Peter Hodgson
Breaking News: high-profile guitar company owner parts ways with namesake company
I’ve received word that a certain guitar company has allegedly just parted ways one of their owner-operators – a man who the company is actually named after. This will be big news when it gets out there and it’ll be very interesting to see what this gentleman does next. After all, this isn’t the first time he’s left a guitar company that he played a high-profile role in…
More as it develops. Feel free to speculate in the comments section.
REVIEW: Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis Trembucker PATB-1
Usually when I buy a pickup, I put a lot of time into researching my options, considering the body wood of the guitar, the amplifier I’ll be using, the style of music I’ll be playing, the guitar’s scale length, string spacing, volume potentiometer value… I really enjoy this process and it’s something I look forward to. That’s why I was intrigued when I spotted a used Ibanez RG550 in a pawn shop which had already had its bridge pickup swapped out for a Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis Trembucker. I bought the guitar without actually playing it (I know that sounds like a gamble, but this guitar was an absolute steal), and I was already considering the option of putting a new set of pickups in it as I was driving the guitar home. But of course first I plugged in to see what the Parallel Axis Trembucker sounded like.
Long story short, I scrapped my plans to change the pickups.
COOL GEAR ALERT: ESP Jesse Liu Katana 7
Check out this sweet ESP Jesse Liu Katana 7, the signature model 7-string for the Cthonic guitarist. Alder body, maple neck with ebony fretboard, neck-thru construction, 25.5″ scale, Floyd Rose bridge, Seymour Duncan AHB-1 7-string pickup, metalworthy silverburst finish. This model is new for 2012 and you won’t find it in all markets. A 6-string model is also available. You can pick this bad boy up from my buddies at Bmusic.
COOL GEAR ALERT: Roger Mayer Vibe TC
One of my favourite pedals ever is the Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe. It’s one of those pedals that has the uncanny ability to simply make everything sound better, and once you turn it on it’s hard to turn it off. Well the latest evolution of the Voodoo Vibe is the new Vibe TC, and it’s a very stylish little unit too. The press release is below, and make sure you check out Roger’s website and Facebook page.
NAMM 2012: Catalinbread
Catalinbread showed at NAMM for the first time in 2012 with a really cool display. They had plenty of cool new pedals to check out, but in the true spirit of showmanship they drew a lot of attention with a set of special Custom Shop Fuzz Flowers handpainted by Sharlet Thompson. These amazing creations feature the Catalinbread line as well as some special fuzz creations built by Bryan Lundstrom.
Also on show:
NAMM 2012: 65amps Producer
There was plenty of great stuff at NAMM this year – real break-your-wallet kind of stuff – but one of my favourites and certainly very high on my ‘must-sell-a-kindey-to-fund-purchase’ list is the 65amps Producer. It isn’t cheap but boy is it pretty. You might think of amps like the Lil Elvis when you ponder 65amps, but the Producer is something else entirely: an EL34-loaded warbeast which captures, subdues, skins and stuffs classic rock tones then mounts them on the wall for proud display. And it does it all while knocking back shots of Jäger.
65amps wanted to design a classic-sounding amp but without the unpredictability of those circuits. Y’know how a tube amp can sound great in one room but terrible in the next? 65amps has done some extensive study on the matter and found that these old circuits were designed around tubes that could take the voltage, which modern tubes just can’t do. So they’ve came up with their own solution, which they feel makes new tubes sound even better than old ones. The key to this is a new transformer by Mercury Magnetics which runs the amp’s EL34s in an extremely safe and unconventional way that no off-the-shelf guitar amp transformer can do. The two companies are so sure of the stability and reliability of this method that they expect that you won’t have to change your tubes for years.
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. I started I Heart Guitar in 2008. I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18 (I'm 33 now). I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week) and a setup tech. I live in Melbourne, Australia. You can check out my guitar playing at Reverbnation or on YouTube.
You can email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com