Tag: features

To the hands, hearts, and minds of many an experienced guitarist, an OM-size body with a 25.5″ scale feels the perfect flat-top. Spend time with Collings’ OM1 T, and you’ll likely understand.

How does the new OM1 T differ from previous Collings offerings? Part of the company’s Traditional Series, it represents a return to founder Bill Collings’ roots, with touches like animal protein glue and nitrocellulose-lacquer finishes.

The OM1 T’s body and neck are made of mahogany, while the top is offered in four variations: torrefied and plain Sitka spruce, and torrefied or plain Adirondack spruce. Our review instrument had torrefied Sitka.

Other appointments include maple-and-rosewood rosette, tortoiseshell-style binding on the top and back, “pre-war” scalloped bracing, squared headstock with no volute, ebony fingerboard and belly-style bridge, mortise-and-tenon neck joint, traditional neck profile with 2⁵/₁₆” string spacing, 14″-26″ compound-radius fingerboard, 1.75″ bone nut, and Waverly tuners.

The OM1 T’s hardshell case made a good first impression. While it looks like a ’30s case, it’s lighter, stronger, and better balanced.

The OM1 T’s top is impressive. Unlike “aged” tops on most new guitars (which appear more yellow than old), Collings’ torrefied Sitka is similar to cedar, with a straight, sharp grain. The mahogany on the body and neck was also straight and tightly grained. And, the OM1 T arrived tuned almost perfectly to standard concert pitch, which says a lot about its structural stability. Overall fit and finish was typical Collings quality – perfect joints, seams, and edges.

Sonically, our OM1 T was equally remarkable. It did not sound like a new guitar. Compared with a ’30 Martin 000-18, it was equally loud and responsive. While not quite as harmonically complex, it was balanced with enough bass to produce explosive bluegrass bass runs and treble for upper-frequency sparkle on delicate fingerstyle arpeggios.

If you’re looking for a flat-top with balanced, even tone suitable for any style or technique, Collings’ OM1 T could be what you require.

This article originally appeared in VG November 2016 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

The mid ’70s were a time for bold experimentation in guitar design, particularly with electronics. Guitarists were discovering replacement pickups, coil-tapping, onboard boosters, and active EQ circuits; some loaded their axes with buttons and switches.

One such guitar was the custom “Cowboy Fancy” solidbody that Ibanez made for Grateful Dead rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, circa 1976. The company has reissued it as the BWM1 and, no question, it’s a tone-tweaker’s delight.

The Weir’s essential specs include a swamp-ash body with a mother-of-pearl “tree of life” motif that continues all the way up the 22-fret, bound-ebony fingerboard to a large and inlaid headstock. The through neck is a five-piece sandwich of maple and walnut with a Strat-sized 25.5″ scale and big, meaty profile. This ain’t no skinny Ibanez shred neck – it’s a big D shape.

Other accoutrements include gold hardware, ornate abalone binding, and an “Ace” inlay at the 20th fret (the name of Weir’s ’72 solo album). Fans of ’70s guitar design will also dig the Accu-Cast replica bridge and half-bone/half-brass nut. (If you’re too young to remember, brass hardware was big news back then.)

Now – deep breath – comes the BWM1’s massive array of onboard electronics. Two DiMarzio PAF 36th Anniversary humbuckers voiced for the bridge and neck slots are joined by DiMarzio’s Area 61 single-coil in the middle. If you’re looking for a standard pickup toggle, you’re out of luck. The BWM1 offers four selector switches near the top horn that provide on/off functions for each pickup, as well as a coil-tap for the bridge and neck pickups, resulting in almost endless tone combinations. The top-tier control zone offers master passive Volume and Tone knobs, plus EQ Level. This knob deploys when you flip the EQ on/off switch, firing up the battery-powered preamp, and it governs three EQ knobs underneath for treble, mid, and bass. The EQ Level then controls the overall volume of the settings, also providing an extra volume boost for leads.

By this time, your head may be spinning, but it’s time to plug in and spank this plank. The first thing you’ll notice is that, like the old Ibanez Professionals (and mid-’70s Les Pauls and Strats), the BWM1 is wickedly dense, weighing somewhere north of 9.5 pounds. Add in that big neck and you have a solidbody that makes a good case for sustain. To test the point, we plugged into a Musicvox tube combo and cranked it up into Cream-era Clapton territory. Sure as heck, the sustain rang for days. Elsewhere, the electronics delivered as promised, offering an amazing range of tone options, particularly for the guitarist who likes to manipulate sound on the fly. We dug up everything from fat-jazz to puckery coil-tap textures in seconds. Guitarists who love to hear that “sweep” of active EQ frequencies will revel in all the nuances.

All told, the BWM1 is a specialty axe for guitarists who want something unique. It’s a vintage reissue that gets all the details right, from its big neck and body to over-the-top design and incredible electronics package. The Cowboy Fancy isn’t for everyone, but it’s hard to argue with this level of retro vibe and sophistication. Old-school rockers often look back and say, “You had to be there.” With the BWM1, you almost are.

This article originally appeared in VG November 2016 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

The modal mellowness of Apollo’s lyre or the perky chirp of the bouzouki might come to mind when one thinks of Greek music. But Crazy Tube Circuits? From the Athens not found in Georgia, the CTC Spiral Turbulence (SPT) pedal combines a phase shifter and vibrato.

An on/off stomp switch, single-throw mini switch, and four knobs in a small metallic-finish box tell the tale – simple, straightforward, and functional. The mini switch selects between phaser or vibrato functions, while knobs for Volume, Depth, Feedback, and Rate control the loudness, intensity, and speed of either setting.

In phaser mode, adjusting the Depth and Feedback knobs produced everything from mild fluctuating fizz to deep, dark swirling walls of sound lending an ominous feel to minor-key chord progressions. Plenty of useable voices can be found through experimentation, including a setting that achieves an envelope-filter effect at the end of single-note phrases. It’s an interesting solo device.

Swapping the swampy for the psychedelic, the SPT’s vibrato sound has enough adjustability to go from subtle boogaloo organ-like funk to a downright in-your-face extreme throbulation. Even at intense settings, it minimizes that Huey-coming-in-for-a-landing flutter that can translate as nonmusical chatter.

One of the SPT’s secrets lies in the manipulation of half-sine/half-triangle-wave low-frequency oscillation (LFO), which give the all-analog pedal an organic voice. The expression-pedal jack allows the SPT to be controlled like an organist works a Leslie, though you might draw a glare from your keyboardist when you invade that territory.

Compact, yet capable of complex sounds with multipurpose applications, the SPT is an excellent choice for a versatile pedalboard.

This article originally appeared in VG November 2016 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

You may remember James Brown as the mastermind at Peavey Electronics and Kustom Amplification. In addition to being the brains behind Peavey’s 5150, Classic Series, and JSX, Brown is an award-winning pedal designer. Today, he practices his artistry at Amptweaker.

One of Brown’s Amptweaker designs is the TightDrive Jr, a multipurpose overdrive that takes up minimal real estate on the pedalboard. It uses a multistage single-ended design similar to a tube preamp, and powering it with 9 or 18 volts produces dramatic differences in tone, similar to switching from a 50- to a 100-watt amp, and allows you to dial in more open and dynamic sounds at 18 volts.

The TightDrive Jr’s controls are easy to suss. There are knobs for Volume, Tone, and Gain, and two slide switches; one selects Plexi or Smooth EQ tones, while the other yields Fat (aggressive chunk) or Tight (thicker, singing distortion). The pedal is true-bypass, has a Noise Gate, and fits in the palm of your hand – perfect for traveling guitarists who need to rescue themselves from the horrors of backline amplifiers.

Volunteering a Telecaster through a Deluxe Reverb offered all manner of clean boost, beef, and malleable aggro was had. The TightDrive Jr has a smooth, warm personality. And because it’s an overdrive, not a high-gain distortion, there’s nothing harsh about it. The Plexi setting has the most grind, while the EQ switch’s Middle and Smooth positions gradually take the edge off. The Tight switch spreads copious crunch in the Fat position, while Middle and Tight shape and finesse gain settings for warm shred or articulate single-note blues rock. Chords ring like crazy but the Noise Gate will chop off as much of that as you want. Nice touch.

The TightDrive Jr is a great low-maintenance overdrive in a small package. It’s a sweet deal.

This article originally appeared in VG November 2016 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Taking inspiration from Fender’s classic AB763 Deluxe Reverb, the hand-wired Andrews Spectraverb 16 uses a pair of JJ 6V6 power tubes (producing 16 watts), a GZ34 rectifier, two 12AX7 and two 12AT7 preamp tubes, a beefed-up output transformer with 4-, 8-, and 16-ohm outputs, glass-epoxy turret boards, and a tube-driven spring reverb with limiter circuit – all coupled to a Guitar Warehouse G12C/S 12″ ceramic-magnet speaker.

Aesthetically, the Spectraverb 16 has a Princeton vibe, with its mid-sized Tolex-covered pine cab, birch-ply baffle, leather-stitched handle, oxblood/old grillecloth and A/DA Flanger-style knobs on a black panel. 

Run with a late-model Strat and late-model ES-335, the amp delivered an abundance of classic blackface tone, with chiming highs, smooth/slightly pulled-back mids, and a tight, rounded low-end. The tone controls are well-voiced and interact nicely with one another. It didn’t take much fiddling to dial in a very usable sound, and the Pull Bright control did a great job of adding sizzle to the 335’s humbuckers.

Ask the Spectraverb for more volume, and harmonics and overtones increasingly enter the mix, along with a light, bluesy overdrive. For more-serious crunch, an Ibanez TS9 meshed very well, producing a rich, saturated overdrive. The spring reverb also recalled a classic blackface tone – clean and wet with a slightly darker dwell that didn’t wash out the amp’s tone even when it was dialed in heavy.

The Spectraverb’s Reverb Limiter did just what Andrews claims it does, making the reverb much more pedal-friendly and allowing the player to drive the front end (and the reverb circuit) harder with an overdrive or boost pedal while not washing out or drenching the tone in reverb. We achieved a wet, lush, and clean sound with the Tube Screamer off and a wet (but not drenched) crunch tone with it on. The Limiter circuit did not squash the amp’s tone, but affected only the signal going to the reverb circuit.  

Stylish and functional, the Andrews Spectraverb 16 is not just another blackface clone – it’s an updated, upgraded circuit with its own vibe and a more-refined sound that still offers that familiar 1960s “California” tone.

This article originally appeared in VG November 2016 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Leo Fender once famously said, “A guitar is just a hammer.” If you haven’t yet found a hammer that fits like it should, this may be it.

After U2 guitarist The Edge signed on to Fender’s board of directors in 2014, everyone expected a signature guitar was forthcoming – and that it would likely be based on his fave, a black ’73 Stratocaster.

The Edge was inspired after watching Irish blueser Rory Gallagher wailing away on his paint-scoured Strat. And while The Edge has played many guitars from other brands, he keeps returning to that source.

When he began designing this guitar, his goal was to improve on his ’73. Fender built nine prototypes for The Edge to play on tour, discarding certain alterations, approving others. The resulting guitar is a rather like a “greatest hits” collection.

The key word here is “refinement.” There’s nothing revolutionary (well, one thing, which we’ll get to). Instead, this is a beautifully refined Stratocaster that will make you want to play it. The neck is one-piece quartersawn maple with a C-shaped 9.5″ radius, medium jumbo frets, and that CBS headstock crowned by short-post locking tuners. The neck joins the body with a rounded heel, providing easy access to the uppermost frets. It’s simply a lovely neck.

The body is alder, and the bridge is fitted with a modern two-point synchronized vibrato with pop-in arm. The pickguard is suitably minty.

That aforementioned revolutionary feature is in the pickups. The middle and neck units are Fender Custom Shop Fat ’50s single-coils, while the bridge has a DiMarzio FS-1. Unlike all other Strats, which have staggered pole pieces, the pickups made for The Edge model have flat poles. The result? A wonderful balance of string definition and a wide array of tone.

The Edge Strat is available in any color – so long as it’s black – and includes a cool custom case.

The Edge was a latecomer to the charms of Fender tweed amps, but when he first played a ’57 Deluxe, it inspired him, and the song “Vertigo” practically wrote itself.

The Edge Deluxe is a modern, hand-wired re-creation of that 5E3 circuit, with 6V6, 12AX7, and 5Y3 tubes. The main changes are modified phase-inverter circuitry for tighter bass response and a 15-watt 12″ Celestion Blue speaker that boasts an enhanced tonal range and sweeter midrange than the Jensen blue-cap of yore.

Plugged in together, they’re a tremendous combo. Yes, you can find modern tones, but it’ll also dig into rockabilly, classic rock, psychedelia – you name it.

The Edge Deluxe may be Fender’s best tweed reissue. Warm and defined, it’s also loud and raucous when needed.

Whether or not you’re a U2 fan, you gotta hand it to The Edge, and Fender. This is a classic combo, right off the shelves.

This article originally appeared in VG November 2016 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.