by CHRISTOPHER SCAPELLITI

Tired of lugging a guitar tuner around? Here’s a solution that’s both cool and cool looking.

The N-Tune Chromatic Tuner installs on your guitar in place of your standard volume control, with no modifications required. When the control is pressed down, it acts like a standard volume control. Pulling the control up mutes the guitar’s output and activates the tuner.

A display ring under the knob shows the notes and tuning status symbols: Flat, Sharp, Tuned and Tuned Sharp (for accidentals: C sharp, D sharp, etc.). Bright LEDs guide the tuning process by illuminating the note being tuned and the relevant symbol.

When a note is tuned sharp or flat, the corresponding LED will blink red and flash faster as the note is tuned to pitch. The green Tuned LED will light when the string is in tune.

Two pots are available: a 250k pot for Stratocaster-style guitars and a 500k pot for Gibson and everything else. The pot is a high-grade design, and the stem allows you to use your original control knob. N-Tune uses one nine-volt battery, which mounts with Velcro under your pickguard.

Note that if your existing volume pot has additional features, they will not function when the N-Tune is installed.

The N-Tune has a list price of $100. For more information, go to www.n-tune.com.

 

If you ride, you probably know CruzTOOLS for the tools and tool kits they make for motorcycles.

Now the company is crossing into guitar territory with its GrooveTech Guitar Player Tech Kit, which consists of tools and an Easy Setup Guide to help novices learn the intricacies of setting up their instrument.

The tools are a 6-in-1 screwdriver, five metric and six fractional hex/Allen keys, a 15-blade thickness gauge, a six-inch steel ruler, diagonal cutters, a capo, a three-LED flashlight and a string winder. The screwdriver comes with two Phillips tips (#1 and #2), two slotted tips (1/4-inch and a 3mm for vintage-style bridge saddles) and two nut drivers (1/4-inch and 3/16-inch for Gibson-style truss rod nuts).

As for the Easy Setup Guide, it explains basic setup and maintenance and includes a tutorial on neck and bridge adjustment, pickup height and intonation.

The tools store in a polyester pouch that has space for the guide and strings and a pick storage pocket.

The GrooveTech Guitar Player Tech Kit retails for $61.95 and has a street price of approximately $50. For more information, visit www.cruztools.com.

AXL has announced it’s new Tyrant 200B solid-state bass amp.

The 200-watter has dual 10-inch speakers, four-band EQ with tone-cut switch and a ground lift control to reduce noise levels. It also has 1/4-inch active and passive inputs, as well as RCA inputs (in case you want to plug in your hi-fi equipment?). An XLR line out with level control lets you connect the Tyrant to a PA or mixer without requiring a direct box (nice feature).

A rather tidy silver faceplate, black metal grille and vinyl covering embossed with a skull design give the Tyrant 200B an understated metal that’s perfect for classic-era headbangers. Removable casters make for portability and stability (which is more than we can say for the bassists we know).

List price: $659.99. Check it out at axlguitars.

Carvin’s new single-cutaway CS6 California Single guitar has a mahogany body and neck, a premium 20mm-thick curly flamed maple carved top and a matching figured maple headstock overlay. Both the carved top and the headstock overlay have been hand selected and book matched by Carvin’s California Custom Shop.

The CS6 has Carvin’s Rapid Play set neck with Carvin’s exclusive “heel-less” design for uninhibited access to the 22nd fret. The guitar’s neck actually sets five inches into the body for greater sustain and stability.

Other features include a 25-inch scale ebony fingerboard with abalone dot inlays and 22 medium jumbo frets., Sperzel locking tuners, C22J and C22B Classic humbucker pickups, a master volume control and three-way pickup selector, and push-pull tone control with coil-tap for single-coil operation one or both pickups. As with other Carvin guitars, the California Single can be configured to each customer’s exacting specs.

The CS6 has a factory direct base price of $1,479. Allow six weeks for build, or longer depending on demand. For more information, click here.

Ernie Ball says its new Titanium-Coated Slinky acoustic string sets resist rust and grime to help retain bright and powerful tone. Both the wound and plain strings are coated with the company’s patented Titanium RPS technology.

In addition, a protective coating on the wrap wire and plain strings, plus a patented winding of titanium wire around the lock twist of the ball end, produces stronger and longer-lasting strings.

Titanium-Coated Slinky acoustic strings are sold in Ernie Ball’s new hermetically sealed packages to minimize exposure to moisture. Find out more at the company’s website.

 

by CHRISTOPHER SCAPELLITI

Line 6 has enlarged its Spider III family of modeling amps in the smallest of ways with the battery-powered Micro Spider amp.

The littlest Spider sports a six 1/2–inch speaker, six watts of power and eight legs. Just kidding. Features include four Spider III amp models, a new acoustic guitar model, six Smart Control effects (including reverb, chorus and tap delay) and what the press release calls a “precise chromatic tuner” —- as opposed to the wildly inaccurate tuner that made a disaster of last Sunday’s church service singalong.

Weighing a mere seven pounds (not sure if that’s with the six C batteries installed), the Micro Spider has a headphone out, a POD 2.0-style direct output, and guitar input and a mic input with trim knob.

List price is a $199.99. For more info, go here.

Daniel contemplates six-string history. Photo by Paul Turpin.

++ Each week Daniel Anderson, guitarist for electronica/rock duo Idiot Pilot will be checking in with Guitar World to offer his thoughts on a range of guitar-related topics. This week: lutes! ++

When I was asked to start writing these blogs for Guitar World I was absolutely thrilled. You may not expect it from just a passing listen to Idiot Pilot, but in the developmental stages of my guitar playing, some ten years ago now, I was a very avid Guitar World reader.

I would always find myself learning at least one of the five or so songs tabbed out in the back pages. If I cared at all about the featured guitarist, I would eat up their commentary in the 60 Minutes mix tape section, where they dove into their various influences.

I found that to be the easiest way to tell who was a real, true-to-life music lover and who was not, because the players who actually cared took bits and pieces of influences from everywhere on the musical map, while the ones who were just trying to look like bad-ass shredders were not. The guitarists that I didn’t care for would always just tell people what they wanted to hear. They would go through the motions touching only on the predictable picks of their respected genre.

For instance, the old-school metal guy’s 60 Minutes would usually look a little like this: Slayer “Raining Blood,” Metallica “Battery,” Maiden, Priest… If they had any sense in them they would probably throw in a little Zeppelin, and then of course the obligatory “newer” band that is still all right to say despite the fact that they have formed in the last ten years. For this example we will say, oh, how about, Slipknot.

Now don’t get me wrong, every band that I have just listed is fucking rad, no doubt about it, from Slayer to “the knot.” I could honestly say that, in some ways, at least half of those bands have directly influenced my guitar playing and there isn’t a single one of them that can’t be found somewhere on my iPod. But when the cool, young, new rocker guy is asked to put together the most influential 60 minutes of his musical lifetime, and he jots down the same exact thing…then you know something is up.

Here is why.

Scalpers: Not PTH Approved

We’re about two weeks into the Silverstein “Chillers” tour and things are quite the opposite in Florida right now. The sun is shining, the sky is clear and the van is anything but chilly. It might be purely coincidental, but it seems the warmer weather, the more willing people are to come out to the shows.

The last couple nights were sold out, and there seems to be even more people than usual outside the venue desperately looking for tickets. Last night, maybe 10 or 15 people came up to me asking if I had any extra tickets or if I could sneak them in. With such a high demand for tickets comes a stronger presence of scalpers, who, in my opinion, are the scum of the earth.

Initially, many people might think scalpers are cool: just business savvy dudes that understand that if people really want something and you’re the only one who has it, they’ll be willing to pay more for it. In theory, I, too, like that concept a lot.

In fact, almost everyday, I find a way to “trick” someone in my band to pay me more for something I have. But the thing is, when you’re selling a $15 ticket for $150, I think that’s taking advantage of the situation. If you’re offering a service to someone, at least be reasonable about the cost.

Think about it, let say on an average night a scalper sells 20 tickets for $25 more than they paid for it. Let’s say they get to the show an hour before doors and sell their tickets in 2 hours. That means there making $250 an hour.

That’s a hell of a lot more than I make, so that’s when I start to get mad. That’s when I realize that these scum suckers are making a better living than me (and maybe even you) for doing something so slimy. This is when I realize that fans who spend $25 more for their ticket, have $25 less to spend on merch, which is where bands really make back their money. These same ticket buyers (if they’re of legal drinking age), are going to spend $25 less at the bar that night and that’s bad, too, because we’ve found drunk people seem to like our music more than sober people.

We certainly have no shortage of celebrity guitarists coming through our doors for interviews, photo shoots and video lessons, and this week was no exception. Yngwie Malmsteen made his first ever GW office appearance this week, and while I'm not the biggest Yngwie fan on earth ("I'll See the Light, Tonight" kicks ass though), it was still a thrill to meet the man we regularly hail as the god of gods. Steve Winwood, famous for his work in Traffic and Blind Faith (with Eric Clapton) was also a guest this week, and we just filmed a video interview with Gabriel and Alex from Black Tide.

They're group of under-twenties from Florida who who have a very classic thrash sound...while they were here I had them show how they play Metallica's "Hit the Lights," which is a song on their debut album, which comes out this month on Interscope. Nice guys, check em out if you're into precision riffing, flailing solos and upper-register vocals.

JK

Greetings everyone, welcome to The Fine Print, my first ever blog and one of the many new features you'll find here in this latest revamped guitarworld.com. As a blog newb I'm not even sure where I'll go with this, but the main idea is to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what we do on a daily basis: how the magazine gets produced, our interaction with famous guitarists, and the general nuttiness of what goes on around the office.

One new feature on the site I'd like to direct you all too is the 300 Covers Gallery, located at blogs.guitarworld.com/covers/gallery.php. It's one of the most incredible and ambitious things our great web developer/designer, Bennett Shapiro, has come up with. All 300 covers from our 28-year history are visible in large, high-res format, and the entire gallery is searchable and sortable in any number of ways. Definitely check it out and vote for the ones you like best so we can pick the 20 or so top covers in a few weeks.

The covers gallery started an interesting discussion in the office the other day about which covers were our favorites.