Month: August 2017

I love Earthquaker Devices. I love Warpaint. Put them together and you get a new Earthquaker Devices video series called “Board to Death“. Almost to much to like! I’ve talked about Warpaint in the past. I really, really, really dig this band – and I especially like their use of effects. Theresa Wayman is extremely talented, so I was happy to see this feature to see what’s going on the board. Just like all of us, the board evolves/changes over time, in the past, Theresa had a Small Stone, a single Pitch Fork and JHS Prestige. As a working musician, you need to adapt to make things easier or at the very least, less challenging while on stage. Adding the second Pitch Fork is a perfect example of this. Check…

For the past few months, the gang at Guitar World, Guitar Player, Bass Player, Guitar Aficionado, Keyboard and Electronic Musician has been holed up in our respective underground lairs, working behind the scenes on a new project: a website that brings obsessed gear heads all the information they could ever want—about the latest and greatest (and newest) equipment. Well, it's here! Our brand-new Ultimate Gear Guide is live and raring to go, inviting you to cut through all the “distortion” out there and offer an easy-to-navigate way to find your favorite gear. From guitars to basses to amps to effects, the Ultimate Gear Guide has got you covered. The site collects the best products that have been covered in our print magazines—Guitar World, Guitar Player, Bass Player, Guitar Aficionado, Keyboard and Electronic Musician—and their websites, as…

Photo by Boyd / CC BY Which pots to get for P90 pickups? Well, the P90 pickup gives players a sound that’s comfortably in between the more common styles of a standard single-coil design and a double-coil humbucker. They tend to produce less noise than your typical single-coil pickup but have a brighter tone than most humbuckers, more similar to the crisp, clean tone people prefer from a classic single-coil design. Since these pickups are in between the two main categories in size, it can be tricky to figure out what kind of pots work the best in a P90. There is some debate in the guitar community about whether they should use 250k or 500k pots. Most players favor 500k pots for the volume, but opinions are more split…

What kind of a player are you: straight into the amp, or do you build your sound through stompboxes or effects units? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because the maturity of digital modelling means there’s a third alternative: “It’s all in my Kemper/Helix/Axe-Fx/etc” so sometimes it’s just an amp, sometimes it’s a bunch of effects, and sometimes it changes from verse to chorus.” Me, I’m typically a straight-into-the-amp player. Generally I follow the EVH approach of using the guitar’s volume pot to adjust the amp gain, and most of the time I’m on the dirty channel whether I’m playing distorted or clean. I still love my pedals though and I’ve been collecting them since I was 13 years old so I’ve amassed a few favourites in that time.…

Since the announcement of the Electro-Harmonix Canyon Delay & Looper pedal, I have been longing to check this cool stompbox out. I currently have a variety of delays, reverbs and a small loop pedal on my board so the opportunity to get more out of one pedal, rather than all the rest, was very exciting to me. Let’s dive into this pedal’s features! The most impressive part about the Canyon are its 11 modes: Digital Delay, Modulated Delay, Multi-Tape Delay, Reverse Delay, Deluxe Memory Man, Tape Delay, Reverb Plus Delay, Octave Delay, Shimmer, Sample & Hold and a Loop that holds up to 62 seconds in length. Tap tempo is always a must for any delay enthusiast and with the EHX Canyon, you can even use an external footswitch to…

Boss has announced the AD-10 Acoustic Preamp, a new professional preamp/DI pedal for acoustic-electric guitar. The dual-channel AD-10 features the latest generation of Boss' Acoustic Resonance technology, which restores natural acoustic tone in amplified acoustic stage instruments. The pedal also includes numerous tone-shaping tools, onboard effects, and a looper, plus newly developed functions to control feedback with minimal tonal coloration. An unplugged acoustic guitar produces a complex, full-bodied tone that can’t be reproduced by the standard pickup systems installed on most stage guitars. Using proprietary Boss technology, the AD-10’s standout Acoustic Resonance feature solves this issue by analyzing the input signal in real time and employing advanced processing to recreate the guitar’s naturally resonant acoustic tone. Acoustic Resonance is also featured in other Boss products, including the Acoustic Singer amplifiers,…

Like muscle cars of the Sixties and Seventies, the Reverend SuperRev sounds as powerful as it looks. The single Railhammer Alnico Grande creates fat, thick and loud tone and an ebony fretboard is for high-speed playing. The Circle R brand on fire surrounded by “SuperRev” leads to a black drag strip down the center of the guitar. It comes in a trio of colors—’69 Orange, ’69 Lime and ’69 Yellow—all with matching headstocks. The Checkerboard Flag logo on the back marks it as a special edition, which will only be available August 2017 through July 2018. On all Reverend Guitars, there is a Boneite nut and locking tuners, Reverend’s Bass Contour Control and a dual-action truss rod—all for maximum performance. You can’t be different if you’re playing what everyone else is.…

Phil Hare came over recently and it’s always a real pleasure to see him. He bought his Hare Signature guitar over for some fret work and a general service. Phil’s had the guitar for 6 years now, played 100’s of gigs on it, taken it abroad etc. so it was more than interesting (from the luthier’s point of view) to have it back on the bench. Apart from the obvious wear and tear of a life well-played, everything was in order. Phil didn’t want an adjustable truss rod, just two lengths of carbon fibre. I ran the CF from the head, right into the neck block, so I was interested to see how this constructional detail was working out. I was extremely pleased how true the fretboard was throughout its…

I’ve mentioned in the past – one of the biggest genres that have influenced me in multiple ways was the British post-punk / goth movement in the early and mid 80s. By the time I was leaving high school in the late 80s, many of those bands have disbanded or ended completely. It was exciting to to follow the morphs and learning about their previous bands. For example, I knew about New Order before hearing any Joy Division. I knew about Love and Rockets before listening to any Bauhaus, etc. I loved going deeper into the history and understanding the progression. One of those transition bands, that I was absolutely obsessed with, that very few people seem to know about, was the band Tones on Tail. This was a band…

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Martin Yam Møller . If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedalline@nulleffectsbay.com. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page. Pedal Line Friday – 8/25 – Martin Yam Møller Hi, my name is Martin Yam Møller (from Hong Kong, living in Denmark) and I have a serious Moog addiction. I started collecting Moogerfoogers almost 7 years ago. Just a simple 12-stage phaser MF103, for its swirly wetness. And then the MF104z Analog Delay… one of the sweetest sounding and most flexible bucket-brigade delays ever made. Especially since most of the…