Check out BluesJamTracks.com for more backing tracks. Also check out BluesJamTracks on YouTube to hear Guthrie Govan and Ainsley Lister jamming!

Update: I forgot to mention what I used to record this video. The guitar is a ‘94 Patrick Eggle Berlin Stage going directly into a Vox AD50VT and then due to the lack of a decent mic, straight out into a Tapco audio interface and finally into my Macbook Pro. The tone is a hell of a lot better if you don’t bypass the power amp’s 12AX7 tube like this.

Guitar Noize reader James sent me a link to Brossard Picks a company who make high-quality handmade picks from exotic wood, Bone and Abalone. The Exotic Wood collection includes Wenge, Rosewood, Ebony and Cocobollo, all of which are used in guitar building for their different tonal qualities so this will also translate to the picks. If wooden picks aren’t your thing and you don’t mind spending a little more maybe you would prefer Bone picks which offer more clarity than a wooden pick. And if you really want to push the boat out you can go for Mother of Pearl or Abalone Picks which offer brightness and precision.

I found the Groovy series particularly interesting because not only do you have the choice of the 3 materials but they are shaped to have an ergonomic grip with the thumb dip on one side and a groove on the other for your finger.

As part of it’s celebrations for it’s 40th Anniversary, Orange amps have now completely re-launched their website. Just as you would expect judging by the name and the product there is plenty of orange splashed around too! There is nothing completely revolutionary happening on the new site, but it easy enough to navigate your way to the meat of the site and check out Orange’s product range. Have a look at their 40th Anniversary Custom Shop for instance, each country will only see 1 or 2 of the 40 hand built 50 Watt collectors items, each with its own unique circuit and name, Point to Point hand Wiring, Plexi Glass front panel and powered by 2 x EL34 and 2 x ECC83/12AX7.

The Artists section is like a rock ‘n roll history chart with everyone from Aerosmith, AC/DC, Black Sabbath to Freddie King, Johnny WInter, Oasis, Prince and ZZ Top! But that will come as no surprise to anyone, Orange have long been known as one of the great tube amp manufacturers. There is also a History section which outlines some of the key points in Orange’s colourful (haha get it!) 40 years, and of course the obligatory Forum for all you Orange lovers to chat to each other about how good your gear sounds.

Finally the part that I always find most interesting, Orange have collected a few features together like this one from Portishead’s Adrian Utley who talks about his AD30 and recording their new album ‘Third’. I have to say I haven’t ever put an Orange amp through its paces but I might have to pop round to Gallin’s today and check out the Tiny Terror!

I haven’t checked out Steinberger’s site for a while and to be honest I naively thought they would pretty much be still flogging the same old guitar they have been selling for years… well to a certain extent they are after all they have 6 models of the shape we are all familiar with when we think of Steinberger with slightly different pickup configurations, controls and switches. There are 2 variations to their tried and tested shape though, the Demon and the much more attractive ZT-3 Custom pictured above. Without a doubt the coolest feature on a Steinberger guitar is the TransTrem™ transposing tremolo system something I was made aware of watching Eddie Van Halen playing “Summer Nights” from the album “5150” when I was 12. At first I couldn’t figure out what he was doing until I read about this revolutionary tremolo system.

”The TransTrem can take you from standard E tuning up to F and then to F# or down to Eb or way down to D. Lock in the key by moving the arm back and you’re ready for anything. And, when locked, the tremolo acts much like a fixed bridge in that sustain is improved and should you break a string, the other strings still stay in tune. In the un-locking position, the TransTrem acts like a regular tremolo capable of extreme pitch bending with smooth and renowned Steinberger accuracy.”

Click on the video link on the ZT-3 page to see the TransTrem™ in action. The innovation on this guitar doesn’t stop there though:

”At the heart of it’s construction is our Cybrosonic™ neck featuring our patented graphite U-channel with adjustable truss rod uniquely crafted into a 3-piece, hard maple neck. We then add a smooth and durable phenolic fingerboard to create an instrument with distinctive tonal clarity, sustain, “pop” and response as well as excellent stability.”

Aside from that the guitar also has a switching system that lets you get 8 combinations from the 2 humbuckers using the push/pull volume and tone control to switch between “series” and “parallel” in order to achieve single coil sounds too. You also get a Flame Maple top and a Direct-Drive double-ball bridge with 40:1 tuners for tuning ease, this also works with single ball strings apparently and is supposed to be very easy to change strings. I would be interested to see how well those tuners really work. At $1600 it isn’t going to break the bank either I was expecting a much higher price tag for all this research and development. 

After a recent discussion over at GuitarFlame.com about recording our playing I decided to turn to YouTube for some inspiration. Well it didn’t take long until I was gazing in awe at the mastery of Guthrie Govan playing over some backing tracks. As I was watching I had the sudden urge to play over the same backing track and so I visited a site I haven’t been to in a while BluesJamTracks.com.  I’ve wondered for a while whether I would ever find this site useful because in my head I think why pay for a backing track when I can create one myself. But in reality thats never going to happen, I simply don’t have the time or the energy so I promptly proceeded to download the Larry Carlton backing track from the Rock Blues section.

There are various styles from old chicago blues to 60’s blues to contemporary blues, they have bundle offers where you can download a load for a discounted price (£7.99) or individually for £0.99 which I think is a fair price, it costs less than a pint of your favourite lager (and considering I haven’t lived in England for 6 years I imagine it is a LOT less than a pint!). The purchasing process is all handled by PayPal so it is nice and secure if you already have a PayPal account takes less than a minute to start downloading your track. The track I chose came with another mp3 that has an example solo being played over it and a pdf of the tab for the solo which is a cool extra to have!

If you want to hear some examples of the quality of the backing tracks (they are very professional) check out the Contemporary Blues Bundle page where Guthrie Govan shows us how its done! Also check out The Blue Room where famous guitarists such as Steve Vai and Paul Gilbert have recorded their take on some of the backing tracks.

So its time to put my money where my mouth is. I thought I should record a solo over the Larry Carlton backing track with my best Greg Howe vibrato/glissando impression!

In case anyone has trouble with the mp3 player above I have also uploaded it to my Ultimate Guitar profile.

I’m not a dad yet but I assume there comes a time in your child’s life when you finally think that he or she is ready, whether they like it or not, to begin learning guitar. And after all they are going to get the best guitar lessons of all, free ones from mom or daddy guitarist! Well the dilemma is whether to wait until they are big enough to hold a full sized guitar or buy a mini guitar that they will eventually outgrow. Well I know what I’m going to do I’m already checking out what is available so I thought I would pass on my findings.

The first guitar I discovered was the Gibson Mini V pictured above, don’t worry it comes in a range of finishes including blue and red I just wanted to illustrate that they cater for girls too! Now this guitar is actually a Maestro, which is a division of Gibson but it is perfectly scaled version of Gibson’s 1958 Flying V design. The body is made from Poplar with a Maple neck and Rosewood fingerboard. There are 21 frets with a scale length of 19”. It has a single humbucker and single volume control. Nice and simple and it won’t break the bank at US$129.

The second guitar I found also pictured above is the Washburn X5. This guitar is slightly larger with a 22.625” scale, couldn’t they have rounded that off?! It has a Basswood body, bolt on Maple neck with a Rosewood fingerboard, 2 Washburn Humbuckers controlled by a 3 way toggle switch, 1 volume and 1 tone pot. So this guitar is a little more flexible in terms of tone but I really don’t think kids are going to care too much about that so maybe this is a little over complicated. It looks the business being a scaled down version of Washburn’s very cool X series. This guitar only comes in deep metallic blue but it does come with a gig bag, however it is a little more pricey at US$220.

If you are on a big Stratocaster fan and want your kids to follow in your footsteps you are in luck because the cheapest kids electric (of decent quality) that I found is the Squier Mini which is a 3/4-size version (22.75” scale length) of the Squier Bullet® guitar. It has 3 single coil pickups, a 5 way selector switch, a maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard and is available in Black or Red. The body is made of Laminated Hardwood but I guess the little ones aren’t going to complain that its not Swamp Ash! This guitar is a bargain as it only costs $99!

The only problem with the guitars I have mentioned so far is that you will also need an amp, I would suggest an Vox AmPlug AC30 to save your ears from the torture of a child strumming wildly! If however you think it would be wise to start the little ones off on an acoustic guitar I have found just the thing, they are going to love these! First Act guitars, last featured on Guitar Noize back in July ‘07 have a series of guitars called ”Discovery” a selection of custom painted and shaped acoustics such as the Soccer Ball and the FG154 which both have a low action to make playing easier for little hands, they also come with a set of Learn-a-chord cards (great idea!), extra E & B string (again, great idea!) and a First Act Guitar Guide.

So there you go, lots of options these days to get your kids playing without having to buy an unplayable box with strings or, god forbid, Guitar Hero! 

Kronodale Guitars don’t seem to make anything but Crazy Guitar Designs so they are a perfect fit for Guitar Noize! Aside from the Recycled G pictured left, they also produce the 2P and One Dollar guitars with 3-dimensional opened body shape available in a variety of finishes. Kronodale have taken consumer patterns and emblems (Recycled logo for the “2-P” for example) and made them into guitar body shapes.

”With the Recycled G series, the Kronodale team is giving you a unique range of features from the revolutionary open-body shape to the perfect finish of the neck. Kronodale’s revolutionary design featuring Ash body design and maple neck with 2 Kent Amstrong pickups that can replicate acoustic tones and gives players ability to have pickups for hard-edge tone needed for heavy rock as well as for players seeking the sound of a full acoustic guitar.”

The telecaster style body is either made from Chambered Ash or Elm Aluminum platted (not really sure what the latter means but sounds interesting!) it also has a Maple neck with a 22 or 24 fret Wenghe fingerboard and a unique K shaped headstock. The 2 humbuckers are Kronodale’s own design whilst the bridge is a Graph-Tech String Saver and the Chrome locking tuners are courtesy of Gotoh. Finally the guitar’s controls are a master volume, tone pot and mini toggle switches for series/parallel pickup switching and power switch.

The P2 and One Dollar guitar shapes are certainly more unique in design than the Recycled G but probably a little too out there for the general guitar buying public.

Kronodale official site

About a month ago I featured a name synonymous with guitars since the 80’s rock explosion Wayne Charvel, well around the same time another guitar builder was attracting all the right customers and even lured Eddie Van Halen away from Charvel! That man was Gary Kramer. Gary Kramer co-founded Kramer Guitars in the late 1970s with close friend Dennis Berardi. Kramer originally started out making Aluminium neck guitars but in 1981 ditched the idea to follow Chavel’s suit with wooden neck guitars, they were also the first guitar company to offer Original Floyd Rose locking tremelo on their production guitars. By late 1985, Kramer began installing Seymour Duncan pickups in its guitars, in favor over the more vintage-sounding Schaller pickups. and became the best-selling guitar brand of 1985 and 1986.

Despite endorsments by big name guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen and Richie Sambora Kramer came to an end in 1991, mostly due to financial problems. The company had been spending huge amounts on advertising and endorsements, and then lost a lawsuit with Floyd Rose over royalties. It is back up and running now, owned by Gibson and really just existing for nostalgia’s sake.

However In 2005, Gary Kramer began working with Leo Scala to bring out a new line of guitars to be manufactured under the name Gary Kramer Guitars. There is the odd nod back to the 80’s with the USA Custom models as well as the Crusader Limited but Gary Kramer has decided to take a bold step in guitar design and create something a little different. The Turbulence FX guitar not only has a unique and ergonomic body shape but it also has a 6 point Bolt-on 7 string neck with 36 fretless frets while still maintaining a 25.5” scale. The “Delta Wing” body is Mahogany with with contoured surfaces and a detachable aluminum leg rest unit. The guitar also has a recessed Tunomatic with string through design and a direct mounted Bridge Alnico humbucking pickup.

Check out this YouTube video of the guitar in action.

Dave Weiner is a Favored Nations artist, he released “Shove The Sun Aside” back in 2004 and is currently working on a new album to be released this year. Aside from that he has also been touring as the guitarist in Steve Vai’s band. Dave is a busy man! Which makes “Riff Of The Week” even more impressive. So far Dave has posted 141 videos which range anywhere between 3 minutes and 10 minutes long! Check out the latest episode above then head over to Dave’s Riff Of The Week‘ channel. There are tutorials on modes, tips for writing riffs, footage from the Vai tour and even stomp box reviews. All this from a professional touring guitarist with 1 solo album release, another on the way and it is all free of charge! That’s right, free guitar tuition you would be wise to subscribe to this channel.

While you are over at YouTube you might like to subscribe to the Guitar Noize YouTube channel to get recommendations for some great guitar videos.

Dave Weiner’s Official Site
Dave Weiner’s MySpace page.

Whilst reading my daily guitar rss feeds I came across a very interesting guitar over at Thumbrella by Italian guitar company Manne Guitars established in 1987 by Andrea Ballarin in Schio, in northeastern Italy. Manne guitars’ main shape is quite unique just check out the Taos to see what I mean. Well it turns out that aside from their regular guitars, their Semiacustica and 8 string model they also have a couple of special edition guitars, one of which is the Malt Whisky.

For the Frankfurt Musikmesse Manne Guitars decided to make a very special project, a guitar constructed from a Lagavulin Malt Whisky cask. Lagavulin is one of the oldest Scottish distilleries on the Hebridean Island of Islay.

”After the wood was dried we started to work on the project to solve various problems due to the dimensions and condition of the wood. The heads, the two flat round sides of the cask, were the ideal solution for creating the back of a guitar body, to preserve the original surface with the characteristic painted brandings. There are just two of them so there was material enough for just 2 guitars.”

By using the cask heads they managed to keep the original stencil lettering which they used for the back of the guitar and then the solid oak was chambered to give the guitar more resonance and reduce the overall weight, I imagine a lump of oak hanging around your neck would cause some serious back pain otherwise!

”To protect the wood we worked out a very special formulation of odorless oil mixed with a fabulous whisky: the Lagavulin 91-07 distillery edition that very probably was the original cask’s content. This particular formula will keep the body preserved with the original whisky taste… All hardware was antiqued to match the body finish style.“