NEWS: Freddie Nelson interview
By the way, how hip does Paul look in this new shot with his Ibanez Fireman guitar? In my mind this look fits right in with his excellent debut solo album, King Of Clubs, which had a cool 60s feel.
CLICK HERE to buy Paul Gilbert and Freddie Nelson’s ‘United States’
CLICK HERE to buy Paul Gilbert’s ‘King of Clubs’
My favourite stuff of 2008
I’m back from my little Christmas exile, and I’m in a reflective mood, so here, for the heck of it, is my list of stuff I liked this year, in the world of guitar. 2008 was a pretty cool year for me. I wrote about a squillion articles for Mixdown and Australian Guitar, recorded a few tunes, wrote a huge batch of songs for my new band (watch out for us in 2009), interviewed Joe Satriani, John McLaughlin, Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather, Page Hamilton, Max Cavalera, Bryan Beller, George Lynch and more, and started this here blog (with encouragement from the ever clever Mrs I Heart Guitar, who is an avowed blog-reading fiend).
2008 was also a pretty bitchen year for the world of guitar. We had releases by Steve Vai, Mike Keneally, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, the reunited Extreme, Guns N’ Roses, and even a freaking Van Halen tour (which never made it down to Australia or anywhere else outside North America for that matter… hopefully that will be rectified in 2009, but I shan’t be holding my breath for that one). There were also some very cool gadgets released during the year. So here’s my list of cool stuff in 2008. Click on any of the links to buy the stuff if you like.
General stuff
Meeting Paul Gilbert in person after many years of email communication and two interviews – he was just as cool as I could have hoped.
Hearing from Mike Keneally that he’d checked out my blog. In an email he said “Your website is EXTREMELY readable! Lots of cool articles.” I think I still smile in my sleep about that one.
Attending an album preview party for Trivium, and almost accidentally making a baby with the back of Corey Beaulieu’s head thanks to an uncomfortably posed photo.
Buying a crapload of new pedals while the Australian dollar was at 98 US cents. I went on an MXR spree and bought a Dyna Comp, Custom Audio Electronics Boost/OD, EVH Phase 90, Carbon Copy Analog Delay, and Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Octave Fuzz. Now the dollar sucks again, so I’ll have to hold off on buying a Dunlop Buddy Guy wah and an eBow until it recovers. Dammit.
Music
After going their separate ways to join Van Halen (Gary Cherone), farm alpacas (Pat Badger, and with a name like that how could he not be an animal lover?) and release stunningly awesome albums under various band names like Population One, Mourning Widows and Dramagods (Nuno Bettencourt), these guys finally got back together for one of the best rock albums of 2008 and one of the best moments of their eclectic career. I freaken love Nuno’s guitar tone here, all natural and gusty, and the live feel helps smack this one over the line as my favourite new release of the year.
Paul Gilbert & Freddie Nelson – United States
Mike Keneally – Wine And Pickles
This album is a collection of alternate or extended takes, unused tracks and various bits and pieces, yet it feels like a cohesive statement which can sit just as comfortably within the Keneally canon as anything else he’s done. The best reasons to buy this album are ‘Feelin’ Strangely,’ an alternate version of ‘Backwards Deb’ with different lyrics and hugely differing mix to the version on ‘Dancing,’ and the amazing ‘Inhale’ with Lyle Workman.
MXR M169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay
Bogner Alchemist series
So what were your highlights of 2008? Any gigs that totally did it for ya? Any new gear that you would hock your right leg to own? Favourite albums? Meet any of your heroes?
FEATURE: A Beginner’s Guide To Pickups
For something so simple – a bunch of wire wrapped around a magnet – pickups can have a huge impact on your sound. Unlike, say, a pedal, amp or pick, it’s not really possible to try out a pickup within your existing rig. Variances in guitar scale length, construction, shape and material mean the same pickup will perform differently from guitar to guitar, so what works in a Telecaster may not work in a Les Paul and vice versa.
Essentially, a pickup is made up of a magnet and insulated copper wire. It’s the stuff of high school science: the magnet magnetises the strings, creating a flux field. When the string is struck, the vibration affects the flux field, creating an alternating current within the coils of wire. This signal is then sent to the amp, and a whole new set of techy stuff happens.
Pickups are typically made of one of two types of magnet – Alnico or ceramic. Alnico is shorthand for “Aluminium, Nickel, Cobalt”, and is an alloy which has a softer magnetic field, and thus less pull against the strings. Alnico pickups are often associated with ‘spongier’ tones, and players such as Slash. (By the way, I know it’s technically correct, but the spelling of ‘spongier’ just looks wrong. Perhaps it should be spelled ‘spunge-ier’ or something. Anyway…) There are varying grades of Alnico magnet, each of which has its own sonic signature.
When it comes to the wire coil, several factors influence the sound, including the number of turns, the pattern used – is it just wrapped around uniformly or criss-crossed? – and the thickness of the wire. Australian guitar commpany Cole Clark has recently released a series of pickups using Formvar wire, which has its own sonic signature and was used on early Fender pickups. Matching the number of turns with a specific gauge allows the pickup designer to emphasise high end, low end or midrange to the point where specific frequencies can be ‘goosed’ in a similar way to setting a wah pedal in a notch position. Pickups with this effect include the Dimarzio FRED and Tone Zone. The gauge of wire and the amount and style of turns have an effect on the pickup’s DC current resistance. The higher the resistance, the lower the treble response and the higher the output. A pickup’s impedance also affects the frequency, and can be tuned to certain frequencies to further emphasise upper mids or high end.
A pickup’s pole pieces also have an effect on the tone. The size, material and height of each pole piece can impose its own sonic signature. Seymour Duncan’s Quarter Pounder pickups use oversized pole pieces to read a wider range of string space without having to beef up the whole pickup to humbucker size.
Which brings us to single coils versus humbuckers. Essentially, a humbucker consists of two single coils wired in series, but one uses a magnet of opposing polarity to the other. The hum characteristics of one coil are cancelled out by the other, hence the term ‘humbucker’. On more modern Strat style designs, the middle pickup is reverse winding and reverse polarity so it cancels hum when combined with the neck or bridge pickup.
Humbuckers tend to sound thicker and louder than single coils, but just to complicate things, they can be ‘tuned’ to sound more like a Strat style single coil (Dimarzio’s Humbucker from Hell) or a Gibson-style P-90 (Seymour Duncan’s Phat Cat).
FEATURE: Amp Glossary
Here’s a simple glossary of amp terms. I find it’s handy to keep this kinda stuff as a reference when writing reviews, and I add to it from time to time.
Balanced connector: A 3-conductor connector which carries a signal over 3 wires, commonly used in microphones but also in some guitar and bass amp recording outputs. Also called XLR or Cannon.
Bright switch: Increases the treble of an amp, either by adding extra treble or by shifting the range of frequencies the amp’s treble control operates in. Can have a similar effect to a Presence control, but is not variable.
Cascading: Wiring preamp stages in series for more gain. Common in Crate amps, where the Sequential Cascading Gain feature makes each potentiometer affects the one after it for greater tonal control.
Channel: Independent sound sections allowing different tones. Commonly clean and distorted, but more often clean, crunch and lead in modern amps.
Channel switching: Changing from one amp channel to another, achieved either by a switch on the amp itself, a foot switch, or MIDI. Some units allow you to combine effect units with particular amp channels to be recalled at the tap of a foot.
Class A: Circuit in which the device is always conducting electricity to some extent, drawing power even if there is no signal at all.
Class B: Circuit which amplifies only half of the input wave cycle. Circuit switches off the amplifying element half the time for greater efficiency, but with a large amount of distortion.
Class A/B: Circuit in which the signal mostly stays in the Class A region, but with efficiency benefits of Class B, without much of the associated crossover distortion.
Combo: An amplifier which contains its own speaker, instead of requiring a separate speaker box.
Compression: Evens out a signal’s dynamic range by capping the volume level while simultaneously increasing the volume of quiet signals. Can be achieved with a pedal, built into an amp, or applied in the recording studio. Valve amps also offer a type of compression when cranked.
Crossover distortion: Distortion created when the top and bottom devices in a push-pull amplifier circuit are amplified at slightly different times.
dB (decibel): A measure of volume.
Depth (1): An amp control which increases the bass frequency response. More commonly found on modern amps built for metal, or for baritone or 7 string guitars.
Depth (2): A control for setting the character of effects such as chorus, phaser or flanger, which may be built into an amp.
Distortion: Technically, amplifying a signal until it’s louder than the circuit can take. Originally a problem which engineers tried to design out of amps, but now appreciated as the greatest thing ever invented.
Dynamic range: The relationship between the minimum and maximum signal level. Can describe how an amp responds to hard and soft pick attack, volume swells, etc.
Effect chain: A series of sound effect devices wired one after the other.
Effect loop (Series): A point in an amplifier’s circuit where a single effect or an effect chain can be inserted into the signal. This usually occurs after the preamp but before the power amp, allowing the effects to add ambience or colour to the main guitar tone.
Effect loop (Parallel): An effects loop in which the signal is split after the preamp, so the unaffected sound goes to the power amp but the effect loop runs alongside, allowing effects to be added ‘around’ the main tone. The original unaffected tone is heard at the same time as the effected tone. Usually parallel effect loops have a control for blending the level of the loop. Some amps feature both series and parallel effect loops.
EQ: In a nutshell, tone controls (at least in the context of amps). This can refer to knobs or sliders.
Extension speaker: A speaker cabinet which can be added to an amplifier. Technically it can refer to any cabinet plugged into an amp, but is more commonly used to refer to adding an extra speaker cabinet to a combo amp.
Jack: The hole a plug plugs into. Or some guy who jumps out of a box.
Feedback: That squealy sound when a microphone or guitar pickup re-processes the signal from a speaker broadcasting it. Some feedback is ugly and people spend thousands of dollars trying to eliminate it from acoustic guitars and PA systems. Other feedback is glorious and controllable and should be encouraged. Check out the intro to Joe Satriani’s “Flying In A Blue Dream” for controlled feedback in a musical context.
FET (field-effect transistor): A solid state device which is more stable than standard transistors, making it easier to achieve consistent sonic results compared to vintage transistors, which varied greatly.
FET distortion: A more valve-like distortion than can be achieved by other types of transistors. Popular in pedals and solid state late 80s amps. – When overdriven, a FET exhibits distortion qualities more like those produced by a tube than most other types of transistors.
FET switching: A FET circuit which is used to turn on effects in amps or pedals, or to switch amp channels.
Footswitch (latching): A switch for turning an effect on or off, or for switching amp channels. Press it once and the effect goes on. Press it again and the effect goes off.
Footswitch (momentary): A different kind of switch which can work in the same way as a latching switch, or which can be tapped multiple times to set a delay or modulation rate, or to kick in effects only when the pedal is being pressed down.
Gain: Another term that has many meanings, but in this case usually means ‘amount of distortion.’
Gain boost: Usually an extra gain stage that can be turned on and off with a footswitch, especially for solos.
Headroom: The difference between peak tone and peak volume. For instance, ‘Clean headroom’ refers to how loud a clean sound can get before it distorts.
Impedance: Measured in ohms, the total opposition to the flow of alternating current in a circuit.
Master volume: A global volume control for setting the overall volume of an amp. There may be individual channel volumes too for setting the ratio between rhythm volume and solo volume.
Ohm: The unit used to measure electrical resistance or impedance.
Power amp: The part of an amp which drives the speakers. Can be part of a head or combo, or a separate unit for use in a rack system.
Power amp in: Can be another name for an effect loop return. Can allow a head or combo’s power amp to be driven by an external preamp.
Power attenuator: A device for absorbing some of the speaker load so an amp can be cranked for best tone without being too loud.
Preamp: The part of an amp which contains the gain control and tone controls. The main voice of the amp.
Presence: A control which adds additional treble to the circuit.
Solid state: In this context, refers to diodes and transistors instead of valves.
Wattage: How much power an amp handles.
Common valve types:
12AX7: Preamp valve. Dual triode valve with high voltage gain. Used in most preamps, and some overdrive and distortion pedals. Also called ECC83.
6L6: Power amp valve. Pentode valve with quick response, solid bass, high headroom. Common in Fender, Mesa Boogie amps.
EL34: Power amp valve. Warm response, musical distortion characteristics. Common in Marshall amps.
EL84: Power amp valve. Treble-heavy, clear tones when overdriven. Common in Vox AC-30 amps.
KT88: Power amp valve. Beam tetrode valve designed specifically for audio amplifications. In Marshall Kerry King signature model.
KT66: Power amp valve. Good alternative to 6L6 due to higher overload tolerance. In Marshall Vintage Modern series.
Merry Xmas!!!
Merry Xmas everyone! Hope you’re having a great day and that you all stuff yourselves stupid with all sorts of Christmas cheer.
Hi! I'm Peter Hodgson. I write for Gibson.com, Australian Guitar, Australian Musician, Mixdown Magazine (including my instructional column, 'Unleash Your Inner Rock God,' which has been running since 2007), guitarworld.com, Tone Deaf, Beat (including their weekly hard rock/metal column Crunch) and The Brag. And I'm Assistant Social Coordinator with Seymour Duncan.
I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18. I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week), a setup tech, a newspaper editor, and I've also dabbled in radio a little bit. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and my hobbies include drinking way too much coffee, and eating way too much Mexican food.
You can check out my guitar playing at Reverbnation or on YouTube, and feel free to email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com