Guitarist

While we were chatting with this month’s cover stars, Chrissie Hynde and James Walbourne, the subject of phones at gigs came up –The Pretenders have a strict no‑phones policy, which has caused some fans to grumble. Why shouldn’t people capture a little memento of a great gig, you might ask? The answer lies, I feel, in the fact that we’ve become so used to being passive consumers of entertainment via electronic media (me included) that we’ve forgotten that the audience is an essential part of the show, too. If you doubt that, think back to any times you may have played a gig when hardly anyone was in the audience – and compare that to nights when the place was packed. Performers aren’t robots, and the chemistry of a great…

Andy Summers It’s hard to imagine a more cerebral art-rock guitar duo than Andy Summers and Robert Fripp – Andy takes us inside their 80s albums p32 A Matchless Master We were deeply saddened by the recent death of Matchless co-founder Mark Sampson. Read our final interview with him on p106 Unplugged Perfection? Feedback-free, thinline stage acoustics have come and gone, but has LR Baggs finally cracked it with the new AEG-1? We test it on p8…

Lloyd Baggs is best known for designing industry standard acoustic pickups such as the Anthem, Session VTC, HiFi and HiFi Duet. But, in fact, Baggs comes from the world of high-end lutherie, creating instruments for Ry Cooder, Jackson Browne, Janis Ian, Graham Nash and other great artists. And it was watching Cooder struggling to amplify his Martin that set Lloyd on his new career path. “I saw Ry’s pain in trying to amplify his acoustic,” Baggs reveals. “It was pretty brutal, so it has become our quest to make amplifying an acoustic as easy, pleasurable and simple as it is with an electric guitar.” Thinline electro-acoustics have been around for years, notables being Gibson’s Chet Atkins SST, the Godin Multiac (which Baggs had a hand in creating), Fender with its…

After the rip-roaring success of the JCM800 in the 80s, Marshall ushered in the 90s with the JCM900 – its then-modern evolution of the JCM series, which sought to bring more gain to the table in response to the trends of rock, metal and a burgeoning grunge scene. To some, it hit the spot. To others, it never faced a fair trial, its main ‘crime’ seemingly being the fact that it wasn’t the JCM800. Despite this, the JCM900 – particularly the 100-watt 4100 and 50-watt 4500 models – became the ‘Marshall of the 90s’, offering hot-rodded Marshall tone in combination with dual-channel, dual-master volume convenience and a spring reverb assignable in different amounts to each channel. This saw the 900 find favour, particularly in the live environment, with everyone from…

Beetronics has been on a run of releasing dirt pedals recently, but its latest offers modulation (plus a modicum of dirt). The Larva Morphing Phaser is a six-stage analogue phaser with an element of digital control, which has morphing capabilities between two adjustable presets, and also sports a preamp – inspired by Moog’s Moogerfooger pedals – that adds practical tonal variations. There are three toggle-switched options for the sound the Larva delivers: you can have phaser, vibrato (wet signal only) or just the sound of the preamp with no modulation effect. The Preamp has a natural warmth and is controlled by gain and master volume knobs that can be turned up to build in valve-like overdrive. The basic effect architecture of the pedal offers Phaser 1 and Phaser 2, which…

It’s probably fair to say that J Rockett’s Blue Note pedals haven’t had as high a profile as other drives, but maybe that will change with this third incarnation: the Blue Note Select. Prior to this, there was the larger but similarly equipped Blue Note Pro, and then a smaller Tour Series version without the Hot switch. Now, that Hot switch has been reinstated in another nicely compact offering that’s had a complete makeover, not just in looks with its electric blue colour scheme and silver knobs, but with the circuitry, now in V2 with “an enhanced low-end response”, in the company’s words. What you’re getting here is a low-to-medium gain drive pedal with toggle-switched Standard and Fat modes, the obligatory volume and gain knobs, plus tonal adjustment via Tone…