Clearwater, FL (July 25, 2008) -- Dean''s "Get Your Own Wings Shredder Search" now has YouTube capability. Instead of uploading videos straight to Dean''s site, shredders are now able to embed their YouTube clips on Dean''s website instead.
The company tells us that guitarists from over 35 different countries are now featured in the search. To upload your video, rate others shreds or check out the specifics, head over to Dean''s Shredder Search.
For more information: Dean Guitars
The bedroom or the garage: In a game of Family Feud, those humble locations would likely be the top answers for the question “Where do music careers begin?’ I was relegated to the latter for the sake of my parents’ sanity. But nothing stops a career cold like a garage in winter, so an amp that ensures you can sound good while sharing tight quarters is a truly valuable thing. Blackstar Amplification’s Debut Bass 25 fits that bill.
Small for All
The Debut Bass 25’s small-space friendliness starts with its compact footprint. At 14" high and less than 10" deep, it’s unobtrusive to say the least. The control panel, with just volume, low, mid, and high EQ controls as well as a push-button boost, is about as simple as they come. The knobs themselves are smooth and accurate, with the feel of a high-end amplifier. Two 1/8" jacks accommodate headphones and an aux in for running backing tracks. And for additional tone shaping and punch, Blackstar included an OD switch that adds more depth.
Sings at Sensible Volumes
I tried out the Debut 25 using a Bluesman Vintage El Dorado (a passive J-style bass) and a Warwick Streamer I with active pickups. Beginning in more traditional style with the El Dorado, I set the volume relatively low and the EQ controls around the mid-point in their range. Here, I was struck by how fully the sound enveloped me—and by the amp’s ability to preserve the El Dorado’s character with such clarity. By dialing the midrange back a couple notches, and boosting the bass by the same amount, I found a sweet spot that made the El Dorado sing—all at a volume suited for the woodshed.
When the OD switch is engaged, the EQ is still effective and can shape big tones that move from swampy to in-your-face.
Active pickups pair nicely with the Debut 25 too, if the Warwick is any indication. I remained impressed with the range within the EQ controls. With the Warwick, the most pleasing tones came with the high-frequency control kept below halfway—push it much further, and things get a little too crisp for my taste. When the OD switch is engaged, the EQ is still effective and can shape big tones that move from swampy to in-your-face. The amp can also be loud with or without the OD in the mix. More than once, I had to remind myself that the amp only houses an 8" speaker, because when I turned the volume up my floor was quite literally shaking.
The Verdict
I’m glad the Debut 25 found its way to me. I confess, I haven’t plugged into a low-watt practice amp in a very long time, and all I can say is that I wish an amp this small, powerful, and tonally rich had been available when I was starting out. My only gripe might be the absence of a dedicated XLR out, which would extend the amp’s utility in live situations where sound re-enforcement is available. And while its modest $299 price tag is a bit higher than some of its competition, the Debut 25 is anything but ordinary. It offers a wide range of tonal colors, and can hold its own at any volume, whether you’re in the garage, bedroom, or beyond.
High-performance builder Best Damn Cable Co. has added to the company’s product offerings with a durable, pro-quality wireless transmitter cable line.
The new Best Damn Wireless Cables are designed and purpose-built for the gigging musician who needs a wireless transmitter cable that can stand up to the rigors of live performance, night after grueling night.
The Best Damn Wireless Cable boasts reliability, customization, and a lifetime warranty. Featuring options for all the top wireless system models – including Shure, Sennheiser, Line 6, Nux, and AKG – you’ll find the perfect cable for your rig.
Guitarists can get their Best Damn Wireless Cable with an array of options:
Braided sleeving in 8 different colorways for durability, protection, and customization
Three standard length options - 1.5 feet, 2 feet and 3 feet long
Custom lengths available on request
Straight or Right Angled Neutrik gold plugs
Neutrik silentPLUG available on request
Lifetime Warranty against defect and damage
All cables are built by hand, with love, and by musicians and guitarists that understand. The Best Damn Wireless Cablestarts at $39.99 + shipping. Check ‘em out at bestdamncables.com.
Ace Frehley, the Kiss guitar legend whose fiery playing and pyro-laden guitar tricks influenced and enraptured generations of players, died Thursday in Morristown, New Jersey, following complications from a fall in his home studio last month. He was 74.
“We are completely devastated and heartbroken,” Frehley’s family said in a statement. “In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth. We cherish all of his finest memories, his laughter and celebrate his strengths and kindness that he bestowed upon others. The magnitude of his passing is of epic proportions, and beyond comprehension. Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”
Frehley's former Kiss bandmates, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, released a joint statement, writing: “We are devastated by the passing of Ace Frehley. He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its history. He is and will always be a part of Kiss’s legacy. Our thoughts are with Jeanette, Monique and all those who loved him, including our fans around the world.”
Over the course of five decades, Frehley's Les Paul-fueled riffs and solos helped to define not just Kiss’ music, but the very sound of arena rock guitar. His influence stretched far beyond the makeup, from Tom Morello calling him his “first guitar hero” to Dimebag Darrell having Frehley's face tattooed on his chest.
Born April 7, 1951, in the Bronx, Paul Daniel “Ace” Frehley got his first electric guitar as a Christmas gift in 1964. A self-taught player, he drew early inspiration from Hendrix, Beck, and the Stones—and in particular the Who’s Pete Townshend. As he told Premier Guitar in 2010, “I used to sit next to the record player and figure out every Who song. Playing a lot of Who music really helped develop my right hand, which helped with not only my rhythm technique but my leads, too.”
In 1973, Frehley auditioned for a band seeking a “hard rock guitarist with balls and flash.” After hauling his 50-watt Marshall up a flight of stairs and jamming on “Deuce,” he landed the gig, forging Kiss alongside Simmons, Stanley and Peter Criss.
As Kiss’ lead guitarist from 1973 to 1982, Frehley’s smoking, rocket-shooting, levitating Les Pauls became as iconic as the music itself. These stunts also carried genuine risks. As he told me in 2014, “One night [my flying guitar] hit something and slipped off, just grazing my shoulder. Imagine [a Les Paul] with a battery pack and a box to protect it from the heat of a smoke bomb.”
Frehley's unique picking technique, where his loosely-held pick and thumb simultaneously struck the string, created what he described on Shred with Shifty as “a sound just shy of a pinched squeal, but more spunky.” This approach, combined with the fact that he ripped his solos through a “dimed Marshall stack,” powered the licks in Frehley-composed songs like “Cold Gin” and “Shock Me,” as well as “Rock and Roll All Nite,” Love Gun” and other Kiss classics.
Frehley's 1978 self-titled solo album went platinum, with his cover of “New York Groove” reaching No. 13 on Billboard's Hot 100—the highest-charting single from any Kiss member's solo effort. His recording philosophy, as he explained to Premier Guitar, involved tracking basics with Les Pauls, then “doubl[ing] stuff up with Fenders because they have a different sound.” He'd layer acoustics underneath electrics, he said, because it “adds a fullness that you don't really hear until you take it away.”
After forming Frehley's Comet in the mid-'80s, Ace returned to Kiss for their massively successful 1996 reunion tour, remaining until 2002. His late-career solo work demonstrated continued vitality. From 2009's Anomaly through 2024’s 10,000 Volts, Frehley’s output was well-received by fans, and he toured steadily behind the records. His 2016 effort, Origins, Vol. 1, and 2018’s Spaceman, featured collaborations, respectively, with former bandmates Stanley and Simmons. Despite public animosity over the years (Frehley was not involved in the band’s 2019-2023 End of the Road farewell tour) he recounted to me that working together again, at least at that time, was simple: “We all have the other's cell phone numbers and we just call each other!”
As a player, Frehley opted for feel over technical dexterity. But never stopped learning. When I asked him in that same interview if he was still discovering things at 67, he laughed: “All the time. Half the stuff I do, I don't know what it's called. But you know, if it sounds good, I do it.”
This intuitive approach defined his career. As he told Premier Guitar in 2010, “I pride myself on thinking outside the box, and I'm probably like that because I'm not a schooled musician. To me, there are no rules, and there never were.”
Do you feel like your solos lack focus or that there isn’t any underlying structure to your lines? Does it seem that you are wandering around the neck, hoping that what you are playing “looks like it sounds cool”? Would pushing peas around a dinner plate with a knife be more riveting than the last lick you played? If any of these statements are true, then you need some guide tones, my friend.
Guide tones, also known as target notes, are commonly used in jazz improvisation and usually refer to only the 3rd and 7th of a chord. But, for our purposes, we’re going to apply a more generous definition where all notes of a chord can be used. There are two benefits to using guide tones: They create a predetermined melodic structure that serves as a framework for your solo, and they provide an inner melody to your lines that carry the sound of the chord changes.
The first two examples show a couple of possibilities when building a guide tone melody over a ii-V-I chord progression in the key of C major. The only requirement is that the guide tones should be played on the strong beats of the measure (beats 1 and 3). Next, spell each chord to see what notes you have to work with. For our progression, our choices will come from Dm7 (D-F-A-C), G7 (G-B-D-F), and Cmaj7 (C-E-G-B). Since these examples have one chord per measure, I have chosen to use only one guide tone in each measure. But, I could have used two guide tones in a measure, one on beat 1 and the other on the beat 3. Other than what has already been discussed, there is no right or wrong way to do this. Basically, pick some chord tones, put them on the strong beat(s), and see how it sounds. Change or edit as you see fit!
Take a listen to Ex. 1. The guide tones create a descending melody that leaps up at the end. Using one note per measure, the line starts with C (the 7th of Dm7), then to B (the 3rd of G7), to G (the 5th of Cmaj7) and finally E (the 3rd of Cmaj7). Ex. 2 has a guide tone line similar to the first example, descending for the first three measures and a leap up at the end. It begins with F (the 3rd of Dm7), to D (the 5th of G7), to B (the 7th of Cmaj7), and then to E (the 7th of Cmaj7).
Ex. 3 is an eight measure progression, similar in structure to a popular jazz standard. Harmonically, the first half is a ii-V-I-IV in C major and the second half is a ii-V-i in the key of A minor. In the first six bars, there is one guide tone per measure, and then concludes with two guide tones in each of the last two bars.
Once you have decided on a framework for your solo, use scales and arpeggios to add notes before each guide tone. By doing so, you create motion in your line that sounds musical, and not like you’re choosing notes at random. Listen to Ex. 4 where each guide tone is approached from above by a scale step. Since all the chords are in the key of C, my approach notes are from the C major scale. I can also think in modal terms, where I would use D Dorian in bar 1 to approach the G7 in bar 2. Then, I can use G Mixolydian in bar 2 to approach the Cmaj7 in bar 3, and C Ionian to approach the next Cmaj7 in bar 4. Ex. 5 is the same scalar concept, this time approaching the guide tones from below.
Ex. 6 and Ex. 7 use arpeggios to approach the guide tones from above and below, respectively. I prefer to do this by using the arpeggio of the chord I am going to, not the one I am playing over. So, when I am playing over the Dm7 in the first measure, I will use the G7 arpeggio to approach the guide tone in bar 2. Then, when playing over G7 in the second measure, use the Cmaj7 arpeggio to approach the guide tone in bar 3. This concept is a little easier to see in Ex.7. Dm7 is the chord in bar 1. You approach the guide tone in bar 2 with a G, which is not in a Dm7 chord, but it is in G7.
To get longer lines, use two, three, or more notes from the scale or arpeggio when approaching the guide tones. Ex. 8 approaches the guide tone from above and below, using two and three notes from the scale. Ex. 9 shows the same approach methods, but with notes from the arpeggio.
After you get a handle on the guide tone concepts, experiment with rhythms, rests, and an ever-increasing number of approach notes. Check out Ex. 10 as an example of what is possible. It’s the guide tone line from Ex. 2 fleshed out with a mixture of scale and arpeggio approach notes of various lengths. Ex. 11 is an expansion of the guide tone line from Ex. 3. I used an increasing number of approach notes in the first half of the line. The second half is more rhythmically complex, ending with the triplet figures in the last two measures.
Applying these concepts to something more familiar, Ex. 12 is one possible guide tone melody over an A minor blues. Give it a listen to hear how the first two phrases are relatively scalar, but the last phrase has more of a “sawtooth” vibe. Ex. 13 is the completed solo, using the ideas discussed previously. Throwing everything into the guide-tone blender yielded different types of approaches combined with a variety of rhythms and rests.
Once you get a foothold, substitute different modes, scales, arpeggios, chords, and time signatures to achieve some different sonic flavors. Remember that you are restricting yourself to these few concepts in order to get a more melodic and meaningful solo. If you practice it enough, your brain will start working this way on its own!
Universal Audio Inc. (UA), a worldwide leader in audio production tools, is proud to announce Volt 876 USB Recording Studio, a 24‑in / 28-out rackmount USB audio interface for Mac and Windows with eight Vintage preamps and classic 1176‑style compressors on every channel.
Delivering next‑generation 32-bit / 192 kHz audio quality, Volt 876 is designed for serious music producers and bands who want legendary UA analog sound, a curated suite of UAD plug‑ins, and powerful integration with UA's groundbreaking LUNA Digital Audio Workstation.
“Volt 876 is all about giving musicians and producers a classic UA analog studio sound, with more power to create together,” says Bill Putnam Jr., CEO of Universal Audio. "Beyond its fast, push-button tone shaping, it offers a level of digital integration with UAD plug‑ins and LUNA that we believe is the fastest path to creating great‑sounding music."
Volt 876 USB Recording Studio - $999 MAP USD
Built by the same team behind the award-winning Apollo interfaces, Volt 876 is a complete recording system with powerful hardware‑software integration, including instant session recall, AI‑powered tools in UA’s LUNA DAW, software remote control, and the premium UAD Producer Suite plug‑in bundle — giving musicians and creators everything they need to capture and shape music with authentic analog tone.
Key Features:
24‑in / 28‑out rackmount USB audio interface with eight onboard Vintage preamps and classic compressors — inspired by UA’s iconic 610 console and 1176 limiter
Next‑generation 32‑bit / 192 kHz audio conversion on Mac, PC, iPad, and iPhone
Includes LUNA Digital Audio Workstation with unlimited track count and smart AI-powered tools like Voice Control, Instrument Detection, and Tempo Listen
Features UAD Producer Suite plug‑in bundle with Teletronix LA‑2A and UA 1176 compressors, Pultec EQs, PolyMAX Synth, Showtime ’64 Guitar Amp, and more
Assistive Auto‑Gain, full session recall of front‑panel settings, and two low‑latency cue mixes with talkback using UAD Console app
ADAT connection allows aggregation of up to 3 Volt 876 interfaces, as well as integration with Apollo and other digital audio equipment
Volt 876 USB Recording Studio is now available for purchase from retailers worldwide.