Okay, it’s not the ultimate lipstick-tube guitar for everybody, but it probably is for me. It’s my third lipstick-tube pickup experiment — and definitely my favorite. You may have heard some of these parts before: I used the neck for all my Mongrel Strat projects, and the Strat-sized Seymour Duncan pickups appeared in my […] Premier Guitar just posted my latest Recording Guitarist column. The subject: Capturing the haunting reverbs of Southwestern ruins via impulse-response reverbs. Many years ago I marveled at the eerie reflections within the stone-walled ball court at Wupatki, an hour north of Flagstaff, Arizona. On this visit, I attempted to clone the tone. I did […] So much for demoing my new-fangled guitar and its new-fangled tone circuit this week. Pro tip: Just because your cheese grater looks like a Flying V and is called “The Shredder” doesn’t make it any less dangerous! However, the croque-monsieur was delicious (once I’d scraped away the blood and bits of flesh). […] Premier Guitar just posted my latest recording column. It focuses on the “Multitrack Masters” recordings and other illicitly leaked audio files that deconstruct classic rock recordings into separate tracks with each instrument isolated. This essential listening is thought-provoking for many reasons. The two that fascinate me most are a) what secrets these recordings […] I recently reviewed the gorgeous little Veillette Avante Gryphon for Premier Guitar and liked it so much that I bought one. This was my first opportunity to record it in my studio. The Avante Gryphon is a relatively low-cost version of Woodstock luthier Joe Veillette’s Gryphon, an 18.5″-scale 12-string designed to be tuned a minor […] 
Marvin Gore, 1940 If my blog and video posts have seemed fewer and less fun in recent months, it’s not your imagination. I’ve been shuttling between San Francisco and my childhood home in the LA suburbs, spending as much time as possible with my dad in the wake of a back-to-back broken hip […] Hey, smart people — let me get your take on this. I’ve been playing with a new tone control idea that’s so simple, I can’t believe no one’s done it before. (Chances are someone has.) Here’s the idea: Conventional electric guitar tone controls employ a single pot and single capacitor connected to ground. As you […] Here are the new U.S. Department of Transportation rules on flying with musical instruments. Sounds like carriers are required to check instruments. The key passage, per the DOT site: The rule requires that each U.S. carrier subject to this regulation allow a passenger to carry into the cabin and stow a small musical instrument, […] Lookit what Elvis got for Chanukah! I hope everyone’s holidays are splendid. And remember — even if you don’t have one of those families that you need to take a break from every 15 minutes, you can still slip into the other room, fire up Photoshop (and other stuff, if need be), and […] 
I was kind of stoked about my latest wiring experiment: a “double Varitone” scheme I installed in my DIY “Kitschcaster.” I’ve written about these multi-capacitor tone switches a lot on this site, but this is the first time I’ve tried using a similar scheme to cut bass frequencies. The result is a lot like the […] |
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