Tag Archive for: guitar

Rick Kelly Guitars

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Rick Kelly Guitars

Some have said that the New York luthier Rick Kelly makes his guitars from the city”™s old bones. They speak of his signature style, which involves building guitars from the old wood that once made up establishments in the city”™s historic districts, such as the Bowery ”“ once a murky landscape of vice, home to smoky flophouses, dark dive bars, and gambling holes. But amid this squalor existed an authenticity and ruggedness of character that has since become part of the city”™s DNA, and New Yorkers constantly lament the damage to this lineage when fabled institutions such as Chumley”™s pub, established in 1922, are closed down. But Kelly makes his Fender-influenced guitars from the wooden hearts of such faded establishments, and over time musicians as esteemed and diverse as Bob Dylan, Bill Frisell, Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith, and Lou Reed have all adopted his instruments. His shop, Carmine Street Guitars, is in the West Village.

From 10,000 Hours: Rick Kelly, Luthier.

Such an amazing video. It talks to the heart of what it means to be a true artisan, an intelligent hand. Rick’s shop is at Carmine Street Guitars.

Suhr 2015 Collection

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SuhrModern

Inspired by nature. Suhr’s 2015 Collection features some truly awe inspiring guitars, and we have a bunch of them! Suhr’s attention to detail is truly stunning, with every effort, down to the wooden tuning pegs and wooden pickup covers, to create the most earthy feeling guitars we’ve ever seen.

Another impressive set of guitars incoming to Cosmo Music in Toronto. These Suhr guitars are a cut above their regular production models and, of course, with a price tag to match.

The guitar pictured above caught my eye. It is a Burl Maple Modern Carve Top. It has a chambered Burl Maple body, an elliptical Bacote neck with brass ring dot position inlays and a 24k gold-plated logo. And, perhaps with a nod to Canadians, it also features a Maple leaf inlay on the neck.

Cosmo is showing this guitar out of stock. Perhaps someone has already picked it up.

Cp Thornton Guitars

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To date I have personally built more than 100 guitars and basses. Each an act of passion, dedication and discipline. With CP Thornton Guitars, I am fulfilling a lifetime dream”¦ to create heirloom quality instruments for musicians who seek that rare balance between breath-taking beauty and engineering excellence. With mass production dominating the music industry today, a truly master-built instrument is rare. Each Thornton model has been designed specifically for its purpose and sonic signature.

Chuck Thornton

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In designing this model, I didn”™t try to reinvent the wheel, because I have tremendous respect for the Fender Telecaster. I just tried to make it more player friendly. I kept the essential original features, and made subtle changes to the shape of the horn, the neck angle, and the headstock angle. Of course, The Classic has my unique inset neck joint so it can be played all the way up the fretboard without changing your hand position.

Cp Thornton on the Classic.

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It is our belief that Chuck Thornton is one of the very few who has successfully taken on the task of redesigning the most classic of all solidbody guitars ever made and has managed to significantly improve its ergonomics, playability, touch sensitivity and intonation while preserving every drop of its vintage tone and feel. No easy task. And the best part is that it now can be yours by purchasing one of the CP Thornton Classics that Destroy All Guitars has commissioned Chuck to build.

Destroy All Guitars on the Classic.

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What a beautiful instrument! In stock and fairly priced.

For Cp Thornton, making guitars is his calling.

It was his destiny. Here are some more of his guitars.

 

Atomic Amplifiers AmpliFIRE

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Amplifire

Hi Richard,

GREAT NEWS! Your name is now at the top of the AmpliFIRE Reserve List and we’re ready to take your order.

I had placed my name on the reserve list for a few reasons. One, my 57 Tweed Deluxe Reissue was really misbehaving — and it still is unfortunately — and I had spent enough time and money trying to get it to work. I was really annoyed at tube amps generally and this one in particular. Two, I thought that it might be easier to use a good quality modeler for much of my playing out.

Since then, I got a Clark Beaufort to replace the 57 Tweed. My 5e3 tone is back. To spend roughly $900 Canadian sight and sound unseen on a pedal is not wise. I won’t be placing the order. I love the sound I am getting from my current rig.

I’ve debated getting into modelers a few times. I’ve owned a few and I have played with software modelers in the studio. I have had better luck with software modelers on the recording side of things.

I hope Tom is successful with the AmpliFIRE and I will certainly be watching out for more detailed reviews and feedback on the unit from other players.

Used Guitar For Sale

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1959GibsonLP

Reverb. A dangerous place for me to hang out.

Reverb offers the best variety of tools to buy & sell gear, and the lowest listing fees of any major site. As musicians and gear lovers, we work to foster a community and make Reverb the best place to purchase music gear online.

Well, let’s see what Reverb has up for sale these days, shall we?

A very old and used electric guitar. Only 1 available. On sale for $999,999.00 plus $170 for shipping.

A bit far to check it out at Hank’s Guitar Shop of Denmark Street, London. They do have a 1959 Les Paul Standard listed on their website but it doesn’t look to be the same instrument. The wood grain and staining is definitely different. But who am I to judge? I still think the dress was white and gold.

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The guitar was previously owned by Gary Grainger. Former guitarist for Rod Stewart.

I think a million dollar burst might be a tad high on the market. But then again, it won’t be the first one to sell close to that mark.

From Gibson’s take on the mystique of the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard:

Over the past decade 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standards have sold for anywhere from $50,000 for hard-worn examples to over $1-million for Peter Green”™s and Gary Moore’s legendary Holy Grail ”” the guitar Green used on Fleetwood Mac”™s early albums and that Moore also put to the test repeatedly during his fruitful career.

Walker Electric Guitars

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Scott Walker, of Walker Electric Guitars, started out by carving necks for the Santa Cruz Guitar Company. Santa Cruz builds heirloom quality instruments. True artisans.

Scott developed his craft at Santa Cruz and then began his own line of guitars. I have featured the Jimson above, largely because I am thinking more and more about a Telecaster style guitar, although Scott has an incredible selection of instruments here.

The Jimson itself has a body made from resonant Sugar Pine. I love the sound of pine on my Stratocaster. Pine is also a challenging tonewood for a builder. The body of the Jimson looks amazing.

The pickups are wound by hand, the pickguard is Italian celluloid and the neck is maple.

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The Jimson starts at $5,500USD and delivery is about a year. Beautiful instrument. Here it is in action:

Pedalboards

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MainPedalBoard

It is a large pedal board. The main stage pedalboard that is. 16 pedals, two power supplies, programmable controllers. It is also very heavy so I only take it out when I need all of that extra ear candy.

I also have a minimalist pedalboard. 4 pedals powered by a battery. The perfect grab and go board.

And I have a mid-sized pedalboard. I generally play out with either the small or the mid-sized board.

Like with most players, lots of pedals come and go so the board is constantly changing. As a few folks have asked me about the mid-sized board here is the most current breakdown.

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This board holds 8 pedals and one power supply. The signal chain:

Guitar -> Timmy -> Alpha Dog -> EP Booster -> Volume Pedal -> Timeline -> Wet -> Amp

The volume pedal was enhanced by JHS Pedals to remove the tone suck. The pedal is now active and it also feeds a Korg Pitchblack tuner. The orange pedal is a MIDI controller for the Strymon Timeline. I use it to step through my presets. Power is provided by Voodoo Labs 4×4. There are high output channels and I need one for the Timeline.

The next two shots provide a few angles to highlight the wiring. For this board, I opted to use a Lava soldered kit and I used heavy duty right-angle Switchcraft jacks where possible. There were two spots that were tight enough that I used the Lava soldered jacks: one side of the EP Booster and the tuner out from the volume pedal. I also used right angle plugs for the MIDI controller.

I did all of the wiring for the board myself. I prefer soldered connections over solderless.

Given the compact nature of the board, I elected not to use a true-bypass effects loop.

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The bottom of the pedalboard shows the routing for the power cables as well as for the signal cables. Always a bit risky to show the bottom of a pedalboard but everything is certainly nice and neat down there. It does mean a bit of extra work though when changing pedals in and out.

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Fender Custom Shop Pine Cone Stratocaster

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PineConeStrat

What is covered with pine-cone scales — gilded with fine silver and 18-karat gold — and holds 550 high-grade diamonds?

Well, a Fender Stratocaster of course!

This guitar was Master Built by Yuriy Shishkov. The attention to detail is astonishing. The fingerboard is hand-inlaid with 10 feet of 18-karat gold wire trellis into the fingerboard.

More details about the guitar can be found at the Fender Custom Shop site here.

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The guitar was a highlight from this years NAMM. How much? Well, if you have to ask.

Yuriy provides his story on the guitar in this video: