Tag: features

The new Danelectro ’66 brings together several threads of retro-dom in one hip package. Visually, this Danny brings to mind the Mosrite Ventures models, with its reverse offset, double-cutaway design and wildly slanted neck pickup. But the Korean-made ’66 has a few wrinkles of its own to set it apart from the pack.

The ’66 pumps up that vintage-offset look with an f-hole and internal chambering to cut weight and promote an airier semi-hollow tone. Its German-cut body style (that curved top edging) and crème binding are attractive, adding extra movement to the alder body, like waves on the ocean. With a 24.5″ scale and bolt-on maple, the Danelectro also sports a rosewood fingerboard with 22 frets and a zero-fret at the nut. Hardware includes a combination stop-bridge and tailpiece, master Tone and Volume knobs, three-way pickup switch, and chrome tuners.

The Tone knob is a push/pull coil tap for the bridge humbucker, which is stylishly designed as two lipsticks side-by-side in a ’bucker-sized pickup ring. The neck slot sports a large-housing pickup wickedly slanted for tone and appearance; also look for an unbeveled pickguard. Overall construction is good, though the knobs didn’t feel too gig-worthy. And it has a nice weight – neither too heavy nor too light – which is good news for live performers.

On the job, the ’66 was fun to play. Its neck is quick and has a modern D profile, like many bolt-ons in the middle price range. It has a plenty of personality for clean work, from country to jazz and even shoe-gazer. Crank the gain to let the lipstick humbucker go to work, creating snarly tones for all sorts of high-volume applications. In all, the Danelectro ’66 is a decent stage guitar, its vintage shape guaranteed to evoke all kinds of twangy, reverb-inspired dreams.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2017 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Randall Ball crafts vintage amps like no others. At his workshop in Kearneysville, West Virginia, he translates tried-and-true schematics into new builds, then houses them in old cabinets adapted from radios, TVs, and suitcases. It’s a gimmick, sure, but it’s a darn cool one.

And it’s not just about the looks; it’s all about the tone. Ball constructs amps based on Fender’s famed tweed Harvard 5F10 and Valco’s 510 Supro Supreme, among others. And the all-around aura of the finished creation is oh-so-cool.

Ball’s GE TV amp, for example, is one of a kind. He used the schematics from a 5F2A Princeton, then housed it in a suitably sized 1950s television console. But rarely has a ’58 Princeton sounded so good – and this is where Ball proves it’s all more than a gimmick.

In the re-created tube circuitry, he used Mercury Magnetics transformers, and the amp kicks out approximately 7 watts of power through an 8″ Warehouse Guitar Speakers G8C 20-watter.

Plugging in a ’56 Strat, the tone is downright luscious – warm and woolly. You could almost wrap yourself up in it and keep cozy through the winter.

But more than that, the amp sustains for a crazy-long time. Hit a note or chord, and it just rides on and on into the sunset. Lovely.

The amp boasts two input channels with just two top-mounted controls: Volume and Tone. Overall, its voicing is on that warm side: more rich and resonant than hard-edged and trebly. It’ll overdrive and rock out, no doubt, but it doesn’t get in-your-face aggressive.

And then there’s that cabinet. The GE TV is pure ’50s chic, from the styling to the original knobs (just for looks, although they do turn!) to Ball’s period-perfect grill cloth. It only accentuates the amp’s wonderful sound, making it a classy choice for jazz, country, and blues.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2017 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

When German luthier Frank Scheucher was first approached about building a guitar from stone, he had the same reaction you’re probably having right now: Say what? It’ll weigh a ton. And even if a player could lift it, does stone resonate – at all?

However, experimentation led to a line of models like this Nemesis. With a stone top just 0.20″ thick and a chambered body of light mahogany, these “Gorgonized” (look it up) guitars from Zerberus weigh seven or eight pounds – no more than your average Strat or Les Paul. The stone is surprisingly resonant, too, allowing vibration in all directions rather than along a wood grain.

Every stone top guitar is unique as a fingerprint, and the test model was cut from a stone found in Mexico and Brazil called Onyx Fantastico Red Light. Yeah. The top is slightly inset in the body and framed by a flecked strip that loves to catch the light. The front edges are heavily shellacked, though the stone itself is less prone than wood to scratching or damage. Overall, the Nemesis has a striking, ornate design, completed by an especially long top horn and Scheucher’s signature wave above the lower strap button (making strap locks a must).

The bolt-on neck is a five-ply construction of maple and purple heart, with a beautiful rosewood plank inset with diamond-shaped markers. The dual strips of purple heart are visible right up through the headstock, with its unusual drill hole at the peak. The scale length is 25.5″, though from playing position it almost looks like a short-scale guitar – probably an illusion resulting from the long horn. It aligns at about the 11th fret, so the neck’s entire second octave is north of that upper bout.

With a flat 14″ radius and D-shaped curvature, the neck feels substantial but not bat-like or bulky; more like a Les Paul neck sanded flat. It’s a finely crafted neck, and plays comfortably and consistently in every position. Also, the sustain on this guitar is exceptional, with credit due in part to the stone and the string-through design. The Wilkinson hardware (locking tuners, roller nut, and roller bridge) deserves a nod as well.

With amp EQ set flat to limit variables, the tone of the Nemesis fell generally in the upper midrange, with less mid-low resonance. Even so, there was a softness on high notes, a welcome attenuation or curbing of those high frequencies that can be wince-worthy on, say, a Tele in bridge position. More range on the Tone knob would have addressed EQ; the pot is nearly indistinguishable between 10 and 2, and then drops sharply between 2 and 0. The master volume, similarly, was off in 0 position and then stepped on around 1, making it tough to get a smooth swell.

Zerberus will load any pickups a customer orders, and this Nemesis came with alnico pickups by the German builder Harry Häussel. Push/pull features on the master Volume and Tone pots enable a lot of versatility with few controls. Pull the volume, and the neck humbucker splits to a single coil; pull the tone, and the bridge humbucker does the same. A favorite setting for us while playing rhythm was middle position with the neck pickup as a humbucker and the bridge as a single-coil, which allowed chords to sound both full and bright. The opposite setting (single-coil neck, humbucker bridge) lent well to a cutting lead tone, good for bold blues lines.

Zerberus makes guitars out of Tiger’s Eye, Smoky Quartz, Aventurine, and other awesomely named gemstones. Each guitar comes with a hard case – and a wow factor you won’t get from a conventional wood top.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2017 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

B&G Guitars just about do it all – from mixing their own nitro finishes to winding pickups and even casting their own brass hardware. Their goal? To re-create the feeling of playing an old guitar, while at the same time updating those old magic formulas.

Inspired by vintage parlor and early Les Pauls, B&G’s Little Sister is indeed a tribute to guitars of yore, in both fit and form.

Available in single- and non-cutaway versions, the Little Sister comes in an array of velvety ’bursts (Tobacco, Brown, Lemon, Cherry, Honey, and Black), as well as Black Widow and Natural.

Letting loose with those first few strums on the P-90-equipped test model, it was immediately obvious how wonderfully the mahogany neck’s soft V profile fits in the hand, its 12″ radius great for easier bends and a Les Paul-like action. The fretwork on the rosewood fingerboard was immaculate and vintage skinny.

For electronics and hardware, the Little Sister features B&G’s pickups, Waverly tuners, and a bevy of brass: pickup covers, ABR bridge, a handsome tailpiece, even the pickguard.

Unplugged, the Little Sister exhibits the sound and feel of a vintage parlor or a skinnier version of Gibson’s prewar ES-150, with great sustain and overtones that ring out in the mids with a warm and woody sound.

Plugged into a Hi-Tone DR-30 head and a Hi-Tone 2×12 DR-F cabinet, the bridge pickup sounded like a P-90 through gritted teeth – it really barked when the guitar was dug into. With overdriven tones, the bridge pickup growled, crooned, and sang with a deep and gutty tone. The neck pickup was warm and round, though it perhaps lacked some top-end detail. That said, it did mimic that sort of aged, high-impedance sound.

But true to B&G’s intent, the Little Sister does well to emulate the feel of classic prewar electrics – and looks great doing it.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2017 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

When Steve Vai needed a portable preamp to take on the road to emulate his signature amp tones, Carvin Audio obliged. Their VLD1 Legacy Drive is Vai’s Legacy amplifier in a box – and it travels a whole lot easier than a half stack.

Using 12AX7 tubes and circuitry found in Vai’s signature amps, the VLD1 unleashes thick lead tones and ballsy cleans. It’s housed in a solid metal enclosure with two-channels like the Legacy 1. With a clean and dirty channel, it also has the second gain stage of the Legacy 3, allowing you to add even more overdrive to your leads. A separate Cabinet Voiced output emulates the frequency response of a guitar speaker so you can send tones to headphones or a PA. It also has a true hard-wire Bypass and footswitch jacks for nifty remote switching.

You can run the VLD1 in front of an amp like a dirt box, connect it to a power amp, or run it direct into your digital workstation. The clean side offers chicken-head knobs for Master, Treble, Mid, Bass, and Volume, and comes with a Presence switch for added clarity. The gain side offers the same with the addition of Drive and Presence. A glowing Vai hieroglyph indicates the modes: green is Clean, red is Drive, and amber-yellow is for Gain in Drive mode. 

The Carvin VLD1 Legacy Drive emits beaucoup sounds that extend beyond Vai’s sonic footprint. Easier to carry than a half stack (though too bulky for a pedalboard), the VLD1 has a dark but malleable mid-voiced character. Its vibrant upscale countenance and rich clarity make playing inspiring for the heavy rocker who loves crunch and lick-friendly saturation.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2017 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

From the get-go, Fender’s Jazzmaster was the black sheep of the family – that wild-at-heart uncle your ma warned you about. Happily, it’s happily back in the lineup with the American Professional model, part reissue, part refined modern guitar.

The original Jazzmaster was unveiled at NAMM in 1958 as Fender’s flagship – the upmarket big brother to the Stratocaster. Its offset waist, “soapbar” single-coils, floating vibrato, and the Rhythm Circuit slider control all set the Jazzmaster apart.

Originally aimed at sophisticated jazz players, it was never really embraced – until rebellious surf guitarists the late ’50s and early ’60s found that sound within the guitar. More recently, the Jazzmaster has garnered fans among the hip and the underground, from Tom Verlaine and Elvis Costello to J Mascis, Nels Cline, and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo.

American-made Jazzmasters have been only sporadically available since 1980. Fender has offered good Japanese reissues, Mexican versions, signature models, and more, but it’s great to welcome back the American-made version, alongside Fender’s American Vintage ’65 Jazzmaster – and with two new colors that are just right and will be tough to choose between.

The new Jazzmaster sings through Michael Frank-designed single-coil V-Mod pickups that are overwound for a hotter tone while retaining a vintage warmth. They’re controlled by a treble-bleed circuit via a Master Volume that holds onto the high end when lowering volume to reduce gain, thus keeping the tone no matter where the Volume knob is set. And that Rhythm Circuit slider is now a thing of the past.

That famous floating tremolo/bridge has been refined to be more stable while still allowing you to rock the whammy all you want. You can dial in the arm tension better than ever before. And gone are the old problematic bridge saddles; in their place are brass Mustang saddles – exactly what almost every Jazzmaster master swapped in anyway.

The neck is a new modern “deep C” shape that Fender says is designed for comfort and speed. It’s topped by a bone nut and 22 narrow-tall frets that are supposed to make for easier bending of strings.

Color choices? You can pick classic three-color Sunburst or Olympic White, both with rosewood fretboards. Or select from one of the two new hues, which seem made just for a Jazzmaster – Sonic Gray or the sure to be a hands-down fave, Mystic Seafoam. Both are accentuated by maple fingerboards. The pickguard is three-ply Mint Green with the exception of three-ply black for the white guitar.

The new Jazzmaster was plugged into a Vibro-King and dialed up a dash of reverb.

The first noticeable thing about this guitar is its fit and finish: brand new and straight from the case, it feels great and ready to go. The neck is silky smooth, the fretboard an ease to play.

The tone of the V-Mod pickups is instant surf. They have a wonderful treble bite that is at the same time jangling and sonorous while not being thin or tinny. The Master Volume treble-bleed can accentuate this when the guitar is played with the volume down. Either way, it gives added control.

The bridge pickup is hot: it’s got a vintage voice that truly speaks. The neck pickup has a bit more punch than some may remember from an original ’59. Combined, they’re good and loud and full sounding.

Fender provides the guitar with easy-to-bend .009-.042 strings, but you’ll want to swap on heavier-gauge strings, or best yet, heavier flatwounds, to really accentuate all the glorious tone of this beautiful new Jazzmaster.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2017 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

There are some nifty analog effects pedals coming out of São Paulo, Brazil, nowadays, and among them, Fire Custom Shop should be on your radar. Fire Custom’s small but efficient staff allows them to maintain maximum quality control over their top-notch products while offering a variety of effects pedals and accessories. It’s no fluke that heavy hitters in the celebrity guitar world have given them well-earned props. Take this pair of overdrives.

Fire Custom’s Sweet Chilli Overdrive delivers smooth and clean boost, or P.O.’d overdrive. With its Volume knob, Chilli knob (a.k.a. drive), and Hi and Lo knobs for EQ and added gain and volume, it’s a sensitive pedal that requires creative adjustments to fully exploit its superpowers. Running through a clean blackface combo or a British half-stack, the Sweet Chilli can yield warm mellifluous tones or searing harmonics. With humbuckers or single-coils, the EQ knobs are the key to dialing in more sizzle on the top-end or beefy lows, and it accepts a 9- or 18-volt adapter. Punchy clean boost, chunky rhythm sounds, or spicy lead tones – the Sweet Chilli was able to dish out southwestern flavors that will perform splendidly in a ZZ Top environment.

The Carpe Diem is Fire Custom’s crowning achievement: a two-sided pedal reminiscent of a Marshall plexi. Like a plexi, it enables the user to blend the high treble and normal channels with tone knobs instead of with an instrument cable. The Carpe Diem’s toggle allows you to choose between Classic (Marshall JTM45) and Hot Rod (think JCM800 on steroids). The cascading Bass gain knob and a Treble gain knob work in tandem to sculpt delicious crunch. Master Presence and Master volume controls work the top-end frequency and the output level. One switch turns the pedal on while a second adds gain and a bump to the volume level. Sporting serious bottom-end, the Carpe Diem is dynamic, compression-free, and full of plexi attitude.

Fire Custom Shop’s stated mission is to build quality true-bypass pedals that inspire players and withstand arduous touring. This has resulted in some seductive effects that will push an amp without sacrificing its inherent personality. Best of all they clean up beautifully with a guitar’s Volume control. From light overdrive to nosebleed intensity, the Sweet Chilli and Carpe Diem will allow you to express a multitude of emotions using your guitar as a conduit.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2017 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Guitarists are often trying to get more convincing tube tones on their home and studio recordings, but finding authentic valve textures can be elusive without pricey mics and preamps. The Fryette Valvulator GP/DI aims to solve that problem by using real tubes combined with a direct-out circuit and cabinet simulator. It’s also a genuine 1-watt tube amp, ready to drive a small cab for low-volume applications.

In fact, the Valvulator contains no digital circuitry at all, unlike many simulators on the market. Instead, it works like a traditional amp, with three 12AX7 tubes and one 12DW7 (used in Fryette’s proprietary output stage), transformers, and plenty of analog guts. This is significant – as far as digital boxes go, they often lack the depth and organic feel that tubes provide.

On the front, the Valvulator offers a Gain section with Voicing and Saturation controls to determine the amount of overdrive in each stage. A mini switch on the left chooses between Fryette’s amplifier line of clean, Deliverance (old-school British), and Pittbull (saturated crunch). The More switch provides either less overdrive or way more for a hotter tone. A passive three-band EQ is followed by a Master output knob for the 1-watt amp and a Dynamics control to evoke that classic tube “sag” or natural compression (an LED light adjusts its sensitivity to your picking attack). A Deep/Tight switch lets you tweak the low-end frequency of the power amp.

Finally, there’s the Cab+Mic section: the analog direct circuit. An In/Out switch activates the circuit, while Contour and Emphasis (with an Air/Bite switch) give the ability to respectively adjust the cab and mic simulations. The Output section has a knob to control volume heading out to the mixer or digital interface. In the back, look for an 8/16-ohm speaker switch and ¹/4″ outputs (speaker and line-level), plus the Direct Out 1 and 2 sections with both ¹/4″ and XLR jacks. If your head is spinning by now, don’t worry – the Valvulator can be as simple or complex as you want.

Tested in a home studio, this Fryette performed incredibly well. In short order, guitar sounds ranging from dead clean to wailing overdrive were laid down to several GarageBand tracks on a Mac, and the results were far thicker and richer than your average digital “amp sim.” Beyond its meaty, convincing recording tone, the Valvulator has several other uses, including as a guitar preamp for gigging. Send the output to a mixer and PA and the audience will be surprised you’re getting such a mighty tone from a small tabletop box.

You can also use it to “re-amp” studio guitar parts – that is, taking an already-recorded track and sending the output through a separate amplifier for better tone. If you’re recording direct, but don’t want any amp distortion, run your guitar through the Valvulator for its superior tube circuit. As countless producers and engineers will tell you, a good tube preamp makes just about everything sound better in the studio.

The Fryette Valvulator GP/DI is a formidable tool for both recording and concert use. Sure, it’s not inexpensive, but with a host of uses, bulletproof construction, and genuine tube tone, there’s serious value here. Best of all, like the best tube heads, this small wonder is full of organic sounds that react to whatever you’re playing. Play lighter and the tone cleans up; dig in and it gets good ’n’ nasty. Fryette has distilled decades of tube-amp building into one killer little recording amp.

This article originally appeared in VG August 2017 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.