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

When I was thinking about posting a special guitar for Halloween one guitar maker sprung immediately to mind, McSwain Guitars, yes I know I have already featured them many times before but nobody pulls off hammer horror-esque guitars quite like them.

Frankenstein is a chambered Mahogany body with a Maple top and a 3 piece Mahogany neck. The fingerboard is Ebony, Maple and Purple Heart that is stitched together with Leather cord! The border (can’t really call it a binding) is also stitched over black epoxy and red leather dye. Apparently this guitar is owned by Ben Moody, co-founder of Evanescence although he parted company with the band back in 2003, he has been collaborating with people ever since but last year worked with Celine Dion… erm…

I have been meaning to review this album for a long time after discovering Andy James via YouTube. I think originally I saw an entry to the Guitar Idol competition and then another entry for the Dean Shred competition and both times was absolutely amazed by his playing so I bought his album “In The Wake Of Chaos
“ and I wasn’t disappointed!

Andy works as an instructor for LickLibrary.com and has released numerous DVD’s and video lessons on technique and from the opening couple of tracks you will hear why. The opening track and title track of the album is a very melodic rock track which sounded similar to John Petrucci, lots of detuned rhythm guitars and melodic phrasing and sudden burst of blistering fast solos which compliment the track perfectly.

The second track “Broken Ballerina“ has a great open riff and it is a showcase for Andy’s incredible sweeping technique, I think this track could easily become a standard track for teaching sweep picking! The mere mention of sweep picking will put some people off but Andy seems to make the arpeggios as melodic as the melody itself! There are also a few tapping phrases using octaves that are quite Vai-esque, Andy has obviously drawn the best techniques from many players and fused them into his own style.

“Shine on through“ is a ballad which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Satch album. Andy’s playing is so precise and clean and his phrasing is very musical, an area where a lot of shredders are lacking. Andy proves that its not all about speed and yet there are solos in the track that make you want to lock yourself away in your room with your guitar for a couple of years!

The cheekily titled “Tapt“ is an audio onslaught of tapping mayhem, seriously this guy is crazy there isn’t a moment when you hear a slightly mis-fretted note with either hand! Andy James would make Jennifer Batten nervous. I hope a tab book is released for this album… not that I’d be able to play it I just want to know what on earth he is doing!

“Revelation“ has an intro that reminds me of the exceptional Prashant Aswani, that overdrive tone that isn’t overly saturated like Tom Morello. This track is one of my favourites on the album, I’m a sucker for the heavy riffs!

“Lost Without You“ is another ballad and this time shows Andy’s acoustic guitar and melodic composition skills. It’s a pleasant kind of easy listening track.

“Octavia“ - when I first listened to this I expected a “Super Colossal” kind of lead sound using an octave pedal, but there wasn’t so I was a little confused until I heard the main chorus riff. The incredible arpeggiated riff that is doubled an octave above, I think this is 2 separate tracks one pitch shifted up because they aren’t absolutely identical. There are few Whammy pedal effects going on in the background throughout but not as much as I was expecting! Great track, this is probably my favourite on the album.

“Chaos Theory“ is another track that is reminiscent of John Petrucci, god I bet people get sick of me comparing them to other guitarists! I think it is a combination of the scales used in the melody and the harmony guitar tracks? This track has an awesome middle section where the rhythm guitar takes off on a meandering riff-fest with fast alternate picking runs that would make Paul Gilbert proud… oh bollocks there I go again! Nice Wah solo too, great track.

“Gates of heaven“ sounds like it was composed as a kind of etude which is same way that I feel about Guthrie Govan’s “Waves”. That’s not putting these tracks down, they are both great tracks. “Gates of Heaven“ does sound a little more technical than emotive. I would love to be able to play it, but its not one of the best tracks on the album more of a closing statement.

Andy, like great guitarists such as Guthrie Govan knows the fretboard so well that his soloing sounds effortless, he never seems to run out of ideas and never gets boring. Andy doesn’t use techniques like sweep picking and tapping just for the sake of it but rather to enhance phrases and melodic ideas. He is a great metal riff composer too, if you took away the guitar melodies you could easily turn each track into a great metal song and I think that is what makes this album stand out. If you like shredding albums like John Petrucci’s Suspended Animation this album is a must for you.

Don’t forget to check out Andy on LickLibrary.com
Andy James MySpace page
Andy’s YouTube Channel

After featuring Johnson Guitars’ Egyptian series I thought I had to revisit their site to feature this crazy guitar, the Johnson Guitars German Tornado is the kind of guitar I expect Steve Stevens would have played the Top Gun theme tune on! And just in case you would like to reenact cold war dog fights they also have an F-15 Eagle and a Russian Mig to choose from. All made from tropical American Mahogany and Maple neck with an Ebony fingerboard.

I can’t imagine for a minute that any of these guitars would be very comfortable to play but they will certainly raise a few eyebrows and probably get a few laughs too as you riiiiide in to the danger zone! Now to get you in the mood watch this video!

Blues Legend Buddy Guy recently released a new album called ‘Skin Deep’ and Yahoo! wisely took the opportunity to record a special performance for their Nissan Live Sets feature.

Armed with an ace drummer, a keyboardist, a second guitarist and a bassist, Buddy hit the stage to promote his latest album, the excellent Skin Deep, and took no prisoners. As he tore into “Little By Little,” he immediately headed into crowd and played to the ladies, getting right up in their faces and practically into their laps. He traded vocal licks with the crowd, traded solos with the piano player, played so soft he makes us hang on every note to get to the next one, and then blasted us with the kind of searing volume and distortion usually left to the likes of AC/DC and Motorhead. And this was just the first song! - from Yahoo!

Now I’m not familiar with the Nissan Live Sets site so I’m not sure how long this concert will be available and how long it will be on the front page for but currently you can watch 10 songs one after another, you just have to put up with a Nissan ad in between songs. I have embedded the player above from Yahoo! for ‘Best Damn Fool’ which is the opening track from Buddy’s new album ‘Skin Deep’.

Buddy Guy’s official site
Download the new album Skin Deep from Amazon.com

This week I was listening to Megadeth’s ‘Countdown to Extinction‘ and it suddenly struck me that Marty Friedman’s solo in the track ‘Sweating Bullets’ was almost a technical exercise covering a few techniques which I thought was worth sharing.

UPDATE: Reader Yann pointed out that this solo was actually played by Dave Mustaine which when you think about it makes much more sense. Thanks for the info Yann!

As you can see I recorded a video of myself playing the solo using a backing track I found on guitarbt.com and I have tabbed a few examples that I thought would be useful for both beginners and advanced players. The first example is the chromatic run staring at 0:23 and ending around 0:28 in the video above. This is a great alternate picking exercise and you need to be very precise with your left and right hand coordination. For beginners this is a great exercise as I always find descending runs more tricky than ascending. Use a metronome or if you have Guitar Pro download the tab for this song and use the trainer feature which I set to start at 50% of the actual tempo and each loop it automatically increments slightly giving you a chance to build up speed for the lick. If not use a metronome, start slowly (80bpm maybe) and concentrate on playing every note with a quick clean attack, try to keep your left hand relaxed. I have tabbed the example as triplets but you can still think of them as 3 sets of 4. If you’re confused just forget the actual notation and concentrate on the tab and playing the 4 notes per string, then as you get more comfortable work up to quaver triplets at 165bpm as per the record. The tab for this example is below:

Example 1

The 2nd lick I have tabbed is the palm muted ascending triplets that immediately follow Example 1. Again this lick uses alternate picking starting with a downstroke and ends with a pull-off (G-F-E) and ending on a crotchet F ready for the final example. Use your palm to mute the strings until the final 2 beats of the second bar (the pull-off lick).

Example 2

The 3rd and final lick is the section that follows Example 2. This part is a really great exercise in hammer-ons and pull-offs. The entire lick except for the final beat of the last bar are all quaver triplets and you need to focus on keeping these consistent and the hammer-ons and pull-offs smooth. The 1st and 3rd bars are the same pattern moved down a string but pay attention to the pattern in the 2nd bar which is a little trickier in a descending form. The final bar is a simple alternate picked descending pentatonic run.

Example 3

I hope you enjoyed this departure from my usual posts to share a few playing tips and tricks, if you want more like this why not use the feedback tab and add an item to my UserVoice Feedback forum.

If you want to buy the official TAB book for ‘Countdown To Extinction’ I have included a product link below.

Virtual guitar stomp boxes is certainly not a new idea with Software such as Amplitube and Guitar Rig already popular solutions to the computer guitar processing market, a new addition to this market place is Image Line’s Hardcore. Image Line are already famous for their flagship software audio DAW FL Studio as well as their software synth plugins such as PoiZone and Morphine and now they have expanded into the world of Guitar Effect plugins:

“When I started Hardcore the idea was to fill the ‘distortion’ guitar plugin gap in the Image Line FX suite, but it turned into a much bigger and exciting project” noted the developer of Hardcore, Maxx Claster. It seems that once Maxx had created one guitar plugin, it was difficult for him to stop. Maxx Claster is well known to Image Line customers for the synths Morphine, PoiZone and Toxic.

Hardcore includes 10 carefully crafted stomp-box simulations:
—Distortion
—Chorus
—Flanger
—Phaser
—Reverb
—Delay
—Noise Gate
—Equalizer
—Compression
—Modulator

Five stomp-box simulations can be arranged in any order on the Hardcore pedal board. The output then passes through an 8-band graphic EQ and Cabinet Simulator, tying it all together into one massive sound.

Plugin formats:
- FL Studio plugin
- VSTi 2.4 (Win/OSX)
- Audiounit (OSX)

For more information head over to Image Line’s website.

After checking out some photos on Flickr I decided to compile a Top 10 Rock Guitar Poses. This was no easy task as there are hundreds if not thousands of possibilities for the top 10 slot so feel free to argue with me in the comments!

Difficulty Rating System: 1 - Guitar Hero, 2 - Guitar Legend, 3 - Guitar God, 4 - Unleash The Fury!

1. Joe Satriani - Difficulty Rating: 1. A classic pose used for decades simply lean back and swivel the guitar on your hip until perpendicular to the floor then look to the left of the neck and shout WHOA!

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruimleal/665001858/

2. Paul Gilbert - Difficulty Rating: 3. A variation on the classic pose above this time Paul takes the move to another level by using a double neck guitar and headphones. You will need a little more strength to execute this pose. Lift the guitar whilst holding a chord and pointing at the sky/roof with your eyes closed.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8372339@N02/504367029/

3. Yngwie Malmsteen - Difficulty Rating: 4. With those tight pants this pose could cause injury, luckily Yngwie has had plenty of practice! Try this one at your peril. Not only is there a 45 degree lift of the guitar but also a sidekick. This is Ninja Guitar at its best.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brucecmoore/57044706/

4. Eddie Van Halen - Difficulty Rating: 2. Another variation on the classic perpendicular lift this time with a crouched leg extension. The difficulty comes when you decide to stand up again!

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43908441@N00/119125210/

5. Randy Rhoads - Difficulty Rating: 1. This is a fairly easy pose to master, simply hit some open harmonics give it a bit of whammy and scream! Legendary Randy Rhoads makes this look easy, you might need to practice in front of the mirror.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spine/2461744689/

6. Kirk Hammett - Difficulty Rating: 3. Another variation on the classic perpendicular lift this time with potential Wah use at the same time by the look of it, this hikes up the difficulty rating a notch!

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theuniversalcynic/2635080851/

7. Steve Vai - Difficulty Rating: 4. Not only do you need to get your pick into your mouth for safe keeping and play with 2 hands but you also need to play over the neck with the left hand. This manoeuvre is a hard one to master, make sure you take it slow so you don’t pull something!

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fasterbit/2415992697/

8. Zakk Wylde - Difficulty Rating: 1. It’s all the lean! Make sure you give it some whammy and let those golden locks flow in the breeze of your onstage fan!!

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7675314@N08/1038207785/

9. Angus Young - Difficulty Rating: 3. This pose is a little tricky as you have to execute a lift like No.2 Paul Gilbert whilst also executing a pick scrape. Angus also takes this up a notch by not even looking. This is rock posing at its best.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/t-klick/118921392/

10. Adrian Smith - Difficulty Rating: 1. This is similar to the Yngwie without the sidekick, you must make sure you have the correct facial expression when executing this pose. I suggest shouting “HOOOOOOOOO!“ like Lion-O from the Thundercats.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/louis_cypher/2759509166/

Thankfully in this time of financial fears and global glumness someone has a sense of humour, or maybe they don’t and they are really serious? I’m not sure but the guitar pictured left is called the ‘Anubis’. Anubis according to the ever useful Wikipedia was a jackal-headed human who was often shown attending to the mummies of the deceased or sitting atop a tomb protecting it. In fact, during embalming, the “head embalmer” wore an Anubis costume. Although Anubis wasn’t usually depicted with such a long neck!

This guitar is actually part of a series, other Egyptian figures include Apophis, Bast, Horus and Osiris whose lovely golden Bigsby tremelo falls in quite an unfortunate place!

The guitar has an African Mahongany body and a Maple neck with one of the craziest headstock designs I’ve ever seen. Also the Ebony fingerboard has hand cut abalone inlays and these of course are Pyramid inlays! All the hardware is Gold of course and the guitar is hand painted, signed and dated.

Just a quick reminder that the competition to win Tommy Emmanuel’s entire Favorite Nation’s back catalogue closes on Saturday night at midnight. Head over to the competition page to enter, all you need to do is supply your name and email to be in the running!

Here is an interesting invention which by the looks of it isn’t actually in production as yet. The DukFoot™ is a guitar stand that offers touch free operation, the stand fixes onto the back of the guitar using a couple of adhesive strips and once in place allows you to simple set your guitar down which automatically triggers the stand to open. It’s hard to explain so check out the video of the stand in operation. Now I’m not going to lie, there’s now way I’m sticking anything to my new JS1000 and to be honest I don’t really need a stand, but I’m sure there are plenty of people out there that would find this invention useful. So if you think this is a good invention you need to take part in the online poll on their site so that they can show enough interest to put the DukFoot™ into full production. You can find the poll at the bottom of this page.

Also available is The Stand-In™ which is a similar stand system for acoustic guitars. Once again there is a video page with a poll at the bottom of the page for you to vote.