Category Archives: Electric Guitars

Electro Harmonix Stereo Talking Machine

February 8, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Guitarists have been experimenting with sound possibilities for as long as they have been around. Many recognize the voice as the most expressive of instruments and many guitar FX pedals have tried to emulate that expressiveness through various talk-box like effects.

Electro Harmonix (EHX) have produced a very versatile pedal in the Stereo Talking Machine. It not only has great presets right out of the box, it’s also highly programmable giving you even greater control over the way the pedal alters your notes. With 9 selectable voice types, you too could be  AH-OOing and OW-EEing in no time at all.

Like the sounds created by a mouth harp, where the metal reed is plucked and the vibrations altered by changing the shape of the players mouth, a Talk-box takes the sounds/notes you put in to it and alters them according to the volume you’ve played them and the shape of the specific filter you have chosen.

Because the sweeping effect is driven by how hard or soft you play the strings there is a massive scope of what sonic sounds can be achieved using the EHX Stereo Talking Machine. And because each sound choice responds so differently, it’s worth spending time experimenting with each to get a good grasp on what is possible.

The unit is a rectangle box affair, with the 6 control knobs across the top: Blend, Voice, Attack, Decay, Sensivitiy, and Preset. The preset knobs gives access to auxiliary functions for each knob including Volume, Fuzz tone, Fuzz Gain, LFO Rate and LFO Shape. A Low frequency Oscillator or LFO is a filter that responds over time rather than to playing dynamics and creates a more regular filter sweep.

You won’t find any lose of your guitar tone, but instead applies the different tonal colors of the ‘voices’ available from the unit. From the dark and smooth/soft tone of the EE-ER voicing to the midrange-heavy and rather resonant sound of the I-A voicing.

For each voicing, you can reverse the voicing for example EE-ER to ER-EE or I-A to A-I which gives you further options with the flick of the Preset/Sweep knob. You can also control this function via the expression pedal option.

The Stereo Talking Machine is an extremely versatile pedal with a wide variety of voicings and multiple control options of those voicings. Add to that access to a distortion circuit and sensitivity control and the tonal possibilities really grow. If you’re not familiar with talk-box effects sitting down and having a chat with the Stereo Talking Machine may result in a new found friendship.

 

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd Electro Harmonix Stereo Talking Machine

Posted by Dan Orr.

Posted in gear, guitar effects / pedals, music, Rock | Tagged , , ,

Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar Guitar

February 3, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Fender has struck again. This time at the hearts of early-90s, Nirvana loving guitarists with a penchant for hard rock…the way rock ought to be.

Carefully crafted to exacting precision, they’ve reproduced Kirk Cobain’s “battle-hardened left-handed Jaguar” including all the unusual details and the unique electronics that were on-board when Cobain first acquired the guitar in 1991.

Just some of the unique features included is the Stratocaster® Headstock, the Volume, Volume, Tone Control configuration, Adjusto-matic™ Bridge and Road worn aged finish. All this adds up to a very authentic copy of the axe used by Cobain, the left handed guitarist who “led a musically stunning and culturally subversive movement.”

newsletter28 gear kcjaguar Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar Guitar

So why would you want a copy of something like this if you want to do more than merely emulate a bygone musical era? I think the reason is two fold. First, inspiration. We take our inspiration from people that have been successful in the past. Perhaps secretly, hoping that some of their magic will rub off on us. Inspiration is quite different to taking something old and making it new. It’s about taking the essence of something old and creating something new with it.

And second, tone. Every guitar ever made has a unique tone because of the natural qualities of wood. A tree, when cut down, continues to ‘live’ as it changes with age. And while each Kurt Cobain Jaguar will have its own unique tone, unable to be replicated by the next one, each one will have within it an aspect of the tone that Cobain made famous.

Yes, there are guitar effects that color a guitars sound, but switch them all off and what you have is something raw. Something stripped back and complete. Something…unique.

Check out the sound of this beauty with BrewersArcade video:

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar Guitar

Posted by Dan Orr.

Posted in Artists, buying guitars, gear, Rock

Agile Partners Guitar Tool Kit 2.0

January 24, 2012 — Leave a Comment

If you haven’t already searched the slew of music apps available for the iPad, you won’t be surprised to learn that are some great guitar apps worth checking out. One such app is Agile Partners’ Guitar Tool Kit 2.0 featuring a number of essential tools any guitarist will benefit from.

For a very reasonable fee ($9.99), you can load your iPad, iPhone or Ipod Touch up with a tuner, metronome, chord, scale and arpeggio library. The tuner will give you accurate tunings not just for 6 string guitars, but also 7 and 12 as well. It also support 4, 5 and 6-string bass, banjo, mandolin and ukulele, with alternate tunings for each instrument. You can also dial in your own custom tunings.
newsletter25 review agilepartners Agile Partners Guitar Tool Kit 2.0
The metronome can be run in the background while you use other Guitartoolkit tools. It features a tempo tap pad, 25 sound effects and 22 time signatures meaning you’ll be keeping rock steady rhythms from now on.

The massive chord library gives you over 2 million chord diagrams, scales and appegios so you’ll never get stuck finding a chord and if you need to transpose a song, you can add in a capo and the chords will automatically adjust for the new key. For scales you can simply click on a note and a range of possible scales will be displayed. You just need to know how you use them.

There’s also an app upgrade ($4.99) that will give you the Advanced Metronome (for your iPad now and iPhone/Touch soon), giving you the ability to create your own drum beats with 32 instrument tracks and 75 distinct sounds to make your practice sessions all the more fun.

You’ll also be able to create your own interactive chord sheets and print or email them to a band member or friend. Click on any chord in the progression you’ve created and hear how it sounds.

And if that wasn’t enough, you will also have 60 instrument sounds at your fingertips to create custom instrument sounds for both acoustic and electric guitar through Agile Partners’ AmpKit tone engine.

For a quick video overview, check Agile Partners’ release video.

If you want essential guitar tools at your fingertips then Agile Partners’ Guitartoolkit 2.0 is well worth considering.

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd Agile Partners Guitar Tool Kit 2.0

Posted by Dan Orr.

Posted in acoustic guitars, computing, gear, Guitar Tools, learning | Tagged , , , , ,

What do the pros use?

January 19, 2012 — Leave a Comment

If you’ve ever wondered how your favorite artist gets that unique sound you can wonder no more. The guys at GuitarGeek, have dedicated their time and energy to compiling a comprehensive list of the amps, effects and guitars that artists use.

Over time their images of the artist’s setups have changed so that now they are both easy to understand and very nice to look at.

newsletter24 gear pros clapton What do the pros use?

Ever wanted to know just what Clapton was using in his days with the Bluesbreakers? The year is 1966 and Clapton is playing his 1950s Les Paul’s Standard through a Marshall Combo. Wanna know what speakers and tubes were in that model? Those details are all but a few clicks away.

While it might be hard to track down this particular model with a modest price tag, the information provided gives you a decent head start on what to look for and what could be possible.

And if nothing else, this information will add to your ever growing understanding of great tone. You can be pretty sure that the information provided on the site are sound, given that most of the information comes from the artist’s or their guitar tech’s mouths.

And with this type of direct contact you’ll find the occasional gem of behind the scenes takes from the artists themselves on their gear or band members and/or techies on the artist.

A great resource for geek-ing out and putting together the dream set up, should all your stars align and you win the lottery. Take a look.

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd What do the pros use?

Posted by Dan Orr.

Posted in amplifiers / pickups, Artists, buying guitars, gear, guitar effects / pedals, Guitar Tools, Rock | Tagged , , ,

Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier Head

January 19, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Since the days of designing and building amps in an old converted dog kennel in the hills of Northern California, Randall Smith and his band of music obsessed, tone junkies have been baking up new designs to push high gain, multi-valve, multi-input guitar amps to the next level.

The Triple Rectifier Head is one more example of this ongoing development of great sounding amps. Following on from the success of the patented Dual Rectifier ® series, they introduced a third channel upping the gain to a massive 150 Watts (switchable) and adding more switchable modes to increase the sonic possibilities.

newsletter23 gear triple rectifier Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier Head

Each channel has a separate 5 way EQ to control the Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence and Master settings as well as a separate gain for each channel. There’s also the option to choose what power setting you want: 150 Watt or 50 Watt, so you can play at a lower level while maintaining the high gain crunch.

In addition to these individual channel settings you have and Output section that allows you to alter, up or down all channels in one go. The Main output allows you, once you’ve locked in each channel to your desired sound, to boost or lower the overall output volume of all channels at once. The Solo switch, gives you another volume setting that is applied (in parallel) over all channels for Solos – which is also foot switchable.

Each channel gives you the choice between two types of rectification to apply; Silicon Diode for tighter low end tracking, more head room and a more articulate sound and Vacuum Tube for less head room, a sweeter and less articulate sound.

And for tuning in silence, they now have a dedicated Tuner output so you can tune without everyone listening in.

Not only is this amp packed with great sound options, you also get a choice of front panel from the iconic diamond plate, black taurus or jute to match the look and feel you best matches you.

There are so many options packed into the Triple Rectifier that you’ll want to spend some serious time experimenting with. Of course, the Mesa guys give you heaps of tips and technical know-how within the user manuals, which are available online and make for easy and informative reading.

I’ll admit, 150 watts is a massive amount of noise potential and not one that I’m accustomed to using. But that wouldn’t stop me from taking a test drive. Check out the video below to hear some of the boundless options the Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier is capable of.

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier Head

Posted by Dan Orr

Posted in amplifiers / pickups, buying guitars, gear, Rock | Tagged , , ,
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