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

Derryl Gabel is an amazing fusion style guitar player similar to the great Frank Gambale, his sweep picking or economy picking is fluid and effortless and something that will certainly help many guitarists to achieve more speed and precision. Derryl is also a great teacher and this DVD is certainly going to help break out of that Pentatonic box that many of us are firmly stuck in, I know I am!

As a follow up to “Pentatonic Passages”, this DVD “Supersonic Sweeping” will be sure to please and further your picking skills. In this one hour session I share with you interesting and exciting ways to use economy and sweep picking ideas with scales, hybrids, triads, and arpeggios. I will also cover ways to practice these to help you infuse them into your soloing and glide effortlessly all over the neck.

All examples are transcribed in the Power Tab and PDF formats (standard notation and tab). The DVD comes with interactive menus, case, and artwork.

Derryl is offering the DVD for a special discounted price of $29.95 plus $5 s/h for the first 100 customers. After that the price will be raised to $35.00 plus $5 s/h. If you would like to order the DVD head over to Derryl’s website http://www.derrylgabel.com.

I’ve been holding off for a week of so on this one to see if any more details would emerge, well I did manage to find this great close up photo on the official Experience Hendrix tour site there are a few more on the site so make sure you head over and check it out. So what is this guitar? Well obviously it is an Ibanez JS Series with many people speculating it is a new option for the JS2400, well as you can see this clearly is not a JS2400 as it only has 22 frets but it sees quite a departure from the usual JS Series guitars as it features 3 single coil pickups and a Maple neck. Joe said in his recent blog over at MusicRadar.com that this is indeed a prototype guitar so it may or may not go into production. The single coil pickups are no doubt DiMarzio and could be a number of different models but seeing as Joe has already plumped for the Pro Track on the JS2400 I would imagine he has at least one of those in the neck and probably the middle position.

The guitar features what appears to be 2 tone controls as per Leo Fender’s original Strat design and a 5 way switch like most modern Strats, Joe was obviously trying to recreate Strat tones to play Jimi’s music without upsetting Ibanez. I wonder if Joe ever gets sick of playing the same guitar and wishes he could bust out a charred sunburst Strat for some real Hendrix tone?

Update: When I refer to Single Coil pickups I actually mean Single Coil sized, obviously these are DiMarzio single coil sized Humbuckers which is entirely different to standard Single Coil pickups.

Guitar tuners are probably an effect pedal that is pretty low on most people’s priority list after the endless stream of boutique pedals released every year. To me a guitar tuner has to have the following features, fast response, accurate, looks cool. Previously the coolest looking tuner I have seen is the Korg Pitchblack but I’ve always also always liked the look white Boss TU-2/3, the TC Electonic PolyTune combines the cool of the Korg with the reliability of the Boss and in white, you don’t see many white pedals.

I first heard of the PolyTune when I saw the following video little did I know, and indeed nor did almost anyone know that this was in fact a sneak preview of the software that controls the PolyTune.

This video caused quite a stir and even had a major industry figure fooled enough for him to make the guy an offer, I won’t say who but it isn’t hard to find out even though the comment has since been removed. You can’t blame the guy though who wouldn’t want to turn this amazing invention into pedal form, well obviously this was a TC Electronic engineer and if he wasn’t originally he sure must be now. TC Electronic squeezed the software into a very tasty little pedal, simple but elegant in true Scandinavian style.

The PolyTune is really simple to use, strum all strings and you are in polyphonic mode where you can quickly see all your strings and whether they are in tune, pick an individual string and it immediately switches to single note tuning mode using an LED needle to show an accurate representation of your note tuning. The response is incredibly quick, pretty much instant, something I have only previously seen on the Turbo Tuner. You can adjust the tuning if you are tuned down to Eb or D or even B by clicking a button on the top of the unit, it will allow you to drop a semi-tone at a time. This only works for all your strings being dropped, if you use drop D the unit has no idea and will show the bottom string as flat but you can always tune that string individually I don’t think it is a problem. The PolyTune saves this information even after it is powered down, making sure you only have to set how you want things to happen once.

The display automatically adjusts brightness to match surroundings in case you are using a 9v battery to save on power and of course it is True Bypass as the pedal will spend most of its life first in your signal chain switched off. Another cool feature is the power out which lets you use a daisy chain cable to power another unit off the PolyTune. Finally there is an undocumented USB port which I assume is for software updates, not something you see on your average tuner.

TC Electronic say “We can’t make tuning fun. But we can sure make it a whole lot easier.”, I disagree, tuning just got fun!

The new Slash Appetite For Destruction Les Paul is now up on the Gibson site but this video shows Slash talking about the original guitar and how the guitar differs from a regular Les Paul.

The Suhr Shiba Drive is a low/medium gain Overdrive pedal which sits between the Koko Boost and Riot Distortion pedals. The Shiba drive is perfect for bluesy overdrive tones or classic rock crunch taking you from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Angus Young in the twist of a knob. Put this amp in front of an already overdriven amp and you will get awesome sustain and drive for searing leads.

“There is a slight midrange hump that helps you cut through the mix, but the sonic integrity of your guitar and pickups comes through loud and clear. The tone is musical and balanced with firm lows, punchy mids with just the right amount of cut, and sweet silky highs.”

Like all of the current Suhr Pedals lineup this unit comes with a 3 way midrange EQ switch in this case called a “Smooth” switch which will give you slightly different voicings, it also has the FX link for hooking up with external switching devices and the battery alert for when your 9V battery is low on power. Of course you can also use a mains adaptor, from 9 - 18V to power the pedal. This pedal is perfect for stacking and especially with the Suhr Koko boost which beefs up the signal going into the Shiba.

If you are in Australia or New Zealand and would like to purchase one of these fantastic pedals or any other Suhr pedal head over to Guitar Noize Gear Factory for the latest pricing info and give me a shout.

I love behind the scenes videos so it is great to peer into the PRS Guitars Factory and see what goes into making these beautiful instruments. The first video goes into the woodshed at with Wood purchaser Paul Platts. They should turn one of those giant slabs of mahogany into a giant fretboard, ok so not Mahogany as such maybe a giant slab of Pao Ferro! Paul Reed Smith himself is also great at explaining the processes involved with drying the wood which I think is fascinating.

In this next video is a demonstration of the CNC Machines & Tooling:

The next video shows the Truss Rod Installation and Fingerboard Glueup:

The next step is the Fret installation:

And naturally the “Inlay/Slot/Round/Level” follows:

What a fantastic set of videos and great insight into how PRS create such amazing instruments.