November 2019

Total Guitar

Total Guitar is Europe’s best-selling guitar magazine

Total Guitar1 min read
Welcome…
I’m no gear snob – I’ll play anything I like… and can afford. And that second part can be an elephant in the room when it comes to tone. There’s an overarching idea that the more you pay, the more you get. From Custom Shop Strats, vintage PAFs and ob
Total Guitar1 min read
Hi-ho Silverline!
Blackstar has unveiled its Silverline range of amps: a five-strong line-up aiming to deliver valve tone and response while incorporating the flexibility of digital features. The strikingly silver covering and refined ‘coffin’ logo are the first thing
Total Guitar3 min read
Guitarist Of The Year
Aafter thousands of entries from around the world, star judges including John Petrucci, Plini, Nita Strauss, Tosin Abasi and Andy McKee, 12 finalists in three finals (plus another one for bass) played during the two days of the UK Guitar Show in Lond
Total Guitar3 min read
Derek Trucks
“… In a garage sale. It was a Kay knock-off; it was called a Jay, a J-A-Y. It was some department store guitar, it was about five dollars and I still have it. A few years ago for my birthday, Susan [Tedeschi] sent my first guitars to Paul Reed Smith
Total Guitar3 min read
On The Up
Great Grandpa’s second album Four Arrows sounds like someone has broken a good indie rock band and then reassembled it the wrong order. Far removed from its somewhat staid brethren, it makes sense that much of the record was conceived as the band’s c
Total Guitar2 min read
Jeff Shroeder smashing Pumpkins
1 “About six year ago, I started using Yamaha guitars because they asked me to start using their acoustics and I was using a different brand at the time. They sent me some acoustics and I really, really loved those, it was kind of a relationship that
Total Guitar4 min read
Back Track
The mid-60s brought with it a whole generation of young guitarists eager to emulate the sound of British Invasion groups, albeit with fewer chords, more fuzz pedals and a whole lot of attitude. The results were simplistic, and often just plain crude,
Total Guitar1 min read
RIFF OF THE MONTH MACHINE HEAD Davidian
November sees the return of heavy metal titans Machine Head to UK shores as part of their 2019 European tour. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the band’s triumphant debut album, Burn My Eyes, so, in celebration of this milestone, we’re taking
Total Guitar2 min read
Getting Started With… Basic Picking
“I already use a pick. What more do I really need to know?” Good question! Picking is a surprisingly involved area of guitar playing. Though you only have to choose between downstrokes and upstrokes, how you employ that triangular piece of plastic c
Total Guitar3 min read
The FX Files Tg’s Classic Stompbox Guide Analogman King Of Tone
The volume is a simple attenuation control that dumps signal to ground. The drive control changes how much signal is delivered to the main amplification stage of the pedal. Depending on how you have configured the clipping with the internal switche
Total Guitar2 min read
What The F? 9th Chords
In recent issues we’ve been looking at how chords are built. Without any guidance the theory can leave you scratching your head – but hopefully this month’s brief look at 9th chords should clarify things. Most important to the whole concept of buildi
Total Guitar7 min read
Stone Temple Pilots
“I’ve been using the same setup, the same rig since 1990,” Dean DeLeo, tells us, “every time we plug in it sounds great.” The guitarist’s soundcheck in London confirms this. It’s a huge, full-bodied sound, perfect for one of alternative rock’s most v
Total Guitar6 min read
Born To Strum
“Is there a secret?” ponders Spoon singer/guitarist Britt Daniel when asked how he wrote his band’s most popular indie-rock anthems. Is there, perhaps, a stage of the process that might be unique to him? He takes a moment to think about it. “I’m no
Total Guitar2 min read
Spoon Man
“I wanted something that didn’t look modern. I saw these on some old Tele and wanted to get them on there. The first prototypes had ones that were probably more usable… but I really didn’t want them to look modern. These are old-fashioned but very fu
Total Guitar8 min read
Building Bridges
It’s hard to picture many modern guitar partnerships that operate with same fluidity as Alter Bridge pair Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy. Seated next to each other in the cafeteria of a London hotel on a late summer morning, they both point out how
Total Guitar2 min read
Rig Tour
Mark: “My PRS MT15 was front and centre with the Cornford RK100 – which is like my go-to magical amp – in there too. Our producer Michael ‘Elvis’ Baskette told me early on, ‘You have to bring in that Cornford every time!’ I think there might have bee
Total Guitar3 min read
Altered States
Both Mark and Myles are great lead guitar players and here we focus in on some of the concepts and techniques at the heart of the Alter Bridge sound. Our first tab example is a Tremonti style run inspired by Down To My Last from the band’s 2004 debut
Total Guitar5 min read
01 Boutique For A Bargain?
So-called boutique overdrives are an increasingly broad set of drive pedals that offer something a little different to the mass-produced pedals on the market. With the rise of online pedal forums and gear videos, there’s never been a larger contingen
Total Guitar2 min read
Eddie Van Halen
Eddie is a rarity as he’s been more heavily involved in designing the gear he uses than nearly any other guitar hero since Hendrix. He knew what he wanted and it gave birth to one of the greatest high gain amps of all time: the Peavey 5150. Its blue
Total Guitar2 min read
Jimi Hendrix
Look, if you’re 100 per cent dead set on a Jimi spec guitar, you just have to go with Fender’s Artist series Hendrix Strat. The problem? At £799 it’s four times the price of Squier’s budget offering and it’ll end up busting our £1,000 budget. Still,
Total Guitar3 min read
The Edge
It’s got to be the black Strat! No, not Gilmour’s… U2’s man used a 1973 model to track some of the key songs we want to nail – Bad, Pride, Streets… Fender released a signature model in 2016, but not only would it blow our budget through the ceiling,
Total Guitar3 min read
03 Three Kings
Gear? You’ve never had it so good. Yes we know, we’ve said that before but seriously, there’s a better price-to-tone ratio to be had on electric guitars now than ever. But we wanted to hone right in on value; getting something very special around the
Total Guitar4 min read
04 9 Ways To Transform Your Tone For Less
If you have two amps this can be a fantastic way to supersize your guitar sound; splitting your signal to send some effects to one amp. We’d advise splitting after your drive pedal/s. Send one split to the first amp (this will be your ‘dry’ amp) and
Total Guitar2 min read
09 Save Your Tone!
Will buying a better cable improve my guitar tone? It can definitely change it, though you’ll feel the effects of different cables much more if you use passive pickups rather than active. This is where capacitance comes into play – a buzzword around
Total Guitar1 min read
Albert Lee Country Boy
Written in the early 70s when Albert was playing with country rockers Heads Hands & Feet, Country Boy has since become the legendary guitarist’s signature song. Albert uses a mix of alternate and hybrid picking, and, at 240 bpm, the song is seriously
Total Guitar2 min read
Deep Purple Highway Star
Words and Music by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice Copyright ©1972 B. Feldman & Co. Ltd. Copyright Renewed. All Rights Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 372
Total Guitar2 min read
Jam Track Play Guitar With A Band! 90s Acoustic Rock
The 90s was a golden age for acoustic rock. Artists like Counting Crows, Matchbox Twenty and Del Amitri produced songs featuring strummed and picked chords blended with tightly delivered electric guitar lines. 20-something years may have passed, but
Total Guitar2 min read
The Turnaround Licks Of The Blues Giants Steve Cropper
As an architect of the ‘Memphis Sound’ and member of the Stax Records house band, Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Steve Cropper contributed countless guitar parts to soul classics including Green Onions, (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay and In The Midnight H
Total Guitar3 min read
Kelvin Jones
So much has happened in five years for singer-songwriter Kelvin Jones. In 2014 he was studying civil engineering at Portsmouth University, playing open mic nights at his local pub, performing his songs using whatever acoustic guitar he could get his
Total Guitar2 min read
The Gas Station
Welcome to the GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome*) Station! Every issue, TG scours the market for the hottest new gear and brings you transparent reviews that you can trust. From the smallest of accessories that make your life easier, to big investments
Total Guitar2 min read
Start Me Up!
For a while, multi-fx pedals developed something of a stigma, but we can feel that changing. Mooer clearly does too, with the introduction of its GE-150, the newest entry in its GE line of multi-fx pedals. This floorboard boasts 55 amp models from Mo
Total Guitar3 min read
Kemper Profiler Stage
The footswitches are clear to use, so you won’t need much guesswork. They indicate bank shift, effect on/off and patch select These are your main access points to start editing. Some of these functions would benefit from clearer names. “Browse” and
Total Guitar2 min read
Ltd Ec-1000t
The Fishman Fluence pickups offer three voices each – including single-coil tones – which are accessed by the push/pull controls LTD doesn’t deal exclusively in metal machines, as this classic rock-style finish proves As well as the pickups, there’
Total Guitar2 min read
Sterling By Music Man St Vincent Stv60hh
The bent steel saddles and two-point vibrato are functional in appearance and hold the guitar’s tuning well, aided by the inclusion of locking tuners The rounded neck heel is among the most comfortable we’ve seen and makes upper fret access a doddle
Total Guitar2 min read
Head To Head
These four compact semi-hollow guitars have lot of virtues in common. They’re all resonant, comfortable, playable – the Hagström is especially playable – and when it comes to tone, they each put their own spin on what a semi-hollow could sound like.
Total Guitar4 min read
Small Body Semi-hollows
When we talk about the semi-hollow electric guitar, often our first thoughts turn to the Gibson ES-335 and its ilk; guitars with wide bodies that you could use as life rafts in cases of extreme emergency. Are they awesome? Absolutely. But sometimes i
Total Guitar1 min read
Final Verdict
It is hard to look past the Gretsch with its stunning Orange Stain finish and gold hardware, the Bigsby vibrato, and little details like the thumbnail fret inlay and smaller, bound headstock. It is a beautiful guitar. The purists might throw a fit at
Total Guitar2 min read
Boss Dd-200
Without the deep menu system of the DD-500, sometimes the manual is called for There are expansion jacks for expression and stereo in and out Tap subdivisions and preset recall are neatly arranged on the front of the pedal The release of the comp
Total Guitar2 min read
Highwind Amplification Direwolf
The Tube Screamer has long been a favourite platform for modders and hot-rodders, and the family tree of the classic green overdrive contains a number of excellent op-amp drives like the Timmy and Zendrive that owe the Tube Screamer at least a passin
Total Guitar4 min read
Adding Series Switching To Your Strat
This issue we’re modding a Strat to give it a new series mode. You thought your Strat was versatile already? Now you can begin stepping into humbucker territory. As standard the Strat has this switch function: Neck / Neck & Middle / Middle / Middle &
Total Guitar3 min read
The Playlist
The first song I remember… Smoke On The Water – Deep Purple “I remember this song when I was young – my father was listening to Deep Purple and this is maybe the first hard rock riff that I keep in mind. I also remember other classic rock bands like

Total Guitar

More Issues From Total Guitar