The Latest in Guitar Prosthetics!

Ever wish your finger was a little bit longer?

I just procured some clever new gizmos designed to help unfortunate players who were born without 12-inch fingers and five-foot arms.

First up: The VKnob from Option Knob, an angled plastic lever that replaces standard volume and tone knobs. It’s worth investigating if you’re […]

MIDI Guitar Meltdown

Okay, I promise: tonefiend is not going to become an all-digital blog. I’ve got two new DIY analog pedal projects in the pipe, plus a piece on that delightfully retro technology, the book.

But while there’s more to life than MIDI, for the last few months my particular life has been all MIDI, all the […]

Analog Schmanalog

Ever notice how most analog vs. digital battles discussions boil down to two basic questions?

1. Can digital sound as good as analog? 2. What are the practical benefits of digital?

They’re good questions, but they tend to overshadow another important (and probably more interesting) topic: What are the musical benefits of digital?

Everyone loves […]

Synth Guitar:
Did They Finally Get It Right?

Anyone here ever owned a synth guitar? Not a Keytar, but a guitar fitted with a hexaphonic pickup that transmits MIDI data to external devices? And if so, do you readily admit it?

The synth guitar has had one of the most checkered histories outside of, well, checkers. Since the ’70s, many brilliant minds […]

A Loop-Oriented Laptop Guitar Rig

I haz a band.

My ol’ pals at Guitar Player magazine interviewed me for an instructional article on looping for next month’s issue. It was especially flattering to be invited, because the interviewer was Barry Cleveland, a fine guitarist and a leading figure in the looping community.

I put together this little video […]