Guitar

Learning from ’80s guitar tone

Whether you liked the tone or not, there were some great players and engineers experimenting in the 1980s that came up with some great tricks.

Jackson releases new Dinky guitars

The Dinky-style body is my favorite from Jackson. Today they released two 7-string and one 8-string model. Personally, I would have liked to have seen a 6-string too.

Some important lessons for guitar players

Instead of notes, scales and chords, we’re talking about fretting hand position, picking hand positions, strap-height, stance and how you hold your head, neck and shoulders. All of these things affect what you can do on the guitar.

Great video by Alex Vollmer about how we interact with our guitar. There is a preview video available — you can buy the full video for $5.

Les Paul Custom Lite

The beauty of this gorgeous black Les Paul Custom Lite is more than skin deep, and Gibson USA has also packed added versatility into the traditional formula. Two of Gibson’s most popular humbucking pickups from the Modern Classics series offer all the tone that made the Les Paul legendary in the first place, plus added single-coil sounds thanks to the coil-splitting mini-toggle switch added in place of the second tone control.

Tabular: Tablature editor for the Mac

Tabular is a brand new tablature editor that lets you read and write music for guitar, bass, drums and much more. It’s the best way to learn new songs, write your own songs and run through practice exercises for nearly any kind of stringed instrument or drum kit.

It’s a nice looking app. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks well done.

A special guitar story

More than two decades later he found out a dark, but compelling secret about the guitar. It had been stolen and once belonged to a well-known artist in the Austin, Texas, music scene.

It had been handmade by Ted Newman of Austin for alternative country artist Joe Ely, who has toured with The Clash, Lyle Lovett and Guy Clark, among others.

What a great story.

Beatles guitar goes up for auction

The rare offering of a VOX guitar played by both John Lennon and George Harrison is what rock n’ roll legends are made of. The striking custom guitar built by Mike Bennett and Dickey Denney was gifted to “Magic Alex” Mardas by John Lennon in 1967. Harrison played the guitar while practicing “I am the Walrus” during The Magical Mystery Tour and by Lennon while recording a video session for “Hello, Goodbye.”

Riffstation: Great looking app for guitarists

I’m downloading this today and giving it a try. You can slowdown a song to make it easier to learn how to play, which a lot of apps do, but the app will also show you the chords and when to change when you load an MP3 file into the app. I also like the feature for solos where you can isolate and mute the solo, which means you can play along with the song.

Gibson ES-335

Launched 55 years ago, in 1958, the ES-335 is undoubtedly a classic, not only of Gibson’s but of all electric guitar designs. What the Les Paul model is to solidbodies, the ES-335 is to semis – beautiful, versatile and coveted by players across all genres.

Some history on one of the great guitars.

AmpliTube Orange

If you like the sound of Orange amplifiers, this collection is a must-have.

1982 Edward Van Halen Kramer Frankenstrat

This video chronicles the reunion between one of the world’s most prized guitars, one of Edward Van Halen’s Diver Down/1984 era Kramer guitars and it’s builder, master guitar builder Paul Unkert.

I want this guitar.