Signature Editions?

Guitar makers have been making 'Signature Edition' guitars (special models endorsed by famous players) for a long time, and for a long time, guitar buyers have been complaining about them...

These complaints seem to break down into some variation of the following:

Why'd they give *HIM* a signature model?
I hate [some aspect] of the guitar
It's sooo expensive

Just the other day Martin announced a new John Mayer signature edition, prompting this posting on the Martin Guitar Forum:

Didn't the other Mayer edition come out just a few years ago? Do we really need two Mayer editions? [...] what has he done to really merit two signature editions?

Well, here's an interesting Signature Edition from Gibson: the Kiefer Sutherland Special Edition

I was really wondering about that one, but then on reading the article I see that he owns about 50 Gibsons, and he has a record label too!

Gosh...well...still. I can't imagine what they're saying about that over on the Gibson forums!

Taylor ES

The Taylor website has a great video on noise (hum) reduction.

From this link, click on "Performance Tips/Maintenance" in the upper right

Then click "More" at the bottom of the page

Finally, select "Noise Reduction"



It will, at least, help you to determine whether the problem is your guitar, your amp/PA, a bad extension cord, or your house wiring.

All You Need Is...

Just one of my favorites...

Is Lennon chewing gum?!

Revolution

Revolution
Filming Dates: September 4, 1968
Filming Locations: Twickenham Film Studios
Director: Michael Lindsay-Hogg

The backing track to "Revolution" was pre-recorded, but the vocals were live. Two clips were shot; They were mostly identical, but there were some lighting differences.

"Revolution" was broadcast only once in the UK, in black and white, on Top of the Pops on September 19. It was broadcast in the U.S. in color on on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on October 13.

Teeny Tiny D-35

Jaap Kaiser owns an original 70’s D35. Not content with that, he decided to build a minature D35 at a scale of 1 : 4.75.

A translation of his story, along with pictures, appears here.

I wonder if he's taking orders?

New Martins

New Martin's announced. Most notably:

Roy Rodgers OM-45 in regular and Braz. models. $10K for the Indian Rosewood model; you don't want to ask how much the Braz. model is.

A white version of Eric Clapton's Bellezza (called the Bianca.)

D-42 Flamed Mahogany (about $10K too)

There's a bunch of other things too, including; OMJM John Mayer, 000C-28 Andy Summers, MC12-41 Richie Sambora, 000-18 Golden Era 1937, and for the kids, a FeLiX II.

Now what will Taylor announce?....

Gibson + Ethernet = ??

Remember that Ethernet guitar I mentioned? Well it has come back to haunt me.

The Gibson Digital Guitar brings the 1930s technology of conventional electric guitars into the Digital Age according to the press release. It looks like a regular Gibson electric, but it adds an Ethernet port and Gibson will be showing it at NAMM, though no word on price or availablity...





The Gibson Digital Guitar System features:

* A genuine Gibson guitar, 100% compatible with existing equipment.
* Gibson's patented HEX pickup, which senses up-and-down motion (like an acoustic guitar pickup) and side-to-side motion (like an electric guitar pickup) for each string.
* MaGIC-enabled digital transport, carrying multiple channels in both directions over standard Ethernet cable.
* Gibson's BreakOut Box, with 8 outputs (1/4" jacks) - one for each string, plus classic humbucking pickup output and pass-through for microphone; 2 inputs carry audio back to guitar for monitoring; split mode assigns strings to different amps.

Wait a minute. Did that say EIGHT outputs? I have enough trouble with one!

Gibson has developed a prototype digital guitar that converts the analog signal into a digital signal inside the guitar. Stray frequencies entering the guitar pickups are eliminated along with analog line noise induced through the guitar cable. A guitarist can run a cable over 100 meters with no loss of audio quality.

What if you want wireless? Does it support Wi-Fi?!

The Gibson Digital Guitar system delivers signal processing on a string-by-string basis, providing increased quality and flexibility, including the ability to adjust volume, pan and equalization of each string individually.

MaGIC technology
MaGIC, developed by Gibson Labs, stands for Media-accelerated Global Information Carrier and is designed to replace all wiring systems in both the musical instrument fields and consumer electronic applications with a single Ethernet cable. MaGIC-enabled consumer electronics devices will allow daisy chaining devices and plug-and-play capabilities.

If Sony and Apple support it, maybe I'll buy one...

Andy Summers Signature Edition

Turns out some NAMM news from Martin has already slipped out....on Andy Summers website. Martin will announce the 000C-28 Andy Summers Signature Model.

You can find more details about it here.

This is not Martin's first collaboration with the law. Fellow Police member Sting already has a Martin signature model or two.

NAMM Announcements Already?!

Okay, I'm excited. Only three days until NAMM and already there are announcements!

I have no idea why I'm all excited about this year's show. I don't honestly expect that anything will be announced that I'll actually want, but for some reason I'm still dying to know what might appear. Maybe it's because I need some excitement in my boring life?

More Lessons

And why not? It's all about learning, right?

Here's a couple of articles that look interesting from guitarist Eltjo Haselhoff.

The first article "Learning New Songs" goes into how best to learn a new song at considerable length. The second article "Recording Acoustic Guitar" looks a little heavy on the theory (hey, I'd like to just know what to do thanks) but there are some good suggestions at the 'tips' at the end.

He also has lessons! If nothing else, check out the section "How to Play Cornerstone" which has a fun little example with the song played via MIDI and on acoustic guitar for comparison. Comparison of what you ask? Umm, well not sure really, but it's interesting.

Lessons

Some websites with lessons:

Eric Lugosch Fingerstyle Academy has a number of different songs. For most there's both tab and MP3.

The Acoustic Guitar Workshop; range of resources.

Jack Baker's site for New York School of Fretted Instruments has beginner and intermediate tunes, advanced tunes, and some Chet Atkins/Jerry Reed/Merle Travis arrangements. You need Tab/Edit to download the files.

The Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar page has many arrangements -- also TabEdit, mp3s, etc.

Arrangements from UK guitarist Steve McWilliams including traditional, blues, 20s pop, Celtic, etc., and a beginner's section

Some other arrangements from the late Marcel Dadi and other well-known guitarists, such as Ton Van Bergeyk, Duck Baker, Eric Schoenberg, the late Dick Fegy.

Martin News

I'm just whiling away the time until NAMM [Jan. 19-22], when all kinds of good things should be announced.

In the mean time, the Martin Guitar company has been working on renovating their Factory Museum, and though there's been no official opening ceremony yet, it does appear to be open, and it's even been covered in the press: "Martin's new museum gets in tune with visitors"

...Get's in tune with visitors...I love that! I could write a headline that bad!

And in NAMM related news, who knows what new goodies Martin will unveil, but a web posting gives a hint of one possible announcement:

I was on a factory tour yesterday and saw a new Roy Rogers sig in an early state of build. Only thing I could gather was it was a Brazilian beauty. Anybody know about this model? has it even been announced?

If it's Brazilian then it's going to be wicked expensive and built in only very small quantities (unless Martin managed to find some unexpected stash of Brazilian.)

Dancing About Architecture

Yesterday's post provoked this discussion. [edited to make me appear more intelligent]

Adrian: I was just checking out your blog and I see that you featured the swanky Yamaha axe :-)

Me: I like pretty colors too, and the tuners are weird ;-)

Adrian: the design is kinda Apple-esque

Me: hmmm...yeah, hadn't thought of that. Might fit nicely with the 'pod

Adrian: that's what I'm thinking

Me: though they need some way of wiring the two together so you can play along with your iPod. Then they might be on to a winner!

Adrian: you could get a Y adaptor, and plug the guitar and the iPod into a little amp, and then plug your headphones into the amp... that'd work... maybe not quite as elegant as it ought to be, but it'd work ;-)

Me: hmmm...you'd need a mini to 1/4 inch adapter and the guitar and iPod have different levels. The guitar output is lower

Adrian: I'm sure there's a way to do it. My bass amp has two inputs, one for line level input and one for lower level inputs

Me: Yeah, that might do it. Some company had a guitar with an Ethernet port on it. I need to find that again

Adrian: Interesting. That sounds very familiar too. Seems like USB2 or FireWire would be more useful, but who knows

Me: Yeah. I don't know what the exact point of it was. Getting Ethernet from a guitar is a bit like getting MIDI from a CAD program.

And Writing about music is like dancing about architecture is one of my favorite quotes.

Playing In Tune

I must admit to being a little unsure about this one... it's The Performer from TransPerformance. This fairly large and complicated piece of machinery will keep your guitar in tune, in any one of a number of different tunings. The tuning can happen almost instantly, though you have to strum on open strings to do it. You can preset the device to store as many as 240 tunings. When a tuning is selected, sensors and motors adjusts the tension on all six strings simultaneously. In addition to the fairly substantial piece of hardware at the bridge, there's an LCD screen cut into the side of the body that shows the note, octave and cent value of all six strings.

And I thought the Robotic Tuner was pretty whacky!

At the moment it's available for hard body guitars (Les Paul's and Strats) but there's probably no reason it couldn't be adapted for acoustics; other than it's large and heavy! on second thoughts, looking at the size of the bridge, maybe not in it's current configuration.

CNET has an article about the device. I'm not sure of the price; and not sure I want to know.

You, Light Up My Life

I'm not a huge electric guitar fan; I have three, but none of them's particularly good, and one's out on loan.

I don't know why I don't play them much, just ended up being more into acoustics.

Anyway, reader Adrian (I don't think I have any others) suggested that the Yamaha RGX A2 Electric Guitar (left) is kind of cool because: 'I love the tuning knobs, and the color LEDs behind the volume and tone knobs.'

Yeah, that is pretty cool, though I wonder how bright that tuning knob light actually is...and wouldn't it be even more cool if it had that light over the fret board or something (kind of like those cars with lighting underneath them?)

The tuning knobs are interesting; I wonder how they feel when you turn them?

Anyway, it's nice, but too expensive for me to get one just because the lighting is cool.

Are You Experienced?

The Gibson Custom Shop has announced the Inspired by
series of limited-edition guitars, inspired by and built to the exact specifications of some of the most innovative guitarists of all time.

And the first guitar? It's the Jimi Hendrix Psychedelic Flying V. I'm assuming that Jimi didn't actually come back and specify this one. And actually, this isn't really 'inspired' by either, rather it's a 'copy of.'

It also seems that a lot of the work was in recreating the finish. No one is sure what Jimi used to paint the original (whether it was nail polish, enamel, or some combination.)

The finished result looks pretty cool. Not sure what the price is, but I'm sure all those ex-hippies who now work on Wall Street will be placing their order.

How Do You Hold It?

I've never been a big pick user. Just never really comfortable with them, so I mainly use my nails. Still, I do occasionally use a pick, and like all things, the more you use them, the better you get with them (a bit.)

Came across this little tutorial "In Your Hand" on using the pick (or more accurately, how to apply it to the guitar string.)

I've also been accumulating a collection of picks of different sizes and thicknesses. None seem to make a whole hell of a lot of difference in usefulness for me, but I keep trying!

I've read that you shouldn't hold the pick too firmly, but I find that if I don't, then the thing will move and even rotate in my fingers while I'm playing. Inevitably the thing will either fall out, or get into a position where it's useless and I have to either stop or drop it and play on using my fingers.

Beat It

I just bought a Djembe. At least I think it's a Djembe, because it kind of looks like this thing here on the right (which isn't my drum as I haven't taken a piture of it yet.)

I've been wanting to get a hand drum for a while, so finally today I went down to Guitar Center to have a poke around. They didn't have a big selection, but then I had no idea what I wanted (or needed) so I tapped a few, tried not to make too big a spectacle of myself, and picked one.

I've been banging away on it for a while, but I'm not sure I exactly know what I'm doing. Maybe I should get a book or something. They have drum circles in Harvard Square. Maybe I should give that a try, though searching the internet provides a hint that drum circles are often about meditation and healing rather than beating your drum.

Here Comes the Sun / Homeward Bound

Not super quality, but this clip gets the point across: George Harrison and Paul Simon singing "Here Comes the Sun" and "Homeward Bound" on Saturday Night Live.

Happy New Year

December was kind of quiet around here.....mostly because I was running around the first of it getting ready for a trip, and the second half of December I was on the trip, so I didn't post anything for a month...

What a slacker.