Randy Rhoads was a young American guitarist who rose to fame after becoming the guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne at the very beginning of Ozzy’s solo career. This was 1979. Randy Rhoads and Ozzy Osbourne along with Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake formed the band that was to put Ozzy firmly on the map again as a performer in his own right, following his departure from the hugely successful Black Sabbath.

Randy Rhoads was a classical guitar teacher. In collaboration with Bob Daisley, he and Bob composed some of the greatest music of Ozzy’s career many songs of which Ozzy still plays today in his live set.

Randy Rhoads is also famous for the “Randy Rhoads V” guitar, a guitar Randy designed and had built by Charvel back in 1981 and 1982. The CEO of Charvel at that time, Grover Jackson, went on to produce Randy’s guitar under the brand name Jackson (apparently the reason for choosing the Jackson branding was that Grover had thought that the Randy Rhoads model might be too radical and didn’t want to risk branding it as a Charvel.)

The Randy Rhoads V guitar was the guitar that put Jackson fully on the map. It was Jackson’s first production model. Prior to this time Charvel was a parts supplier for a few retail musical instrument shops, and they made the odd guitar here and there.

Tragically Randy’s career ended on a fateful day in 1982 when the plane he was a passenger in crashed, killing all on board. Further, he never actually saw the final production model of his design, what would come to be known as the “Randy Rhoads V” by Jackson Guitars.

Charvel and Jackson guitars were built in the same factory until 1986 and then the company was sold to Japanese manufacturer AMIC in 1989. Charvel’s ended up being exclusively made in Japan until 1991 while Jacksons continued to be made in California Although the Charvel name had faded away by the end of the century, Jackson/Charvel would see new light when it was purchased by Fender Music Corporation in 2002.

Today, the Randy Rhoads V is still produced by Jackson Guitars, but now that Jackson is part of Fender, all Jacksons are manufactured in the Fender plant in Corona, Ca and Jackson is of course, now subject to the company directions of the parent company, Fender Musical Instruments. It appears from spending some time on the new Charvel website, that Grover is indeed alive and well and lending his wisdom and hand to the revival of Charvel guitars and in a video clip credits Fender for aiding in these new directions.

The Randy Rhoads V guitar available from Jackson comes in various colours and schemes and there are models which are variations of the original. Some of these variants were brought about by later artists who have released their own signature variations of the Randy Rhoads V. One thing though… the left handed option of the Randy Rhoads V is very, very limited. A few colours, and that is it. One model only. Jackson’s budget range of guitars (made in Asia) don’t even allow for one left handed Randy Rhoads V.

At Gaskell Guitars (http://www.gaskellguitars.com) , located in Sydney Australia, we make only left handed guitars. We make a Randy Rhoads V model as a production model. We offer all colours through our custom options AT NO EXTRA COST. Our stock, production model comes in black and the original Randy Rhoads White and Gold scheme. We only cater for the left handed guitarist. We are trying to prevent the left hand guitarist from “always getting the short end of the stick.” Check us out. In many cases, what we offer make dreams come true!

interview with Mr. Mick Thompson of Slipknot

Left Hand guitar players the world over have always had a problem with availability of left handed guitars.

Many left handed people newly learning to play guitar end up learning to play right handed out of frustration. Many experienced left handed guitarists have simply become apathetic and given up looking for that which is abundant for right handed players. Not only is there a limited range of guitars, but the resources for learning are also pretty limited. This situation is the same in every country in the world.

It is not hard to understand. Of the world’s population, left handed people are a minority compared to right handed people. Within this minority there is a further minority of left handed people who play guitar left handed. Despite the small percentage of left handed guitarists, there have been a number of iconic left handed players who have made a huge impact on the music scene. These include Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Tony Iommi, and Kurt Cobain.

Many of the big guitar manufacturers do not offer left hand versions of some of their popular guitars. to be fair, US guitar manufacturers, have been facing harder and harder times, year after year. We all know that ALL industry (that is trying to do the right thing and being honest) is suffering and this is proportional to the decline of education (kids can’t learn, can’t hold jobs), the rise of drugs (thank you psychiatrists for getting rich by doping a whole generation into a state of useless-ness while brainwashing parents into believing frying kids brains with drugs is good) and increase of social hardship due to the world economic crash that’s going on (thanks Oil companies, banks, and government suppression) So it is tough for all.

Some guitar manufacturers offer left handed versions of their guitars through their Custom Shop. And although this is an attempt at service, the costs and waiting times can be quite painful.

Well, not any more! GASKELL GUITARS is a small Australian guitar manufacturer that makes only left hand guitars. Gaskell guitars are high quality, yet affordable instruments, that can be gigged with as they are or further upgraded or modified and still come in well under the cost of a custom shop order for the same kind of instrument!

Being situated at the “bottom of the world” and to some degree away from the noise of the collapse happening in other continents, we are able to operate intelligently and with focus on producing well-made, high quality left handed guitars that are not available as left hand models by original manufacturers.

Go to : http://www.gaskellguitars.com

You will find left handed guitars that you have not seen before in left hand and probably never thought you would! Some dreams do become reality.

An important part of creating your own home recording studio requires understanding how the amp works, but more importantly, what job each type of amp has. This is, however, a simple concept to understand. For example, electric guitars require the use of an electric guitar amp whereas electric bass guitars require the bass amp. Acoustic-electric guitars use acoustic amplifiers, and, of course, acoustic guitars do not use amps. This basic information, however, is not all that is needed for a successful amp set up. Let’s take a closer look.

Amps are a very tricky subject as there are just so many out there. The basic idea of them is to take the ultra low voltage coming from the pickups and bring them up to line level. Seems simple, but there is a lot that goes into how that signal is boosted.

The main two types of amps are tube and solid state. Tube amplifiers are the grand daddies of amplifiers and use vacuum tubes as their main amplifier. Solid state amplifiers use modern chips in place of the tubes. The difference is that tubes tend to add a warmth and smoothness to the sound but can also add a good amount of noise too. Solid state amps are more clean and solid, but can sound cold. All amps, whether for guitar, bass, or acoustic work the same but differ in where they focus their characteristics. This is not to say that you should plug a guitar into a bass amp. Sometime it will work, and sometimes it just won’t.

The Relationship between Electric Guitars and Electric Guitar Amps

Electric guitars work on pickups. A pickup works by using a magnet that is wrapped in wire. The magnetic field rides just through the strings so when the string is strummed or plucked, it alters the magnetic field and produces an electrical signal at the same frequency as the note being played. The “tone” of the pickup is determined by how many times the wire is wound around the magnet. A standard electric pickup is wrapped around 5000 times, which is nothing to sneeze at.

A Humbucker pickup uses 2 of these wrappings to reduce the amount of noise that can be produced by the pickup. This, obviously, increases the quality of any guitar using Humbucker pickups.

Bass Electric Guitars and Their Amps

Bass guitars work pretty much the same way that an electric guitar does. The reason for a bass sounding so deep is the fact that they use thicker strings, which vibrate at a lower frequency by nature. Specifically, a bass amp is specially designed to focus on the lower frequency spectrum and boost it. A normal guitar amp focuses more on the mid to high frequency spectrum.

Furthermore, a guitar wire is wound around 5000 times using #42 wire. The more times it is wound, or the more tightly wound it is, the more the lower frequencies get tapered off. To exaggerate this effect, a bass uses thicker wire as well. Sometimes the pickup is split so that it looks like a z on the body. This way the two higher strings have a boosted sound and the lower ones produce a thicker sound because of the unique shape.

Acoustic-Electric Guitars and Acoustic Guitar Amps

Acoustic-Electric guitars and their amps work entirely different from electric guitars and amps as they use what is called a “piezo pickup.”

A piezo pickup is essentially a dynamic microphone that only reacts when the string is plucked. This creates a more natural sound in relation to the actual acoustic sound. Today, even some electric guitars have piezo pickups added to them because they are so unique.

Now that you have the know how, you should also know that some amps are inter-compatible between guitars. What you can’t know, however, is how well one guitar type, like a Fender, will be compatible with a different brand, like Line6, as I mentioned above. As Soundetta.com has suggested many times, ample amount of research can benefit you in decision making but I still insist that there is nothing better than pulling up a seat in your local guitar store with your girl in one hand and line into one amp at a time. Rock on.

• Everything you need to start rocking, including a candy apple red Stratocaster guitar and 10-watt Squier amp with 10-foot cord
• Classic Fender Stratocaster guitar for all styles of music
• Synchronous tremolo bridge for subtle shimmers or hard-core whammy
• Three single-coil pickups paired with a 5-way pickup selector switch; volume and 2 tone controls for wide range of tones
• Package also includes strings, picks, strap, gigbag, guitar stand, and instructional DVD

Product Description
Solid-body Guitar With Maple Neck & Matching Headstock 22-fret Rosewood Fingerboard White Moto Pickguard 3 Single-coil Pickups With Five-way Switching, Chrome Hardware & Tremolo Bridge Sp-10 Guitar Amplifier Delivers 10w Includes Digital Tuner, 10-ft Guitar Cable, Gig Bag, Strap, Picks, Strings, Stand & Instructional Dvd Candy Apple Red… More >>

Fender Starcaster Electric Guitar Pack with Amp and Accessories, Candy Apple Red

There is something timeless about Gibson guitars.

They have been around for a million years it seems and they have been responsible for some of the most innovative guitar designs ever to appear.

The humbucking pickup is a Gibson design. Who could imagine life in the 21st Century without humbucking pickups for guitars? You couldn’t! That would be a nightmare reality! There goes “Rock” music. We’d all be playing and listening to … I don’t know!

There is a passion behind Gibson guitars that is very admirable and commendable. That passion has been there for many, many decades! We the user have received and created JOY with a Gibson in our hands and our creativity in full bloom. Many generations of great song writers, and guitar players have been and gone. The Gibson name has stayed througout time. Why? Because they are great guitars!

At GASKELL Guitars we manufacturer exclusively left handed guitars. Our mainstay model is based on the 1958 Gibson Explorer. This is a wonderful guitar, ahead of it’s time when it was designed, and to this day is a popular “extreme shape” guitar with many artists such as James Hetfield (Metallica), The Edge (U2), Gary Moore, and more. In the 1980s and 1990s just about every guitarist seemed to played Explorers or Explorers made by other guitar manufacturers such as The Police, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Kiss, U2, Metallica, Rick Nielsen, ZZ Top, Lynard Skynard, Gary Moore, and more!

The modern day Explorer is not made in left hand by Gibson or their subsidiary, Epiphone.

A left handed version is made by GASKELL GUITARS.

Other guitar manufacturers who have been inspired by this masterpiece of music instrumentation are Hamer (theirs is called the Hamer “Standard” and doesn’t have the pickguard), Dean Guitars (make an impressive range of colours for their version), Jackson Guitars (Jackson’s is called the “Kelly” and is a little different from the Explorer but is still visibly Explorer derived.) Other companies have made clones of the Explorer such as Tokai, Stagg, Aria, and in the past Ibanez, ESP and Peavey to name a few.

None of these companies listed above as far as we know make their variant Explorers in left hand without going the “custom shop” option which usually results in a pay out of around $4000 and possibly more than a year waiting time.

The Explorer guitar is really a master piece.

Left Handed guitarists can play one now, via Gaskell Guitars, and experience first hand the pleasure of such a fabulous instrument.

Gibson is a musical instrument company that has stood the test of time because of innovative and dedicated passion towards the music industry and guitar players and we here at Gaskell Guitars would like to tip our hats in honour of the legend that we have had some fortune to partially benefit from by way of the left handed Explorer style guitar we manufacture to fill that gap in the market.

EXPLORERS are great guitars. Left handed guitarists can now enjoy the greatness of them via Gaskell Guitars!

American blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa is widely tipped as one of the greatest, if not the greatest guitarist of his generation. Along with his technically brilliant playing and incredible feel and phrasing, Joe has a fantastic tone. We caught up with Joe at a gig in the UK, and in this video he shows you his enviable live rig. We’re sure you’ll agree that the man has an enviable array of amps and effects and enough power in his backline to level buildings. Check out www.musicradar.com for more…

Acoustic electric Guitars: this is a term used to describe acoustic guitars that have pickups installed in them so they can be plugged into amplifiers or PA systems. The majority of acoustic guitars you see on stage are acoustic electric guitars. Structurally, they are identical to traditional acoustic guitars.

Electric Guitars: these types of guitars made out of a solid piece of wood and rely exclusively on their electronic pickup systems and amplifiers for their volume. Their unique sound lends itself best to rock and roll, but they have also substantially shaped the sound of country music in the last 50 years. (Think “twang”)

Classical Guitars: also called “nylon-string”, classical guitars are used almost exclusively in the classical and folk idioms, but can also be found on more popular recordings. Carlos Santana makes a lot of use of the classical guitar in his

recordings. Slightly smaller than a traditional acoustic, they feature slightly wider necks and strings that are made of nylon rather than steel, to give them a very gentle, warm sound. The best Classical guitars are usually from Spain.

Hollow-body Guitars: These are simply traditional electric guitars that have chambers cut in the body to allow for more sonic resonance. They come in many different sizes and are favored primarily by players of blues and jazz music.

Steel Guitars: These are the farthest breed apart from traditional guitars so far. While any guitarist can pick up any guitar

from the above list and play, a steel guitar requires special training to play. The guitar is played flat on its back, and the strings are elevated approximately half an inch above the fretboard. This allows the strings to be played using a “tone bar” that takes the place of the fingers on a fretboard and gives the steel guitar its classic “crying sound”. This is the archetypal guitar sound.