Category: Marshall
Part 1 – Plus Iso Tracks! I love Mick Jones’ stuff. Simple riffs, great song hooks and I love the tone he has on some of the older tunes. It’s Marshall plexi, but…different. I’d always thought I heard something different there, anyway. Maybe it had to do with the odd wiring in his Les Paul. […]
And some oddballs…. As I type this, Bonham’s auction house is auctioning off a bunch of Eric Clapton-owned gear to benefit his Crossroads rehab center. Took a look at the online catalog, and here’s what caught my eye, starting with the coolest stuff:
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 […]
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.
Joe Bonamassa seems to be one of those guys with golden hands. Don’t think I’ve ever heard him with bad tone, even when he was a a flashy youngster. And as with all tone hounds, the amp – or in his case “amps,” since “there can’t only be one” – is a huge part of […]
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….
Whether Yngwie Malmsteen’s playing is your cup ‘o tea or not, one thing can’t be argued: his tone is woody, always has been. A boosted Strat into cranked 50w metal-panel Marshall Mark II heads – schweet! So when I was tipped to the fact that Yngwie has a new signature Marshall head coming out (thanks […]
A couple years ago, Paul Gilbert was favoring semi-hollow guitars. You could attribute that to him being an at-times weird dude, but turns out that’s not (entirely) why he made the change to those guitars, albeit since reversed. So why did he like semi-hollows? In a word, tone. That’s what Paul said in a Guitar […]
Anyone remember that song “Fantasy”? (If not, it’s below.) I liked it, though it did remind of a Jefferson Starship tune – which will be the subject of the next post. Off and on I’ve tried to track down info on the gear Aldo used on that tune, since he apparently played all the parts […]
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
Plus Ed’s version of the Nugent story Here are a few more excerpts from that book “Gear Secrets of the Guitar Legends,” these from the Edward Van Halen section – which is at best incomplete, at worst “wrong” in some places. “Wrong” is in quotes because for the most part no one’s really sure, so […]
From the Horse’s Mouth! The September 1998 issue of Guitar Shop magazine (no longer in print) has a pretty good interview with Jimmy Page – a bunch of gear information, for some reason a rarity when it comes to Page interviews. I covered some of that info in a previous post, but the following info […]
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 […]
The Guitar Player interview mentioned in Tuesday’s post had more info, beyond just Cream. Here are the tonealicious highlights of that, starting with a Les Paul and Marshall rocked on a Beatles tune: GP: By the way, was that you playing the lead guitar part on “As My Guitar Weeps†on the Beatles album? There […]
Once in a while Guitar Player sends out these “flashback” emails of old interviews. One semi-recent one was Eric Clapton in June 1970, daddy-o. Although that was post-Cream – or “the Cream,” as it was called back then – he talked about his gear in Cream. Here are the juicy deets plus some notes: GP: […]
Fair Warning Tone Ain’t All the Same
Got it in my head to figure out which Van Halen song tones – not album tones – I liked the most. Started with Fair Warning, whose balls I just can’t get enough of…which doesn’t sound so good but you get what I mean. Listen to it cranked in my car because that’s the only […]
Pondering VH’s Fair Warning Tone
LOVE the first four Van Halen albums. Always have, always will. Love the rest too, including the Van Hagar years (oops, forgot about VH III…), but those first four vinyl donuts are to me and many others just the nads. The nadliest of nads. They’re a band kicking the world’s butt in every way, and […]
Recently I was ruined yet again by a good amp. This time a bud’s Bogner Shiva, EL34 version. Let’s call him Sean – because that’s his name…. He’d been talking about how awesome it was for a while, and even though I know he has good ears, wasn’t too motivated to go try it. I’d […]
The Gene-EVH-Ace-Joe Perry Connection
Have you picked up “Guitar World Presents 40 Years of Van Halen” yet? Zactly – I didn’t even know it existed until I saw it in a bookstore (remember those? lol). Anyhow, I’m always amazed at how I think I’ve memorized every word ever written about Ed and his gear and then I read something […]
More On the YMI5150 Model-A Guitar
Few weeks ago I posted a brief “review” (outdated word) of Kevin Holbrook’s YMI5150 Model-A guitar. As a brief reminder, what got my attention were the following things: > A good wood combo: swamp ash, maple/rosewood. > An interesting and unique combo of components resulting in a Strat-shaped and -scaled guitar with an ABR bridge […]
Did You Read the Esquire EVH Piece Yet?
We’re going to have to wait yet another week for the interview with Kevin Holbrook of YMI5150 guitars because we have yet another newsworthy event. This time it’s the recent Esquire interview with Edward Van Halen. Now before you EVH fans get to getting your hopes up, let’s bear in mind the same ol’s: 1. […]
Show ‘Review’: Van Halen at the Garden
Took my 10-year-old son to see Van Halen at Madison Square Garden in New York City on March 1. I think he was more excited to see them than I was – not that I wasn’t, but this was the mighty Van Halen whose tunes the both of us have copped, jammed to and listened […]
