mahogany neck shade stands out as lighter from the back and sides on the M-240E

YaMaha lS16 arE £850 A smaller body that’s big on value. A solid rosewood back and sides and an ebony board offer spec above the pricepoint. The result is an impressively balanced tone but EQ control will have to come from an external source. www.uk.yamaha.com

2. The M-40E’s LR Baggs Element volume and tone controls are placed subtly inside the soundhole and are powered by an internally-mounted 9V battery

MarTin 00-15ME £1,750 2 accessibility and substantial width.

The smooth satin finish and C-shape is welcoming to the palm, but the nut width on this new chapter for the F-20 story is actually wider than the 1960s examples at 44.45mm, with vintage F-20 examples we’ve seen at around 43mm. It’s a surprising change.

The M-240E Troubadour is billed as a homage to its American sibling, but that doesn’t extend to its finish options.

Though a piezo-fitted M-240E is available in natural, this Troubadour version is only in antique sunburst. But Guild has clearly put thought into making the aesthetic of a soundhole-mounted pickup work here. It’s a neat touch to see the tortoiseshell trim match the scratchplate, that in turn ties in with the dark edges of

the two-colour sunburst and making this soundhole more at home here than it could have done. It’s a tidy build, with an aesthetic only disrupted by the notably lighter shade and different grain of the mahogany neck compared to the body.

The 240’s deviations from its inspiration go even further than electronics and the laminate back sides, though: the 240E features Guild’s arched back, and the nut width is closer to the 60s F-20s at 42.86mm, with a narrower string spacing at the bridge of 55mm compared to the M-40E’s 57mm for a slimmer C-shape neck. The Troubadour is clearly more than a lower spec version of big bro. Instead, Guild has taken the body blueprint to do something distinct.

The all-mahogany 15 Series has a well-earned reputation for workhorse guitars in the studio and on stage, and this UK exclusive electro model is no exception. The added versatility here is provided by the onboard Fishman Gold + Plus system – with controls subtly tucked away. www.martinguitar.com

GiBson lg-2 aMErican EaglE £1,349 Another new spin on an old model, the LG-2 features the same LR Baggs Element system as the M-40E (and a similar nut width too). It’s a plaintive design and that vibe continues to the v-shape neck that’s true to its Americana roots. www.gibson.com

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GUILD TROUBADOUR M-40E AND M-240E

The M-40E is a natural home for blues roots and country folk with a broad low end

Feel & sounds

With a wide neck and ample string spacing, the M-40E is a guitar that responds well to more muscular playing – whether that be chordwork or strong fingerpickers from the Nick Drake school of folk finesse. Its light weight and intimate proportions actually encourage that kind of physicality. The tension and medium action here on our test guitar mean we need it too, but the payoff is strong treble response and a defined vintage warmth rather than modern hi-fi chordal sparkle. It’s a natural home for blues roots and country folk with a low end that feels broad for this body size while allowing the throaty and ringing high mid and treble strengths to come to the fore. And it’s a voice that lends itself to recording without having to worry about dialling the low end out at the mixing stage. This is the kind of voice and neck experience that also feels like a good excuse to tune down and dust off the slide too.

The M-240E’s lower action and slender neck profile will be more welcoming to those used to more modern acoustic experiences, and is certainly easy on the digits for fingerstyle and fast runs, though unsurprisingly the satin neck isn’t as luxurious as the M-40E’s. The action is so low here things get a little buzzy in DADGAD and more so in open G, but Guild’s open gear tuners perform smoothly and stably as we adjust.

The voice that comes through here is one that leans in favour of resonant mids

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rather than the warmer, stronger definition of the M40E. Lows are thinner but not unsurprisingly so for this shape and in chord work there’s an airy brightness with light phasing in comparison to the Californian guitar’s darker tonality.

Plugging in reveals some interesting results. The M-40E is fitted with the LR Baggs Element VTC under-saddle pickup and setting the tone control at its mid point immediately reveals a hotter bass response than expected. As the tone control here is a treble roll-off we took our acoustic combo’s bass EQ down two notches to regain more of the guitar’s natural acoustic balance.

Some may prefer the prospect of boosted lows and the Element – which also captures the soundboard’s movements – certainly reflects an acoustic timbre very well for an undersaddle system. The dynamics

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sound and feel natural without any unwanted compression.

The reputation DeArmond built with its magnetic soundhole pickups has meant they are still in high demand on the used market to this day. Rather than reissue a classic from the 60s, the brand has opted to launch the new Tone Boss passive humbucker found here. The results are pleasing; rounded rather than metallic or harsh. With only a volume control on the pickup you’ll need to EQ with amp or preamp pedal, and due to the passive nature of the Tone Boss it benefits from some external boost too. It’s intriguing to see both DeArmond and Guild demo videos featuring this guitar show it being played with overdrive, too, and Guild are keen to point out that flexibility by stating it’s ‘compatible with any amplifier’, unlike a piezo where the results can be teeth-

GUILD TROUBADOUR M-40E AND M-240E

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5 rattlingly unpleasant. It’s not too shabby through our VOX AC15 when EQ’d, furthering this guitar’s potential versatility.

verdict

There’s two different continuations of the F-20 legacy here, and we admire Guild’s commitment to offering distinct new models to the market that each bring a new experience to players. The caveat is they’re not trying to please everyone with a vanilla all-rounder approach.

The addition of the soundhole pickup to the M-240E is a new option for gigging players in a hotly contested area of the market and currently a unique out-ofthe-box proposition. And the decision to update the F-20 with a new name and wider neck means it is not merely a reissue in satin – though the classic F-20 shaped void that it now leaves is somewhat surprising to see. But fingerstylists especially may well delight in the change and the result is a vintage voice of its own in the pantheon of contemporary smallbodied electro acoustics.

3. The traditional Guild headstock on the M-240E Troubadour is adorned with open gear tuners with 14:1 ratio 4. The M-240E’s DeArmond Tone Boss passive magnetic pickup will be available to buy separately for £72.99 5. The M-40E’s 57mm string spacing at the bridge is wider than the old F-20’s and it makes for a distinct playing experience

review

Guild M40E Troubadour

Guild M240E Troubadour

PRICE: £1,785 (inc hardcase) ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Concert electro acoustic TOP: Solid Sitka spruce BACK/SIDES: Solid African mahogany MAX RIM DEPTH: 107mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 350mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 629mm (24.75”) TUNERS: Guild vintage-style open gear in nickel with cream buttons, 20:1 ratio NUT/WIDTH: Bone, 44.5mm FINGERBOARD: Indian rosewood, 305mm (12”) radius FRETS: 20 BRIDGE/SPACING: Indian rosewood/57mm ELECTRICS: LR Baggs Element with volume and tone control WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.3/2.86 RANGE OPTIONS: M-40 non-electro model available in natural (£1,609) and Antique Sunburst (£1,699); M-140 concert-shape with solid African mahogany back and sides available with or without Fishman Sonitone electronics (£699 and £795 in natural only) LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Natural (as reviewed), Antique Sunburst (£1,875)

PRICE: £445 (inc gigbag) ORIGIN: China TYPE: Concert electro-acoustic TOP: Solid Sitka spruce BACK/SIDES: Laminated mahogany MAX RIM DEPTH: 107mm MAX BODY WIDTH: 350mm NECK: Mahogany SCALE LENGTH: 629mm (24.75”) TUNERS: Guild vintage-style open gear nickel, 14:1 ratio NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42.86 mm FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, 406mm (16”) radius FRETS: 20 BRIDGE/SPACING: Compensated bone/55mm ELECTRICS: DeArmond Tone Boss magnetic humbucker soundholemounted pickup (passive) WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.3/2.86 RANGE OPTIONS: The nonTroubadour M240E Archback available in natural with Guild’s AP-1 Active Acoustic Piezo Pickup (£385 with Kelly) LEFT-HANDERS: No FINISHES: Vintage sunburst (as reviewed)

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Pros Strong and muscular highs for a small body, an update that isn’t afraid to make bold changes

Pros: Good playability, installed soundhole pickup offers something different in a crowded marketplace

CONS F-20 fans may feel let down with the neck changes and may not suit smaller-handed players

Cons: Action on our test model is a little buzzy, no upper strap button supplied

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Mooer Red TRuck £220 Looking for a compact pedalboard with just the essential effects? Take one of these for a test drive and you might want to keep on truckin’ Words Trevor Curwen Photography Neil Godwin

What You Need To know

1

Why Red Truck?

Er, look at it from above, see the ‘cab window’, see the ‘six wheels’ ?

2

Who is Mooer?

A Chinese company known for their micro pedals, many of which are are based on classic vintage pedals.

3

There are a lot of knobs...

Yep, but don’t be put off: each section has its own set of knobs. Just think of it as a bunch of separate pedals.

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W

e are all familiar with the hi-tech digital multi-effects pedal, typified by the Line 6 Helix. But there is another sort of multi-effects pedal that is perhaps not so well known: the sort that’s almost like a bunch of stompboxes glued together side-by-side, perhaps less versatile but having the advantage of taking up less floor-space, making it more portable than some of the fully-loaded behemoths.

The roots of this design go back a long way, but the genre had something of a resurgence with Tech 21’s Flyrig, designed to be just that: a rig that could fly in your guitar case while you were sitting in economy class. Mooer has looked at that

concept and released its own take. The resulting Red Truck is eminently portable (and even comes with a cute lightweight carrying case) but has more effects, extended connectivity and the ability to store and recall a small number of presets.

There are five footswitchable effects: analogue drive, distortion, and digital effects for modulation, delay and reverb.

There’s also a boost section at the start of the chain, selected via a toggle switch.

The modulation effect offers a choice of tremolo, phaser or chorus/flanger while the delay has digital, echo and analog. A sixth footswitch offers tap tempo for the delay and modulation, together or independently,

Mooer Red TRuck

review

1 1. Activate an effect and not only does the green footswitch ring light up – its knobs light up red 2. This shows whether you are in Live (L) or Preset (P) mode but it becomes a tuner display if you hold the Tap footswitch

2 and can also call up the onboard tuner.

There are two modes available: Live, which you can use just like you would five individual pedals; and Preset, where the five footswitches can call up any combination of active effects that you have saved.

This is not an entirely closed system either as you can add your own pedals via an effects loop located in the signal chain between distortion and modulation: it’s always active so you have to use the connected effect’s own footswitches.

Sounds

While the RedTruck is perfectly at home in front of an amp (or two amps if you use

While compact it has more effects and extended connectivity the stereo output), those send and return sockets also allow you to use the four cable method of connection, whereby you can have boost, drive and distortion in front of your amp while modulation, delay and reverb are neatly placed in its effects loop.

Further flexibility is added by a stereo headphone output with cabinet simulation which, besides offering silent practice, can

deliver a stereo signal to a mixer or audio interface for recording.

The Pure Boost offers up to 20dB of clean boost, switched in by a toggle switch. It’s disappointing, however, that footswitching is not available because it’s a classy sounding boost that can give a real kick to the front end of your amp or add extra power to the Red Truck’s Drive and Distortion sections. With a degree of enhancement via Bass and Treble knobs, we’d be tempted just to leave it on all the time simply for that.

The ‘Truck’s Drive section is based on Mooer’s Rumble Drive, which is said to be a Dumble-influenced pedal. To our

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Mooer Red TRuck

The rivalS

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Tech21 FlYRig5 £329 With Tech21’s long-established analogue Sansamp technology at its heart providing amp simulation (or overdrive), plus reverb, plexi distortion and a boost with independent footswitches. At the end of the signal chain is a delay, voiced to sound like a vintage tape echo, with a separate tap tempo footswitch. www.tech21nyc.com

valeTon dappeR £145 An effects strip featuring overdrive, distortion and delay (with a tap tempo footswitch) effects plus a tuner and an FX loop. There’s also selectable cab simulation for recording or going straight into a PA. Besides the original model there’s the downsized Dapper Mini (£85) and Dapper Dark (£152) with boost, distortion, chorus and delay. www.valeton.net

carl MarTin QuaTTRo £439 The Quattro pre-dates the FlyRig and puts four effects into one chassis, beginning with a compressor/limiter and running into a twochannel overdrive that has crunch and hi-gain options selectable via a second footswitch. You get vintage-style chorus and echo, and an effects loop sits between the overdrive and chorus. www.carlmartin.com

BoSS MS-3 £399 The brand-new MS-3 is described as a “newconcept pedalboard solution”. While decidedly more hi-tech than the others as it’s compact it could be used as a standalone effects processor for travelling light. It can run six internal pedals (there are 112 effects types onboard) as well as integrating three external pedals. www.roland.co.uk

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The six effects are practical with the added bonus of a preset mode

ears it delivered amp-like overdrive in the Tubescreamer ballpark with a similar enhanced midrange. For more dirt, this time with a Brit amp flavour, the distortion section offers raunch up to full-on stack sounds with tonal sculpting via treble, mid and bass controls and a mid boost for added girth. So far so good.

The modulation section is quite versatile, with its three different effects and a level knob to adjust the amount added to the dry sound as well as the usual rate and depth knobs. The tremolo isn’t the soft and rounded sine-wave throb of a Fender amp but has more of an aggressive on/off square wave vibe to it while the phaser delivers in a 1970s MXR orange box-style, and the chorus/flanger has some lush sounds including a very nice rotary.

Delay is basic but practical – the three variations offering different angles on how the repeats fade away – while reverb

Mooer Red TRuck

review

3. Effects work in conjunction with the tap tempo footswitch to set delay time and modulation speed 4. Reverb is one of the better effects with plenty of variation

Mooer Red TRuck ORIGIN: China TYPE: Strip-style multi-FX FEATURES: Tap tempo, tuner, included carrying case PRESETS: 5 EFFECTS: Boost, Drive, Distortion, Modulation (tremolo, phaser, chorus/flanger), Delay (analog, echo, digital), Reverb CONTROLS: Boost knobs x 3 (Boost, Bass, Treble), Boost on/off, Drive knobs x 3 (Volume, Gain, Tone), Distortion knobs x 5 (Treble, Mid, Bass, Level, Gain), Distortion Mid Boost on/off, Mod knobs x 3 (Level, Rate, Depth), Mod type selector, Mod tap division selector, Delay knobs x 3 (Level, Time, Feedback), Delay type selector, Delay tap division selector, Reverb knobs x 6 (Level, Decay, Tone, Shimmer, Mod Depth, Mod Rate), Footswitches x 6 CONNECTIONS: Standard guitar input, standard main outputs (L/ Mono, R), standard stereo phones output, standard Send, standard Return POWER: 9V adapter (300mA) DIMENSIONS: 530 (w) x 303 (d) x 93mm (h)

5. Add in your own favourite pedal(s) between the distortion and modulation sections or use the sockets as part of he 4-cable method 6. Though basic, delay offers analog, echo and digital options

4

Strings and Things 01273 440 442 www.mooeraudio.co.uk www.stringsandthings.co.uk

5 has plenty of variation up to large ambient spaces with the added spice of both modulation and a shimmer effect.

Collectively, the six effects give you a pretty practical pedalboard to use conventionally, but you get a bonus with Preset mode when you want to bring a couple or more effects in at the same time – perhaps distortion with a touch of delay for solos, for example.

verdict

This could be the perfect halfway house for someone who wants to eschew individual pedals (board-mounted or not) for the convenience of an all-in-one unit, but doesn’t want to go the full digital route with a massive floor unit. The Red Truck

6 is also a convenient standby unit that can travel to gigs in your guitar case, ready to be plugged into the PA if your amp fails, or even be your sole piece of ancillary equipment if travelling light is an absolute necessity.

As always with this type of unit, the drawback is that you are stuck with one set of sounds from a single manufacturer which may involve some compromise.

For example, you might love the sound of the drive but think the distortion is a bit meh. To be fair, though, Mooer has actually endowed it with usable sounds that have broad appeal and you can always add a couple of your own pedals, although that may defeat the object if cutting down onstage clutter is your goal.

8 PROS: Easily transportable compact size; essential effects in one package; headphone output with speaker simulation CONS: Boost section doesn’t have a footswitch

OCTOBER 2017 GuiTaRisT

111

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112 Guitarist OctOber 2017

P EDALBOARD

M a n u fac t u r e r Roland UK

pr ic e £439

MOde l MS-3

01 7 9 2 70 2 701 W W W. rol a n d.c o.u k

Boss

Ms-3

What do get when you cross a pedal switcher with a multi-FX unit?

This Boss MS-3 – a versatile and brilliant pedalboard workhorse Words Trevor Curwen Photography Olly Curtis

O

ccasionally a product comes along that is a real ‘no brainer’ pairing of two useful tools in one box – the new Boss MS-3 is one such item.

An ingenious hybrid melding two related-but-quite-different things, this is a pedal switcher for connecting your own pedals, but it is also a multi-FX unit with its own set of 112 effects, taking advantage of the COSM digital modelling in Boss’s dedicated FX processors. There are three effect loops for connecting your own pedals that can be combined with the onboard effects – many different set-ups being possible via 200 onboard patches.

Besides the effects, the MS-3 can control external devices through a CTL Out jack for amp channel switching, plus it can send MIDI for clock out, program change

114 Guitarist october 2017

and control change messages. Expression pedals and/or footswitches can be plugged in to control functions. You also get a tuner, noise suppressor and global EQ onboard.

A single patch in the MS-3 incorporates six internal effects blocks – FX1, FX2, Mod1, Mod2, Delay, and Reverb – plus the three loop effects (L1, L2 and L3).

Although individually switchable, L1, L2 and L3 are in a defined order as a single block in the signal chain, so you can’t put any internal effects between them, but you can place them before or after. With nine effects in the chain and four footswitches, it’s obvious you can’t have instant on/off switching for each effect. But for each patch you can choose effects to assign to the footswitches and define whether the rest of the effects are active or bypassed.

in use

The MS-3 has two modes of operation, Memory and Manual, which can be swiftly switched between with the single footswitch on its upper (flat) surface. This determines what the four footswitches on the angled surface do.

In Memory mode they call up the four patches that reside in each of the 50 banks – scrolling through the banks is achieved by simultaneously pressing a pair of footswitches. In Manual mode the four footswitches operate whatever effect (internal or loop) is assigned to them. Those, however, are the most basic assignments of the footswitches – you can delve deep into the editing and set them to control multiple parameters, doing things like switching two effects at once

Tech Spec 01 d is play

02 lOOps led s

Shows patch information in Memory mode and a visual representation of the footswitches in Manual mode

These small red LEDs show you which of the nine effects (six internal, three loops) are active in a patch

1

03 MeMOry/ Ma n ua l Press this to change modes – the LED colours change accordingly – Memory: blue, Manual: red

2

3

ORIGIN: Taiwan TYPE: Multi-effects switcher FEATURES: Tuner, control of external devices, software editor/librarian PATCHES: 200 EFFECTS: 112 CONTROLS: Soft knobs x 3, buttons x 5, footswitches x 4, Memory/Manual switch CONNECTIONS: Standard guitar input, standard main outputs (L/Mono, R), standard Send and standard Return x 3 (L1, L2, L3), TRS CTL OUT, TRS CTL OUT/EXP x 2, MIDI OUT, USB POWER: Supplied AC adaptor (280mA current draw) DIMENSIONS: 275 (w) x 97 (d) x 68mm (h)

9 c t l i n / O ut You can control external gear from the MS-3, and plug in expression pedals and footswitches to control specific parameters

or toggling between parameter values.

Momentary operation is also assignable.

Not exactly a plug-in-and-play unit then. The key to getting the MS-3 to work for you is in the preparation and setting up of the the patches – you will be amply rewarded with seamless onstage operation. Setting up includes choosing which onboard effects and physical pedals are active in the patch, what order they are in and which of them is assigned to which footswitch.

It’s not difficult to set up from the front panel via its informative display and three ‘soft’ knobs, but it’s easier if you connect the MS-3 up to a computer and use the free editing and librarian software. There are many ways to use the MS-3 but it’s likely users will discover

their preferred method and stick to it.

One logical way would be to set the same footswitch assignments for each patch, so you could have three of your own dirt pedals assigned to the first three footswitches, while the fourth is used for switching internal effects. Alternatively, using the unit purely as a standalone processor, you could have the footswitches assigned as a standard pedalboard rig to, say, overdrive/distortion, modulation, delay and reverb.

The MS-3 is pretty powerful as a standalone FX processor with a wide range of effects to cover many possibilities, the FX1 and 2 categories featuring compressors, distortions, pitch shifters and more, Mod 1 and 2 covering chorus, flanging, phasing, tremolo and others. As

such, it’s a solid starting point for building a system to be expanded – your own analogue drive, distortion or fuzz pedals in tandem with the more esoteric Boss effects, modulations, delays and reverbs could be a winning combination.

verdict

The MS-3 is a brilliant concept that could form the basis of a compact yet extremely versatile pedalboard, or simply be used by itself if you require an extensive but easily portable effects rig.

PROS Compact footprint, comprehensive range of onboard effects, seamless combining of internal and external effects, software editing CONS Fixed loop order in the signal chain

october 2017 Guitarist

115

P EDALBOARD

m a n u Fac t u r e r Bigfoot EnginEEring

pr ic e £199

mode L Yak facE XL

Big F o o t e ng i n e e r i ng www.BigfootEnginEEring.com

v i de o de mo http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

Bigfoot EnginEEring

Yak Face XL

Introducing a beastly species of pedal that guarantees a distinctly Fender flavour…

Words Trevor Curwen Photography Neil Godwin

W

ith so many pedals coming in from across the globe, let’s not forget the great UK-based pedal manufacturers too. One such maker is Bigfoot Engineering: a company founded by pedal designer and builder Rhys Stubbs in 2009.

The company’s pedals are all-analogue and hand-built to order. We’ve taken a look at several of the company’s wares before, including their Thunder Pup, an overdrive pedal with a British flavour inspired by AC/DC’s Young brothers. Their latest, though, takes its inspiration from over the pond: the Yak Face XL combines overdrive and EQ and has been designed to deliver the sound of a classic ‘Blackface’ Fender amp.

Two other Bigfoot pedals are part of the family: the Yak Face Mini and the Yak Face (2-band and 3-band EQ, respectively). The XL features the 3-band EQ, (vintage-style passive EQ inspired by equalisers found on larger Blackface Fender amplifiers, the Super Reverb and Twin Reverb), and partners Bass, Middle and Treble knobs with a gain stage-equipped with Gain and Volume knobs.

SoundS

With the Gain turned right down and the tone knobs at neutral settings, stepping on the

116 Guitarist october 2017

footswitch takes you into typical blackface tonal territory of a scooped midrange and glassy top end – essentially a classic clean Fender sound. Advance the Gain knob and you’ll travel through all the nuanced stages of amp break-up with very natural shaping of the sound available via the tone knobs; Bass adding a deep warmth, Treble governing the sparkle factor, adding extra crispness to the crunchier sounds, and Mid having the ability to bring the sound more ‘forward’. With the Gain up full it’s the sound of a classy vintage Fender with glowing valves – raunchy with clarity rather than saturated, and feeling dynamically responsive under your fingertips.

Tech Spec ORIGIN: UK TYPE: Overdrive with EQ pedal FEATURES: True bypass CONTROLS: Bass, Middle, Treble, Gain, Volume, Bypass footswitch CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output POWER: 9V adaptor (not supplied) DIMENSIONS: 94 (d) x 119 (w) x 30mm (h)

verdict

If you are looking to add some vintage Fender blackface flavour to your pedalboard, this will definitely get you into the zone. While it could be described as (and used as) an overdrive or an ‘ampin-a-box’ pedal, we see it as a tonal enhancer with optional degrees of dirt.

Pros Smooth natural-sounding EQ, wide range of overdriven tones, distinct ‘blackface’ flavour cons No battery power; footswitch position may place it too close to another pedal

9

P EDALBOARD

m A n u fAC T u r e r ElEctro-Harmonix

pr iC e £140/ £85

mOde l opEration ovErlord alliEd ovErdrivE/ tonE corsEt

e l e C T r O - H A r mOn i x www.EHx.com

V i de O de mO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

ElEctro-Harmonix

ElEctro-Harmonix

O peration Overlord Allied Overdrive

T one Corset The pedal that squeezes in your guitar at all the right places for shapely sounds

Keep your options open with this versatile pedal ideal for any electronic instrument of your choice ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Overdrive pedal FEATURES: Buffered bypass CONTROLS: Volume, Treble, Mid, Bass, Dry, Boost, Gain, Input Level switch, bypass footswitch CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard outputs L (mono) and R POWER: Supplied 9V DC adaptor (200mA) DIMENSIONS: 105 (w) x 118 (d) x 54 mm (h)

There are many things about this overdrive that set it apart. First, it works with a variety of instruments so has three selectable input levels and full stereo operation plus mono in/ stereo out (besides standard mono), should you find a way to use that in your guitar chain. It also has a Dry knob to blend in any amount of drive – useful for adding edge to a clean sound or keeping a certain amount of note clarity with a dirty sound. The drive sound, based on three JFET gain stages, is amp-like from a touch of grit through to cranked stack, but you can go further with the ‘Boost’ footswitch, which engages an extra overdrive circuit to push the drive sounds harder, adding saturation and ultimately edging it into fuzz territory, all with active tone knobs delivering sonic shaping from mild to brutal. [TC]

VERDICT A practical overdrive/distortion suitable for both guitar and studio applications.

118 Guitarist october 2017

8

ORIGIN: USA TYPE: Compressor pedal FEATURES: True bypass CONTROLS: Volume, Sustain, Blend, Attack, Pad switch, bypass footswitch CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output POWER: 9V battery or 9V DC adaptor DIMENSIONS: 72 (w) x 111 (d) x 50mm (h)

Based around OTA (Operational

Transconductance Amplifier) circuitry like the MXR Dyna Comp, a two-knob job, the Tone Corset goes beyond the standard output volume and a Sustain knob for turning up the compression. It offers control over the attack with varying degrees of sharpness at the front edge, and a Blend knob sets up parallel compression. It also has a ‘Pad’ switch to set the right input for your guitar, preventing distortion caused by highoutput humbuckers or an active bass.

The compression sits well with the sound, keeping it in check and, with the extra gain that’s available via the Volume knob, the Tone Corset offers a consistency that means you’ll keep it permanently engaged. Rather than compressing the whole signal, Blend enables a more nuanced approach, keeping your natural sound’s note attack while bolstering its body and eking out some extra sustain.[TC]

VERDICT A pedalboard-friendly compressor with a good mix of options that complements guitar sound

8

P EDALBOARD tOnE mAkERs

Z achary Vex

The ZVEX Effects’ pioneering soundsmith explains more about dying batteries and electronics beyond the grave...

1

What was the first pedal you built and how did the design come about?

“I was 15 years old when I sold my first pedal, although it wasn’t branded as ZVEX. I got a copy of Popular Electronics magazine and begged my Dad to go to Radio Shack and get me the parts so I could build a Jordan Boss Tone. I showed it to a guy at school and he offered me $10 for it! ZVEX started in June 1995 and the first effects pedal I shipped was the Octane – an octave-up fuzz. It was based on a 1960s Shin-Ei Apollo Fuzz Wah. I bought a broken one at a guitar shop for $25 and modded it up using silicon transistors, a booster circuit and also added a tone sweep instead of a switch.”

2

What’s your bestselling pedal and why do you think that is?

“It’s usually the Fuzz Factory or the Box of Rock. The Box of Rock is a really rich distortion that sounds very much like a tube amp and I think that makes people feel really comfortable. The Fuzz Factory does well because people feel like they’re creating their own thing with it.”

3

What do you think makes ZVEX unique?

“I was the first guy to do sequence pedals and also the proximity sensing radio transmitter pedals such as the Wah Probe. I was also the first to do an analogue looper – the Lo-Fi Loop Junky, a 20-second analogue looper. The company that designed the chip intended it to be used in gravestones, where the loved ones could have a recorded message from the deceased to listen to!”

rooms, but they’re so small he left them behind! Steve Albini’s studio called me up recently in a panic because his Super Hard On stopped working and they use it on everything!”

5

Is there anything new on the horizon with ZVEX? “We’re going into production with a vertical version of the Fuzz Factory, followed by the Box of Rock and the ’59 Sound, as they will fit on pedalboards easier. Our new microphone, the T Ball Mic, is interesting because it virtually eliminates feedback and ambient noise.

It came from 1930s military electronics literature concerning communications in bomber cockpits; the solutions were either a proximity mic that went down the pilot’s throat and the other (less intrusive) solution was the same design I’m using.”

6

Name some common mistakes guitarists make with effects…?

“A large percentage of guitar players only play with their guitar volume on 10 and they don’t really know what their effects sound like when they turn down to 1 or 2.

But an awful lot of fuzzes and distortions sound quite interesting with very low guitar volume.”

7

What’s your best tone tip “I used to keep a deck of Brian Eno’s ‘Oblique Strategies’ cards when I worked in the studio; they can get you out of rut.

He’s got interesting phrases in there like

‘Repetition is a form of change’. Also, going outside and walking around often works; changing your environment changes your perspective.”

8

Can you tell us a secret about effects you’ve discovered...

“People recognise that using carbon zinc batteries with germanium fuzzes produces more sag. Sag controls on power supplies just lowers the regulated voltage but the output impedance remains the same. It’s worth experimenting and listening to the effects of dying batteries when you’re recording with germanium fuzzes.”

9

What’s your favourite vintage pedal and why?

“A personal favourite of mine is the Pearl PH-44 Phaser. The circuit itself sounded amazing. It has the most interesting chewy sound. A kind of vocal texture to it, almost like a human-voice quality.”

10

What are your favourite effects moments on record and why?

“The really, really high [Octavia] sound on Purple Haze during the fade out – I find that extremely exciting. The first time I heard the studio effect flanging on Life In The Fast Lane by Eagles (and some of the early Pink Floyd stuff ), it blew me away.

It was also interesting to hear the Fuzz Factory in Muse’s songs – I knew instantly that’s what it was!” www.zvex.com

4

Which notable players/ bands have used/are using ZVEX pedals?

“The Woolly Mammoth showed up on Jack White’s Quantum of Solace James Bond theme tune, Another Way To Die, which I was very proud of. John Frusciante [Red Hot Chili Peppers] used a Fuzz Factory and he also purchased a couple of my iMP amps. He bought a couple of those to record with in hotel

OctOber 2017 Guitarist

119

P EDALBOARD BOARD GAmEs the background

yOuR PEDALBOARD PROBLEms sOLvED

the questions

T r i sTain Hir sT, G u iTarisT rea der:

1 WHaT i s T He op T i mu m

p os i T i on f or a loop p eda l o n my boa r d?

“I am having issues with my looper pedal. I am blessed to have a Marshall Valvestate 2000 amplifier that I use with an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer, a Boss CH-1 Chorus, Boss DD-3 Delay and then my Mooer looper pedal. However, for example I play a chord sequence and loop it, then play a lead line, I can’t change the sound in between. The chord and lead all has to be the same sound. I was wondering if you could solve this for me please?”

2 i s i T p os s i b le T o us e i T i n T H e

ef f ec T s loop of T He a mp ?

opTions for your loop er p eda l p os i T i on

Looper position B

Delay

Chorus

Overdrive

Looper position A

the answers This should be fairly simple to work out if you think about it logically, Tristain.

The looper pedal is a recording device that records and plays back whatever you put into the input.

01 This diagram shows two potential positions for your looper. Let’s look at position A first. Say you play a rhythm part using your TS9 and DD-3. Because the looper is placed before those pedals in your signal chain it won’t have recorded the TS9 and DD-3; the effects are simply happening in real time, after the output

of the looper. If you switch them off during playback, the overdrive and delay will disappear.

In position B the looper is placed after all of your effects. Let’s assume you switch the TS9 and DD-3 on to play your rhythm part. The loop will record the sound including whatever the pedals are doing to the tone. So, hit record mode, play the part, then enter playback mode. Now if you switch pedals on and off before the looper, they won’t affect the tone of the playback at all. They will affect the tone of any new loops you choose to play, however,

enabling you to build up multilayered parts using different sounds.

When placed at the end like this, the looper will record whatever sound you play into it, without affecting the loop(s) underneath. The main challenge is balancing the levels of different loops in the first place as you play them in.

02 You can indeed use a loop pedal in your amp’s effects loop. Just keep in mind that if you want recorded loops to be affected by all of your pedals, it needs to be at the very end of your signal chain.

Em ail us your quEs t ions: guitaris t@futurenet.com

120 Guitarist october 2017

We test the best of the rest of the month’s new gear Photography Olly Curtis

122 Guitarist october 2017

Fibonacci Chiquita £3,499 CONTACT Fibonacci Guitars PHONE 07838 667630 WEB www.fibonacciguitars.com

Centring on the niche world of the jazz guitar, Fibonnaci is a new name on the scene, although the brand’s founder Graham Essen is no newcomer, having looked after Peerless in the UK for many years. But while guitars like the Retromatic certainly put Peerless on the original retro map, Graham wanted more control over the direction and quality of the guitars he and his small team were creating. Fibonnaci is a marriage of (mainly) Far Eastern guitar building that is assembled, sprayed and finished in the UK. “We use people in Korea, China, Croatia and we’re speaking to makers like Scharpach Guitars in Holland about carving some soundboards,” he tells us.

“It is quite convoluted but each source is good at certain things, be it hand carving or laminating. We then bring it all together here in the UK: some bodies might be done but need the necks adding.

All the peripherals are done here like the tailpieces, bridges and fingerboards which are CNC’d here in the UK.” Our prototype, 625mm (24.6") scale Chiquita is the smallest guitar in the current five-string range (which starts at £1,799 with the laminate Tomcat) and, as its price suggests, is all hand-crafted from solid woods – American AAA spruce top and flame maple back and sides. It’s also the smallest body guitar in the range, virtually the same width as a Les Paul 325mm (12.8") but with a depth of 76mm. “It’s aimed at the player perhaps making the transition from playing rock and blues to jazz,” says Graham, “a sort of small Les Paul-sized jazz guitar whereas a 432mm (17-inch) wide, more traditional style might simply be too cumbersome.” It’s a classy package with a nicely understated violin-like gloss nitro Auburn Sienna ’burst – the standard finishes are antique natural and antique honey. The maple isn’t overly flamed and gives a very classic appearance – this is certainly not an over-blinged piece.

The classic simplicity extends to the guitar’s details – a simple script-inlaid logo on the head that’s bound, like the fingerboard, with a figured maple, its black (ebony) facing matching the fingerboard which joins the cutaway body at the 15th fret. Dense black ebony is used for the tailpiece, bridge and minimalist pickguard

to which the Kent Armstrong Smooth Sam humbucker is attached, which ‘floats’ free of the top or indeed the fingerboard end.

The slot soundholes allow you to see the clean internal construction with kerfed linings from what looks like mahogany, while the side braces and the top’s longitudinal braces are spruce.

Sounds

Played seated with legs crossed flamencostyle or with a strap – seated or standing – the Chiquita, despite the depth, virtually disappears: its light weight and compact body size suggests smaller instruments like this have been rather overlooked. The playability is first class and anyone crossing over to this style should feel at home with its 43.5mm nut width and 54mm spacing at the bridge. The neck measures 21mm at the 1st fret and 23.3mm by the 10th fret with an endearing full oval shape.

If it looks almost demure its sound, played acoustically, matches. The flatwound strings give a slippery smooth feel yet there’s surprising crispness to the balanced voice, the trebles are strong and the basses have a centred fundamental tone that sounds percussive and clipped played with a pick and much silkier smooth played with the side of your thumb, perfect for bass lines to underpin those crisper highs. Certainly mic’d the woody voice isn’t overrun with low end and mixing this with the more mellow and probably more classic jazz voice from the neck pickup achieves both clarity and thruminess that’s rather special.

Verdict

With a price that reflects its considered design and build it might not be the cheapest hand-carved guitar of its type, compared to brands like Peerless and Eastman, but it’s made of the right stuff, impeccably nitro finished (by Bow Finishing here in the UK) and can be custom spec’d if you want something a little different. Classy stuff for the serious jazz aficionado with a timeless, classic voice in an altogether more condensed package.

A new brand to keep your eye on. [DB]

8

OctOber 2017 Guitarist

123

Seymour Duncan Powerstage 170 £345 CONTACT Rosetti Ltd PHONE 01376 550033 WEB www.seymourduncan.com

If your sound comes from stompboxes

rather than your amp, you may have looked at the big, heavy box you cart around with your pedalboard and asked yourself, why?

Well, now there’s an even better reason to ask that question. Seymour Duncan’s Powerstage 170 is a compact power amplifier that’s small and light enough to fit into a pedalboard, yet provides a whopping 170 watts RMS into a minimum of 4 ohms.

It’s beautifully engineered, with a brushed aluminium fascia featuring a perfectly executed 3D version of the famous ‘S’ logo. There are tone controls for bass, mid and treble, sitting over a large volume control that can be hand- or foot-operated, although the knob is so nicely finished we’d be wary of scuffing it with our size nines. Underneath the knobs, there’s a trio of small but bright status LEDs, while on the rear there are standard jack sockets for signal in and speaker out, together with a mains rocker switch and a grill for the miniature cooling fan.

Inside, the Powerstage 170 is beautifully made, with a high-quality printed circuit-

124 Guitarist october 2017

board holding most of the components.

Despite being small, the Powerstage 170 is built to serious professional standards and should handle anything thrown at it, figuratively speaking. Keep your beers out of harm’s way though, as the Powerstage 170 gets its juice from 240V AC.

a bouncy, dynamic guitar-friendly feel that made every sound a pleasure to use.

Switch your effects into bypass, and the Powerstage is a superb clean channel, with tone controls that work smoothly at guitarfriendly frequencies.

Sounds

It’s not the cheapest power amp out there, but you get what you pay for and the Powerstage 170 is a top-quality product, built in the same California workshop as Seymour Duncan’s legendary pickups and pedals, with the same reliability and robust construction. It looks and feels justifiably expensive, and the clarity of sound at any volume level is very impressive. At just over a kilo it’s supremely portable and a perfect partner for your pedalboard. If your arms are aching from lugging a heavy head or combo around, the Powerstage 170 could be your answer to portability, as well as righteous tone! [NG]

The Powerstage is electrically quiet, with practically zero hiss and hum. We tried it with a couple of analogue effects alongside a small digital modelling multi-effects pedal and a 2x12 Vintage 30-loaded 8-ohm cabinet, into which the Powerstage 170 should be making about 100 watts RMS. Dialling in a good sound was quick and easy thanks to the on-board tone controls, and the high headroom added extra zing and presence to all our effects and amp model settings. There’s no preference for guitar here, we used a variety of single coil and humbucking instruments and every guitar’s sonic signature came through with clarity. Even at the reduced output, there was still plenty of clean headroom with

Verdict

8

Neil Perry

We get back to basics with Neil Perry of Raw State in Bath to find out why the sound of classic analogue valve amps remains a firm favourite in today’s high-tech world...

Words Rod Brakes Photography Joby Sessions

T

here isn’t much that Neil Perry doesn’t know about the workings of a good vintage guitar amp.

Starting out as a guitarist in the late 70s, he quickly progressed to running his own 4-track reel-to-reel studio where he repaired, modified and made his own equipment. He then further honed his craft under the watchful eye of an ex-Decca maintenance engineer at Trad Electronics in North Watford during the solid-state frenzy of the early 80s. It was during this time that Neil jumped into the deep end of vintage music gear as Trad Electronics began dismantling studios such as Decca and Pye, relieving them of their classic analogue and valve equipment, in order to refurbish the goods, sell them on and make way for the transistor revolution.

It was only a matter of time before Neil’s services were being called for further afield.

He soon ended up in the West Country working on Peter Gabriel’s fourth solo album as assistant engineer, following his installation of the studio itself. He then started his company, Raw State, a few years later, and from that point forward has been in constant demand, having worked with the likes of PJ Harvey, Portishead’s Adrian Utley, Goldfrapp and Page & Plant’s Charlie Jones, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones and The Who’s Pete Townsend.

Guitarist dropped into the Raw State workshop in Bath to talk to Neil about the

unwavering popularity of valve guitar amps and what makes them such a mainstay of the guitar world.

Timeless Technology

Given all the technological advances that have sprung forth since the electric-guitar craze began many decades ago, one might presume that the good, old-fashioned tube amp might have retired from business by now, but nothing seems to be further from the truth. Indeed, it appears to be more popular than ever. With many reissues and reinterpretations, original vintage equipment, clones and boutique products available on the market at any one time, what is it about these particular amps that makes them so enduring?

“The good thing about analogue gear is that it can go from a whisper and into the red with all the shades in between,” says Neil. “That’s the thing. And with a great guitar and valve amp you can really do that. It allows the player to bring all those textures, colours and little subtleties into the picture.”

Much the same as the instruments themselves, the most coveted and highly prized guitar amplifiers have changed little over time since their original design back in the golden era of production in the 50s and 60s. Despite the technological advances of the transistor and the microchip, it almost seems as if a certain amount of irony is

at play. After all, the application of these later advances in music technology often appears to attempt some form of replication (at best) and, some might even argue, that we’ve experienced a technological devolution, if anything.

“Yes, it seems to have gone full circle from instruments to guitar amps to studio gear,” says Neil. “Most of the old things have come back in because of the complexity of the tones. The extraordinary thing is when you think back to the 50s, 60s and 70s analogue recordings with all that great gear (including the guitars and amps and basses and even the keyboards) and you listen to the records, they all sound so different.

The gear, in theory, is really limited but, in fact, what we’ve got is a whole testament to different pictures, different colours and different soundscapes – the size and scale and everything is different. Whereas the digital world has almost made it monochromatic – we’ve gone from full colour into black and white, which is kind of bizarre because the digital world gives you every possible option, or so you’d think, but it’s almost like we have fewer options.”

There have been some realistic amp modelling products available on the market for some time now, which provide the user with an impressive array of tonal options in a convenient format, but how does Neil see this moving forward? “Some of the modelling amps are remarkable,” agrees

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1960s Ampeg Reverberocket with extensive ‘re-cap-ing’

Neil. “The only problem is we’re modelling something that exists already, which is nice, but... The Mona Lisa exists and we can take a picture of it and it’ll look the same, but it’s not the same, is it? Not really.

It’s convenient, but it’s not a step forward tonally. There’s no step forward in that it’s just replicating something that exists already, which isn’t that exciting. Well, to me, but maybe that’s just because I’m old!

“I’m always excited when you see somebody doing something that isn’t replicating anything else. It’s a bit like playing in a covers band; surely the really great thing is coming up with the idea in the first place as opposed to just being able to copy it? I’d prefer to try and come up with an original idea – even if it isn’t as good, at least it’s your take on things, which is much more interesting. So it’s nice when you see amps designers who have done something that’s a little bit different.”

Modern Times

As well as the latest digital modelling technology, the contemporary guitarist’s choice of amplifier has been bolstered by an incredible range of boutique valve models – a great number of which regularly pass through Neil’s workshop: “I had a TwoRock come in the other day. I get a lot of modern boutique amps in for repair – Swart amps and that kind of thing. Some of them can be lovely. I suppose my main criticism of modern amps is that too many try to do

128 Guitarist OctOber 2017

too many things. When you think of most of the really classic amps they don’t actually do a great deal of different things. They’ve got more of a specific character and that’s what you think of them doing. Whereas, some of the more modern amps try to do more of a Swiss army knife kind of thing. You do wonder, because they’re not particularly great at one thing or the other, but just merely ‘quite good’ at both…”

Indeed, many players find their favourite amplifiers will have a ‘sweet spot’ – that rarely deviated special setting from where the amp tends to sound its most interesting in terms of character, often at the edge of breakup. “That is such a great thing when you hear a great player playing in that area,” enthuses Neil. “The amp’s going from being a clean amp that’s still got headroom, to running out of headroom and getting into the breakup. You appreciate it when you hear it. That’s the special thing and why we still love valves and why solid state amps just aren’t as happening, because those magic things aren’t really there.

“My main criticism of modern amps is that too many try to do too many things – like a Swiss army knife”

“When I think of great tones I think it’s when people plug straight in without any pedals. Of course I love pedals from the point of view of creating textures, but, as for tone, I don’t think it’s the same thing because the pedals are often robbing some of the tone. It also takes away some of the feel between a great player and the amp; that analogue thing where you can take any shade between black and white and go in between – sometimes that gets lost a little bit with a pedal. I love pedals, but I always think the tone goes out of the amp a bit when you’ve got effects in the signal chain.”

Speaker Output

With a guitar plugged into an amp, what other tonal options might be available to us?

“Choice of speaker is important,” says Neil.

“With a combo, for example, what each of them should have, and often do, is a speaker output. If you plug a little 8” speaker combo or whatever it is into something bigger, say a 2x12” set of speakers, you suddenly realise you’ve got a different amp! It’s a whole world of something else – a much bigger sound with all the bass and it’s actually just the speaker that’s making the difference.

I’m not sure many guitarists pursue the idea of trying their amp with a different set of speakers. It’s underrated, because it gives you a different picture – easily as different as changing the entire amp! I know some guitarists who have three or four cabs for the same amp for that reason. They’ve got

1

2

3

1. Early 70s (Ted) Wallace AC 3500 XTC 35W EL-34 tube amp head and 1974 Marshall Model 1917 PA-20 20W EL-84 tube amp head 2. “I started out by fixing things like valve amps and radiograms and speakers. I’d put them back together and adapt them into things I would use” 3. A striped ‘bumble bee’ and two ‘tropical fish’ capacitors

one great amp but they just change the cab; maybe they’ve got a 10”, a 15” and a 2x12” or something like that. One might be open back and another might be closed and so on.

They sound so different and the way you can feel it and play it is totally different.”

With great tone, there often comes a price and one of the downsides to owning a tube amp is that, at some point, it will need servicing, a repair or replacement parts.

“Well, I suppose they’ll always need looking after, of course,” Neil concedes. “It’s the nature of the beast, and they often have a hard life. I suppose a lot of the people that I work for actually use the amps, which is much more fun! Not that I’ve got anything against collections or collectors, but I’d rather be working with somebody who’s going to use the amp, because that’s what it’s for. It’s great that it’s going to be out there in the real world doing something that’s hopefully going to be meaningful.”

With any number of their numerous components potentially failing over time, it seems like amplifiers are in a state of constant flux; the physical and thermal stresses of gigging, not to mention the large amounts of current, often take their toll. In addition, the original components in vintage amps often have relatively wide tolerances in comparison to today’s parts. These variations in tone/ character, or a certain amplifier’s inherent

130 Guitarist OctOber 2017

quirks, are what Neil often strives to retain: “The tolerances in the components of old vintage amps weren’t as close as the tolerances are in today’s amps,” confirms Neil. “They could’ve been far out to begin with and now, of course, after years of use they could be really far out! That far-outness might result in something that isn’t great but sometimes it results in something that is really great.

“Sometimes when I’m working on an amp, and the client loves the way it sounds, and it’s special, and I’ve got to change parts… I try to change the parts to new ones of the value that the originals have drifted to. It may have gone from being 10% out to something like 30% out, but I can put in something that’s more like the 30% out, in order to keep it working in the off-spec way that the client likes, but reliably and safely.”

Considering the manufacturing regulations of yesteryear and their general wear and tear over time, safety is paramount when it comes to guitar valve amplifiers. “Amps can be really dangerous,” warns Neil. “They need high voltages. Typically, it’s in the 300s to 400s voltage range. The mains voltage comes into the transformer at 240AC in the UK and gets bumped up as high as 600 volts or something, plus the lower voltages for the valve heaters, and then it’ll be rectified to create a DC current. If you think of big

Ampeg amps, they can be really high. I mean really scary – they scare me anyway!”

Musical Agenda

As well as getting the amp into a more reliable and safe condition, the ultimate aim for Neil is to get it sounding as musical as possible, while preserving its originality.

“Getting it into a reliable and safe state are the important things, rather than it being 100 per cent original,” advises Neil. “If somebody wants that, that’s fine, or if it’s an incredibly rare, unique thing then that’s a different matter. But if it’s just another old amp, then let’s have it working safe and sounding really great! It might mean keeping the old parts and putting them to the side, but that makes sense.

“Replacing valves is tricky,” continues Neil. “I suppose it would be a bit like tyre wear on your car – because it happens over time and, very slowly, everything gets a little worse every time you use it. Sometimes you don’t realise how bad things are until something stops, or gets really noisy (or goes ‘bang’!) because it’s still working. Some people, of course, like it when the amp’s knackered and sounding horrendous.

“Ultimately I don’t think there are any rules about tone. From my point of view just disregard the tips and try things out for yourself. Plug in and have fun!” www.rawstate.com

Longtermers A few months’ gigging, recording and everything that goes with it – welcome to Guitarist ’s longterm test reports

Supro Black Holiday

with Dave Burrluck

132 Guitarist october 2017

Longtermers

Writer

Dave Burrluck Gear reviews editor, Guitarist Our Supro versus Supro test concludes.

Which is best? The one that ain’t broke!

C

rap! And, indeed, double crap! It seems our-old-versus new Supro comparison has taken a turn for the worse. As part of our brief for the Long Term Tests we supply the pictures, and while setting up a couple of shots for my last instalment, I had my ’68 Supro Stratford lent up against a similarly aged Watkins Dominator. But, as I went to check the image I’d just taken, the ’68 slipped forwards on the laminate-wood floor and came crashing down on its back with a sickening thud. I stood open-mouthed to see, as the dust settled, my vintage beauty in two pieces. The new Black Holiday – on a stand – looked on as I picked up the pieces.

The impact had pulled the neck away from its four fixing screws, stripping the threads in the maple neck. It could have been worse I reassured myself. In reality it was an accident waiting to happen, as to create enough neck pitch to clear the surface-mount pickups there’s a sizeable wedge-shaped shim in the neck cavity; it means the lower two screws only screw into the neck a minimal amount.

Under the eye of luthier Chris George, we pondered the repair, eventually deciding to drill the lower two screw-holes further into the neck, installing longer screws. We also included an additional thin conventional shim just to increase the neck angle slightly and get a little more air over those pickups. The repair

improved things – the Stratford was playing better and I felt confident that the neck and body were fixed.

But while the old Supro was waiting for its hospital slot, the new one stepped up. Before the accident, I’d been enjoying its old-school charms, not least as a slide guitar, but with a gig upon me, I needed to tune it in more and concluded the pre-carved wood top on the bridge wasn’t helping. Swapping it for a Gotoh tune-o-matic was simple and I guessed where the wooden foot should sit and screwed it tight to the body.

I dropped down a string gauge to .010s and reset the intonation and action noticing that the truss rod needed a small tweak to remove the excessive relief. I rechecked the pickup heights, then plugged in only to find the bridge pickup wasn’t working. I thought it might be the three-way lever switch but, as we remarked in our original review, there’s no way to access the electrics unless you take

“Our challenge hasn’t been about which is ‘best’, it’s been a journey into the unknown”

the whole sandwich-style body apart. It was working; now it wasn’t.

Retracing my steps, I realised the only thing I’d done was to, via the unique height adjustment (the outer pole pieces), raise the treble side of the bridge pickup barely a millimetre. I lowered it back to where it was and the pickup worked. Whether there’s a short wire inside I have no idea, but I wasn’t going to take the guitar apart to find out.

On reflection, our-old-versus-new Supro challenge hasn’t been about which is ‘best’, it’s been a journey into the unknown. From playing old examples and modern prototypes at David Koltai’s Supro HQ in Long Island, through to evaluating the new Island and Americana models, chancing across our ’68 Supro Stratford, uncovering ‘new’ pickup designs that were conceived in the 50s, not to mention tracking down recorded examples like J.B. Hutto and the electric blues of early 60s Chicago, it’s been about restoring a valid sound that has been overlooked.

Supros have their quirks but they remain a treasure trove for any player looking for different sounds. For a (mainly) hassle-free experience we recommend the new versions; if you’re prepared to look around, and maybe employ a pro to sort any issues, the old ones (at least the less popular models) are out there at far from ‘vintage’ prices.

Reviewed 417 (new 2017 range) Price £829 On Test Since Dec 2016 Studio Sessions Yes Gigged Yes Mods Yes www.suprousa.com

october 2017 Guitarist

133

The Eno show’s instigator, Chris Apthomas, on keys

Ernie Ball Music Man St Vincent

with Jamie Dickson Writer

Jamie Dickson Editor Guitarist

Guitarist’s editor, Jamie Dickson, tackles the esoteric complexities of Brian Eno’s back catalogue armed with the guitar of a latter-day sonic innovator, St Vincent.

L

ike many gigs that take a lot of prep, my Brian Eno retrospective gig in Bristol seemed comfortably far in the future until, all of a sudden, it was right on top of me. The show, entitled ‘The Songs of Brian Eno’ is the brainchild of Bristol musician Chris Apthomas. As you might expect of a back catalogue that includes plenty of Robert Fripp’s dextrous guitar work, it’s tricky in places and, what’s more, we’re to perform it in synch with video that will fill the venue, Bristol’s Cube Microplex, with a riot of imagery as well as music. No pressure then...

My tool of choice for this gig is the Ernie Ball Music Man St Vincent signature model – an unorthodox but solidly capable instrument.

First, its trio of Dimarzio mini-humbuckers

are very welcome from the point of noise reduction: many of Fripp’s lead tones – yes, I volunteered to throw myself under that particular bus – are high gain but, in this cinema-like audio environment, superfluous hum and buzz is unwelcome. The Dimarzios are quiet, contemporary and not too bright, without being bland, which works ideally here.

I’ve also borrowed a Line 6 Helix LT to help me evoke the diverse soundscapes of the three classic Eno albums we’ll be drawing from: Before And After Science, Another Green World and My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, a collaborative long-player that Eno made with David Byrne in 1981. In this context, I’ll be disabling the Helix’s amp and cab models and instead using it solely as a multi-effects running straight into the superb Victory Sheriff 44 amp, which was chosen to bring some big valve-amp presence and projection to the stage. On the opposite side of the stage, fellow Guitarist contributor Rod Brakes – the other guitar man on the gig – has gone the other way and brought his vintage Gibson tweed combo, 60s Strat and vintage effects.

Soundcheck done, the audience file in to take their seats and the house lights lower as Chris and Bristol songwriter Jonny Velon open the show with the meditative piano piece By This River, which they perform beautifully.

Then it’s time for Rod and I to take the stage, wielding – of all things – an EBow each. As we summon up, in stereo, the bagpipe-like drones of Everything Merges With The Night,

I reckon this could be the first time since the late 70s that Bristol has witnessed a double EBow solo... No time for anything more than a wry smile though, as we go straight into the two trickiest numbers of the night, from a guitar point of view. The first hurdle is the solo to Golden Hours. In true Fripp style this takes the form of a simple melodic motif that is elaborated on, at speed, with cruel precision. I make an irritating stumble over the end of the first section of the solo, but there’s no time to worry as we’re already into the second part, this time crisply articulated. The St Vincent plays its role perfectly, delivering the punchyyet-warm clean lead tone the track requires, without fuss. That neck and its positive, linear feel give you confidence, even where the musical terrain threatens to crumble.

Next, we’re into St Elmo’s Fire, with its swiftflowing legato solo that is so saturated with gain that it almost sounds like a synth, with swooping arpeggios running helter-skelter up and down the fretboard. Again, the St Vincent handles those high gain tones well, articulating crisply and sonorously.

After that, I can relax a bit as the rest of the gig is comparatively straightforward riffs and licks, though you can never fully drop your guard with Eno’s material. It’s been a tough but rewarding show but the St Vincent has proven an instrument of real integrity and very versatile too. That deep sense of trust that really cements the bond between player and instrument has grown appreciably.

Reviewed 417 Price £2,299 On Test Since July 2017 Studio Sessions No Gigged Yes Mods Not yet

134 Guitarist october 2017

www.music-man.com

Q&A

This issue: Bigsby alternatives, Gold Foil pickups & jacked up tones

Expert Panel Jamie Dickson Guitarist editor Jamie is as happy with steel wool in his hand as he is with Steely Dan in his headphones, and loves vintage-gear restoration and ambitious signal chains.

Dave Burrluck Guitarist’s assiduous reviews editor is also the author of numerous guitar books. Very handy with a fret file and indeed any aspect of a finely fettled six-string.

Mick Taylor Ex-editor of Guitarist, Mick has wielded Allen keys, screwdrivers and sandpaper from an early age; he also has a worrying obsession with pedalboards.

Neville Marten Edited Guitarist for 13 years, after working for both Fender and Gibson as a repairer. From desirable Les Pauls to dream Strats, he’s owned and worked on the lot.

Nick Guppy

Guitarist’s amplifier specialist has built up a wealth of experience gained from collecting, repairing and restoring all kinds of guitar-related audio.

Email us your questions: guitarist @futurenet.com or write in to Guitarist, Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA

CONfusED!

How does Dino make sense of Fender’s current extensive Strat range?

I have a nice American Standard Telecaster and a PRS Santana SE but I’d really like to add a Strat…oh and maybe a 335. I’m fully aware of my limitations as a player and don’t subscribe to ‘all the gear but no idea’ attitude.

I really do want a genuine Fender though. What’s puzzling me is there’s now a bewildering array of specification up and down the range. What I’d like to see is a simple grid layout of the available range, maybe for the major manufacturers, with average price, spec differences and a rating score. Any chance of that?

Dino, via email

You’re definitely not alone, Dino. It’d certainly be possible to make that grid as you suggest, but in truth we’re not sure how much it would help. We have some serious Strat fans in our staff and alumni and they all say that you have to play the guitar and decide if it works for you.

To help narrow it down, if you’re realistic about your budget and the basic spec (for example fingerboard material and radius, wiring and pickups, bridge type and finish) you’ll find that the choice narrows dramatically. Then stuff a few hundred quid in your pocket Martin wants backing tracks – but how to play them back

and head off to a big retailer with loads of choice. If you’re very undecided, the only solution is to spend a day or two playing some guitars. Trust your instincts and your heart: definitely not your head. You have to want to play that guitar every time you look at it.

Nevertheless, if we were going to pick just one archetypal Strat that offers the optimum blend of features and price, it’s the Classic Series Stratocasters from the Ensenada, Mexico factory. Vintage styling, appointments and tones, choice of colours with either maple or rosewood (pao ferro on the newest ones) boards.

As for 335s, you absolutely must play those as they vary quite a bit in weight and feel.

Start with the Memphis made 58, 59 and 63 models. They’re the best new 335s they’ve made since the early days, in our opinion. Expensive, but absolutely the real deal.

ONE MaN BaND? I’m heading towards my 70s, can’t handle modern computers and don’t have a mobile phone!

I’ve been offered the chance to play in several pubs and restaurants as a solo guitarist playing my arrangements of popular tunes. I don’t sing but would like to have backing tracks so that I can play the melodies over the top. I have a Tom Anderson S type and Gibson 339 guitars, Fender Blues Junior and Fishman Loudbox Artist amps. I

Email us your questions: guitarist@futurenet.com october 2017 Guitarist

137

GearQ&A

small Power amp?

Some alternatives to using a full amp I have a reasonably large pedalboard with the usual selection of drive, modulation, delay etc. However, I have always struggled to find an amplifier that I really like, having tried a number of valve, transistor and digital combos over the past couple of years.

I saw some videos online recently that were highlighting the advantages of using a small power amplifier and speaker cabinet instead of a ‘full’ amp. Is this possible to do from

the pedalboard alone, and if so, what would you recommend to try. I am not prejudiced against solid state amps as so many tone snobs seem to be!

John Roberts, via email It is absolutely possible John, while keeping in mind what a ‘full’ amplifier is actually doing.

You have a preamp section and power section, so if you remove all that to replace

with a small, standalone power amp, you still require something to be doing the preamp job.

Pedals vary greatly in their ability to do this adequately in terms of the strength of signal, dynamic range and – particularly – treble response. Ergo, it can be a good idea to add a preamp pedal specifically that can give the power amp the signal/output impedance/ mumbo it requires. Assuming you have that sorted.

2. Quilter 101 Mini Head £315 This American brand produces a whole range of extremely well-regarded, compact, solid-state amps and power blocks. The 101 is a whole amp – preamp and 50-watt power section that weighs less than 1kg. If you want a really tony one, check out the Micro Block 45 or…

1. seymour Duncan Power stage 170 £345

3. Electro Harmonix Magnum 44 £144

This super compact class-D power amp offers up to 170 watts of high-headroom power in a package almost small enough to fit on the board. It has global bass and treble controls to tweak to your particular rig (cabinet, pedals etc). Not exactly cheap, but exceptionally good. You can see our review on page 124.

This pedal-sized power amp puts out a healthy 44 watts. It will overdrive if you push it hard so perhaps the best choice if you want a ton of clean headroom, but the price makes it extremely enticing as a backup, or indeed if you don’t need a lot of headroom.

Email us your questions: guitarist@futurenet.com 138 Guitarist october 2017

NEED VALVES?

The AM ’52 is above budget, so how about buying one used?

also have a selection of pedals… and two questions.

What is the simplest way of obtaining the backing tracks and what would I play them on? What would be the best amp to use and how would I set them up?

Martin Fennemore, via email

Sounds great Martin! Not having a computer is going to be a significant disadvantage here because most of the stuff you need is available online. You buy and download the tracks, then play them straight from your computer or transfer them to a mobile phone or MP3 player. As you can see, not having a phone is also a problem.

You could turn to physical CDs. Guitar Techniques and Guitarist have an amazing catalogue of backing tracks down the years.Plenty of people use them in a live environment.

It would involve acquiring them in physical form (we can’t sell them because the licensing fees are horrific) and playing them through a CD player plugged into your Fishman Loudbox.

It’s a full-range amp that has all the frequencies you need for music playback. Then use your Blues Junior for the guitar and balance levels accordingly.

If it was us, we’d buy the computer or top-end smartphone and lean on some tech-minded friend or family member to set it up. You’re missing out on a colossal

amount of awesome stuff by not engaging with what’s available online. Good luck!

NiTrO MOrE Or lEss I have a dilemma. I’m looking for a ‘blackguard’ Telecaster with a chunky neck profile and nitrocellulose lacquer. However, finding a guitar that satisfies both criteria under £1.000 these days is proving a struggle. I am fortunate enough to own two guitars that have a nitro finish.

It just seems to improve every element of guitar playing for me, so much so that I tend to find myself sanding down the guitars I have with poly finishes on them.

I also prefer a chunky neck profile over a slim one, but it seems the demand for a larger neck is quite small.

Is it possible to get a Telecaster with similar specs to the Fender American Vintage ‘52 reissue (nitro finish, ‘U’ shaped neck) for under £1,000?

Mark Huggins, via email

No, is the simple answer, Mark.

The closest thing to the AV ’52 at a lower price is the Fender Classic Series ’50s Telecaster Lacquer. It has a gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish to neck and body; white blonde finish, white guard. The Road Worn ’50s Telecaster that has a polyurethane finish to the neck.

They both have SRPs of over £1,000, however.

In this instance, we’d urge you strongly to look out for a used American Vintage ’52. They’re not uncommon so you should be able to pick one up below £1,000. Absolutely brilliant guitars – you won’t be sorry!

lEfTy WaH I am left-handed and I am leftfooted too. It’s a problem for me to have my wah-wah on the left of my pedalboard because of the ‘in’ and ‘out’ positions of the jacks.

The only solution appears to be to have a little longer cable so I can put the wah on the left and my Polytune on the right, with the other pedals in the middle. Is there any other solution?

Piero Rossi, via email

We think the longer cable is the right solution, Piero. You won’t lose anything significant with such a short cable run, so just set the pedal positions up however feels right and cable accordingly. If you get some low profile/high-quality patch cables/jacks, (eg Evidence Audio SIS or Free The Tone Solderless), there will be no unnecessary bulk.

It’s possible to rewire the in and out jacks so that they swap position on an older/boutique type wah, but not on many modern wahs, because they have the jacks mounted directly to the PCB. The longer cable is the instant, easy solution.

“Bring Back The Power!” t: 07979 687404 Restore the vitality and sparkle to your guitar amplifier with a new set of valves.

For your new preamp and power valves visit: www.ampvalves.co.uk

Ampvalves Unit 12 Tilbury Close, Caversham, Reading, RG4 5JF

classicGear

Gretsch’s Duo-Jet gets a makeover in true 1950s silver sparkle sci-fi style...

Gretsch 6129 Silver Jet T

he Gretsch 6129 Silver Jet was originally released in 1955 and has its origins in the design of the black top finish Gretsch 6128 Duo-Jet released in mid-1953 (later made famous

by George Harrison).

There are few distinguishing differences between the two guitars aside from finish, although they couldn’t be further apart in terms of modesty. The silver sparkle finish is a Gretsch hallmark akin to the sparkle-finish drums they manufactured in the 1950s, and it just smacks of 50s sci-fi!

According to anecdotal reports it was an employee of the factory that suggested Gretsch apply these eye-catching finishes to the Duo-Jet, and so the Silver Jet was born.

The Gretsch 6128 Duo-Jet was the more subtle big brother of the Silver Jet

The early 50s were a revolutionary time for electric-guitar design and the new, futuristic electric solid-body guitar craze was well underway. In 1950, Fender had introduced their Broadcaster (later renamed the Telecaster) and, in response, 1952 saw Gibson release its version of a solid-body electric guitar in a striking gold finish: the Les Paul Model.

In many ways the Duo-Jet/Silver Jet could be likened to both the Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul Model insofar as they are both seminal instruments of their type in terms of shape, but under the hood the Gretsch guitars were somewhat different.

As opposed to the Telecaster and Les Paul Model, they were not entirely solid

and consisted of a chambered mahogany body with a pressed laminated maple arched top, which gave the guitar some unique acoustic characteristics.

DeArmond was one of the first companies to manufacture pickups having been in operation since the mid-1930s and was supplying Gretsch with a single-coil type as early as 1949, known at the time as the 200 model. This adjustable, high-output Alnico V pickup was later renamed the Dynasonic and the Silver Jet was released with two of them fitted as standard in both the bridge and neck position. DeArmond Dynasonic pickups have a round, snappy, punchy and percussive tone and are often identified with the sound of Duane Eddy.

Later, in 1958, the Silver Jet received a pair of fatter, crunchier sounding Filter’Tron humbucking pickups that were, much in the same way as Gibson’s humbuckers, intended to reduce the 60 cycle hum that plagued guitarists at the time.

At this point, the layout of the Silver Jet’s controls altered slightly as the master

Like the Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul, the Silver Jet was a seminal instrument in terms of its shape tone knob relocated from the lower treble bout to the upper bass bout and was converted to a second switch adjacent to the pickup selector. Both independent pickup volume knobs remained on the lower treble bout, while the master volume knob was also retained on the upper treble bout.

Yet another major design feature change came in 1961 as the Silver Jet received a symmetrical double cutaway, which enabled players easier access to the upper frets, with a Burns vibrato arriving the following year.

In 1963, the 6129 Silver Jet was officially discontinued, although Gretsch continued to offer the same silver sparkle finish in the form of a Duo-Jet custom order. [RB]

140 Guitarist october 2017

classicGear

1958 Gretsch 6129 Silver Jet 1. SERIAL NUMBER 5 digits typically in the 27000-30000 range inkstamped onto label located in control cavity

2. HEADSTOCK ‘T-roof’ Gretsch logo; single-bound peghead

3. PLASTICS Grey plastic pickguard with black ‘T-roof’ Gretsch logo; white plastic heel overlay; black plastic truss rod cover

4. HARDWARE Open backed metal tuners; chrome plated Melita Synchro-Sonic intonationadjustable bridge; chrome plated ‘G’ tailpiece; four metal ‘arrow’ knobs; 3-way pickup selector switch; chrome plated thumbscrew strap buttons

5. PICKUPS Two high output DeArmond Dynasonic single coil Alnico V pickups with large adjustable pole pieces; independent pickup volume pots, master volume pot and master tone pot

The Evolution Of Gretsch 6129 Silver Jet

2

1955

Two DeArmond Dynasonic pickups, block inlays and Melita Synchro-Sonic intonation-adjustable bridge

6. BODY 13¼-inches wide, 2-inches deep, single-cut chambered mahogany with pressed laminated maple arched top; triple (white/black/white) top binding; silver sparkle finish

1956

Hump block inlays

Early-1958

7. NECK 24½-inch scale length, glued in mahogany neck with single-bound 12-inch radius ebony fretboard, ‘thumb print’ inlays and 22 narrow gauge nickelsilver frets

‘Thumb print’ crescent shaped inlays over bass edge of fretboard up to 17th fret

7

Mid-1958

Roller bridge added allowing space control between strings

1958

Two Gretsch Filter’Trons replace DeArmond Dynasonic pickups and master tone control changes

3 4

1959

5

Zero fret added

1961

1 6

Symmetrical double cutaway added for easier access to upper frets

1962

Burns vibrato and standby switch added; gold hardware and pickguard

1963

Discontinued as separate model (available as Duo-Jet custom finish order)

october 2017 Guitarist

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classicGear

Buyer’s Guide

1958 Silver Jet Dan Orkin of Reverb.com gives the inside track on what you need to look for when getting your hands on a spangled Gretsch

I

n 1953, Gretsch introduced its entry into the nascent solidbody guitar market with the now iconic black Duo-Jet (model number 6128). In 1955, the New York factory expanded the line with a handful of variants including the deep-red Fire Bird (6131), the honky-tonk orange Round-Up (6130), and the focus of our attention today, the Silver Jet (6129).

The Silver Jet, with its glistening sparkle finish, holds a special place for vintage guitar collectors and fans, and stands out as one of the truly unique Gretsch designs of this era.

For all of these Gretsch solidbodies (and really all Gretsch guitars), 1958 was a crucial year. While Gretsch was also updating and evolving its designs, 1958 saw the introduction of the famous Filter’Tron pickups to replace the earlier DeArmonds, as well as the first use of an updated “roller bridge” design on top of some other small layout tweaks.

The confluence of these changes makes the 1958 Silver Jet a particularly intriguing model year, and one that collectors will often seek out specifically.

Pristine Pricing

The current price range for original 1958 Gretsch Silver Jets comes in at around £3,400 to £4,400. One very pristine example sold this year on Reverb in the US for $5,800 while a few less pristine examples sold in the $4,000 range. These sales were from private sellers and individuals, and guitars offered from established retail shops will command slightly higher prices.

Interestingly, while the 1958 Silver Jet with it’s Filter’tron pickups is a very highly regarded model year, it seems that the inaugural 1955 Silver Jet has realised higher prices of late. Additionally, we’ve seen some 60s double cutaway examples sell for higher than the 58s. These later Silver Jets were technically special-ordered Duo-Jets and are therefore exceptionally rare.

AlternAtive OPtiOns

Unlike most Fender and Gibson classics, there aren’t a lot modern boutique brands

142 Guitarist OCtOber 2017

Though it’s dazzling to behold be aware the build quality wasn’t always up to scratch

Pricing Factors Make sure you cast your eyes over the pickups when looking for a ‘58 Silver Jet l Finish vibrAncy As with any vintage guitar with a unique finish, collectors will prioritise individual guitars that deliver an especially striking visual panache. For that reason, the vibrancy and originality of the silver sparkle on this model can make or break the desirability of a particular specimen.

building guitars using Gretsch designs as the template. At least on an aesthetic level, some builds by luthier Saul Koll resemble 50s Gretsches, as do guitars from MotorAve, which are played by Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures fame.

Luckily for those looking for a modern iteration of the Silver or Duo-Jet design, Gretsch itself has been offering outstanding Japanese-built reissues and modern models since 1989. Gretsch’s main factory currently offers a standard Silver Jet as well as ‘57 and ‘59 reissue models, while the Gretsch Custom Shop makes painstaking accurate recreations of vintage originals.

On the lower-end of the range sits the Electromatic series Pro-Jet, in which comes silver sparkle as well as a range of other distinct finishes. While not a Silver Jet, the modern George Harrison tribute Duo-Jet model is an especially wellregarded Gretsch guitar that remains in high demand on the used market.

Dan Orkin is content director at Reverb.com, where he reviews the thousands of listings and manages the Reverb Price Guide

l binding cOnditiOn Gretsch guitars produced in the 50s are widely known for the poor quality of the binding. Chipped and cracked binding is not uncommon on vintage Gretsches and, while it’s more of an issue with the hollowbody guitars, it’s something that prospective buyers should be mindful of when considering a Silver Jet purchase. l OriginAl cOmPOnents For the 1958 model year specifically, there are two components that rank as essential inclusions: the original roller bridge and original Filter’Tron pickups.

Pickup swaps are not especially common on vintage Gretsches, but if they have been changed, that can devastate resale value. l generAl PlAyAbility It’s also well-known that Gretsches from the 50s and 60s weren’t as well made as Gibsons or Fenders.

The build quality isn’t consistent, with some guitars having action and neck alignment issues, that can lower the value even if everything is in tip-top cosmetic shape.

Nextmonth

steely DaN

DaviD Crosby

New GretsChes

a tribute to the life and work of Walter becker

New album and a fresh, jazzinspired direction

test-driving a couple of Jets and a Penguin!

Next issue on sale: 20 October 2017

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october 2017 Guitarist

143

1959 Gibson ES-350TDC Photographs by Neil Godwin

I

n order to trace the history of the 350T, we have to go back to 1940 and the introduction of the ES-300, a 17” full sized archtop, which was followed by the ES-350 – essentially a cutaway version of the 300 – seven years later. The thinline version came about in 1955 at the dawn of the rock ‘n’ roll era and was soon to be seen in the hands of the genre’s prime architect, Chuck Berry. Initially released with two P90 pickups, humbuckers were added in mid ‘57 along with many other models in Gibson’s catalogue, most famously the Les Paul. The fact alone that this particular ‘59 Gibson ES-350TDC is in such pristine condition makes it a rare beast, but the custom features it has onboard makes it virtually unique.

In 1959 Gibson started to experiment with cherry finishes – it was the same year that the ES-335TDC (as in C for ‘Cherry’) became available, for example. Then there’s the laminated flamed maple top; something that is commonplace on contemporary boutique instruments, but it was very unusual back then.

Guitarist’s vintage guitar guru, Rod Brakes comments: “It’s a ‘59, the primo year, and what you’ve got in there are the long magnet PAFs, which are particularly good. The shorter ones that appeared a couple of years later might have ‘Patent Applied For’ on them but they sound different – the long magnets do make a difference.

There’s a possibility that they could be zebras or double whites – the creme de la creme of PAFs. The other particularly unique thing about that guitar is the Varitone and the Bigsby – and it’s in stereo, so that’s an unusual specification for that guitar. It’s speculation, but it’s so unusual that it could have been for a trade show or it could have been a custom order. It’s all factory original.”

Guitarist would like to thank Vintage ‘n’ Rare Guitars, Bath for giving us access to this highly unusual instrument www.vintageandrareguitars.com

neck The 350 has ES-345-alike split parallelogram inlays and a short 23.5” scale. The latter allegedly made the fretting of extended chord shapes that little bit easier for the jazz guitarists of the day

FinisH Almost certainly kept in its case for most of its life, the 350 has a very freshlooking, non-faded cherry finish over its flamed maple top and gives the guitar a ‘good as new’ appearance. Most of the older cherry finished guitars tend to take on a brownish hue due to a reaction to UV

Headstock Short scale guitars like this and the Byrdland usually had narrower nut measurements, but this 350’s nut checks in at the standard 1 11/16ths, strengthening the idea that it was a custom order

144 Guitarist october 2017

PickuPs The pickups here are a pair of highly sought after original long magnet PAFs – possibly either zebra or double whites

Varitone A highly unusual custom feature on the guitar, the Varitone is another thing that this 350 has in common with its stablemate, Gibson’s ES-345 which itself came out in 1959. It’s wired for stereo, too, another innovation introduced by Gibson around this time

Bridge Gold finish to pickup covers, machine heads, Bigsby, bridge, etc adds to the sumptuous appearance of this very special ES-350

BigsBy Close-up inspection reveals that the Bigsby trem was factory fitted by Gibson at the time of manufacture

october 2017 Guitarist

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Techniques

Video demo

http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

Jump Blues Bootcamp Continuing our journey back through the decades to look at when jazz and blues collided to produce one of music’s most exciting formulae!

Chris shows how to take the best from a player’s style and make it your own

Barney Kessel’s Bluesy Bop Difficulty HHHHH | 10 mins per example Tutor: Chris Corcoran

|

Gear used: Framus Broadway archtop (with flatwound strings) through a Honeyboy 5 amp

Barney Kessel (1923- 2004) was known as a jazz guitarist, but, as the saying goes, you can’t play jazz without knowing the blues! Barney was also a first call session player during the 1960s and a member of the LA studio scene’s infamous Wrecking Crew, playing on countless hit singles of the day. He

146 Guitarist october 2017

was also an educator and exponent of the jazz guitar style nicknamed ‘chord melody’.

Surely this level of sophistication is miles away from the raucous jump blues style we’re looking at here? In fact, no. There is a close relationship between the stylings of jazz – especially in its big-band manifestation – and jump blues guitar playing, more so, in fact,

than some of the Delta-inspired, quasi-minor key stylings emanating from the Deep South.

Barney’s playing was at once melodic and locked into the harmony of whatever he was called upon to play over. Here, Chris demonstrates how it’s possible to cherry-pick from a player’s style, taking fragments and enriching them with ideas of your own.

Techniques

Example 1 CHris iniTially came across this lick on one of Barney Kessel’s recordings. He was particularly keen on the way in which he concluded the solo, a wonderful, staggered arpeggio idea, which he took as a platform to build an idea of his own. First, here’s the way Barney played the conclusion to his solo.

–

qq=qce

4 &4 Ó

‰ b œJ

Œ

E B G D A E

œ œ œ œ œ

œ œ œ

8

9

8

10

12

8

12

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

8

8

10

10

9

10

œ œ œ œ ˙

9

10

9

10

1

Example 2 in exTendinG the idea from Example 1, Chris has created something of his own, continuing the same sort of arpeggiated line by taking the pattern and basically spreading it out for a further two bars. This demonstrates how, when something catches your ear, you can embellish it and use it in your own soloing.

bœ œ œ œ 4 Ó Œ ‰ &4 J E B G D A E

8

9

8 10

œœœœœ œ œ œ œœœœœ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœœœœœœ œ œœœœ˙ 12

8 12 8

10

8

10

9

10

9

10

9

10

9

10 7

10 7

10

7

10 7

10 7

1

8

Example 3

THe idea demonstrated in Example 2 has set us up for a new chorus, starting on the C. In this example, Chris has given us an idea of how to begin the next phrase. Look how he uses arpeggios – C maj and D min – to begin the phrase. A simple harmonised scale given an effective twist in the final two beats to deliver a great, jazz-inspired lick.

4 &4

∑

E B G D A E

148 Guitarist october 2017

œ

1

8

œ

7

œ

10

œ

10

œ

8

œ

7

œ

7

œ

10

œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ

7

10

7

10

7

8

9

10

Video demo

Techniques

http://bit.ly/guitaristextra

Example 4 MovinG to the key of Ab now – remember that flat keys are common in jazz thanks to the horn section’s relatively easy ride with them – Chris demonstrates a six-bar solo fragment, moulded on another of Barney’s recorded ideas, beginning with an arpeggiated idea once again that flows from the I chord (Ab) into the IV (Db).

Ab

b b 4 &b b 4

∑

3

E B G D A E

bœ œ nœ œ bœ bœ œ J ‰

œ œ ‰ œ ‰ n œ b œ ‰ œ œ œJ ‰ J œ J

œ.

4

5

6

5

4

4

6

4

7

9

8

6

6

7

8

1

b b nœ bœ œ œ œ nœ bœ œ &b b

Db

b œœ

j œ œ b œ œ ‰ œœ

j œ. œœ

Ó

Let ring E B G D A E

7

6

5

6 6

5

4 6

4 4

4 6

6

4

6

4 3

4

Chris Corcoran Band Blues Guitar Grooves

Hear Chris’s stellar guitar work on his latest album, Blues Guitar Grooves, which sees him backed by a horn section for the first time, performing smoky, evocative swing-blues instrumentals in very fine style. Check it out – it’s one of our records of the year already! www.chriscorcoranmusic.com

october 2017 Guitarist

149

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