Check here for some of the latest and greatest acoustics in 2022!
SE P20
The PRS SE P20 is a parlor-sized acoustic with a
big voice. Boasting traditional parlor features
like sweet, midrange tone, historic vibe, and easy
portability, the PRS SE P20 also brings a unique
voice to players. The PRS hybrid “X”/Classical
bracing locks down the back and sides while
allowing the top to freely vibrate, allowing the
PRS SE P20 to project with even, bold tone, while
the all-mahogany construction provides an organic
warmth to the guitar. Its smaller size keeps
playing fun and comfortable for hours, so whether
writing, recording, or performing the P20 is sure
to impress.
Available in three satin finishes with herringbone
rosettes and accents, PRS SE Parlor acoustics look
as good as they sound. Other high-quality features
include a solid mahogany top, ebony fretboard and
bridge, bone nut and saddle, as well as PRS
trademark bird inlays and headstock design.
Advanced Acoustic Series
The Advanced Acoustic series represents an important step forward in the long and storied tradition of the acoustic guitar. In what amounts to a fully reimagined acoustic experience, these instruments were designed from the ground up to deliver a richer, brighter, and louder tone, with an unprecedentedly wide dynamic range. With slightly larger than typical proportions, Ibanez decided to name this new body shape the “Grand Dreadnought.” This reinvented design achieves a superb, powerful sound, and thanks to the extensive consideration given to the ergonomics, it’s extremely comfortable to play. The Advanced Acoustic series pushes the acoustic guitar to new heights in a way that promises an exciting experience for all players.
Natura G550RCEL
Left-Handed Guitarists: mid-priced acoustic-electric with an Ergonomic Armrest seeking partner to make beautiful music.
“Wow, the armrest really helps keep from cutting off blood circulation when I’m practicing and feels like I’m playing a smaller instrument. Responds nicely both to some intimate playing, and has nice character when you hit it a little hard; it responds with a good full low end and is still crisp and clear.” ~ Sean Harkness, NYC
The NATURA G550RCEL is a Left-handed acoustic-electric featuring an Ergonomic Armrest for comfort. The G550RCEL is a solid Spruce top Grand Auditorium Cutaway with weight reducing Low-Mass bracing. It has a voice that is focused and harmonically complex and suitable for left-handed players looking for the volume of a full-sized instrument and the comfort of a smaller body. A Glass-fibre reinforced neck ensures a lifetime of neck stability.
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Elite Series Hanging Guitar Stand
We love metal at Gator – both the head-banging and physical types. While our metal stands are great for the stage and studio, they don’t always blend into their environment. Sometimes you need something more elegant and adaptable to the overall vibe of
your living room or studio furniture, which is exactly what the Elite Guitar Hanging Stands by Gator Frameworks provide – simplicity with an aesthetic to match any home or studio décor. These stands satisfy all types of players by providing a comfortable fit for most electric, bass and acoustic guitars. Show off your collection with style!
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BiX Instrument Preamp, EQ and DI
The Grace Design BiX preamp shares the exact same DNA of its bigger siblings, FELiX2 and ALiX, but with an intelligently streamlined feature set and a price that puts it in reach of any performer, whether on your way to the coffee shop or the Megadome. BiX delivers maximum clarity and detail for any plugged in instrument, with dead simple controls – input gain, high and low shelving EQ, and a 10dB variable boost circuit, with footswitches for mute and boost. I/O includes instrument input, separate send and return insert jacks, an unbalanced line output, and a balanced ISO DI output on XLR. And BiX is pedalboard friendly, with a 9VDC power input and a compact, rugged low-profile chassis. Visit www.gracedesign.com for complete details.
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On the eclectic instrumental band’s newest, A LA SALA, the bassist pledges to “just play what sounds good and what feels good.”
“Bass playing is like humming to me,” says Khruangbin’s Laura Lee Ochoa. “I hum to myself all the time. It’s very in-your-body. It’s also one note, it can be as melodic as I want it to be, and it’s simple. It was something that just resonated with me.”
Ochoa is describing the epiphany that brought her to the bass back in 2009, when she was working as a third-grade math teacher. First learning piano with help from her pal, guitarist Mark Speer, she recalls, “I was trying to play along to a song and he said to follow the bass. Then I picked one up, and it weirdly made sense to me.” It was a monumental event—the catalyst for just about everything that followed.
Soon, Ochoa quit her teaching job to go on tour with Speer in the shoegaze band Yppah. “It was five people staying in a Motel 6 every night, flipping a quarter for who slept on a bed,” she remembers. “We were in a minivan, I had no amp, I was playing direct every night—it was that kind of tour. Our very last show was in Seattle, and we drove to Houston in one shot and didn’t stop. We were all crooked getting out of the van, and I looked at Mark and was like, ‘I wanna start a band.’”
Khruangbin - "Pon Pón"
Ochoa and Speer’s weekly hangs with Donald “DJ” Johnson Jr., a producer who played with Speer at a regular church gig, made assembling a band easy. “I didn’t know that DJ played drums,” says Ochoa, “because I knew him as an organ or keyboard player. Mark was like, ‘I’ve never heard DJ play drums, but I know he’ll play the way we want.’”
“I didn’t grow up ever thinking I’d play bass.”
Fast forward a few years of jamming, and Khruangbin released their debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You, in 2015. The trio caught the ears of listeners and critics with their unique stew of influences, the most immediate of which was vintage Thai funk, but international sounds from Peru to the Middle East were detectable. Speer played with the reverb-soaked twang of surf rock and the laid-back feel of soul jazz. Ochoa and Johnson served as his rhythmic foils, delivering tight grooves with both bounce and economy that were equal parts reggae, Motown, and lo-fi hip-hop.
Laura Lee Ochoa's Gear
Ochoa uses flats on her original SX J bass and never changes ’em.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
Bass
- SX J bass
Amp
- Acme Audio Motown DI
- Ampeg bass amp
Strings
- Flatwounds
Khruangbin skyrocketed to the tops of taste-making lists, drawing in record collectors and public radio listeners alike. Along the way, the band lived in their sound more deeply with every new project. And there have been many: They’ve now delivered four LPs, plus a pair of EPs with Leon Bridges, and Ali, a collaboration with Malian guitar virtuoso Vieux Farka Touré as a tribute to his legendary father, Ali Farka Touré.
On their newest album, A LA SALA, the band jump-started the writing process by digging into their vault of demos and jams, going as far back as one of Speers’ pre-Khruangbin demos of “May Ninth,” which dates from 2008. Other vault recordings came from throughout their career—“Ada Jean” was demoed around the time of their debut—while some songs are new. The goal, Ochoa says, was “to just be influenced by ourselves.” Like the Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You or Van Halen’s A Different Kind of Truth, both of which were created by archive-diving, there are no discernible differences between the old and new. They all simply sound like Khruangbin. “When I listen to the final product and what they turned into,” says Johnson of their vault recordings, “it’s incredible to me.”
While Ochoa and Johnson call Speer’s guitar the lead singer of the mostly instrumental group—though Ochoa’s voice is featured, it’s mostly as a background element—at the heart of the band’s sound is the deep, sympathetic rhythmic hookup between the three players, and much of that starts with the foundation laid down by Ochoa and Johnson. “A lot of times, it starts with DJ and I playing a bunch to lock in,” says Ochoa. “We’ll start smiling at each other, like, ‘We’re here now.’” Together, they bounce. They’re tight, but airy. The low end pumps enough to keep you moving, even on slower, lighter tunes, but their flow is always dynamic.
A LA SALA features all new recordings, but the songs are a mix of all-new compositions and some that consist of old riffs and parts dating as far back as 2008.
On 2020’s Mordechai, the band tweaked their formula and their feel. The songs leaned more toward poppy, dance grooves, and Ochoa’s breathy background vocals moved into the fore. Her playing changed as well. “I was trying to be complicated,” she explains. “I was trying to play things that were slightly less comfortable for myself because I was trying to go outside the box and play more notes or play faster.” It was an essential step in her internal relationship with the bass. “It’s like being a teenager in the lifespan of playing. I started out naively, and then I was like, ‘I know more, my fingers are more agile, I’m going to make this more complicated.’”
By pushing herself to the limit on Mordechai, Ochoa was able to find more of herself—the kind of stuff that really makes Laura Lee sound like Laura Lee—on A LA SALA. “I feel like with this record, I didn’t have that same need,” she says. Instead, she decided to “just play what sounds good and what feels good.”
“If you lose the fourth-finger thing, it creates a limitation, but for me it’s fun and bouncy.”
Whether on “Juegos y Nubes,” where she plays an on/off counterpoint to Speer’s guitar melody or “Three from Two,” where she injects melody into a mostly root/fifth pattern, her sound is immediately recognizable. Much of that is because of her melody-driven sensibility—her influences are more melodic, and she says she doesn’t really have favorite bassists. “I didn’t grow up ever thinking I’d play bass,” she points out.
Ochoa also credits her sound in part to her technique. “I don’t play with all four of my fingers, because I attach two of my fingers together,” she explains. “I’m not technically trained. Because of that, I think I play differently, and it changes the feel of the whole thing. Like James Jamerson playing with one finger, if you lose the fourth finger thing, it creates a limitation, but for me it’s fun and bouncy.”
And Ochoa’s sense of rhythm is a crucial part of her playing. It’s what helps sell the sound and makes it so infectious. “I play and practice Laura Lee bass lines because they’re fun to play,” says Johnson. “The stuff that you sit down and you play is the stuff that’s good and the stuff that you like. I’m always studying her placement. She has a very keen sense of rhythm that’s on top but doesn’t rush. It’s laid-back but it doesn’t drag. I’d be lying if I told you I’ve figured it out.”
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The trio’s effortless mastery of groove and style is evident in this cover-filled set from the 2022 BBC 6 Music Festival.
David Gilmour announces his first live shows in eight years in Los Angeles and New York in support of his new album Luck and Strange, out on September 6.
The live shows in New York and Los Angeles will be Gilmour’s only concert appearances in North America and will take place at The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, CA on October 29 & 30 and at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY on November 4 & 5.
Fans will need to sign up at davidgilmour.com to get first access to tickets on Wednesday, May 15 at 10am local time. The general on sale for all shows will take place on Friday, May 17 at 10:00am local time.
The touring band includes: David Gilmour, guitar & vocals; Guy Pratt, bass and background vocals; Greg Phillinganes, keyboards; Rob Gentry, Keyboards; Adam Betts, drums; Ben Worsley, guitar; Louise Marshall, background vocals; Hattie Webb, background vocals and Charlie Webb, background vocals.
Luck and Strange was recorded over five months in Brighton and London and is Gilmour’s first album of new material in nine years. The record was produced by David and Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with alt-J and Marika Hackman.
The majority of the album’s lyrics have been composed by Polly Samson, Gilmour’s co-writer and collaborator for the past thirty years. Samson says of the lyrical themes covered on Luck and Strange, “It’s written from the point of view of being older; mortality is the constant.” Gilmour elaborates, “We spent a load of time during and after lockdown talking about and thinking about those kind of things.”
The album features eight new tracks along with a reworking of The Montgolfier Brothers' "Between Two Points" and has artwork and photography by renowned artist Anton Corbijn.
Musicians contributing to the record include Guy Pratt & Tom Herbert on bass, Adam Betts, Steve Gadd and Steve DiStanislao on drums, Rob Gentry & Roger Eno on keyboards with string and choral arrangements by Will Gardner. The title track also features the late Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright, recorded in 2007 at a jam in a barn at David’s house.
Some contributions emerged from the live streams that Gilmour and family performed to a global audience during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021; Romany Gilmour sings, plays the harp and appears on lead vocals on "Between Two Points". Gabriel Gilmour also sings backing vocals.
Patoma Music's Original Diamond Grip Picks offer an extreme grip with a patented non-slip natural diamond grip. Handcrafted in the U.S.A. with Delrin® plastic for durability and consistent tone. Available in two lines, "The Original Line" and "The Sharp Line", with varying thicknesses.
Patoma Music is proud to announce the launch of their Original DiamondGrip Picks. They have two lines, “The Original Line” and “The Sharp Line”. The two lines of guitar picks consist of 13 Original Diamond Grip Picks in varying thicknesses. The Original Diamond Grip Pick gives the user peace of mind and confidence while playing, knowing that the pick will never slip from their hands.
The Original Diamond Grip Pick has a patented non-slip natural diamond grip that gives the user an extreme grip, unlike any pick currently on the market. The non-slip diamond grip has approximately one carat of natural diamond encrusted on it, allowing it to have a firm and secure grip like no other. The body of the picks are made of a strong Delrin® plastic that offers durability and a consistent tone. Each pick is handcrafted with the utmost precision and care and is proudly manufactured in the U.S.A.
The Original Line Thicknesses:
- Thin - .60mm Orange, .71mm Vintage White
- Medium - .88mm Green, 1.0mm Blue
- Heavy - 1.14mm Black, 1.5mm Black, 2.0mm White
The Sharp Line Thicknesses:
- Thin -.60mm Orange, .73mm Yellow
- Medium - .88mm Green, 1.0mm Blue
- Heavy - 1.14mm Purple, 1.5mm Black.
Patoma Music’s Original Diamond Grip line is available for $17.00 each on their website and at various retailers in Northern New Jersey.
For more information, please visit patomamusic.com.