I get a lot of calls from people who are looking to buy their first acoustic guitar and have no idea where to begin. After doing research and playing just about every inexpensive acoustic guitar out there, I have come across one line of guitars that stand out for their combination of low price and high quality construction: This is the Jasmine line from Takamine.
There must be something in the water near the Jasmine factory. In most cases, two guitars can come off of the same production line one after another and they’ll still have differences in action and intonation. That’s why you always have to check the actual instrument you’re about to buy to make sure that the action is low and that the 12th fret harmonic and the 12th fret fretted note are identical. The instrument should also remain in tune while being played. By these standards, for most acoustic guitars at the $100 level there will be several rejects for every guitar that is acceptable. However, I’ve searched out and played over 50 Jasmines and they’ve all had good action and good intonation. Way to go, guys!
Jasmine guitars are designed by the same builders that make the highly-regarded Takamine guitar line, and Jasmine prides itself in maintaining “Takamine-level” instrument construction. Whatever they’re doing, it’s working! The woods used for the Jasmines aren’t up to the level of Takamine – they have laminated spruce faces, nato sides and back and a rosewood fretboard – but like I said, the Jasmine is a steal at its price.
The model I recommend is the S34C NEX Acoustic Guitar which is currently selling on Amazon for $95. The NEX-style body is very comfortable to play and the cutaway shape allows easy access to the high end of the neck. Find it here.
Guitar power amplifiers have been getting smaller and smaller over the years, and now they’ve gotten downright teensy! Meet the world’s smallest – the Electro-Harmonix 22 Caliber power amp.
This baby is the size of an effects pedal, but it’s a full function 22 watt power head – that’s the same amount of wattage as my Fender Deluxe Reverb in a housing that fits in your pocket!
Electro-Harmonix is a New York-based company that’s been around since the late sixties. They were pioneers in fuzz and sustain pedals (remember the Big Muff sustain pedal?). They say that they’re “currently researching and developing breakthroughs in shrinking the guitar amp without sacrificing an ounce of tone” on their website, and let me tell you – it’s working.
The 22 Caliber can power up a 4×12 speaker cabinet and convincingly make those 4 12” speakers growl
. You can plug the amp into a cabinet with 1, 2 or 4 speakers, and it’s safe to use with 4, 8 or 16 ohm resistance which makes it compatible with just about everything.
The controls are simply a volume knob and a normal/bright equalization switch. At low volume the amp has a clear, clean sound that’s quite pleasing. Middle volume gives you a good distorted rhythm sound with long sustain. When you top the amp out to saturation you get a Hendrix sound with lots of screaming overtones. Big fun! And you can add whatever delay or reverb you want in front of it to tailor your sound.
Here’s the punchline: The price is $106.50 (at guitarcenter.com). That’s an amazing value for this amp, and the price includes the A/C power supply.
What do you do with a pocket-sized power amplifier? You can throw it in your gig bag when you’re going to a jam and leave your heavy amp behind, confident that you can get a great, reliable sound through whatever speaker cabinet you plug into. And if you’ve ever had an amp stop working at a gig you know it can be a show-stopper – but not if you have this handy back-up amp.
For about $38 you can upgrade to the 44 Magnum version which is the same Amp with 44 watts of power ($144.75 at guitarcenter.com).
Some guitarists like to tune their instruments lower than normal to achieve a slightly deeper sound. Drop-D tuning is one version of this, and other players tune the whole instrument down a half-step to Eb or even a whole step to D. The effect is quite noticeable and makes the music being played sound darker.
Another very cool option available to the guitarist is to play in a much lower register with a baritone guitar. The baritone guitar is a six-string instrument that falls halfway between the sound of a normal guitar and a bass guitar. It’s generally tuned either a fifth lower (A D G C E A) or a fourth lower (B E A D F# B) than normal. I opt for the fifth below.
The baritone guitar is played just like a normal guitar, except the strings are thicker (especially on the bottom end) and the fret spacing is wider.
If you’ve ever seen an early Clint Eastwood “spaghetti western” movie you’ve heard the powerful and mysterious sound of a single chord being strummed one time on a baritone guitar at key moments.
The sound of the baritone guitar is captivating. It’s an amazing sensation to play the guitar as you normally would and to hear a huge, deep, throaty half-octave-lower sound emanate from your instrument. It can inspire an exciting new direction in your playing and composing.
Danelectro introduced the first solid-body electric baritone guitar in 1957. It looked just like their standard electric guitar but with a neck that was five inches longer! They referred to it as the “UB-2 six-string bass”.
Guitarists as diverse as Jerry Cantrell, Allan Holdsworth, Ani DiFranco, Pat Metheney, Andy McKee, Joe Bonamassa and Dave Matthews have explored the baritone guitar in their recording and performing careers.
Baritone guitars are available from Danelectro, Fender, Gibson, Gretch, Schecter and Ibanez, among others. Try one next time you’re at your favorite music store.
A unique aspect of guitars is that manufacturers are always innovating and making a great-sounding instrument sound and play even better. I remember when the first Ovation guitars appeared in 1966: they were met with a lot of skepticism. Unlike past guitars, only the face of the guitar was made of wood. The sides and back were an unusual semi-parabolic-shaped solid piece of composite material. However, when they started popping up on stage in the hands of artists like John McLaughlin and Al DiMeola who made these instruments sound incredible, people gave Ovations a second look. Turns out, the optimized shape and the composite material Lyrachord combined to produce excellent resonance and sustain. As a result, the guitars soon became very popular.
When I bought my Sierra acoustic-electric, it came with an excellent built-in tuner. It was even more convenient than I would have imagined to have the tuner on hand at all times instead of having to rummage through my gear to find one when I needed it.
So, recently I was wondering what other innovative features might be bundled into guitars that make playing more fun and convenient. Here’s what I found: The Ovation iDea.
The Ovation iDea is the first acoustic-electric guitar to come with its own built-in mp3 recorder. It’s designed to give you the ability to record ideas you have the moment you think of them and then preserve them on your computer. This guitar has a bridge pickup and a built-in microphone, so you can record guitar and vocals at the same time, as well as just speaking your ideas into the mic so you can refer to them later. You can store as much as 100 minutes of material. There have been many times I’ve wished I had a recorder handy when inspiration strikes, so I love this feature.
Other features include on-board jam tracks, the ability to change the playback tempo without changing pitch (another favorite of mine) and even pre-loaded audio guitar lessons. The pre-amp/recorder pops out of the instrument, so it can be used anywhere.
If you already have a beloved Ovation that has an OP-series pre-amp you can replace it with the OPI-1 IDea Retrofit pre-amp, which can be purchased separately.
Prices for the guitar range from $579 – $649, and the Retrofit pre-amp goes for $299.
[photo: Kyknord]
I love playing in open tunings. When I first discovered them as a teenager, I spent hours exploring them and I still do so today. Open tunings allow you to create chord voicings that are more mysterious and colorful than you can get with normal guitar tuning. But there are a couple of downsides to open tunings. For one thing, if you want to switch between normal tuning and open tuning you either need two instruments or take the time to re-tune your guitar between songs. Another problem is that if you re-tune your instrument frequently the strings stretch out and lose their vibrant sound.
That’s why I’m excited about this new development in capos. The fine designers at Creative Tunings have given us the SpiderCapo, the first capo that allows you to capo each string individually. Think of the vast number of tunings that are possible when you multiply all the fret placements by all the combinations of strings capo’d or not capo’d—there are hundreds of them. The SpiderCapo also allows you to finger strings above and below the capo—awesome! What’s more, you can change the individual string settings while you’re playing. It makes your head spin with possibilities.
Find it at Guitar Center, $29.95.
Many students ask me which products they should use to clean their acoustic guitars. Some of them have tried commercial guitar cleaning kits or polishes—or even (gasp!) Lemon Pledge. Don’t do it! Polishes build up on the finish of your guitar, dulling the sound of the wood. Instead, simply take a warm, damp cloth and wipe the wood down, and then dry it immediately with a soft, dry cloth. Micro-fiber cloths provide a soft, clean touch for drying. Your finish will look as good as new.
While you’re at it, you can clean those dusty hard-to-reach areas like your tuning head and the area under the strings in front of the bridge with a small (1- to 2-inch), clean, dry paint brush.
[photo: Geishaboy500]
Practicing with a metronome is the long-established method for learning to keep solid time. Playing scales and chord progressions with the metronome forces you to recognize any tendency you might have to speed up or slow down while you’re playing and helps you correct it. Metronome practice also allows you to gradually and effectively improve the speed of all your techniques.
Today there are many better options than the monotonous click-click-click of the traditional metronome. One is to replace it with a drum machine, which is a hundred times more fun to practice with than a metronome. In my guitar studio, I have a Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-3 Standard
that I’m very happy with. [more…]
