Fret Light guitars
The guitar plugs directly into your PC too so there`s no need for clunky interfaces or stuff like that that needs configuring and the supplied axemaster software is a fully-featured guitar fretboard diagram creation tool, as well as a platform for integrated HTML-based guitar lessons. The best part about AxMaster is it is totally customizable. The chords and scales can be lit up in any key, any fret range, and in any string combination so the player can experiment to their hearts delight. Precise open tunings can be tweaked and saved and lit up on the Fretlight guitar. No other learning system can match the power of AxMaster and a Fretlight guitar. The advanced player can also make custom chord and scale diagrams and insert them into a list, called a Macro. Here they can instantly recall those or step through them with the optional dual footswitch. A powerful Macro editor allows creation of custom progressions. Fully-loaded with our entire list of chords, scales, arpeggios, triads and more. Supports alternate tunings, one click modulation displays note locations on screen and on the Fretlight Guitar neck in real-time.
Country Music Sounds
IF you’re a fan of country music then you`ll be familiar with the sweet, mellifluous sounds of the pedal steel – that smooth sliding, portamento characteristic of country music. Unlike other types of steel guitar, it uses foot pedals and knee levers to affect the pitch and a slide, (the steel), to fret the strings. […]
BOSS RC-20XL loopstation
At last… back by popular demand and fully loaded – it`s an introduction to the BOSS RC-20XL loopstation filmed live at the Rotherham Acadamy by guitar tutor Danny Maddocks. So, if you’re interested in finding out a little bit about what the loopstation can do then hit play below and enjoy the video. Enjoy! Learn […]
Digitech Whammy
What’s ten years old, a furious red colour and squeels when you stamp on it? NO, it’s not that; it’s the digitech whammy pedal. It’s been a decade since the Whammy pedal was introduced and now it has a permanent place in the history of rock and roll. The Whammy not only adds to your […]
Choosing a pick
The word “plectrum” is the Latinized form of the Greek πλῆκτρον (pléktron), “anything to strike with, an instrument for striking the lyre, a spear point”[1] and that from the verb πλήττω (pletto), the Attic Greek form of πλήσσω (plesso), “to hit, to strike, to smite, to sting”[2]. “Plectrum” has both a Latin-based plural, plectra (from […]
Choosing a guitar
Here’s Ben talking you through the guitar selection process. Quite simply WONDERFUL! You can also find some more zen-like guitar selection ideas on this post choosing acoustic guitars. Cheers, Jake Edwards
Ebow
One key variable is its interplay with your pickup. The closer you bring the EBow to a magnetic pickup that is on, the louder and brighter the sound. This only happens very close to the pickup. This is called the playing area. You can vibrate the string anywhere along its length from the nut to the bridge, but the dramatic volume change occurs only very near a pickup that is on. Staying in this small playing area gives you lots of control over the tone and volume dynamics.
Guitar Nuts
Nothing to do with squirrels; this post is intended to help you make the correct choice when replacing your guitar’s nut. If you like to play play a tremelo arm or whammy bar as part of your style but find that your strings just keep breaking then this post will hopefully get you through! Even if you don’t whammy like a madman and your strings continue breaking at or near the nut then it’s time to consider a replacement. You may also like to consider upgrading the saddles in your bridge if you find consistent string breakage a problem in this area also.
The nut is the part of the guitar at the end of the fretboard which the strings pass across where the headstock and fingerboard meet. The nut is ordinarily a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite and stainless steel with grooves for the string to sit within and some come replete with rollers and ballbearings to reduce friction.
Andres Segovia & modern classical guitar
For today’s post we’re going to take a quick look at the classical guitar and a few key players thereof. If you’re interested in taking a a quick tour through the guitar’s history then a shortlist of great players might have to include the following:
Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710), Fernando Sor (1778-1839), Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909), Andrés Segovia (1893-1987), and John Williams (1941) and Julian Bream.
During the Golden Age of Flamenco, between around 1869–1910 guitar players supporting flamenco dancers had gained an increasing reputation and flamenco guitar as an art form was born. By the beginning of the Twentieth Century however the status of the classical guitar was in decline, and only in Barcelona and in the Rio de la Plata region of South America could it have been said to be of any significance.
John Martyn – fuzz box folk
His first album London Conversation remained more strictly folk oriented in terms of genre but what made Martyn particularly unique was his guitar set up whereby he ran his acoustic guitar through a fuzzbox, a phase-shifter, and an Echoplex which he used to produce more progressive rock styled guitar motifs within the broader contexts of the folk-jazz idiom. This approach begins to be heard on his second album Solid Air is reinforced on Storm Bringer and also on his more atmospheric, reggae infused One World album.
Today we`re going to have a look at English guitarist and musician John Martyn – an electrifying guitarist and singer whose music blurred the boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and blues:
It`s definitely worth illuminating Martyn’s individual approach to his effects and equipment as a key factor in defining a highly individual sound and approach within folk music.