I’ve noticed a trend growing among bands I’ve seen in person and online lately that has me fairly excited. Mixed in amongst the Mesa Rectifiers and Marshall DSL’s and TSL’s were some boldly colored and amazing sounding amplifiers. Orange amps have finally started reaching the younger crowd and aren’t being considered an earlier generation’s boutique amp (all thought the price tag still reflects that they are). It’s usually hard to tell from off stage, but I have confirmed sightings of the Orange Rockerverb and the Orange Thunderverb amps with matching 4×12 cabinets. Both are geared toward a player looking for much more gain saturation than Orange amps of past provided, and boy do they deliver by the ton. For you’re listening pleasure, or to fire up your GAS, Guitar World has provided us with yet another useful video showing the wide tonal range of the Orange Thunderverb 50 head:
If you’re like me and into modern hard rock, you should be familiar with Alkaline Trio (If you’re not, get your ass to their Myspace page and never admit that you didn’t recognize them). All kidding aside, guitarist Matt Skiba is a very influential songwriter and one hell of a guitar player for Alkaline Trio. His tone is quite unique so I was very happy to see this video posted on Guitar World’s YouTube channel allowing him to show off his guitar gear. You’ll see his live guitar setup which is as sweet as anyone could ask for. Enjoy.
Update – It looks like Matt Skiba is a big fan of the new Fender Jaguar HH in Surf Green and the Fender SuperSonic line of amplifiers:
After visiting the NAMM 07 show in Anaheim, I was quite impressed with the array of new products coming out. Mainly the PRS, Schecter, ESP, and the Roland/Boss booths.
PRS is putting out a slew of new guitars, and they’re mostly artist models. One surprise that hit me was the new Chris Henderson model singlecut. Isn’t he the guitarist from Three Doors Down? Are they still making any impact on music today? It is a great looking guitar, but I’ve never really been a fan of the 3-pickup combo. The middle pup rarely gets used, and that area seems to be tone dead on most of the guitars I’ve played.
I was pretty impressed by the new PRS SE Semi-Hollowbody. It’s going to be a really affordable guitar, and it sounded great. The SE line may not seem worthy at first glance because they’re a Korean made version of the classic PRS line, but the new PRS SE Singlecuts will really give Epiphone a good amount of competition when it comes to price and quality. The younger generation these are aimed at would much rather own a more modern looking guitar than the usual Les Paul IMO.
Schecter is rolling out more guitars based on their usual line. I really like the quality and the general ideas Schecter is going for, but I can’t help but wonder when they will come out with a new line of body shapes. They seem to be set with the 8 or 9 standard guitar shapes, and just re-accessorizing them. A lot of the new guitars featured the usual Tempest or C-1 design with new features like EMG’s, fancy fretboard inlays, or just a new finish color/design. But Schecter really did have one of the most popular booths because of all the artists and guitars on display. I even ran into Synyster Gates of A7X in the bathroom on his break from signing autographs.
For the guitar amp companies, nothing much to report. Mesa Boogie had a smaller booth, and was really pushing the new Express Amps. They seem to be similar to the discontinued Nomad line, with the appearance of the F-line they still make. Not a bad sounding amp, but an uninspiring booth. But I still love em
Marshall had the new Kerry King model JCM800, and the new JVM series. Another high-gain Marshall amp, only this time it’s 4 independent channels, 100 watts, and MIDI programming for channel memories. Seems pretty impressive, but didn’t get to hear it.
As for my next likely guitar purchase, ESP is rolling out more guitars in the EC line. The new EC-500 lay off of some of the extra cosmetic features of the EC-1000’s, and still has everything that made them cool. Fast playing slim neck with extra jumbo frets, EMG’s and a sharp-as-hell look to them. (I still crave the Vintage Black version of the EC1000!)
The Boss booth wins hands-down for the best entrance, with their 25-foot DS-1 entryway! They only had a few new pedals for 2007, but they should be a big hit. The ‘59 Bassman and Fender Deluxe Reverb pedals are modeled after the classic Fender amps, and sound surprisingly similar. Boss also wins for worst product name, with the new Metal Core pedal. It sounded to me like a well-tweaked Metal Zone pedal, and I was a bit confused to why they were in this area of distortion again. The site says it’s aimed more for drop tunings and 7-strings, but that’s where they Metal Zone sounded best IMO.
Other honorable mention are the Orange Amps booth (biggest wall of orange cabinets I’ve ever seen) and the Dean guitar’s booth (check out this monster guitar!)
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