ESSENTIAL GEAR
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ACOUSTIC GUITAR BOOKS
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Lessons, gear, and guitar news from Acoustic Guitar magazine and www.acousticguitar.com.
March 25, 2008
Editor's Note
Continue to receive Acoustic Guitar Notes and check out our other e-newsletters by clicking here.
—Mark Smith, Managing Editor Acoustic
Guitar |
IN THIS ISSUELessons |
Most guitarists at one time or another daydream about setting up the perfect home studio. Yet perhaps you’ve put that idea on hold because you’re just not sure what kind of setup would work best for you and your pocketbook. But as Sean Coleman explains, whether you’re of modest means or have cash to spare, you can assemble a system that will do the trick! From basic to complex digital audio workstations to mics and preamps, learn what kind of setup you’ll need to make your acoustic guitar recordings sound sweet. Also, be sure to check out Doug Young’s review (with video) of the Goodall Short Scale GC on the Acoustic Guitar website. Happy recording, and see you next month!SPONSOR: MACNICHOL
LESSONS
ORNAMENTATION FOR CELTIC MUSIC
Learn to incorporate the melodic ornamentation used by Celtic guitar players into your own acoustic guitar playing. With audio examples. [More]
PRIVATE
LESSON: DEAN MAGRAW
The Minneapolis-based guitarist discusses his new album, Unseen Rain, and his own improvisational philosophy. With audio
examples. [More]
SPONSOR: ELIXIR STRINGS
GEAR REVIEWS
FEATURED:
RECORD YOUR ACOUSTIC GUITAR
Building your digital home recording system is a matter of identifying your budget, then choosing the right equipment. Acoustic Guitar negotiates the maze of gear to help narrow down your choices. [More]
NEW
GEAR REVIEW: GOODALL GRAND CONCERT SHORT SCALE
Top craftsmanship and attention to detail add up to tons of tone. With video. [More]
NEW
GEAR REVIEW: TIMBERLINE T30AC
Clean construction and mellow tones are highlights on an affordable, auditorium-size fingerstyle guitar. [More]
NEW
GEAR REVIEW: RADIAL TONEBONE PZ-PRE
Dedicated acoustic instrument preamp offers superior control in a top-quality stompbox. [More]
SPONSOR: THE NEWPORT GUITAR FESTIVAL IN MIAMI BEACH
Hundreds of luthiers display hand built guitars, combined with South Florida's Premiere Vintage show. Hundreds of acoustic mini concerts and dozens of seminars. The ultimate guitar experience for players, collectors, and guitar enthusiasts. Booths are still available for suppliers and dealers!
For more info, please visit: www.newportguitarfestmb.com.
WHAT’S HAPPENING!
PLAYLIST CD REVIEWS
American Music Club The Golden Age
Reunions of once-great bands can be a tricky affair; rock history is littered with examples of groups that came back from hibernation to cash in with a greatest hits tour and a lackluster comeback album. But since reforming in 2004, American Music Club has gracefully returned to the scene with a pair of excellent albums, Love Songs for Patriots and its latest, The Golden Age. Exquisitely recorded and arranged, The Golden Age features some of songwriter Mark Eitzel’s strongest work since 1993’s Mercury, and bandmates Vudi (guitar), Sean Hoffman (bass), and Steve Didelot (drums) provide a perfect counterpoint to Eitzel’s sad tales of damaged drunks nursing broken hearts. Eitzel’s minimalist strumming and delicate arpeggios propel songs like the opener “All My Love” and the quietly driving “The Decibels and the Little Pills,” while Vudi’s expressionistic electric guitar serves as a stark counterpoint in the mix. And the buoyant “All the Lost Souls Welcome You to San Francisco” belies a dark undercurrent that can only be described as classic American Music Club. It’s only March, but AMC has already released one of the best records of 2008.
(Merge Records)
—Mark Smith
For more CD reviews, go to Media Reviews.
NEW
PRODUCTS
The Get to Know Your Acoustic Guitar DVD by Marty Lanham ($35; AcuTab, www.acutab.com) can help inquisitive guitar players learn about the construction and maintenance of flattop and steel-string guitars. Lanham, a guitar builder and repair specialist for the Nashville Guitar Company, breaks down the components of an acoustic guitar and addresses topics such as bridges that pull up, finish care, neck problems, and truss rod adjustments. The two-hour DVD also covers restringing, intonation, temperature and humidity, and more.
EVENTS
The 2008 Montreal Guitar Show (June 27–29) will offer hundreds of artisan guitars by luthiers such as Manzer Guitars and Renaissance Guitars as well as concerts and workshops. The show will take place during the first weekend of the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, which will feature more than 500 concerts over the span of 10 days.
COMING UP IN ACOUSTIC GUITAR MAGAZINE
JUNE 2008 Keller
Williams interview and lesson; new products from NAMM; reviews of the Zemaitis flattop and the Yamaha CPX; and music to Hank Williams’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and Beck’s “Lost Cause."
JULY 2008 Slide
guitar lesson with Bob Brozman; interview with KT Tunstall; composite
guitars; reviews of the Gibson J-45 True Vintage and the Fishman Matrix Preamp; and music to Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Life by the Drop" and the traditional “Fire on the Mountain.”
AUGUST 2008 Lesson with Grateful Dead and Ratdog guitarist Bob Weir; accompaniment in alternate tunings; acoustic guitar companies venture into electrics; reviews of the R. Taylor Style Two grand concert guitar and the Tascam DP-02 eight-track digital recorder; and music to “I Will” by the Beatles.
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