Jeztone.com

I recently got an email from my former bandmate, Heroes of Switzerland guitar partner and all round good egg Ian Lockwood.

Ian had contacted me for some advice on a new guitar he wanted to buy, enjoying the feel of his Gibson Les Paul, Ian wanted to find something similar in sound and feel, but with a tremelo arm for divebombing and other whammy bar madness.

Well Tremless of Nottingham and anyone else in a similar pickle, sit back and take this in.

As far as recent LP players go Alex Lifeson (Rush) & Neal Schon (Journey) both use Les Pauls with Floyd Rose trems fitted, Neal Schon did probably the earliest mod way back in the 1980’s and now has a signature model, trouble is they are all like Custom Shop stuff….with the dollar as it is, its pretty much the price of a car. The Production model Les Paul Axcess which is basically a mass produced version of the Schon guitar is like 2 Grand and Gibson are cranking the prices at the mo so christ knows what you’d pay for one…..let’s see…

http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/78104

http://www.coda-music.com/product_info.php?cPath=21_22_23&products_id=4315

Gulp!

Burny (Fernandes own Jap domestic market copies) make a Korean LP copy that comes with a Floyd and a Fernandes sustainer, now I’ve played a Jap Fernandes LP before and its like a high model number Tokai (i.e. pretty much the same build and materials as a real Gibson), but these Korean ones and now some Chinese built are a completely different animal. I played one on Denmark Street years ago it was OK, but at a hot gig???

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Burny-Les-Paul-Fernandes-sustainer-Floyd-Rose_W0QQitemZ150360051240QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV?hash=item2302284e28&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

A few guys on the Guitarist forums rave about these and its probably as good as an Epi LP, but from what I can gather the biggest skimp on a guitar like this… and the biggest issue I reckon you’d have is with the build of the Floyd Style trem, if the guitars that cheap (and bear in mind that in Japan a Burny retails for less than £300) its likely to be monkey metal and fall to bits. I had a Washburn MG40 Superstrat for 2 weeks back in 93, where the metalwork was like something you’d get in a pub ashtray so 4 songs in your tunings fucked. The one I had never left the rehearsal room and I exchanged it.

The whole idea of a Floyd Rose or Kahler (the other big competitor) system back in the day, was that by setting them up properly beforehand, tuning issues will be minimal. In my 80’s rock heyday I used 2 identical Ibanez RG560’s and I never used a tuner live, both guitars would come out of a cold van and into a hot gig. Id keep them in their cases to acclimatise for 20 mins, get them out and… the tuning wouldn’t move and this is at the height of my widdling powers, dive bombs, squeals, tapping whole tone scales across all 6 strings into a backwards reverb unit and getting it to glitch as it struggled to process the notes…. and the air raid siren…..Glory days…Id occasionally have to tweak the fine tuners on the third but that was it.

A replacement either by Floyd Rose or Ibanez (who I still think make the best variant of the design in the Edge Trem) is like £170+, so Id tread carefully.
http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/74911

There are other options however…..

1: Buy another secondhand LP Studio and have a Floyd fitted….You’d get a Studio used for £500 ish, although the cost of getting a proper guitar builder to do this will be at least another £200 in labour I reckon….so were talking £900 ish. You need to go to someone who knows their shit for this, as theres wood to be routed out of the body etc, if they fuck it up the guitar could be unusable. Norworthys at least, maybe Rob Williams in Birmingham?

2: More realistically there is a tremelo system called a Stetsbar that just clips onto a Gibson Style bridge….http://stetsbar.com/. These are an aftermarket replacement and won’t require any alteration. Ive not heard or used on of these yetr and no one I know of has, so its something new maybe? They get good reviews, but just about anything does in Guitarist does nowadays.

From what I’ve read its for subtle trem useage, not massive divebombing so…maybe not what you want.

3: Digietech Whammy Pedal? A cop out I know.

4: An old 80’s classic with trem like an Old Yamaha SG1300T? I bought a beat up one, made mine fixed bridge. That would have been ideal, but again those old SG’s are starting to become expensive for what they are and on a used guitar the Floyd is usually the first casualty of neglect. Because everything is altered with an allen key, those areas are usually chewed to fuck and in the case of some older Japanese own brand stuff, parts are non existent, Fender have kept a lot of their 80’s stuff going and so have Ibanez post Floyd locking system, but they and most other guitar trems that were pre floyd have disappeared. I was there at the time their were hundreds of designs.

The other thing to remember with a Floyd is once you break a string live that’s it for the gig…..by the time you have unlocked and pissed about with it, the whole guitar might need a retune, with locking nuts and the like its not something you can do at the Social. I used to just swap guitars and carry on with the spare, it didn’t happen that often though.

5: A Godin? Godin are part of a massive staple of Canadian Brands (Simon and Patrick, Art & Lutherie etc etc) and they actually source their own tonewoods. There getting popular with people who need maximum versatility, as many have acoustic pickups and roland synth guts fitted… so Steve Stevens plays them as does the bloke in Elbow. There also reasonably priced, but my advice would be to look secondhand for one as they do not have the prestige of Fender or Gibson or PRS so residuals are usually shite the very rare times I see them in the Guitarist classifieds. The Godin might be the best option as they have fulcrum trems with locking machine heads

http://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/electric_guitars_detail.asp?stock=08012514290818

http://www.guitars.co.uk/acatalog/Godin_LGXT.html

That’s the pricey one, this is cheaper…

http://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/electric_guitars_detail.asp?stock=08012514592418

http://www.godinguitars.com/godinxtsap.htm

If I were you, this might be your best option as they are well made and durable guitars, and I know you like variation in sounds so there pretty versatile.

6: The only outside option is to buy a secondhand Patrick Eggle. These were a small time British Guitar company who basically tried to be a baby PRS, they changed owners several times and it all went south, but they were very popular in the guitar press in the mid 1990’s and so people bought them and in true defunct British guitar maker style, the depreciation is just out of this world, I just found this on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Patrick-Eggle-Berlin-Stage-T-Swineshead-PAF_W0QQitemZ350253924580QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV?hash=item518cc2c0e4&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
These were something like £1200 new when new, I suspect thats a refin though.

Not bad and not a Million miles away from a PRS Custom 24, I almost bought their Los Angeles model as it was like a Musicman Luke (very compact S-Style guitar) back in the day. Which Framus seem to have nicked the inspiration for their design for their recent Diablo pro:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/framus_diablo_custom_honey.htm

The neck will be pretty similar to Ian’s LP I should think. The Eggle has a more PRS type feel, but the mahogany body, set neck and whammy bar may be unbeatable at current prices.

So here we are, quite a few months into the “worst recession since the 1980’s” or biggest “economic crisis since the 1930’s” as described by various media outlets intent of frightening us all.

Are we having fun yet?

From this guitarists perspective several interesting things have happened in the last few months.

In terms of the wider economy and currency markets both the Dollar, Euro and Yen have risen sharply. So prices have gone up across the board, most horribly is the now near 20% rise in the value of the Yen, which has basically made grey importing a Japanese Fender or other far east exotica (ESP/Burny/Caparison etc) uneconomically viable. The unofficial Clapton type J-craft Strat I’d finally set my heart on (I was still gonna replace those nasty small frets with Dunlop 6100 fretwire though) was suddenly going to come into the UK for near £750 used as opposed to £550, so that idea was quashed finally.

It didn’t get much better thanks to the rise in the Euro, although its now dropped slightly, suddenly all thos nice deals on Thomann.de suddenly looked very unaffordable. In April a Fender Richie Kotzen Telecaster was near £1200 as opposed to just under a grand previously, its now just over a grand….ouch!

The drop in VAT to 15% seems to have made didly squat to guitar prices as many companies announced large price hikes in January 09 and the currency markets cancelled out a lot of this. So saving £30 here and there on a £600+ guitar really seemed meaningless.

What has suprised me was Ebay, the prices commanded on there seeemd fantastical, especially for used Gibsons, all of a sudden people were paying used prices that were virtually the new retail price a year or so earlier. From what I could see this was people in a feeding frenzy hoping to get a good deal, but really just supporting a fantasy land.

Back in March when I was looking to purchase a used Gibson SG I was amazed how many advertisers were trying to sell me a 2001-2005 guitar for around the £800-850 mark. At the time Gibson had raised the price of a new SG standard to £1199 and the dollar had affected this, however it soon dropped back down to £999 in most dealers. After browsing Gumtree for 3 weeks I found a totally mint 03 SG Standard in heritage Cherry for £650.00 so it appears some sellers are realistic.

In terms of Fenders though, things are now bordering on the ridiculous. American Standard Guitars have gone through the roof again and are obviously not selling as Fender are offering a free Fender Champion 600 practice amp if you buy one from them now….why not simply drop the price. Irrespective of currency values, that is the most automated guitar factory on earth. It shouldn’t cost so much.

But with Fender everything has gone up, the newish Mexican made “Road Worn” Strats are on the £800+ price point too. I tried one in Cologne in April and I thought the relic’ing was about the same standard as one of Trev Wilkinsons “Vintage” brand copies. It was ok, but not the best Strat I played, and fender have never gotten away from the “insubstantial” feel on their Mex Strats. i’ve tried the basses and they’ve always been fine. But for some reason I can always tell Im playing a Mexican Strat, whatever is missing, Im picking up on it.

So where does that leave the humble guitarist?

Well there is an upside…despite Soundcontrol going to the wall. I’ve noticed a slew of new independant guitar shops that have risen out of the ashes of the “Dixon’s of music retail”. In some cases these are new shops, in others, just smaller businesses that have expanded. But I see that as tremedously healthy for the british guitarist. As now there is less of a sense of monopoly out there,m which means shops can get on with being competitive, giving good customer service and all the other old fashioned shit that chain retailing scum like Soundcontrol tried to extinguish. In addition, not everyone is classified land is a complete idiot. There are some great guitar deals out there just waiting to be had. If you’ve got the cash now is a brilliant time to buy anything musical. Just as long as you do your research and avoid people trying to panic you.

We guitarists are weird creatures, some of us are all gadgets an gizmo’s, with racks like the Starship Enterprise and pedalboards and multi fx units all blinking lights (The Edge for example), others are the opposite Beaten up old guitar into beaten up old amp via curly lead (Bernie Marsden/BB King et al).

Now Im not knocking either approach as to me both are valid ways to go if the end result is excellent. But Ive been thinking recently about the idea of choice and choices in the modern world. I guess this started with me looking to upgrade my Digital SLR camera amnd realising there were only 2 or 3 serious choices at best Nikon, Canon, used or new etc.

We guitarists are very lucky though, there are literally hundereds of gear options available from a plethora of manafacturers and quite frankly in this age of cheap foreign labour and CNC manafacturing (nearly) all of these options are affordable to the average player.

However at a social event the other week I was introduced to another guitarist and of course (as usual) the talk turned to our guitars, gear, our own experiences and stuff we liked or disliked. Then this chap threw a great question in the mix….. to name my dream amplifier in an ideal world.

Now this got me thinking, as a long time Marshall user (JCM2000/JCM800/Jubilee & Artiste combos, plus my brief sojurn with a JMP-1 rack based system) I realised that what I’d really want isnt actually made by Marshall, well not in the form I’d want it.

I find this strange as Marshall have launched loads of products in the last 3 years and currently their offering is bigger than its ever been. But my ideal amp is strangely not there.

So here goes from Fantasy amp land the Marshall Jez Sullivan JS50+ 2 x 12 combo.

The specs are all stuff Marshall currently make, so if anyone from Marshall is reading this I suggest you knock one up now.

Cabinet: Bluesbreaker style birch ply cab (this has a bigger physical Mass than Marshalls current 2 x 12 cab and so will deliver a lot more low end, so a 4 x 12 cab player like me will find it less of a compromise and also with the open back, will get a bigger spread onstage at a smaller gig.)

Chassis: Essentially a DSL 50 50 watt 2 x 12 EL34 based amp, but with a couple of tweeks to my taste…..such as

1: Switchable gain stage on the dirty channel like the DSL401 combo

2: A Parrallel FX loop, serial loops are rubbish and offer less tonal control over the effected signal. Why people even try to use them is absolutely beyond me

3: 1 Clelestion Vintage 30 Speaker and 1 Celestion G75 (for a great combination of vintage and modern tones)

4: A seperate midrange switch on the extra gain stage as this will likely be the only EQ stage choice you need between channels

I’d retail these for around £1000GBP and you know what…..

I think they’d sell…. and not just to me….fucking loads.

The idea of having a vintage style Marshall that looks not only classic, but with more features and juice under the hood would be an absolute winner, think about it. All guitarists (guys in Function/Covers bands who need versatility in a smaller format. Guys on the toilet circuit who want the tone to come from the amp rather than additional pedals. Indie Schmindie guys who want the reliability and tone, but don’t want the “Metal ” image….etc etc. Baby Boomer guitarists who can spend a grand or two on a Mesa Boogie and go on about the good old days with their JTM 45 and how they once had a fight with Clapton down the Dog & Duck in Peckham in 1967 or whatever). Hell I even thought of a name for it

The “Hot-Breaker”, Son of Bluesbreaker, all the heritage, all the tone, all the Marshall….

Now I really really dont understand why Marshall dont make something like this as it would be a great competitor to all the boutique combos out there, but then I had a quick scan of the marshall range and really what there doing now is reacting to trends rather than setting them.

Take the last few big Marshall amps to have come out

Vintage Modern – Single channel front end with gain stage you can back off (Not unlike a Cornford Richie Kotzen me thinks)

JVM410 – 4 channel, Hi gain multi modes, midi switching (Did anyone say er Diezel VH4….er….. cough)

Class 5 Combo – Its one thing to have your employees leave and start their own company (Blackstar), but really making a competitor to their best selling amp the Blackstar HT-5 just reeks of pettyness.

Thing is to me Marshall should really not worry about the competition and just build amps that people want. Its a tough market now and with the likes of Bogner deciding to go mass Market with their chinese made Alchemist series. Perhaps the boys and girls of Bletchley should start to once again set some trends rather than following them.

Lots of OMG shock horror on various guitar forums at the moment. Joe Satriani has apparently decided to dump his longstanding endorsement of Peavey amps and use Marshall JVM410’s on the upcoming tour of the new “Supergroup” Chickenfoot. Despite having the Peavey JSX signature series heads made to his exacting specifications, Satriani has decided to go for the new(ish) 4 channel head from marshall.

Now lots of people are pointing out quite correctly that Satch doesnt actually use the 2 distortion channels on his own amps & instead uses his own signature distortion pedal, made by Vox…. The Satchurator through his Peaveys clean channel and that its unlikely that there will be much difference in tone through the clean channel of a JVM.

Whatever the reason its good news for Marshall, who, thanks to the exchange rate and a much revamped product line, seem to be regaining ground lost in recent years. But all this news has done to my mind is point out the absolute nonsense surrounding Endorsement deals and the “signature” product industry as a whole.

Its quite common knowledge that a guitarist may be endorsing one brand of amplifier or guitar, while actually using another. The biggest culprits for this racket must surely be Laney & Crate, who whenever I see the artists in their adverts onstage its usually with another brand of amplifier. When Oceansize mentioned how good Laney were in a recent issue of Guitarist, it was embarrissing to see in the accompanying pictures of their backline a Marshall JCM2000 head perched atop a Laney 4 x12 in the background. Crate are also comical in the way most of their endorsers either endorse cabinets only and use another brand of amp ( Marcos Curiel from POD with a Mesa dual rectifier) or just practise amps (Lita Ford/Yngwie Malmsteen). In the early 90’s Bon Jovi’s Ritchie Sambora had a wall of Fender Tonemaster heads onstage and hidden behind them 5 rackmounted Marshall JCM800’s . Even Status Quo allegedly have Vox AC30 chassis built into Marshall JCM cabinets.

The biggest pisstakers in all this though are a tie between

1: Metallica – Kirk Hammetts new signature Randall Head isn’t all he uses, he still confesses to using Boogies live, with the bulk of his tone being created by Triaxis preamps and Dual Rectifiers again, and while James Hetfield talked to Guitarist mag about using a Diezel VH4 as the main amp in the woeful “St. Anger “sessions. His producer Bob Rock told Guitar world it was all done with a Marshall DSL100. Not that I imagine they’d be queuing up to admit to that one…..Ahem.

2: Eddie Van Halen – THe 5150 brand is now ubiquitous, with products made by Fender, Dunlop, Peavey, Musicman & Kramer. The big problem here is while Eddie is a legend, do you really want to buy equipment from a man who hasn’t written anything decent for 17+ years & made all his greatest work on a “parts” guitar costing $50 & an old Marshall plexi?

As with guitars it gets even weirder. Despite having longstanding endorsements with PRS & Gibson. The one guitar Rush’s Alex Lifeson has used as his main recording guitar for the last 2 decades is a decidedly non collectable 52 reissue telecaster. Lifeson bought it in 83 and its on pretty much every Rush record since then.

Obviously a musician has the right to use whatever he or she feels does the job best. But in this world of massive advertising campaigns and marketing hyperbole. It’d be nice to see some honesty rather than PR for a change.

Happy 2009, this is my first post for a while…..(7 months) and see’s my playing and indeed my interest in the guitar going through somewhat of a transitional period. Having stopped gigging and left the band I was in. The idea of playing music live in front of people seems strangely alien right now.

I guess this happens to everyone now and again, you suddenly find yourself at a musical crossroads, unsure what to do next (if anything at all?).

I’m old enough to have been here before though, this feeling last happened to me in 1997 when…through a combination of circumstances and personal choice the guitar just took a back seat for a while.

I’d come out of a hard gigging band several years earlier and moved down South to study. One would assume such a time would mean endless oppertunities for musical alchemy and a greater choice of both musicians and possibilities.

How wrong I was.

As the musical sands shifted I suddenly found no real demand for a player like myself.

My crunchy power chords, textural influences and preference for lush delay lines seemed rather lost in the late 90’s. The very few bands I auditioned for seemed either lost in a post Oasis/post Britpop confection or stuck in a “US underground punk” haze of low fi incompetence.

It seemed rather odd meeting blokes from Camden putting on Mancunian accents and playing along to simplistic sub Gallager/Weller songs
(ever notice that whenever Noel G is on the cover of an English guitar magazine, they have a beginners special article inside….I mean why not go the whole hog & publish a special “underclass lads” edition with all the architypal “ladrock” favourites, articles on ripping off the Beatles Slade & Weller, using simple chords, gigging with an ASBO, organising rehearsals around a curfew order, a guide to shoplifting the best Les Paul copy from Cash Converters and styling your hair like Rick “remember him?” Witter).

On the other hand the “American Underground Punk” influenced crowd I knew seemed all to incompetent for my tastes. Anti Corporate dandys bashing out 3 chords in £100 trainers made by children in the third world?….Nah…it wasn’t really me!

This lack of musical oppertunity kept me away from the guitar for several years. When I eventually returned to the six string, It took me about 3 years to properly re-immerse myself into the instrument. It wasn’t easy, but I think that when I did re-emerge, I was a better musician and more tasteful player than before.

But what goes around comes around, I’ve spent much of the last 5 years of my life in bands and although brimming with musical ideas, my motiviation to do something beyond playing for my own pleasure is simply not there at this moment in time. This is actually more liberating than it sounds, however my biggest fear is reaching a point where I’ve lost ground in both ability and musicality. No one likes to go backwards when they stand still do they?

In light of both wanting to do something different and realising at the same time that I lack motivation to do in the first place. I think its a good strategy to keep myself involved in a more relaxed way. So a small recording project of a friends has allowed me to keep playing and be reasonably creative without the pressures of gigging, audiences, soundchecks, promoters, other bands and all the other annoyances of being a performing musician.

The other issue of this downtime is taking a closer look at my rig. Which in terms of amps & pedals has been largely unchanged since 2002.

I bought a Gibson SG earlier in the year and I have fallen back in love with the thick syrupy sound of humbuckers on a mahogany set neck guitar. In my friends recording project I’m running out of a Sansamp pedal into a Mac, its simple, quick and sounds ok for now.

If I were to gig again I don’t know what I’d use. The amp & pedalboard stand idly in a corner of the room. There are things I’d refine and things I’d change, but thats a set of decisions to be made another time.