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Archive for October, 2006

For the last 5 years my preferred amp of choice has been the Marshall TSL series, starting out in 2001 with the TSL60 head, I found the three channels and parrallel FX loop perfectly suited my gigging needs. Then a few years later I upgraded to the TSL100, as I felt I needed the extra clean headroom. The seperate EQ on each channel was a godsend, however I found the dual assignable FX loops (one for clean, one for dirty) were actually something of a dissapointment. While the TSL60 has a remarkably transparent loop, the assignable loops of the TSL100 seemed to add a layer of film to the tone.

However my biggest niggle in terms of gigging, was the amount of cables onstage, once the fx loop cables and footswitch are connected. The footswitch cable was never a brilliant design and prone to failing, but Marshall did change the cable to a more rigid shiny design that wouldn’t look out of place in a S & M club.

So I decided on a rethink…

After flogging the TSL on Ebay I decided to buy a simpler 2 channel DSL head, I have to admit I’ve heard my friends DSL50’s and felt the tone was a lot more open and purer. While I would not have quite the versatility of my previous rig, the idea was I would have a lot less cables to fiddle with and therefore less possibilities of things going wrong.

Now I’ve owned a DSL 100 for about 2 months now…..and……it’s just not me. Sorry I can’t get on with it. It does sound great, but I do miss my bells and whistles. As my current gig requires me to play a variety of styles with both clean and heavy sections, also I miss the fx loop, despite its flaws it was simple enough to dial in.

So now I’m back on the buying board. The DSL is on ebay and I’m trying to decide which TSL head to buy. Sometimes its the devil you know I suppose.

While we are on the subject of Marshall, it’s worth noting that next month they are launching a new amp line called the Modern Vintage series. My suspicion is that theres a whole host of guitarists who’d like something a little more retro looking, while still having their modern features. Kinda like a Badcat Hotcat series. As the JCM2000 series is pushing on in age now. It may also be the first in a range of new amps to replace the JCM. If rumours on various guitar orientated webforums are to be believed, Trivium and Moterhead have been using pre production prototypes (if you watch the DVD of Metallica’s ‘Some Kind Of Monster’, you can see an unmarked Modefour prototype head nestling within James Hetfields studio rig).

Watch this space…

I was leafing through this months Guitarist magazine,when I came across a small mention of a website dedicated to Squier JV series instruments.

I was recently offered one of these guitars for £400 and to me they are a definete investment for the collector on a budget.

The background is a story in itself, by the late 70’s the big two (Fender/Gibson) were peeved at guitarists choosing to buy high quality low price replica’s by Ibanez and later Tokai over their own instruments. Gibson decided to sue Ibanez’s US distributors, hence the term “lawsuit replica” entered the guitar buyers vocabulary.

Fender got wise, formed a company with 2 Japanese distributors and commisioned Fuji Gen Gakki, who actually built the Ibanez brand replicas to build their own guitars, initially for the Japanese domestic market.

Taking the brandname Squier from VC Squier, a string company CBS had bought out in the 60’s, Fender soon had a surefire hit. The instruments are of a much higher quality than the US fenders of the era, if truth be told and according to Fender’s Dan Smith actually informed the rise in build quality seen at Fender since the late 80’s, however, due to the rather racist nature of the US regarding non American made guitars, I doubt if anyone would admit that.

Before long these guitars had been fitted with more generic pickups and an SQ prefix serial number and eventually the Japanese Squier became the made in Japan/ J-Craft Fender, which are now mainly available on the grey import market. The Squier brandname later being used on a host of Chinese and Indonesian made beginner guitars.

But as these original JV serial prefixed guitars are all getting on for 25 years in age now. Prices are starting to rise and the parasites are hovering. Already I have seen a late 80’s Squier strat advertised as a JV’ era instrument on Denmark Street. Even though the serial number began with an E’!

Therefore I would advise anyone thinking about buying one of these guitars to head over to Paul Rumbles comprehensive and informative website.

Although I imagine this is a great resource for anyone trying to fake their own JV’ Strat. That may be far fetched, but as I recently met a man who claims to have faked a large number of 60’s strats for a northern guitar shop back in the 80’s who knows? But we shall save his stories of recutting headstocks, putting guitar bodies in freezers to aid cracking and dipping dinted necks in cold tea for another time.

This was the tag line I saw on an advert in a recent Guitar Player magazine for Hughes & Kettners new Switchblade Guitar Head. The amp is the worlds first totally programmable all valve head. On first impression the specifications are impressive…… 4 Channels, Clean, Crunch, Lead, and Ultra. 128 presets with included midi footcontroller, plus onboard digital modulation and delay effects. The list price of around a grand makes this sound like an impressive peice of kit. Both Guitar Player and Guitarist magazine have given the amp rave reviews. But what made me chuckle was the immortal line “Modelling is dead”. It’s almost Monty Pythonesque.

Now this is funny for a number of reasons. First is that I’ve always felt the guitar industry (press/manafacturers) has been forcefeeding the technology to us musicians and that this was the future, whether we liked it or not.

A future that would be very benificial to them as besides the R & D costs. There are far less bits inside a modelling amp, no valves, rectifiers and the like. So therefore if they used common microprocessors as many companies do (your washing machine has a couple of the same chips that your camcorder has etc.) the kit would be cheaper to produce and the profit margins therefore higher.

Now I feel that certain sections of the guitar press got onboard the modelling bandwagon a little too far. Admittedly the Line 6 POD was an amazing product, but generally modern digital recordings tend to compress sounds and so the POD gave great useable sounds in those situations. Bung it through any amp and its less convincing. Especially when the effects are turned off.

Secondly the whole Modelling amp phenomenon has seemed nothing more than a load of hype. Essentially all modelling amps are nothing more than a sophisticated Multi FX unit bolted onto a transistor power stage. This is fair enough, but for the last 5 years I’ve been reading the same reviews year after year on the latest wonder amp and the life cycle of these amps normally goes like this….

“Famous manafacturer releases wonder amp for say £1000 rrp. The reviews in Guitarist/Guitar Player/Guitar are amazing. The usual stores do it for a hundered or so pounds cheaper. Then no one buys it…..so a cheaper less feature packed version of the amp is made, as the original one is discounted down beyond all belief. Then a new one appears about 15 months later…..the usual suspects in the guitar mags believe the PR hype about more accurate tones and the cycle begins again.

Now modelling has got a foorhold in the market, but it’s strictly at the cheaper practice amp/ small combo market. If you go and see a gigging band on the toilet circuit, it seems valves are still king.

But then Line 6 came up with this…

Guitarist Magazine ran an article on the Line 6 Variax and its Acoustic sibling last year. The article appeared to be telling the reader thats lots of people are using Variax’s. What was funny that these users of modelling guitars were not so enthusiastic to be seen with one Pete Townsend was playing a J-200, Jez Williams from Doves a 335, Jerry Donahue as expected a Tele….. Even on Line 6’s own website they can only manage a stock picture of U2, despite their boast of Edge as a Variax user.

Now don’t get me wrong. I use a Line 6 DL-4 Delay modeller and its a brilliant peice of kit. But I don’t think it sounds like an accurate reproduction of the delays its set out to emulate. Rather its just a very useable peice of kit with some excellent sounds.

But back to Hughes and Kettner. The company also make a very expensive modelling amp in the form of it’s Zentera range. These have been on the market for a few years now and at around £2 grand are probably the most sophisticated modelling amps on the market. Unfortunately every review I’ve read says that they are incredibly difficult to program.

The only famous guitarist using these amps onstage is Alex Lifeson of Rush and even then he only uses them as a secondary texture, the bulk of his tone being generated by two Triamp Mk 2 Halfstacks.

So therefore I’d love to know who is using the Zentera and what do they make of H & K’s proclamation that modelling is indeed dead.