STAR LETTER
DARK THOUGHTS
Dear Guitarist, many thanks for your excellent piece on the 50th anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon–where did all that time go? – it was a worthy tribute indeed. However, reading about the numerous modifications to Gilmour’s famous black Strat brought a smile to my face, and as an ex-philosophy teacher I was reminded of ‘The Ship of Theseus’ – a thought-experiment about whether an object that has had its original components replaced remains the same object. And I wonder whether Mod Man Marten has a view on the matter? Keep up the great work!
David Hughes
Thanks, David – we’ve consulted widely among the Guitarist team – including our esteemed modding colleagues Dave Burrluck and Neville Marten – and we confess we’ve failed to identify a watertight definition of when a guitar has changed into another. But it feels safe to say if the body and the neck have been changed, a bit like an axe that has had a new haft and head, it is a different guitar. But maybe, more philosophically, it’s really all in the fingers and thus, like BB King’s Lucille, any guitar becomes ‘the one’ when you pick it up. What do readers think?
STATE OF INDEPENDENCE
Dear Guitarist, with reference to issue 497 and your feature on local luthiers I thought I would share my own experiences with you.
After getting my first guitar in 1968 at the age of 10 I have played on and off all my life. From being in a pop band of four teenagers to leaving it alone and coming back to it multiple times, I have always loved guitars and music – hence a 20-year stint as a local DJ. During lockdown I came back to playing and, from having one Crafter acoustic, I now own five quality guitars. My first purchase in lockdown was buying my childhood-dream guitar: a Gibson Les Paul Standard. I once owned a CSL copy but could never afford the real thing. My recent journey has also seen me acquire a Taylor 214, plus a Taylor 254 12-string, a BMG Red Special and a PJD Carey Elite to go with my Les Paul.
I recently attended the guitar show in Birmingham and came across one stall with only four guitars, three acoustics and an electric. I picked up the electric and was blown away with the quality and feel. After chatting to the luthier who made them, he informed me the electric was made from woods that were at least 70 years old and reclaimed from various places.
I immediately decided to sell my dream Les Paul and bought the electric from the luthier. His name is AJ Lucas (www.lucasguitars.co.uk) and he’s based in Lincoln. It might be interesting to do a feature on him? He only makes around 10 guitars a year and also teaches guitar making.
Stephen Pheasant
We’ll certainly check our AJ’s work after your glowing recommendation – would readers like a regular feature about independent luthiers from around the UK and the world? It would certainly be interesting to see the true variety of excellent instruments that are out there being made by nonmainstream makers.
LEFT IS RIGHT
I’ve just read the letter in Feedback issue 497 about left-handed players. I’m left-handed but play righthanded guitar. The reason for this is I got my first instrument way back in the early 60s when luxuries like guitars were priced in guineas (one pound and one shilling or 105 pence). In those days a left-handed instrument was 10 per cent extra and usually special order. But when you’re a kid aspiring to rock-god status, the guitar has to be obtained now and as cheaply as possible. If you’re learning to play from scratch it’s the same process either way.
Dario Passaro
Thanks for the viewpoint, Dario – it certainly resonates with our editor who writes left-handed but learned right-handed, as it seemed easier to emulate all the many great righthanded players that way! He’s always wondered how that might have affected his playing, if at all? Any neurologists or handedness experts care to weigh in?
UNINTENDED EFFECTS
Hello to Guitarist from Sydney, Australia. I just thought I’d mention a pet hate of mine… When listening to an online review of a new guitar, it is always played with a number of effects and rarely without the dry signal. Any guitar can sound outstanding with an effect, and it doesn’t give a true indication of the sound – I just watched a review of John Mayer’s PRS Silver Sky on YouTube. Also, how many readers have noticed the ‘F’ in Fender is back to front? I love it – it works!
Rob Kenney
Hello from the other side of the world, Rob – we appreciate you writing in. Judging from comments on Guitarist’s
YouTube channel, the issue of effects really gets some viewers up in arms. You don’t mention if you were watching one of our reviews of the Silver Sky, but we can explain our current thinking on the matter.
Most people use at least a tiny amount of reverb, so the signal isn’t bone dry – so for most demo-playing we put on an amount of ’verb that you’d struggle to detect but that stops the sound being almost uncharacteristically dry. We’re aiming for real-world relevance with that. But we do often include sections of completely dry playing just as a reference. That seems to cover all bases.
Likewise, we’ll often show what a guitar sounds like with either amp-derived overdrive or using a fairly typical OD pedal, simply because so many people use them and we think it’s handy for people to hear how a guitar takes drive. We try to avoid using heavy washes of Reverb unless the gear in question is a reverb pedal capable of such sounds. And,
outside of a bit of tremolo, we’re very sparing with modulation effects in demos as, in either of those cases, they tend to mask or transform the sound of the guitar beyond the point where it is useful to hear in a demo. If readers (and viewers) of our demos want to see anything else, write in and we’ll adopt the best suggestions.
FAIR HEARING
I have just re-read with interest Rob Hinchliffe’s star letter in issue 492 of your wonderful magazine. Last Saturday, I was appearing at the first Chelmsford Takeover event and, as is often my way, I ventured out into the street with just an acoustic guitar and started performing.
Having recently acquired hearing aids, I was quite thrown when my six-string Martin DXJC guitar sounded more like a slightly out-of-tune 12-string played in a tiled restroom… I promptly removed the hearing aids and my standard moderate-deafness was restored. I have no criticism of the hearing aids, as I am informed my ears will adjust, but I’m curious to know whether your other readers have had similar experiences? Furthermore, is the subject of hearing loss and the technology available to reduce its impact, something you would consider covering in a future article?
Very best wishes and grateful thanks for the years of music and reading pleasure your magazine has given. Ralph G Morse
Many thanks for the kind words, Ralph. We did do a feature on tinnitus – a fascinating if troubling subject – a year or so ago. Would any other readers like to hear more about hearing loss as it relates to guitar? We would be very happy to delve into this complex but relevant subject again. In the meantime, can any experts explain Ralph’s experience with his hearing aid? It sounds almost like some kind of phasing issue but it would be good to hear a proper explanation.
KNOCKING WOOD
I read with some interest the opinion of Paul Reed Smith in issue 496, where he gives the kiss-off to someone holding views other than his own, describing them as ‘bullshit’. When he maintains only expensive tonewoods will do for a quality instrument, one wonders what his opinion would be of the guitar featured on page 24 of the same issue [a Gibson Custom Lucille]. This is made largely of laminated ply, with a block of maple in the middle, and is evidently capable of luscious guitar sounds, especially so in the hands of someone like the late BB King (notwithstanding a price that is the thick end of £9k). And the question of a sustain of 45 seconds? Even Gary Moore in ParisienneWalkways only kept it up for 30 seconds, who really needs more?
Obviously, the guitars made by PRS are well-made, high-quality instruments, but even I would like to try one out for longer than 10 seconds before making a judgement call on whether to purchase or not. And as for a hypothetical balsa-wood guitar for EC, I seem to remember Jimmy Page making a half-decent sound with a Danelectro, which would have, by the same logic, also been beneath comment.
Electric guitars as we know them have been around for 70-plus years, some were truly abysmal, some sublime, the vast majority somewhere in-between, but to demean those, or fail to consider others whose opinions deviate from your own really doesn’t help. Caveat: if discussing acoustic instruments, then the tonewood debate is far more meaningful and relevant. David Pullen
Thanks for your viewpoint – it’s true that Paul Reed Smith does have some interesting and robust views about how a guitar should be built and perform (it would be odd if he
didn’t). And playing the best that his Maryland factory can produce confirms he’s a masterly designer of long-sustaining, richly expressive guitars. But we also kind of concur there is more in heaven and earth than that philosophy – Barrie Cadogan, for example, who played the theme tune to the TV show BetterCallSaul, and always sounds superb in his band Little Barrie, told us he favours ES-330s partly because of their shorter sustain. It’s another characterful colour on the palette, provided you want to work with its idiosyncrasies rather than view them as constraints. Meanwhile, Adrian Utley of trip-hop band Portishead has deliberately turned to dilapidated junk-shop guitars to get sonic textures he won’t find anywhere else.
Ultimately, music is art – and if something works in your conception of an artwork, it’s valid.
BOOM, BOOM!
The final sentence of your article on Martin Taylor [issue 496] – that he wasn’t “much of an expert on guitar amps” – brought back memories of an evening 30 or so years ago.
I was at one of his more intimate concerts in a local historic house (the audience was only in double figures) and, coming on for his second set, he was having difficulty getting sound out of his amp. So on came the roadie (who had also been selling Martin’s CDs during the interval) to sort things out while Martin chatted with the audience. “He isn’t just a roadie,” explained Martin, “he’s actually my son…”
“Is he also a musician?” asked someone in the audience. “Nah,” came the reply, “he’s a drummer.” Ray Tomlinson
We’re saying nothing, Ray! But we’ve been reliably informed that one way you can tell if a drummer is at the door is that the knocking gets faster…