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Pedal Review – Rumble Seat from Analog Alien: overdrive/delay/reverb in 1 unit!
Friday, 17 March 2017
Analog Alien (www.analogalien.com) is an American brand of boutique pedal that offers a range of products with a very original look and a beautiful palette of sounds.
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Mojo Classic Ruokangas Guitars review – A Telecaster coming from Finland
Wednesday, 15 March 2017
Juha Ruokangas is a Finnish luthier well known on The Guitar Channel since he has been the subject of several interviews and has also animated a series of luthier chronicles. Juha (pronounced Yu-A) manufactures with a small team of luthiers instruments of very high quality entirely by hand, without the help of CNC (ie without Computer Numeric Control machine).
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Riverside Strymon overdrive pedal review – Powerhouse tone machine
Wednesday, 08 March 2017
Until now Strymon proposed mainly pedals in the delay and modulation field, with the Riverside they are now getting in the overdrive business.
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"The Burst" is a guitar made by the luthier Mikaël Springer as a tribute to the mythical Les Paul Standard 1959 by Gibson.
Finally a Jazz guitar reviewed on The Guitar Channel! Yes, everything happens. Here is the D'Angelico model EX-SS in a very standard configuration: archtop type guitar with two humbuckers.
D'Angelico EX-SS video review
Audio version of the video available in the podcast:
Photo album
What I enjoyed the most
The sounds
The built quality
The confort of playing
What I enjoyed the least
Too much gold hardware!
Conclusion
For a budget of around $1,500, the EX-SS offers a very good guitar that should delight the fans of Jazz and Blues.
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One of the important announcements of NAMM 2017 was the release of a new John Mayer 100W all tube amp by PRS. As a media The Guitar Channel was invited to the press conference. Usually I am not very fan of the exercise of the press conference as it is usually limited to basically reading a press release or pretty much so.
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Alteratio Tocxic Instruments – Guitar Review of the Mad Max Explorer?
Friday, 06 January 2017
Here's an unusual instrument for a review, the Alteratio model from Tocxic Instruments. It's designed and built in France by a small team of passionate people. This might as well be the Explorer type guitar that Mad Max would use.
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Feedback from Joris, a backstager who reviewed
the Bellwether Walrus Audio delay pedal
during a Backstage Gear Tour
Hello fellow guitar players,
Thanks to a Backstage Gear Tour, I had the pleasure to test at home the Bellwether, a delay pedal from the American boutique builder Walrus Audio (reviewed by The Guitar Channel in this article). Here's a video which will hopefully inspire you to test this pedal.
Joris video review
My feedback
Overall, the sound is very warm with a slight dark side on my gear. The Tone setting is well thought out to adjust the tone of the effect.
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As promised in the article documenting the installation of the Häussel Pickups in my PRS McCarty, here's the pickup shootout between the stock PRS McCarty pickups and the set of 59 pickups from Häussel Pickups.
Pickup Shootout: PRS McCarty vs Häussel 59
I tried as much as possible to cover the same kind of guitar playing throughout the test: with the fingers only, with a pick, light and heavy riffing, etc.
Conditions of the test
Guitar: 2005 PRS McCarty
Strings: no change of strings to keep this parameter the same between both recordings
Sound: Universal Audio Apollo Twin interface
Types
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Häussel Pickups installation in a PRS McCarty
Saturday, 26 November 2016
The German pickups Häussel Pickups equip many high-end European luthiers, Nik Huber, Ruokangas and Springer to name only those three. It was necessary that The Guitar Channel studied more on those pickups.
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Walrus Audio Bellwether – An excellent delay pedal full of possibilities
Monday, 21 November 2016
Walrus Audio offers, with the Bellwether, a very complete analog sound delay pedal offering a delay with many possible settings. In addition to the conventional time, level and tone settings, you can activate and set a modulation and decide the subdivision in time, not to mention the tap tempo button (to determine the delay time) and the possibilities with external connections.
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The XTomp Hotone pedal is a brand new pedal that has recently come on the market with an innovative concept: the ability to load an effect (or a couple of effects) on the pedal to make it sound like a reverb / delay, Chorus / reverb, overdrive, etc. The proposed catalog is very extensive and contains just about all the great classics of the analog pedal you can think of.
The effects are loaded on the pedal using an iOS / Android app that communicates in Bluetooth with the pedal.
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In 2014 I had the opportunity to meet Harry Häussel (Haussel Pickups - www.haeussel.com) at the Holy Grail Guitar Show (see interview below). Harry is a renowned manufacturer of electric guitar pickups whose products are used by Ruokangas, Nik Huber and Springer.
At each major guitar event like the Musikmesse or the Holy Grail, Harry was present and we always took time to discuss.
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Report of the Springer Guitars special events organized by The Guitar Channel
Monday, 07 November 2016
Regularly The Guitar Channel organizes special events to showcase guitar builders in a rehearsal studio where it is possible to both try the instrument in a real playing environment and exchange with the luthier. Last week-end saw two events like that with Springer Guitars as the main focus points. The luthier Mikaël Springer was there in person to engage with the guitar aficionados.
Video coverage
A 2min video to get an idea of the events:
Springer Guitar Gear Evening Nov.
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MJS acoustic guitar J-78 built by luthier Godefroy Maruejouls
Sunday, 23 October 2016
Here's a first on the show with a video review of an acoustic guitar, and one built by a luthier!
Anasounds (www.anasounds.com) is a French boutique pedal builder with already a wide range of products from overdrive to delay, the company is now launching a new pedal, the Bitoun Fuzz. It was developed with the musician and journalist Julien Bitoun, a Fuzz connoisseur, who wanted something special. And something special they created with this Bitoun Fuzz.
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Simon Ghnassia is a guitar player who ordered not one, not two but three Telecaster type guitars from the same luthier Didier Duboscq (Eden Lutherie).
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The offer for the soft guitar cases did a lot of progress lately. Gone are the days of ugly cases which do not really protect our beloved instruments. We now have a wide range of cases including ones manufactured by Mono (monocreators.com) and Gator (gatorcases.com).
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Trescab, Shimverb, Ana Echo, Micro Looper Mooer pedals review
Wednesday, 07 September 2016
Here's a foursome review of Mooer pedals with the Trescab (cab simulator), Shimverb (reverb), Ana Echo (analog echo), Micro Looper (you guessed it, a looper).
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What's more enjoyable than playing guitar outside in a nice weather or just during a business trip or vacation? For acoustic guitar, nothing more simple since, as per definition, the amplification system is integrated with the instrument.
For electric guitars, it is different because our dear electrified instruments need at least an amp to operate. Here's an overview of possible solutions for playing guitar in mobility:
Mini-Amp
Headphones
Hybrid system
Update: 9/5/16
Mini-amp solution
There are many electric guitar amplifiers which combine the advantage of being very compact and battery operated.
Walrus Audio is an american builder of pedals. They propose a wide range of products. Here's a video review of the Iron Horse distorsion pedal. Get ready for some big and fat saturated tones with this gain machine!
www.walrusaudio.com
Walrus Audio Iron Horse distorsion pedal review
Review setup
Guitar used : Spartan Springer with a single P90 pickup (Haussel)
Sound : the base clean sound used throughout the review is provided by an Apollo Twin Universal Audio interface in which the guitar is plugged directly.
Doing a visit of a factory building guitars is an awesome thing to do. Back in January 2016, I had the opportunity to take a tour of the Taylor Guitars factory in California.
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Honk Machine IT-11 Audio: a vocal overdrive pedal
Thursday, 09 June 2016
The Honk Machine overdrive pedal from IT-11 Audio is a very vocal overdrive pedal with its specific Honk setting which allows to increase or decrease a 700Hz frequency bump right in the middle of the human voice.
Honk Machine IT-11 Audio: a very vocal overdrive pedal
This video is accessible to all because IT-11 Audio
owns a Pro Backstage Pass on The Guitar Channel
What I enjoyed the most on this pedal
The overall sounds
The possibilities given by the Honk setting
The look
What I enjoyed the least
The changing colours of the LED is kind of distracting
Conclusion
Frankly the market
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I met the luthier Godefroy Maruejouls from MJS Guitars during the Guitares au Beffroi festival in 2015 where he was exhibiting his instruments.
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Beatbuddy pedal demo by François C. Delacoudre
Tuesday, 24 May 2016
Here are a couple of video demos recorded to demonstrate the variety of contexts where the Beatbuddy pedal can be used.
BeatBuddy wbsite: www.mybeatbuddy.com
Beatbuddy demos by François C. Delacoudre : from contrabass to slap and 2-string bass!
On a 2-string bass :
Slap:
With a contrabass :
En jam à deux :
Conclusion
As you can see from the video demos, it's possible to use the Beatbuddy pedal in many different contexts. François C. Delacoudre who is a professional bass player in France really enjoyed playing the pedal in very different styles.
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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 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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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.
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