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Gibson has a new axe called the Firebird X

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Gibson guitars have just released and new line of guitar called the Firebird X. They figure that they took the best technology from guitars of the past few years and incorporated all these new advancements into this brand new revolutionary guitar. It has some very interesting combination all wrapped up into one guitar.

The body shape is taken from the 1960’s Firebird III. The only difference in the Firebird X is that they created it with a chambered body instead of solid one. This new design has many advantages. It makes the guitar slightly lighter, helps add a warmer sound to it due to the resonating ability factor (think about an acoustic guitar, the bigger it is the louder it is). In a side note here, the chambered body makes it easier to hear when it is not plugged in, not exactly like an acoustic, but only slightly louder then your standard unplugged electric guitar. This type of guitar design is also intended to help it obtain greater in sustain.

The Firebird hosts a unique bridge that has piezo pick up built in. This technology is from Gibson’s Dark Fire line. Gibson engineers have the single run through a studio-quality effective amplifier inside the guitar. This results in a stronger and more pleasant acoustic sound. How this sounds and reacts inside an electric guitar is anyone’s guess.

I have a Piezo pick up in my Larrivee L-03 and it works great. How it works is that by attacking my stringer harder, the louder the pick ups the single resulting in a louder sound. How this translates into increased volume in an electric guitar will be interesting to hear.

There is so much going on with Gibson’s Firebird X that it would take way too many posts to do it justice. So just check out this link and see for yourself how many bells and whistles this thing has in it. If I owned this guitar I would have this constant thought running in the back of my mind of when will this thing have to be brought into the old guitar shop for some work when it starts breaking down.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_mFUIQFYyM

Anyone out there own one of this guitars?

Keep on Jammin’





Open Guitar Tuner

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I got an e-mail from Benjamin, a rep from Guitar Tuners Data Base (GTDB), the other day with this useful alternate guitar tuning application. He wanted to tell me about this simple program that any guitarist can use. It’s simple design is to help guitarist develop a better understand about what is open tuning for guitars and how it works. More importantly, this app will help you find new directions that allows you to explore and expand your playing opportunities while giving you that sound that you’ve been looking for.

When I started playing guitar, there was no Youtube that you could search to see exactly how other guitarists play tunes or riffs. You just had to use your God given talent (and a little bit of dumb luck) to expand what you already knew and bring it to another level. It took me years to finally understand what and how open tunings work and use them to my advantage. Below is simple App that I will use to illustrate what I mean.

In each block you will see a large letter inside it. Each of these boxes represents individual strings on the guitar. You can tell which string the box corresponds to by looking to the upper left hand side of the box. Here you will see the number of string that it represents. ie: 6th (Bottom), 5th, 4th …

Now, start off by clicking the box that is furthest to the left. The note that you hear is what that particular string should be tuned to. The note will be repeated over and over again until you re-click the box again, after you have successfully tuned your string to. Makes sense so far?

Now go ahead and strum downwards on all the strings. When you strum it, it will sound like a chord. Now here is where it gets fun! Now try baring, placing one finger across all strings on any fret, and strum. Once again you will hear a complete chord. The next part is where it gets a little more adventurist for the uninitiated.

Put your finger on any string on any fret and strum until you hear something that resembles a chord. At this point try putting on another finger on the fretboard to create a fuller chord. This is your basic building block on how the open tuning system works. At first attempt, it might be frustrating to you. On my first try, I excelled rather quickly. It instantly exposed me to a new approach/method on how to play the guitar.

I wish you well on your new musical adventure! Remember, the worst thing you could do is learn something?

Keep on Jammin’ everybody!

Larrivee plant tour

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I found this fascinating video by a former Larrivee worker who gives us a behind the scenes tour of what goes on inside the legendary Larrivee Acoustic Guitar plant. While watching it I can’t believe how much time, dedication and patience goes into creating this acoustic guitar. All the little things that we take for granite in a guitar is disclosed to us right here in a fantastic series of videos below. A trivial piece of information is that I did not know that it can take literally months to complete one Larrivee acoustic guitar. I thought maybe 2-3 week tops but months?

In Video 1 @ 05:42 on the video counter, it shows that Larrivee installs a nice reinforced section that is located on the upper inside of the guitar body, right below where you rest the outside part of the guitar body near your sternum or in between your breasts when you play it sitting down. This reinforce section is very useful when either Larrivee, or the end user, installs a pre-amp for a pickup inside of the guitar. This is one damn good thing to know if you want add one yourself. I wasn’t aware of it until now.

When you reach video counter 06:22, it shows a guy doing some sanding on the body of a guitar. I think that I would be natural at this point in the process! Back when I was going to school to become a goldsmith, I took this grinding & polishing course that was extremely difficult to master. It takes great hand eye coordinating to pull it off. Unfortunately your fingers take one hell of a beating, that’s the only thing that I hated about this area. Mind you, grinding and polishing of a small piece is easy compared to a larger one. This guy here is good.

In video 2 I love how they show the inside or the inner workings/guts of the acoustic guitar. It’s the bracing that interests me for some strange reason and @ 02:22 my curiosity is satisfied. I remember when some of the bracing inside my original no name acoustic had come apart from the top of the guitar. I always wondered what was inside there that made the acoustic guitar work, now I know.

In video 3 @ 01:31 they show us an employee putting in the friction fitted dove tail joints where the neck of the guitar and the body meets. It actually starts @ 00:22 if you want to be technical. I always wondered what that dove tail thing was all about in all those guitar forums. I mean I’m just a player not a luthier for crying out loud! I also liked how they put the truss rod in @ 03:15. This ties in nicely to a post I did about what your Truss Rod is used for.

So here are those links that I am talking about. Check them out to see what I mean.

Video 1, 2, & 3

Keep on Jammin’

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