Most sentient guitarists love Hendrix, but not everyone is equally fond of his signature distortion pedal. So what’s your take on the Fuzz Face? I used to hate them — but only because my sole exposure to them was via the crappy reissues of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. They sounded so brittle and harsh! […] While responsible guitar journalists like my ol’ pal Art Thompson from Guitar Player and the fine young fellows from Premier Guitar scoured Musikmesse 2013 tirelessly and systematically, I did the opposite, randomly stumbling through the vast exhibition halls in a jet-lagged daze between my performances, aiming my iPhone at anything vaguely cool or weird. The […] 
For the first Fishman TriplePlay demo I posted last month, I featured pretty, naturalistic acoustic sounds. This time around I went for something a little less polite. I’ve been having a blast — albeit a humbling blast — trying to play real-time drum parts from the guitar. I still suck if it’s much more […] UPDATE, 03.07.13: I should have mentioned a point that several readers noted in comments: The capo only alters the tuning of open strings. Which means that while you can play many harmonies normally available only in dropped tunings, any notes above the capo appear at their usual frets. For example, all barre chords are […] I’ve installed TriplePlay on the homemade strat. For the last few months I’ve been working with Fishman on the documentation for TriplePlay, their long-awaited wireless MIDI guitar system, which will finally ship this quarter. I had a blast demoing TriplePlay at MacWorld a few weeks ago, and I’m looking forward to doing so […] I tend to regard the New Year’s resolution like New Year’s drinking: not necessarily a bad tradition, but one I feel no guilt about ignoring most years. But since I have some specific musical goals in 2013, I figured I’d share ’em — and open the floor to anyone who feels inspired to […] UPDATE: Here’s a direct link via SoundCloud. The file is downloadable for free. Sheesh — never occurred to me that folks might, like, actually download it and overwhelm my feeble little DropBox account! While most people are baking cookies or lining up at the grocery store for 45 minutes to buy those frickin’ […] Some boutique stompbox builders pursue endless refinements of classic pedal designs, developing ever-more-suave iterations of the Tube Screamer and Ross Compressor. And some just want to blow shit up. Guess which category Portland, Oregon’s Devi Ever falls into? Hint: Her extensive line of guitar and bass pedals includes such anarchy boxes as the Little Shit, […] A homely clone cowers in the shadow of a ramshackle original. Okay, here’s an old weirdo I’ve been meaning to write about for ages. The Systech Harmonic Energizer is an ultra-rare filter/distortion effect from the ’70s that takes the fuzz-wah formula in some interesting directions. Its signature is edgy, ultra-resonant filter sounds. You’re […] |
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