New Deadcats!

Here’s Mummified Baby from our latest Deadcats Look Like Hell! on Flying Saucer

It may seem kind of abstract but this is an excellent example of how Tonal Gravity is universal, even babies, cats and dogs understand what we are saying from the tone of our voice. When Improvising, many Blues players use a question and answer or call and response approach. Think about how the Chords, Riffs, Scales and Chord progressions that you play, make you feel

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New Traynor 15 watt Tube amp

Wow, Black AND art deco styling! Kinda looks like the Chrysler Building in New York. It has a 15 and 2 watt mode and you can bypass the tone stack. There’s 8, 16 and 2X16 ohm spkr outputs. Seems like tiny amps are the new stacks, there are a ton to choose from, Tiny Terror, Blackhearts, Egnator ect.

You can find out more about them here http://www.traynoramps.com/products.asp?type=1&cat=60&id=424

Cdn street price is $490, the cabinet is $315.

LANEY Cub 8 and Cub 10 Tube Amps

Phil at Bonerattle Music let me try out a couple his Laney Cubs. The 10 is pretty loud, there’s a speaker out to power a cab also. I’d say it’d be loud enough for a gig or band practice(especially if you mic the little sucker). The 8 is a good sized apartment amp, if you’ve got wall-banging neighbors. The CUB 10 is a Class A/B design and produces 10 watts RMS of power from an output section loaded with a pair of 6v6GT’s, driven from a pre amp loaded with 2 ECC83’s. The pre amp compliment consists of a Tone control, a Volume control and a Gain control, along with a set of Hi & Lo input jacks. The CUB 10 houses a 10″ Celestion driver.

The CUB 8 features a classic single-ended Class A design, and is loaded with a single ECC83 in the pre amp section and a single 6V6GT in the output section generating 5 watts RMS, with an 8′ celestion speaker.

I’m looking forward to trying the 10 next to a Fender Blues JR(15watt, 12″ spkr w/ reverb) or a Pro JR (15 watts, 10″ spker). It’s about $200 less than the pro jr.

Smokin’ Cowpunk Combo From Vancouver, Canada!

Here’s one of my favorite local bands, Uncle Nestor. They started out as a Kick-ass power trio but recently added a fiddle player. Have a listen to this demo of “Fast Food Jane”     01 Fast Food Jane (You can open it, in a new tab and stay on this page)

It’s a great example of the Deadly Dropped-D sound. You can visit them on Myspace http://www.myspace.com/unclenestor1 Thanks to Oless for the mp3

The New Sparrow Blacks

These are handmade at Sparrow Guitars of Canada’s factory. The Junior and SG shape models have mahogany bodies and neck with an ebony fingerboard. The T or Esquire style is a pine body, maple neck with a birds-eye maple fingerboard. The mahogany models are Little Rat(single cutaway), Little Heartbreaker(double cutaway) and the Heartbreaker(SG). Their necks are quarter-sawn, set necks with a tenon that runs up to the bridge. The headstocks and necks will never fall off, unlike a certain overpriced anchor of Guitar that shall remain nameless. They are all handmade and have well played feel to them. The pick-ups are Handsome Jack single coils, made to vintage specs and they sound awesome. The bodies have a very thin coat of nitrocellulose that is rubbed in, they are also slightly distressed. So if you’re like me and don’t look forward to the break-in period that comes with your new Guitar smell, you’re going to like these. They debuted last week at NAMM.

I’m trying out one of the Ts and  it is a great axe. I think I’ll get back to playing instead of typing. Here’s a link to the details http://www.sparrowguitars.com/home/blacks

Edit. Here’s a quick demo I did. I didn’t want to put this Guitar down! The unfinished neck feels great and the pictures don’t don’t show it but the fingerboard is a beautiful birds-eye maple, the top fret markers(smaller ones) are leather, along with the pickguard. I like the leather pickguard but It’s gotten mixed reviews from other pickers I’ve showed it to.

The most important point is SOUND. They did a wickidly good job approximating a vintage fender Esquire pick-up. I tried it against a Wilkinson tele bridge and the difference was amazing. It has a great tone without the harsh spike of the Wilkinson( I usually cut the tone, if using just the bridge p-up). Compared to my buddies’ Esquire, with Seymour Duncan, Vintage Strat (with completely correct Vintage spec pots and orange drop caps) the Handsome Jack performed very well. The Duncan was dull sounding and had none of the definition. If Sparrow can price these new pick-ups comparably to the major brands, they are going to have a winner on their hands. I’ve always loved the look of a single pick up Guitar but wondered if it had enough range of sounds to be usable. You can get a ton of different sounds with just the volume and tone controls.

If you’re like me and doesn’t consider a guitar less than 20 years old, to be “broken in”, you will really dig the way these axes feel!

Very Good Picking Resource

http://www.tuckandpatti.com/pick-finger_tech.html This page hasn’t been updated, but this is the kind of info that doesn’t change. There are very comprehensive descriptions, unfortunately he never got around to adding pictures as examples. This is probably the best resource on picking I’ve come across. Thanks to Vaibhavsagar at Guitar Reddit

Paul Pigat and Cousin Harley at VLV 12

A Polyphonic Tuner

This tuner will tune all of the strings on your Guitar at once. From TC Electronics, this looks pretty cool!

If you are interested in how it works, this guy invented a computer software program for a Polyphonic Tuner

Z-Vex Hackable Stomp Box!

Z-Vex has introduced a Stomp box, effect pedal with a hackable design. It’s around $300 compared to a DIY pedal kit is around $80. Zachary Vex has gone Open Source and is going to release schematics to the public. The pedal comes with 3 modules , the Super Hard on, Fuzz Factory and a Marshall type tone stack.  The pedals were introduced at Namm(Nation Association of Music Merchants) If you are interested in making your own pedals, check out DIY Stompboxes or Build Your Own Clone. Z-Vex pedals are highly sought after and can run over $5-600 used. Here’s the Link to the Article in Wired