We recently had a chance to meet Nathan B., the guy behind Second Stage Guitars – a new site dedicated to the buying, selling and trading of guitars. The site launched recently and to help raise awareness among our guitar playing brethren, Nathan is doing a guest post on Fretbase, describing what Second Stage Guitars is all about.
Jim Marshall OBE, founder of Marshall Amplification, passed away yesterday at the age of 88. Jim Marshall’s influence on the sound of rock-n-roll cannot be overstated. His amplifiers have helped define the sound of some of the biggest names in music – Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Angus Young, and just about every hard rock or heavy metal band from the 70′s, 80′s and 90′s.
Guitarist Ryan Barr has a guitar with a couple of holes it in – one intentional and one that was added during a bar room brawl. It gave the guitar character. It also gave Ryan an idea – build a guitar bag that also grew character over time. To that end Mr. Barr created Whipping Post that specializes in creating high quality leather guitar cases and wallets.
As if Marshall Amplification could ever get any cooler – they went one cooler and added a mini fridge to their line up. Inside the Marshall Amp Fridge, you’ll find 4.4 cubic feet of space, can-specific storage, and a high efficiency freezer – not too shabby for the perfect studio fridge. The knobs even go to eleven!
Martin Guitars and others usually use the 2011 NAMM show to introduce new guitars. But this year, Martin surprised a lot of its long-term fans by making significant upgrades to two of its iconic models – the Martin D-18 and the Martin OM-21. Today’s story will focus on the Martin D-18.
C.F. Martin & Co. didn’t just make slight modifications to the D-18. The guitar was modified in many ways that you can read about after the jump.
By now you’ve probably seen plenty of videos of two people on one guitar playing a song. It’s pretty awesome. Well we have something it’s 5x more awesome than that! That’s right – 5 people on one guitar playing a song.
This probably represents the legal limit. Also the guy on the far right is apparently a sea captain.
Since we live in the Bay Area (well, Brian currently lives in Chicago but he’ll be moving back to the Bay Area soon), we know what a treasure it is to have Gryphon Stringed Instruments right here in our own back yard. Mostly, we like Gryphon Stringed Instruments because of their amazing collection of acoustic guitars.
But lately, we have really been enjoying the videos that they have been posting on YouTube. Since we’re in the holiday spirit, we especially like today’s video in which Tom Culbertson plays Winter Wonderland on a Taylor GS Mini.
Rice Guitars out of Chicago, Illinois is giving away a set of Rice MR-S pickups at the end of the month. With over 50 years of combined experience, the father and son duo of Rich and Chris Rice are talented luthiers who craft the finest quality custom made guitars. Specializing in unique wiring schemes and hand applied finishes, both are lifelong players and teachers with a deep understanding of their craft.
Here at Fretbase we’re pretty unrestrained in our admiration for Lyle Lovett. It’s hard to not be enamored with the Long Tall Texan who also turned us on to Collings Guitars. So you can imagine we were pretty happy to kick off the holiday season by learning that Lyle Lovett is about to release a digital Christmas album. According to Lyle’s Facebook page, on Monday Lyle will be releasing a digital album called “Songs For The Season.”
Over a year ago VHT released a hand-wired 6-watt amp called the Special 6, that allowed guitarists with light pockets to afford a quality tube amp. Along with the Special 6 Ultra, VHT is adding the Special 12/20 – a versatile amp designed for power tube customization in a pedal-friendly package.
