Does it get any better than Bad Company for classic rockage? I’ll answer that for you: No! For years I’ve held onto an old Guitar Player with Mick Ralphs on the cover, and of course now I can’t find it…but I did find the interview online. In it Mick goes into some pretty decent gear [...]
Okay, not really two minutes, but I’m diggin’ “2 Minutes To Midnight” these days, so…. What gear did Iron Maiden’s Dave Murray and Adrian Smith use on Powerslave? Hold on – I guess the first question is, Is their tone woody? IMO no, but it’s the distinctive what I’d call “saturated” metal tone these guys [...]
There’s this issue of the old, defunct but often awesome Guitar Shop mag I have that runs down Dave Gilmour’s live gear from every period of Pink Floyd. Crazy! Actually too much stuff to put in here, but I had to get something in so here we are. The thing that kick-started this post is [...]
…The Brian May and Joe Bonamassa Connections Rory Gallagher was Irish. ‘Nuff said. Seriously, Rory was a bad motherFer on the geetar, no doubt. I wish I was more familiar with him and his stuff, but here’s a cursory overview of his gear and tunes for others like me. Rory fans chime in with any [...]
Did Edward Van Halen have his MXR phaser and flanger modded to boost or not? The initial interviews are inconclusive. Exhibit A, from this recent post: I use a phase shifter, a Phase 90 – MXR, I think. It doesn’t really phase – it just kind of gives you treble boost, which I like. Cuts [...]
Here we go, more from the newly published transcript of the entire 1978 interview of Edward Van Halen that Jas Obrecht did for Guitar Player mag. Cool stuff. Effects Jas: What about effects? EVH: I use two Echoplexes. I use a flanger just for little subtle touches. I don’t use it for any intros or [...]
I have an early ’80s MXR 6-band EQ (pictured). Can’t remember exactly why I bought it (new), but had to be because of Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads, my two guit-wielding idols at the time. Even though Ed used the 6-band and Randy used the 10-band, Randy may have been more of an influence [...]
Been a loooooong time since I’d heard the Alice in Chains tune “Down In a Hole” until it hit the car radio the other day. First thing that hit me: What a unique use of a standard bottom-of-neck chord progression. And the tune sounded so dang good! Of course guit-slinger Jerry Cantrell has an uber-distorted [...]
Here’s the rest of Steve Morse’s 1978 gear, from an excellent interview with Jas Obrecht. It’s a much longer interview than what you’ve seen here, worth a full read. Btw, the interview was not for Guitar World per the pic at left. Just used that cover shot because it’s a great close-up of Steve’s original [...]
Booya!, Ark, Evil Robot, Pedals… Don’tcha just love the smell of hot tubes? A cookin’ amp is one key to Woody Tone, and as I’ve said, the Amp Show was full of Wood. Here are some more finds from the recent NY/NJ Amp Show – but know that I unfortunately didn’t make it to every [...]
Nice weather here in Jersey, finally, feels like Friday, like I should be typing this with a beer next to me. It’s all putting me in the mood for Van Halen’s sunny SoCal music. So while I let ‘er rip on the stereo computer, here’s some fun EVH stuff for ya. And of course, while fun, [...]
Vivian Campbell cracks me up. In just about every interview about Def Leppard he says that being in the band has hurt his guitar playing but has helped his singing. A little cringe-inducing, eh? But honest, always honest. I like that. [Remember the Guitar World interview where he slagged the heck out of Gibson? In [...]
The documentary “Cry Baby: The Pedal that Rocks the World” was released a few months back. Did you hear about it? Since I’m not a frequent Cry Baby (or any wah or pedal) user, I didn’t feel compelled to track it down for a look-see. But then I saw recently that the entire movie – [...]
The Fender Jeff Beck signature Strat – MSRP of $2,199 – is a unique animal in Strat-dom. Meaning basically it’s a customized standard Strat. But the one Fender sells isn’t much like the one Jeff plays. The Fender Beck Strat has a Strat-standard alder body, maple neck (9.5″ radius) and rosewood board. But per Beck’s [...]
Even though Ronnie Van Zant wrote and sung the line “Handguns are made for killin’, ain’t no good for nothin’ else,” his younger bro Donnie started a band that ended up being named after a handgun. And that band (.38 Special) produced some great stuff tunes in the ’80s, not all of which were the [...]
In the early ’70s, the Eagles were heading down a country path. That was all well and good, but they wanted to rock.
Part 2 In effort to get to the bottom of what George Lynch used in the studio on the cut “Lesser of Two Evils,” here’s a rundown of the live gear he used on that tour (also from an older version of his site), which may give a clue about his studio setup.
Part 1 Dokken’s Dysfunctional album isn’t great. Maybe not even good. They know it, I know it, now you know it. But there are a couple good tunes on it, and one I’d call great – great hard rock. Not metal, not pop metal, but big guitars, catchy, nice hook, good chorus. George Lynch’s tone [...]
Part 2, Protos and Rig Details Three prototype amps were used by Neal at HipKitty to start the R&D process for Mick’s signature head. Neal said two 50w heads were started to form the primary distortion channel and tone circuit. The third proto head was/is a 100-watter “that uses the culmination of the refined distortion/tone [...]
High Voltage! by John Drenning Okay, I’ll come clean. I have a Big Stupid Pedalboard. It’s a Furman with eight power taps, four power outlets, casters and an extendable handle like the bags flight attendants use. It takes up about the same amount of floor space as a foosball table. On it are two buffered [...]
I’ve had these three old Guitar Player magazine interviews kicking around on my desktop for a while now, decided to wind them up into one post. Interesting stuff, here are the most interesting tone-related excerpts:
Wow. A man dying so young and out of the blue (no apparent sickness or substance abuse) is a body blow in the guitar community. RIP Gary! Had to do a tribute of sorts. Thought for a while about what to do, here’s the result. Hope you enjoy. (Diehard Moore fans, please contribute any gear [...]
If you’re way into “guitara obscura” you may know the following. But for the rest of us, this might be news. Let’s start with the Echoplex itself. I’m not going to get into the electronics of the thing, but anyone who’s a fan of classic rock tone knows that the Echoplex was used as much [...]
Yngwie Malmsteen’s signature Marshall has gotten a lot of interest, seemingly more because people like the idea of a 100w Marshall plexi with attentuation (power scaling) than because it’s a signature amp. With the recent NAMM trade show now over, some more details of the amp have come out.
Mids! In part 1, we learned that Ronni Le Tekro prefers pickups with Alnico 5 magnets. Seems odd that Ronni would use A5 pickups if he loved mids so much, but he more than made up for any “lost” mids with his amp and effects setup….
Wow! Anyone here in the U.S. catch the recent airing (re-airing?) of Cheap Trick live on Austin City Limits? Couple quick observations after watching: > Cheap Trick is a ROCK BAND. Lots of big guitar tone, great classic rock/Beatles-esque tunes, good singing – a real freakin’ band! Great to see and hear they’re still doing [...]
The EVH Connection (Sorta), Yngwie’s Amp Settings This Edward Van Halen quote from Tuesday’s post – “Those old Marshalls are all so different and you won’t find two that sound the same” – reminded me of another quote
What are those boxes taped to the amps? Why the F is it so tough to get definitive info on what Dave Murray and Adrian Smith used back in the early days or Iron Maiden? I have a Guitar World Guitar Legends mag dedicated to Maiden, and there isn’t a single piece of early gear [...]
Dime! Never was a huge fan of Pantera, but loved Dimebag Darrell’s playing (“Cowboys From Hell” is the meanest blues scale riff ever), his interaction with his bro/drummer Vinnie Paul and though I never got to meet the guy by all accounts he was a sweetheart. He was also born the same year as me, [...]
… and don’t we love it! Finally getting to some long-delayed reading and was checking out the June 2010 issue of Guitar World with Keith Richards on the cover. In little letters on the right it says “Plus Peter Frampton,” and that’s where I turned first. Glad I did, good interview.
Here’s the New VH Single/Vid: 50w?
Update from a reader (thanks!): Tattoo is is based on an old song, “Down in Flames” – check it below. “Tattoo.” Is it me or have we never heard a Van Halen tune like this before? If Ed used his “grail” Marshall Super Lead on this album, don’t think we’re hearing it on this tune! [...]
Breaking Down the VH NYC Debut
She’s the Woman! Cafe Wha – yeah man! Couldn’t wrangle my son and I an invite, so instead awaited the sure-to-follow YouTube vids. Fingers were crossed that the band would play some new tunes, though had to admit that didn’t make much sense since they hadn’t even released a tune yet. Anyhow, here’s what we [...]
Bonamassa Hears Clapton in EVH: You?
Lots of well-known axe-slingers are quoted in Neil Zlozower’s new (and awesome) Eddie Van Halen book. One is the current white bluesman extraordinaire, Joe “gingers o’ fire” Bonamassa. What he says is interesting, and not sure I can hear what he’s hearing. Bear in mind a couple things: 1. EVH has said many times that [...]
Have You Gone Extra Slinky Yet?
When I recently got an email from a WoodyTone reader – let’s call him Mike because…that’s his real name – I was stoked because I like light strings. I played 10s for years, then went to 9s after getting back into the whole EVH tone quest. With 9s I noticed that the notes “opened up,” [...]
If I ever had a doubt I’m a huge Edward Van Halen fan (never had any doubt, but…), any such insane thought was erased when I finished reading Neil Zlozower’s new Eddie Van Halen book. Yep, reading. Actually got a little emotional at the end of it (*sniff*), reading Nuno Bettencourt’s story about a recent [...]
Did Edward Van Halen have his MXR phaser and flanger modded to boost or not? The initial interviews are inconclusive. Exhibit A, from this recent post: I use a phase shifter, a Phase 90 – MXR, I think. It doesn’t really phase – it just kind of gives you treble boost, which I like. Cuts [...]
Last Cool Stuff From ’78 EVH Transcript
Here’s the last of the interesting stuff from the newly published transcript of the entire 1978 interview of Edward Van Halen that Jas Obrecht did for Guitar Player mag. Wish there was a lot more! Guitar Stuff The Shark/Destroyer Jas: Does it have a standard neck? EVH: Yeah. It’s completely stock, really, except for the [...]
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