Megadeth To Start Recording This Fall 2008

According to Megadeth’s official website, webmaster Dave McRobb announced Megadeth and crew start recording a new album this fall. Read more

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Velvet Revolver Ready to Announce New Lead Singer?

Velvet Revolver has been searching for a new lead singer. Entertainment Weekly reports that front man from Spacehog, Royston Langdon is in line up for the position. Read more

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Mesa Boogie Dual and Triple Recto Series

One amplifier that is highly thought of in the rock guitar community is the Mesa Boogie Dual Recto. Despite its high price tag, many guitarists swear by this amp. Read more

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AC/DC Starts Tour For New Album on Halloween

AC/DC Starts Tour on Halloween

For those about to rock . . . AC/DC is Back in Black and ready to salute you. AC/DC will embark on a 18 month ‘Black Ice’ world tour starting on October 31, Halloween night. The band has not been on tour since 2000. Rob Light, from Creative Agency, made the exciting accouchement during a conference and trade show this week. Read more

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AC/DC To Film New ‘Black Ice’ Video In August

Radio show host, Eddie Trunk of XMs Boneyard (who has a long-time-standing with radio show, “Friday Night Rocks”, on New York’s channel Q104.3 FM) informs us that Australian hard rockers AC/DC are heading to London England early August to shoot a video for the first off their new album, “Black Ice”. Read more

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AXL Badwater Jacknife Guitar Review

Legendary guitarists like Randy Roads of Ozzy Osborne played V-shaped guitars; their extreme edge appearance brings the meaning ‘axe,’ which explains why so many metal guitarists prefer them. They’re unique looking, give a tight heavy sound and just look metal. The Badwater Jacknife guitar is yet another radical—V-shaped—guitar, but unlike many others, is geared toward guitarists on a budget, while giving more features than other economy V-shaped guitars. Most metal guitarists will enjoy this guitar’s unique, vintage-style design and groovy sound.

Main Features

The AXL Badwater Jacknife, priced at an affordable $359, features a solid alder body like many other guitars in this price range. Alder is considered to provide a broad spectrum of tone, tight swirling grain, and in this case, there is no exception. The Jacknife’s body features a uniquely distressed; “worn in, not worn out,” beatified look.

The Jacknife comes standard with two EMG-designed over wound P-90 pickups that provide maximum output and power that today’s rock and metal guitarists demand. Obviously, the guitar will not out-perform in every aspect of a more expensive flying V guitar, but the Jacknife holds its own against other guitars in this price range.

If you love the vintage-guitar look, then you’ll appreciate the Jacknife’s design, as it comes in three different Badwater-vintage style designs (black Mayhem and red Bloodsport series). All Jacknife guitars come with antiqued hardware, antiqued cream web pickguard, giving the guitar a very mature look, perfect for the vintage guitar enthusiast.

Even though the Jacknife is aimed at hard rock and metal guitarists, it can also give a sweet modern rock tone. So if you doubt the Jacknife’s flexibility and ability to handle other sounds, rest assured, with the proper tweaking, the guitar delivers… with style.

Among the other features that make the Jacknife noteworthy is the Tune-O-Matic Bridge, which provides a nice comfortable worn-in feel. The guitar’s Tailpiece is a string-through body, for added sustain. In addition to the ultra thin maple neck designed for fast, comfortable playing, the neck has a bubinga stripe, abalone dot inlays and an aged-look to the headstock

Given all of the features and the quality hardware in the guitar, it is quite surprising that AXL Guitars kept this guitar in such a small price range, which is all the more reason metal guitarists’ should take advantage of this sweet deal while the price is so low.

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MC5 Kick out the Jams Rock and Roll

By the final months of 1968, civil disorder in the United States was in full and bloody bloom. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the country played out its own violent scenarios between the summers of 1967 and 1968, a period that saw race riots in Newark and Detroit, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy and the beating of protesters by Chicago police at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Read more

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Jim Root Fender Telecaster of Slipknot and Stone Sour Review

Jim Root Telecaster

The Fender Telecaster is not typically thought of as being ideal for a hard rock/metal sound, yet some hard rock guitarists, such as Jim Root, lead guitarist for Stone Sour and Slipknot, swear by this Fender. It is no surprise, that Root has been given his own signature Fender Telecaster—the Jim Root Telecaster. This guitar’s heavy sound is quite surprising, and if you have been looking for a Fender guitar with a great hard rock tone, you have just found it.

The Features

The Root Telecaster has many features that make it such a great guitar for both the beginner hard rock guitarist and the more experienced one as well, so if you fall into either category or somewhere in between, you will enjoy this guitar immensely.

To start off, the Root Telecaster features a very sleek design with a black pickguard on top of a white Telecaster body. All of the hardware is black to match this color scheme, giving it a very metal look. Alternatively, the Root Telecaster also comes in black with a white pick-guard.

All Root Telecasters come standard with EMG pickups, which are known for being some of the best pick-ups around. You will not feel the need to swap these babies out as some guitarists do when they buy a new guitar.

The Root Telecaster features 22 Dunlop-6100-jumbo frets, making it comfortable for both small hands and big hands. In addition, the Root Signature Telecaster holds tune with its 6-Saddle strings-through-body hardtail bridge.

The guitar is solidly constructed with a mahogany body, and a set-in maple neck with ebony fretboard, giving it incredible sustain. The Root Telecaster’s sound is easily controlled with a single knob, so you will not have to worry about moving several knobs just to get the perfect sound.

With all of these features, it is easy to see why the Root Telecaster is priced at an expensive $949.99. However, because of the great tone a hard rock or even metal guitarist can get out of it, it just may be worth the price. -Includes black tweed hardshell case with red interior.

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EPM Acoustic Guitar Transducers

So you and the band decided to make like Travis Meeks and cash in on the acoustic craze. Problem is, the group just depleted its bank account buying new acoustic guitars, not too mention a mandolin and a fiddle, and there’s barely enough money left for the next van rental. Fortunately, Engineered Products Marketing has come along with a batch of excellent pickups that will fit almost any scenario and budget.

For guitarists who want to go acoustic with minimal cost, and without modifying their priced instrument, EPM offers two magnetic soundhole pickups: the AGT-400 Acoustic Ace Bronze and the AGT-500 Ace II. These single-coil pickups come in an attractive maple housing with foam-lined grooves that slip onto the rim of your soundhole. EPM has cleverly fitted both models with a two-foot cable that terminates in a vinyl sheathed female connector; this, in turn, slips over your strap pin. The thin profile of the pickups, combined with the strap pin hangar, made installation a breeze, and left my Martin D-18 with nary a scratch.

Plugged into a Fender Pro, the AGT-400 had a clear, even output, similar to Telecaster’s neck pickup with the tone rolled back a notch or two. Dynamic response was remarkably true to the acoustic original, with very little pickup compression. The “hot B-string” syndrome that plagues almost all magnetic soundhole pickups was minimal, and the plain strings balanced very well with the wound strings. Feedback was nonexistent, unless I deliberately turned and stood a couple feet from the amp.

The AGT-500 is the stage model of the Acoustic Ace, so its output was hotter, which a noticeable peak in the high midrange, which is ideal for cutting through drums and bass on a live gig. The hot B-string was more noticeable on the AGT-500, but the pickup’s individual, adjustable pole pieces allowed me to balance string-to-string output. Both the AGT-400 and AGT-500 get points for ease of installation and aesthetic appearance.

If your acoustic axe is spending its prime time in the studio but you don’t have the bucks for a dedicated guitar microphone, the AGT-200 Quick Mount or the AGT-300 Perma-Kit may be the answer to your prayers. Not much thicker than a few stacked nickels, the AFT-200 attaches to the face of your guitar with a clear, reusable adhesive that leaves not a trace of residue. Like its magnetic cousins, the AGT-200 has the handy strap pin hanger on its output cable.

The AGT-200 captured the tonal distinctions between my D-18 and my Ovation Custom Balladeer as well as any good condenser mic. However, I would shy away from using the AGT-200 for live performances, since its superior sensitivity makes it all the more susceptible to fierce resonant feedback. This is an ideal tool for recording almost anything that vibrates. Should you decide you want to permanently mount the AGT-200 in your guitar, the AGT-300 Perma-Kit provides the pickup, hot-melt glue, output wire and endpin jack. Installation is easy, and, if you ever change your mind, the pickup can be removed with the help of a hot spatula.

Lastly, we tested the Quantum EQ system, which consists of a saddlemount pickup, onboard electronics with volume and three-way eq, and an endpin jack. Naturally, installing a system like this means you’ll have to make a few alterations to your guitar, which includes cutting a 1” —by— 3” hole for the controls. I chose an overbrace ply-top Korean import for installing and testing the Quantum EQ.

While Piezo pickup systems are well-suited to live amplification of acoustic guitars, they tend to produce rather brittle tone. The Quantum EQ’s three-band equalizer went a long way towards warming up the tone, allowing me to shape the output for different mixes. My Korean import came through with flying colors, providing a hot yet, well-balanced signal, with minimal feedback.

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Hendrix Fire Fender Strat Guitar ‘to fetch $1.5m’

Jimi Hendrix loved to put on a show, and boy did he! He was widely known for his pyromaniac stunts, setting at least 3 of his Fender Stratocasters on fire at live shows. This wild act of expression was extremely controversial back in ’67. Read more

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