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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Here's an interview with Jason Kostal an American luthier who has been building top quality acoustic guitars for several years.
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Tomo Fujita is an active musician on Instagram. I highly recommend to follow him on his account @tomojustfunky because he often posts very cool clips with a high pedagogical value. Here's an example below where he talks about the Mixolydian mode with an example easy to implement.
It's a 2 chord vamp: F/G (F chord with G on bass) and Ab/Bb (Ab chord with a Bb on bass)
To play Mixolydian on the first chord, you play the C major scale. On the second, you play Eb major scale.
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CAD and CNC as the Camera Obscura – By luthier Ulrich Teuffel
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
During the 2016 EGB (European Guitar Builders association) symposium, the luthier Ulrich Teuffel gave a conference about CAD and CNC as used in the guitar building domain. His conference was titled: CAD and CNC as the Camera Obscura.
The symposium took place during the two days prior to the 2016 edition of the Holy Grail Guitar Show.
Ulrich Teuffel website: www.teuffel.com
Introduction of the conference
For the industries CNC is just a production system.
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Day 2 of the Holy Grail Guitar Show 2016 was busy with a nice series of interviews that you can watch below. The first series of videos is online in this article. Day 2 interviews Thierry André, luthier from Québec, Canada (André Instruments) Isaac Jang, american luthier (Isaac Jang Guitars) Jamie Gale, luthier agent and consultant (Jamie Gale Music)
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Nir Felder is a jazz guitarist that I met thanks to the official adviser on the subject for The Guitar Channel, namely Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert (a big thank you Bruno!).
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You want to know the point of view of the luthiers about the Holy Grail Guitar Show? Here's a compilation of the reactions from the builders during the 2016 edition with input from Jason Kostal, Nik Huber, Jamie Gale, Peter Malinoski, Sam Evans, Christina Kobler, Isaac Jang and Chris Larkin.
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Jens Larsen is a Jazz musician discovered through his great YouTube channel which is full of lessons about this style of music and many guitar techniques.
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As for the previous two editions of the Holy Grail Guitar Show, the level of lutherie was extremely high so doing a selection among the 135 luthiers exhibiting was quite a challenge.
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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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As Romain Morlot the author of the Guitar Cook Book says himself, you have to see this book as a humongous cheatsheet with all the scales and chords you can imagine. Romain spent a lot of time to come up with interesting ways to showcase the music theory we can be so scared of! You know what we mean.
Video introduction about the book by the author
Here's the 4min video recorded by Romain to know all about the project.Support the project on Kickstarter
In order to finance the printing and publication of the second version of the book, Romain has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. You can support this cool project by clicking on the link below:The french Guitar Cook Book : a modern guitar cheatsheet
Until the next article, keep on playing the guitar! Pierre.
Get ready for the Guitar Cook Book version 2!
Thursday, 15 September 2016
Here's Tobias Lund interview, luthier for TLL Guitars during the Holy Grail Guitar Show in 2015 where he was one of the exhibitor. Tobias website: www.tllguitars.com Tobias Lund interview (TLL guitars) during the Holy Grail Guitar Show Until the next interview from the Holy Grail Guitar Show or elsewhere, keep on playing the guitar! Pierre Journel. [cta_video]
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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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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.
Gilad Hekselman is a Jazz guitar player discovered by The Guitar Channel thanks to Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert who is our official Jazz advisor.
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Name : European Guitar Builders association
Type : associations of luthiers from Europe
Web : www.europeanguitarbuilders.com
The European Guitar Builders (EBG) association gathers luthier from Europe to promote the artisanal building of stringed instruments like guitars and basses.
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Last year while The Guitar Channel was in Canada to cover the Montreal Jazz festival, we did a video interview with the master luthier Michael Greenfield in his wonderful workshop. This year, the idea was to record a series of Luthier Chronicle with Michael to give a full visit of his luthier workshop and to have a better idea of the way he build his wonderful acoustic guitars.
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Last year while The Guitar Channel was in Canada to cover the Montreal Jazz festival, we did a video interview with the master luthier Michael Greenfield in his wonderful workshop.
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Here's a Japanese luthier Kaz Goto interview from Jersey Girl Homemade Guitars done during the Holy Grail Guitar Show in 2015.
Jersey Girl Homemade Guitars website: www.jerseygirlhg.com
Kaz Goto interview - Jersey Girl Homemade Guitars at the @HolyGrailGuitar show
Until the next interview from the Holy Grail Guitar Show or elsewhere, keep on playing the guitar!
Pierre.
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Joe Jackson and his band were part of the official indoor schedule of the 2016 edition of the Montreal Jazz Festival.
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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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Last year while The Guitar Channel was in Canada to cover the Montreal Jazz festival, we did a video interview with the master luthier Michael Greenfield in his wonderful workshop.
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Here's Matt Schofield interview done during the 2016 Montreal Jazzfest. Matt had just arrived from Miami where he now lives. We talked for more than 30min about his life on the road, his views on the music business, his SVL Guitars and many more subjects.
Matt's website: www.mattschofield.com
Matt Schofield interview at the Montreal Jazzfest
Matt Schofield in The Guitar Channel archives
In 2013, The Guitar Channel interviewed Matt for the first time when he was promoting his Far As I Can See album.
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Charlie Hunter interview, a 7-string guitar player at the Montreal Jazz Festival
Thursday, 07 July 2016
Discovered in the excellent podcast No Guitar Is Safe produced by Jude Gold, The Guitar Channel is very happy to present you with an interview with Charlie Hunter, a 7-string guitar player. This Guitar in Hand interview took place during the 2016 Montreal Jazz Festival before his concert. Charlie plays an electric guitar built by luthier John Traugott with 3 strings from a bass guitar and 4 string from a regular guitar.
This instrument allows Charlie to sounds like two musicians playing when there's only him.
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In January 2016, while The Guitar Channel was in California to cover the NAMM, the opportunity presented itself to not only do a factory visit at the Taylor Guitars El Cajon facility, but also do an in-depth interview with the founder Bob Taylor and record three video chronicles with the in-house master builder Andy Powers
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Here's Ana Popovic interview done in Paris to talk about her triple album called Trilogy. You have to admit that it takes a lot of courage to release a triple album nowadays. Ana proposes three different moods in those three CDs: Blues, Funk and Jazz. It's the second time I meet Ana, last time was in 2013 in audio, this time we did it in video.
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