Month: May 2018

BluGuitar TwinCabbluguitar.comBluGuitar—of the BluGuitar Amp 1 System fame—has announced its new TwinCab amp cabinet. The TwinCab weighs under 20 kilograms (44 pounds) and can be operated in both mono and stereo. Its closed-back design boasts two bass reflex openings, while two BG-12 Special Speakers—placed within the cab’s Baltic birch construction—also come standard.ADVERTISEMENTThanks for watching!Visit WebsiteThe TwinCab comes with a padded protective cover. The TwinCab is available now for £699 (~$940). For more info, head on over to bluguitar.com. via Guitar World https://ift.tt/2IX73YM

Cort Sunset TCCort GuitarsCort has unveiled its new Sunset TC electric guitar. A hybrid of the T-style and the LP-style, the Sunset TC incorporates the features of two types of iconic solid-body electric guitars. The ash body is lightweight but has a tight and punchy sound with emphasis on the high-midrange. The guitar has a distressed finish that's available in Worn Butter Blonde or Worn White Blonde, and is built with ash tonal wood and a bolt-on hard maple neck. It also features a jatoba fingerboard with 9.45’’ radius on a 25.5" scale.ADVERTISEMENTThanks for watching!Visit WebsiteThe Sunset TC comes with a Seymour Duncan-designed P90-1 bridge pickup and TE103B neck pickup, plus one volume pot and one tone pot with a 3-pickup selector. Vintage-style tuning machine heads and knobs and nickel…

Photo by Igor Zalbidea / CC BY Bass guitars are typical heavier than electric guitars, so most players know what’s waiting for them when they strap them on. However, some people can’t handle the immense weight of bass guitars on their backs, beginners in particular. For tons of folks, searching for a lightweight model is therefore a no-brainer. We aim to help you find it, and after our recommendations, we go into what you should be looking for when selecting a light bass guitar. But first . . . Here are our recommendations for the 4 best lightweight bass guitars on the market: Epiphone Toby Standard-IV Bass Guitar Epiphone "Toby" Standard-IV 4 String Electric Bass Guitar, Trans Amber Price: $269.00 Price as of 05/15/2018 16:55 PDT (more info) Product prices and…

Damian FanelliWe all know the old joke. A man is walking down the streets of Manhattan and someone approaches him for directions, asking, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The man replies, "Practice, practice, practice." Truer words have not been spoken. But this begs the question: Do we really know how to practice?ADVERTISEMENTThanks for watching!Practice is defined as "performing an activity or exercise repeatedly or regularly in order to improve one's proficiency." The keys to successful practice time are in the definition: repeatedly and regularly. In this column, I hope to offer some insights into how to make the most of our practice time and keep it fun and challenging at the same time, all while keeping realistic goals in mind.If you're like me, you have very little time…

In the pantheon of great guitar makers, Ed Stilley’s work stands alone like a castaway on its own musical island. Imperfect, bizarre and some even un-tunable to the modern equal temperament scale, his crudely made stringed instruments would make the most adventurous guitar collector shudder.And yet, his instruments (and, even more, his story) are just as fascinating as Leo Fender or C. F. Martin.ADVERTISEMENTThanks for watching!Visit WebsiteA gorgeous new hardcover book by the University of Arkansas Press has just been published, documenting the life and work of this outsider luthier. The book, True Faith, TrueLight: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley, captures his story and features stunning full-color pictures of his work. It is authored by musician and folklorist Kelly Mulhollan of Still on the Hill.From the book’s intro: In…

Late last week, the gang over at Atlas Obscura shared a truly engaging video that shows shiny new electric guitars being built in England in 1965. To be more precise, these axes are being assembled at the old Burns factory in Essex, England. The clip, which was posted by British Pathé, is extra enjoyable because of its curmudgeonly narrator, who slips in silly comments about rebellious teens and youths, including, "all this to make a bedlam of adolescent noise" and “the guitar boys have to pay so much for their guitars that they have no money left for a haircut.” Ridiculous. ADVERTISEMENTThanks for watching!Visit Website Anyway, at the 49-second mark, you can see how the rosewood fingerboard and nickel frets are fastened to a guitar's neck by hand. Pretty much the entire clip is fascinating,…

Cindy MoorheadSweep picking is an incredibly useful and exciting technique that allows guitarists to perform arpeggios in a flashy, keyboard-like manner. It has become a huge part of my playing style, and I’m always looking for new and different ways to incorporate sweep picking into musical ideas I come up with. Last month, I detailed the basic mechanics of the technique, and now I’d like to further demonstrate its proper execution. ADVERTISEMENTThanks for watching!Visit WebsiteTo review, a sweep is the movement of the pick across two or more adjacent strings in a single, continuous stroke, a downstroke being used to play an ascending melodic line and an upstroke used to play a descending one. Sweeping across only two adjacent strings is also often referred to as economy picking, or rest-stroke…

Throughout the European leg of the band's WorldWired tour, Metallica's Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo have taken to covering a song—during each show's instrumental break—by a local artist. During their show Wednesday night at Oslo, Norway's Telenor Arena, the two chose to pay tribute to a somewhat unlikely Norwegian act, Eighties synth-pop mainstays A-ha. Now, unless you've managed to spend your entire life in a cave, you've heard A-ha's ubiquitous 1985 hit, "Take On Me," once, twice, or (more likely) a few thousand times. Chances are decent though, that you've never heard it like this. ADVERTISEMENTThanks for watching!Visit WebsiteYou can watch the duo's surprisingly faithful cover—which Trujillo introduces by telling the packed crowd "Remember, this is fun, it's a party!"—above. For more on Metallica and their ongoing WorldWired tour, be…

The updated Excel EXL-1 features a Seymour Duncan Johnny Smith Mini-humbucker.D'Angelico Guitars has introduced an upgraded version of its Excel EXL-1 archtop guitar. The updated Excel EXL-1 features a Seymour Duncan Johnny Smith Mini-humbucker, split-block inlays and an Art Deco-influenced scroll-style fingerboard bevel. The Excel EXL-1 is also now available in an iced tea burst finish for the first time.The Excel EXL-1 is now available at select dealers, starting at $1,499.99.For more info on the guitar, stop by dangelicoguitars.com.ADVERTISEMENTThanks for watching! via Guitar World https://ift.tt/2roViQj

The number of guitars that Mick Mars has gone through over the past three decades in the limelight with Mötley Crüe probably rivals the total amount of porn stars that Charlie Sheen has dated. Literally hundreds of instruments passed through his hands in the Eighties alone, from the trusty black 1972 Les Paul Custom that he used to record the band’s early albums to various Kramers, Charvels and Hamers in every imaginable shape. The number of guitars that Mick Mars has gone through over the past three decades in the limelight with Mötley Crüe probably rivals the total amount of porn stars that Charlie Sheen has dated. Literally hundreds of instruments passed through his hands in the Eighties alone, from the trusty black 1972 Les Paul Custom that he used…