Tag: features

Dean Zelinsky’s history as a guitar builder includes unique designs that are toneful and eyecatching. To many, he might be best known for his early designs inspired by Gibson’s futuristic models of the late ’50s; others remember him for his ads in the 1980s co-starring what came to be known as “Dean Girls.”

Zelinsky’s a new line of import guitars are budget-friendly, professional, and striking with their high level of playability, fit, and finish. Because Zelinsky offers instruments factory-direct, buyers can customize many features including pickup configuration, hardware, and colors. He also added unique options including engraved hardware, engraved bodies, and his Z-glide neck with carved impressions to reduce hand-on-neck friction.

We recently received one of Zelinsky’s Dellatera Custom single-cutaways for review with the optional Z-Glide feature, SideKick pickup, and Tejas engraved hardware. A beautiful instrument, it sported a flame-maple top, pearloid pickguard, and engraved bridge and control plate. Controls included a five-way switch along with a Volume and push/pull Tone knob to control the neck pickup.

Besides the SideKick in the neck position, this Dellatera came with single-coils in the middle and bridge positions. Its modern 1 ¹¹⁄₁₆"-wide neck was medium depth, with a bend-friendly compound-radius fingerboard with 22 medium-jumbo frets.

Spinning the instrument around, it’s hard not to be taken aback by the Z-glide neck, whose unique etchings are quite out of the norm and proved extremely comfortable to play while never exhibiting the “sticky neck” syndrome common on all levels of new instruments. The headstock was adorned with a set of easy-to-string locking tuners.

Using a reissue ’65 Deluxe Reverb and a smattering of basic pedals, this flame-topped beauty was plugged in to see what it could do. The SideKick neck pickup was robust yet clear in humbucking mode, and in single-coil mode made for even clearer tones with only slightly reduced mids and bass response. In fact, it was amazing how close the output was in both single-coil and humbucking modes.

Keeping the coil tap on and switching to position two elicited the classic “notched number-two” position. Going back to humbucker mode in this position made for a bigger sound with more bass and reduced trebles. The middle single-coil on its own was also quite clear, but had a little more attack and punch, being closer to the bridge. Moving to position four made for a great implementation of one of the most used electric guitar tones of the last 40 years. The bridge pickup had just enough twang and grind to cover a wide variety of clean to overdriven tones.

Perhaps most impressive was how the Dellatera’s flame top, engraved hardware, playability, and tonal versatility were all delivered at a down-to-earth price. The Z-Glide neck is highly recommended and well worth the upcharge, creating a much more comfortable playing area.

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

Blackstar’s Artist 15 is a British amp with an American accent. Though designed and built around good ol’ American-flavored 6L6 tubes, its sonic qualities feature that glorious jangly, chimey sound of classic British Class A amps.

Best of all, the amp’s unique ISF control lets the user dial between the two voices – or set it in the middle for the best of both worlds.

The Artist series (which also includes a 30-watt big brother) runs the 6L6s in an open-loop circuit designed to provide that lovely treble while also accentuating the bass response. In addition, the configuration results in more gain, pushing the power amp’s distortion into a creamy grind when needed.

The amp has two channels. Channel 1 offers stripped-down drive with no frills – just Volume and Tone controls for an honest, straight-to-the-heart sound.

Channel 2 is all about options. Along with a Gain knob and Equalisation (using the British spelling), there’s Blackstar’s aforementioned patented ISF control. Spun to the U.S. tones, this channel yields a tightened lower end and emphasis on the treble with plenty of in-your-face presence. Dial it clockwise and head for English waters with lows and mids beefed up for warmth. Or go clean or crunchy (think vintage Vox or Marshall).

The Blackstar’s capabilities were probed with a ’65 Rickenbacker 360, a guitar well-known for providing both classic American and British sounds. The 15-watter immediately boosted the guitar’s voice and magnified its clarity.

On the Brit ISF setting, the tone was solid Beatles; a warm shimmer overdriving slightly as the Loud knob was turned up. Wonderful. On the Yank setting, the amp did a fine CCR impression with plenty of bluesy growl when the 360 was attacked hard.

The Artist 15 has nice gain for front-ending pedals as well, especially vintage stompboxes that need a helping hand. A dual-level loop on the back allows players to run effects in a return-and-send. The amp also has a built-in digital reverb with Dark and Light switches for more flexibility than most spring units.

The only suggestions? A standby switch would be lovely (the Artist 30 does have one). And the amp’s not lightweight, though this weight is quality heft – the cabinet and componentry feel rock-solid. And that stealthy black-leather styling is way cool, like a Hiwatt dressed in an Armani suit.

As an all ’rounder, the Artist will have your back.

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

Fuzz and octavers are among the hottest pedals around, with some builders even melding them to great effect. The Red Witch Zeus Bass Fuzz Suboctave is one such box. It’s designed for bass players, but guitar players will crave it, too.

An all-analog design featuring silicon-based fuzz (fueled by two BC109 transistors, same as the Red Witch Fuzzgod), the Zeus Bass has four controls arranged like a mixer. An Octave Mix control brings in the dry-to-wet octave sound; “Off” is full off/bypass, or turn it full up for an entirely processed tone. The Fuzz knob sets the fuzz-tone level while Fuzz Mix brings in just the right amount.

Sputter is another feature showing up more these days, imitating the staccato, farting sounds of 8-bit audio or a battery crapping out. On the surface, it seems like a negative, but on the job it’s one of the coolest effects in town. The Sputter knob makes a fair amount of crackling, but that’s the circuit adjusting the DC bias, which is normal.

Used with a Relic Guitars Hague model, a Musicvox MI-6 bass, and a 1×10 Class A tube amp, the Zeus Bass Fuzz delivered massively fat tones. The fuzz is musical and warm, unlike some brash, nasty square waves. Dial in the gigantic suboctave effect for lo-fi, psychedelic city, perfect for everything from Jefferson Airplane to Sonic Youth. Ladle on some Sputter that harkens back to early-’70s Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, and Stevie Wonder. Playing the greasy riff from “Superstition” on the Zeus resulted in pure sonic ecstasy.

The Schaffer Replica by SoloDallas is an out-of-left-field unit based on the monster tone of AC/DC’s Angus Young. One of Angus’ secret weapons was the Schaffer-Vega Diversity System wireless unit, the first of its kind to gain a toehold among players of the late ’70s. The curious thing is that the old SVDS had such a great preamp and unique gain character that Angus also used it in the studio just a few feet away from his Marshalls.

The Schaffer Replica is an authentic recreation of that unique circuit, giving a powerful boost in front of a tube amp. The pedal just has three controls: an on/off footswitch, input, and output. Basically, turn the effect on and decide how much you want.

The Schaffer Replica uses the two-step “companding” process to smack the front of a tube amp, much like an overdrive pedal. “Companding” is a telecommunications term indicating a signal is compressed on one end and then expanded on the other end – sort of the audio equivalent of a compressed .ZIP folder. The unique SVDS circuit takes the input signal and proceeds to warm, fatten, and generally pump it up. Whether used with a Strat into a clean Fender amp or an SG into a plexi Marshall, tone becomes more exciting and lively.

The Schaffer Replica is such a simple pedal that it needs to be heard for one to understand its cool factor. Plug it in, step on the footswitch, and marvel at its killer tone. Angus knew it was a great circuit 40 years ago. Now you can hear it for yourself.

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

Composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Joe Gore’s career path has been multilayered and includes “guitar effects builder.” Two of his pedals are Cult and Filth – effects capable of great and varied tones that belie their simple layouts and designs.

One of the simplest pedal layouts ever created, The Cult has just one control knob, which increases gain. Don’t let that simplicity fool you, though – it’s one of the most flexible fuzz units imaginable. Running a ’65 Strat through the Cult and into a ’65 AC30 then playing with a variety of fuzz levels revealed that the more the Gain knob was turned up, the more responsive and dynamic the guitar’s Volume knob became, almost serving as an extension of the pedal itself.

With the Cult’s control at 3 o’clock and the guitar’s Volume on 7, the setup yielded a great rhythm sound with enough clarity to allow open chords to bloom. Turning the guitar’s Volume all the way up produced a rich-yet-natural harmonic distortion that jumped from the amp, unlike some fuzz units that sort of compress the entire signal – very important in a live setting with a band.

Like its little brother, the Filth pedal is also easy to use, though it has four controls; Level and Drive knobs increase the volume and the amount of fuzz, respectively, but what sets the Filth apart are two big sliders on the top and right of the unit. According to Gore, these alter the voltages through the pedal’s transistors, changing not only the tone but the response, attack, and compression notes.

Running the Filth through a small-box Marshall 50-watt rig, the pedal produced an amazing assortment of sounds with simple adjustments of the sliders, which interacted nicely with each other. From a ’60s “Psychotic Reaction” type of fuzz to a Santana-smooth overdrive and on to end-of-the-world Black Sabbath heaviness, the Cult pedal displayed an incredible amount of flexibility most guitarists would have no problem employing as the sole fuzz in their signal chain.

Gore’s Cult and Filth pedals are notably different from other designs in that they don’t squash the signal, but rather boost note dynamics. They are solidly built, easy to operate, and could be welcome additions to any electric guitarist’s pedalboard. 

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

Artist. Iconoclast. Guitar builder to the stars. Tony Zemaitis was all that and more. Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards swear by his electrics. Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton both played his acoustics. And today, original Zemaitis guitars are painfully rare – and even more painfully expensive.

Enter Zemaitis International of Japan. Following Tony’s retirement in 2000 and death in ’02, his family licensed the company to build instruments of a similar quality level.

The CS line hails from the Zemaitis Custom Shop, and they’re stunners. The CS24MF is the classic metal-front engraved model, the flagship of the line. The pearl-fronted CS24PF Ring Chess takes the concept one step further. Both are built with a select African mahogany body and neck, and like the originals, they’re suitably robust and, yes, shoulder-tiringly heavy. But you wouldn’t want anything less.

The engraving on the CS24MF designed by Tony’s master engraver Danny O’Brien is stunning and all executed by hand by Japanese engravers, right down to minute details like those surrounding the tailpiece screws. The workmanship is hands-down superb but with just the right touch to let you know it’s engraved by an artist, not a machine.

The pearly CS24PF is similarly eye-catching. The beautifully inlaid tile pieces radiate light as if with an inner glow. Playing either guitar under stage lights is almost guaranteed to grab attention.

But enough oogling and leering at these guitars’ super-model looks. How do they play and sound?

As good as they look.

The 1.693″-wide neck is slim, silky smooth, and incredibly long! The scale is 25″ with 24 medium frets, but with the smaller Zemaitis body, the ebony fretboard seems to go on forever. The advantage is the free access to all those notes. Tuners are Schaller M6s.

Plugging the CS24PF into a ’64 Vox AC30, a first strum indicates the guitar is ready to rock. The dual DiMarzio Custom PAF humbuckers are clean, crisp, and loud.

Both guitars feature simple controls. The three-way toggle switch selects the pickups, which are each dialed in by their own Volume and Tone knobs. Classic. Happily, Zemaitis International didn’t try to supercharge the resurrected line with locking tuners, floating tremolos, active electronics, and the like.

And those pickups are eminently flexible. You can get a warm Some Girls R&B tone, then switch to a funked-up treble with plenty of slappy twang. Or spin the controls all the way for lowdown and dirty with a gritty grind. Playing the Zemaitis provides an “Ah-ha!” moment – you instantly understand where a key element of the Stones’ sound has come from all these years.

Way back when, Tony Zemaitis used the metal fronts on his guitars to resolve some fundamental problems of performing under stage lighting – buzz, feedback, and radiophonic electronics. The metal acted as shielding to solve much of that. With help from O’Brien, that shielding became art.

And that brings us back to aesthetics. These guitars are obviously much more than eye candy. Beyond the razzle-dazzle of the engraved-metal and pearl fronts, the sound is downright killer.

And if these Custom Shop guitars are too much for your billfold, Zemaitis International offers less-detailed metal fronts, disc-front versions (again, think Mr. Wood), a range of Black Pearl models, and more.

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