When Leo Fender designed and released his Stratocaster in the early 1950s, I doubt he could have been aware of the design standards he would set for the years to come. His asymmetrical Stratocaster was soon followed by the Jaguar, Jazzmaster, Coronado and many others. These guitars were as different as possible but had at least one common denominator: their body shape was very asymmetrical, yielding a very comfortable guitar! I wish to take a moment to highlight these guitars’ differences, unique features and tonal characteristics! Continue reading “Offset Guitars: My Selected Bunch!”

Gus G. will release his debut solo album I Am The Fire in March, but you don’t have to wait until then  to hear what Gus has got in store for us: he’s just released a video for the opening track, “My Will Be Done,” featuring Mats Levén [Clandesmass, Ex-Yngwie Malmsteen/Therion], which you can check out right here!

Continue reading “Watch The New Gus G Video Now!”

As winter is now in full swing in the northern hemisphere, the time has come to take a closer look at how you store your precious, cherished instruments. As the cold creeps into our homes we tend to close down all windows and pump up the central heating. Unfortunately, many players tend to forget some basic precautions to safeguard their guitars from harm, sending many guys on their way to a guitar tech or luthier during the winter! I want to take a moment to examine the most often made mistakes, what that could lead to as well as some preventive measures!  Continue reading “Humidity: How It Can Create Serious Problems!”

Once upon a time there was a great war.
This war was a marketing war, all based on the quantity of a guitar’s equipment. Up until late 1953, the two major players were tied with two pickups, when one side introduced a three pickup guitar. Things were again tied between the major players at three in 1957 and have remained the same since.
In my view, the silent winner of this war, is the single pickup guitar—the hotrod of the guitar world. While maybe not jacks of all trades like the guitars with more pickups, they’re still versatile tone machines with advantages over their more well-endowed variants. Continue reading “That Single Pickup Magic”

The Fender Jazz Bass is one of the three most iconic bass types known in the musical world (with the other two being the mighty Precision Bass, and the Music Man Stingray). With that, there are a number of truly excellent replacement pickups to install in order to get your desired sound (with many of them found right here). But there’s one other tonal option Jazz Bass aficionados can do to get more control from their bass; install the original stacked vol/tone controls from 1960-1962.
Continue reading “The 1962 Fender Jazz Control”

No level of TLC can bring this unfortunate guitar back to life…

Already during the early days of my guitar-playing career I saw myself surrounded by amazing guitar players and luthiers. Some of them I consider friends nowadays and I couldn’t be more impressed with guitars than I am with theirs. So, naturally, their trade rubbed off a bit on me. I believe that I started to think a bit like a luthier. That mindset helped me to notice issues that may have caused problems if they weren’t addressed. The more I work with other players outside my circle of guitar playing friends, the more I see that many players have no idea when it’s time to hand over the instrument to caressing hands who can breathe life back into their cherished guitar. Often they simply don’t know what to look for! Let’s highlight the 10 most common signs that your guitar will exhibit that warns you that it might be prudent to go see a good guitar tech or luthier. Continue reading “10 Signs Your Guitar May Need Some TLC”

There is never a more polarizing thread that comes up in bass forums than the one that starts with “what is better?” and ends with “Rounds or Flats?” In this article we’re going to talk about the differences between roundwound and flatwound strings, the pros and cons between the two and then offer up a couple suggestions where either of them would fit the bill nicely. Continue reading “Cage Match Bass Edition: Rounds vs. Flats”

It’s getting to be that time of year again, and people who are friends (or co-workers) with guitarists get nervous. What to give? Gift certificates are great – seriously, who doesn’t what to hear “Here’s $x, go nuts at (insert favorite music store)”? But some people consider them impersonal. Some want to actually choose a gift for you like they would any other, but usually they have no clue where to start. Strings and picks are personal choices, so unless you’re intimately familiar with your friend’s gauges of choice, that’s a return waiting to happen. So what then? Here’s a newbie guide to gift-giving for guitarists (without breaking the bank). From this point on, let’s approach this as if we’re giving your friend/co-worker helpful suggestions to hook you up. I can’t authorize you cutting and pasting the rest of this into your suspected secret Santa’s email as a guide, but we’ll proceed as if you could. Here we go: Continue reading “Gifting Your Guitar Buddy”

As the damping decreases, the wave increases its magnitude.

Feedback and microphonic noise are two terms that seem to be used and misused as people seem fit. I want to take a look at the mechanics behind feedback and microphonic feedback and how to use feedback in your playing, or simply get rid of it all together.
Feedback and microphonic feedback are terms used to denote a vibration, initially unwanted, self sustaining (to some degree) and kept in motion by other means of energy than the primary source of energy (in the case of our guitar: the fingers or pick). It must be stressed that feedback and microphonic feedback use the same mechanism to create and sustain the vibration: it’s just a different element that vibrates. I spoke before about microphonic feedback, but that was more aimed at solving the problem. Now I want to talk about what causes it on a more basic level. Continue reading “Feedback vs Microphonic Noise”

Ola Englund is a dangerous man in the hands of a capable axe. And by teaming up with Washburn he has focused his sights on creating a guitar that can satisfy the needs of many metal guitarists. This guy knows gear too, Ola has reviewed hundreds of instruments, amps and pedals on his immense YouTube channel. His guitars page shows over 50 guitars that have been among his possession and from quite a few different manufacturers. When Washburn Guitars set themselves on Continue reading “Washburn Announces Ola Englund Signature Series”