Guitar Summit 2018 - Video blogging - Day 2

This year again for this second edition, the German Guitar Summit in Mannheim was a great opportunity to produce a nice series of video interviews which are listed below. We highly recommend this event which proposes an excellent array of guitar exhibitors with a full program of concerts, masterclasses and conferences. 2018 Guitar Summit interviews

Guitar Review - Raccoon model from luthier Camille Jacob
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Guitar Review – Raccoon model from luthier Camille Jacob

It's a pleasure to discover the artisanal production of a young French luthier. The Raccoon is designed and manufactured entirely by Camille Jacob who also makes the excellent AMI Effects pedals. This instrument literally impressed me by the quality of the lutherie, this is top quality stuff. www.cjguitars.com Specifications Finish:  shiny nitro-cellulo Body: one piece

Jim Carthage interview - Guitar in Hand
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Jim Carthage interview – Guitar in Hand

Guitarist and singer Jim Carthage (www.jimcarthage.com) came to The Guitar Channel showroom to answer a Guitar in Hand interview. The opportunity of this meeting is the release of his excellent EP Ebb & Flow I highly recommend listening. Jim Carthage interview Until the next interview, keep on playing the guitar! Pierre Journel.

Pedal Review - Vanflet Distortion1: huge sounds from your pedalboard!

Vanflet is a new French manufacturer of boutique tube amp, they are now launching a range of pedals. Here is the Distortion1, a pedal that inaugurates the series with the Driver1. Vanflet Distortion1 video review Specs Settings: Volume, Gain, Tone Soft switch 9V Price: 149 € What I enjoyed the most A huge reserve of gain

The Krautster II model from Nik Huber is a clearly inspired from the Les Paul. Made in Germany in the workshop of luthier Nik Huber (often interviewed on The Guitar Channel), the guitar reviewed below was lent to me by Gilles, a member of The Guitar Channel network (1000 thanks!). Setup configuration Amp: Kelt V-Twin

Mike Keneally interview - Guitare en Scène 2018
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Mike Keneally interview – Guitare en Scène 2018

Mike Keneally has been on stage and on record  with Joe Satriani for a while. He was part of the band behind Satch for this concert given during the 2018 festival Guitare en Scène in the French Alps. It is after the soundcheck of the band that The Guitar Channel was able to record this interview

Joe Satriani is a regular at the festival Guitare en Scène because it is the 3rd time he plays it. It was for The Guitar Channel the opportunity to do a video interview just after the soundcheck of the evening concert. Note that the American guitarist played with his usual band consisting of Mike Keneally

When Pascal Vigné and Saturax play Joe Satriani

On June 23rd 2018, The Guitar Channel / La Chaîne Guitare organized in Paris a masterclass about Joe Satriani music and guitar playing with on of the great Satch specialist in France, the one and only Pascal Vigné (www.pascalv.com) who was accompanied by Saturax (www.saturax.fr) another young musician into Joe's playing. Several songs were played, here are

Amp Review - Brut(e) Deluxe Dewitte Wired - 100% tube powered

The Toulouse brand of high end boutique guitar gear Dewitte Wired has in its range a tube amp which sounds awesome: the Brut(e) Deluxe. Nicolas Dewitte, the boss of the brand, was visiting the showroom with his amp under his arm for a tour of Paris, it was an opportunity to do a quick test

Mike Stern interview - 2018 Montreal Jazz Festival

In interview Mike Stern, a sacred monster of Jazz guitar who played at the 2018 edition at the Montreal Jazz Festival in a formation he co-directed with Randy Brecker (trumpet). 20min of interview with this influential musician who radiates at 65 a phenomenal level of energy. A great meeting with a unique musician! As a bonus

Amp Review - Heptode Jim 81: awesome sounding 100W solid-state amp

Jean-Luc Chtioui is a French engineer specialized in repairing guitar amps, with or without tubes. For his own line of amps under his brand Heptode, he chose to focus on making the greatest sounding solid-state amp possible. The Jim 81 100W amp - Heptode Recording setup Guitar #1: Strat / Vintage type pickups Guitar #2:

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Shawn Cho interview - Vola Guitar CEO at the the showroom

Shawn Cho is one of the CEO of Vola Guitar. He came all the way from Korea to present the Made in Japan instruments built by Vola Guitar while he was visiting our showroom in Paris. During the last Winter NAMM I had the opportunity to take a look at the full range of guitars

Charles Janssen luthier interview - Schwung Guitars

Charles Janssen is the luthier for Schwung Guitars (www.schwung-guitars.com), he is based in The Hague, Netherlands. We first met via Facebook and then in Berlin at the Holy Grail Guitar Show where he was present as a visitor. Charles came to the showroom in Paris with nothing less than six of his instruments to present

Florian Schneider interview - Millimetric Instruments

Florian Schneider is a French luthier based in Montreal where he makes guitars and basses under the Millimetric Instruments brand. (www.millimetric.ca). He was making his first Holy Grail Guitar Show at this year's edition of the luthiers fair, which brings together the world's best luthiers selected by the association of the European Guitar Builders. Florian

Instagram gem - Horace Bray jazzy groove transcribed by Kevin Davis

Instagram is a social network full of exceptional musicians. Horace Bray (@horacebray.music) is one of those. This Instagram gem particularly attracted my ear when I watched it because Horace uses an unusual chord progression (at least for me!): Em7 / EbM7 / Dm7 / DbM7. This chromatic descent is fascinating, especially when you see what

Yuval Amihai interview - I Ain't Got Nothing But The Blues

Yuval Amihai is a young Jazz guitarist who continues to have an increasingly promising career. He came to the showroom to record a Guitar-in-Hand interview to talk about his latest album, I Ain't Got Nothing But The Blues, which is a treat. As an added bonus, the club members will be able to watch a

Luthier Juha Ruokangas presents the Emma Maria archtop model

One of the novelties of the 2018 edition of the Holy Grail Guitar Show was the presentation by the Finnish luthier Juha Ruokangas of a new guitar model, the Emma Maria archtop, named after his wife. Here is an interview to know everything about what led this luthier to develop this new instrument in a category

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Bruce Gaitsch interview – Musician and songwriter

Just look at his Wikipedia page to see how much Bruce Gaitsch career as a musician and songwriter has been and continues to be rich! It is through Michel Salandini of MIJ Slected Guitars that The Guitar Channel had the opportunity to meet this outstanding guitarist at the 2018 Musikmesse. Bruce Gaitsch interview - Musician and

2018 G3 concert report - Uli Jon Roth / John Petrucci / Joe Satriani

The 2018 G3, this three-guitar concert formula launched by Joe Satriani, was at the Seine Musical on Monday, April 16, 2018, a brand new concert hall in Paris, France. The Guitar Channel was invited by the talented and multi-instrumentalist Mike Keneally, it was a beautiful evening very intense guitar night. In addition to Satch, the two

@SpringerGuitars Spartan model demo by Simon Ghnassia

Simon Ghnassia is a musician who is often featured on The Guitar Channel, here he is at the showroom just before an online masterclass trying a guitar built by luthier Mikaël Springer, a Spartan model (the guitar whose construction is documented in video in the Project Spartan). The cameras were rolling, here's the result. www.springerguitars.com

iRig Pre HD review: how to have a good electric guitar sound in a smartphone video

To follow up on the article entitled "Stop posting guitar demos filmed with a smartphone and how to do better!" here is a comparative review to show the results obtained on a smartphone video, an iPhone 6 in this case, using the iRig Pre HD from IK Multimedia. Three sound sources are compared: the internal

David Wallimann is a long time online friend who is an important Youtube guitar teacher with more than 110k subscribers on his YouTube channel. We almost met during the last NAMM but he couldn't make it at the last minute so we decided to do this Skype interview to talk about our respective projects built

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Private Session with Romain Pilon

Romain Pilon is part of the younger generation of Jazz guitarists who push the envelope and go further than the pure orthodoxy of this style of music. His superb album titled Copper is tinged with Rock while keeping a sprit resolutely Jazz. It was a great pleasure to welcome him to the showroom for a

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Guitar amp mic shootout - Shure SM57, SM58 and Loadbox Koch LB-120 II

Preamble I am regularly dismayed by the poor quality of videos of guitarists who make a demo and are posted, for example, at the end of the guitar shows where luthiers and amp manufacturers post videos made with a smartphone with a mediocre sound which is not showcasing properly the product presented (guitar, amp or

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@SpringerGuitars Halfbreed model demo by Simon Ghnassia

Simon Ghnassia is a musician who is often featured on The Guitar Channel, here he is at the showroom just before an online masterclass trying a guitar built by luthier Mikaël Springer, the Halfbreed model (a guitar reviewed in this article). The cameras were rolling, here's the result. www.springerguitars.com Halfbreed demo Test configuration Amp: V-Twin

Master the 5 positions of the pentatonic scale in a 5 fret zone

In this lesson the exercise (or the torture, especially at the beginning) that Simon Ghnassia proposes to do has the goal to help you assimilate thoroughly the 5 positions of the pentatonic scales. The goal is to play all the pentatonic scale positions (in minor in this case) by changing position at each chord with

Pedal Review - Zorgverdrive / Zorg Effects
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Pedal Review – Zorgverdrive / Zorg Effects

Zorg Effects is a French boutique pedal builder based in Toulouse. This builder has a wide range of gain pedal with several boosters, distorsions, octavers and overdrives. The Zorgverdriver is a great overdrive pedal with a wide range of tones. Pedal Review - Zorgverdrive Zorg Effects is a pro partner on The Guitar Channel Review

Pedal Review - Brut(e) Dewitte Wired - Add huge sounds to your pedalboard

Nicolas Dewitte has been designing and producing pedals under the brand Dewitte Wired since 2004, the pedal model Brut(e) represents the synthesis of all experiments to propose a pedal with huge sounds on your pedalboard. Note that the pedal is presented as a preamp that is to say that it can of course work in

Suhr Guitars took advantage of NAMM 2018 to launch his solid-body guitar model inspired by the Les Paul, the model Aura (the name of the John Suhr's wife). The Guitar Channel went to the Suhr booth to learn all about Suhr Aura! One of the highlight of the NAMM was to do a selfie with

Here's Guitar in Hand Jennifer Batten interview recorded in Paris in October 2017 the day after she gave a clinic. Jennifer Batten is one of the rare female guitar player who achieved the guitar hero status by playing with great musicians like Michael Jackson and Jeff Beck. In this 30min interview she shares her view