Guitar Noize - guitar news, crazy guitar designs and cool guitar videos

I’m very interested in Blackstar Amps and I’ve been eagerly following their progress for a long time now, hopefully soon I will have a Blackstar to test drive but in the meantime Total Guitar have just posted this video exclusive of the new 1 Watt 2 channel Blackstar HT-1RH amp being put through its paces by The Stooges guitarist James Williamson. Now this demo is a small snapshot and hopefully a more in-depth demo will be recorded soon but it certainly packs a punch for a 1 watter and is ideal for home or the studio to get true tube tone at sensible volumes.

For more info head over to Total Guitar’s website and obviously check out Blackstar’s site: www.blackstaramps.co.uk/.

Back in September 2007 I reviewed a documentary called Strat Masters which as the title suggested focussed on Leo Fender’s Stratocaster and the players that have used them over the years. Well it doesn’t take a genius to work out what ‘Leo Fender’s Telecaster – The Original Twang’ is about, this 2 DVD documentary talks to some of the greatest guitar players in history about arguably the greatest guitar in history. Everyone from Keith Richards to G E Smith to Jeff Beck to James Burton and even pickup designing legend Seymour Duncan talk in depth about their love for this versatile guitar that has hardly changed since its inception back in the 1940’s. There are a load of live performances from players such as G E Smith, James Burton as well as never seen before footage of the Fender production line in the early 1950’s as well as tours of the current Fender facilities including interviews with Leo’s former business partner the late Don Randall. One guy who I didn’t really know much about was Redd Volkaert who features heavily in the film but he is one amazing guitar player and he plays a number of examples to show the versatility of the Telecaster. Oh and I now want a Blue-burst Telecaster with gold hardware and a birdseye Maple fretboard thanks to Jerry Donahue’s appearance and performance.

The film tracks the 60 year history of The Broadcaster / Esquire / No-Caster and Telecaster from it’s humble beginnings in the orange groves of Fullerton, to the latest production at the fabulous Fender factory and custom shop in Corona, California.

...filmed in the UK, Eastern Europe, New York and California, to interview some of the true legends of music

As well as some of the legends of yesterday there are also some of the Telecaster new blood included in this documentary such as Richie Kotzen and John 5 who not only shows his exhaustive collection of Telecasters but also demos his signature model with a few country and metal crossover licks. There is also an interview with Norman Harris of Norm’s Rare Guitars in Hollywood who shows some of the finest Teles in his collection. There is also a great interview with Fender Custom Shop master builder John Cruz who explains how the Jeff Beck reissue Telecaster which is an accurate reproduction of an incredibly worn Esquire, every detail has been copied including the pickguard wear and pickup and bridge erosion, John explains the whole process.

I can’t see how any guitar player wouldn’t find this film interesting as it is the definitive film on the the most important guitar in history, the catalyst for everything that has come since and it has renewed my G.A.S. for a Tele as if I didn’t need encouragement!

If you want to purchase this double DVD head over to http://www.stratmasters.com/.

In a recent interview with Premier Guitar magazine Paul Gilbert spoke about a new pedal he was working on with Majikbox called the same name as his latest album “Fuzz Universe” well here the updated front page of Majikbox’s website. The pedal’s features are:

Specialized overdrive and boost in one box - Individual on / off footswitches
Custom taper tone control for easy access to all of Paul’s favorite overdrive tones.
Paul’s preferred bass cut off frequency, optimized for pure shred.
True Bypass

Paul suggested taking the tone recipe used in the modification of his personal Body Blow, further changing the tone pot taper, adding the Venom Boost circuit in the same box and creating the Fuzz Universe pedal. What a great idea! If you were looking for an overdrive / boost for killer rhythm tones and ultimate shredability, look no further!

Check out Paul Gilbert demoing the Majikbox Fuzz Universe below:

Pre-orders now being taken but production officially begins on October 1 2010 – pre-ordered units will ship in early November. Customers placing orders directly through the Majik Box website via PayPal on or before October 1 will receive a free limited edition Paul Gilbert Fuzz Universe pick with their pedal. This pedal retails for $279.99.

Check out the Majikbox website.

via Metalichika

Check out my review of Fuzz Universe.

  Light Years Away by joesatriani
First of all thank you to Mark McGuigan for spotting that Joe Satriani is not only using the excellent SoundCloud service but has posted a track from the forthcoming album “Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards” which you can check out above. As you can hear as I predicted the live recording sound of Chickenfoot has definitely rubbed off on Joe and you can hear a much more raw guitar tone more akin to The Extremist era Satch.

“It’s almost the history of rock guitar riffs. The main guitar line was a hard one for me to figure out. It sounds kind of simple and funny, but it perplexed me.
Light Years Away was something of a puzzle that I needed to solve. But once the band and I played it together, we looked at one another and went, ‘Wow! That really swings.’ It does have a touch of fusion, but it’s got the rock, too.”

I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album!

MI Effects (sister company to MI Amplification) are boutique effects manufacturer based in Sydney, Australia and they’re effects are popular all over the world due to their range of top quality overdrive and distortion pedals such as the Tube Zone, Crunch Box and Neo Fuzz. Now MI Effects are launching their latest pedal the MI Effects Compressor. This is probably the hardest product demo I have ever recorded because first of all I am uploading to YouTube which will add its own compression to the sound but also because this is a very versatile and beautifully transparent Compressor. You don’t necessarily notice a compressor when you hear a recording as it may be used as a subtle enhancement to make your guitar more punchy, the MI Compressor certainly did a great job of making my Black Pearl amp sound a lot tighter especially overdriven.

I have recorded a few examples using the compressor’s built in Noise Gate, something I have personally never seen on a Compressor before and a really great idea as Compressor’s amplify any background noise along with your guitar signal so if you are using a distortion pedal you could place this after it in the chain and use it to control your noise as well as tighten up your tone.

Compressors are really great for chicken pickin’ leads and articulated chords on clean but I also really liked how much character the MI Compressor added to my tone when I had the amp set to overdriven, basically what you are hearing is my Genz Benz Black Pearl 30 combo with the Volume and Boost up full, the EQ voicing set to natural, treble, middle and Bass set to 12 O’Clock and Top set to 1 O’clock. This setting creates a nice crunchy overdrive but it’s a bit flubby so the MI Compressor tightened it up nicely as if I had the master volume pushed up to half way rather than a quarter.

If you are looking for a Compressor that is transparent, versatile and includes features you don’t find on other Compressors like the Noise Gate and ability to run at 25v then check out the MI Effects Compressor. Head over to the MI Effects Dealers section to find out where you can go and give the pedal a test drive.

MI Effects website.

I recently posted about the new collaboratively designed Chapman Guitars ML2 and I was so impressed with not only the idea of a collaboratively designed guitar but also how Rob has managed to gain such a following by the use of his YouTube channel and forum (www.monkeylord.co.uk/forum/) that I thought it would be good to catch up via the magic of Skype for a quick chat, however it wasn’t such a quick chat as Rob was more than happy to talk all things Chapman and Monkey Lord for ages and even face interruption from my daughter who apparently wanted to meet Rob too. I decided to chop the interview up into 2 parts as there was too much goodness to leave out. Rob shared info and background about how he started his own Guitar brand, his band Monkey Lord, his new DVD soon to be released “Shreducation” and documentaries about Cheetahs!

Many thanks to Rob for taking the time to talk to me I hope you enjoy the interview.

Check out Rob’s site www.monkeylord.co.uk/ which will soon relaunch and house all of his brands including Chapman guitars.
Current Chapman Guitars site - www.chapmanguitars.co.uk/
Maplewood Studio - www.maplewoodstudio.com/

Part 1

Part 2