Premium Access
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
Premium Access
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
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.
You enjoyed this video?
Get the
- Published in All, Interviews
Premium Access
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).
- Published in Improve your playing
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.
- Published in Interviews
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.
Premium Access
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.
- Published in Improve your playing
Premium Access
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
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.
- Published in Gear
Premium Access
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
The luthier Tony Girault (giraultguitars.com) based in Normandy at Evreux makes excellent electric guitars. Here is in test the Origin Tattoo which is no exception because it sounds great with its two humbuckers. Origin Tattoo by luthier Tony Girault Until the next gear review or interview, keep on playing the guitar! Pierre Journel.
- Published in Gear
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
Premium Access
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
On this new Luthier Chronicle, I asked Nik Huber the shakespearian question: to relic, or not to relic?
- Published in All, Interviews
Premium Access
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.
- Published in All, Improve your playing
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
Here's a Mike Moreno interview done during the 2016 Winter NAMM. It is thanks to my official Jazz advisor Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert that I contacted Mike.
- Published in Interviews
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
Premium Access
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
Premium Access
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
Premium Access
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.
- Published in Interviews, News
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
Premium Access
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.
You want to watch the video?
Get the Backstage Pass to watch all the exclusive videos and more!
Click here for more info on the Backstage Pass
Pedal Shootout: pedalboard
The cab simulation and power amp section is done by the Torpedo CAB Two-Notes.
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.
- Published in All, Interviews
The Heartbreaker model by luthier Christophe Grellier 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 humbucker
