Year: 2017

Guitar Nerd Rig Fun

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I’m currently in the throes of a good old-fashioned riggin’. You may not be able to tell much from the pic but this is kind of my dream rig. Lemme explain how it will work. 

First up, the heart of my tone is the Marshall DSL50 JCM2000. I love these amps because they’re totally no-bullshit: they put out whatever you put into them, putting that legendary Marshall stamp upon it in the process while remaining very faithful to your playing dynamics and phrasing where some amps mush all that stuff together. I usually stick to the Lead channel (in its Classic mode instead of the higher-gain, scooped-mid ‘Ultra’ mode) with the gain control at around 6. 

I sometimes use other pedals to get a little more grrr out of the DSL50 though. My favourite pedal for this is the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, which can be set to give you a simple gain boost but can also perform some basic but very powerful tone-shaping tricks via a switch that boosts or cuts the treble. Hit the treble cut and you’ll get a slightly rounder, more vocal-sounding tone. 

Other pedals in my signal chain include a Jim Dunlop Buddy Guy Crybaby Wah, a BOSS OC-2 Octave and a Jim Dunlop KFK Q-Zone. And I have a Line 6 Relay G30 wireless and a Planet Waves tuner. 

But here’s where it gets complicated/fun: I’m sending the signal from the Marshall into the Mesa Cab Clone – a load box and speaker simulator – and then sending that sound into a trio of stereo Seymour Duncan pedals: the Catalina Dynamic Chorus, the Shape Shifter Stereo Tremolo, and the Andromeda Dynamic Delay. The output from the last of those pedals goes into the stereo inputs of the Seymour Duncan PowerStage 700 power amp, which then plugs into my Marshall cabinet’s left and right speaker inputs. I can then use the PowerStage’s three-band EQ to further shape the sound. This setup also allows me dial in exactly the perfect amount of power tube distortion at any volume, because I can set the amp volume wherever I like for the best tone for whatever musical situation I’m in, then use the PowerStage volume control to set the final level. 

Another bonus of this setup is that the Cab Clone has a Thru output which means I can send a dry signal to another cabinet. Actually what I’d love to do if I had the cash is to get a pair of Marshall 2×12 (or 4×12) cabinets and have those be my left and right effect cabs powered by the PowerStage. 

I love this nerdy stuff. 

Herald Sun, How Dare You

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I can’t let this slide. Australian newspaper The Herald Sun has just published a tribute to Malcolm Young, and look at the title of this front-page pointer. 

Bass? BASS? BASS!?!

This is inarguably one of the greatest, most solid rhythm guitarists of all time, from one of the most popular bands of all time. I don’t know who the f**k goofed up to make this abomination of a headline a reality but holy crap, is it really that hard to go to Wikipedia and double-check this stuff? Absolutely ridiculous and a massive insult to Malcolm and all AC/DC fans. I mean, if you needed to write a cheesy headline, how about ‘Back In Black’ or ‘We Salute You’ or maybe just ‘Malcolm Young – 1954 – 2017′? This is like saying Ringo was The Beatles’ guitarist, or Adam West played TV’s Robin, or that the Herald Sun is a respectable newspaper. Every day this Facebook page seems more and more justified. 

The Church share new video for ‘I Don’t Know How I Don’t Know Why’ ahead of tour

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One of my favourite albums this year is The Church’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity. It’s a beautiful, deep, swirling, emotive record that represents everything great about the band’s psychedelic, atmospheric melodicism. They’ve just released a live video for the track ‘I Don’t Know How I Don’t Know Why,’ which the press release describes as…

‘…A psychedelic dip into the complex consciousness of lead singer Steve Kilbey, the video highlights the latest single’s shimmery tones and experiential ambivalence on life’s purpose. With a video that transports the viewer to a rainbow coloured utopia, ‘I Don’t Know How I Don’t Know Why’ stands true to the church’s signature exploration of existence.

‘Flowing through with the inherent theme of water, their latest single exemplifies Kilbey’s explanation of the mind’s uncontrollable influence. “I’ve always marveled at the sea and rivers and rain…The way I write lyrics is very stream-of-consciousness. I never question them until we perform live” Steve says. Producing ten songs spanning 45 minutes of pure sonic bliss, their latest record Man Woman Life Death Infinity came in strong at #1 on the 100% Australian Independent Record Labels Association independent albums chart.

Filmed on their recent USA tour and edited by Eden Mullholland, the music video offers fans a taste of what to expect on tour. No strangers to the live stage, following a sold out run of Australian shows in 2015 and having previously pulled a 20,000 strong crowd at Primavera Sound, the church embark on a killer eight date national tour, tomorrow – barely touched down from 29 cities across the USA. Joined onstage by special guest, former Remy Zero (UK) guitarist Jeffrey Cain on keys, additional guitars and vocals, the tour will blend almost 50 years of classics with a burst of new songs off their latest record. The band’s Newcastle shows are nearly sold out with the church’s Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne shows set to sell out in the next week. With under 50 tickets left for each show, fans are encouraged to move quick if they want to see this seminal Australian outfit for their first local dates in two years.

Snatch up last minute tickets for the Man Woman Life Death Infinity tour NOW.

Man Woman Life Death Infinity vinyl is available here.

SELECT TOURING PRESENTS

MAN WOMAN LIFE DEATH INFINITY TOUR
 
THU 16 NOV | THE GOV, ADELAIDE SA (18+)
Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
 
FRI 17 NOV | ROSEMOUNT HOTEL,  NORTH PERTH WA (18+)
Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
 
SAT 18 NOV | DUNSBOROUGH TAVERN, DUNSBOROUGH WA (18+)
Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
 
THU 30 NOV | THE TRIFFID, BRISBANE QLD (18+)
Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au | 1300 762 545 | All Oztix Outlets
 
FRI 01 DEC | 170 RUSSELL, MELBOURNE VIC (18+)
Tickets available from www.moshtix.com.au | 1300 GET TIX | All Moshtix Outlets

MON 05 DEC | LIZOTTES,  NEWCASTLE NSW SOLD OUT
Tickets available from www.lizottes.com.au | 02 4956 2066

TUE 06 DEC | LIZOTTES,  NEWCASTLE NSW SOLD OUT
Tickets available from www.lizottes.com.au | 02 4956 2066
 
SAT 09 DEC | THE FACTORY THEATRE, SYDNEY NSW
Tickets available from www.factorytheatre.com.au

Meet The Moniker Guitars Rival Series

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Moniker Guitars has just unveiled the new Rival Series, a really unique chambered guitar that is made in the USA and features Seymour Duncan pickups for a mere $879USD. I think this is a great way to offer a certain degree of customisation while keeping costs down: essentially it’s the same basic guitar but with different faceplate and pickup options, and Moniker appears to have put a great deal of thought and care into designing and instrument that will effectively ‘become’ whatever pickup configuration you order. Go for some Duo-Sonics and you’ll have a great indie instrument. Select the Hot Rodded Humbucker option and you’ve got a powerful rock or metal machine. Other options include Strat, Tele, Lipstock or Phat Cat (P90 in humbucker housing) style pickups. I’ll be reviewing one soon, but in the meantime here’s a video and the press release.

Moniker Guitars launches the Rival Series, a unique chambered body guitar, designed to “rival” any other on tone, feel and price.

Austin, TX – October 23, 2017 – Moniker Guitars has launched the Rival Series, a bold electric guitar design intended to “rival” any other on tone, feel and price. In striving to build a guitar focused on those elements, Moniker has reimagined the instrument and how it can be built in the United States at a retail price that is under a thousand dollars.

Rival Series guitars feature an offset body shape made of maple with a matching maple neck and fretboard. The inside of the body utilizes a unique chambering pattern known as “Rival Ribs” to add resonance and warmth to the guitar. The Moniker website allows you to choose one of six styles of Seymour Duncan pickups to dial in the exact tone you’re looking for. On the outside of the body, the maple frames your choice of a colored Reso-acrylic faceplate. This creates a striking visual contrast between the faceplate and the natural wood. The hardness and reflectiveness of the Reso-acrylic top helps to bounce sound throughout the chambered body.

When it comes to feel, the first thing players notice is that the Rival chambering reduces the weight of the guitar to a mere 6.8 pounds. The acrylic top cuts away to allow for a contoured wood arm rest and a contoured neck heel allows easy access to the upper frets. Both body and neck are coated in a thin satin top coat to preserve the natural feel of the wood.

Customized Rival Series can be ordered through the MonikerGuitars.com at a retail price of just $879. The guitars are built in the same shop where Moniker has been building its Customer Series guitars in Austin Texas.  

“Our experience with our Custom Series line is what led us to develop the Rival Series.” says owner Kevin Tully. “We’re fortunate in that we’ve had the opportunity to speak to every single one of our customers and learn what they’re looking for. Beautiful finishes are important to many customers and on our Custom Series line, we spend a lot of time working on finish. But most people are just looking for great tone and great playability and they’re on a budget that doesn’t allow us to spend hours and hours on finish work. The Rival Series is the result of of prioritizing the fundamentals of the instrument and marrying them together in a clean and simple modern design. We’re extremely proud of how it has come out looking, playing and sounding.”

I Heart Guitar Podcast Episode 5: Gilby Clarke, Derek Sherinian, Lindi Ortega

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It’s the ‘Sorry About My Cold!’ Episode, featuring Gilby Clarke, Derek Sherinian and Lindi Ortega! The episode should be hitting your podcast catcher of choice right about now, or you can listen in the widget at the bottom of this post. Please leave a review if you’re listening on iTunes, and if you’d like to support the podcast and blog with a couple o’bucks, patreon.com/iheartguitar

Gilby Clarke is heading to Australia for some intimate shows in November and December, hitting Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra! He’ll be at:

Thursday 30th November – Crowbar – Brisbane
Friday 1st Dec – Cherry Bar – Melbourne
Saturday 2nd Dec – The Basement – Canberra
Sunday 3rd Dec – Frankie’s – Sydney

Tickets are on sale now from hardlinemedia.net

Derek Sherinian was one of the very first people interviewed for I Heart Guitar when it started (read that original interview here). As a keyboard player he’s one of the greatest guitarists you’ll ever hear. He has a real understanding of how a guitarist plays, and that’s part of what has made him such a great fit in bands like Dream Theater, Alice Cooper, Black Country Communion and his own Planet X. And now he’s in the supergroup Sons of Apollo with Mike Portnoy, Billy Sheehan, Bumblefoot and Jeff Scott Soto. Their debut record Psychotic Symphony is out now. Visit their site at sonsofapollo.com.

This is the second time I’ve interviewed Lindi Ortega. The first was for Australian Guitar magazine about two years ago to promote her album Faded Gloryville. Earlier this year Lindi released an EP called Til The Goin’ Gets Gone, and she’s heading down here to Australia for a run of shows including the Queenscliffe Music Festival. Visit LindiOrtega.com/tour for full dates and ticket info.  

Timi Temple’s Top 5 Pieces Of Gear

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You might have seen him playing alongside Kilter as his live guitarist, but now it’s time for Australia’s own Timi Temple – aka Timothy Lockwood – to unleash his own intoxicating music with the release of his psychedelic new single ‘Sands of Time.’ Timi’s a big gear nerd like the rest of us and when the idea of doing a post about his top five favourite pieces of gear came up, he came back with the completed list in, oh, like 20 seconds. So here it is! Take it away, Timi.

1981 IBANEZ ARTIST 2630

This guitar is just brilliant ~ I remember being a super poor uni student just getting into jazz and I needed a ‘jazz box’ style guitar ~ unfortunately after trying a Gibson 175 for a while my shoulders and neck started to cramp up (being 5’6) so I settled to find a 335 type. I couldn’t afford a Gibson so started looking for alternatives and found this gem… and I couldn’t afford this one either haha ~ I begged the guy who owned it, but he didn’t budge, deflated I left but this is where persistence pays… I made offers to the seller for months (probably about 6 months) and finally he obliged, on the promise that I send him a picture of my first gig with the guitar and that I continue to love it… well that was easy peasy! I got the guitar for a steal and to this day it remains one of my most prized possessions! 

1981 ROLAND BOLT 60

A different story, this amp was a hand me down from Dad, it’s the amp I learnt to play guitar on. It never sounded good for some reason, and neither of us could suss it out, so, to storage it went and I started my love affair with different amps… I went through a Mesa Lonestar, a Fender Twin, a MI AUDIO Revelation, and finally a Jackson Ampworks Britain 3. None of the amps were giving me that satisfied feeling, I was still searching and it wasn’t till I had to repair the Britain that I decided to take the Bolt60 in for a service as well… I got both back and out of curiosity tried the Bolt60… it was perfect! I think it’s got to do with the peculiar half tube half solid state make up of the amp… it takes pedals so well, but also has 0 breakup as loud as you push it. Not sterile though… I just love it!!

PAUL COCHRANE TIM PEDAL

This pedal has my name on it. It’s automatically going to be favoured haha, but in all seriousness, if all the amps I owned morphed into a pedal (with my name on it) this would be it! It is absolutely organic and it’s my Swiss army knife of drives and lead sounds. I even leave this pedal on all the time at some gigs and just roll back on the volume knob to clean up. This is my desert island pedal. Did I mention it’s my favourite colour blue too?!?

1971 IBANEZ LAWSUIT 4001

Alright, in truth, I’ve totally got the love bug for the early Ibanez lawsuit model stuff, after buying the 2630 mentioned above, I spiraled into a frenzy, and for good reason too! These guitars and basses are just the holy grail for playing feel ~ and damnit I just realised I forgot to mention, I actually replace the pickups in all these Ibanez guitars with a local Sydney guy called Rob from Sliders Pickups. 

Anyway, this guitar I actually got from an old collector out west in Mt Druitt, he had carpal tunnel or something so couldn’t play anymore but loved the stuff ~ I messaged him querying the 4001 and he told me to come around and play for him… That same weekend I was supporting ICEHOUSE who happened to be one of his favourite bands, so I got him free tickets and he sold me the bass, AGAIN on the premise I use the bass at the Icehouse gig hahaha, another easy win! 

CUSTOM TONES LLC ETHOS OVERDRIVE

Okay so this little guy is kind of a two in one whammy ~ This pedal has a speaker out emulator and such a sweet preamp section, it’s saved me on at least a dozen gigs where backline amps have failed… I just go DI to desk and the tone and feel is sick! A trick to going direct like this is to have a single foldback dedicated to just being your ‘amp’ you stick it behind you and crank it and boom, it feels normal again… no one likes having their guitar amp shoot them in the face (sorry audience haha) having it behind you just feels natural. I think this pedal is based off the elusive Dumble amps, I haven’t tried a steel string singer, but I watched Robben Ford play in Sydney one night and I got to talk to him afterwards and this is the pedal he used into two fender twins… Good enough for Robben good enough for TIMI haha

SUPER SPECIAL MENTION

Goes to my persian rug that I took all these photos on… $10 from Bunnings and I got a sausage sizzle while I was there too… massive win.

And my two guitar straps which were hand craved by my uncle in Thailand for me!

Timi Temple social links:
FACEBOOK 
SOUNDCLOUD  
TWITTER
INSTAGRAM
YOUTUBE

 

New Gibson Neon Les Pauls Are The First Good Thing To Come Out Of 2017

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If you know me, you probably know that I love both vintage and modern guitar designs pretty much equally. Some days I love nothing more than playing my 50s-style Les Paul Traditional or my ’62 Reissue Strat. Other days I’m all about my headless Kiesel Vader or my Roadflare Red Ibanez RG550. Well Gibson have gone and combined two of my loves in the one guitar: a Les Paul Axcess with Floyd Rose and – gasp! – neon finishes! It’s available in Neon Green, Neon Yellow, Neon Blue, Neon Orange and Neon Pink. Personally my pick of the bunch is the Neon Green. Look at that thing. 

The bodies are Mahogany with a 2-piece Maple top, with a Mahogany neck and Richlite fingerboard. The neck is a Slim C-Shape, and the pickups are a 496R neck humbucker and a 498T in the bridge position, with push-pull pots for coil splitting. 

Pics below, more info here.