Review: KTS Titanium Saddles

With a seemingly steep price tag (£65 for strat type), titanium saddles probably don't appear to be a worthy upgrade for your guitar. However, you might be surprised at the difference these small bits of titanium could make to the tone of your instrument and the life of your strings. I fitted a set to my MusicMan Luke (quite a dark sounding guitar) and was amazed to find that the increase in brightness in the sound- not in a razor sharp horrible way- but in a very subtle and musical way. The string life has extended to about 3 times as long and I have played 4 gigs on one set of strings (something unheard of for me!). The saddles have payed for themselves in 3 months so they have turned out to be quite a sound (no pun intended) investment. Available in the UK through WD Music or direct from KTS.
Rating: 7/10

Elvis Costello Signature Guitar

Elvis (not the King...) has got a signature Fender Jazzmaster guitar. Apparently it's a faithful reproduction of the guitar he has used since the 70s. Like most Fender artist signature guitars it comes with a unique finish, fret inlay and neck profile, and (most probably) an over inflated price tag.

Gear Review: Seymour Duncan SFX-03

Finally, a valve based pedal that actually sounds good! The SFX-03 Twin Tube Classic is different to other valve pedals in that it runs off a 16v power supply- others run off 9v supplies and don't really work the valves properly- and some have a mains supply and a big transformer (heavy and expensive, like the Boogie V-twin pedal). The casing gets reassuringly warm during operation, confirming that there is real valve activity going on, but thanks to the military spec tubes, you don't need to worry about mistreating it (within reason...).
For controls there is a fairly easy to use compliment of master treble and bass, and volume and gain for each channel. Nothing complicated here- just set the gains, balance out the volumes, and set the EQ to match your amp.

The pedal works best with a slightly crunchy amp tone and is best engaged when you need more of a push. If you really like high gain settings, kick in the second channel for face melting filth. Used with the green OD channel of a Marshall JVM2, it's really easy to achieve saturated and compressed tone, without an excess of distortion or background noise. Plugged into the front end of a POD or a Tonelab it's fat tone all around, but watch the output level: things can get a bit ugly when you push the front end of digital gear.

In conclusion... A great pedal to add more versatility to your existing amp, or to get nice chunky lead tones, without fizz or mud at reasonable levels. A must have item for classic rock and blues players, but it probably isn't one for modern Metal players. Prices are around £150 in stores (Money well spent!).

Overall Rating: 8/10

Star Wars Day

To mark Star Wars day we have trawled Youtube for the best Star Wars theme arranged for guitar. May the fourth be with you....

Backing track in E

Here is a great backing track in E from Youtube user P4KC1. Try some E pentatonic and blues scale based licks. Check out Jguitar for a really easy to use (and free!) scale calculator.



Remember... if you come across any cool backing tracks or guitar resources, let us know! And most importantly leave feedback on youtube for any cool videos like this- some 5 star ratings and positive comments are all some people need in order to produce lots of more free stuff for us all to use (Who said I was a cheapskate?).

Speed Kills

Michael Angelo (Not the painter... the guitarist) has re released his Speed Kills and Speed Lives DVDs, with new updated guitar TAB. Unfortunately he isn't giving away a free mullet wig with each DVD. How else are we going to get into the spirit of cheesy shred guitar?!

Motley Crue back together

It's official... Motley Crue are a fully functioning band (again!) after settling their latest dispute out of court and are recording a brand new album. Previous rumours that Tommy Lee had left were untrue. Apparently Nikki Sixx (Bass player, backing vocals, big hair) had a tantrum last year and had announced Tommy had left. Those of you that have read "The Dirt" were probably under the impression that they had grown up and were now more mature. Obviously 50 year old rockstars can still act childish. Lets see how Pete Doherty is behaving in 2038...

Led Zep Tribute

Some advice for the budding musicians out there: If you are thinking of forming a tribute band you may or may not want to get some ideas from this!

Bargain Hunt...

The UKs least favourite musical Argos style chain store has gone into administration.

Sound (out of...) Control is a huge chain with stores up and down the country and it appears that the company got too big to sustain itself. Industry insiders are predicting a severe down sizing of the company in terms of stock or stores in the near future.

The company has come under a fair amount of flack from many in the trade as a result of alleged driving down profit margins, poorly trained staff, running into the red for years on end etc etc... A sad day for the employees that have lost their jobs, but at least the rest of the big stores out there will (hopefully!) take a reality check and start running their stores properly.

Keep a look out on their website and in store for BARGAINS BARGAINS BARGAINS! :)