Guitars - Gibson

If you play the guitar, then most likely you've heard of Gibson. If not, then you've been living under a rock and having your food delivered to you through a bubble. Gibson is arguably the most popular guitar manufacturer in the world today and have been for quite some time. We're going to take just a surface look at this guitar giant. For more info, just visit their web site. Yeah, they've got one of those too now.

Gibson makes a lot of guitars, but probably none are as popular as the Gibson Les Paul. The Les Paul is probably one of the most widely used guitars in rock music. The guitar first made its presence in 1952 and is still going strong over 50 years later. The Les Paul is a solid body electric guitar that comes in many models including the Les Paul Classic, Les Paul Supreme, Les Paul Standard, Les Paul Studio Baritone, Les Paul Studio, Les Paul Goddess, Les Paul Gt, Les Paul Menace, Les Paul New Century, Les Paul Vixen, Les Paul Special (with Humbucker pickups), Les Paul Doublecuts and Les Paul Melody Maker. Each one of these guitars has its own distinct sound.

But Gibson is more than just Les Paul guitars, even though they are the most popular models and used by more musicians than any other model. Gibson also makes the Americana, which is a fairly new guitar series. This includes the Pioneer Cutaway and the Ranger. These are 6 string acoustic guitars that have a very beautiful tone.

Getting back to electric guitars and to another old favorite, Gibson also makes the Firebird series which includes the Firebird Studio, Firebird V and Firebird VII. This series started way back in 1963 and took electric guitars in a whole new direction with its look and sound. This guitar is still very popular today with people who are looking for something a little different from the classic Les Paul sound.

Even two years before the Firebird was the SG series by Angus Young. This was actually a modification of the Les Paul with a thinner body and pointed horns. Originally part of the Les Paul series, it eventually got its own name. The SG series includes the SG 61 reissue, which is actually an exact replica of the original guitar, the SG Goddess, SG GT, SG Menace, SG Standard, SG Supreme and SG Special.

Gibson also makes other models of electric guitars but in addition to guitars, Gibson also makes electric bases which include the Continental V Bass, Les Paul Double Cut Bass, Les Paul Standard Base and Les Paul Thunderbird Bass which includes the four and five string models.

Sadly, there are some models of guitars that Gibson decided to discontinue for 2006. These include the Blues Hawk, Chet Atkins SST and Chet Atkins CE and CEC. These will be missed as they were excellent guitars, even if they didn't sell as well as expected.

Gibson guitars have been a staple of the guitar industry for over 50 years. They are certain to remain at the top of the guitar world for at least another 50 years.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Guitars

Guitars - Washburn

Washburn Guitars don't quite have the same name and reputation as giants like Gibson and Fender, but this little company has been around for quite some time and manufacturers a quality product. We're going to take a look at the Washburn company, a little history and some of the guitars that is makes.

What most people don't realize is that Washburn itself has been around since 1883. While it didn't make electric guitars back then, it did manufacture other fine instruments. By the 1920s, Washburn had become a music center by itself. It was considered to be the first place where African-Americans would go to back then. This was in the Mississippi Delta which is where the Delta Blues originated. When the guitar industry started to blossom, Washburn became the main manufacturer of guitars for musicians who were heavily into the blues. This seemed like a perfectly natural progression considering Washburn's roots.

Washburn makes a complete line of electric and acoustic guitars and basses. They also manufacture banjos, mandolins and amplifiers.

As for electric guitars, Washburn offers a wide variety of these. There are the famous Washburn Hollow Body guitars which include the HB35, the HB30, the HB32 DM, the J5, the J4, the J3 and the HB15. Then there is the Scott Ian signature series electric guitars which include the SI 75 and SI 70. The features of these guitars alone are too numerous to even list. And the price tags that go along with them (over $2500) are not for the average musician.

In 1999, Washburn decided it wanted to make a guitar for the 21st century. That's when they came up with the Idol series. These guitars cover a wide spectrum of looks and sounds and include the Aaron Fink, Sonny Mayo, Joe Don Rooney and many others.

Other electric guitars in their line include the Maya series, featuring the Maya Pro, the N series, all numbered from N1 to N6, the X series, which includes the really cool looking flame maple Face Eraser and the Anarchy Graphic series which includes the classic V style WV 16, the X 16 and the WI 16. These are some of the most graphically stunning guitars made.

But we've only scratched the surface here. Aside from the large line of electric guitars, Washburn makes an equally long line of acoustic guitars. These include the USA Acoustics, which run as high as $2400; the Jumbo Acoustics, which feature a big low end and a lot of extra volume; the Dreadnought series, which are all handcrafted from premium woods and materials; the Folk style guitars, which are excellent for recording and feature solid spruce tops; their traditional classical acoustics, which are one of the oldest guitars that they make; the NV guitars, which are for pure professionals and come with price tags as much as $1000 plus and some fine travel guitars ranging in price from about $100 to $500.

Washburn offers a guitar for just about every type of musician. They may not have the same name as Gibson or Fender, but they make one heck of a fine guitar.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Guitars

Guitars - Dean

Dean guitars are just flat out kick behind instruments. These are guitars that some of the most hard rocking heavy metal bands use to get their dynamite sound. On top of that, these guitars are just plain awesome to look at. Even a so-so musician is at least sure to look super cool with one of these instruments in his hand. Well, we're going to take a look at just some of the many guitars that Dean manufactures.

Just the guitars that Dean makes that were new for this year alone could put some other guitar catalogues to shame. While we can't possibly review all of them, we're going to pick out some of the cooler models and give them the once over.

At the top of the list has to be the USA Razor Rebelback. The body of the guitar itself has a Hand Airbrushed Distressed Rebel Flag Finish that is just the coolest thing you've ever seen. Some people may be offended by it but you can't argue with the artwork being truly awesome. The rest of the guitar comes with a Dimebucker Treble Pickup and Dimarzio Rhythm Pickup. It also has Grover Tuners and a Floyd Rose Tremolo.

Another Dean classic is the V White Gold guitar. This V shaped guitar has a pure white body with gold pickups. Turn out the lights and you'll still see this thing. It's features include 1 High-Output Gold Covered Humbucking Pickup and Grover Rotomatic Tuners. The sound of this guitar when cranked up is just flat out boss.

Of course you can't go wrong with the Dean Dime From Hell Baby guitar. It is almost impossible to describe what this guitar looks like except to say that the body is mostly blue with what appears to be yellow streaks running through it that can be anything from rivers to lightening bolts. It is certainly very abstract looking. This guitar features 3/4 Size Basswood ML Body, Maple Neck Rosewood Fretboard, Custom Head and Body and Graphic Dual Humbuckers.

No review of Dean guitars would be complete without the Dean Lost 100. This is a limited edition guitar in which only 100 were produced. Want to talk about rare. The guitars were made with serial numbers starting from 77 000001 to 77 000100. These guitars were all built to exact specifications. Each one of the guitars was personally signed by Dean B. Zelinksy and came with a certificate of authenticity. These guitars were designed from the original guitars made in 1977. Each guitar comes with a flame maple top, ebony fingerboard, V profile neck, original Dimarzio super distortion pickups and a number of other features.

Aside from all the electric guitars that Dean makes, they also manufacture acoustic guitars and electric bass guitars. They even have a line of guitars for left handed players. But Dean's electric guitars are the staple of their company.

If you're a hard rocking, heavy metal or speed metal freak, then a Dean electric guitar is just the thing you need to bring your sound to the forefront.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Guitars

Guitars - Yamaha

In the world of guitars, Yamaha isn't exactly the first company that you think of. Known more for keyboards, digital pianos and synthesizers, Yamaha still makes some decent guitars which are more than reasonably priced. We're going to go over some of the guitars that this 40 year old company makes.

Yamaha started in 1966 long before the first synthesizer came out. But by the mid 80s they were making some of the best synthesizers on the market, including the classic Dx-7. But in spite of their reputation as a keyboard giant, the land of guitars was not very far away.

Yamaha guitars are not the fanciest looking models around but they do have a decent sound. The AES series includes the AES 420 through 920 series numbers, with the exception of the 820 which doesn't exist. No explanation is given for the missing number.

The Pacifica series, which has a somewhat sleeker look than the AES series, includes the PAC 012 through 812, again missing a couple of series numbers including, again, the 8 series. They must have something against that number. Yamaha was always very unoriginal when it came to naming instrument models, whether they were keyboards or guitars.

The Gigmaker series is one of Yamaha's newest additions. The look is very similar to the Pacifica series but that's where the similarities end. The Gigmaker series features 20-watt, 2-channel drive guitar amp, protective gig bag, Qwik Tune Digital chromatic tuner, guitar cable, instructional DVD, guitar strap, extra strings and guitar picks. It may not sound like a big deal for those who have purchased the bigger name brands but for the price, this isn't a bad guitar. The best part about this series is that it comes with a lifetime warranty. Even if you drop it off of a building, they'll replace it free of charge.

One of the smaller series of guitars as far as how many are made, is the E series, which consists of only three models, the 112, 103 and 121. The guitars are actually very well made and come with not two, but three pickups. Two single coil and one humbucking pickup. Plus, they come with a vintage vibrato system and tremolo bar. And they don't cost a fortune.

Another small series of guitars is the RGX series. Consisting of the 320, 520 and XA2, these guitars feature two Yamaha humbucker pickups and the original Yamaha AES series bridge. The three position pickup switch is a nice touch.

The Archtop series of guitars, which have some really fat looking bodies include not one but seven different models. They come with three single bar coil pickups, duel three way selector switches and a chrome Bigsby tremolo. These are some nice sounding guitars.

Rounding out their line of electric guitars is the Eterna. This guitar also comes with three pickups, two single coil and one humbucking.

No, you won't find Yamaha guitars being played by your bigger rock and roll bands, but that's not to say that they don't make a decent instrument, especially for somebody who doesn't have $2500 to spend.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Guitars

Guitars - Rickenbacker

Alongside guitar names like Gibson and Fender, you can't mention the best of the best without adding the name of Rickenbacker. This company has been around since 1931, but it wasn't until 1956, on its 25th anniversary, when Rickenbacker began to make a name for itself in the world of guitars.

That year, Rickenbacker introduced the Combo 400. Guitar collectors call it the guitar with the butterfly style body. But Rickenbacker didn't stop there. That same year they added a solid body electric bass guitar. The one thing about these guitars that made them different from any other guitar was that they had necks that extended from the head to the bass of the body. Today they call this neck through body construction. Rickenbacker was the first company to make guitars like this and soon came to be a trademark of the company.

During the 1950s, Rickenbacker had many popular models. Probably the most popular were the hollow body six string Capri models. This guitar was first unleashed on the world in 1958. The guitar itself was designed by Roger Rossmeisl. There were three models of this guitar and each one had a different body style.

But it wasn't until the 1960s that Rickenbacker has sealed its name in rock and roll history when its guitars got permanently fastened to the British invasion of the mid 60s. This invasion came in the form of the greatest rock band of all time, the Beatles. The groups featured several Rickenbacker guitars in its arsenal. Before the Beatles called it quits for good, John Lennon had owned four Rickenbacker guitars himself. The guitars had become so attached to the Beatles that one of the models was known as the "Beatlebacker". Never in history had one guitar been so identified with one particular group or person.

It wasn't long though until Rickenbacker made its way to a number of groups. Roger McGuinn of the Byrds bought himself a Rickenbacker after seeing the Beatles movie "A Hard Day's Night". The sound of the guitar that McGuinn bought actually became the trademark of the Byrds' sound. Other groups and artists that latched onto the Rickenbacker were Pete Townsend of The Who, John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Kay of Steppenwolf. By the late 60s there was a six week waiting period just to get one of these guitars. They were beyond popular. They were a true phenomenon.

By the 1970s, Rickenbacker started making guitars with detachable necks. They even matched slanted frets to match the angle of the player's hand. They also started making their famous double neck models that became quite standard. Other groups started jumping on the Rickenbacker bandwagon like Tom Petty and R.E.M.

Currently, Rickenbacker is as popular as it ever was. More current groups like Oasis, Pearl Jam, Radiohead and U2 all use Rickenbacker guitars to get their patented sound.

If you want to get an idea of just how popular Rickenbacker is, George Harrison of The Beatles was once asked what guitar he played and he answered, "Of course it's a Rickenbacker".

Could there have been any other answer?

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Guitars

Guitars - Ovation

The year was 1966. Guitars had already been around for some time. People expected them to be more or less of a certain type and design. There weren't any real radical innovations in the manufacture of the guitar. And then came along a company by the name of Ovation. They weren't going to just make another guitar. They were going to come out with something completely different. So in 1966, when they broke out into the scene, they came out with their very unique round back guitar, thanks to a guy by the name of Charlie Kaman. The pro musicians of the time absolutely loved the guitar. The guitar purists were not quite as enthused. They just didn't get it.

The odd part of how this guitar actually came to be had nothing to do with guitar manufacture at all. Kaman's knowledge of helicopters and more specifically, helicopter blades, game him a really good understanding of vibration and applied this principal to the making of his new guitar model.

Kaman said that he didn't want to just make another guitar. He said that we had the technology to make something truly different and not only different, but better. So Kaman chose a team of engineers and technicians from the aerospace industry to work on his new project. It didn't hurt that many of these guys had taken up woodworking as a hobby.

What these scientists had come up with was that the common flat body of the guitar was actually not a help but a hindrance to the sound of the guitar. So the first thing they did was break the first rule of making a guitar. They chucked the idea of the flat body completely and made the round body. This design actually gave the guitar a more consistent sound from the bass end to the treble end. They also made the guitar stronger and more sturdy.

Today, Ovation makes a large number of guitar models including the LX Series Standard Balladeer. This guitar is a 6 string acoustic/electric. Its body is a mid depth bowl type. It has a bound rosewood fretboard, rosewood bridge and original patented pickups. The Standard Balladeer is one of Ovations most popular guitar models.

Then of course you have the Custom Legend guitar series. The 1779 USA model has a painted American Flag on the body that is just breathtaking. It also has a mid depth body, bound ebony fretboard and ebony bridge. Even if you don't play the guitar, this is one show piece that just having around the house is going to bring up lots of discussions.

The Elite series has a mid depth cutaway body type. The fretboard is bound ebony with an ebony bridge. It comes with an Ovation Hi-Output pickup which is really loud. This is one guitar that you won't have any trouble hearing even in a large hall.

These models only scratch the surface of the Ovation guitar line, all featuring their round body.

Whatever the critics might think, these guitars sound like none other on the planet.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Guitars

Guitars - One For Each Style

Guitar players cover a number of styles of music, from blues to jazz to rock to pop to speed metal and on and on. And since every style of music is different and every guitar is different, it would then seem a natural conclusion that each style of music is going to have a guitar that is more suited for that style. So, the question, for those who are considering taking up the guitar and getting their first one is, what guitar do you get? If you're interested in jazz do you get the same kind of guitar as somebody who wants to play speed metal? Well, it might be an interesting experiment, but most likely the answer would be, no. So, what guitar should each person get, depending on what kind of music they want to play? Hopefully this article will try to answer that question.

Music is very diverse to say the least. Even within each style there are variations. For example, in rock there is hard rock, soft rock, metal, acid and a host of other sub categories. The sounds and more specifically, the dynamics of each are quite different. While The Eagles and the Allman Brothers might both be considered country or southern rock, depending on which side of the fence you're on, their sounds are quite different. So without nitpicking we're going to take the broad approach over the specific.

If you're going to play music that is relatively soft such as folk music, you probably don't want to get yourself a Rickenbacker electric guitar. Most likely you'll want an acoustic guitar with a nice mellow and round tone. Why acoustic? Well, by the nature of the guitar itself it's a lot softer. Sure, you can turn down an electric guitar's volume but it's more than just that. Acoustic guitars are much easier to control dynamics on. The reason is because the sound is not artificially amplified. If you pluck the string softly you're going to get a soft tone. If you pluck it harder, you'll get a louder tone. Of course an acoustic guitar is never going to get up to the volume of an electric unless you mic it.

On the other side of the spectrum, if you're going to be playing in a heavy metal band, your acoustic guitar, with all the other instruments playing, such as keyboards, bass and drums, won't even be heard. Plus the tone quality of the guitar itself just won't fit into that kind of music. By their nature, electric guitars have a sharper and harder sound. Add distortion effects to them, which are hard to do with acoustics and you've got a sound that is quite unique. That's why there are so many different electric guitar sounds.

Obviously, this is a very general overview of style to guitar choice. You can get a lot more specific, such as what type of acoustic do you get if you're a country guitar player as opposed to somebody who plays jazz? John Denver based on lot of his patented sound on 12 string guitars while Harry Chapin stayed more with the traditional 6 strong acoustic.

Maybe for a future article we'll dive more deeply into the finer points of picking a guitar based on the style of music you play.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Guitars

Guitars - Buy Cheap Or Good?

Just like automobiles, where you can buy one for just about any price between $15,000 and $1 million dollars, guitar prices are pretty wide too. So if you're looking to get your very first guitar, what do you do? Do you go for one that is a little cheaper or do you buy one that is of better quality? There are two schools of thought on this subject. We'll present both of them with the understanding that neither is right or wrong. They are just opinion.

The first school of thought is that you want to get a guitar that is well made and sounds good, even if it costs a little more. The question you're probably asking, is why? The school of thought that recommends this bases their argument on the following. If a new guitar player buys a cheap guitar with a poor sound, he is more likely to lose interest early on. The reason is because when you first learn to play the guitar you're mostly playing scales and simple tunes that really aren't all that interesting. It's going to be boring enough just trying to get through this, but at least if the guitar itself is of better quality, it will sound better, stay in tune longer and ultimately provide the new student with a more pleasurable learning experience. This will make it so that the student will have a better chance of sticking with his instrument. The extra money will have, in a sense, saved money in the long run. A good quality guitar for a beginner will probably run about $300.

The other school of thought is to get the beginning student a beginner's guitar, maybe something with a price tag of $100 max. Why? Because the thought here is that the beginning student, because he will have to go through with those boring scales and simple tunes, unless he is really dedicated and has a strong love for the instrument, is more likely to give it up early. This will mean less money wasted if a cheaper guitar is purchased in the first place.

There is something to be said for both sides of this argument and we're not going to take one side or the other. However, if a student gets past that initial period on his beginner guitar, whether you went with cheap or not so, what's next? If you bought a cheap guitar to start with, the student is going to want something better. If he stuck with it this long, he's entitled to it. Certainly he can't play a cheap guitar in a band or professionally. This is where you have to more or less live within your means. Sure, he'd probably love to have a $2500 Rickenbacker signature model but maybe he'll have to settle for a Gibson Les Paul for around $700.

Best suggestion is to talk to your kid after the learning stage is over. Find out how serious he is about his guitar playing. If he's very serious, you might just want to invest in an instrument that he'll cherish for many years to come.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Guitars