It seems from what I have heard so far, Gibson’s role in the scheme is unclear, but it is thought that they were a part of a bigger plot which was having this endangered wood shipped to Germany, and then on to the United States. Most of the details as far as I can see are unclear and somewhat hazy.
No Charges have been brought against Gibson at this time, and a representative of Gibson stated that they were fully cooperating in the investigation. Being that Gibson Guitar Chairman and CEO Henry Juszkiewicz sits on the board of the Rainforest Alliance, the implications of this investigation could be far reaching.

As more information is made available, I will try to update this blog. I can only hope that this is a mistake, and that Gibson is able to clear their name. It would be a shame to see an icon of the guitar industry involved in such an act, especially given their ties to environmental groups.
For more details and to read more on this story, please see the NashvillePost.com article at http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/200 … son_guitars_raided_by_fbi

Gary Allen

I just learned today that Wayne Freeman passed away on Thursday November 11th, 2009 due to a massive heart attack. Wayne is survived by his wife Carol, as well as Julia and Jennifer, their two daughters. Our hearts go out to his family and friends on this sad day, and I only wish that we could offer more comfort to all who knew him.

I met Wayne about five years ago when he was with “Marshall Electronics” (Mogami Cables, and MXL microphones). He was one of the few people who always returned my phone calls and e-mails, and always made me feel like he was glad to hear from me. It seemed that anytime we talked, I came away with new knowledge about the industry and ways to approach the goals we had set out to accomplish with GuitarGearHeads.com. His advice was invaluable, and his positive attitude was always infectious. I could always count on a great conversation, and positive reinforcement from Wayne when we visited at NAMM shows. Although it has been way too long since I last talked to Wayne, I will personally miss him and his friendship. He was truly one of the good guys of the MI industry.

Rest In Peace Wayne. We will miss you always.

Gary Allen

Ingredients:
1 pot of boiling water
1 set of corroded strings

Steps:
Once the water is at a full boil, place the rusted strings loosely in the pot. Let water boil until the corrosion has worked loose and come off the strings. While the water is still boiling, carefully remove the strings from the water using a long set of tongs. The air will cause the hot water on the strings to vaporize almost immediately leaving the string completely dry and for the most part free of corrosion. Put them back on your guitar, and play your heart out.

When doing this process, you do not want to coil the strings up before adding them to the water. This will allow water to be trapped between the coils when they are removed, and this water can quickly cause rust to appear again. Keep them as loose as possible. Also, if you let the water cool before removing the strings, it may not vaporize completely, and the remaining dampness will also cause corrosion to quickly appear once again.

This boiling process will make your strings once again sound newer and brighter. It is by no means as good as a brand new set of strings, but it will give you more playing time for your invested money. While I recommend this mostly for bass strings, I have heard of guitar players who have used the same process, but for me personally, guitar strings are inexpensive enough to just buy a new set.

As an added note, I have heard of one player who adds a little cooking oil to the water. He believes that the oil coats the strings giving them even longer life. I am not convinced that this works, and I do not recommend it personally, but I am willing to hear from others who may have tried this extra step, and their experiences with it.

Gary Allen

Recently I was browsing the musical instrument section of the local CraigsList. It has seemed that in recent months there has been very little in this section that interests me. This time however, hiding between all the unimpressive items was an ad for a US build Fender Princeton Chorus amplifier. At $130 USD, it seemed to be a very good deal, so I did a little research to see what the going price on this amplifier was. I found a few that were around $250 USD, so I quickly sent the seller an e-mail and met up to pick up the amplifier a few hours later.

I have been looking for a good sounding clean solid state amplifier to add to my collection of mostly tube amps. I had heard good things about the Princeton Chorus, although I had never experienced one in action. Most reviews seem to hone in on the clean channel of the Princeton Chorus as being it’s strongest character, but most also say the overdrive channel leaves something to be desired without spending a lot of time fidgeting with the limiter. I was not too worried about the overdrive, so I took it home and plugged it in.

I had spent many of my early playing years through solid state amplifiers, mostly because of their affordability, but once I got my hands on my first tube amp, I had never looked back. I have to admit that the Princeton Chorus has extraordinary sound and tone for a solid state. The clean channel is very smooth, and the built in chorus speaks volumes in its quality. What was the most interested was the fact that I found myself experimenting with chord patterns that were way out of my usual playing patterns in recent months. The new sound was actually inspiring me to push into different areas in my playing. A new amplifier with a new sound was really all it took to break out of my old routine.

Sometimes a new piece of equipment can inspire a person to take steps forward in their playing, no matter what instrument or style they play. Even more interesting is how these new inspirations can translate back to the equipment you normally play on. It is similar to the heavy rock guitarists that I read about who write their songs on acoustic guitar or piano.

Gary Allen

I have to admit that I was slightly frustrated, but not overly so. I realize that things like this can happen, even if I only had this set of strings for a couple months. Since I did not have another set of the same strings on hand, I unstrung the entire guitar and threw the whole set away. I am kind of a perfectionist, and I don’t like to mix string brands or gauges. I grabbed another set of string of a different brand which had the same plastic sleeve packaging with paper envelopes holding two strings each.

I was getting these strings out of the package while thinking about what could have happened to cause such a rare case of brand new string corrosion. This time I didn’t even get the flap opened on the paper sleeve when I saw it. I immediately noticed a somewhat circular rust colored stain on the outer packaging paper. I was stunned! I pulled the string out of the sleeve only to find that this one was even worse than the string from the previous set I had just thrown away. I went back to my music room and started going through the rest of the strings I had with this same unsealed plastic sleeve packaging. Out of the five sets on hand, only one set was good.

My music room is a very dry place, and there is not a lot of humidity in the area. There is no reason whatsoever that I can think of in which two month old strings would corrode like this, especially in the environment they were stored. I am not sure what went wrong, but I can tell you one thing. I will only use strings that come in sealed packages from this point on. I made this decision based on the fact that I have fifty or so sets of D’Addario strings which are packaged in vacuum sealed plastic bags. I have had some of these sets for over two years, and these were what I ended up using on this guitar in the end. They were in perfect condition, as if they had just come off the factory floor.

This blog is not meant to be an endorsement of D’Addario strings. I understand that there are a lot of great strings on the market, and many players prefer different brands. It is my opinion however that some string makers need to rethink their packaging methods. They need to realize that even though their product is relatively inexpensive in comparison to other guitar products, in the long run, an average player will probably spend as much on strings as they did on the guitar itself. No player deserves to open a set of bad strings unless they spilled liquid on them, or stored them improperly. I just threw out about twenty-five dollars in bad strings from two different companies. I have purposely not mentioned the companies here, but I assure you that I will be sending them my complaint in writing.

Gary Allen

I recently witnessed one of the most interesting string combinations for acoustic guitars that I have seen to date. This guitar is one of several 35th Anniversary models offered by Taylor Guitars, and boasts a nine string combination. This Limited Edition guitar is simply called the “XXXV 9-String”. A “Grand Symphony” body with a Sitka Spruce top, Mahogany back and sides, and Indian Rosewood binding make this guitar a visual treat while balancing the tone and clarity to perfection which can be heard through the Taylor exclusive Expression System® pickup. The 35th Anniversary fretboard inlay adds a touch of class and lets everyone know you are playing a very special guitar.

Where this guitar really stands out from all others can be seen on the headstock where you will notice a slightly larger size to accommodate nine tuning keys. The string setup is as follows. Both the high and low “E” strings as well as the “A” string are single. The “D’ and “G” strings are doubled an octave apart, and the “B” string is simply doubled. This setup adds a rich full sound to the mid range while maintaining the tonal stability without getting to deep in the lows, or too trebly on the high end. It is a well thought out setup where Taylor’s quest for great sound remains at the forefront.

I have seen a nine string setup used before, mostly in the Nashville country scene, but the setup I have seen the most is a twelve string guitar strung with only nine strings. At times I have heard the nine string setup where the high “E” is doubled, and the “D” string is single, but in this configuration, I have always felt the sound was somewhat lopsided on the treble side. Even with the amount of instruments I have seen in my job at GuitarGearHeads.com, this is the first guitar that I have seen that is built specifically for nine string use, although I am sure they have been on the market before. I would love to hear from anyone who has the opportunity to play one of these special Limited Edition Taylors. I am willing to bet it sounds as good as it looks.

Like the twelve string, a guitar like this will end up for most players as a staple to add texture and dimension to a few songs in their repertoire. It will most likely not be an everyday, every song guitar, although there always seems to be a few players who can successfully define their sound based solely on a guitar like the XXXV 9-String.

See the XXXV 9-String at http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/ … /35thAnniversary/9String/

By: Gary Allen

I recently posted a couple blogs right here at GuitarGearHeads.com only to find that within twenty-four hours, these blogs showed up in another writers blog on another site. Not only was it an exact copy and paste from our site, but this writer even stole my pictures which I took the time to compile, crop, size, and post. In fact, the only thing that was different between the two sites was that the other blogger removed my signature as the author and his posting time showed as being a day later than the posting time shown on our site.

At first I thought that this may be the case of an RSS feed to this other blog, but when I realized that my name had been removed as the author, it became clear that this was a calculated and blatant case of intellectual property theft.

I sent an e-mail to the offending party explaining that I was not upset that these blog were posted on his site, but I was upset that my name had been removed. Most of the material on our websites is available to other websites through RSS feed. The RSS feed however usually only sends that first paragraph or a few sentences with a link to our site to read the full article. This is pretty standard, and works well for both websites. For the site receiving the feed, it adds content to their site, and for the site sending the feed, it brings people over to them to read the full article.

In my correspondence, I asked that this blogger do one of two things. Either add my name back to these blogs as the original author, or remove them entirely from his site. I never received a response, nor was either of these options done. Since this blogger is located in Bangladesh, I really have limited options on anything I can legally do about this, and anything I may be able do would cost me much more money than it would be worth.

As a frustrated writer, I would like to send a message to anyone who copies others material on the internet or any other intellectual property for that matter. If you need to steal others work to build a website, you should not have a website. Go find something else to do that you are good at. Imitation mat be considered by some as the highest form of flattery. In this case however, I view it as flat out thievery by a person who could not or was too lazy to come up with their own thoughts and opinions on a subject.

Gary Allen

Since the signal in powered speakers is not amplified until after it reaches the speakers internal amplifier, you will money and get the right connection by using line level cables instead of the generally more expensive speaker cables. I personally prefer to use balanced XLR cables since their signal is stronger and much more resistant to unwanted noise and interference. If you do decide to go this route, you will want to make sure your speakers as well as your signal source are set up for XLR input or output. If this isn’t the case, a TRS (Tip-Ring-Sleeve) cable will work just fine.

If you are upgrading from unpowered speakers to powered models, you really should consider switching out your old speaker cables for line level cables. Speaker cables will still work, but have an extreme likelihood of affecting the sound quality in adverse ways. Using the correct cabling for the appropriate hookup will always yield the best result in every musical application.

I would like to note that if you are still using unpowered speakers with a power amplifier, you will still need to follow the important rule of using only quality dedicated speaker cables to make the connection.

Gary Allen

The set of wooden bridge pins from Planet Waves consists of seven bridge pins and a single strap pin for the bottom of the guitar. The bridge pins are fairly standard and should fit just about any guitar. The addition of an extra pin shows the consideration Planet Waves show for the guitar player. You get one extra in case you break or loose one, or for the rare case that you may have a seven string acoustic. The addition of a strap pin makes sure that your guitar has an all around consistent look.

I started by removing the strings and old bridge pins from the Rio Grande. This became more of a task than I anticipated since some of the pins were so tightly wedged. I broke the heads on a few trying to get them out, and ultimately ended up scratching the bridge as can be seen in the final picture. This was partly from not having the proper pin pulling tool, and partly because I was getting frustrated. The scratches however do not look as prominent on the actual guitar as they seem in the picture. To avoid my careless mistake, I recommend that you protect the bridge wood with a cloth and make sure to have a quality bridge pin puller on hand.

Once I had polished the guitar and conditioned the fretboard and bridge with lemon oil, I installed the new wooden bridge pins with a set of D’Addario EXP coated strings. The pins went in easily but establish a firm fit. They also set on the bridge in an even consistent manner giving a very professional finish to the look of the bridge area. I really like the small offset ridge on the bottom of the pin head that makes it easier to pull these pins without marring the finish, although you should still be cautious and protect the bridge wood. On the Rio Grande, I had to opt out of using the strap pin because of the plug jack in the end of the existing strap pin. I saved it for future use along with the spare bridge pin.

Since the Rio Grande is a beautiful guitar that consists of all wood construction including the inlayed ovangkol pick guard, the addition of wood bridge pins really complimented the overall look of the guitar itself. Wood being a natural product resonates better than plastic, so the use of wood for bridge pins makes sense not only in the look, but in the tonal aspects. I did notice an improvement in the sound of the guitar, although not hugely significant. Any advancement however is welcome when it comes to tone. This is a simple yet effective way to affordably upgrade your acoustic guitar. Check out these bridge pins at http://store.daddario.com/category/148546/BridgeEnd_Pins

Gary Allen

After Leo Fender passed away in 1991, G&L Guitars was passed over to the leadership of John McLaren of BBE Sound, Inc. George Fullerton remained with G&L Guitars as a permanent consultant.

In 2007, George collaborated with Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to introduce the 50th Anniversary 1957 Stratocaster® guitar.

I had the opportunity to briefly speak with George at two NAMM shows. From these meetings, I saw a man who gave all he had to the guitar players of the world while at the same time putting forth a very humble disposition. George Fullerton has been very instrumental in guitar design since before 1950, and today the world mourns the loss of a quiet legend of the industry. His well known and loved guitar and bass collaborations with Leo Fender will live on, but he will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

George Fullerton’s memorial service will be held that the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove on Saturday, July 25th at 10:00am.

Gary Allen