XS coated electric strings are designed to offer maximum life, an unprecedented level of strength, and tuning stability.
Led by Chief Innovation Officer Jim D’Addario, XS Electric maintain the same benefits as XS Acoustic. Those benefits include maximum string life, thanks to the impossibly thin film coating (1/10 the thickness of a human hair) that completely protects the wound strings from corrosion, and D’Addario’s proprietary dispersion coating, used in our XT line, to protect the plain-steel strings.
In addition, D’Addario’s NY Steel high carbon core wire and plain string wire, along with their patented Fusion Twist technology provides unmatched tuning stability, high break strength, and hex-core construction for superior dimensional stability, enhanced durability, and precise intonation. XS Electric strings include a reformulated nickel-plated steel wrap wire providing a bright tone with increased output, bite, and sustain.
“D’Addario has outdone themselves with their latest line of guitar strings,” says legendary guitarist Alex Skolnick. “XS Electric strings feel extra smooth without being slippery and deliver a ‘new string feel’ at a higher level. They also feel new for longer and seem to enhance the natural timbres of your instrument. Guitarists of all styles and sounds, including those who don’t pay much attention to string types, will notice a big difference.”
XS Electric will be available globally in the top six-string gauges beginning in April 2022. Learn more at: ddar.io/xse.pr.
Scientific fact: The shortest distance between two guitar effects is a custom-length patch cable.
If your cable routing resembles a rat’s nest and you’d like more space to squeeze another pedal onto your board, a DIY patch-cable kit can make quick work of a tidier existence. Here, we’ve rounded up 10 varying options to help you envision a more shipshape effects center.
SIS/Monorail
With 5' of the company’s super-strong Monorail cable and eight of the smallest plugs on the market, this kit can help make use of every inch of a ’board.
Effects Pedal Cable Kit
This kit provides 10' of the company’s 155-gauge cable and 10 right-angle solderless plugs to assist in ridding a pedalboard of old and unmatched patch cords.
Pedalboard Cable Kit
Including 10' of double-insulated instrument cable with a braided-copper shield, 10 right-angle plugs, and a screwdriver and cable cutter, this kit has everything needed to keep things tidy.
BCK-24
With gold-plated contacts and 24' of low-capacitance, studio-grade copper cable, this kit will provide plenty of options for plenty of pedals, and is designed to transfer a signal with no noise interference.
Piston
Paired with Lava’s low-capacitance ELC cable (10' included), this kit’s low-profile Piston plugs are smaller in size than others on the market, which means more stomps on a pedalboard.
CrocTeeth
This pedalmaker’s offering includes 10' of thin and flexible MSL cable and 10 solderless low-profile plugs to build custom-length patch cables for clean and uncolored sound.
Pedalboard Patch Cable Kit
With no wire stripping and no screws to tighten or loosen, custom-length patch cables are a breeze with this kit, which offers a variety of cable color choices and small-footprint plugs.
SAPT205
While not solderless, this value-minded kit includes 15' of cable and 12 right-angle, low-profile adapters for easy access to jacks that have minimal space for connecting gear.
CK-6 Cable Kit
Able to make up to six cables, this kit contains 12 solderless plugs and 10' of stranded cable designed for the perfect balance of DC resistance and low capacitance for an unaltered signal.
DIY Patch Cable Kit
This kit includes 10 G&H plugs in a variety of colors, 5' of Mogami 2524 wire, and enough heat shrink (also in a variety of colors) to DIY five patch cables.
David Byrne’s 6-string counterpart discusses the tonal, aesthetic, and production particulars influencing her gear for Byrne's HBO and American Utopia Broadway shows.
Facing a mandatory shelter-in-place ordinance to limit the spread of COVID-19, PG enacted a hybrid approach to filming and producing Rig Rundowns. This is the 25th video in that format.
In 15 years since graduating from Berklee, Angie Swan has proven no stage is too big, and no star too bright, to play guitar alongside. She has worked onstage and in the studio with Cirque du Soleil (the Amaluna production), Fifth Harmony, CeeLo Green, will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas), Macy Gray, Adam Lambert (Queen), Nicole Scherzinger (the Pussycat Dolls), and Boney James, and even backed up Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Renner in a series of ads for Jeep. Swan also just performed with En Vogue at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards.
In 2018, she landed her current high-profile gig playing for former Talking Heads ringmaster David Byrne, and hit the road to support his album, American Utopia. The whirlwind tour hit 26 countries in less than a year. And while 2019 saw fewer passport pages being filled, the challenges didn’t stop. For the fall of last year, Byrne and his band of 11 musicians adapted the show for a Broadway run at the Hudson Theatre. That production is comprised of songs from American Utopia, Byrne’s other solo releases, and heavy hitters from the Talking Heads catalog.
Just before the release of HBO’s Spike Lee-directed American Utopia concert film, which is now viewable, Swan virtually welcomed PG’s Chris Kies into her NYC apartment. In this Rig Rundown, the Milwaukee native and upbeat musician opens up about choosing gear based on eye-appeal for Broadway audiences, becoming a humbucker devotee, and how forming friendships led to great gear and cool gigs. She even gives us a peek at what her next pedalboard might have on it.