Are you trying to settle on one bass as your main axe? With the Fender Jaguar Bass, the choice is easy; it sounds like a whole collection of basses in one. A relatively recent design from the makers of the first electric bass, the Jaguar is also one of Fender’s most versatile, with enough switching options to sound like three or four different instruments. Based around the classic Jazz Bass design, the Jaguar plays like a dream, balances perfectly on your shoulder, is lightweight, and looks plain awesome.

Built off the already flexible platform of the Jazz Bass’s dual single-coil pickup arrangement, the Jaguar Bass’s electronics go beyond nearly any other production bass. Taking a cue from its namesake, the Fender Jaguar Guitar, the Jaguar Bass sports a master volume and individual on/off switches for each pickup, as well as a series/parallel switch that can instantly turn your bass from a smooth jazz machine to a fire-breathing rock monster. A switchable active/passive preamp design introduces a powerful two-band EQ into your sound, which pairs with the passive master tone control for limitless sonic shaping. Turn up the treble for a extra pick attack or a cutting slap-bass tone, or crank the bass for the deepest dub reggae notes you’ve ever coaxed through your amp. It doesn’t matter if you moonlight in a progressive metal band, twilight in a funk outfit, and spend your days making a living in a wedding band, the Fender Jaguar Bass never met a genre it couldn’t master.

The Fender Jazz Bass has long been celebrated for its playability, and the Jaguar Bass is no different. The 20-fret neck has a super comfortable C-shape profile; generous enough to make fretting easy, but slim enough to facilitate quick position changes. The trademark asymmetrical body fits your body and arms like a glove, and helps the bass achieve perfect balance whether you play it standing up or sitting down. It’s light weight, too, which is a good thing, because once you pick it up, you won’t ever want to put your Jaguar Bass down!

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Focusrite are famous for their high-quality external USB audio interfaces for Macs and PCs. Especially their preamps get consistently good reviews as being especially clear and defined. After much research I decided to put a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 on my Christmas wishlist.

During the autumn of 2012, Focusrite has released another interesting interface called the iTrack Solo. It’s pretty much a standard Focusrite USB interface like the 2i2 or the 2i4, but with just one input – a combined instrument cable/XLR connector like on all their other devices. What makes iTrack Solo stand out though and what’s given it its name is that it has an iPad connector as well as a USB connector. And of course it connects digitally to the iPad using the docking port, rather than analog like som earlier audio interfaces for iPad and iPhone.

If you want to record on your iPad and on your computer, this could be a really interesting option. This is probably the most advanced audio interface for iPad around. I’ve decided, however, it’s not the optimal setup for me, for a number of reasons:

One instrument input is not enough, I really like the option of two simultaneous guitars (for jamming).
No MIDI.
No iPhone support – I use my iPhone with my guitar all the time
No balanced outputs
I already have to great iPhone/iPad interfaces (one Apogee Jam and one GuitarJack).
But for someone with an iPad and no decent external interface for their computer, this could be a great alternative.

SPECS FROM FOCUSRITE.COM:

2 in / 2 out USB audio interface
96 KHz, 24-bit conversion
1 Focusrite microphone preamplifier
Silver “soft-touch” aluminium unibody chassis

FRONT PANEL

1 microphone input – XLR
1 Instrument input – ¼’ unbalanced
2 Gain knobs
2 Gain halo signal indicators
48V Phantom power switch
Direct monitor switch
Large monitor level dial (controls headphone and line level outputs)
USB Connection LED indicator
Headphone output – ¼” TRS Jack
REAR PANEL

2 unbalanced monitor outputs – RCA Phono
DEVICE LINK port (to connect iTrack Solo to iPad)
USB 2.0 Port
Kensington Lock slot

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1955 Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster, Tobacco Sunburst, Three P-90 pickups! All original, Very gorgeous guitar!

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Introducing a new twist on a legendary guitar. Over 20 years ago, Ned Steinberger revealed the Steinberger GL guitar, the first all graphite composite electric guitar. With its unusual headless design, it was quite a hit for years. The LBG guitar is the next generation of carbon graphite guitar, and at 4.5 pounds it is almost half the weight of the 8 pound Steinberger GL. As with the GL, the LBG’s body and neck is a single slab of carbon graphite, with a cover plate to keep the pickups from falling off.

The LBG guitar has a clear and airy resonance that is even on all notes across the fretboard. The sound of the GL is very “accurate” and “defined”, with lots of control over the vowel effect after the note is picked; the LBG guitar is more resonant, and sounds less “dense”. When holding chords, the notes seem to bloom over time. Put another way, if you blend a GL with a Parker, you will get an LBG, with the Parker adding the “ariness” to the GL sound. The neck profile is like a Moses but a tad wider, not like a Newburgh GL/GM.

The guitar has an ergonomic knee contour that helps angle the neck to a comfortable playing position when sitting. When standing, there is no neck hang: the guitar is very evenly balanced. It has similar edge contours as the GL so you don..t end up with any uncomfortable feeling with your right arm/hand.

Musician Dave Rowe had this to say about them:

When Jon first pulled out the guitars at my studio, I was immediately taken by the resemblance to the GL, but with the modified bottom bout—hey look mom, no leg rest! I’ll never forget the first time I picked up an L series Steinberger and was astonished by the heft of the instrument relative to its diminutive size. This experience was exactly the opposite of that! When Jon first handed the guitar to me, I believe the words out of my mouth were, “Holy-sh*t, what’s this thing made of?” The guitar is incredibly light, at 4.5 lbs. it really doesn’t seem like it could possibly be taken seriously…until you plug it in. From lightweight guitar to heavyweight tone. It can sparkle and growl. With a list of possible pickup configurations longer than my arm, Jon’s guitars will surely be a prized part of any guitar arsenal.

One of the buyers had this to say about the guitar:

Tonal quality of the guitar is excellent. I’m a mid and high person so the lighter low end of this guitar, even with a powerful JB, fits my taste. I once put a P-rail on my wooden-bodied headless but gave up after 30 minutes as it sounded unclear. The graphite body make this pickup sound surprisingly airy with clear contour even in the front. In fact P-90 setting of P-rail sounds so sweet on this guitar!

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Epiphone is one of American’s oldest and most revered instrument makers and since 1873, Epiphone has made instruments for every style of popular music. The name evokes both history and the spirit of invention. Epiphone has been an audible (not to mention visible!) presence in every great musical era from the mandolin craze of the early 1900s to jazz age guitars of the 1920s. From swing era archtops through post-war pop, jazz, r&b, and early rock n’ roll. From the “British Invasion” to heavy metal, punk, grunge, and thrash. And now, in the 21st century, new Epiphone technical breakthroughs such as the ProBucker™ pickup, series parallel switching, built-in KillSwitch™ pots, the Shadow NanoFlex™ and NanoMag™ pickup systems, and premier acoustic/electric guitars with the eSonic™ preamp have brought the historic name to a new generation. The story behind Epiphone’s improbable rise from a small family repair shop to a world-wide leader in the manufacture of quality instruments could easily be transformed into the great American novel. But our story is true. The Epiphone tale begins in the mountains of Greece and threads its way to Turkey, across the Atlantic to the immigrant gateway of Ellis Island, and into the nightclubs, recording studios, and coast-to-coast radio broadcasts of Manhattan in the 1920s and 30s. It’s the story of craftsmanship passed from father to son and the ceaseless American drive for innovation. Just a decade after Epiphone published a 46-page catalogue that included acoustic archtops, flattops, basses, electric guitars, banjos, and amplifiers, the company would be bankrupt and sold to a longtime rival, Gibson. Today, Epiphone is once again an innovator in guitar and instrument manufacturing. The variety of musicians that walk through Epiphone’s history is equally remarkable. Jazz greats like George Van Eps, country pioneers like Hank Garland, bluesman John Lee Hooker, and scores of mandolin, archtop and steel guitar players used Epiphone instruments daily over nationwide broadcasts. There are unlikely heroes and tinkerers in the Epiphone story too, like guitar pioneer Les Paul, who worked nights in the Epiphone factory to create “the Log”, his primordial version of what would eventually be called the “Les Paul.” Beatles’ bassist extraordinaire Paul McCartney choose an Epiphone Casino as his first American made guitar and John Lennon and George Harrison quickly followed. The Casino appeared on every Beatles album from Help through Abey Road. And today, Epiphone can be heard on albums by Gary Clark, Jr., My Chemical Romance, Joe Bonamassa, Zakk Wylde, Machine Head, Dwight Yoakam, The Strokes, Slash, Jeff Waters, Paul Simon, Radiohead, The Waco Brothers, Lenny Kravitz, and Paul Weller. If a time machine could transport today’s Epiphone players to Epiphone’s Manhattan showroom of 60 years ago when it was a gathering place for all the Big Apple’s best players, the generations would agree that Epiphone has always been the House of Stathopoulo, and today is still innovating, still delighting musicians, and still frustrating competitors with daring designs and superb quality. “Epiphone always made a good guitar,” Les Paul once said. And that after all, is what all musicians are looking for.

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The Flying V was born on a field of battle that still rages: Gibson verses Fender. In 1957 Gibson’s then-president Ted McCarty wanted some new six-strings to tussle with Leo Fender’s popular Stratocasters. Sure, the Les Paul was already making history, but McCarty wanted more contemporary reinforcements with some eye-candy appeal. After all, the Les Paul had debuted in 1952 during the height of the Korean War. It was a new era.
So Gibson’s design gurus came up with patents for both the Flying V and the Explorer. They were modern looking instruments during a period when Americans were enjoying peace and prosperity, and more leisure time than ever before. And they smacked of the day’s yen for progress. Scientists had elaborated on technology from World War II and Korea to make great leaps in rocketry. Satellites began to circle the Earth. Science fiction novels and movies were the rage.
The aerodynamic charms of both models, but especially the “swept back, forward looking”—as Z.Z. Top’s Billy Gibbons has put it—Flying V made it seem like personal jet packs were just around the corner.
The prototype Flying Vs were mahogany and deemed a bit too heavy and a bit too costly to compete with the Strat. So the first models to leave Gibson’s original factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, during 1958 were made of the lighter and more readily available korina wood. Their sales didn’t break the sound barrier. According to Larry Meiners’ thoroughly enjoyable Flying “V”: The Illustrated History of This Modernistic Guitar, less than 100 were ordered by dealers in ’58 and ’59.
It would take another decade-and-a-half before the Flying V would have the last amplified laugh, but early sales were so slack that in 1960 the model was struck from Gibson’s catalog. Dave Davies of the Kinks tells a story about buying an original-production V from a Los Angeles guitar shop in 1964 at the fire-sale price of $60. The V’s suggested retail at the time was $247.50. Today a ’58 or ’59 V fetches between $120,000 and $145,000.

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