Guitar Fetish

GuitarFetish started in 2004 by Jay Abend with the intention to make his custom gear available to guitar players around the world. "I was happy hand winding hum buckers for $160 each, but there's proven to be good business for $30 pickups with the same construction practices and tone" he comments before talking about how working exclusively online allows him to develop relationships with customers, responding to e-mails and chatting on his forums with players. GFS products aren't available anywhere but the official website, and their inventory has expanded to include everything you need to build, modify, and play guitars. For those not wanting to get their hands dirty, the custom guitar and pedal lines can't be beat, including a popular $40 digital footpedal tuner. Unmatched quality and affordability have earned GFS a broad following, known as the website for savvy guitar players who need the best without breaking the bank.




Xaviere Guitars
Bang for your buck
$159+

These guitars could easily sell for three or four times the price you'll buy one new. Seriously. A friend of mine discovered GuitarFetish online while searching for guitar parts and bought a XV-JT on a whim thinking he'd get a cheap guitar he could scavenge for parts. Imagine our surprise when the guitar that arrived looked, felt, and sounded so good my friend decided that he'd leave the guitar intact and play it relentlessly while his many, more expensive guitars have begun to gatherdust. These guitars have become a focus at GFS and in the playing community, with new designs appearing regularly and always more affordable than comparable guitars. Xaviere's clone many popular body shapes and are made from dry tonewoods with a focus on playability and, of course, the famous GFS pickups. By designing and selling the guitar GFS cuts out the middleman, which is great for all of us.


GuitarFetish.com

SONiVOX

You don't know SONiVOX, but you know their sounds. Their audioINSIDE technology powers the sound in every Android phone and their EAS technology has powered Motorola's phones since 2005, and that's just their sideproject. SONiVOX designs and develops music software that puts an orchestra at your fingertips, a drummer in your pocket and a studio in your laptop. Libraries like Symphonic and Broadway Big Band are commonly used to score TV and film while synthesizers like Twist are crushing dance floors around the world. Jennifer Hruska founded SONiVOX in 1993 in Somerville, MA. Her new company quickly earned a reputation for quality and innovation as they began to create an expansive set of libraries and instruments, available from the first on-line store for musician sounds. Musicians and business took notice, and suddenly SONiVOX was making sounds for the world at large. Despite worldwide implementation of their software SONiVOX is still just a ten person team dedicated to developing new technologies that inspires us to make music for the future, no matter if it's in a Hollywood score, or on your phone. 
sonivoxmi.com


Wobble
$149
Grimyer than Oscar

Destined to shake clubs, bob heads, and destroy neighborly relations everywhere, Wobble rocks the party with more LFO synced madness than a college dorm Friday at 1 am. SONiVOX's new spectral morphing synthesis engine powers a sleek design that makes managing Wobbles endless possibilities easy and fun. The front end interface puts the most important features up front to play with while those willing to go a little deeper will be able to modulate note values and synth parameters with the first-of-its-kind tempo-locked pattern generator to create sounds that twist and jump like their audiences. NEMESYNTH Audio Research Group developed Wobble's new synthesis engine and tamed it's 800 parameters into a bevy of infinitely tweakable presets. Ready, set, Rage.

Pigtronix Tremvelope

A different kind of Tremsion

$249

This pedal will change how you think about tremolo. Your average tremolo pedals lets you control speed and depth, stomp on: stomp off, yawn. Tremvelope changes the whole experience by responding to the dynamics of your playing, varying the speed and depth in accordance with the strength of your signal. The result is a pedal you develop a relationship with, finding the sweet spot where it ceases to be another effect and becomes part of the way you play. The envelope is fully adjustable via the onboard knobs and switches, an expression pedal, a trigger input, or can be turned off for a classic tremolo sound when needed. The trigger input allows you to run a clean signal to control the Tremvelope when it's farther down your FX chain, or, if you're feeling wild, control the Tremvelope with signal from a completely different instrument, perhaps an electric violin? Let your imagination run wild.

Pigtronix Effects

Pigtronix Futuristic Analogue Technology
Get F.A.T.

Pigtronix pedals are clever blends of the new and old, pulling familiar sounds into another dimension where audio is more maleable and analogue reigns supreme. Creatively combining several effects into each one of their powerful stompboxes, Pigtronix re-writes the limits of what a single pedal can achieve. Co-founder and designer David Koltai works with Howard Davis to create each new Pigtronix effect, focusing on versatility, tonal clarity, and durability. Started in 2004 by David and Brian Bethke with the EP-1 Envelope Phaser, Pigtronix has become a leader in creative new analogue effects, relied upon by musicians around the world. Pigtronix are designed, manufactured, and distributed from Long Island, NY, but aren't for sale on their website. They work hard to develop relationships with retailers who sell their work, David explains when I ask why they don't sell direct, "I love guitar stores and think playing a pedal before you buy is a big part of the experience." If no local stores have Pigtronix you can find a list of those who do, as well as their full product line and artist endorsements, on their website.  

www.Pigtronix.com

Malekko Heavy Industries

Malekko heavy industries started with a dissolving band, some inspiration, and a kitchen table. "The joke was the website made us seem huge, with pictures of semi's with the Malekko logo when there was only two of us, I soldered every pedal on my kitchen table" explains co-founder Josh Henley from Portland, OR where the company has grown into an 8 person operation with a vast network of players and fans. Malekko is known for original, affordable pedals and synth modules that earn their place in you soundbox. Josh says Malekko is about usability, not impressing your friends with 100 features you'll never touch: "We're not here to make trophies, we're here to make pedals players can use and enjoy." Malekko have cut a unique path with innovative ideas like the Omicron series, 8 no frills mini-pedals that build your signal for up without undercutting your wallet. Working to keep their pedals as useable as they are affordable, it's easy to understand why Malekko has earned a reputation for serving the needs of the working musician.

Ekko 616

650 ms of analogue delay. Count them, love them, rejoice in them. The Ekko 616 has straightforward controls that give you a wide range of sounds. Use the Time, Mix, and Regen knobs to slapback or blast off and engage the Mod controls to give your sound a whole new personality of chorusing and vibrato. Specially voiced repeats allow a larger bandwidth to pass than most traditional analogue delays, giving you a stronger signal out of the pedal. An internal gain knob allows you to customize the E616 to your setup to avoid volume drops or boosts when engaging.

Jack Deville Electronics

The switch on your pedal clicks, pops, and is going to die. This is not your fault. Most pedals come with with a 3 pole switch that has a life of a few thousand cycles which, if you play everyday, ain’t much. Enter Jack Deville, he designed the Click-less True Bypass system for the Buzzmaster, his first guitar pedal. Players loved it so much they asked him to add it to their existing pedals, but Jack is to busy designing and building new pedals to spend all his time replacing switches, so he made an easy way for anyone with a soldering iron to install it themselves. His pedals are made from high quality parts and are used by everyone from Tony Levin to Adrian Belew. A maker that cares about what he’s making, Jack hand solders and tests every piece of gear before shipping, and all products come with a lifetime warranty.

Mod Zero

Mod Zero is the end all analog modulator. The range of sounds available from this small box will impress even the most jaded guitar shop sales clerks, moving seamlessly from classic flanging to roller-coaster pitch modulation to subtle vibratos. Two switches allow you to choose between chorus/vibrato/tremolo mode and flanging/leslie mode. The Mod Zero is the only through-zero flanger on the market today the Leslie sound is incredible to hear coming from a pedal. The chorus/vibrato/tremolo mode is equally as impressive with a soft touch for creating the beautiful, subtler sounds and the power to modulate all sense from your signal when you’re in that special mood. Every Mod Zero is hand soldered by Jack Deville in Portland, Oregon.

Michael J Epstein Memorial Library

Volume One
Somerville, MA

“21st century sing-a-long”

Remember those childhood road trips, when siblings only stopped fighting when parents put on the sing-a-long tape and the whole car transformed into a smiling choir as the side-paneled family truckster cruised down the vast expanses of the American highway system? Neither does anyone else, but Volume One provides the soundtrack for all the imaginary memories we’ve convinced ourselves are somehow part of our past. The songs are catchy but simple, and sung out understandably so listeners can pick up and join in the fun. Opener “Amylee” defines the sound of the album, strumming guitars and ukuleles backed by an assortment of strings, glockenspiels, and other happy instruments. Michael sings but never alone, backed by at least one harmony part or more often a bunch of friends singing around a campfire roasting marshmallows.
Michael and company sing about the joys and woes of 21st century living, but their voices are always filled with a certain joie de vivre.Volume One is a community record, even listening to it alone conjures the feeling of being surrounded by good friends.
Engineered by Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola at The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library (Somerville, MA)//Drum tracking by Mike Quinn at Q Division (Somerville, MA)//Mixed by Mike Quinn in The Moontower at Q Division (Somerville, MA)//Mastered by Jeff Lipton at Peerless Mastering (Boston, MA); Assistant Mastering Engineer: Maria Rice

-Garrett Frierson
http://michaeljepstein.com/

Siriusmo - 'Mosaik'

Also printed in Performer Magazine


Siriusmo
Mosaik
Berlin, Germany

“PartiesNeverEnd”

Put in the music and park your ass on the dance floor. Mosaik is a club tour of Europe in your pocket. The album moves it’s way from Daft Punk disco romance through heavy dubstep grooves to retro-future beach jams that are as much Javelin lo-fi pop as Justice inspired booty shaking. Siriusmo starts the night off right with “High Together”, a wistful, joyous groove perfect for some warm ups and reflection before a promising night of dancing and debauchery. “Feromonikon” delivers on that promise with a dark bounce no one knew German minimalism could deliver, and there’s no turning back. Once Mosaik starts everyone in the room will start moving and no one will stop until the echoes of “Red Knob” stop bouncing off the ceiling. Wallflowers need not apply. (MonkeyTown Records)

-Garrett Frierson
http://www.myspace.com/siriusmo

Review: Audio Damage Phosphor

Phosphor is a polyphonic software synthesizer plug-in modeled on the alphaSyntauri hardware synthesizer. While making it Audio Damage took special care in recreating the original synthesis process and then added on a little more to make it more versatile for modern musicians. When I first opened Phosphor up I was surprised by it’s relative simplicity of it’s interface. Most software synths hide most of their features in sub-menus but Phosphor puts it all on the screen in a nice little green and grey box. Two oscillator/envelope sections modeled on the alphaSyntauri sit on top of two independent delays with built in filtering and cross-feedback. To the right of all this is the LFO’s, which can be used to affect multiple parameters. If all the technical talk scares you fret not, the Phosphor comes with 80+ pre-sets I found really actually usable and inspiring. The pads and leads really stand out, but the bass presets seemed a little limited. The manual, available for free on the AD website, actually turned out to be easy reading and indispensable when I started creating my own sounds. Overall, Phosphor is by far the best digital synth under $100 I’ve ever encountered, and puts many pricier units to shame.

$59 at www.AudioDamage.com

Monster Plug-ins: Audio Damage

There the world is replete with companies making ‘utility’ plug-ins, emulating hardware to give digital mixing a more old-school feel. Audio Damage is not one of them. Audio Damage makes effects and instruments unique to the digital environment, helping artists create new and unique sounds that stand out from the pack of producers using Logic and Ableton pre-sets. Their effects catalogue ranges from the beat chopping Replicant and multi-FX Discord 3 (which are pretty crazy in their own right) to more experimental plug-ins like the Automaton, using buffer effects driven by a cellular automata sequencer. Their instruments are no less creative, including the Phosphor polysynth and the Axon drum synth. “We design plug-ins we’d like to have” says co-founder Chris Randall, “We get a wacky idea (e.g. driving an FM percussion synth with an artificial neural network sequencer), research to see if it’s been done, and figure out how to do it.” All that, and AD products come with a no questions asked money back guarantee. What more could you ask for?
www.audiodamage.com/

Endangered Audio

Endangered Audio
Asheville, N.C.

Endangered Audio builds module and stomp box effects for studios and touring
artists. EA gear is known for unique sound and dependability, using only through-
hole components soldered in shop at Smashing Guitars in downtown Asheville.
Todd Kelley started the company in Dec. 2008 to release the Gristleizer, an
updated version of Roy Gwinn’s module used in Throbbing Gristle. Taking
audio input and using an LFO to effect the amplitude or a filter on the signal, the
Gristleizer can do everything from subtle tremolo to complete signal destruction.
Their most recent pedal, the AD4096 is a unique analog delay that is currently
used by Baroness, Band of Horses, U.S. Christmas, and Emeralds.
http://www.smashingguitarsasheville.com/

AD4096 Analog Delay
Beyond Delay
$375

The AD4096 goes above and beyond other delays with its Wet/Dry stereo out,
Expand, and Infinity switches. The Expand switch turns the depth to 100%,
causing run-away self-oscillating feedback for as long as you hold it down. The
Infinity switch introduces a hold function that repeats forever, but not quite like a
loop pedal. Instead of layering signal on signal indefinitely, the Infinite wet signal
takes on the color of whatever’s being played. The Aux out can be switched
between wet and dry, splitting your signal into two separate channels.100%
analog circuitry provides up to 300ms of uniquely colored delay with adjustable
delay, echo, and depth settings. From recreating classic delay sounds to creating
unique sonic creations, the versatility of the AD4096 can’t be denied.

Blackout Effectors

Blackout Effectors
Asheville, N.C

“Built by us, for us … but available to you”

Kyle Tompkins started Blackout Effectors in his Vancouver kitchen in 2008, modding, fixing, and building the occasional pedal with a cheap soldering iron. “Really,” he say, “I should have been playing guitar instead of fooling around. It was an awesome kitchen though.” In 2009 he quit his day job and relocated to Asheville, N.C. to focus on Blackout full time. Skip to 2011 and Blackout Effectors is producing 40+ handmade pedals a week that ride with bands from Band of Horses to Baroness and The Black Angels. With the experience accumlated over the past several years, Kyle is sticking true to his vision of what Blackout Pedals need to be, even if that means he ends up scrapping the majority of new circuit designs because they won’t fit the Blackout mold. “We’re only going to release the coolest of the cool stuff and in the Blackout world no one gets to decide what is cool besides us.”

http://www.blackouteffectors.com/

Blackout Effectors Mantra Overdrive
True Grit
$175

Whether you’re looking for that classic overdriven sound or want to turn your speaker into Satan’s mouthpiece, you need a Mantra. Amp-like circuit architecture gives you maximum control of your overdriven sound while the Mantra’s multiple gain stages give you endless amounts of clean-up with your guitar’s volume knob. It switches between rock and blues as easily as it switches between low output single coils and hot potato humbuckers. From fingerpicked phrases to windmill finishes, this pedal conjures a classic sound that’s all your own, a Mantra you’ll play over and over again.

Phantom Glue Album Review

Thunder rakes across a darkened sky. This is the hour the sun should rise, but today there will only be the light of hungry flames as they crawl over barren earth, searching for their next meal. Nothing deserving of life still moves. The dead lie awaiting a savior that will never come. Man’s hubris has claimed its due and those that survived have learned nothing, fighting amongst themselves as the ground at their feet begins to quake. Their squabbles keep them occupied as the sound of a thousand heavy feet racing across dry clay draws closer. The air is thick with blood yet to be spilled. Not until its hot breath is upon their backs will they see the oncoming herd. Brutal, unstoppable, unimaginable force without mercy and without remorse. There is no hope. Phantom Glue is coming.


http://www.facebook.com/pages/Phantom-Glue/105502909128?v=info