I’ve played guitar and bass for many years. Over this time I have played many guitars from every brand name you can imagine. Over this time one of the things I have found is that brand name and cost seem to have very little to do with a guitars quality. For example, I picked up a Fender American Made 40th Anniversary Stratocaster and absolutely hated it - I returned it 3 days later. Before I returned it, I decided to take a peak under the pickguard and to my horror I saw that it was bathtub routed! Yes, they gouged a swimming pool under that pickguard so it would fit any type of pickup imaginable and in doing so they removed so much wood it was like the guitar had no soul. When I was returning it, I saw an old Cort Strat Copy they were asking $80 for. I played it for about 15 minutes and bought it. When I got home I did some basic setup. I replaced the strings and adjusted the action. Now let me tell you, this $80 guitar played circles around the American made Strat, not only that, it had much better tone! A couple months back I stumbled upon a forum that was dedicated to a specific Fender Squire Guitar, The Modded ‘51. After seeing all the cool things people were doing with the modded ‘51 I decided to get one myself to check it out. These guitars were being blown out at a sales price of only $99 so I thought it would be something cheap enough for me to mod and try my hand at things I wouldn’t do on a more expensive guitar. I got it home and did my normal setup. I switched it to a set of 0.10’s, adjusted the action and gave it a try - it was incredible! This guitar has sweet Strat like tone and plays like a dream! Of course it is made by Fender Guitars, but its one of their cheaper models. This just goes to show you price does not make a great guitar. A great guitar can be found in any price range if you just take the time to look. Rocks

Many guitarists have a hard time getting incredible tone at lower volumes. The problem is most amps are simply too powerful to use for practice and small basement jams. Myself, I love tube amps and to get the best possible sound playing at home I found it best to use tube amps that are around 5 watts so I can get that fully cranked tube tone at volumes that don’t shake the walls.

My personal setup has two 5 watt tube amps. One is a vintage Fender Vibro-Champ and the other is a vintage Kalamazoo Model Two. Both of these amps have incredible tone and are all tubes and point to point wired. Right now they are stock but I’m working on adding a couple of extension speaker cabinets to give them a fuller tone.

The Fender Vibro-Champ comes with a stock 8″ ALNICO speaker and the Kalamazoo comes with a 10″ ALNICO speaker. I’m thinking about adding a 2 x10″ cabinet for the Fender tube amp and a 1 x 15″ cabinet for the Kalamazoo Model Two.

The Fender Vibro-Champ has incredible sparkle and bright clean tones so I think the 2 x 10″ cabinet would be perfect. The Kalamazoo tube amp has a bit darker of a tone but can still get quite bright so I’m thinking the 15″ would give me some good bottom end for blues. I might also build a 2 x 12″ cabinet so I can try different combinations with the tube amp heads to see which is really the best tone.

I also have a 5 watt Silvertone tube amp that I am just getting ready to rewire, I’ll post pictures of this when I do this project. Once I have the Silvertone up and running I’ll be able to try even more combinations to get the perfect tone.

The great thing is I can play any of these amps by themselves and have fun with a great sounding tube amp. Currently I use a stereo effects unit that sends my guitar signal to both amps so I can get really great stereo sound. The tone from these two low wattage tube amps combined is incredible!

The best part is these amps can easily power a 4 x 12″ cabinet and sound incredible doing it!
Rocks

The worlds first folding electric guitar will be introduced at the Musikmesse in Frankfurt on March 28 2007. The Centerfold guitar solves a transport problem that every guitarist has experienced. The magical thing is that the guitar can be played directly after its been unfolded and it stays in tune even when it is folded away, says Leif Rehnstrom, Managing Director of the newly started DeVillain Guitar Company in Skelleftea, Sweden.

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