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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Marty Friedman's new single "Dead of Winter" from his upcoming album Drama features vocals by Chris Brooks.
Marty Friedman shares "Dead of Winter" the second single from his upcoming new solo album 'Drama', due out May 17th via Frontiers Music Srl. The track features vocals by Chris Brooks from Like A Storm and while normally an instrumentalist, this is Marty's first solo release featuring a vocalist.
"Dead of Winter" is accompanied by a new music video starring Skylar Erna and is available below.
About the track, Marty had this to say:
"The lyrics of 'Dead of Winter' as well as the story in the video, both sum up the way I would like people to feel about my music in general-- something that will be there to uplift you when the times are hardest and give you a tangible jolt of positivity to last until life inevitably smooths out."
Marty Friedman - "Dead of Winter" (featuring Chris Brooks of Like A Storm) - Official Music Video
May 17th will see the release of Marty's latest solo album, Drama where he only slightly revisits the atmospheric elements of his acclaimed 1992 release Scenes, elevating them to a modern and exotic collection of epic, extravagant, and unapologetically emotional mini-symphonies.
Tracks like "Illumination" and "Mirage" transport listeners to captivating realms, evoking sudden tears and chills. The entire album spotlights Marty's mesmerizing melodies, game-changing arrangements, and heart-tugging motifs, even more than any of his previous work.
Recorded in Italy, where Marty had access to a treasure trove of vintage guitars along with his modern signature models, 'Drama' is a pure, uplifting musical experience.
The new music video for "Dead of Winter" stars Skylar Erna, internet personality and daughter of Sully Erna from Godsmack. Skylar and Sully represent The Scars Foundation - a charity devoted to starting conversations about mental health to raise awareness about the issues facing so many people in our communities today.
With the rise of suicides, bullying, addiction, abuse, and so many other challenges, The Scars Foundation is dedicated to providing resources and tools to educate and empower people on a global level who struggle with these burdens.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. If somebody you know is going through a hard time and needs help, please visit HERE for resources.
For more information, please visit martyfriedman.com.
Dive deep or keep it simple with an ultra-flexible, affordable amp that covers huge stretches of the sonic waterfront.
This blendable passive system might be your single-coil solution.
Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. This year, the Fender Stratocaster is celebrating its 70th birthday. Happy birthday, and all the best for your next 70 years! To celebrate, I chose a Strat as our guinea pig for this month. But everything we are talking about applies to all single-coil-equipped guitars.
Let’s have a deep look into what can be done to get rid of single-coil hum, which can be very annoying, especially when playing live. I’m sure you all know the situation: Your band managed to get an important Friday night gig at, let’s say, Bob’s Country Bunker. You and your bandmates arrive in time to set up your equipment, naturally with everything plugged into the same circuit as Bob’s popcorn machine, dishwasher, and sandwich maker. You plug in your Strat, turn up your amp, and there’s a loud humming noise coming out of it.
A single-coil pickup has one coil with six magnet rods and two bobbins holding everything together. It not only picks up the strings, but also all kinds of external magnetic fields generated by transformers and other electromagnetic devices. But when two coils are wound in opposite directions and are working together, the hum will get canceled. This is an old principle dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, and it’s how a humbucker pickup works. In the past, guitarists had to struggle with radio stations, fluorescent tubes, transformers, and the like; today, it’s more digital fallout and, of course, digital power supplies of all kinds.
The pickup industry created all kinds of hum-canceling pickups in single-coil shape, most commonly stacked and double-rail-style pickups. So, a humbucker pickup can be the ticket out of such unpleasant live situations. But all of these options generate a different magnetic field compared to a single-coil pickup, resulting in a different tone. The resonant frequency is shifted downwards a little bit because the ohmic resistance and inductance of the two coils are added together. The tone gets milder and warmer, with more midrange—you all know this tone. Splitting such a humbucker will sound more single-coil-like, but it will pick up hum again. Connecting both coils in parallel rather than in series will also sound more single-coil-like and is hum-canceling, but it’s not a real single-coil tone.
Using a reverse wound, reverse polarity (RWRP) pickup such as a Strat’s middle pickup will get you at least two hum-free switching positions (bridge+middle and neck+middle), but even this sounds different. Going active is another way to fight humming noises, and these special pickups sound more or less like a real single-coil, too.
But what if you don’t want to compromise? Is pure single-coil tone with no hum possible? Yes and no! It is possible to come close, but one day, a digital gremlin may find a way to annoy you to a certain degree. And there are extreme situations where only a humbucker will work.
One step in the right direction is shielding the pickups and cavity of your guitar. Shielding the compartment of a guitar the right way is a challenge on its own, and I will cover this in a future installment of this column. But even if all the shielding is done the right way, the sound of the pickup will be altered to a certain degree, which is the nature of the beast. And the shielding is always there, so you can’t switch between pure single-coil and shielded single-coil tone.
So, what about switchable hum-canceling for your guitar? This way you could have both: pure single-coil tone and hum-free operation when needed. And if this could not only be made switchable but also controllable, you could balance your tone between the two.
Here is a solution based on principles from Bill Lawrence, which my dear friend Bernd C. Meiser from the BSM company has refined in order to make it more controllable: a variable dummy coil.
“But what if you don’t want to compromise? Is pure single-coil tone with no hum possible? Yes and no!”
In simple terms, a dummy coil is an additional pickup that is identical to the other pickups but without magnets. It has a phase, but no polarity. A dummy coil accepts the electric signal created by the magnetic single-coil pickup and reverses it, which will remove a large portion of the hum. In the process, a very small amount of the treble signal is lost as well. However, this treble loss is far less compared to stacked or dual-rail humbuckers.
The specs of the dummy coil need to be close to the pickup you are complementing. So, any universal dummy coils advertised to work with all single-coil pickups will only work to a certain degree but not perfectly. Instead, it’s best if you order a dummy coil that matches your pickup. The company who made your pickup will know the formula, and a dummy coil from them will be super effective. If that pickup is from a larger manufacturer, you’ll need to find out specific parameters—wire gauge, wire type, number of turns—so a custom pickup company can make a matching dummy coil for you.
The simplest way to set up a dummy coil would be to connect it permanently, so it’s 100 percent active all the time. For more flexibility, you can add a switch to turn the dummy coil on and off. But the most flexible way is to use a pot to control the dummy coil, so you can dial in pure single-coil tone, 100 percent dummy-coil hum-removing, and everything in between—in other words, so you can balance tone and hum-free-ness depending on the certain playing situation.
To do so, connect a 0.01 uF capacitor in parallel to the dummy coil. The high-end frequencies will no longer pass the dummy coil and its inductance; they will be drained low-resistance to ground. For the bass frequencies, the capacitor is still high-resistance so the dummy coil is active. This way you will have humbucking functionality for the bass frequencies, but pure single-coil tone in the high frequencies—what a perfect and clever solution from Bill Lawrence. If you now connect the capacitor and the dummy coil to a pot, you have a controllable dummy coil as described above.
You can experiment with the capacitor value for fine-tuning your system; 0.01 μF is a pretty good value to start. With a smaller cap, you shift the humbucking effect toward the high frequencies and vice versa. A smaller cap means more overall humbucking (bass and highs) and a larger cap means less overall humbucking, with the high and middle frequencies staying untouched.
A Stratocaster is perfect for this mod because it has two tone controls. One will be converted to a Telecaster-style master tone control, while the other will become the new dummy-coil controller.
For a Stratocaster with three vintage flavored single-coil pickups, I recommend the following pot configuration (all audio taper): 250k volume, 500k tone, 500k dummy-coil controller. This way, in humbucking mode, the two coils are connected in series rather than in parallel, so the resonance peak will be dampened. The two 500k pots will help compensate for this. The 250k volume is always the way to go in a passive guitar system to ensure the best and most even control. The 500k tone pot can be a little bit over the top in pure single-coil mode, but simply roll it down a little and you are in the 250k ballpark—problem solved!
Here we go for the wiring. It’s not hard to do and mostly uses the parts that are already there:
Illustration courtesy Singlecoil
That’s it! Next month, we will talk about some alternative ways to service a Stratocaster that can be real time savers, so stay tuned.
Until then ... keep on modding!