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Just in time for the single-coil holiday season: my comparison review of 16 humbucker-sized P-90 pickups is live at Premier Guitar. This heartwarming holiday fun-fest has it all: Mouth-watering adjectives. Freshly baked audio clips. Irate manufacturers. Don’t miss it! This was a fun, if challenging project. Comparison pickup reviews are such cans […]
UPDATE: My Premier Guitar Heptode Virtuoso review is live. Read and listen here. I’ve got phase shifters on the brain, especially after encountering a couple of truly stunning ones. I just wrote a review for Premier Guitar of Heptode’s Virtuoso phaser, a superb clone of the old Maestro PS-1A. (I’ll link to the […] I just bought 500 germanium transistors.(Yes, as a matter of fact, I am insane. Why do you ask?) UPDATE: My Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini review is live at Premier Guitar. Audio clips included! How and when did it get so frickin’ easy to procure great-sounding germanium transistors? I’ve been building stompboxes for four […] 
As threatened, the Fuzz Detective video: WHAT: Twelve germanium fuzz circuits compared and analyzed. These represent the sounds of almost every fuzz pedal introduced between 1962 and 1968. WHY: A tool to help players identify the circuits most relevant to their musical needs. This isn’t about particular brands of pedals, but the circuits they […] You can purchase a kit, or source your own parts. UPDATE [06.16.2013]: Build instructions updated to v02. The Fuzz Face has inspired countless spinoffs since Ivor Arbiter unveiled the device in 1966. Some introduced meaningful improvements. Many didn’t. The goal of this project, created by my friend Mitchell “Super-Freq” Hudson, is to create […] 
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! […] Only very bad dogs like ring modulation! No disrespect to Chuck Berry, but I seriously doubt Johnny B. Goode played guitar just like a-ringin’ a bell unless he was using a ring modulator. That’s the only effect that can give you the complex, clangorous harmonics of a bell or a cymbal. Or make […] 
You can probably get cool tones from any old crap with a tube in it, such as this ’60s PA amp. There were lots of interesting replies to last week’s post on small amps. Thanks for all the tips about some of today’s best tiny terrors! The discussion reminded me of a cool […] 
Plastic guitars are not a new idea! In comments to a recent post on 3D-printed guitars, we were discussing the pros, cons, and general aesthetics of instruments molded from plastic. But this isn’t exactly a new idea. Back in the 1950s, luthier Mario Maccaferri conceived a line of plastic guitars and ukuleles. (This […] 
A unique pickup in a “unique” guitar. I’ve never owned a Burns guitar, and I have only one with Burns pickups: a funky mid-’60s Baldwin Virginian I scored for $100 some 20 years ago. It’s a cheap plywood piece of crap — but it’s my piece of crap, and I’m quite attached to […] |
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