Which gauge of strings should I put on my guitar?

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Steve Busby

Determining which gauge of strings you should put on your guitar really depends on a number of factors, e.g. what kind of guitar you’ve got; acoustic, electric, bass; Fender style, Gibson style; which tuning you want; personal preference – if you want a bigger sound or a lighter sound with more bend on the strings; what style of music you want to play and what feels comfortable. All the same, here are a few ideas from the guitar man at BBZGuitars in High Wycombe.

If you’ve got an acoustic, the strings you use will depend on the size of the guitar; the amount of sound that comes out of a smaller guitar is less so we tend to recommend putting on heavier strings so you get better output. On a jumbo or a dreadnaught, 11-52 works well as a gauge, whereas on a parlour size guitar you probably want to put on 12-54 or 13-56.

Another factor that affects the sound on the acoustic is the construction of the strings; here your options are either Phosphor Bronze or 80/20 Bronze – these can be coated or uncoated. We would generally recommend using coated strings because they last three to five times longer than uncoated; that’s because they’re not subjected to moisture corrosion from your hands so they’re probably the best bet even though they are more expensive – usually twice the price of uncoated.

If you want to down-tune your guitar to say drop-D for example for playing folk style music, slightly heavier strings are better.

When it comes to classical guitars, these all use nylon strings whether it’s for orchestral, flamenco or straight bedroom strung playing. Here, it’s the tension which varies; this varies from normal to high; normal tension is probably what you’d put on your student guitar whereas high tension is more for the professionals.

With an electric guitar, there are a few other factors you need to take into account; firstly, the style of the guitar, i.e. whether it’s Fender or Gibson style. This is relevant because the scale length on a Fender is 25.5 inches which is slightly longer than a Gibson at 24.75 inches; subsequently, it would be normal to put slightly lighter strings on a Fender than a Gibson style guitar because the extra three quarters of an inch adds to the tension of the strings.

Electric guitar strings are normally Nickel round-wound in construction although there are also half-round and flat-round options for jazz style guitars. Typical gauges for Fender type guitars would be either 9-42 or 9-46 that gives you a nice tension for the scale length and allows you to bend strings comfortably.

For Gibson style guitars, 10-46 is a typical gauge for the scale length that will give you good sound output, comfortable bending and the right tension. You’ve also got coated options in all gauges of electric strings which, as for the acoustics, last three to five times longer so again tend to be twice the price of the uncoated options.

For drop tunings, common gauges to enable this are 10-52 (for drop-D); for drop-C it would be 11-48.

With all guitars generally if you want a bigger sound you put on thicker strings. If you want to do a lot of bending e.g. ‘Jerry Donahue’ style, you either need lighter strings or very strong fingers.

Looking at bass guitar strings, you’ve got three basic options: round-wound for more rock and blues style applications and half-round and flat-wound which are best suited to jazz. You’ve also got scale-length issues on basses that you need to accommodate, e.g. on a long scale neck like a Fender Precision for instance, a standard gauge would be 45-105; if you wanted something lighter under the fingers, there’s 40-95 or 40-100. Anything lighter is going to feel more flexible at pitch. As for guitar strings, bass strings tend to have a Nickel construction and can be either coated or uncoated.

In the case of five string basses, the additional long end string is usually around 130 gauge.

For a fretless bass, either half-round or flat-wound strings should be used as this will prolong the life of your fretboard.

If you’d like more information on guitar and bass strings or you’d like to see what we’ve got in stock, visit our online shop at www.bbzguitarsshop.co.uk or drop into BBZGuitars in High Wycombe.

 

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Losing tone on your guitar – it could be your lead

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Steve Busby

Something that’s not always obvious, particularly in the early stages of playing the guitar is that you can lose a lot of tone with a bad guitar lead. But how do you recognise a bad one?

Bad leads are nearly always thin; they’re poorly screened; they’ll usually have a molded jack and they’re generally cheap. More often than not, you’ll find them in the box with a cheap guitar – not particularly helpful when you’re just starting out because you probably didn’t buy a Fender or a Gibson as your first guitar.

Molded jacks are particularly useless because you can’t maintain them so in the somewhat likely event that someone treads on your cable and pulls a wire off the jack – that’s the end of the lead.

So what makes a good guitar lead?

It’s all about the conductance. The best leads tend to be fairly thick with well screened, oxygen free cables and gold plated jacks. At this stage, it’s probably worth pointing out that with any type of lead, the longer it is, the more tone you’ll lose. As a general rule, we don’t recommend buying guitar leads longer than 30 feet.

What should you look for when you’re buying a new lead?

Start with a decent warranty – 5 years is a pretty good guide. Size-wise, go for a cable that looks thick. For the jack, look for gold – it’s the best conductor; if you can’t get all gold, make sure it’s got a gold tip.

When it comes to choosing the right length that does of course depends on where the guitar lead is going to be used. If it’s in a bedroom, a 10 foot lead should be enough – if 10 feet gives you feedback from your amp, the amp is probably too big for your bedroom.

On stage, don’t be tempted to go for more length than you need – 20 feet should be enough.

Price-wise, you should be able to get a good quality 10 foot lead for between £6 and £10. If you need a 20 foot cable, £10 to £20 should be plenty.

If you find you’re paying more than this, you really want to be getting something special like a neutrik jack, circuit breakers or even a 30 year warranty.

For more information on buying good quality leads or if you’d like to just buy one, visit our Buckinghamshire shop, BBZGuitars in High Wycombe or give us a call on 01494 533554.

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Getting a low action on your acoustic guitar

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Steve Busby

A lot of customers ask me to make the action really low on their acoustic guitars. Generally, when they bring the guitar down to the shop, the action is exactly where it should be but guitarists tend to want a lower action because it’s easier to play and you can also play a lot faster with a low action. Sadly, very few guitarists are impressed by the slow melodic sound, for which the acoustic guitar was designed.

The trouble is, when you lower the action, it tends to buzz all over the place and no guitarist wants that. If you want to really enjoy a low action, you should probably buy an electric guitar but I’m guessing that’s not going to do it for you if you’re an acoustic player. So what are your options?

Well if you’re in the market to buy an acoustic guitar, Faith and Walden are definitely worth a look:

Faith Guitars, for example, have a really low easy action for an acoustic but you have got to pay a little more, probably around £700. That said, it doesn’t necessarily follow that paying more will get you a lower action. Take Martin guitars, the average Martin is set at 2.75mm on the 12th fret which is really a medium setting.

Waldens also have a low easy action and they’re pretty reasonable priced; so do Taylors in general (although not quite so reasonably priced). As a guide £400 will get you a Walden with a low action; £700 will get you an entry level Taylor.

If you’re looking to buy in the £100-200 range, you’re going to find it more difficult to get a low action as standard but there are a couple of things that can help and these will also apply if you want to get the action down on an acoustic you already have in your collection:

-          Get your guitar professionally setup – a professional technician can fit the guitar to your requirements, well ‘up to a point’; this will probably cost you around £60.  If you’re buying new, and you go to a reputable guitar shop, the setup should be included in the price of the guitar, although if you’ve bought it mega cheap online, there’s a good chance it won’t be – most discount merchants ship their guitars exactly as they came from the manufacturers – well you did get a cheaper guitar!

-          If the action is still too high, using lighter strings can help a bit but remember if you’re changing from heavier strings, your guitar will need adjustment or the strings will be touching the first fret.

Whilst I said that paying more for an acoustic doesn’t necessarily guarantee a low action, paying less nearly always ensures a high one.

In my experience, the main difference between £100 and £400+ guitars is build quality and how much effort was put into manufacturing the guitars. Quite often, the people making lower priced instruments aren’t guitarists so they don’t know what’s good or bad.

To allow for this, manufacturers do what’s called an ‘approximate factory setup’. What this means is they tighten the neck to ‘about right’ and put a stock saddle in the bridge that’s probably a couple of millimetres too high (to allow for professional adjustment at some future date – post purchase).

On most of the lower priced guitars that people bring in, the nut is also rarely slotted correctly but the biggest issue I see, as far as the action’s concerned, is different fret heights; if you’re frets are not all the same height, when you lower the action, your strings will catch on any high frets making your acoustic impossible to play.

There are also other factors that can affect how high the action is on your acoustic, such as how the neck is fitted and how the truss rod has been adjusted.

Fortunately, all of these things can be improved on, even with a £100 guitar, but it’s always going to take a bit of work and cost you more money. My advice, particularly to any beginners out there is ‘buy your guitar from a reputable shop that sets up all the guitars it sells’. At least that way you won’t have to spend more money putting your guitar right.

If you live near High Wycombe in the Bucks, Berks area, you can always drop into BBZGuitars shop for advice; we offer a complete guitar set up and repair service plus all of the guitars we sell have been professionally setup before the go on the wall. We also provide a one-year free setup warranty on all new guitars and basses we sell which means you can bring your guitar back twice during the first twelve months and have it set up again free of charge.

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How to stop your acoustic guitar from getting a belly

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Steve Busby

Unfortunately, most guitarists don’t ask this question until after it’s happened – at least not in High Wycombe or Bucks.  Just recently one of my customers at BBZGuitars brought a beautiful high end acoustic into the shop that had developed a significant belly and he had no idea why – but it didn’t take long to find out.

A quick look at the warped wooden bridge told me that the strings had been severely overtightened. In fact they had been overtightened to such an extent that the bridge had lifted almost completely off the soundboard, causing the soundboard to pull up, the action to go sky-high and – worst of all – putting a virtually irreversible belly on the guitar.

In this particular case, the guitar had been left at the mercy of some young grandchildren who had evidently had a bit of fun making adjustments to the tuners. Of course for a short time, this wouldn’t have been a problem but unfortunately, the guitar was left with the strings at extreme tension for several months; it was also mooted that it may have spent some time in the sunshine as well.

In any event, the remedy is not that straight forward; nor is it likely to provide an imperceptible repair – I certainly wouldn’t recommend attempting to fix it yourself, unless you’re a qualified guitar tech.

What I would recommend is few simple steps for prevention:

  • Firstly, don’t overtighten the strings on your acoustic, or let anyone else do it – no matter how much you love your children or your grandchildren.
  • Second, don’t leave your guitar in the sun or near a heat source.
  • Third, if you’re using a higher gauge of strings, once you’ve finished playing the guitar, slacken off the strings a tone.
  • Finally, although nothing to do with bellying, don’t forget to wipe off your strings after each time you play; it prolongs the life of your strings and prevents wear on the fret board and frets.

Of course if the damage is already done, these words of caution are probably causing you more that mild irritation. In which case I would strongly advise you to get your acoustic in the car and drive down to your nearest guitar service centre as soon as possible.

With luck and a following wind, you might get away with just an £80 repair but chances are you’ll probably still have to live with a higher action than you used to have.

If you can’t live with a high action and you’re anywhere close to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, why don’t you drop into BBZGuitars and I’ll talk you through the other options you could consider.

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It’s electrifying – electro acoustic guitar-ifying!

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Steve Busby

Electro acoustic guitars are proving very popular at the moment, but if you’re not sure what they are or don’t know how they work, you may find this next blog entry a useful introduction.

An electro acoustic is an acoustic guitar with a pre-amp fitted (usually on the top bout of the guitar), normally powered by a PP3 9V battery. Volume and EQ controls are provided by the pre-amp. The guitar also has one (or more) pickups fitted; these can be small microphones inside the sound box, or single coils at the top of the neck, on the sound board or under saddle/ bridge piezo pickups.

There are a couple of basic issues with electro acoustics which should be noted before we go on. Firstly they can sound completely different when put through an amp, to the acoustic tone. This is due to the depth of the sound box and the quality of the on-board pre-amp and pickups. Secondly, when plugged in, they can feedback quickly. There are several solutions to this problem; a feedback buster which fits neatly into the sound-hole certainly works well. Many pre-amps also have a great feature which is a reverse phase. This changes the ‘shape’ of the sound and overcomes a lot of the feedback problem.

Although you can buy kits to fit pre-amps into your existing purely acoustic guitar, this will involve some drilling to the sound box which may cause changes in the tonal quality of the guitar. It really depends on your ability and, to a certain degree, confidence in working on your guitar. Another method is to fit either a transducer pickup to the soundboard which attaches with a blob of blue-tack like material or a pickup which straddles the sound-hole. The straddle pickup is in my opinion, the better way to go. However, transducers have the benefit that they work with nylon strings and will fit to a large variety of instruments. Of course you can always just mic up your acoustic guitar too!

Purpose built electro acoustics have been made to deliver a consistent sound so, if you’re in the market, I would recommend this option.

Shadow, L. R. Baggs and Fishman make some of the best pre-amps on the market and are usually fitted to electro acoustics you’ll find readily available, of course there are other fine makes too.

 John Hornby Skewes (JHS), for instance, has a range of Vintage acoustics which have a variety of pre-fitted single coil and piezo (bridge/ saddle) pickups by Shadow.

I personally prefer a guitar that sounds very similar whether plugged (dry) or unplugged, inserting effects, then comes down to taste, but it’s great to have that confidence that your guitar still sounds good ‘round the campfire’ or in a gig situation.

It makes a big difference what you plug into as well. Most amp manufacturers produce an acoustic amp option, some with in-built feedback busting circuits, as well as stereo options (with a balanced XLR socket on your guitar), and effects. Makes such as Kustom and Marshall produce great amps at the low to middle price band, while there are a number of more boutique/ specialist amps like AER that are in the higher bracket. There are lots of other manufacturers too.

Bottom-line is that you can get a reasonable sound on your electro acoustic if you select the clean channel on your electric guitar amp, so find a showroom that will let you bring in your amp and try it with an electro acoustic.

Price wise, entry level electro acoustics (of any reasonable quality) start at just over £100. Look out for ones with a chromatic tuner built into the pre-amp for this price; Antoria, in particular, has a great value for money guitar. For £150-350 the JHS Vintage series is recommended by many (including Guitarist Magazine June 2008). The highly rated Tanglewood, Walden, Fairclough and Yamaha ranges are also well worth checking  out. Of course above that there are many superb instruments (Ovation, Faith, Gibson, Martin, Taylor, Larrivee, etc.) and you may want to spend £1,000-3,000 on a premier example. If that’s the case you probably know what you’re looking for.

Electro acoustic guitars add great texture to just about any genre of music whether recording or live and add a tonally rich counterpoint to overdriven electric guitars.

I hope this has helped, remember as with everything nowadays, you don’t need to spend more than a few hundred pounds to have a professional quality electro acoustic guitar. If you’d like more information on electric guitars, visit BBZGuitars Buckinghamshire showroom in High Wycombe or call us on 01494 533554.

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What causes fret buzz? – BBZGuitars has the answers

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Steve Busby

A lot of people come into our High Wycombe guitar shop asking what causes fret buzz and how to deal with it, particularly with electric guitars.

Fret buzz occurs when the strings vibrate in an elliptical path and rattle on frets further up the fretboard. In the worst cases, this chokes out the intended note completely.

If this happens on an electric guitar when you’re playing the guitar acoustically but you can’t hear it through the amplifier, this is perfectly normal. However, if you can hear fret buzz through the amp, attention to the set up is probably required.

If you’re getting fret buzz on an acoustic guitar, this definitely needs attention.

The main causes of fret buzz that I’ve found on new electric guitars are as follows:

  • Players’ Technique. Fret buzz can be caused, in some cases, by the playing technique of the guitarist! Fretting too far down the intended fret can cause buzzing, as can a failure to depress the string sufficiently. Had to be said.
  • If the guitar’s neck is too straight or has a back bow, i.e. the truss rod is too tight, you can quite often get fret buzz. This is probably best left to a professional to check and adjust, but is a relatively quick job and in nine out of ten cases eliminates the problem.
  • The action (string height) is set too low. Easily solved with an electric guitar. With an acoustic, the saddle will need to be shimmed to slightly raise it. Otherwise a new saddle can be fitted.
  • The top nut is badly cut (too deeply filed), causing strings to buzz when played open, however there is no buzz when the strings are played further up the neck or when a capo is used. Again, professional help recommended.
  • The odd high fret may cause fret buzz in unusual places on the guitar fretboard. This is overcome by fret dressing, levelling and contouring. This too is best done by a professional as ‘going at it’ with a file could cause hundreds of pounds worth of damage.
  • Warped neck. This will probably require major surgery so let’s hope that’s not you!
  • If the bridge is a Floyd Rose system and the springs and strings (at tension) are badly out of balance, fret buzz is fairly common and you’ll probably need professional help again.
  • Sometimes taking the guitar new from the shop’s atmosphere to your home will slightly affect the neck’s set up. Tolerances for perfect set up are very slight in some cases.
  • In some cases fret buzz is a factor of a combination of some of the above!

It could be said that if an electric guitar doesn’t have a degree of fret buzz when it’s played acoustically, it probably isn’t set up as well as it could be, but that’s just my opinion.

I think it’s important to really stress the point that most electric guitars will buzz when played acoustically and the shorter the scale length (Gibson 24 ¾” Scale versus Fender 25 ½” Scale), the more prevalent it is, particularly if the guitar is set up correctly with a low/ medium action. This is especially the case with higher gauge strings, as most guitars are set up for .009-.042 or .010 – .046 gauge strings. The reason the difference in scale length (distance from the nut to the bridge) is a factor is because the shorter the scale length the slacker the tension needed to get the string to pitch. If you de-tune to drop D or even drop C, you will definitely be experiencing fret buzz, but then again you’re probably going to have the gain on your amplifier up so the buzz will lost in overdrive anyway!

So why would you get fret buzz when you haven’t had it before?

This is difficult to answer definitively, but here are a few possible causes:

  • Heavier gauge strings may have been fitted to the guitar when the truss rod was set up and lighter ones have now been fitted.
  • All the strings have been taken off the guitar at the same time and the truss rod has flexed, making it necessary to set up the truss rod. The neck should always be given an overnight acclimatisation, with strings at pitch, before this is done.
  • The nut has worn down and needs replacing.
  • The strings have eaten into the saddle(s).
  • The guitar has been exposed to heat (or cold), beyond its tolerances; leaning it against a radiator, leaving it in the back of a car overnight in sub zero temperatures or in direct sunlight are all causes of MAJOR problems.
  • Someone has made adjustments, in error!!

If you suspect you have a problem that’s not caused by technique, the solution is to take your guitar to a repair shop where it can be diagnosed and fixed. Fixing the issues, as I indicated earlier, can take varying amounts of time, but a full guitar set up will usually come in at between £50 – £60 (that’s what we’d charge at BBZGuitars in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire), depending on parts required and time.

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Riding the tube – valve amps vs. solid state

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Steve Busby

At BBZGuitars in High Wycombe, I frequently get asked about the benefits of a valve amp to your sound as a guitarist. After spouting the usual “well it’s about the warmth of the tone you get” and “nothing sounds as good as a valve amp on the edge of breaking up”, it’s then a lot easier to do an A/B demo of a solid state amp versus a valve amp. The sound itself usually answers best.

The next question is: why is a valve amp louder than a solid state amp at the same RMS rating? Well it’s not! It may sound louder but that’s because the sound is richer. If the truth be known there are many great emulation amps on the market that get close to a valve sound and appear to be just as loud. Indeed if you want a REALLY clean sound then a solid state amp might be the one to go for.

If you’re an effects lover, then you can get ‘your’ tone from a solid state amp with some tweaking anyway. But if you want to plug straight in and work with just a little reverb, it’s got to be valve.

Then there’s hybrid valve amps which have a 12AX7/ ECC83 valve (or two) in the pre-amp to overdrive the front end, and rely on solid state circuits to provide the ‘volume’; again this is a great alternative. Indeed most all-valve amps have pre-amp and power amp valves but use solid state technology in the rectifier to provide the overdrive.

So, do you need to buy a huge valve head and a separate 4 x 12 cabinet to get your sound?

No you don’t.

Increasingly you’ll find the professionals using small combos and either mic’ing them through the PA to get the volume, DI’ing them or connecting 2, 3 or more of them. Simply putting a combo on an amp stand actually boosts the audible volume from the amp, although you can lose some of the bass response which is gained from the floor/stage’s resonance. I saw a great solution to this which is a stand that tilts the combo skyward while retaining contact with the floor (at the back).

Something else that can have a huge impact on your sound is the valves used in the power circuit; whether they’re EL34s, EL84s, 6L6s or KT66s, KT88s, etc., they can all provide different types of warm overdrive to the power circuit and all have their own distinct tone and ‘attitude’.

For tonal reference:

Marshall uses ECC83s almost exclusively in the pre-amp and EL34s or EL84s in the power amp. Exceptions include the hand wired and Jimi Hendrix amps which use the more retro sounding KT66s in the power circuits.

Fender achieves its signature sound by mainly using 12AX7/12AY7 pre-amp valves and 6L6 type valves in the power amp.

Vox tends to use either 12AX7s or ECC83s in the pre-amp and EL34/84s in the power amp; when you see a Vox ‘all valve amps’ that generally means just that with EZ81s in the rectifier circuit.

Orange employs 12AX7s and EL84s in its great Tiny Terror amp, while in the Thunderverb range it uses a combination of 12AX7s/ ECC83s in the pre-amp and EL34s(50H) or KT88s (200H) in the power amp.

Something which people often overlook with amps is the quality of their speakers; make sure the speakers are the best you can afford; Jensens, Celestions and Eminence are all good bets.

I recently re-valved one of my own amps with cryogenically treated valves, which was a huge success. The science is that metal is made up of fibres, which when taken to low temperatures line up and conduct ‘better’. When brought back to ambient temps the fibres remain re-formatted, this leads to warm overdrive and less of the popping and hissing you can experience with cheaper (modern) valves. Watford Valves Limited is the only outlet I have found for these and I chose the Harma valves. Originally I was looking for NOS Mullard valves, when treated I believe the Harma valves are about the same. They definitely worked for me, anyway. BTW, look out for cryogenically treated strings too – they really sing.

If you’re interested in a low(er) cost valve amp, check out the re-launched Sound City range, I highly recommend it for value for money.  The updated Sound City Head and Combos (20C, 30C and 40C) are all made in China so the price is relatively low. They have 2 Channels (Clean and Overdrive). The clean is excellent warm clean valve tone, while the overdrive channel soon gets into more contemporary high gain sounds.

Vox and Orange also produce good amps in this range.

Hybrid amps should fall into the entry level pricing (£130-250) and usually benefit from a huge array of built in amp emulation types and effects.

In the mid price bracket, Kustom amps (made in USA) are a good valve amp option. The Defender 50w Combo also has the benefit of being extremely light and sounds great; it has the ability to run EL84s or 6L6s in the power amp, so is very versatile. If you’re a metal freak, you’ll need an overdrive pedal, but it works great when driven like this.

The Line 6 Valve (in conjunction with Bogner) is a departure for this ‘emulation’ company into the valve market. Well worth a try though, Line 6 has retained its ability to emulate different valve amp types at the touch of a control.

The Coupe (36 & 72) amps really sound great. The 2 x 10 Coupe 36 combo is an outstanding amp which you can find for about £700 (RRP £899).

Of course Marshall and Fender have some really good amps in this range too, although they tend to fall in the upper price band if you’re going for signature or hand wired models.

Laney’s Lionheart range is also a strong player here too.

At the boutique end of things, well if you’re looking at this you probably don’t need me, but Mesa, Cornford, Bogner, etc. (and there are many)  are very good, if not pricey! I recommend Traynor amps highly. They are made in Toronto and are some of the sweetest sounding amps available. Expect to pay around £550-£650 for the 15w combo and £700’ish for the YCV50Blue 50w combo. Both are loaded with great (single) Celestion drivers and sweet, carefully matched Mullard-esque valves. That’s boutique for a great price, they really give the more pricey boutique amps stiff competition!

So that’s a brief round-up of valve amps versus solid state, hybrids, the options, pricing and quality. I hope it has been at least helpful. Of course I haven’t mentioned huge numbers of great guitar amps by name. If you have a question regarding any of these or the amps I’ve mentioned, I’d be happy to help if I can, pop into BBZGuitars High Wycombe guitar shop in Bucks or give us a call on 01494 533554.

Just bear in mind you don’t need to spend £1000+ to get a great valve sound.

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Pick-up a signature sound – guitar pickups

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Steve Busby


So what’s this new trend to fit modified pickups all about?

 

I wouldn’t say it has become the norm but there are a lot of guitars you can buy now which come with built-in electronics, so you don’t have to rely on the traditional stomp box or performing custom mods. Parker solid guitars have been fitted with piezos for years, Gibson made the Les Paul recording in the 60s which gave you a phase control (In or Out), Gordon-Smith, Yamaha and others produce guitars with tapped humbuckers, and Fender and Line 6 both have modelling guitars on the market.

I thought I’d take a look at one of the newer entries in this space and give an honest critique.

Perhaps one of most innovative newcomers in this market is Trev Wilkinson, both with his Italia range of guitars (Arbiter) and Vintage Advance Series (JHS). It looks like the re-launch of the Fret King range with JHS has also meant that unusual combinations of pickups and unique ‘roll’ controls can be seen.

There’ll be more about Fret King in a later blog entry.

With the Italia series, Trev has brought out an affordable range of guitars that includes models with combined acoustic and electric outputs, for example the Mondial Deluxe and Mondial Classic (Acousti-glass) are both extremely credible in piezo and humbucker modes.

They have separate jack sockets marked with stickers (a little cheap) for the ‘acoustic’ and ‘electric’ outputs, as well as separate tone and volume controls (three way EQ for the Deluxe’s piezo) which allow you to find the exact acoustic tone you need.

Playing unplugged blues on a mic’d J200, trying hard to bend a set of 12s, and playing these hybrid guitars is a mile apart; they’re really acoustics for electric players and I’m a big fan.

I’ve heard stories of Y cables working and using two cables at the same time. I tried it with two circuit breaker cables into two amps; once it was set up, I could blend or switch off either output without interfering with volume settings but, if you are thinking of trying this, do make sure you carry some spare PP3s as the piezo is, of course, active!

Both of these guitars can kick out rock guitar solos or go unplugged and anything in-between; they are easier to play and tonally very close, if not identical, to electro-acoustics.

Overall, they offer an amazing ‘tonal feast’ of sounds for a great price.

Looking at some of his other feats of design, Trev has also brought out a range of guitars for JHS (Vintage Advance) reminiscent of classic shapes but with delicate twists that make them sonically different, easier to play and, in some cases, just better by design. This range, in my view, is like the Fret King’s little brother.

They all have Trev’s own hardware design which, for the price point, is great value. The push fit tremolo system (where fitted) is solid and stable, and the dual hole tuners ensure non-slip tuning stability even if you’re dive bombing with the whammy.

Where If the inspiration for the original design (e.g. Fender Strat) was a single cut guitar, Trev has put in an extra V cut-out where the top bout meets the neck; this is thumb-sized and allows much better (and more comfortable) access to the top frets.

The pickups available within the range, include humbuckers, stacked humbuckers (look like P90s) and single coils. Trev has included a roll control on many in the range which takes the pickups through different manifestations of single coil, P90 and humbucker modes. This seriously adds sonic texture to anything you are doing and as always it’s the mid positions which are the really interesting ones.

I tried the AV2S3 (t-shape) with three single coils in an ‘S-Type’ set-up and got everything from a Broadcaster-like tone through to what sounds like a P90 or mini humbucker, simply by using the roll knob. You can have hours of fun by just plugging into an amp with a little overdrive, finding a unique tone and drifting way.

The AV3H (Small bodied 335 shape) was another superb guitar. I found it fantastically balanced, easy to play and tonally sublime. There’s also a three P90s (stacked humbucker) version, but I tried the more traditional two PAF-like humbucker loaded version. In standard humbucker mode it’s pure BB but roll-off the knob to a single coil, and before you get to the end of the pot’s-throw, you’ve got Eric Clapton’s Strat tones. so now with one guitar you can play both parts of “Riding with the King”.

I also tried the AV6P (S-Type) loaded with three P90s (stacked humbuckers). This too is fitted with the roll control which is great if you want you can have a straight strat single coil tone or a deluxe humbucker tone. Again the best tones are to be found somewhere in-between.

From the Vintage ICON series I tested the Peter Green inspired Lemondrop V100MRPGM (LP Like); I’ll confess I’ve had this guitar in my own collection for a few years now, so I’m really familiar with its pickups and how to get the best out of them.

The set up of the electrics in the guitar put the pickups out-of-phase with each other with the selector in the middle position. This gives a great version of the sound of the ‘Greeny’ guitar; it’s like a guitar with a head cold; it has a superb ‘nasal quack’, particularly if you have the neck pickup at a slightly lower volume than the bridge– lovely stuff!

In addition, the neck humbucker has been turned around to mimic Peter Green’s ‘mistake’ when reassembling his Gibson. This makes no real difference to the tone achieved and is cosmetically just part of the homage to Peter Green. On its own it is very powerful but even better with a little overdrive for Santana-type vibes.

The (less powerful) bridge pickup really cuts through, but not in a harsh way, to give a more glassy, wiry kind of sound which is great for blues and blues rock. If you back off the wick on this pickup and add a tiny amount of overdrive, it can almost sound Telecaster-esque.

In summing up, I’d have to say that the real advancement of Trev Wilkinson’s guitars, from those classically designed guitars of yester-year, is probably their ability to mimic the original classic tones while, at the same time, incorporating electronic functionality that more than double their sonic capabilities.

The guitars which have inspired this range are at least three times the price although I did hear that the ‘Greeny’ guitar is available for $2million. Most of the guitars in Trev Wilkinson’s collection are available for less than £400.

Ultimately, I believe that playing the guitar is all about the search for that perfect tone. What enables you to find that tone is a combination of factors, like a decent build quality, a good set-up and the instrument’s versatility to let you mix and match sonically until you find your own signature sound.

If you’d like more information on guitar pickups or would like a new set fitted to a cherished axe, drop in BBZGuitars shop in High Wycombe, Bucks or give us a call on 01494 533554.

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Tips for selecting your first guitar

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Steve Busby

Whether it’s for Christmas, birthdays or any other special occasion, if you’re buying a guitar, or a guitar package, as a gift for someone else (or even for you) but you don’t play the guitar yourself, here are some tips from BBZGuitars of High Wycombe, Bucks, that will help you make a good purchase.

  • Don’t buy a guitar without hearing it first. If you can’t play the guitar yourself, either take someone along with you who can or ask your guitar dealer to play the instrument for you; you don’t have to be a guitar tech to know whether an instrument sounds good or not.
  • Avoid choosing a guitar based on looks alone. Different guitars produce different sounds so, no matter how cool, funky, whatever, a guitar looks, if you like a particular genre of music, ask your dealer to show you the guitars that are best suited to the sound you want to achieve – even if you’re not there yet, it’ll save you money on an upgrade when you are.
  • Don’t dismiss a guitar just because it doesn’t carry a super logo. Gone are the days when the only good guitars were Gibson’s and Fender’s. In fact today, some of the best value guitars are designed by British companies, like Vintage, Tanglewood, Italia, Gordon Smith and Indie. Brands like these offer a great range of instruments; they’re suitable for all levels of play and include both original and ‘inspired-by’ designs at really affordable prices.
  • Don’t assume you’ve bought a future heirloom just because it’s a well-known brand. Some of the most famous guitar manufacturers are now producing low-priced starter packages but be warned, in our experience these are not great quality guitars and even the most competent guitarists would struggle to get a good sound out of these instruments.
  • Make sure your dealer sets-up your guitar for you. As a general rule, when you buy online, it’s extremely unlikely that your guitar will be set-up for play; most Internet guitar dealers simply pass on the product straight from the manufacturer, without even taking it out of the box. In fact 80% of the guitars we get into our showroom are the same; the difference is that we spend the time setting them up before they go on-sale. But if you do intend to buy online, and you don’t have the skills to set-up the guitar yourself, make sure you ask your dealer to do it for you. If you don’t, it’s likely to cost you at least £40 to get your guitar into a playable condition.
  • Don’t rule out second-hand guitars. This is especially relevant when you’re buying for a teenager or young child because, in reality, learning the guitar is not as easy as playing Guitar Hero so their interest may wane. But as long as you go to a reputable supplier and, again, have them play the guitar for you if you can’t play yourself, you could bag yourself a really great deal; in fact you’ll probably end up with a better guitar than you budgeted for new, plus you’ll have something with a resale value, just in case things don’t work out.
  • Factor in the cost of returns on Internet purchases and remember to hang on to your packaging. This is only relevant if you are buying from the Internet but since around 20% of you will, it’s important to remember that if you do have any problems with your guitar, even if it’s covered by warranty, you’ll still need to pay for its return to the dealer; it’s also wise to insure the carriage because guitars are quite susceptible to damage in-transit, and don’t forget to hang on to your packaging because it’s not going to fit into any old box.
  • Finally, make sure you get a warranty with your guitar. It may seem obvious but it’s easy not to think about things going wrong with your guitar when you’re buying it. However, if anything does go wrong and you’ve bought from someone who is not a main dealer, any warranty you might have is invalid so you’ll have to foot the bill for any repairs.

For more information on buying guitars, drop into the BBZGuitars showroom in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, or call us on 01494 533554.

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