RIP Les Paul

New York, NY…August 13, 2009…Les Paul, acclaimed guitar player, entertainer and inventor, passed away today from complications of severe pneumonia at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, New York, surrounded by family and loved ones. He had been receiving the best available treatment through this final battle and in keeping with his persona, he showed incredible strength, tenacity and courage. The family would like to express their heartfelt thanks for the thoughts and prayers from his dear friends and fans. Les Paul was 94.  (……..) 

seymour duncan hot-rodded pickup replacement

Oops, I did it again! No, I didn’t do a Britney. I have re-installed the Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded pickups. After months of missing that tone, I replaced my old pickups with these pups on my Onyx Les Paul copy. And the results, pure tonal bliss. The bridge is really sharp and crisp while the neck pickup is warm and ‘Jazzy’. Incidentally, I found out that I actually had DiMarzio pickups. Interesting. I have attached a video I made during the pickup ’surgery’. Enjoy!

Don’t forget to start using http://www.guitaralert.com/?p=290

 

You can check it out here at these Musicians’Friend , Music123, ZZsounds or Woodwind and Brass

Paul Riario from Guitar World talks to Larry Dimarzio

Paul Riario talks to Larry Dimarzio on the inspiration on these new pickups and about his legendary Les Paul. He was almost in Gene Simmon’s band

 

You can check it out here at these Musicians’Friend , Music123, ZZsounds or Woodwind and Brass

Guitar World Review Dimarzio PAF 36th Anniversary

Check out Paul Riario trying out the DiMarzio PAF 36th Anniversary pickup which makes any guitar it pops into sounding like a 1959 Les Paul.

 

You can check it out here at these Musicians’Friend , Music123, ZZsounds or Woodwind and Brass

My attempt of Pirates of the Carribean

Hey guys,

They were having a “Pirates of the Carribean” movie marathon and the soundtrack is stuck in my head. So I decided to play on my guitar. With some background instruments it may end up as a radio jingle.

Cya

You can check out other musical instruments at Musicians’Friend , Music123, ZZsounds or Woodwind and Brass

Gibson Les Paul Axcess

Hey guitar addicts,

Here is a recently released video on the Gibson Les Paul Axcess. The guitar is loaded with Floyd Rose tremolo, 2 Burstbucker pickups, with coil tapping features. Scarfed neck to get to the high notes. Shredders, this is the Les Paul that was made for you. So go crazy with divebombs like Eddie Van Halen and Tommy Morello.

You can check it out here at these Musicians’Friend , Music123, ZZsounds or Woodwind and Brass .

Fender VG Stratocaster vs Gibson Les Paul Robot (the Dark Fire) vs Line 6 Variax

Hey Dude and dudettes,

In the battle for the virtual guitar, you have the three big names duking it out.
1) The Fender VG Stratocaster is a regular Stratocaster but with an extra Roland pickup. It has 37 modes where you can choose what type of sound you want (single coil, humbucker, acoustic,….) and 6 tunings. If your battery runs out, there are always the three single coil pickups for those classic strat tone.

Fender VG Stratocaster

2) The Gibson Dark Fire is a continuation of the Gibson Robot guitar where you get the classic Burstbucker 3 humbucker for those classic humbucker tone, a P-90 pickup for those classic single coil tones and a Piezo pickup for more acoustic tones. With the Chameleon technology, you get more tones by mixing these pickups. It also comes with the auto tune and intonation technology so you don’t need to fiddle with your tuners in the middle of the show. This ensures true organic tones.

It is due to be released 11th of December so book early.
Gibson Dark Fire

3) Then comes the grand daddy of the virtual guitar. The Variax comes with a plethora of classic guitar tones and some other tones which are not to common, like the sitar. It can be switched with the foot controller and if you need to, can be transplanted to another body style supplied by Warmoth guitars. Check it out.

Line 6 Variax

You can check it out here at these Musicians’Friend , Music123, ZZsounds or Woodwind and Brass

New pictures of P-rails in guitar

Just to show off some pictures of my P-rails axe. This is my tone machine. Awesome!

Check out some cool stuff at Musicians’Friend , Music123, ZZsounds or Woodwind and Brass .

Stuck in a jam session?

Heya guys, I met up with a couple of friends and we thought we should go for a jamming session. We have never played together before and when we arrived at the studio we didn’t know what to play. After a brief pause, I played the first few chords I learnt and doodled after that. You may come across this situation so this should help you guys out to make the jam session enjoyable fo everybody. One suggestion is to go with the classic C, Am, F and G. Most 60’s songs use these basic chord progression and it will break help to break the ice. Enjoy.

You can check out Musicians’Friend , Music123, ZZsounds or Woodwind and Brass .

Installing P-rails pickups experience

Continuing on the post of from my Youtube Video on installing the pickup, I’m going to share the experience of installing these pickups. Before anything, you will need to look at the wiring diagram of the type of connection you want to do. Plenty of options can be done from here.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/

I’m using

http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/support/schematics/2_prails_2v_2t_tspp.jpg

From the diagram in the above link you will need 2x 500k push/pull pots, connector cables and some solder wire. Also you will need to have a soldering iron and basic tools (screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches….) and some experience in soldering. If you haven’t done much soldering, don’t worry because it is as easy as using a glue gun, only you’re sticking metal with metal and its hotter.

You should check the pickups if there are any defects or loose cables. Once you are satisfied,you will need to first remove the strings, then open the pickup and control cavity covers. Next comes the part where you will need to dismantle the connector cables of the pots. Heat up your solder iron and once it is hot enough, touch the tip of the solder to the cable and the pin until the solder becomes loose and you will just need to pull the cable free. When all the connectors are free, you can pull the pickup out from there respective cavities. Repeat for the second pickup. Replace the volume (or tone) knobs with the push/pull knobs.

The next step is to install the P-rails pickups. This is the most difficult part in the process as you will need to thread the cables through a hole the width of a pen and the length is the same as a pen (very long relatively). The default pickups comes with only two conductor cables whereas most new pickups comes with four. I still haven’t found the best way of doing this except pushing the cables with your pliers very, very slowly. This took me a couple of hours.

Once you get those cables through, just solder them as illustrated in the wiring diagram. It is recommended to have a multimeter to check for conductivity but if you don’t, you can install one string, pick it and hope that it sounds on all the coils and humbucker configurations. This may take some time but once it is completed, string up your guitar, pat yourself on the back and jam. This is the most flexible pickup there is and you will only need this guitar for any style of music. Cheers.

For people who would like to have a ready made P-rails guitar, check out the LTD PB-500. Be sure it’s the one with the P-rails as they have others without.

PS, if you have a P-rails installed, post them here

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