As 2013 begins its inexorable stretch toward the warmer days of Spring, it feels right to talk of new things; of rebirth; of bare-limbed trees emerging with new growth, brown fields awakening with the green hues of renewal, and old guitars finding new purpose in the hands of eager players with open minds and eyes for a good deal. Continue reading “Buying Used Guitars Online for Fun and Profit”

Blending folk and metal together into a cohesive unit is a challenging task for anyone, let alone the bass player left to keep it all together. We caught up with Niclas Etelävuori from Amorphis and talked about the new album, his process of creating his bass lines, and more. Continue reading “Interview – Niclas Etelävuori from Amorphis”

Every now and then, friends come over with complaints about their guitar: the tone is wrong, the playability is off, tuning stability issues and sometimes even cosmetic issues are brought to my attention. I’m happy to address all issues, but some issues are so easy to solve that I think it’s wise to write this article. I’m talking, in particular, about the action of your (electric) guitar. Acoustic guitars can also be adjusted but that’s a rather tricky job compared with electric guitars since the bridge is glued to the top on acoustics versus mounted on movable studs on an electric. Hence I’ll be focusing on electric guitars in general.

Continue reading “The Action of your Neck: Unlocking Its Mysteries!”

In the continuing saga of testing pickups in my 80s vintage Kramer rebuild, we’ve been through how the ’59, Pearly Gates, and Alternative 8 sound in the bridge position, and matched with the ‘59N in the neck. Since the Voyager’s Alder body has proven to be an interesting test bed for all the pickups so far, it seemed like a good idea to continue exploring the options in the Seymour Duncan humbucker line. This installment we’ll check out another long-time favorite and staple of the line: The Duncan Custom. Seymour’s “PAF on steriods” design is one based on a just overwound enough coil and a ceramic magnet. Continue reading “The Kramer Chronicles Volume IV: The Custom”

When describing tone, many guitar players use a myriad of terms to describe the sonic qualities they perceive  I want to take a closer look at some of those terms and try to explain what they mean. It is worth mentioning that most terms relate to ‘feel’; the feel a pickup gives you is crucial to the tone you perceive. I will attempt to describe some of the most and more often used tonal descriptions. Continue reading “Dictionary of Tone Terms”

For years, acoustic guitarists have looked for the perfect-sounding acoustic, using the best mics to record them in all of their complexity only to be dissatisfied when they bring them onstage. It is true- undersaddle and soundhole pickup systems can never capture that same complexity the microphones can. And using mics onstage is almost impossible as long as there are other sound sources and monitors onstage. The solution for the longest time was to plug the output of the acoustic guitar into a DI box, and go right to the board. Continue reading “This One is Just Right: The D-TAR Mama Bear”

Ask someone about their favorite heavy metal bands and it shouldn’t take long to hear Lamb of God. Since their founding in 1990 by Willie Adler, his brother Chris, Randy Blythe, Mark Morton and John Campbell, they’ve put out six studio albums and continued to tour around the world even despite recent troubles in the Czech Republic. One of the defining forces behind the band is guitar player Will Adler, who has also been a long-time user of the JB. He recently made the switch to Duncan Distortions and had some killer custom laser engraved covers created for them, so we thought it would be good to catch up with him and see what’s new. Continue reading “Drinkin’ Beer with Willie Adler of Lamb of God”

I think Randy Jackson said it best, when he said “Ha! Slapping, the ketchup of the bass world!” and it rings true. Walk into any music store and you will usually hear SOMEONE slapping away on a bass (and in full disclosure, sometimes that’s been this guy). It’s fun, relatively simple and while there are traditional techniques out there, it has become very personal, varying from person to person. But one thing we can all agree on is that tone!
Continue reading “Slap Bass Bassics – Nailing That Tone”

One often-overlooked factor in the feel and playability of a guitar is the frets. There are various properties of the frets that can really change how the guitar plays. Let’s have a look at some of them, and what they mean for your guitar’s playability. Continue reading “Fret Sizes and Materials”

Imagine a time in England between 1968 and 1974. Some of the most iconic tones in guitar playing history came from that time. We had Peter Green, Paul Kossoff, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck. It seems that there must have been something in the water in England at that time- so much great music with so much great tone was readily available.

Continue reading “Livin’ Lovin’ TONE: The Whole Lotta Humbucker”