Here's Don Alder interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM show on the Seymour Duncan booth. It's always a pleasure to meet and interview such a gifted musician who plays equally well a harp-guitar, a baritone or a regular folk guitar. We talked about his latest news and projects.
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Here's an Andy Timmons interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM. The Guitar Channel has been looking for a way to do an interview for a while now and it happened at Anaheim thanks to the introduction made through Blue Mouth Promotions.
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Andy Powers interview – Taylor Guitars master builder – NAMM 2016
Monday, 25 January 2016
In this interview, meet Taylor Guitars master builder Andy Powers. Meeting and getting to talk with the luthier involved in the development of all the guitars at Taylor was very interesting to understand more how a huge player in the industry like Taylor operates. In fact Taylor builds around 600 guitars per day with an unsurpassed level of quality in the industry.
Taylor Guitars website: www.taylorguitars.com
Taylor master builder - Adam Powers interview
Here's the full interview with Adam Powers.
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The Hofner Zane Carney signature model was presented to Zane for the very first time during the NAMM 2016. Zane was super excited about the instrument during the interview. We took the opportunity to talk about his latest projects, his views on this NAMM, the upcoming album he is preparing and, of course, this brand new guitar. No doubt we will hear a lot about Zane during this year as he seems to be always working on several projects.
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Mason Marangella interview – Vertex
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
Here's a Mason Marangella interview done via Skype. Mason is the mastermind behind Vertex, the boutique pedal builder. The interview was a good opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with Mason about his approach to pedal building.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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Frank Hartung interview, luthier at the Holy Grail Guitar Show
Saturday, 16 January 2016
Here's a Frank Hartung interview done during the 2014 Holy Grail Guitar Show. He was one of the German luthier exhibiting during the show.
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Lars Rasmussen interview, luthier for Rasmussen Guitars at the Holy Grail Guitar Show
Saturday, 16 January 2016
Here's a Lars Rasmussen interview done during the 2014 Holy Grail Guitar Show. Lars is a Swedish luthier who build high end acoustic guitar.
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Nic Delisle interview – Luthier for Island Manufacture Instrument
Wednesday, 06 January 2016
During my coverage of the 2015 Montreal Jazz Festival I had the pleasure to do a Nic Delisle interview. Nic is a luthier for Island Manufacture Instrument. He is installed in the Montreal island north of downtown in a co-working space with other luthiers. He has a special approach to guitar building with an unorthodox design which is very original.
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Mika Tyyskä is a very original guitar player with a very personal approach about his music. Not only he is writing and playing music but he also take care of all the visual aspect of his art with his alter ego Mr Fastfinger. His latest album Spirit Rising is shock full of cool music.
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It's a rare opportunity to do an interview with both the musician and his luthier at the same time. Here's below an interview with guitar player Mika Tyyskä (aka Mr Fastfinger) with his luthier Juha Ruokangas. It was done during the 2nd edition of the Holy Grail Guitar Show.
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Here's an interview with luthier Darko Milojevic from Leo Guitars (www.leoguitars.com) during the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show. Darko has been building guitars for 7 years now so knows what he is talking about and the high quality of his instruments shows it. Reinterpreting the Les Paul theme is not that easy, especially when you want to bring your own special flavour to this timeless classic of the electric guitar.
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Colin James interview guitar in hand on stage – 2015 Montreal Jazz Festival
Sunday, 20 December 2015
Colin James was part of the 2015 Montreal Jazz Festival to play several nights. We did this interview Guitar in Hand right on the stage of the Théatre du Nouveau Monde (www.tnm.qc.ca) right before the concert. It's always a lot of fun and much more interesting to do the interview Guitar in Hand. The concerts given by Colin James during the festival were excellent, the sound quality was really good and the band behind him was excellent.
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Seth Baccus interview, luthier for Baccus Guitars at the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show
Friday, 18 December 2015
Here's a Seth Baccus interview done during the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show. I was very impressed by the quality of the instrument brought by Seth in Berlin (see the photos below).
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I love when it's possible to do an interview Guitar in Hand, so imagine when I had the opportunity to do one with a harp-guitar player, Muriel Anderson!
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Adriano Sergio interview – Ergon Guitars – 2015 Holy Grail Guitar show
Thursday, 03 December 2015
Here's the interview done with Portuguese luthier Adriano Sergio from Ergon Guitars during the second edition of the Holy Grail Guitar Show. I was seduced by the organic shapes of Adriano's guitars and by the quality of the lutherie.
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JD Simo interview with a real 1960 vintage Gibson Les Paul in hand
Sunday, 29 November 2015
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JD from the power trio JD Simo was in Paris for the very first time for their first tour in Europe as a promotional tour for the release of their album Let Love Show The Way which will be released in January 2016.
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Interview guitar in hand with the Big, Bad and Beautiful Popa Chubby
Friday, 20 November 2015
It's always an experience to interview such a colorful musician like Popa Chubby, this time we did it Guitar in Hand.
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Egon Rauscher interview, Soultool Guitars luthier at the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show
Thursday, 12 November 2015
Here's Egon Rauscher interview, luthier for SoulTool Guitars. He was one of the 115 selected guitar builders presenting their work at the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show in Berlin. The quality of the instruments from Soultool is top notch as the design which looks pretty cool.
Egon Rauscher interview
This video is publicly accessible because SoulTool has a Pro Backstage Pass
SoulTool website: www.soultool.com
Soultool guitars
My take on the SoulTool guitars
I really dig the design Egon found for his instruments. It's modern but with that classic vibe we all cherish.
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Francisco Rodriguez is the luthier behind FranFret Guitars (www.franfret.net). He was already an exhibitor at Guitares au Beffroi guitar show in France this year but it's at the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show in Berlin, Germany that The Guitar Channel took the opportunity to interview him.
Francisco Rodriguez interview from FranFret Guitars
This video is accessible to all because FranFret is a Pro Backstager on The Guitar Channel.
It was still early on that Saturday morning when we did the interview so neither Francisco or I are smiling yet.
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Renaud Louis-Servais is one of the very best Fusion guitar player we have in France. He hast just released a new album called Epic Circus where he collaborated with none other than keyboard player Philippe Saisse and drummer Virgil Donati.
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Presentation of the 2016 Gibson acoustic guitars in Paris
Wednesday, 21 October 2015
Yesterday I had the pleasure to spend the afternoon in the private showroom of Gibson France to discover the 2016 range of acoustic guitars from Gibson. For this event two people from the US Acoustic Division were present, Josh Taborski (General Manager) and Jeremy Morton (Product Specialist), see the interview below.
The 2016 guitars in a few photos
From left to right:
A J-45 Vintage (so with the thermally processed top)
A Hummingbird (same comment as above)
A J-200
A J-100
Some others models from the 2016 range:
The Bob Dylan J-200
The signature model is truly a magnificent instrument.
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This summer while I was covering the Montreal Jazz Festival I had the pleasure to meet again Gilad Hekselman for an in-depth interview about his latest album Homes which was just released this October.
Questions asked during the interview
How does it feel to play the Montréal Jazz festival?
Is that the occasion to play with other musicians and to jam?
Last time we met it was in Paris last year, what's new since?
How come jazz musicians are able to sound good on the first note of the first tune at the soundcheck?
How do you approach soundcheck
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Bryan Beller interview: one of the caballeros with the Aristocrats
Saturday, 17 October 2015
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It's always a pleasure to do an interview with Eric Bibb as he is very generous and thoughtful in his answers. Eric has just released and album with harp player Jean-Jacques Milteau mostly around Lead Belly songs and a couple pf compositions by the duo.
Guitar wise, in this interview Eric is playing an all mahogany Larson Bros guitar (www.larsonbros.com) built by Maurice Dupont (www.acoustic-guitars.com) in France.
Album Review
The 16 song album is excellent to revisit with a new twist all the Lead Belly repertoire.
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Two luthiers (re)introduce the fast pickup change electric guitar
Friday, 09 October 2015
Here's an interview with two luthiers Sébastien Gavet and Godefroy Maruejouls who collaborated to develop an electric guitar system with fast interchangeable pickup system. They came to show me the first prototype some time ago, this is the video where they explain everything.
The project continues to progress as they have recently introduced a new version of the guitar with an improved system to change the pickups:
What I think of the project
The guitar interchangeable pickup system that has been tried several times in the past.
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In this new Luthier Chronicle I asked Nik Huber what was his opinion about the Holy Grail Guitar Show which had its first edition in November 2014 in Berlin and which will happen again at the end of this month.
Website of the Holy Grail Guitar show: www.holygrailguitarshow.com/
The Holy Grail Guitar show is an event organized by the luthiers for the luthiers and it makes all the difference.
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Mike Keneally interview on stage during the Joe Satriani tour
Wednesday, 30 September 2015
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For the first time The Guitar Channel presents you with an interview with Mike Keneally done right on the prestigious stage of the Grand Rex in Paris before the Joe Satriani concert of the Shockwave Supernova world tour.
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On this new Luthier Chronicle, I asked Nik Huber a question to know if he is for or against the CNC machine. Of course he went much further than the basic answer (see the details below).
As a reminder or for your information, CNC means Computer Numerical Control (Wikipedia link). Basically in the guitar world it means that parts of an instrument are built by a machine who will carve the element from a piece of wood or metal.
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Renaud Louis-Servais soundcheck at the Sunset Sunside in Paris
Monday, 21 September 2015
Renaud Louis-Servais was playing with his band at the Sunset in Paris for the launch of his new album Epic Circus. The Guitar Channel was there to shoot some video during the soundcheck. The full 14min video is shock full of cool guitar playing. Log on Backstage to watch Renaud rip it on his gorgeous Tom Anderson blue Drop Top.
Renaud website: renaud.ls.free.fr
Chronicle of the concert
The concert in the evening was awesome from start to finish. Period.
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