London, England (April 17, 2008) -- The UK’s biggest public guitar show is back with a mighty line-up. Guitar great Joe Satriani is playing live at the London Guitar show, which will also feature performances from Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan. The show will also feature the premier live performance of “C3” featuring Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Greg Howe.
Satriani will perform on Sunday, June 15. Satch has received 13 Grammy award nominations, sold over 10 million albums and has been voted one of the best guitarists year in year out. On a side note, Satriani just released Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock on April 1.
On June 14, you can see metal guitar virtuoso Paul Gilbert, who is best known for playing in multi-platinum-selling band Mr. Big. He has since released 13 solo albums. Also playing the 14th is Billy Sheehan, the well established solo bassist who is also an ex-Mr. Big band member.
Also appearing on June 14 is the ultimate Guitar concert “C3” featuring:
- Poison band member Richie Kotzen who has amassed a 25-plus album discography.
- Guthrie Govan, known for his work with Asia (2001-2006). He is a noted guitar teacher through his work with the Guildford’s Academy of Contemporary Music and Brighton Institute of Modern Music. He is also a former winner of "Guitarist of the Year" competition.
- Greg Howe, whose debut album instantly caught the attention of the guitar community, allowing him to release eight albums since. Greg has accompanied musicians like Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake on their world tours.
Finally, The RD Crusaders will appear on Sunday, June 15. This unique super group, brought together by Express and OK! proprietor Richard Desmond, will include special guests and will be playing for the Teenage Cancer Trust charity.
Besides the two live stages, the main show hall will host hundreds of the top brand names in the business who will be exhibiting almost every conceivable type of guitar, bass, amp, effect and accessory. Visitors will be able to see, hear and try out the very latest gear for themselves, with many exciting new products set to get their first public airing in the UK. There will also be a huge display of drums, sound recording technology and acoustic instruments as wel.
The London Guitar Show is part of the UK’s Biggest Music exhibition, the London International Music show. It takes place at ExCel-London, one of the UK’s largest premier exhibition venues. Located in the heart of London''s Docklands, ExCeL is set within a stunning waterfront environment in the dynamic and thriving Docklands, just across the water from the O2 arena. To buy tickets, click here.
For more information:
London Guitar Show
London International Music
Silos features six presets, tap tempo, one full second of delay time, and three voices—two of which are styled after bucket-brigade and tape-delay sounds. In the $150 price category, it’s not unusual for a digital delay to leave some number of those functions out. And spending the same money on a true-analog alternative usually means warm, enveloping sounds but limited functionality and delay time. Silos, improbably perhaps, offers a very elegant solution to this can’t-have-it-all dilemma in a U.S.-made effect.
A More Complete Cobbling Together
Silos’ utility is bolstered by a very unintimidating control set, which is streamlined and approachable. Three of those controls are dedicated to the same mix, time, and repeats controls you see on any delay. But saving a preset to one of the six spots on the rotary preset dial is as easy as holding the green/red illuminated button just below the mix and preset knobs. And you certainly won’t get lost in the weeds if you move to the 3-position toggle, which switches between a clear “digital” voice, darker “analog” voice, and a “tape” voice which is darker still.
“The three voices offer discernibly different response to gain devices.”
One might suspect that a tone control for the repeats offers similar functionality as the voice toggle switch. But while it’s true that the most obvious audible differences between digital, BBD, and tape delays are apparent in the relative fidelity and darkness of their echoes, the Silos’ three voices behave differently in ways that are more complex than lighter or duskier tonality. For instance, the digital voice will never exhibit runaway oscillation, even at maximum mix and repeat settings. Instead, repeats fade out after about six seconds (at the fastest time settings) or create sleepy layers of slow-decaying repeats that enhance detail in complex, sprawling, loop-like melodic phrases. The analog voice and tape voice, on the other hand, will happily feed back to psychotic extremes. Both also offer satisfying sensitivity to real-time, on-the-fly adjustments. For example, I was tickled with how I could generate Apocalypse Now helicopter-chop effects and fade them in and out of prominence as if they were approaching or receding in proximity—an effect made easier still if you assign an expression pedal to the mix control. This kind of interactivity is what makes analog machines like the Echoplex, Space Echo, and Memory Man transcend mere delay status, and the sensitivity and just-right resistance make the process of manipulating repeats endlessly engaging.
Doesn't Flinch at Filth
EarthQuaker makes a point of highlighting the Silos’ affinity for dirty and distorted sounds. I did not notice that it behaved light-years better than other delays in this regard. But the three voices most definitely offer discernibly different responses to gain devices. The super-clear first repeat in the digital mode lends clarity and melodic focus, even to hectic, unpredictable, fractured fuzzes. The analog voice, which EQD says is inspired by the tone makeup of a 1980s-vintage, Japan-made KMD bucket brigade echo, handles fuzz forgivingly inasmuch as its repeats fade warmly and evenly, but the strong midrange also keeps many overtones present as the echoes fade. The tape voice, which uses aMaestro Echoplex as its sonic inspiration, is distinctly dirtier and creates more nebulous undercurrents in the repeats. If you want to retain clarity in more melodic settings, it will create a warm glow around repeats at conservative levels. Push it, and it will summon thick, sometimes droning haze that makes a great backdrop for slower, simpler, and hooky psychedelic riffs.
In clean applications, this decay and tone profile lend the tape setting a spooky, foggy aura that suggests the cold vastness of outer space. The analog voice often displays an authentic BBD clickiness in clean repeats that’s sweet for underscoring rhythmic patterns, while the digital voice’s pronounced regularity adds a clockwork quality that supports more up-tempo, driving, electronic rhythms.
The Verdict
Silos’ combination of features seems like a very obvious and appealing one. But bringing it all together at just less than 150 bucks represents a smart, adept threading of the cost/feature needle.
EarthQuaker Devices Silos Multi-generational Time Reflection Delay Pedal
In this episode, we’re celebrating the thrill of guitarmony, sick riffs, and driving 8th-note rhythms by talking about Judas Priest. Before getting ready for this episode, neither of your esteemed hosts had ever delved into the Priest discography beyond the rock-radio hits and Beavis and Butthead—though we’d both spent our time with Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Since so many of the GOATs hold the band in the highest of regard, we knew that K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton belonged on this list, so we embarked on a journey to find out why.
After hours of listening and watching, we’re happy to report that we get it. From their debut, 1974’s Rocka Rolla, through 1980’s British Steel, deep into the ’80s-production era with 1986’s Turbo, and through the speed-metal bravado of 1990’s Painkiller, plus live videos and records—the super-loud US Festival performance and the crushing Unleashed in the East record—we found a lot that we love.
