That Classic Electric 12-String Sound
(and How to Avoid It)

Digitally enhanced versions of the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage prove that Bigfoot used flatwounds.

Want to get a great ’60s-style Beatles/Byrds electric 12-string sound? Use flatwound strings. It’s almost guaranteed to up your jangle quotient.

This advice is admittedly counter-intuitive—why should relatively dull-sounding flatwounds improve a guitar’s treble response? My best explanation is that […]

Mutant Beauty Pageant: The Photo Gallery

Well, um, the entires in our Mutant Beauty Contest are certainly . . . something. Click the MORE button to open the slideshow. New beauties added daily!

Post your images to comments via a photo-sharing site, or email them to me. I’ll add each new mutant to the slideshow so the entire Internet can laugh […]

Mutant Beauty Pageant: Enter and “Win!”

It’s time for another contest!

I hereby announce the first Tonefiend Mutant Beauty Pageant.

I know many deadbeats with too much time on their hands musicians, and most of them have a thing for weird gear. I’m talking real freak-show stuff, the items that make anyone who walks into your music room shriek, “What the […]

How to Mic an Amp
Part 1: The Basics

Don't fear the mic! (Illustration: Elise Malmberg)

Recording be be brutal. Tracking vocals is tough. Capturing pianos or acoustic guitars is painstaking work. But recording electric guitars is easy, easy, easy—once you learn a few basics.

The post focuses on the simplest way to record a guitar amp: sticking a single mic in […]

Changing Three Pickups in Five Minutes
(and What It Sounds Like)

This is my kind of pickup change: the easy kind!

I got my hands on the new Seymour Duncan Everything Axe pickguard, which comes with three pre-installed Strat-format humbuckers (JB Jr., Duckbucker, and Little ’59). I’ve always avoided humbuckerized Strats because they remind of really bad ’80s bands. But I love the JB and ’59, […]

Let’s Talk Looping!

Here’s a little video I made yesterday using the looping setup I’ve been using live.

Any other looping geeks out there? I didn’t set out to be one—I just wanted to do a duo band with percussionist extraordinaire Dawn Richardson. Looping seemed, well, kind of ten years ago, but I got sucked in, […]

Can Cool Pickups Save a Crappy Guitar?

My cat is skeptical.

Multiple readers have asked some variation of that question since I launched this blog last month. I’ve been wondering myself as I prowled the local music emporia, searching for a fun, but seriously funky guitar to experiment on.

[…]

Practice Without an Instrument [VIDEO]

For players who have a little bit too much of a life: five fretting-hand exercises you can practice when you’re away from your guitar or bass. Make sure to run through them in public places so bystanders can alert the mental health authorities admire your prowess.

Vibrato: Do You Shake It Like Ethel?

Can you shake it like Ethel? And more important, SHOULD you?

Almost all of us are guilty of it: repetitive, auto-pilot vibrato.

Can you blame us? Between choosing the right notes, and trying to play them in tune and in time, we don’t always have surplus brain cells to shape each note individually. […]

Humbucker + P-90 = ?

It's not like these pickups NEED a hot tub disco light to be exciting, but hey, a little mood lighting never hurts.

I recently upgraded a beat-up old Les Paul with a pair of Seth Lover humbuckers, a journey detailed here and here.

While I was in a makeover frame of mind, I […]