Posts Tagged ‘Guitar Players’

Vacuum tube amplifiers are some of the most sought after amps in the industry due to their warm rich tones. For years people have compared certain types of amp tubes for their sonic richness and warmth. More than that, it seems to be the older vintage models that win most guitarists over for their great guitar tone. The big problem usually occurs when trying to find new old stock tubes, or at least tube that may be similar in its characteristics.

In this article we are going to look at the KT66 power tube. This well respected tube was introduced in the mid 1950′s by the Marconi-Osram Valve Company. They marketed their tubes under the name of “Genalex”. The KT66 was Europe’s version of the American 6L6GC.

The KT66 tube is quite larger than the 6L6 in physical size. It also has quite a big sound to go along with it’s size. The tube was used in the famous Marshall Bluesbreaker Combo in 1965 – 1966. Marshall eventually changed to the more readily available EL34.

If you’re lucky enough to find an original new old stock matched pair of KT66 tubes, you should be prepared to pay around $600.00. This is the current cost of these “original” bad boys.

On the other hand, you can get a matched pair of the reissue Genalex KT66 tubes for a much more affordable price of $99.00. These reissue tubes duplicate the large clear bottle of the UK tube, as well as it’s brown base, gold-ink lettering with prancing lion logo, gold plated screen, and huge plate structure.

The comparison between the original KT66 tubes and the reissue tubes are as follows:

The early original KT66 tubes sounded big and brawny, with extended lows and a very rich and detailed set of mids and highs. Something all guitar players tend to look for in a quality tube. The reissue Genalex KT66 tubes sounds incredibly similar to the original. They deliver an almost identical sense of presentation and focus. They did not seem to drift into the dreaded saggy zone when pushed into distortion. As with the original tubes, the reissues KT66′s overdrive voice is throatier and more british-sounding than the 6L6′s, and they respond beautifully to the changes in picking and volume dynamics.

It’s very easy to see why this robust-sounding tube remains so popular with savvy musicians. With such a great-sounding reissue tube available at only a fraction of the cost of the originals, it’s an attractive replacement for any 6L6 amp that has enough cabinet space to accommodate the KT66′s tall bottle.

As far as long-term reliability of the reissue, it’s hard to say for sure because the superbly made original is a tough act to follow in that regard. However, if you’re interested in getting great guitar tone with the highly acclaimed KT66 power tube, the reissue Genalex model really hits the mark.

I hope this has helped shed light on the highly acclaimed KT66 power tube.

For more information on Great Guitar Tone see details below.

Thank You,

Bob Molton

If you know how to play a Dobro guitar you have at your command a whole range of notes that you cannot get to without a slide. You can slide into notes which, with that unusual Dobro wail, makes your audience’s hair stand on end. When we talk about knowing how to play a Dobro guitar, we are talking about a resonator guitar. The attraction to so-called “Dobro” guitars is the unique tone of the single cone resonator guitar with a wooden body. There are resonator guitars with metal bodies, but they have a totally different sound. The actual name Dobro is the property of the Gibson company which bought out the National Guitar company which owned the patent to the original resonator which had three cones.

Most really good Dobro guitar players have the guitar sitting in their lap. You can play with the guitar in the conventional position but that does not allow you nearly as much freedom to express yourself and explore the possibilities of the instrument. To play a resonator guitar you will need to get yourself a slide that is made to be used on a bottleneck guitar or make use of a bottle or some other cool-looking object that many slide guitar players use.

If you associate the slide guitar sound with a Dobro you might want to reconsider buying a resonator, because you can get the slide guitar sound using any acoustic guitar. You just need to be careful if you are using non-standard tunings that involve tuning the strings up rather than down because you do not want to bend the neck.

One of the main techniques you will need to learn to develop your own Dobro style is string damping. You do not want extra noise from the strings, so if you have the slide on your pinky finger, you drag one of the other singers just after the slide using only enough weight on the strings to get rid of extraneous noise.

You will also be using your right hand to damp the strings that you do not want to sound if you pluck several strings but only want one or two to sound. This technique is called palm muting but it is really done by applying the side of your right hand to the strings as you play.

You may already know that when you play a conventional guitar you place your left hand fingers slightly behind the frets. With a Dobro you have the slide right above the fret when you play a note or chord. You will need practice to get that sound of sliding from one note to another, and you will need to work on producing vibrato by moving the slide back and forth rapidly.

Guitarists who know how to play a Dobro guitar will have a collection of alternate tunings at their fingertips. Remember, every time you change the guitar from conventional tuning you will need to learn all over again where the notes are on the fretboard. This is not as big and boring a job as it sounds. If you take care to learn alternate and open tunings one at a time, remembering where the notes are just comes by itself with practice.

Most slide and Dobro guitar players recommend Open G as a first tuning. You can quickly change to this tuning by changing both E strings down to D, then your fifth string down from A to G. Another useful tuning is Open D where you change your strings down to D A D F# A D.

Guitar music has a musical notation all its own. Rather than the standard musical notation that other musicians use, guitar players use a more simple and operational type of musical notation, called a tab. The great thing about using acoustic guitar tabs is that you can learn to play guitar without having to learn to read music in the traditional sense. Tabs, or tablatures, are used for many stringed instruments. In this article we keep looking at how to read guitar 2 as we previously discussed in Part 1.

Let’s take the example of a tab for a group of notes; in this example we will start with the “E”, the lowest string and we will go all the way through to “G”, the highest one.

E———————————————————————————0—-1—-3————-

B—————————————————————0—-1—-3——————————-

G—————————————————-0—-2———————————————–

D———————————–0—-2—-3———————————————————–

A——————-0—-2—-3—————————————————————————

E—-0—-1—-3——————————————————————————————-

Let’s have a look at the same tab but instead of having numbers I actually put the names of the notes.

E———————————————————————————E—-F—-G————-

B—————————————————————B—-C—-D——————————

G—————————————————-G—-A———————————————–

D———————————–D—-E—-F———————————————————–

A——————-A—-B—-C—————————————————————————

E—-E—-F—-G——————————————————————————————-

You can now read simple notes in a guitar tab. Let’s go a step further and see if you can tab out a chord. A chord is a combination of 3 notes played at the same time.
The tab rules stay the same aside from the numbers that will be added up. Let’s have a look at a “D” chord tab.

E——2————————-

B——3————————

G——2————————

D——0————————

A——X————————

E——X————————-

In the example we just used, you would play the “D” chord once. Every time you read the chord on your tab, play it. To give you an example, a tab that would tell you to strum the chord 3 times would be similar to this:

E——2—–2——2——————-

B——3—–3——3——————-

G——2—–2—–2——————-

D——0—–0—–0——————-

A——X—–X—–X——————-

E——X—–X—–X——————-

The example above shows us that a very quick way to learn how to play acoustic guitar fast. The only downside is that by only reading tabs, you do not learn the note durations. Tabs are not supposed to replace musical sheets but are just indicators as to where and how to play a chord on the guitar.

Should you want to learn a song using tabs, here is what you should do:

First, pick one of your favorite songs and get a feel of how it should be put on paper. Once you have done that you can try to replicate the song using the music language, which is the tab code.

The second important thing is to use written music that has the tab right under the music sheet. That way, not only can you read the music from the sheet but you can also see the position on the guitar with the tab.

A lot of beginning guitar players get bored with traditional lessons early on, and would like to learn some easy songs to play on the guitar in order to break up the monotony of learning basic notes and chords. We will take a look at some easy to learn songs that you can learn to play on the guitar.

Nirvana: About A Girl

About A Girl by Nirvana is a very fun and easy song to play. The basic verse is simply a progression of “A” and “G” chords played in the open position. The chorus is a little bit more complicated, but can be picked up easily by most guitar players.

America: Horse With No Name

Horse With No Name is a popular song written by Dewey Bunnel from the band America. The song consists of two chords, “E minor” and “D”. The same chords are repeated throughout the verse as well as the chorus.

Jimmy Buffet: Margaritaville

Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet is easy to play and is always a crowd favorite. The chord progressions goes D-A-G throughout the song. The song is also a great one to learn because beginners can play the basic chords and learn the more advanced stuff such as the walking bass line as they progress.

Some other fun and easy songs to learn on the guitar are:

Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield

If Not For You by Bob Dylan

Help! by The Beatles