In today’s blog post I want to feature a lick again, one I think that stroke me because of the interesting and logical idea behind it. This idea is: what will it sound like if you steadily repeat the same five sixteenth notes? In detail: On a recording of Telegraph Road from Nimes, France, September 29, 1992 (this is NOT the gig in Nimes that was filmed for the On […]
A guitar pickup does not contain any moving parts, and for this reason it is generally free of mechanical wear and might work for many decades (maybe even for centuries?). Nevertheless, certain pickup models seem to be prone to die earlier than others. One example are Fender pickups from the 50ies or early 60ies. For this reason you will often see vintage Stratocasters with rewound pickups. The same is true […]
After the brass pickguards, the white ones are also available now. Just like on Mark Knopfler’s red Schecter Strat, they are made of white enamel aluminium, they feature three mini toggle switches, one volume poti and one tone poti with chrome or gold knobs (e.g. Mark Knopfler’s blue Schecter – played on stage by Hal Lindes – had gold knobs). Just two potis are great: you can finally rest your […]
Here you will find an alternate take of the Sultans of Swing first solo from the recording session for the first album at Basing Street Studios in February 1978. Unfortunately the quality is more than poor, you might guess where it is coming from… It is not so much different, but it is for sure not the take that was released. This can maybe heard best between 0:15 and 0:22 […]
The Schecter-F400 loaded pickguards normally came with Schecter’s F500T pick-ups. The ‘T’ stands for tapped. So, what is meant with this, what is a tapped pick-up? A normal Strat pick-up consists of six individual magnet pole pieces wrapped by a coil of thin wire. The original Fender design had about 8,000 turns (varying to some extent, the vintage ’54 pick-up was specified to 8,350, while a 1978 Strat pick-up had […]
I recently watched a few Youtube videos by Tomas Dolby about recording for his new album. One track – 17 Hills – features Mark Knopfler on lead guitar. There is one video in which Thomas tells about recording the guitar at Mark’s British Grove Studio. Mark recorded various guitar takes for this song, and Thomas explains how the recording session developped – “and how to give direction to a demigod” […]
I am proud to announce a brand new product which will be available exclusively on this site in the very near future. For a long time those vintage Schecter pickguards, loaded with the sought-after F500T tapped Schecter pick-ups, have been the ultimate tool to convert your guitar into something similar to the legendary Schecter Dream Machines, or as a start point to build a high-end custom Strat. With those three […]
For some weeks I have been playing around with a Boss RC-50 loop station. The RC-50 allows you to record your own playing and play it as a loop. This way you can create multiple sound layers, and then jam to it. A really nice tool that makes a lot of fun. Here I am live recording a rhythm guitar and a bass over a drum rhythm from the RC-50, […]
When I started playing the guitar in 1979, spiral guitar cables were common. Many players favoured these spiral – or coil(ed) – cables because it is very handy not to have meters of cables lying on the floor between your feet and your effects. The spiral cable shortens automatically to a few feet, while it allows distances up to several meters when stretched out, and they don’t wrap themselves after […]