2018 G3 concert report - Uli Jon Roth / John Petrucci / Joe Satriani

The 2018 G3, this three-guitar concert formula launched by Joe Satriani, was at the Seine Musical on Monday, April 16, 2018, a brand new concert hall in Paris, France. The Guitar Channel was invited by the talented and multi-instrumentalist Mike Keneally, it was a beautiful evening very intense guitar night. In addition to Satch, the two

2018 Musikmesse debrief: less show, more business

Still on the ICE train that brings me back from Frankfurt to Paris, I'm starting this article to debrief this 2018 edition of the Musikmesse. For those who do not know yet, the Musikmesse is a huge show gathering professionals of musical instruments and sound industry. This is not quite an event as major as

@SpringerGuitars Spartan model demo by Simon Ghnassia

Simon Ghnassia is a musician who is often featured on The Guitar Channel, here he is at the showroom just before an online masterclass trying a guitar built by luthier Mikaël Springer, a Spartan model (the guitar whose construction is documented in video in the Project Spartan). The cameras were rolling, here's the result. www.springerguitars.com

iRig Pre HD review: how to have a good electric guitar sound in a smartphone video

To follow up on the article entitled "Stop posting guitar demos filmed with a smartphone and how to do better!" here is a comparative review to show the results obtained on a smartphone video, an iPhone 6 in this case, using the iRig Pre HD from IK Multimedia. Three sound sources are compared: the internal

David Wallimann is a long time online friend who is an important Youtube guitar teacher with more than 110k subscribers on his YouTube channel. We almost met during the last NAMM but he couldn't make it at the last minute so we decided to do this Skype interview to talk about our respective projects built

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Private Session with Romain Pilon

Romain Pilon is part of the younger generation of Jazz guitarists who push the envelope and go further than the pure orthodoxy of this style of music. His superb album titled Copper is tinged with Rock while keeping a sprit resolutely Jazz. It was a great pleasure to welcome him to the showroom for a

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Guitar amp mic shootout - Shure SM57, SM58 and Loadbox Koch LB-120 II

Preamble I am regularly dismayed by the poor quality of videos of guitarists who make a demo and are posted, for example, at the end of the guitar shows where luthiers and amp manufacturers post videos made with a smartphone with a mediocre sound which is not showcasing properly the product presented (guitar, amp or

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Antoine Boyer is a young and very talented guitar player. He is equally at ease playing Jazz, Classical or Gipsy / Manouche music. "Cameleon Waltz" is his solo album which will be released on March 30th 2018. Antoine came at The Guitar Channel showroom to record an interview in French and two solo pieces. Antoine

@SpringerGuitars Halfbreed model demo by Simon Ghnassia

Simon Ghnassia is a musician who is often featured on The Guitar Channel, here he is at the showroom just before an online masterclass trying a guitar built by luthier Mikaël Springer, the Halfbreed model (a guitar reviewed in this article). The cameras were rolling, here's the result. www.springerguitars.com Halfbreed demo Test configuration Amp: V-Twin

Guitar Show : 2018 Guitares au Beffroi (Montrouge), the best edition ever

From March 23rd to the 25th 2018, in Montrouge (right next to Paris), took place the sixth edition of the Guitares au Beffroi festival with a beautiful concert program and a splendid guitar show with 75 exhibitors (luthiers, artisans, brands, etc.). www.guitaresaubeffroi.com Photo Album There were many visitors in the guitar show throughout the week-end:

Master the 5 positions of the pentatonic scale in a 5 fret zone

In this lesson the exercise (or the torture, especially at the beginning) that Simon Ghnassia proposes to do has the goal to help you assimilate thoroughly the 5 positions of the pentatonic scales. The goal is to play all the pentatonic scale positions (in minor in this case) by changing position at each chord with

Guitar Review - Taylor K14ce Builder's Edition - New V-class bracing

In the very high end category, The Guitar Channel is pleased to present you this guitar review of the new version of Taylor K14ce Builder's Edition guitar equipped with the new V-class bracing presented at NAMM 2018 (see this interview with Andy Powers, the master builder at Taylor to know everything). In order to highlight

Pedal Review - Zorgverdrive / Zorg Effects
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Pedal Review – Zorgverdrive / Zorg Effects

Zorg Effects is a French boutique pedal builder based in Toulouse. This builder has a wide range of gain pedal with several boosters, distorsions, octavers and overdrives. The Zorgverdriver is a great overdrive pedal with a wide range of tones. Pedal Review - Zorgverdrive Zorg Effects is a pro partner on The Guitar Channel Review

Antoine Dufour

When you have the opportunity to have such a gifted musician as Antoine Dufour in your showroom, it's a pleasure to record him playing one of his composition. Here's the song called Air Ground performed on a Franck Cheval luthier (chevalguitars.com) guitar which was loaned to me by a club member. This model is slightly smaller

Guitar Review - GS Mini Bass @Taylor Guitars: small format, huge sound!

Taylor Guitars offers with the GS Mini Bass an atypical instrument since it is an acoustic bass guitar with a reduced tuning fork. In order to be able to make this bass sound correctly, Taylor Guitars has had specific strings developed by D'Addario. It is clear that the result is bluffing. GS Mini Bass video

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Gitarre & Bass / The Guitar Channel collaboration: an example to develop

One a beautiful morning in March 2018, while having breakfast and scanning Facebook on my phone I stumbled upon a photo with Dieter Roesberg, editor in chief of Gitarre & Bass, extracted from an interview made at the show of Guitar Summit 2017 in Mannheim, Germany. I must say that it's nice to work with

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Pedal Review - Brut(e) Dewitte Wired - Add huge sounds to your pedalboard

Nicolas Dewitte has been designing and producing pedals under the brand Dewitte Wired since 2004, the pedal model Brut(e) represents the synthesis of all experiments to propose a pedal with huge sounds on your pedalboard. Note that the pedal is presented as a preamp that is to say that it can of course work in

Guitar Review - Origin P90 hum-cancelling - Tony Girault luthier

The luthier Tony Girault continues to develop his range of guitar around his form Origin with a new classy model. See for yourself: we have a beautiful flamed maple top, a beautiful walnut body and a roasted maple neck. Plus this instrument features the all-new P90 hum-canceling pickups from Tony's design. www.giraultguitars.com Guitar Review -

Napoli brothers interview - @AnalogAlien - NAMM 2018

Jack and Joe Napoli are the two brothers behind the American boutique pedal builder Analog Alien. They were exhibiting as usual at the Winter NAMM, a perfect opportunity to catch up with them and get a few stories from them, straight from the show floor. www.analogalien.com Napoli brothers interview - Analog Alien Analog Alien is

Andy Powers, master builder @TaylorGuitars: V-Class bracing
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Andy Powers interview – Taylor V-Class bracing

One of the great novelties of the NAMM 2018 was the great announcement of Taylor Guitars, the new V-Class bracing system developed by Andy Powers, the master builder of the Californian manufacturer. The Guitar Channel went to meet the luthier to know everything! Andy Powers interview Podcast Audio version of the interview available in the

Luthiers Beyond Limits: Alquier, Beauregard, Klein, Matsuda, Pagelli, Tao - NAMM 2018

In the wake of last year's Boutique Guitar Showcase, six luthiers have come together to present their instruments under the Luthiers Beyond Limits banner at NAMM 2018: Jean-Yves Alquier (see this article for the full report) Mario Beauregard Steve Klein Michihiro Matsuda Claudia and Claudio Pagelli Serge and John from Tao Guitars Since the NAMM

Bruno Pelletier-Bacquaert is the official Jazz consultant for The Guitar Channel. It was via his intermediary that I was able to conduct interviews with jazz greats such as Gilad Hekselman, Jonathan Kreisberg, Nir Felder and Mike Moreno. Bruno was in Paris for a few days before returning to San Francisco where he usually resides for

Alquier Guitars project - Launching at the NAMM 2018

The NAMM 2018 was the occasion of the launch of the largest guitar project in France for years, the Alquier Guitars project led by three partners Jean-Yves Alquier (luthier), Jean-François Azam and Nicolas Mercadal. Indeed, it was the official presentation of the prototype guitars that will be manufactured in the factory, an ultra-modern facility equipped

NAMM 2018 - Relive the show as if you were onsite
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NAMM 2018 – Relive the show as if you were onsite

There is nothing better to really understand the NAMM than to live it from the inside, that's what The Guitar Channel offers you this year through these videos recorded with the ultra wide angle Snapchat Spectacles. Day 1 - Thursday 24/01/18 There, the NAMM has just opened its doors, it is still relatively calm: Day

The idea of ​​the P90 Shootout is simple: compare 3 P90 pickups on the same guitar. So the luthier Tony Girault came to the showroom with one of his Louisiane model guitar to make the P90 pickup swaps and yours truly served as a test pilot to make videos in the 3 configurations. The 3

Sam Tharp interview - Fretish.com

Sam Tharp is an entrepreneur who is behind the Fretish service (fretish.com) which aims to be a kind of AirBnB for instruments. Admit that the idea is awesome! You go on vacation or business trip and bingo in a few clicks you can potentially rent a guitar for your stay. Well, that's in theory because the

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The Guitar Channel download podcast 2017 statistics

For your information you will see in the graph below (taken from the website of Libsyn, the service I use to host my podcast) that the trend is overall positive for the number of downloads of podcasts for the year 2017. In total, this represents a +54% increase in downloads between in 2017. In the second half

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2019 Winter NAMM: 5th California trip for The Guitar Channel
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2018 Winter NAMM: an exciting and promising edition

For the fourth time, The Guitar Channel will be present at the Winter NAMM which is held every year in Los Angeles in Anaheim. The archives of the two preceding years are in this list. This edition promises to be particularly exciting because of the state of the market: the big brands are in danger, Gibson

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As an introduction, I suggest (if you understand French that is!) you go and read a long but very interesting article by Patrick Beja, the only professional French podcaster who shares his career on Medium. I know Patrick Beja for a while, we often had exchanges. What he has done with his podcast, Rendez-Vous Tech,

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Down to the Waterline - Dire Straits - Chord chart for the solo

Huge Dire Straits fan and admirer of his guitarist singer Mark Knopfler, the first albums of the band particularly marked me, especially the first and Communiqué, the second. Sultans of Swing is probably one of the songs I've worked on most (and it's still the case today!) But also Down to the Waterline whose solo