Epic Vai documentary, tone secrets of a weird cab, and a way to keep your guitar in better tune
Also, is this video game a good way to learn guitar?
I was recently going through the archives for Six String Sunday Club, and sometimes I forget that I’ve been putting out this newsletter since 2016! I’ve gone through a couple of email providers, different formats/styling, and have had many ideas about what it should contain.
Over the past couple of years I’ve landed on a format that works for me, and seems to work for readers too - a curated section of my favorite links from the guitar world, with a little bit of commentary for each one.
With that being said, I’m always looking to make the newsletter better. So keep an eye out towards the end of September, and into October for gradual changes to 6SSC. If you have any ideas for what you’d like to see, please reply to this email/comment on Substack. Onto this week’s links!
- This Weird Guitar Cab Was The Secret Sound Of Country Radio - Jim Lill continues his quest for tone. This time, doing some very cool research on country player, J.T. Corenflos. Jim was able to play a ton of his cabs, but one in particular, a half open/closed back cab is what really struck him.
- Is Your Guitar Buzzing? How to Fix Every Type of Guitar Buzz - The folks at StringJoy sat down with a luthier to talk about how to fix all sorts of buzzing on your guitar. Whether it be from high frets, bridge buzz, pickup height or more, it's probably in this video.
- Neoclassical Shred Secrets From HELL!!! w/Uncle Ben Eller - Grab your puffy shirt. If you're a fan of neoclassical shred, you should check out this new video from Ben Eller. The half hour video features information that'd make Yngwie Malmsteen proud.
- Steve Vai - His First 30 Years | The Documentary - Shout out to David Donaldson, who's always finding new and exciting guitar links. He shared the YT channel The Tapes Archive recently in our Discord. The channel's latest documentary focuses on Steve Vai's life from 1960-1990. I'm still working my way through the whole documentary, but what I've watched so far is really well done.
- Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi Hardware Plugin - Friend of the newsletter Simon Allaway shared this cool update to a classic pedal. Electro Harmonix is now coming out with the Big Muff Pi, but with the ability to use the actual analog circuitry of the pedal in your recording software of choice. Of course, it's not just limited to guitar. EHX shows how this pedal sounds great on drums, keys and more.
- PRS SE Factory Tour | 2022 | PRS Guitars - As soon as I picked up my John Mayer Silver Sky SE, it's been hard to put it down. It was great to see how much care PRS puts into their sub-brand. It's very cool for a manufacturer to take a look into their factory - which really says something to me - that they're proud of this line of guitars. I think brands like Squier, Epiphone and others could take note from how well these guitars are made.
- Dave Weiner: “For a long time I had no desire to pick up a guitar. The guitar has always been my coping mechanism and now it seemed silly” - I didn't expect to see a mental health article in Guitar World, but I'm so glad I did. Dave Weiner is a phenomenal guitar player and teacher. It was helpful to see how he manages his mental health, even with a ton of adversity. I wish more people would talk about this side of our industry!
- The HENDRIX Pentatonic Theory - Marty Schwartz just came out with a course on Hendrix! In his latest video, Marty drops some knowledge on how you can add Hendrix-esque embellishments to your rhythm playing.
- I've Been Tuning WRONG (and so have YOU!) - Have we been tuning our guitars wrong this entire time? CSGuitars shows us compensated tuning, and why tuning the strings slightly flatter by a few cents makes your guitar sound more in tune. Counterintuitive, but it sounded pretty darn good in the video!
- The Major Scale On Guitar: What you need to know - I've said it once, and I'll say it again...the major scale is everything! It's your anchor point, your map, your guide to everything else on guitar. I've long loved Chris Sherland's lesson. In his latest video he talks all about...yep, you guessed it, the importance of the major scale.
- How the Jackson American Series Soloist revived USA production guitars - It seems that everyone has been dropping a review for the new Jackson American Series Soloist. Guitar.com did a great post on all the steps that Jackson took over the last 20 years to make a new American model of this axe a reality.
- The Big Review: Ubisoft's Rocksmith+ - One of the biggest gripes I had with Rock Band back in the day (as fun as it was), was that you weren't really learning guitar. Rocksmith+ is set to change that, allowing you to use your own guitar or bass, and learn actual songs. I think this might bring a lot of gamers over to learning a new instrument, so I'm all for that!
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading Six String Sunday!
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