Recent content by Solarflares

My scope goes way back to Paganini’s Guitar Concertos. Oh to be a fly on the wall there. Fernando Sor was a real badass, but I’ll bet ol’ Nicoli was a monster. Robert Johnson was lucky to be recorded, but thank goodness someone did. Yardstick, benchmark, or whatever. He deserves his place as a...

That is the correct answer. Or the bar and socket from an Ibanez Edge, which has two replaceable plastic collars on the arm.

Still, nice of him to attempt to share his early forays into sound with us. What he lacks in knowledge he certainly makes up for in enthusiasm. Yes, the whole guitar is responsible for it’s own resonance, even down to the screws holding the tuners, but this is hopefully aided by the speakers...

Ernie Ball 10-46. 26” scale guitar, tuned to D, with full recessed Floyd Rose, and Edwards behind the nut customised lock. Strings feel slinky to me, but most guitarists have to put my guitar down after 2 minutes. Generally Tortex 1mm, or slightly lighter these days. Whatever the green ones are...

I’m no boy. I’m older than shit. Hilarious that I post 30 minutes of Jimi’s finest, and he comes back 2 minutes later with that!

Van Halen 1? I’m afraid to say that I found the album a bit of a joke. Aside from the incredible impact of hearing Eddie’s tapping for the first time, the rest was a re-hash of Les Pauls licks and attempted cop-outs of Al Di Melos’s stuff, mixed with very mundane tried and trusted R&B licks -...

I’m into Jan Phillips 5751’s big-time. I used them to tame a Peavey Classic 50/50 power amp. Mullard CV4024’s as splitters. £100 for all 4, NOS. I also have a Jan 12au7WC as a reverb driver/return in my Baron combo. Here’s two examples from eBay. Both listings are good. Please tell me if I’m...

This is the correct logo for authentic winged-C from St.Petersburg. Anything else is Reflektor plant junk. Currently £120 for a NOS matched pair of EL34 on eBay, but only one seller left now. He has tons though. The authentic Svetlana winged-C EL34 and 6550 are the only valves I would buy NOS...

Good time to point out the obvious. Attach your meter’s ground with a crocodile clip or hook-probe using one hand. Keep the other hand and your body away from the chassis. Perform tests and adjustments with only one hand holding the meter hot probe, and once again, keep your other hand and body...

By then I should think the whole planet will be turned to glass and rubble - which is how I usually like to envisage the JJ factory when I think of their red-plating early efforts at output valves, and their pathetically noisy ECC83S valves. God, they literally churned this shit out, and were...

I use small dark-room emulators in DAW to thicken the single guitar track, and make it stereo, in a narrow band. Then, any longer ambient reverb is panned wider to create space. I consider the stereo track to then be a bubble. I use EQ and compression to bring it forward or back, then that...

Bill Lawrence humbuckers. Bartolini humbuckers. Original Ibanez lawsuit 70’s humbuckers. (Eddie) All quite unique.

£650 cash, and I’ll throw in a sturdy bracket to attach it to the back of your wheelchair. Guess the clincher is whether they hit bone or not! No point in buying it if you’re just gonna hobble about taking the piss on crutches for 6 weeks.

I tried the reverse-angled approach back in ‘78, and carried on until 1985. Wide claw, narrow trem. But when I had a Floyd Rose fitted to my Strat, I managed to yank and twist the trem clean off the guitar. That was when I fitted Gotoh posts, recessed the Floyd fully, shaved the block, and...

Perhaps a cheap used Two Notes load-box, with 3-position attenuator - would get you closer to true bedroom levels. I agree that my friend’s HRDeville 40W with a Quadraverb on the loop, still needed a little volume to get a nice sound from the speaker. I love my Sequis Motherload Elemental. With...