Reviews
Essential Reading/Viewing • Indie Rock 101
• Jazz Guitar Etudes
• Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man
• The Best Of The Modern Drummer Festival: 1997 - 2006
Rhythmic effects Taking inspiration from the Roger Linn AdrenaLinn and M-Audio Black Box, this SL-20 Slicer from Boss offers the same seriously impressive effects, but in an easy-to-use pedal format.
Electric guitar This recent addition to the Chinese-made Danelectro range recreates a popular Silvertone-branded beginner electric from the early ‘60s.
Guitar multi-effects processor On top of a wealth of quality effects, the latest addition to DigiTech’s renowned RP series, the RP1000, features switchable external amp and stomp box loops for maximum on-stage flexibility.
Digital live mixer/recorder Recording gigs has never been easy, but Fostex aim to make the task much simpler by combining mixer, stage box and multitrack recorder all in one.
Guitar upgrade kits A bridge too far? Not at all. This upgrade could improve your tone, your string life and your tuning stability in one go.
Keyboard amplifier If you’re looking for a full-range stage combo that can also act as a monitor and basic mixer, then you need look no further than the Hartke KM200 keyboard amp.
Active PA speakers KX Audio make some impressive claims about the lack of power compression in their KX range of speakers, so a PA job doing the sound for a rock band seemed the perfect opportunity to put those claims to the test...
Bass amp + cabinet Laney’s Nexus Tube is a 400W valve bass head with tube/FET preamp and eight glorious KT88s as its power stage! What better to partner it with than an NX810 — the Nexus range’s 8 x 10 cab?
Speaker simulator Peavey’s new MSDI aims to reproduce the miked sound of your guitar amp but without the hassle of miking a cab.
Digital mixer update Digital mixers have many advantages over their analogue counterparts, but one of their less obvious benefits is that you can often upgrade them and enhance their functionality, all without taking them apart!
Stage monitor speaker This affordable powered wedge monitor from Studiomaster can also double as a small PA speaker and even includes an input for a dynamic microphone.
Houston, Mississippi Delta, Superstrat SST-20 & SG-S30 Guitars might not be the first thing you think of when you hear the name ‘Suzuki’, but some of their recent guitar launches have caused quite a stir in the US market. Are these four likely to do the same?
Guitar effects pedals The revised Visual Sound V2 pedal range now includes a selection of smaller, single-effect stomp boxes. So how do these compare with their big brothers?
Sound Advice
Tech Notes In this month’s instalment of Tech Notes, we’ll be exploring what happens when sound waves move between two materials of differing densities, and also what happens when they are confined to a room.
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Road-testing the new Clair Brothers I4 PA system and more... Bruce Jones has been doing live sound for over three decades, and has amassed a prestigious client list in the process. Here, he talks to Performing Musician about his work with Counting Crows, road-testing the new Clair Brothers I4 PA system, and building a UFO...
Short-sighted? Gary Cooper laments the short-sightedness of many of the leading guitar and amp manufacturers.
Performing Opera José Carreras’ remarkable rollercoaster life has taken him from boyhood poverty in the backstreets of Barcelona to emerging as one of a select few tenors who became a household name outside the rarefied confines of the opera world. In the most revealing interview of his 40-year career, he talks about the commercialisation of opera, technique versus emotional impact, and why he loves singing more than ever before.
Writing hits for Gwen Stefani, Pink and Christina Aguilera Since fronting ‘90s rock band 4 Non Blondes, American musician, songwriter and producer Linda Perry has been responsible for an impressive catalogue of hit songs by various big-name artists, including Gwen Stefani, Pink and Christina Aguilera.
More studio tricks for the recording novice
Soulfly Max Cavalera, once of Brazilian thrash metal pioneers Sepultura, is now making a more ‘spiritual’ brand of music via his band, Soulfly, blending metal with Brazilian tribal and world music influences.
Kay guitars Probably the best column in the world... Transcribed by Gary Cooper.
Tech That This month, PM catches up with Scott Appleton, who’s spent the last couple of years as personal guitar tech to Def Leppard’s lead axeman, Phil Collen. Scott gives us the lowdown on Phil’s rig, his signature Jackson guitars, and how Scott’s own band came to open a gig for U2 in Honolulu.
The Blackout Find out what gear/instruments they used on a recent gig...
Singer-songwriter & multi-instrumentalist Since shooting to fame as a teenager with the Spencer Davis Group in the 1960s, the former frontman of Traffic and Blind Faith, Steve Winwood, has enjoyed a remarkably varied career, and is now happy to be making the music he wants, when he wants.
PM’s Question Time This month, PM meets wild garage punk outfit Thee Vicars in their sleepy home town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Teenagers Chris, Marcus, Mike and Will tell us all about conquering Europe, how age can be a barrier, and why nothing quite beats a bit of fisticuffs on stage.
Technique
On stage More than 50 years after the BBC’s legendary music and sound effects department was founded, five former staff members decided to take their pioneering techniques to the stage.
A Sound Person’s Guide To Lighting Specifications don’t say much about the all-important look and feel of equipment, but without precise numbers on measurable performance characteristics, we wouldn’t have much of an idea about what we’re buying.
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