Dream guitar

Posted on September 24th, 2010 Steve 2 comments

Dream Guitar

For some time now I’ve been looking for a new guitar, a special guitar of the up most quality and until recently I thought I had found it. The guitar I had set my heart and cash on was a Vigier Excalibur Supra, this guitar hits £1500, in fact I’ve seen them at £1800. This guitar had been tried against many others including Charvels, Caparisons, Ibanez and Suhr‘s. So on a random visit to my local store I thought, hey, I’ll pick it up and give it a wee seal of approval. I wasn’t playing well due to being cold but something else felt oddly missing. I started to blame the wee Egnator amp I had been plugged in to and as a result, a different salesman who had popped downstairs to fiddle on an acoustic changed amps to a Bognor Shiva and I must say, it was an impressive amp. So off I went blasting away on the Vigier when (as I thought) our time came to an end and it was time go head off to another store before closing time when I was told (by the little lady) that we still had time. So I turned round and noticed another guitar that I quite fancied having a go on even though I’d played them before, albeit a different model. The guitar was the expensive but handmade (like the Vigier) Suhr Modern. I cannot begin to tell you how good this guitar is, at least for me and my style of playing it was suited to a tee. This is not a review of the guitar, I’ll do that when I get my hands on it for keeps but lets just say that if you get the chance to play one, do it. The price is a bit of an eye popper at a staggering £2500 but I weighed it up against other guitar makers around at that price like the Ibanez Jem7V-WH retailing at £2350 and to my knowledge not hand built plus I’ve owned a Jem 77FP and played the Jem 7V-WH……….. Suhr all the way.

This video is not me, I’m much better looking

Steve.

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Steve (AKA Redcustard)... check out my channel on YouTube

Learn Shred Guitar in 6 Weeks

Posted on April 15th, 2010 GuitarSavvy No comments

If you fancy learning to play shred guitar in the style of Zakk Wylde, Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, Dimebag Darrell, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmstein … then this post is for you. Lick Library have done it yet again with a fantastic new course to add to their “Learn Guitar in 6 Weeks” range, hot on the heels of their Learn Rock Guitar in 6 Weeks DVD course. This course is available to pre-order NOW and will be released on 29 April 2010. Learn Shred Guitar in 6 Weeks is taught by Andy James, lead guitarist with Sacred Mother Tongue. Check out one of their vids at the bottom of this post.

Learn Shred Guitar in 6Weeks with Lick Library – the full DVD set consists of 6 discs (1 per week) – details below and will set you back £79.99.

The DVDs can also be bought seperately for £16.99. Links and details of each DVD:

Week 1: Pentatonic scale in the first position, blues scale in the first position, pentatonic and natural minor sequences, alternate picking, vibrato techniques, three licks in the style of Zakk Wylde.

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Week 2: Pentatonic scale in the second position, blues scale in the second position, pentatonic and blues scale sequences, alternate picking, three licks in the style of Paul Gilbert.

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Week 3: Pentatonic scale and blues scale in the third position, natural minor scales and sequences, combining pentatonic and natural minor scales with legato and tapping, three licks in the style of Dimebag Darrell.

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Week 4: Pentatonic scale and blues scale in the fourth position, licks and sequences including two handed tapping, natural minor scales and sequences, sweep picking exercises, four licks in the style of Steve Vai.

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Week 5: Pentatonic scale and blues scale in the fifth position, licks and sequences in the fifth position, natural minor scales and sequences, extended arpeggios, four licks in the style of Yngwie Malmsteen.

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Week 6: Connecting the pentatonic positions, use of chromatics within pentatonics, sixth and seventh position natural minor scale licks and sequences, creating licks through octaves, four licks in the style of John Petrucci.

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For other great courses as well as one of the finest online guitar resources available, visit Lick Library. Basic membership is free!

Teaching yourself guitar but not progressing fast enough? These great value online guitar courses can help. You can take your guitar playing to the next level NOW!

The Joan Jett BlackHeart electric guitar from Gibson – tasty

Posted on March 19th, 2010 GuitarSavvy No comments

Gibson have introduced the Joan Jett BlackHeart guitar. The new Melody Maker signature model looks like it won’t take any shite from anyone:

Fitted with a single Zebra Coil Burst Bucker 3 and a killswitch, the Gibson Joan Jett Blackheart electric guitar has a mahogany “California shape” body and neck with ebony fingerboard (red dot fret markers with twin heart inlays at 12th fret). If you were looking for a guitar that is capable of producing the crunching riffs scattered liberally throughout songs like “I Love Rock and Roll” and “Bad Reputation” then this is the guitar for you.

Available soon from Thomann.de:

Teaching yourself guitar but not progressing fast enough? These great value online guitar courses can help. You can take your guitar playing to the next level NOW!

Some cool steel-stringed acoustic guitar deals from Epiphone, Ibanez and Harley-Benton

Posted on March 19th, 2010 GuitarSavvy No comments

Here are some great steel-stringed acoustic guitar deals to be had from Thomann this week. Click the Read More buttons to visit the guitar page on Thomann.de where you can check out more pics as well as hear how these guitars sound.

• The Epiphone 1964 Texan Limited Edition Dreadnought. This guitar looks great and sounds even better. And will set you back about £250. Great value for a decent entry level acoustic guitar.
  
  
• The Epiphone Hummingbird CSB – This little beauty has a rich, vibrant tone and is currently priced at £223 – down from £437!
  
  
• The Ibanez AW40ECE Electro-Acoustic Guitar. Another beautiful looking guitar with the famous “Tree of Life” fretboard inlay. There’s almost £90 off the list price on this one!
  
  
• Harley Benton HBF-200 NT – This folk-style acoustic guitar is Thomann’s own branded guitar. It’s currently priced at just over £165 (a saving on almost £90 off the list price!). This guitar is perfect for those looking for an good-quality entry-level acoustic guitar.
  
  

These aren’t the only steel-string acoustic guitar offers on at Thomann just now.

Teaching yourself guitar but not progressing fast enough? These great value online guitar courses can help. You can take your guitar playing to the next level NOW!

Slow down complicated guitar licks without affecting pitch – nail those fast licks in your favourite songs

Posted on March 16th, 2010 GuitarSavvy No comments

Have you ever wanted to learn to play one of your favourite songs on guitar (or bass or drums or keyboard) but can’t break down the notes/beats in a particularly complicated guitar solo? This software allows you to take an MP3 file (and other formats) for the song you want to learn, select and loop a section of this song and play it back at whatever speed you like without changing the pitch of the song! There’s even a graphic equalizer to let you reduce the impact of the other instruments or the vocals of the song so you can hear the part you want to master. The software is called RiffMaster Pro 3 and is available to buy online. You can even try out RiffMaster Pro 3 for 10 days free of charge. Then, if you think it will be useful to you, you can buy a full license. Check out the demo video below or see more demo videos of the software in action.

If you’ve got this software, we’d be grateful if you’d let us know your thoughts about it. You can add your comments below.

Teaching yourself guitar but not progressing fast enough? These great value online guitar courses can help. You can take your guitar playing to the next level NOW!

Practising guitar with a metronome can drastically improve your playing

Posted on February 15th, 2010 GuitarSavvy No comments

Image via Wikipedia

One of the most important aspects of learning to play any instrument, the guitar being no exception (whatever type of guitar you play (blues, rock, metal, folk, classical)) is to develop a sense of timing. You might think your guitar playing sounds alright – I mean you can recognise the tune, right? – but until you can place the notes both where and when they belong, you and your audience will feel rather cheated.  Now most experienced guitarists know the importance of owning and using a metronome when practising but how many of you own a metronome and it stays in your guitar case?  Whether shredding guitar is your thing, or just plucking away a semi-recognisable tune, good guitar technique is essential…

Read the full article here:

Check out metronomes at Gear4Music

Teaching yourself guitar but not progressing fast enough? These great value online guitar courses can help. You can take your guitar playing to the next level NOW!

The Gibson Dusk Tiger – ugly waste of dead wood or tonally-impressive beast of a guitar?

Posted on January 25th, 2010 GuitarSavvy No comments

BEST PRICE GIBSON DUSK TIGER IS £2,345 FROM THOMANN.DE

The new robot-axe from Gibson – the Gibson Dusk Tiger is here.  This Gibson guitar has a rather “interesting” appearance that has split popular opinion.  One MusicRadar.com reader pulled no punches when he or she remarked:

“…it’s the most awful looking thing I have ever seen. Looks like a roll of cheap plastic veneer has been applied to a LP Studio. Dreadful.”

What do you think?  Only 1000 Gibson Dusk Tigers are available worldwide, so you’d better be quick if you’re interested in buying one from Gear4Music or from Thomann.de. See the guitar in action courtesy of this helpful YouTube vid from Mi11:

I have to say that I’m impressed with both the looks and the sound of the Dusk Tiger – although the Music Radar reader quoted above makes a reasonable point about it’s “veneer”, I have to say that I actually quite like it. I mean the classic Les Paul lines are there, the “veneer” is actually quite eye catching, the tiger tooth fretboard markes are a nice touch and the chrome crescent moon pickguard is gorgeous, so thumbs up from me.   The tonal possibilities with a guitar like this (and the included software) make it very appealing, assuming the price tag doesn’t scare you off (retails for around £2,345 (Thomann.de) to £2,799 (Gear4Music).  This new model will hopefully address many of the shortcomings of previous robot guitars such as the Gibson Dark Fire or the Gibson Robot SG (tuning difficulties, fiddly controls, bulky headstock/tuning pegs) and the video reviews I’ve watched so far are generally positive in this regard.

I’ll have to rely on the opinion of others since sadly, my budget won’t stretch that far.  Unfortunately the friendly staff in my local music shop also know this so will take some convincing to let me have a go.

Check it out at Gear4Music or at Thomann.de now

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