Featured, News »

A new website, which aims to be – among other things – a social network for guitar-lovers and collectors has just gone live.
dbTwang hopes to become the world’s largest online guitar database, allowing its users to store information on their guitars and browse other’s guitars.
You will be able to view profiles of individual guitars, see images and read information about their history.  You can even ‘follow’ a particular guitar to track it and you can interact with its owner.
One of the aims of dbTwang is to record the ‘provenance’ of …

Accessories, Featured »

Now this is clever.
WiaMUSIC are offering a unique method of displaying and storing your guitar or bass.
We’re all familiar with the headstock-style guitar hangers. Two prong-things hold the guitar from the headstock end of the neck. It’s all well and good.
Woodie (the man behind WiaMUSIC, we think) has come up with a new idea.
Two clear, acrylic brackets that hold the strap buttons on your guitar.
The brackets can be screwed to the wall and will hold your guitar in any position, even from the ceiling.  Installation seems pretty easy and they …

Featured, Music »

MusicRadar have written regarding John Frusciante’s position as guitarist with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It seems, that he’s not.
A ‘source close to the band’ has said that Josh Klinghoffer has been rehearsing with the Peppers for the last couple of months and that the band is trying to find a permanent replacement for John.
The source said, “Mentally, John checked out a long time ago. He’s interested in doing his own thing, his own albums – the whole big rock band machinery just doesn’t appeal to him anymore.”
MusicRadar tell us that, …

Workshop »

This is a bit special.  It’s a lovely, pre-war Martin.  Actually, it’s pre-1934 if you want to get a little more precise (but only a little) – it’s fitted with bar frets.
It’s been through the wars a little and has, at some stage in the past had a long side-crack repaired. That repair has lasted some time from the look of it and doesn’t overly concern me.
What is a concern, however, is the bridge.  The leading edge has cracked and broken off under string-tension.  The owner saved the piece that …

Factory Tours, Featured »

Off to Carvin this week.  We’ll get a look at a number of complicated CNC machines make the various bits that make the various Carvin guitars before checking out the finishers applying a couple of different finishes – including a black/blue burst.  You can see the guys in the factory doing final setup and even see pickups being wound.
Take a look.

Featured »

Are you guitar enough?
Maybe you’ve got some guitar magazines under your coffee table.  Maybe you’ve got some picks strewn around your coffee table.  But, have you got a guitar coffee table?
Were betting not.  Now you can remedy that.
If you provide Fender with $250, they will provide you with a coffee table in the shape of a Strat headstock.  If you’re really, really flush, you could part with $750 for a Deluxe model of either a Strat or a Tele headstock.
We’re guessing most living rooms probably won’t be adorned with these …

Featured, News »

If you pop over to Fender’s UK site, you can register to win a Squier Telecaster that has been signed by a whole crapload of musicians.
All you need to do is enter your details at Fender and this could be yours. The winner will be picked on 4th of January.
All of the autographers (yeah, we know it’s not a word) are members of bands who performed at this year’s Reading Festival.
And there’s a lot of them.  The guitar is signed by:

Alexisonfire
Atreyu
Bring Me The Horizon
Deftones
Enter Shikari
Fightstar
Frank Turner
Funeral For A Friend
Glasvegas
Gossip
Hockey
Kids In …

Amps, Featured »

Line 6 are giving away more stuff.  Only a few days ago, we looked at their Propellerhead Record/POD Studio GX offer and now they’re at it again.
For the month of December, if you buy a Spider IV amplifier AND an FBV foot-contoller for it you can get yourself a Backtrack portable digital recorder for freeeeee.
The Backtrack is a pocket-sized unit specially designed for guitarists.  It has a full 1/4″ input and output and high-quality audi recording to flash memory.  USB connection will import your recorded audio to your favourite DAW …

Featured, News »

It’s getting towards that time of year again.  Out with the old, in with the new and all that.  And, as a discerning, guitar-geek, you need something to record important dates – gigs, rehearsals, Yngwie Malsteem’s birthday, that sort of thing.
You could make do with that calendar that your significant-other has bought – the one full of pictures of weird, fluffy kittens looking terrified because a photographer has glued them into a boot for the purposes of a shot that makes a certain person say ‘awwwww’ but makes most people …

Featured, News »

Dave Stewart, guitary-half of the Eurythmics, is auctioning off his vintage Gretsch White Flacon in order to raise funds for non-profit organisation, Stand Up To Cancer.
The guitar is being auctioned on eBay and, at the time of writing, there is a little under three days left in which to bid.  You can take a look at the auction page here.
The mid-50′s Gretsch has been played and extensively gigged by Stewart.  It’s also featured in the ‘Don’t Ask Me Why’ music video. It comes with its original, Eurythmics, flight case.  As …