We are continuing our study of “Blues For Alice” with 2 simple comping studies.
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Here's Teddy Kumpel interview. He was in Paris touring with Joe Jackson so we took the opportunity to record this video the morning after the concert. I met Teddy at the 2016 NAMM show through Julie Cord from Blue Mouth Promotions (thanks Julie!).
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Discover Crossfire, a duo composed of Allison Mareek (guitar/vocals) and Etienne Prieuret (guitar/vocals) who proposes a powerfull and bewitching Folk/Rock kind of music. Their self-titled debut EP is great. We did an interview in French with Allison and Etienne on La Chaîne Guitare and took also the time to record the sessions you see below.
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“Blues For Alice” is a great Charlie Parker tune. It is a 12-bar Blues, but it moves through a lot of ii-V sequences. That modified version of the Blues is usually referred to as “Bird Blues” changes.
Blues for Alice (Part 1/6)
The lead sheet shows the fingerings I use. Keep in mind that those are only suggestions.
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Taylor Guitars has recently done a full rework on their 12-string Taylor guitars range. We took this opportunity to do a Skype interview to talk about it with Andy Powers, the master builder at Taylor Guitars in San Diego.
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Here's Sungha Jung interview done during the latest Musikmesse in Frankfurt. Sungha was there on the Lakewood booth to promote his signature model and play a couple of shows in Germany.
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Chronicle #15 Spartan Project with Springer Guitars – Guitar setup
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
Here's the 15th episode of the Spartan Project video series. You will see how the luthier Mikaël Springer is doing the final guitar setup.
#15 Spartan project - Guitar setup
Photos extracted from the guitar setup video
Final drilling for the stop bar installation:
Installation of the Häussel P90 pickup:
Shielding of the electronic cavity:
Previous episodes of the Spartan Project
The goal of the Spartan Project is to document the building of a guitar for me by luthier Mikaël Springer.
During the NAMM I was intrigued by theDV Mark Micro 50 amp. It's super small and quite powerful with 50W. DV Mark is a brand more established in the bass amp market but big players like Greg Howe or Frank Gambale are using their guitar amps so it says something about what they propose.
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Universal Audio is highly respected for its great plugins which run in their interface. So far, the guitar amps plugins available were geared toward the big distorted sounds with the Friedman or Marshall plugins. It was possible to get some cool clean tones from the existing plugins but not as good as a real Fender amp. Until now. Universal Audio has just released a plugin for the Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe amp. Here's below the Tweed Deluxe plugin review in video.
Universal Audio website: www.uaudio.com
The cool looking user interface for the plugin.
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Here's Toni Götz interview done during the Guitares au Beffroi festival in 2016, a perfect opportunity to hear the whole Maybach Guitars story. This brand is proposing a full range of high quality Vintage inspired instruments with an excellent price/quality ratio.
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Here's the 14th episode of the Spartan Project video series. You will see how the luthier Mikaël Springer is doing his fretting on the guitar. It is a very crucial step of the process as the way the frets are dressed is paramount to the quality of the sound and of the comfort of the instrument.
#14 Spartan Project: Fretting
Close up photo of the fretting once finished on the guitar:
Previous episodes of the Spartan Project
The goal of the Spartan Project is to document the building of a guitar for me by luthier Mikaël Springer.
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The journey of luthier Adriano Sergio (Ergon Guitars) to the Holy Grail Guitar Show
Wednesday, 27 April 2016
In 2015 I had the pleasure of doing a video interview luthier Adriano Sergio (Ergon Guitars) at the Holy Grail Guitar Show. The story of his journey from Portugal to Germany has been documented in a beautiful video you can see below.
The journey of luthier Adriano Sergio to the Holy Grail Guitar Show
Sit down comfortably and get ready to enjoy this great documentary where you will learn a lot about the life of a luthier. In addition to Adriano Sergio, you will also see other guitar builders such as Juha Ruokangas, Michael Spalt or Andy Mason.
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Hubert Hochleitner interview (Hoovi Deeflexx) at the 2016 Musikmesse
Monday, 25 April 2016
Here's a Hubert Hochleitner interview, inventor of the Deeflexx, done during the 2016 Musikmesse.
- Published in Gear, Interviews, News
The day I did the in-depth interview with Bob Taylor, I did a full Taylor Guitars factory tour of their El Cajon facility near San Diego, California.
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Maybach is a guitar brand launched a few years ago with a line of instruments manufactured in Prague, Czech Republic with German pickups.
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All 7 Diatonic Arpeggios in Major Key by Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert
Monday, 18 April 2016
This exercise will have us play through all of the arpeggios of a same tonality.
- Published in All, Improve your playing
Here's the mobile guitar rig I use when I want to play in the park right next to our house.
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In-depth Phil X interview, Bon Jovi’s guitar player at the 2016 Musikmesse
Friday, 15 April 2016
Here's an in-depth PhilX interview done at the 2016 Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany right after Phil got out of stage for an unplugged set.
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Here's an interview with Pepijn 't Hart, european responsible for Eastman Guitars which was an exhibitor at the Guitares au Beffroi festival in Montrouge near Paris.
Interview with Pepijn 't Hart about Eastman Guitars
Photos of the Eastman Guitars booth
Here are a couple of pictures taken on the Eastman booth during the guitar fair :
The range of instruments proposed by Eastman is very wide, from acoustic to mandoline including hollow-bodies and archtop guitars:
The wonderful back of the mandolin presented in the interview:
Until the next interview, keep on playing the guitar!
Pierre.
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Playing in and out of position (part 2/2) by Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert
Tuesday, 12 April 2016
Here's the second part on the Playing In and Out of Position theme (part 1 is here).
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2016 Musikmesse: a turning point edition
Sunday, 10 April 2016
Despite a significant drop in numbers of guitar exhibitors with yet new big guys absent such as Gibson, Martin, Laney and others, the 2016 Musikmesse was the occasion of many beautiful encounters.
Some pretty cool interviews with stars like Phil X (which replaced Richie Sambora on tour with Jon Bon Jovi), Sungha Jung (young Korean star of picking who has more than one billion views on YouTube) and other equally talented musicians (see list below).
The business development meetings for The Channel Guitar were particularly numerous and fruitful.
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Marco Viola (MOV Guitars) is a luthier based in Italy. He was one of the exhibitors of the guitar show during the 2016 edition of the Guitares au Beffroi festival.
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Reviewing pickups is by definition difficult since they are necessarily installed in a guitar which itself has an enormous impact on the sound. However if we consider that the pickups are on electric guitar what an engine is to a car, we can agree that it is a very important factor. To review this "engine" built by Seymour Duncan, we used a "frame" from the Paul Reed Smith race squadron with a Custom 24 model.
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Playing in and out of position (part 1/2) by Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert
Monday, 04 April 2016
Here's the first video of a two part series on the Playing In and Out of Position theme. When we first learn our Major scales, we are generally told to practice them in position. We visualize certain shapes all over the fingerboard and that helps us play more efficiently, more smoothly.
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Yes you can get Slash Guns N'Roses Paradise City sound (or at least get close to it) with the Apollo Twin Universal Audio interface with a couple of plugins and the Burst guitar from luthier Mikaël Springer.
Paradise City sound with the Universal Audio interface and a Springer guitar
It's always a challenge to try to get close to a legendary tone from a hit like Paradise City.
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We all know that some drummers have a problem with alcohol. Some drink way too much and become unreliable time keepers. This can be a real disaster when you are trying to make it big or just trying to survive playing your music.
The Guitares au Beffroi 2016 festival just ended in Montrouge, just outside of Paris. It is time to make a summary of it. The Guitar Channel was an exhibitor at the guitar fair so this will be the main focus of the post.
Kudos to Armel Amiot, the guitar fair organizer (watch his interview here), who was able to organize an event in a difficult context.
Guitares au Beffroi website: www.guitaresaubeffroi.com
Snapchat stories of Guitares au Beffroi 2016
During the show I took a lot of short video clips with Snapchat. Those were compiled in Snapchat Story every day.
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Luthier Linda Manzer interview at the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show
Wednesday, 30 March 2016
Discover in this Linda Manzer interview at the 2015 Holy Grail Guitar Show one of the rare women who is very well known in the luthier world. Linda worked for musicians like Pat Metheny or Carlos Santana just to name those two.
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Here's a video review of the Friedman BE100 plugin available in the Universal Audio Apollo interface. Friedman is well know for the quality of their high gain tube amp. That's why I was very curious to test drive the plugin based on the BE100 model.
Here's a screenshot of the plugin in what I call the simple mode where you see only the amp settings:
Here's a screenshot of the plugin in what I call the rack mode where you see in the top half all the settings to fine-tune the sounds : noise gate, cab and mikes, delay, etc.
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Test drive of the Deeflexx during a concert and rehearsal
Thursday, 24 March 2016
Through the partnership with Deeflexx which is a Pro Backstage Pass owner, The Guitar Channel is able to have Backstage Pass owners to test drive the products using their own gear and in a real situation rather than simply in a guitar store. Here's the full testimony from José.
Deeflexx website: www.hoovi.at
Here's a picture of José playing his Telecaster and experimenting for the first time the Deeflexx during the Gear Afternoon #1.
Deeflexx test drive by José
As a Backstage Pass owner on The Guitar Channel I was able to test a Deeflexx product live in a bar.
