I was gifted that 61 Les Paul by the CEO of a music store called the Chicago Music Exchange
I think I needed to make the mistakes I did to get to where I am today
World Guitar Day is set to be the biggest guitar event of 2018.
I played with my brother forever, and we were magically locked in together
Players like Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen and Steve Lukather are well known for adding tapped notes to bends
We’re trying to make pedals for people who have the best guitars and the best amps and who don’t want to lose touch with them
The Mini Superbeetle may look like a toy, but it’s more than capable of holding its own with many full-sized amps
There is an even response all over the drum head and at all tunings which is largely due to the consistency of the shell construction
The example solo demonstrates a strong concentration of ideas for you to ‘dilute’ to taste
It’s got a lot of growl to it, the high end is punch and very clear, it definitely keeps up with the AD200 as far as tone goes
Steve Micciche (Every Time I Die)
It’s a medium for communication of all these emotions we can’t normally or necessarily express
Thanks to digital technology and high-quality load boxes, we can have our cake and eat it
The Torpedo by Two Notes gives superb simulation
The streamlined Mini RockCrusher Recording load box has all the analogue tone you could want both on stage and in the studio
The RockCrusher Recording is an indispensable part of the toolkit for many top LA players
Those on a budget need look no further than the latest version of Hughes & Kettner’s Red Box
The earliest Broadcasters/No-Casters/ Telecasters are often referred to as ‘black guards’ on account of their black Bakelite pickguards
“Looking back, I think, ‘Fucking hell! What were we thinking?’ We were just living: young, black and in England.”
"It’s the ultimate VIP experience."
Joe Satriani
The neck mod isn’t the only Players Edition family trait set to leave the purists in distress
I think the guitar still has a lot of evolving to do!
As a stand-alone backline amp, the Unity 500 has everything you could possibly need in terms of power, accuracy, features and tone
It’s a friendly fingerpicker, with a low end deep enough to make this guitar tonally versatile
At one point it was kind of crazy because people would show up with snare drums just to see if I would play them
People know they’re great artists, but is Bilal bigger than Justin Bieber? Of course not. So that’s why this whole project is put together
To open up all of your tapped note options, you will benefit greatly from learning your scales along the string, rather than in the typical scale positions
A lethal combination of super-clean bright and shiny chrome with musically complex and dark funky brass
The downside of all this analogue stuff though, unfortunately, is that it’s heavy, it’s hard to stay in tune, you can lose the presets and things like that
I think I’m a bit of an idiot savant in that respect, and the irony is that I’m now teaching at one of the country’s greatest music conservatories
The AC30S1 gives a modern interpretation of the Top Boost tone wrapped up in traditional looks
You have to sometimes remind yourself that a really cool groove is enough. There’s so many ways to make it cool and to find new things, new territories
A compact pine cabinet and a single Jensen P12R made the Deluxe easy to carry and it made its way onto many bandstands
The red-topped G6131T FT is clearly a hot-rodded 50s-style Jet Firebird
With just a little more tension in the heads, we find a sweet spot, which delivers maximum tone but also maintains the lower frequencies
You can spend a day in the studio with the latest guitar plugin and write your guitar part. But, when you start putting that song together, the guitar will still sound fake. Sorry, but that’s my opinion.
I’m not a synthesiser professor. I have no problem with starting a song with a preset… it keeps things flowing while you’re putting the song together.
Joe Bonamassa's my hero, man! He's the perfect example of someone who stuck with it and became a force to be reckoned with
I was after more of a '70s hard-rock guitar tone, right before metal got crunchy and midrange-y
Always warm up slowly on a single string and build from there
People often get stuck writing riffs or creating, and it’s important to remember you can find an influence from any of the arts
The most famous player of the DMM is U2’s The Edge; you will have heard it on iconic tracks like Sunday Bloody Sunday
This apparent contradiction between enormous respect within his field and his popular ‘success’ is just one of many other contradictions in the man
Holdsworth calculated 100s of scales in his ‘phonebook of hell’ and worked through them, rejecting ones that were “too crowded” to find the ones that most appealed
A delay pedal’s settings need to change drastically based on the hardness and compression of the amp you’re going in to
I’d say Alex Skolnick and I both learned a lot from each other: me being more aggressive and saying everything has to sound evil and him being more of a ‘musical’ musician
A good way to warm up the picking hand is to hold down the chord shapes and practise moving the pick through the strings
The actual build quality is hard to fault with no finish or setup imperfections to speak of
One of the earlier songs from our debut, Apocalyptic City, is relentless. I can’t play that fast any more