Guitar Noize

You may have seen the new Dino Cazares (Fear Factory, Divine Heresy) signature Ibanez DCM100 here on Guitar Noize last week that featured a video where Dino not only talks about his new signature guitar but also his new signature Seymour Duncan pickups, the Retribution active 7 and 8 string humbuckers. Dino says that these new pickups provide the essential attack, clarity and increased headroom that 7 and 8-string guitars that he wanted.

The Seymour Duncan Retribution pickups feature a specially tuned preamp with “just the right amount of gain, enhanced attack definition and maximum string clarity. Like the standard Blackouts series and Mick Thomson EMTY Blackouts, they maintain an organic open sound that isn’t sterile but instead is huge and powerful with a lower noise level and an increased dynamic response compared to other active pickups.”

Dino Cazares says of the Retribution, “It has a richer tone that’s more evenly voiced so the low string is not fighting with the high string. It’s a very crunchy sound, great for low tunings. It has more articulation in the pick attack and the distortion has less unwanted noise and compression.”

These pickups were designed with extended range players in mind by maintaining definition on the low B and F# strings. The Retribution is the same pickup that is featured on the new Dino Cazares signature Ibanez DCM100 7-string.

Like the Blackouts active pickups series, Retribution comes with wiring schematics and all necessary mounting hardware including pots, stereo jack, and battery clip. They are available separately as neck and bridge models or as a complete calibrated set for 7 string guitars (passive and soapbar sized) and 8 string guitars (soapbar sized). Each Retribution is wound and assembled at the Seymour Duncan factory in Santa Barbara, California.

For more information, visit: http://www.SeymourDuncan.com

As you can see Music Man Guitars have announced a new guitar for 2015 under their budget line Sterling By Music Man. The JP170D in Ruby Redburst is a 7 string version of the John Petrucci model - the JP100D.

You may wonder what is the difference between the Sterling JP70 and the JP170D so let me just quickly outline the differences. So yes there are already 3 existing John Petrucci signature model guitars in the Sterling by Music Man range, the JP60, JP70 and JP100D. The JP60 being the most basic 6 string model, the JP70 being the 7 string version of the JP60 and then the JP100D which is “Based on the “Ball Family Reserve” Model JP6. The slightly larger body is capped with a highly figured, quilted maple top, and is available in three exquisite ‘burst’ finishes for 2014″. The JP100D also comes equipped with John Petrucci’s favourite combination of DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab humbuckers. The JP170D is essentially just a 7 string version of the JP100D.

Expect to see more pictures and videos appear in just over a month at NAMM 2015!

I’m very excited to add yet another exceptional talent to my series of ‘Top 5 Influential Guitarists‘ series, Stephan Forte. Check out the top 5 guitarists that influenced Stephan over the years:

1: Marty Friedman

Even though I knew Cacophony of course, and was already a big fan of the speed Metal Symphony album (especially the song Concerto at that time) I think I really discovered Marty’s genius with Megadeth’s Rust In Peace. As soon as I heard the classical guitar break in Holy Wars, I knew something was happening. Then, main Holy Wars solo, Hangar 18’s solo, Take No Prisoners solo, and so on…. all those amazing and twisted bends, those uber exotic scales. That was love at first sound! My favorite of all on this album is definitely Lucretia, for the inventive way of choosing such wonderful and unexpected notes. The whole construction and feeling of those solos is unbelievable. Today, Marty is still one of my major influences, and I am still learning a lot from him.

2: Jason Becker

Jason is without any doubt THE absolute Metal virtuoso. A perfect combination of flawless technique and sensibility.
I’ve been heavily influenced by his use of the whammy bar, his neverending and ultra clean arpeggios, the way he used to shred his scales, always faster, always more aggressive..and in the meantime, this very subtle Jeff Beck touch when he plays with the clean tone, letting his senisbility fully express. Still today, he is untouchable.

3: Yngwie Malmsteen

I was 14 when my brother gave me the Rising Force vinyl. I still remember the effect the acoustic intro of Black Star had on me at that time. I knew something was going on, but at that time, couldn’t really say, I was just fascinated. Months later, after listening to it over and over, I finally understood that this blend of classical elements and dramatic edge to the sound was definitely about to be a turning point in my life. That’s when I started to spend countless hours on the guitar, practicing every single lick. That’s pretty much at that point that I knew I wanted to do this with my life. Yngwie’s influence is still very present in my playing, especially in the way I’m doing my vibratos. Above all those incredible lines, diminished arpeggios etc..I think Yngwie’s vibrato is still one of the best in metal today. My favorite albums: Rising Force, Trilogy, Fire & Ice.

4: Shawn Lane

Another genius gone too soon. He was a TRUE genius, the kind of musician who cannot be categorized as a player…To me, what defines a genius, is when subhuman skills meets ultra deep sensibility in interpretation. Everything in Shawn Lane’s playing was perfect: The technique, the phrasing, the tone, the control…His use of the whammy bar also had a huge influence on my playing. Definitely one of the greatest musicians of all time.

5: Derek Taylor

There are unfortunately very few who know who Derek Taylor is. But he is one hell of a shredder and one of my other huge influences. He pushed the concept of legato and tapping very far. I love the ambiguous dissonances in his bendings, his incredible legato chops, his three note per string pentatonic licks, and of course his amazing three fingers tapping extension. One of the most outstanding player out there!

Check out the title track from Stephan Forte’s album Enigma Opera Black featuring Andy James:

Diamond Guitars have teamed up with Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory to create a signature Halcyon guitar loaded with Seymour Duncan’s Sentient/Pegasus set humbuckers.

The Halcyon ZB models will come in two colors with slightly different configurations. The first, the Halcyon ZB-FR Black Moonrise model, is a Flamed Maple over Maple body, Maple set neck with Ebony fingerboard, 24 fret, 25.5” scale length, Floyd Rose bridge and Seymour Duncan Pegasus/Sentient pickup set, allowing players to use the thickest string gauge they want but retain clarity and ferocious tonality. The Halcyon ZB-FR Kona Brown model features a Flame Maple over Mahogany body, for a completely different and warmer feel, with Mahogany set neck and Ebony fingerboard with the aforementioned pickups and hardware configuration. The custom inlay on both models, spanning the first to third frets, is a Tibetan Flame encompassing a Double Dorje, which is also a tattoo on Zoltan Barthory’s forearms.

Diamond Guitars

Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares is the latest artist to be added to Ibanez’s ever growing lineup of signature guitar models, the Ibanez DCM100. This is a simple, stripped back metal machine with a long scale length to help add tension to the strings and allow a lower gauge to be used, although this 7 string does come from the factory tuned a whole step down. There is no tone control just a single volume and with just a bridge humbucker there is no need for a pickup selector switch. Here are the rest of the specs and a video from Dino himself talking about the new signature model.

DCM100 Features:
Neck: DCM 3pc Maple/Bubinga neck w/KTS™ TITANIUM rods
Fretboard: Rosewood fretboard w/Off-set Mother of Pearl dot inlay with 16″ radius
Fret: Jumbo frets w/Prestige fret edge treatment
Scale length: 673mm/26.5″
Body: Mahogany body
Bridge: Lo-Pro Edge 7 tremolo bridge
Bridge Pickup: Seymour Duncan® Retribution (H) bridge pickup (Active)
Factory tuning: 1D, 2A, 3F, 4C, 5G, 6D, 7A
Hardware color Cosmo black

By Pappy

Flatline Guitars is a company out of Washington that has been specializing in high-quality guitars for years, but has recently expanded its offerings by selling custom parts to help customize your guitar to a higher level. Examples include pre-wired pickguards for your Strat or Strat-inspired guitars, custom neck plates, and (my favorite) Telecaster control plates.

See, Flatline is known for tweaking the classic recipes of guitars to make them better for the modern player, but my favorite tweak belongs to the Delta guitar - their Tele-inspired guitar. It features volume and tone knobs like you know and love, but Rick and co. at Flatline swapped out the blade switch for a toggle and the world suddenly made more sense. As much as I love the Tele, I would argue that the blade switch wasn’t the best choice because it goes against your hand’s normal motion when you’re playing guitar. Instead of easily flicking your fingers and switching to the bridge or reaching a bit to pull up and move to the neck you have to run perpendicular to the motion that you were already doing when you were playing. I know that it’s tradition and all that, but there has to a come a time when we throw off the shackles of tradition just because that is how it’s always been done. The toggle makes sense, I got used to it VERY quickly, and moving back to a blade switch seems inefficient and cumbersome.

Because of this, I was pretty excited when Flatline announced these control plates and was even MORE excited when they said they were offering pre-wired control plates. I don’t mind wiring Telecasters - it’s not that hard - but I was excited at the idea of just a couple of solder points, a couple of screws and then I can go right to playing.

Flatline sent me two control plates: one was blank, drilled for two knobs, a toggle, and two mounting screws, and the other control plate was all wired up and ready to go. The blank one is made for the people that want to choose/buy/install their own preferred parts, while the pre-wired one is made for folks like me who just want to play as soon as possible. If you choose the blank one to use your own parts in it, Flatline has free wiring plans on their website to show you where each wire goes. They even have two wiring options so you can choose which one strikes your fancy more (I like the Delta 90 wiring). If you order the pre-wired one, it’s as easy as looking at the same wiring diagram and soldering your positive and negative pickup leads and bolting in your new (included) output jack.

That’s it.

I did have a slight issue with my installation where I had to modify my pickguard, but this was because Fender drilled the control plate holes way off-center, not because of anything Flatline did. Other than that, installation was a breeze and I was playing in under ten minutes.

The blank control plate costs $15.00 and the pre-wired control plate will set you back $75.00, but I definitely think it’s worth it. The only thing the pre-wired control plate DOESN’T come with are knobs, but I think it’s a smart move since everyone has their own preference in knobs so why bother increasing the price for knobs you may or may not dig?

Overall, I think it’s a brilliant way to upgrade your Tele and give it that boutique feel without having to give up your favorite guitar or spend the same amount you would on a boutique guitar. The toggle not only makes more sense, is more efficient, and clean-looking, but it’s an easy way to set your guitar apart from the sea of similar-looking Teles out there.

For more information or to order yours, be sure to click HERE.

Tom Wheeler was Editor in Chief of Guitar Player and the founding Editorial Director of Bass Player until 1991. Tom has published a number of books including ‘The Soul Of Tone: Celebrating 60 years of Fender Amps’ which I reviewed back in 2009, other books include ‘The Stratocaster Chronicles’ and ‘The Dream Factory: Fender Custom Shop’.

Tom Wheeler has created another Fender themed book called ‘The Fender Archives’ which he describes as “a scrapbook of artifacts, treasures, and inside information”. The book includes handwritten letters, production totals, personal logbooks, in-house memos, Leo Fender’s drawing board sketches and financial reports.

The Fender Archives sheds new light on the inspirations for revolutionary instruments and amplifiers, their sometimes difficult births and growing pains, the environment into which they were unleashed upon the world, and the motivations and personalities of key players.

PRS have announced another new model due to debut at NAMM 2015 this coming January, the LR Baggs/PRS Piezo equipped PRS P245. The cool thing with the P245 is that it has two output jacks, one for the Piezo and the other for the magnetic pickups AND the piezo. By utilizing the separate blend control, the tone of the P245’s 58/15 pickups can be combined with acoustic sounds through a single output.

“The P245 is one of the first models to feature the new 58/15 treble and bass pickups, which were personally designed by Paul Reed Smith. 58/15’s are a vintage style pickup with exceptional clarity and focused midrange. These pickups paired with a shorter 24.5” scale length and 22 frets, give the P245 a truly classic voice that is imminently recordable and gig-ready.”

The PRS P245 features a figured maple top and mahogany back with binding, mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard with bird inlays, nickel hardware, volume, tone and 3-way toggle switch. Players can upgrade to a P245 Artist Package that features enhanced specifications, including an Artist Grade flame maple top, Artist grade neck and fingerboard woods, and the choice of gold, hybrid or nickel hardware.

I was a little late posting about the last competition a couple of days ago but this one still runs for another 10 days and is open to every country in the world! Prestige Guitars have teamed up with Seymour Duncan for one heck of a Christmas giveaway. You could be the lucky owner of a Prestige Heritage Deluxe along with a Seymour Duncan Dirty Deed, Vapor Trail and Pickup Booster pedals.

All you have to do to enter is head over to the Prestige Guitars facebook giveaway page and fill in the form.

Earlier this year I posted about a guitar documentary series called ‘Cracking The Code‘ by Brendan Schlagel, Troy Grady and Adam Payne which documents the mechanics of virtuoso shred guitar technique using high-speed, slow-motion camera views of licks from picking legends such as Michael Angelo Batio & Frank Gambale. This series has now spawned it’s own product! They say necessity is the mother of invention and Troy Grady has needed a way to capture the slow video over the years using various clamps and contraptions which has evolved into this sleek simple design which can hold any kind of Smartphone or Go-Pro camera. Actually it can hold two Go-Pro cameras so that you can simultaneously film both hands while playing.

Now you may be thinking why would I want to film myself playing, well as Troy points out this is incredibly useful for slowing down your playing to identify problems with your left and right hand technique. However, how many videos have you seen of bands playing live and you get the fretboard shot? It’s a cool technique to splice into your band videos, YouTube play-throughs or product demos and until now you had to make do with some kind of makeshift phone holder.

By the way make sure you check out Troy Grady’s YouTube channel, he’s an incredible guitar player!