I grew up in a house full of guitars, as my father was forever building electric guitars on the families kitchen table. I spent my teenage years trying to tame a 100 watt Marshall JCM 800 and matching 4 x 12 cab in a bedroom, only just large enough for a bed. I’d bought it not REALLY understanding exactly how loud 100 watts is. At this young age I started to experiment with recording and MIDI and cut my teeth on Pro 24 and Notator on an Atari synced to a Foster R8 with an MTC-1.
Playing in bands and working in recording studios for many years, I learned to mix, record and eventually worked as a sound engineer. I also worked for many of the UKs large pro audio retailers, where I helped to set up DAWs in everything from local studios, music technology colleges all the way through to world famous recording facilities like Air Studios and The Strongroom. As I couldn’t help myself, I even owned my own recording studio in London for a while. There I learnt a lot about recording guitars, dealing with bands and getting quality results anyhow.
Over the years I have acquired a very sizeable guitar collection, which includes many guitars that I have built myself. I’m a total hoarder of effect pedals and valve amps and I’m a certified guitar geek. So there are not many that I have not owned at least once. Whether Parker Fly guitars or Klon Centaur pedals, I’ve had them all. Now running the annual Analogue To Digital music show in the UK, plus the Vintage Guitar Fair, I get to be busy throughout the year and also get to rub shoulders with many other guitar lovers, luthiers, manufacturers and pro players.
My tastes in music includes everything from Dinosaur Jr to Squarepusher.
Write him: jef (at) gearnews (com)
Gibson have announced on their website the new 2016 lineup for all their semi-hollow bodied instruments. Including Core, Studio and Bass lines.
The Soul Pog is a combination of their Soul Food overdrive pedal and the Nano POG from Electro Harmonix. Two already popular pedals combined, will it be a hit?
ESP have a huge range of new guitars and basses across all their ranges, all launching at the NAMM Show. From their hand built Custom Shop instruments through to their cheaper LTD ranges.
Ibanez are releasing lots of new lines this NAMM Show and also it looks like we will see some old classics return for 2016 as well. From new Signature guitars to Mini Effects the Ibanez stand should be pretty ...
Wudtone are a small company in the UK that have been supplying guitar finish kits for a number of years. In recent years they have also started to design and manufacture high quality replacement bridges as ...
Music Man have released a preview on the forum of the new James Valentine signature guitar. They also mention that this is only one of eight brand new models for this years NAMM Show.
The new RG-4 is part of Godin’s Passion Series and has been announced just ahead of the 2016 NAMM Show. Canadian guitar makers Godin today announced the new Passion RG-4 Swamp Ash Bass. The RG-4 also ...
The Reverend Pete Anderson PA-1 HB Custom has a Korina three-piece neck, a graphite nut and locking tuners, Reverend’s Bass Contour Control and a dual-action truss rod
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There's been lots of talk and predictions over on the Marshall forums all day, and it all kicked off because of a mysterious back-page cover ad in a UK guitar magazine...
Virtual Jeff is digital pitch control of analog guitar signals Can be fitted to both Electrics and acoustics. And no routing involved...
Electro-Harmonix have just announced a pair of rotary speaker emulation pedals. The two models are the Lester G and the Lester K Stereo. So these are more of a modern re-imagining of an old classic ‘60s ...
This new Jet City Custom 22 is a re-working of an earlier model the JCA22H. This time it has been tweaked by Martin Kidd. Martin is famous for his UK based Cornford amps and Victory Amps circuit designs.
A few US Sites had the PRS CE 24 uploaded for a few hours over the weekend. But all the pages have now been pulled down again. So could NAMM Show bring back the much loved CE range?
Eddie Van Halen and MXR pedals have teamed up again to bring us a signature overdrive pedal that claims to capture EVHs classic vintage and modern drive tones all in one pedal.
As a logical follow-up to their new Intonation- Compensated 'Harmonic Bridge Saddles’ they have now announced a range of Telecaster Bridge Plates to go with them It all sounds a bit like ‘snake oil’ to ...
ThorpyFX have just announced The Warthog Distortion pedal and the PeaceKeeper Low Gain OverDrive pedal. With will be available in February 2016.
Gibson Custom has teamed up with legendary blues rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa to create the Joe Bonamassa Bonabyrd, currently available in a limited edition of 100 guitars worldwide.
Cabinet Impulse Responses are a great way to tailor your guitar sounds in your DAW, adding realism to your virtual guitar amp simulation as well as opening up the sound.
This simple setup trick will add sustain to any guitar with a four-bolt neck. It is simple and requires no specialist tools or new parts.
So Fender have been teasing its new range of BassBreaker amps for a little while now. They officially launch at NAMM in January
660 Guitars from the USA have announced today that they will be introducing a new aluminium Patriot model guitar at next years NAMM Show.
The new Rail Tail Tremolo is a dive-only tremolo designed to retrofit your existing Stratocaster style 6-point tremolo with no modifications to your guitar
The Boonar is an effects pedal designed to deliver the sound and feel of the legendary Binson Echorec, a multi-tap magnetic drum echo unit.