From low-watt heads to high-powered, fire-breathing monsters, here are some of the amps we caught at Musikmesse.
The Return of Music Man at MusikMesse 2014. Italyās DV Mark, working in tandem with Ernie Ball/Music Manās Sterling Ball, has revived the fondly remembered Music Man amplifiers. Debuting this fall, the new line will include the 112 RD 50 (a 50-watt combo with a single 12-inch speaker), the 212 RD 130 (a 130-watt combo powered by a quartet of EL34s), the HD 130 Reverb (a 130-watt, 4xEL34 head), the GS 412, a cabinet with four of DV Markās 12-inch Neoclassic speakers, and the CLB-2, a OD/boost pedal for guitar.
Musikmesse isnāt what it used to be, show veterans say. Attendance is far from peak. There are fewer full exhibition halls. High participation costs (and the ability to announce and publicize products digitally) have prompted numerous companies to bypass the once-essential event.
But you know what? Messe is still huge.
NAMMās European equivalent, held each year in Frankfurt, Germany, is substantially larger than its Anaheim counterpart. Far louder, too: As at NAMM, āsound policeā armed with decibel meters patrol the floor, but theyāre slackers. Messe is deafening.
But, hey, whatās a little tinnitus when you get to spend four days ogling so many cool new music products? From March 12th through 16th we roamed the vast halls, marveling at superbly crafted boutique instruments, solid working-player tools, and some remarkable budget-gear bargains.
The show highlights? For North American players like us, itās probably the chance to fondle the phenomenal creations of small-production European shops whose instruments tend to be scarce in the States. The phrase āOld World craftsmanshipā may be a clichĆ©, but Messe schools you on how it became one. You can hardly turn around without being dumbstruck by a ravishing instrument that blends the engineering chops of Stuttgart or Turin with the design elegance of Milan or Barcelona.
But our report isnāt just some glamour-gear buyersā guide for investment bankers and lottery winners indulging in a European grand tour. Quality work and compelling style were equally evident in mid-priced gear for working stiffs and in some remarkable entry-level bargains.
Itās hard to summarize such a vast event with a simple tagābut if pressed, Iād go with āretro fun.ā Per usual, vintage-inspired designs reigned supreme. But we saw more manufactures playing with vintage aesthetics, recombining old-school elements in winning new ways. By and large, manufacturers seem to be having fun. We certainly wereāand itās not just the beer and schnitzel talking!
Cut the cord! PG contributor Tom Butwin goes hands-on with three compact wireless guitar systems from Positive Grid, NUX, and Blackstar. From couch jams to club gigs, find the right unit for your rig and playing style.
Positive Grid Spark LINK Guitar Wireless System
Enjoy a stable, noiseless experience with a compact wireless unit design, ultra-low latency, and an extended range. Other features include 6 hours of playing time per charge and a secure 110-degree hinged input plug connection.
NUX B-8 Professional Wireless System - 2.4GHz
A pedal-style professional wireless system geared for electric guitars, acoustic-electric guitars, bass guitars, and even electronic instruments, and transmits 24-bit 48 kHz high-quality audio.
Blackstar Airwire i58 Wireless System
This professional wireless instrument system is designed for guitars, basses, and other instruments with 1/4" outputs. Operating in the 5.8 GHz frequency band, it avoids interference from crowded Wi-Fi signals while delivering authentic tone, ultra-low latency (<6 ms), and high-resolution sound with no treble loss.
Learn More:
https://www.positivegrid.com/
https://www.nuxaudio.com/home.html
https://blackstaramps.com/
Growing up in Australia, guitarist Jedd Hughes tells us he dreamed of playing in Vince Gillās band as far back as elementary school. Now, he lives in Nashville and stands next to the man himself on stage night after night. Weāve invited Jedd to join us on this episode of 100 Guitarists to talk about just what makes Vinceās playing so special.
Jedd tells us how his dream came true and how he first started playing with Vince. We dig deep into how everybodyās favorite country guitarist raises the bar every time he picks up the guitar, how he gets his amazing clean tone, and we take time to appreciate all aspects of his solosāincluding how he builds them and how he plays such clean bends. As for why his concerts are so long? āHe loves to play.ā
In our current listening segment, weāre covering the Black Crowes and Jimmy Pageās Live at the Greek box set and a live recording from Burlington, Vermontās Breathwork.
This episode is sponsored by EMG Pickups.
The least exciting piece of your rig can impact your tone in a big way. Hereās what you need to know.
Hello, and welcome back to Mod Garage. This month, we will have a closer look at an often overlooked part of our guitar signal chain: the guitar cable. Weāll work out what really counts and how your cableās tonal imprint differs from your guitarās tone-control function.
Today, the choice of guitar cables is better than itās ever been, and you can choose between countless options regarding color, stability, plug style, length, diameter, bending strength, shielding, etc. A lot of companies offer high-quality cables in any imaginable configuration, and there are also cables promising special advantages for specific instruments or music styles, from rock to blues to jazz.
Appearance, stability, longevity, bending stiffness, and plug configuration are matters of personal preference, and every guitarist has their own philosophy here, which I think is a great thing. While one player likes standard black soft cables with two straight plugs, their buddy prefers red cables that are stiff as hell with two angled plugs, and another friend swears by see-through coiled cables with golden plugs.
āWe often want to come as close as possible to sounding like our personal heroes, but we fail because weāre using the wrong cable for a passive guitar.ā
Regarding reliability, all these parameters are important. Who wants a guitar cable making problems every time you are on stage or in the studio? There are also technical parameters like resistance, capacitance, transfer resistance on the plugs, and more. Without making it too technical, we can summarize that, sound-wise, the only important technical parameter for a passive guitar circuit is the capacitance of the cable. Sadly, this information is often missing in the manufacturerās description of a guitar cable, and thereās another thing we have to keep in mind: Most manufacturers try to offer cables with the smallest possible capacitance so the guitar can be heard āunalteredā and with a āpureā tone. While these are honourable intentions, they are self-defeating when it comes to making a guitar sound right.
Letās take a trip back to the past and see what cables players used. Until the early 1980s, no one really cared about guitar cablesāplayers simply used whatever was available. In the ā60s and ā70s, you could see a lot of ultra-long coiled cables on stage with players like Clapton, Hendrix, May, Townshend, Santana, and Knopfler, to name just a few. They used whatever was available, plugged in, and played without thinking about it. Ritchie Blackmore, for example, was famous for notoriously using incredibly long cables on stage so he could walk around. Joe Walsh and many other famous players did the same. Many of us have these playersā trademark sounds in our heads, and we often want to come as close as possible to sounding like our personal heroes, but we fail because weāre using the wrong cable for a passive guitar. So what are we talking about, technically?
Itās important not to look at the guitar cable, with its electrical parameters, as a stand-alone device. The guitar cable has to be seen as part of the passive signal chain together with the pickups, the resistance of the guitarās pots (usually 250k or 500k), the capacitance of the wires inside the guitar, and, of course, the input impedance of the amp, which is usually 1M. The interaction of all these in a passive system results in the resonance frequency of your pickups. If you change one of the parameters, you are also changing the resonance frequency.
āRitchie Blackmore, for example, was famous for notoriously using incredibly long cables on stage so he could walk around.ā
You all know the basic formulation: The longer the cable, the warmer the tone, with āwarmerā meaning less high-end frequencies. While this is true, in a few moments you will see that this is only half the truth. Modern guitar cables are sporting a capacitance of around 100 pF each meter, which is very low and allows for long cable runs without killing all the top end. Some ultra-low-capacitance cables even measure down to only 60 pF each meter or less.
Now letās have a look at guitar cables of the past. Here, capacitances of up to 400 pF or more each meter were the standard, especially on the famous coiled cables. See the difference? No wonder itās hard to nail an old-school sound from the past, or that sometimes guitars sound too trebly (especially Telecasters), with our modern guitar cables. This logic only applies to our standard passive guitar circuits, like those in our Strats, Teles, Les Pauls, SGs, and most other iconic guitar models. Active guitars are a completely different ballpark. With a guitar cable, you can fine-tune your tone, and tame a shrill-sounding guitar.
āNo problem,ā some will say. āI simply use my passive tone control to compensate, and thatās it. Come on, capacitance is capacitance!ā While this logic seems solid, in reality this reaction produces a different tone. āWhy is this?ā you will ask. Thankfully, itās simple to explain. You might be familiar with the typical diagrams showing a coordinate system with "Gain/dB" on the Y-axis and "Frequency/kHz" on the X-axis. Additional cable capacitance will shift the resonance frequency on the X-axis, with possible differences of more than one octave depending on the cable. A cable with a higher capacitance will shift the resonance frequency towards the left and vice versa.
Diagram courtesy Professor Manfred Zollner (https://www.gitarrenphysik.de)
Now letās see what happens if you use your standard passive tone control. If you close the tone control, the resonance frequency will be shifted downwards mostly on the Y-axis, losing the resonance peak, which means the high frequencies are gone. This is a completely different effect compared to the additional cable capacitance.
Diagram courtesy Professor Manfred Zollner (https://www.gitarrenphysik.de)
To summarize, we can say that with different cable capacitances, you can mimic a lot of different pickups by simply shifting the resonance frequency on the X-axis. This is something our passive tone control canāt do, and thatās exactly the difference you will have to keep in mind.
So, letās see what can be done and where you can add additional cable capacitance to your system to simulate longer guitar cables.
1. On the cable itself
2. Inside the guitar
3. Externally
In next monthās follow-up to this column, we will talk about different capacitances and how you can add them to your signal chain with some easy-to-moderate modding, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!
Do you overuse vibrato? Could you survive without it?
Vibrato is a powerful tool, but it should be used intentionally. Different players have different stylesāB.B. Kingās shake, Claptonās subtle touchābut the key is control. Tom Butwin suggests a few exercises to build awareness, tone, and touch.
The goal? Find a balanceādonāt overdo it, but donāt avoid it completely. Try it out and see how it changes your playing!