wax&wires

Tuning strings one at a time is soooo 2009.

I’m not really sure whether to play it, fly it to the moon, or just put it in the corner and stare at it, but first things first, let’s mop up that puddle of drool.

The man who completely reshaped the face of rock and roll forever has passed on at 94 years of age.

Brian Green crossbred his guitar with a pair of iPod Touches to add a new dimension to his performance.

The pioneers of shoegazer have added four US tour stops to follow up their April 19th stop in the deserts of California at Coachella.

Check out iRock 1.0 in the Apple App store. It’s a guitar amp simulator for the iPhone and iPod touch.
You can plug in a headset with a microphone to sing and modulate your voice through the amp sim, or hook in a cable with the proper pin-out to play your guitar through it. The tough [...]

Natural wood, with its unique grain patterns, is what gives traditional acoustic instruments warm and distinctive sounds, while the power of modern electronic processing provides an unlimited degree of control to manipulate the characteristics of an instrument’s sound. Now, a guitar built by a student at MIT’s Media Lab promises to provide the best of [...]

[via engadget]
The world needs another instructional guitar tool like it needs another hole in the ozone layer, but in all seriousness, this one is stupendous. Er, it exhibits remarkable potential, considering that it’s not yet beyond the concept stage. Designer Eugene Cheong has dreamed up the Maestro, an attachment that can supposedly be adapted to [...]

I just found this interview with Jonny Buckland, guitarist of Coldplay, reflecting on 2008, and talking a bit about getting back into the studio with producer Brian Eno to begin work on new material. Check it out here.

At NAMM 2009, Orange announced a new line of Tiny Terror amps, including a twin channel 30-watt Dual Terror and a 500-watt bohemouth Terror Bass model.

The one that had me most interested was a limited run hand-wired edition, and I found some pics of the guts to share.

Facelift is a removable and reusable guitar body overlay, allowing you to alter the cosmetics of your guitar on the cheap and in a jiffy. You can also quickly remove the decal if you don’t like it, and store it away for later use.
I’m surprised it took somebody so long to develop this idea. We’ve [...]

In case you missed this at Summer NAMM, here’s your chance to catch up. The Moog Guitar was added to the Popular Mechanics Top Inventions of 2008 list (along with the Sleek Audio SA6 headphones below).
What’s so special about it? I’ll leave that to Moog to describe:
The Moog Guitar Electronics add an unparalleled range of [...]

My first TS9 was a gift from my boss when I worked at a little mom and pop music store in my hometown. It was fried, and basically only worked as a sine wave oscillator. My boss let me have it for free since it was of no good to him. I had read about [...]

PRS has partnered with Doug Sewell to develop its first ever line of amplifiers.
Here’s a quote from Paul Smith himself:
“I met Doug Sewell at the Dallas International Guitar Show several years ago and needed an amp for that evening’s performance, so I borrowed one of his and was floored. We started working on this series [...]

We’re going to spend the next few days blasting through new releases from NAMM 2009, down here in Southern California. Stay tuned to the “wires” channel to keep up to date!
Our first good find is that VOX will be reissuing the AC4 amplifier. Back when I was looking for a small tube amp to use [...]