Here’s an actual conversation I had with a friend (and fellow bassist):
Him: I just got a 1,200 watt head and 4×12 cabinet for my band.
Me: Don’t you have PA support? That seems like overkill.
Him: No way, it’ll be awesome.
Two months later:
Me: How’s that new amp?
Him: I can’t turn it up past 7 o’clock without the soundman yelling at me. It’s complete overkill for my situation.
In this day and age when talking about bass amplifiers, bigger isn’t necessarily better, especially for a working/freelance bassist. Today we’re going to talk about some situations where having a more modestly sized rig may be ideal for you. Continue reading “A Big Argument for Small Bass Amplifiers”

PERRI INK. Custom Guitars has just launched their first even custom bass, the ROCKY IV. It has a contoured solid Alder body, a one-piece Maple neck with black block inlays and a 34″ scale length, JENZ machine heads, a Seymour Duncan Music Man® pickup and EQ circuit, and absolutely stunning 12K Gold leafing by the world famous SoCal painter Sonny Boy.

PERRI INK. Custom Guitars is a boutique American-made, built-to-order custom electric guitar brand founded in 2009 by guitarist and entrepreneur Nick Perri (Silvertide, Shinedown, SINAI). Nick says, “We’re extremely proud of our very first custom bass guitar. Many ideas have culminated in the finely tuned instrument you see here, starting with the the desire to combine the features and aesthetics of the world’s three most popular basses. This bass is one serious tone machine.”

Continue reading “Perri Ink Debuts First Custom Bass Guitar”

When we play our electric guitar through an amp, we are being bombarded with sound. Not just the amazing, lovely guitar tone we all love so much but if we’re not careful, also with a huge dose of noise too. Noise can be hum, hiss, buzz or just white noise. There are several causes for a noisy guitar and I wish to highlight a few of them in the hopes to clarify what’s really going on. Continue reading “Background Noise: Closing The Loop”

Trivium‘s new album, Vengeance Falls, maintains the Trivium tradition of being simultaneously fresh and yet familiar. The band has always kept a keen awareness of metal history even when exploring more modern forms, blending metalcore screams with 80s-style trash one minute, and adding melodic vocal hooks to death-metal-inspired riffage the next. Vengeance Falls is still unmistakably Trivium, but it finds the band approaching its sound from a new angle, enslisting the help of Disturbed frontman David Draiman to produce the album. We caught up with lead guitarist and Seymour Duncan artist Corey Beaulieu to discuss the album and his imposing Jackson Guitars six and seven-string signature line. Continue reading “Talking Vengeance With Trivium’s Corey Beaulieu”

About a year back, I found myself in the enviable position of being able to build my dream guitar. While looking for the proper pickups I ran across some pretty amazing and seemingly underwhelming parts that would eventually make it into that rig. Before I committed to using the new (unproven to me) technology for the dream rig I’ve named ‘Bertha,’ I figured that installing a trial run of the mystery part on another guitar was a good idea. So I let my fingers do the buying and bought a set of these rascals that would be installed on an Les Paul copy guitar (Tradition) that already had a Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded Set of pickups installed in it (which is the SH-4 JB in the bridge and an SH-2 Jazz model in the neck). Those pickups saved the day when it came to the tired old rattlers that were in the original ‘instrument’ I bought (for its looks). That’s a story for another day…

Continue reading “Triple Shot Rings (Or How The Heck Did That Sound Emerge From My Guitar?)”

Hey friends.
Been working on a new project guitar based on the Tele-Gib I built for Jeff Beck back in 1974. At the time I was working at the Fender Soundhouse in London, and Jeff Beck was over at the CBS studios recording his second album. The “Tele-Gib” was a hybrid guitar that started out as a butchered ’59 Fender Telecaster, and once completed was used by Jeff on Blow by Blow and songs like “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” and  “Freeway Jam.” You can read more about how it came about here. Continue reading “My New Cherry Red Tele-Gib”

When Jody Porter of Fountains of Wayne wanted a Tele that could get humbucker and single-coil sounds he went with Old School Guitar Repair Restoration and Lutherie, a company that literally works from an old school.
Continue reading “Jody Porter of Fountains of Wayne’s Custom Tele”

There’s one thing I don’t want when I switch over to a neck pickup, and that’s mud. I want my bridge pickups to have a tight low end and enough mids and treble to cut through the mix without getting fizzy, and to be able drive an amplifier hard enough to get some good chunky tones. My neck pickup on the other hand needs to have a cleaner sound to it, and retain some smoothness even under a lot of dirt.

Continue reading “Shredding It Full Shred Neck Style”

Seymour Duncan artist Joshua Ray is a young up and coming blues guitarist from San Diego, California. At 20 years of age, Josh has done more than many could hope to achieve. A finalist in the Guitar Center 2009 “King of the Blues” contest, he’s gone on to work with artists and producers such as Johnny Sandlin (producer of the Allman Brothers Band, Highly Kind), singer Bonnie Bramlett, Beth Hart, Japanese superstar Koshi Inaba (vocalist for legendary Japanese band B’z), and Grammy-winning producer Ross Hogarth. Continue reading “Five Questions With Country Guitarist Joshua Ray”

“Guitarists love new things and innovative design, as long as everything remains the same.” That’s a remark one of my friends once made. It may be slightly tongue in cheek, but it is true to some extent. New technologies aren’t greeted by guitarists as enthusiastically as in other fields. But every once in a while there’s something new, something fresh that does make it through the initial skepticism. One such product is the Parallel Axis series of pickups by Seymour Duncan.  Continue reading “Pushing The Boundaries With Parallel Axis Trembuckers”