Rob's Ramblings

A few months back I was talking to our Fender rep when he was showing us the new line of Fender Performer Series guitars when he produced a Ukulele that was a signature model of a young musician named, Grace VanderWaal. He assured me that this was a great move for Fender because there is a record number of Ukuleles being sold and Grace was riding a wave of popularity among the younger demographic. Now I don’t hide the fact that I’m not the biggest fan of the four stringed noise makers but there is no denying the effect it is having on younger (and older) audiences. The Ukulele is seeing somewhat a resurgence of popularity in recent years (so much so that they usurped the venerable Recorder for schools most popular instrument to learn last year) as it’s cost of entry is so much lower than that of a guitar, it also has a bit more of a forgiving learning curve. Why is this important you may ask? Well, many of these player do eventually gravitate toward the guitar once they have gained a certain level of skill with the Ukulele. What was more interesting was the fact he mentioned that (according to Fender’s research) more than 50% of new guitarists are female. This is the first time that the female demographic has outweighed their male counterparts in picking up the instrument. Continue Reading

Gibson is synonymous with guitars and music. They have put more instruments in the hands of trail blazing musicians of the 20th century than any other brand.

They have had ups and down over years, had many hits, but equal amounts of misses with iconic guitar designs but ultimately have stayed near the top of the game for over a century. All this was thrown into question last year when the world famous brand announced bankruptcy. The music industry took in a collective breath waiting to see what the future held for the much loved company behind some of the most famous guitars, sounds, and riffs ever created.

Before we speculate about the future, let's have a little history lesson about Gibson's rise and fall from grace.

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Marshall have quite a storied history. If you're interested in a little history lesson about the company you should definitely check that out here.

New for 2019 they are looking back and taking inspiration from three chapters of that history.

They are introducing their new Studio line of amplifiers that touch upon the signature sounds that helped paved the way for them to become one of biggest names in rock.

They are as follows... Continue Reading

The guitarists landscape is changing. Apart from a lucky few that can crank their 100 watt amplifiers to achieve their sound, most of us have found that smaller valve amps turned up sound better than big amps turned down. Increasingly we are actually running these amp clean and getting all of our sounds from a select few (or many in some people cases) pedals.

Over the past few years computer technology has really played a large role in how we achieve the sound that is in our heads. There has been a noticeable shift in the gear being sold and what guitarist expect from it.
Amp modelling has gone from being a bit of a novelty that was baked into software 10-13 years ago, to being of mild interest, to slowly becoming one of the hottest topics in the guitar industry.
Companies like Line 6, Headrush and most notably Kemper have turned the traditional gigging musicians setups on their head.

But for some of us we still prefer the classic pedalboard setup but don't want to lug a hefty valve amp about the place! Having a board with your prized pedals on, ready to gig with at a moments notice is something a lot of us dream about. Continue Reading

David Gilmour needs little introduction and nor does his love the electric guitar. A keen collector during his professional career, he has amassed an extensive collection of vintage instruments as well as ones that he bought new. One particular guitar that is synonymous with Gilmour helped cement him as one of Rock's most prolific artists and also took on it's it's own mystique: The Black Strat.

After 50 years this legendary instrument and some 120 others from his collection are going up for auction in June. Christie's in New York are running the auction and all the proceeds will be going to charitable foundations.

Those of you with extra deep pockets and a love of all things Floyd should definitely take a look to see what is offer. For the rest of us we can dream...

Let's go over some of the highlights Continue Reading

Orange is probably the most instantly recognisable amp brands out there and that does need any explanation as to why. Now they are expanding their already impressive catalog of amps with the new Tremlord amplifier. First let's have a brief catch up as to how we got here. Continue Reading

The world of Rock is filled with iconic guitars: Gary Moore/Peter Green's Les Paul, David Gilmour's Black Strat, and any guitar Hendrix ever touched. Many of these guitars that are becoming more legendary than the guitarists that played them even.
These instrument are often passed between the greats as gifts and subsequently go onto shape a whole new genre of music. One such guitar was Jimmy Page's Dragon Telecaster. Continue Reading

After a bumper Black Friday event followed by a rather manic Christmas period we were all but cleared out of guitars and accessories. Our walls were looking incredibly sad during January, a true visual representation of the month known the world over for being a bit... blue. But fear no more! The shipping god have heeded our pleas and delivered the goods in the form of many guitar shaped lovelies.

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Taylor are known to be the Ying to Martin’s Yang. A modern sounding instrument manufacturer making guitars with a powerful clear voice, a voice where each note is clear and concise. They are relatively young within the industry as a whole but this clear, concise nature to their sound has obviously been applied to their business practices and resonated among the guitar buying public as they find themselves sitting at the top of the pile as one of the most respected instrument manufacturers trading today.

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I happened to scrolling through my Instagram feed the other morning when I found the whole feed was saturated by acoustic guitars! This is quite normal when you follow guitar manufacturer around NAMM time but the guitar in question were the new Sheeran guitars (of course this is a Mr Ed Sheeran that seems to have dominated the music landscape for the better part of a decade).

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