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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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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.
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.
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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Bob Taylor full unedited interview – President of Taylor Guitars
Monday, 21 March 2016
While The Guitar Channel was in sunny California in January for the 2016 NAMM show, I took the opportunity to do an in-depth interview with Taylor Guitars president and co-founder.
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Here's the Adam Miller interview recorded during the 2016 Winter NAMM show. In 2014 I did an audio interview with Adam while he was in Paris, you can listen to it in this article.
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Pedal Review – Drive Recovery Thrilltone overdrive Made in France
Saturday, 05 March 2016
It's not everyday that you get to review a French overdrive pedal based on a new fully analog technology. The Drive Recovery Thrilltone pedal is such a product. It's a double pedal with two stages.
Here's a Brian Wampler interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM show. It's always a pleasure to meet and interview Brian as he is very open about sharing information about his work in the pedal domain.
Wampler website: www.wamplerpedals.com
The 2016 NAMM Wampler booth
Brian Wampler interview
Add Brian Wampler (and me) on Snapchat
Brian Wampler is always ready to embrace new tools to engage with guitar aficionados. He is now on Snapchat, add him in your friend list, it's worth it.
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On this new Luthier Chronicle, I asked Nik Huber the shakespearian question: to relic, or not to relic?
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Comping Study for Jazz Blues in F by Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert
Wednesday, 24 February 2016
Comping means “to accompany”. In our case, it implies that those chords can be used when accompanying a soloist who is improvising over a Jazz Blues chord progression.
Comping Study for Jazz Blues in F
Each diagram represents a full measure, except when slashes are written above the chord—in which case those slashes represent the number of beats for that particular chord. The circled dots are optional replacement bass notes.
All of the chords have the root in the bass, except for the diminished 7th chord used as a substitution for the D7 chord.
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Here's the Paul Reed Smith interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM show. It's always with great pleasure that I meet and talk to Paul as he is one of the leader of the high-end guitar world. This encounter with the PRS Guitars founder was the 4th one.
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Here's Josh Smith interview during the 2016 Winter NAMM. I recently discovered this awesome musician by listening to the No Guitar Is Safe podcast by Jude Gold from the magazine Guitar Player.
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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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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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The fourth edition of the guitar fair during the Guitares au Beffroi 2016 festival is going to be even more international this time with luthiers from Europe and further. It will take place from 25 to 27 March 2016 in Montrouge, right next to Paris. Below are four examples of European craftsmen that you can meet at the show.
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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For the second consecutive year, The Guitar Channel will be covering the Winter NAMM, held in Los Angeles in Anaheim next to Disney.
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Pedal Shootout – Wampler Plextortion, Celmo Pimento, Tanabe Dumkudo
Sunday, 27 December 2015
Here's a pedal shootout to make a comparison between the Wampler Plextortion, the Celmo Pimento and the Tanabe.tv Dumkudo. 3 very different pedals to add overdrive or distorsion (in the case of the Plextortion) to your pedalboard. Wampler comes from the US, Celmo is built in France and Tanabe.tv is built in Japan.
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Pedal Shootout: pedalboard
The cab simulation and power amp section is done by the Torpedo CAB Two-Notes.
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A Musician and His Luthier: Ruokangas with Mika Tyyskä aka Mr Fastfinger
Wednesday, 23 December 2015
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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The Heartbreaker model by luthier Christophe Grellier (grellier.fr) is a guitar with a very clean look but full of possibilities of sounds with its clever 6-position selector. Yes, there are six possibilities of sound on this selector that looks like a simple 3-position toggle switch. The 3 bottom positions are the combinations of pickups in
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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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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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