Gibson’s Robot Guitar Wins Award

Hail the Gibson Robot Guitar! The Gibson Robot Guitar was awarded with the prestigious “Best Music Hardware Award” at the BT Digital Music Awards 2008. The BT Digital Music Awards now in its 7th year was held at the Roundhouse in London on Wednesday October 1st.

The Gibson Robot guitar is the world’s first electric guitar with robotic technology and beat stiff competition from the Motorola ROKR E8 and Ripserver. The Best Music Hardware Award in association with Stuff Magazine was decided upon by a panel of prominent industry judges. The Gibson Robot Guitar was sighted for its innovation, style, usability and price point among additional features.

The Gibson Robot Guitar is known for eliminating tuning problems for guitarists. The Robot Guitar automatically tunes to standard A440 tuning. In addition, it allows players to access six programmed tuning presets at the push of a button. The Gibson Robot intonates seconds after string changes, truss rod adjustments or change in weather conditions. Ultimately, with the locking tuner, single string changes or changing the entire set of strings is an automated luxury.

The annual Digital Music Awards were presented by TV’s Fearne Cotton and Rufus Hound and was filmed for ITV2. Bands performing in between the awards included Sugababes, Ida Maria, British Sea Power, Sam Beeton, Fightstar and Iglu & Hartly.

Thirteen of the 20 awards given were voted for online and the remaining seven by a panel of industry experts.

Gibson Robots official website: http://www.gibson.com/robotguitar/

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Crate and Johnson Marquis Guitar Amplifiers

 

The ascension of digital modeling technology in amplifier design continues. The latest entries in the tone-cloning competition come from Crate and Johnson, who bring out the contest remarkably similar packages. Both the Crate DX-212 and the Johnson Marquis JM60 arrive in combo format, with easy to tweak knobs in addition to digital keypads, begging to be played live in the studio or taken out to gigs. Both amps serve up a popular selection of models (the Crate offers 16, the Johnson 18), nine effects plus reverb, and comparable wattage, with Crate delivering 100watts stereo and Johnson 120 watts stereo. It should be noted that Crate’s DX-212 comes in a 2×12 format, while the Johnson Marquis JM60 ships with a single 12-inch speaker putting out 60 watts mono. To cash in on the stereo sound and the extra 60 watts, the review model was hooked up to the company’s J112 satellite cabinet as an option only. When will the amp makers learn that you can’t play guitar and switch panel settings at the same time?

Stay tuned for the review of the Crate DX-212 and the Johnson Marquis JM60 REVIEW

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Understanding Speaker Cabinet Designs

Lesson #1

Ask a group of guitarists what their favorite instrument, amplifiers and effects are, and each one will surely ramble on for hours about his gear of choice. Ask that same group about their favorite speakers and cabinets, however, and many of them will likely respond with a simple “I dunno.” The sad truth is that even though cabinets and speakers play major roles in shaping the tone of a guitar sound, they are often overlooked by players.

The overall sound of a cabinet is the result of all the components that go into building it and how they’re put together. Once you acquire the knowledge of what goes into building speakers and cabinets, you’ll start to understand exactly what you like and dislike about different cabinets. In this lesson, I’m going to focus on defining the components and materials that go into building speakers and cabinets as they relate to the sound they produce. My hope is that at the end of the two lessons, you will be well informed and on your way to identifying what you preferences are and what speakers and cabinets complement your playing the best.

With very few exceptions, cabinets are made out of wood. Plied birch wood is far and away the most common choice, though some cabs are made from particle board or a combination of the two. Sonically, birch is great because it strikes a very desirable balance; it’s rigid enough to produce punch and definition while being soft enough to sound warm but not floppy. Remember that the cabinet acts as a resonator for the speakers just as the wood of a guitar acts as a resonator for the vibrations of the strings. Birch is also super durable and is well suited to withstand the vibrations, abuse and travel that a cabinet is likely to endure.

The average wall thickness of a 4×12, 2×12 and 1×12 cabinets is ¾-inch, though some combos have been made from one-inch thick wood. A one-inch wall will be more rigid and will produce a tighter, darker and more blunt sound; a ½-inch wall will usually accentuate high frequencies.

Another factor to consider is whether the cabinet has an open back or a closed back. Open back cabinets generally don’t produce as much low end because the back pressure created by the speakers has a lot of room to escape. With a closed back enclosure, the back pressure has a much harder time escaping the cabinet which, in turn, creates a more significant low end resonance. In some closed back and front loaded (where the speakers are mounted on the front of the baffle board) cabinet designs, you will see holes in the front or back of the cabinets. Those holes are known as ports and are intended to let some of the back pressure escape to allow for desirable frequency response.

An interesting characteristic I discovered about closed back cabinets is that you can change the sound of the cabinet by loosening and tightening the screws that hold the back board on. By loosening (or removing) some of the screws, you can “tune” the cabinet to be soft and floppy. If you want clarity and defined punch, use all the screws and tighten them up. It’s similar to the way drums are tuned—just think of the back board as the drum skin and the rest of the cabinet as the drum.

Another thing that I’ve found to affect the sound of a cabinet is the vinyl covering and the glue that holds it onto the cabinet. The glue and the vinyl slightly muffle the higher frequencies, in most cases in a desirable way. I first discovered this when I decided I wanted one of my 4×12s to have bare wood finish and proceeded to rip off all the vinyl. After the vinyl had been stripped I noticed a difference in sound.

The age of the cabinet and amount of time it’s been played also affect the sound. An old cabinet with years of use and heavy gigging will, in time, soften up and lose it’s stiffness-sometimes too much for desirable results. The sound of a cabinet is also affected by what surface it’s sitting on. I’d much rather have my amp sitting on a wood floor than carpet or concrete. Wood interacting with wood will only extend the resonance of an amp as opposed to carpet or concrete which have a little or no resonating abilities. For the same reason, I also recommend resting cabinets on rubber feet or nothing at all, as opposed to leaving the wheels on all the time.

That’s all for now. Next time we’ll look at different types of speakers. Come join us at Gear-Monkey Music Gear Message Boards

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G-V Sexy Girls and Guitars

Fender Guitars and Drums… Hot Guitarist that I’d want in my Rock and Roll band!

Another Sexy G-V girl with her strap up boots jamin’ on her Fender Squire Strat. Doesn’t this make you want to go out there and buy yourself a nice red guitar… you know, one with tight tuning keys and flexible bridge. Just something to wank on until the electric guitar strings flex in your flavor. Tone to die for, electic guitars that truly matter. Just another way to say “I love you” babe. You could go to http://www.squierguitars.com/ to see what the fuss is about.

Lucky Guitar!

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Les Paul’s “LOG” Guitar, Circa 1939 - Birth of the Les Paul

Continued from: Les Paul’s journey to Gibson Guitars in 1951

Les Paul’s “LOG” Guitar, circa 1939 is the guitar that came to bear Les Paul’s name. Seeking to develop an up-market alternative to the plain, slab-body Telecaster, Ted McCarty [another towering figure in the early development for the electric guitar] came up with the idea of building a solidbody guitar with a carved maple top or “body cap.” He knew that the Fender factory didn’t have the machinery to do this kind of work. In 1950, McCarty brought this guitar to Les Paul, who approved the design, feeling it was right in line with what he’d been trying to achieve. He reportedly said to his wife and musical partner, Mary Ford, “They’re getting too close to us, Mary. I think we better sign up with them.”

So great were Gibson’s reservations about getting into the newfangland solidbody electric guitar market that the company at one point considered leaving its name off the guitar and just putting Les Paul’s name on. But they plucked up their courage, and in 1952 the first Gibson Les Paul model appeared on the market. It was very similar to the Les Pauls that are around today, with a few key differences. For one, it had a trapeze-style tailpiece. This was a source of some contention between Les Paul and the Gibson company: Gibson wrapped the strings under the tailpiece’s crossbar in order to achieve lower action; Les wanted the strings wound over the crossbar so he could better execute the palm muting technique that became important element of his playing style in the Fifties.

Ted McCarty finally settled the dispute by developing the stop tailpiece, which replaced the trapeze on Les Pauls in 1953. Two years later, McCarty introduced another refinement: the Tune-O-Matic bridge. Both the stop tailpiece and Tune-O-Matic bridge have been staples of electric design ever since.

In 1957, the Les Paul’s original P-90 pickups were replaced by a brand-new invention from a man named Seth Lover. The humbucking pickup featured two coils wound together to cancel out the hum that single-coil pickups generate under fluorescent lighting and in other dodgy electromagnetic circumstances. The humbuckers produced a bass-heavy, “dark” tone which combined with Les Paul’s heavy mahogany and maple body wood and traditional dovetail neck joint to create a distinctly rich tone that would come to be identifiable as “the Gibson sound.”

In the years that followed, Ted McCarty sought to broaden and diversify the essential Gibson aesthetic. Working with a local artist, he developed three revolutionary guitars—the Flying V, the Explorer and the ultra-rare Moderne. Both the Flying V and the Explorer debuted in 1957 (the Moderne apparently never developed past the prototype stage). With their radical angular lines, these instruments were a bit too wild for the late Fifties. Although they didn’t sell well on their initial release, they returned with a vengeance latter in the rock era.

McCarty went in a completely different direction with the Gibson ES-335, the guitar that pioneered the concept of the semi-hollowbody electric. The thin-line body has much less depth than a conventional archtop, which seems bulky in comparison. This significantly reduced the potential for feedback that has always hounded full-sized electric hollowbodies. McCarty also came up with the idea of having a solid block of maple running down beneath the pickups. (The Log revisted!) The result was an instrument—also still very much in use today—that combined many of the best properties of solidbody and hollowbody guitars.

Read more: The Gibson Firebird Guitar and Bass. *coming soon G-V

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Les Paul’s journey to Gibson Guitars in 1951

Around the same time that George Beauchamp and the other early electric guitar pioneers were active in southern California, a guitarist and radio personality named Les Paul was in Hollywood working out his own vision of what the electric guitar should be. Born Lester Polfus, he became an established guitarist in the Thirties, performing country music under the names Red Hot Red and, later Rhubarb Red, and jazz as Les Paul. In 1939, Paul began to put together what he called “The Log,” a four-by-four length of solid pine to which he attached a Gibson neck, homemade pickups, a crudely fashioned bridge and vibrato tailpiece. Like many other innovators of the guitar, Paul wanted to eliminate the uneven harmonic response produced by an amplified hollowbody guitar. Although he sawed an Epiphone hollowbody in half and attached the two sides of his four-by-four block of pine, this was more for aesthetic than acoustic reasons—to make the thing look like a real guitar. This supremely quirky instrument, now enshrined in Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, is another sacred relic of the electric guitar’s evolution, the product of an inveterate tinkerer and one of the century’s most original musical inventors. Paul also pioneered multitrack recording and anticipated the home recording boom by a good 30 years.

Paul used the Log on recordings he and his trio made with Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters and others. But when he brought the instrument to Gibson’s headquarters in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1941, they laughed at him. “I took the Log to Gibson and I spent 10 years trying to convince them that this was the way to go,” recollects Les. “But it wasn’t easy. If it wasn’t for Leo Fender, I don’t think that ever would have come off. Leo saw more in it that Gibson did.”

True enough. A venerable company, with origins tracing back to the 19th century, Gibson had taken a conservative, classicist approach to the electric guitar, producing electric archtop hollowbodies like the ES-150, which was introduced in 1936 and adopted by jazz players like Charlie Christian. Other “old school” manufacturers like Epiphone, Harmony and Kay had taken a similar tack. But with the huge success of the Fender Telecaster in the early Fifties, Gibson decided to “go California” and get in on the solidbody market. Suddenly Les Paul’s Log didn’t seem like such a crazy idea. “Better go get that kid with the broomstick,” someone at Gibson is purported to have said.

The man who made it happen was Ted McCarty. A shrewd businessman with a good eye for design and a flair for building teams of like-minded visionaries, McCarty is another towering figure in the early development of the electric guitar. Originally a buyer for Wurlitzer, McCarty joined Gibson on 1948, and in 1950 he was made president of the company. It was McCarty who oversaw the design of Les Paul’s “LOG” Guitar. http://www.gibson.com/

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John Lennon Revolution Casino Electric Guitar Review

Used in the latter part of his career with the Beatles (most notably on the Revolver sessions) and for much of his solo work, Lennon’s Casino was a highly personalized instrument that reflected much his maverick spirit. Purchased by Lennon in 1965, the hollowbody originally had a sunburst finish and a pickguard. By 1968, however, in the search for a more resonant sound, Lennon had stripped the finish and removed the pickguard, leaving only the natural, instantly recognizable guitar that he is so often associated with. In order to reproduce the instrument as perfectly as possible, representatives form the Epiphone company paid a visit to the legendary instrument a the late Beatle’s New York apartment, where it had been stored, virtually untouched, since his death. Precise measurements of the guitar were taken and tests performed on it, and the findings returned to Epiphone’s Nashville factory.

The results of all this research is the “Revolution” Casino, and eerily “alive” guitar that features a hollow, laminated maple body and top, mahogany neck, two Alnico V P-90 single-coil pickups and a no-nonsense control layout featuring a three-way pickup selector and two volume and two tone pots. As on Lennon’s guitar, the top-mounted screw and spacer for the pickguard are still in place, and there is even an unfilled screw hole on the bottom side of the guitar where the pickguard would have anchored. The natural satin finish feels refreshingly woody, and the 22-fret neck plays like butter. However, guitarists who like to engage in upper-register wailing should be warned that, like all Casinos and Gibson ES-330s, this guitar’s neck joint is at the 14th fret, making it difficult to play comfortably anywhere about the 17th fret.

The combination of P-90s and hollowbody construction has always yielded great results, and this guitar is no exception. The Casino has an organic, almost spongy tone that imparts clean chords with a bell-like roundness, while distorted tones are throaty and rude. The guitar’s rich harmonic content makes virtually any amp sound like it’s running in some sort of Vox-like Class A configuration, and through and old Vox the “Revolution” Casino would certainly sound, well—one can only imagine.

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Paul Reed Smith McCARTY Rosewood Review

Old Les Pauls never die—they’re just reincarnated as brand-new Paul Reed Smith McCartys. The PRS McCarty was designed with—and christened in honor of—Ted McCarty, the former Gibson president and electric guitar innovator responsible for such timeless and ubiquitous designs as the Les Paul, the Flying V and Explorer, Gibson’s family of semi-hollowbodies and pretty much everything the company introduced during the Fifties and Sixties.

In a nod to its namesake, the PRS McCarty derives its features and performance characteristics from the earliest solid-body Gibsons and updates them with contemporary touches. Like the Les Paul, the McCarty has a mahogany body with maple top and a glued-on mahogany neck with rosewood fretboard. The tuners are identical to those of a Les Paul Standard, and, like the earliest Gibson solidbodies, the McCarty employs and aluminum stoptail bridge with compensated grooves for better intonation. The McCarty’s vintage-style electronics center on two PAF-like humbuckers, with volume and tone controls, a three-way toggle switch and—a coil-tap circuit activated by the tone pot.

The McCarty Rosewood has all the above features, but with one very important distinction: its set-neck design uses a single slap of solid rosewood instead of mahogany. According to PRS, rosewood’s tonal character maintains mahogany’s midrange whomp, while enhancing lows and highs and adding a rich sustain. Carved in a comfortably wide, fat and club like profile similar to many McCarty-era Gibson solidbodies, the rosewood neck is oil finished and features a large heal that extends to the 16th fret, adding rigidity and resonance. Its 22-fret fretboard is a separate slap of rosewood with a subtly curved 10-inch radius, jumbo fretwire with appreciably steep bevels, a graphite nut and PRS’s signature abalone bird inlays. The neck’s scale is a common 25 inches, with longer fret spacing than a vintage Gibson, which allows for better intonation. The McCarty’s classic Goldtop finish is beautiful and speaks for the guitar’s distinguished pedigree.

The McCarty Rosewood was almost perfectly in tune right out of its case, rigged with a set of .009s and factory-set, middle-of-the-road action, somewhere between low and medium string high. I prefer action somewhere between low and downright buzzing, not unlike Jimmy Page (coincidentally, a McCarty owner himself), and with a slight tweak of the tailpiece studs, the McCarty was ready for business.

A Marshall reissue Bluesbreaker and an early Seventies 50-watt half-stack were used for the “blast” test. The tonal difference between rosewood and mahogany necks (as compared to a reference ’93 Les Paul Standard) are subtle; nonetheless, the McCarty presented the guitar’s frequency range quite evenly. With its bridge pickup selected, the McCarty yielded chords of warmth and clarity, with a hint of the top-end and midrange wallop familiar to a Gibson solidbody. With its front pickup selected, the McCarty Rosewood delivered a lingering Santana-like sustain, while an expectedly jangly rhythm tone was summoned by using both pickups.

Engaging the coil-tap circuit made the humbuckers respond like single-coil pickups. In this mode, the McCarty revealed a brighter, twangier tone: plenty of bite on the bridge pickup setting and a plucky, out-of-phase tone with both pickups engaged. Diversity is definitely the McCarty’s strong suit, a terrific combination of mahogany mids and Fullerton-esque toppiness in a guitar that could be a workhorse for any player comfortable with a fixed-bridge design.

The End Line

The McCarty Rosewood, like all PRS guitars, is a high-end guitar worth skipping some meals for. In fact, if I could own any PRS, this would be it. The McCarty Rosewood offers a superb combination of contemporary features and the classic craftsmanship for which PRS is known.

**(Pictured is a PRS Rosewod Limited)

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Epiphone Futura EX Electric Guitar

Gibson is a huge name in the guitar world, with millions of guitarists who proudly play Gibson guitars. However, Gibson guitars are also quite pricey—with some of the mid-range models going for well over $1000. Which makes sense why many guitarists select Gibson’s little brother, an Epiphone. The Epiphone Futura EX guitar is an example of paying the Epiphone price for virtually a Gibson-quality guitar.

Main Product Features

The first thing that you’ll notice about the Futura EX is that it comes with a patent LockTone bridge. The FX, a slightly more expensive Futura model, comes with the Floyd Rose. The advantage that the fixed bridge is quick tuning on the fly, great for onstage downtuning, whereas the Floyd Rose is locked and set, which means you’ll need some time, skill and plenty of tools to change the tuning up or down a couple of steps.

The EX comes with EMG-81 and EMG-85 pick-ups. The EMG-81 will give you a very deep, powerful sound combined with awesome sustain and bite, while the EMG-85 humbucker pickup is ideal for rhythm guitarists. In addition, you will find that rich Gibson rhythm guitar sound out of the Futura EX.

Hardware is another area where the EX shines. The Futura EX has a sharp, black cherry quilted top and body-style of the Gibson Explorer. The color of the guitar sets off the pearl control knobs, black pick-ups, bridge and pickguard, as well as a black headstock topped with black Grover tuning heads. This may seem like a lot of black and red, but put together, the guitar is remarkably stunning.

Gibson guitars are known for having a very persuasive and playable neck, the Futura EX is no exception. The Hard Maple SpeedTaper D Profile, satin finish set neck plays as smooth as silk, while the rosewood fretboard has very precise fret work and stylish with blade inlays. With the cut-away design, hitting notes on the 23rd and 24th fret is a breeze. So if you’re a metal guitarist or a maniac shredder, you’ll definitely find this guitar a charming fit for your hands.

The Futura EX is a very solid guitar, especially for its set price of $549. While it’s certainly no $2000 Gibson, it does a pretty good job of excelling in this price range, making it a worthy guitar no matter the style of music you play.

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Epiphone EM-2 Prophecy EX Guitar

Much like Squire and Fender, Epiphone and Gibson are considered by some to be worlds apart in terms of quality. While this could usually be the case when comparing a lower end Epiphone and a higher end Gibson, it’s not always the case when you compare a $300 Epiphone and a $1000 Gibson. The EM-2 Prophecy EX guitar falls into this $300 range, but how does it compare to guitars in the same price range and even Gibson guitars that cost more?

Main Product Features

Epiphone now makes two different EM-2 Prophecy guitars: the Prophecy FX and EX. While the FX comes standard with a Floyd Rose tremolo, the EX comes with LockTone Tune-O-Matic stopbar. The LockTone bridge provides stable tuning much like the original Floyd Rose stays in tune, so it’s a great choice for guitarists who rock their guitar hard.

Appearance: the EX is comparable to the FX. It features the same Swept-C cut-away body shape, the same hard maple neck, the same blade inlays, the same white binding, and Grover tuning pegs. Where it differs is the color and bridge of the guitar. The EX features a sapphire blue design with black EpiActive pickups and pearl control knobs.

The guitar features 24-frets with a design that allows access to every single fret. While higher fret soloing on a Les Paul is difficult, it is ridiculously easy with the EX prophecy. It’s for this reason that the EX is an ideal guitar for fans of both metal and modern rock—two styles of music that use quite a bit of 24-fret soloing.

Like the FX, the EX comes with EpiActive pick-ups which, combined with the bound basswood body, give the guitar a very nice, rich, yet flexible sound.

While the EX is by no means an flawless guitar—and doesn’t provide the sound and playability as guitars priced a 3 – 4 the price—it does hold up well when compared to guitars in the $300 price range and, perhaps, beyond.

Go to your local guitar shop and take one for a spin.

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