Joe Satriani's Experience Hendrix 2010 Guitars Revealed!

The folks at Premier Guitar have detailed Joe Satriani's pedalboard and amp setup as well the single-coil equipped prototype Ibanez JS custom axes he used for the recent Experience Hendrix 2010 tour!

Satch also talks about his switch to Marshall heads from his signature Peavey JSX's for both Chickenfoot and Experience Hendrix.

“At the start of the Chickenfoot tour, I noticed that my Peavey JSX rig sounded more specialized for someone playing lead guitar all night.  I had Marshall send me some different stuff to try out in Vienna, and I ended up using a JVM410 for the rest of the tour. It made such a profound difference, because I’m playing rhythm guitar most of the time in that band.  I was shocked to find that using a Vox Satchurator into a Marshall 6100 Anniversary head’s clean channel was really the best sound." 

Satriani tonehounds take note.

But it doesn't stop there!  Those resourceful PG folks also give us a great all access view of  the guitars and gear of Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jonny Lang, Susan Tedeschi, Robert Randolph and Vernon Reid. 

And not forgetting of course Eric Johnson's particularly quirky setup complete with specific wooden folding chair on which he places his Marshall head for the ultimate in tone! 

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2010/Jun/Axes_Bold_as_Love_The_Gear_of_Experience_Hendrix_Tour_2010.aspx?Page=1

(Pic and Quote Source:  http://www.premierguitar.com/)

Eddie Van Halen's Cameo Appearance On 'Two And A Half Men'

EVH, one of my favorite guitar players of all time, proves he's still got it, in this cameo appearance on 'Two And A Half Men' (Season 7, Ep. 1 if you want to check it out in its entirety).

Eddie's confidence and sheer dexterity as he casually peels off a barrage of licks with his trademark 'brown' tone reminds me of his lean and hungry playing on Van Halen I and II.

The producers should include the outtakes of this scene, guitar solos and all, on the season 7 dvd set when it come out.

I'll bet Eddie flubbed his lines but not his licks!

Ceriatone Overtone Special | Dumble In Disguise?

I was turned on to Ceriatone amps a couple of days ago by a musician friend. He's from the older school 'Fender is king' generation and he was hipping me to this amp builder in Malaysia who made brilliant Fender copies. And at less than two-thirds the price.

A quick Google search revealed this: http://www.ceriatone.com/

Interesting. A Malaysian amp builder going toe-to-toe with Marshall and Fender, not to mention the big boys of boutique American amps -- Fuchs, Trainwreck, Matchless. And yes... even Mr Dumble.
Granted, Ceriatone is still at the 'copy' stage. But remember Peavey's Fender tweed-style design on their Classic series amps (complete with chickenhead knobs) of a few years ago? Peavey resurrected tweed when Fender had put it to bed. It was good marketing and a good way to get noticed.

Check out the Dumble-like font on the Ceriatone Overtone Special at right -- it sort of reads like 'Overdrive Special' from five feet away. Surely to be a nifty conversation piece for the owner.

But fortunately the similarities are not merely cosmetic. Ceriatone has also added new, useful features to the original amp design, giving the user more tonal options and flexibility.

And listening to Jack Zucker's clip above, it sounds great.

Based on Zucker's description, the front panel controls from left to right are:

FET input jack
Normal input jack
Input control
Bright switch
Deep switch
Jazz/Rock switch
Treble
Mid
Bass
Level control for overdrive
Ratio control for the overdrive, for controlling relative volumes for lead and rhythm sounds
Master volume control
Presence control


On the back panel:

Mid-Boost switch that defeats the tone controls (for manual switching)
Lead and Rhythm switch (for manual switching)
Footswitch jack for controlling Rhythm/Lead and Mid-Boost controls
Passive effects loop

I'm real curious to try one of these out for myself.