CoffeeAndKlon #17: Fretboards And Tonewood

This conversation was originally posted to my Twitter feed.

Good morning! Hope you’re having a great weekend. And, if you’re that way inclined, that you’re starting your Sunday with a great cup of coffee.

This week has been all about pickups for me. Because the new pickups for the Vintage Lemon Drop arrived 🙂 I dropped everything off at my local guitar shop on Thursday, and I imagine it won’t be too long before I get the guitar back to play with.

I have a theory as to how it might go. I’m excited to see whether or not it holds up to the test. To explain the theory, I need to provide a bit of context …

Continue reading “CoffeeAndKlon #17: Fretboards And Tonewood”

Vintage Celestion G12 Tone Crash Course

Johan Segeborn – the master of tone comparison videos – believes that the speaker is the single most important component in creating vintage guitar tones. He’s put together a whirlwind demonstration of a number of vintage Celestion speakers to show us why.

Speakers are such simple things on the surface, yet – as Johan demonstrates – there’s a lot of variables that make an audible difference. And if you can hear the difference on YouTube, imagine how big the difference is in the room, or in any kind of recording.

Watch the difference to hear how these speakers vary, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.

Dialling In A Classic Marshall Amp Tone

Jeff McErlain has posted a demo of how he dials in his Marshall amp to get those classic tones.

Jeff shows us how he sets up his amp to suit his neck pickup first, with the gain set to leave plenty of room for picking dynamics. From there, he uses the tone and volume controls on his guitars to get the bridge pickup sounding great without sounding too harsh. And finally, he sticks a Klone in front of the amp as a clean boost for lead tones.

This is a fantastic video if you’re chasing these classic tones.

Watch the video for full details of how Jeff does this, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.

The Ultimate Guide To Vintage Les Paul Tone

Over at The Guitar Magazine, Huw and the team have published a lengthy read on how to get vintage Les Paul tone without selling a kidney to pay for it.

http://www.theguitarmagazine.com/features/vintage-les-paul-tone-guide/

This is a topic that come up all the time on the two main Les Paul forums. The debates are long (and often become unpleasant), and they usually condense into three points:

  1. Most people don’t know what a vintage Les Paul actually sounds like.
  2. Some people insist that they can’t hear a difference, therefore there isn’t a difference.
  3. Some people think the difference isn’t worth the cost.

I’m very much in the first camp. I have no idea what a vintage Les Paul sounds like. I’ve never played one, and if I did get the chance to, I’d need to either play it through my rig or compare it with some of my guitars to have a reference point to help understand what I’d be hearing.

Have a read of the full article, and see what you think.