That’s Right! For the month of September, GEAR-MONKEY is giving away some PRIZES to the winners of this rockin’ Cover Song Competion. ERIC CLAPTON “LAYLA”

So grab your axe, head on over to http://gear-monkey.com/forum and lets jam out some Clapton!

Even if you suck at guitar, come jam with us anyhow. That’s how you learn.

Don’t be a wuss, come rock with us!

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Stay tuned for the FREE Boss DS-1 Give-Away winner announcement on Labor Day!

Brought to you by GEAR-VAULT!

Jackson guitars are celebrating its 25th anniversary of producing custom guitars for consumers, by doing the only thing it knows best, sorting through its 25 years of work to bring back two of their proudest accomplishments. Jackson’s two unique custom guitars reproduced in limited edition format to emulate their predecessor’s best antique traits. The two guitars include the original King Kelly guitar built with its unique cutouts and the King V in its shining majestic silver glory.

Both are exactly the same custom with the same equipment and signed by Mike Shannon (Jackson Sr. Master Builder) and Tim Wilson (Jackson Production Manager). The King Kelly features a high gloss finish of black with white highlights and a maple neck and ebony fingerboard. It is built with popular wood for the body and maple along the 22-inch neck. With Seymour Duncan pickups and a Schaller bridge and tailpiece it is a beauty to both see and play. Similarly, its silver counterpart, the King V is built with a popular body and ebony fingerboard featuring sharkfin inlays and a more 80’s V-style shape. With the sound producing from the combination of Seymour Duncan TB-4 and SH2 pickups, both guitars celebrate and represent the best of vintage Jackson while being stunning, great-sounding and incredibly playable in their own right. What better way to celebrate 25 years?

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Cold is reuniting according to lead singer, Scooter Ward, on Cold’s MySpace page. Cold is expecting to release a new album in the fall 2009. After producing their emotional Different Kind of Pain album the band went in different directions. Cold’s front man, Ward, created The Killer and the Star featuring Limp Bizkit’s drummer John Otto, together they have created songs Symphony for a Mind, Living with Musicians, and Angels Fall. Cold has a new record label called Sonicstar. The boys are sure to please the fans with the much surprising album. The MySpace page told fans to stay tuned for updates.

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With Harris’s love for music he started to communicate with independent musicians, which unfolded the creation of the SoupyGato show. The SoupyGato was born in 2005 with its first item premiering in 2006.

The SoupyGato just started as a weekly show but then Harris started to receive music from every genre. Harris played every song that was submitted and attempted to mix the selections as best he could. Harris played everything and had quite the unique sound to the show. Even the best of the best have submitted songs to the SoupyGato including children of the Willie Nelson, Bill Joel, and The Grateful Dead just to name a few.

Harris found his assistant, Rudolph, through his sense of humor with the show and his open-mindedness to beginning musicians and seasoned players.

Harris decided to put a twist on the show and started with doing a showcase starting with Israel. From that point he scheduled many different showcases and started to interview many famous musicians including Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, and Trey Gunn of King Crimson.

The SoupyGato is truly unique and can be found at www.soupygato.com. Harris has a very open-minded persona about him. He has created a work of art with the SoupyGato.

The Future of Independent Musc - Check ‘em out!

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Can you give me some information on earplugs? How well do they work, and do most rock musicians use them?

Rockin’ Billy Bong
xxxx@rocketmail.com

While they’re relatively new to the world of rock music, earplugs have become a popular item with many musicians, and with good reason. I’ve worked for a lot of particularly loud rock bands, and the groups who didn’t wear earplugs usually have something in common with each other—it’s called “tinnitus,” a constant ringing of the ears that result from prolonged exposure to high volume levels. Tinnitus produces varying degrees of discomfort, depending on the amount of abuts that has been inflicted upon a person’s ear.

Among the musicians I’ve known, drummers typically have the worst case of tinnitus. Unlike guitarists, who can stand some distance from their amplifiers, drummers are seated and can’t move away from their instrument. The crashing of cymbals, in particular, has a harmful effect on drummers, since high frequencies do more damage to hearing than low frequencies do.

If you perform on a regular basis, I highly recommend that you wear earplugs or, if they are within your budget, and in-ear monitor system. In-ear monitors are highly accurate, state-of-the-art devices that are individually created for the wearer. Working from molds of the musician’s ears, a hearing specialist or audiologist constructs earplugs that fit the wearer precisely. Small speakers, like those found in headphones, are installed in the plugs and connected to a wireless receiver that picks up the transmitted audio mix from the sound engineer. This allows the musician to hear an audio mix at a comfortable volume while protecting his ears from onstage volume levels.

Unfortunately, these systems tend to be rather expensive. For this reason, many nonprofessionals opt for custom earplugs. Like in-ear systems, custom earplugs are tailored to the wearer’s ears. But rather than employing small speakers, the plugs are designed to block specific audio frequencies that could damage the wearer’s ears. For about $125, an audiologist can create the molds from which plugs can be made to your specification.

Unlike common foam earplugs, custom-fitted plugs sound great and are comfortable to wear. Most importantly, they are one of the best forms of protection you can by for your ears.

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I have a Crate GX15X, which has a gain channel and a lead channel with a built-in graphics EQ. I wasn’t pleased with the amp’s distortion, so I bought a Danelectro Fab Tone fuzz pedal. Now I can get decent distortion when practicing on my own, but I can’t get a suitable tone when I crank up with my band. Any answeres?

Mitch
xxxx@aol.com

Gain, or distortion—whichever you prefer to call it—can be tricky. Over the years I’ve learned that increasing the level of distortion in a signal reduces the definition and punch of the source tone. This is especially true with amps that have a rather limited power rating, like your Crate GX15, which pumps out a meager 12-watts RMS. And although distortion usually sounds quite pleasing on its own, a highly overdriven tone can get lost within a full band.

To understand how large amounts of distortion can obliterate your signal’s carrying power, consider how distortion changes the shape of your guitar’s clean signal. Viewed through an oscilloscope, a clean tone appears as a well-defined wave moving up and down, smoothly and evenly. As distortion is introduced in the signal, the wave becomes jagged and shredded, losing its definition along with its steady oscillation. That’s the tradeoff you make when using a fuzz box or other distortion device.

However, you like distortion, so how can you have your gain and hear it too? For starters, if you aren’t willing to settle for less distortion, you should get a more powerful amplifier; or if your current amp has an extension speaker jack, you could try adding an external cabinet to increase the dispersion of sound from your amp. On the other hand, you might simply back down your gain to a level that suits your taste while allowing you to be heard in your band. Take your pick.

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ANNOUNCED: There is a free BOSS-DS 1 Distortion pedal giveaway competition on the forum of Gear-Monkey, which will continue from July 17, 2008 through August 31, 2008. This is really a considerable amount of time to get you all ready and geared up for this jamming contest. The contest consists of points system which members earn 1 point for each post. Pretty simple huh? Now members can receive 100 points for getting friends to join the site. The only requirement is that the new member makes at least 20 posts. Whoever reaches the most points within the time frame stated gets to take home the FREE BOSS DS-1 Distortion Guitar pedal.

So you all you guitar gurus who want totally free guitar gear sign up and/or start posting, share this amazing news with friends.

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Take note in Sherman’s patent Tremolo System

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“I’ve always wanted to be known as something more than a blues guy,” says Doyle Bramhall II, a guitarist still known for his teenage association with Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Double Trouble’s first post-Stevie outfit, the ARC Angels. But his heavy blues past notwithstanding, Bramhall is starting to look like he’s on the right path. Back in 1999, Bramhall handled the guitar chores for Roger Waters’ touring outfit. The Texan was playing in support of a new decidedly blues-free solo album, Jellycream. “It might have been easy to go in and cut 12 blues songs,” says Bramhall. “But it wouldn’t have been so easy to come across as if I were 100 percent into it. That’s just not where my head or my heart was.”

Jellycream makes it clear that Bramhall’s focus was on the Seventies-style classic rock dynamics. But don’t mistake a lack of blues for a lack of guitar. In fact, the bulk of Jellycream is so guitar-driven and so anthem-oriented that it seems to pick up where the ARC Angels left off back in 1993. “I thin I disappointed a lot of ARC Angels fans by staying away from guitar on that record,” Bramall says of his commercially unsuccessful Wendy & Lisa-produced solo debut. “But I think this record has a much larger guitar focus and a lot more energy. I’d say it’s closer to the ARC Angels than anything I’ve done since, but you’ve got to remember, that was the early Nineties and I’ve heard and learned a lot since then.”

Perhaps the primary post-ARC Angels lesson Bramhall has picked up on is how to play more for the song and less for the flashy solo. “ Jimmie [Vaughan] taught me how it’s possible to be a subtle guitarist and still stand out,” he says. “And I thin this album shows I can present hard-rockin’ stuff without lots of wankin’. But that doesn’t mean that everything I can do wasn’t on this record somewhere. Only now, it finally feels like it’s all come together.”

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