Articles Archive for November 2009
Featured, News »
Rather an odd piece of news this. Seems that federal agents raided Gibson’s guitar manufacturing plant in Nashville and seized guitars, wood and other items as evidence in a possible case of illegal use of restricted woods.
The use of some woods that are used in guitar-making is restricted and tightly controlled. For instance, it is almost impossible to properly source Brazilian rosewood (generally considered to be the most desirable) in any quantity. Restrictions exist on other tropical hardwoods and instrument-manufature tonewoods too. It looks like the Feds …
Featured, News »
Fender has posted an interview with guitarist, John 5.
There can’t be many that are unfamiliar with John 5, if only from his work with Marilyn Manson. He has, of course, worked with a shed-load of other artists and is lucky enough to have both a Fender and a Squier signature model (and both quite nice they are too).
You may not know, however, that he has a Fender Telecaster from every year they’ve been available except for ’57, ’58 and ’60. Lucky bastard.
His favourite is a 1950 Broadcaster.
It’s a good interview …
Featured, Software »
I mean really free. Not a ‘might win if you enter this competition’ free. Not ‘buy all this other stuff and then get this’ free. Really free.
All you need to do for this free lunch is to signup for TC Electronic mailing list (which, if you’re picky about such things, you can unsubscribe from anytime you want).
The M30 Reverb is a plug-in, available in VST and AU formats, that normally retails for $79. It takes the Hall reverb algorithm from TC’s M40 and makes it available on its own. It’s …
Featured, News »
I talked about the Epiphone Swingster when it was released a while back. I liked it then and we like it now.
I’d quite like to have one. So would you, I’m sure.
Well, maybe you can. If you head off to Epiphone, you can enter a competition and be in with a chance to get your sticky, sweaty, rock-a-billy hands on this swing-thing.
Go on. You’d be mad not to.
Featured, Guitar 101 »
Gibson tell us of a recent upsurge in fake and counterfeit Gibson guitars for sale – many of which are sold from Chinese wholesale sites like TradeTang.com, DHGate.com and MadeInChina.com (although this is, by no means, an exclusive list).
You can see such ‘bargains’ as a Les Paul Supreme for $297 or an Dot Reissue 335 for $346.
If only…
Remember, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. However, some information to (maybe) help in spotting a fake Gibson follows:
There seem to be a few things that the fakers …
Featured, The Month In Guitar »
Although there seems to be some argument over whether Gibson’s first ever electric guitar, the E-150 shipped in October or November of 1935, since this is November, I’m going to hang my hat on that month (purely for the lazy purposes of including it in this article).
Heavily influenced by Rickenbacker’s ‘Frying Pan’ which was released in 1932, the E-150 was at least somewhat guitar-shaped. Riding on the Hawaiian wave, the E-150 had a cast-aluminium body and ebony fingerboard (although that pictured is unusual with a rosewood board) with white fret …
News »
The net is abuzz with talk of the Gibson Dusk Tiger.
With details still pretty sketchy, a limited number of images and some, relatively high-level, information is turning up here and there.
So let’s have some here as well as there.
Continuing the guitars-for-the-21st-century theme (my words) of the Gibson’s Dark Fire, the Dusk Tiger comes crammed with a bundle of features to provide for some serious sonic tweakage.
The Dusk Tiger will have many of the same features as the Dark Fire such as Robot tuning, hex outputs, RIP computer interface, Chameleon tone …
Featured, News »
Hot on the heels of the spate of Angus Young SG models, Gibson announce this, the Buckethead Signature Les Paul.
With 28 solo albums under his KFC meal-deal hat and having played on countless other albums by countless other bands and solo artists, nobody can accuse Buckethead of being a fried chicken-eating couch-potato. He’s showed up on a crapload of ‘Superest Shredders Of All Time In The Universe Ever’ lists and now, he’s got his own signature Les Paul.
Sometimes, when Gibson do ‘contemporary’, they make a mess of it. Rumours are …
Featured, News »
If you’ve already read the previous article on the production model of the Angus Young SG, you’ll know a lot of what this revamp of the Angus signature line is all about.
This one is the Gibson Custom Shop version – the Angus Young SG Standard – and while it’s similar, it does have a few important variations that are worth considering in their own right.
First off, the finish here is not the black of the production model. Instead, Gibson tell us this is ‘Angus Cherry’. We all love a cherry …
Featured, News »
So, Gibson have seen fit to seriously tweak the Angus Young signature line. Not before time. While the previous Angus SG was a very, very fine guitar, it just wasn’t really very ‘Angusy’. We couldn’t really imagine him duck-walking around the stage with a lyre-type vibrato attached to his SG.
Well, many of the previous wrongs have been rectified with not one, not two, but three new Angus Young signature SGs. It’s like waiting for a bus.
I think we’ll look at these over two separate posts. In this first, we’ll …
Read the full story »
