6 march 2003

One thing you can't miss on this music fair is the Variax modeling guitar. Everybody needs to play it, either to prove to himself that it is total crap or that it is the next big thing. It is really hard to judge the qualities of the guitar sounds, since you had to play it through a POD XT using Sennheiser Earphones.

My first try was extremely unimpressive (uargh!). But later I tried it a second time with the help of a Line6 employee and to my astonishment I have to admit the system itself seems to work. You can get a Les Paul or a Stratocaster or an acoustic twelve string out of the Variax, but it is a somehow awkward feeling, since the feel of the guitar obviously stays the same.
The only thing the variax is not capable of is to get a vibrato by pushing the neck forward to tilt it from the body. The body-neck connection is absolutely unmovable! All other attempts to prove that Line6 made mistakes in the development of the Variax were unsucessfull (playing behind the nut, tapping, pitch harmonics etc).

Another thing that might be worth a try is the new Marshall 2-in-1 Amp ModeFour. If you can really get the same sounds out of the thing, the Marshall band guitarists Phil Hilborne (using Amp1) and Chris George (using Amp2) got out of it, you'll be satisfied. All the sounds one needs from warm and clear to really mean NuDistortion with lots of low end.
Jaz Lochrie plays bass with the Marshalls and adds his voice as their singer as well as a stand-up entertainer.
Nicko McBrain made me wonder why Iron Maiden still haul their Eddie statue through the continents, with a little green paint Nicko could to the job! His drumming is still amazing, even when playing 70s pop tunes.

The real surprise of this year's fair were the FretKing guitars. I didn't even find their booth, but Marshall uses their guitars for demontration purposes. I loved the sound of Phil Hilborne's FretKing Corona EU IIIHB and Chris George's Esprit EU V. I could only get my hands on a Corona III later (through a tiny Marshall MG15DFX 15W practice amp, that I wish I had had fifteen years back instead of my crappy Fender X-15), but I would trade my Fender Strat in for this Instrument (of course it would take a compensation for the price difference to really make me do it, since my Fender must be worth three times the price of the Corona).

Everybody knows the Star Sprangled Banner guitars from last years music fair. They might or might not have been a direct reaction to the terrorist attacks of 9-11 and the upcoming defiant national pride in the aftermath.
This year Peavey comes with a whole bunch of flag motive Wolfgangs. So if you are feeling defiant against the politics of the USA at the moment, go ahead and order this wonderful Wolfgang with the flag of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Laney probably had the most versatile endorser of the electrical guitar players with Andy Timmons. He made his Laney demonstration a show case of what the aspiring guitar player should write into his practice schedule: tone, vibrato, bendings, slides, tapping, 3-note-per-string scales, string skipping etc etc. All packed into functioning songs (OK, "functioning for musicians" maybe...).
He only had to handover the crown in the speed department, which was won by Dean's Michael Angelo, who was recently elected "No.1 shredder of alltime" by Guitar One magazine. (I think Angelo must have played in a band called "Hootle the MOP" or some such thing.) He took out his double guitar and actually played this monster. People will do ANYTHING to get famous!? Nevertheless he's a nice guy from Chicago.