Guitar Blog
Our new guitar blog will be showcasing guitars, guitar and equipment reviews, offering lessons and playing tips, plus loads of other guitar stuff, so watch this space….
“The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else” Brian May
Kramer 450
Solidbody / Production 1976 to early 1980's. Gary Kramer had been a partner with Travis Bean and known for producing metal construction guitars. When the first Kramer brand guitars appeared in 1976, it was no surprise that they had a metal...
Ibanez Iceman
Solidbody / Production 1976 - 1983. The Iceman was born in the mid 1970's as a national guitar of Japan, a design that would bring the same level of prestige to a Japanese guitar that the Fender Stratocaster and Gibson Les Paul did for the...
Yamaha SG 2000 (SBG 2000)
Solidbody / Production 1976 - 1988. What a breakthrough this guitar was in 1976. Until this point Japanese guitars reputation was not great, but he Yamaha SG 2000 changed all that. Most guitarist considered this models workmanship and...
Fender Bass VI
Solidbody / Production 1961 - 1974 The Fender Bass VI is a short scale bass of 30 inches, but the tremolo along with its guitar style 6 string spacing, revealed its true identity as a low tuned guitar.The body and tremolo came from the...
Music Man Edward Van Halen
Solidbody / Production 1990 - 1995. With dive bomb vibrato effects and super fast fingerboard tapping, Eddie Van Halen was the most influential guitarist of the 1980's and the foundation of the Kramer companies success. In 1990, Ernie Ball /...
Hofner President
Hollowbody / Production 1957 - 1973. The Hofner President was the least expensive of Hofner's single cutaway, full depth hollowbody electrics, although the theme of American politics continued down the line to the none cutaway Senator and the...
Gibson ES-175
Hollowbody / Production 1949 to current day. In 1949, two years after Gibson added a cutaway to its ES-300, making it the ES-350, Gibson then did the same to its ES-125 and added 50 points to its title model number and called it the new ES-175....
Guild Artist Award
Hollowbody / Production 1956 - 2007. The Artist Award was Guild's johnny Smith Award model, but only for a short period of time. Guild began its guitar business in 1952 just as Smith released the track Moonlight in Vermont, that bought him...
Gibson Les Paul Junior
Solidbody / Production 1954 - 1958, 1986 - 1992, 1998 to current day. Gibson's 1952 Goldtop Les Paul priced at £150,00 competed with Fender's £120.00 Telecaster, but Fender also offered the Esquire at a much lower price. In 1954, Gibson came...
Aria Urchin Deluxe
Solidbody / Production 1982 - 1984. This Aria Urchin Delux illustrates the Japanese company was unencumbered by any traditional designs, while Gibson and Fender had great difficulty creating news designs and did not follow its Les Pauls,...
Fender Jeff Beck Stratocaster
Solidbody / Production 1991 to current day. In the band the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck never attained the commercial success of the guitarists who preceded him or followed him. However, Jeff Beck is as revered and influential as Eric Clapton and...
Gretsch Billy Bo Jupiter Thunderbird
Solidbody / Production 2005 to current day. Bo Diddley made his mark in rock n roll history in 1955 with his rhumba rock beat that supported his hit track "Bo Diddley" and along with his rectangular guitar Gretsch made for him in 1958. This guitar model later became...
Gibson EDS-1275
Solidbody / Production 1962 to 1967 / 1977 - Current day. Gibson started making Hawaiian doublneck guitars as far back as 1937, within two years of the Gibson's first electric models, but the concept did not really take off until the 1950's....
Fender Eric Clapton Stratocaster
Solidbody / Production 1988 to current day. Eric Clapton gained his fame in the early 1960's playing a Gibson Les Paul and plugging it into a Marshall amp as a member of the legendary band Cream. He did start out on a Fender Telecaster with...
G&L ASAT
Solidbody / Production 1985 to current day. Worrying about his health and his ability to run the |Fender guitar company, Leo Fender decided to sell and sold the company to CBS in 1965 and then proceeded to advance and refine the electric...
Gretsch Nashville Double Neck G6120-6/12
Hollowbody / Production 1997 - current day. Gretsch did not go straight into the double guitar market with Gibson in the 1960's or with Rickenbacker in the 1970's, but if Gretsch had jumped on board then, it might have looked like this...
Gibson Explorer
Solidbody / Production 1958 - 1959. Gibson' quick re-design of the headstock from the split V to the curved scimitar shape could not save this guitar model.Unlike the Flying V, which Gibson successfully reintroduction in the early 1960's, the...
Rickenbacker 1998PT
Hollowbody / Production 19887 - 1988. The legend guitarist Pete Townshend purchased his first Rickenbacker in 1964, after seeing John Lennon playing a Capri 325 with the Beetles, but unlike Lennon's guitar, Pete Townshend's Model 1998, did not...
Ibanez George Benson GB-10
Hollowbody / Production 1977 to current day. The Ibanez George Benson signature model of 1977 was a real wake up call for American guitar makers who thought that Japanese guitar companies could never win over a top American guitarist.George...
Hofner A2L
Hollowbody / Production 1978 - 1986. The Hofner's A2L's peghead and tailpiece shape are easy recognisable from some of Hofner's designs of earlier decades, but this Hofner with its floating pickup is a timeless classic Jazz guitar or a...
Jackson Stealth TH2
Solidbody / Production 1991 - 1996. Grover Jackson merged his namesake company in 1986 with International Music Company, a company located in Texas that imported guitars and left the business in 1989. International Music Company continued to...
Gibson Firebird V
Solidbody / Production 1963 - 1965. The Gibson Firebird V was equal to the Les Paul Standard or SG Standard and identifiable by its trapezoidal shaped fingerbaord inlays. Gibson stopped making the original reverse body model in 1965, but this...
PRS Mark Tremonti
Solidbody / Production 2001 to current. The founder and lead guitarist of the rock band Creed, Mark Tremonti, best known for their 1999 hit "Higher." Whil he did not have some of the influence of the guitar gods, whose names were on signature...
Fender Mustang
Solidbody / Production 1964 - 1982. The great expectations of Fenders elite and expensive models, the Jassmaster and the Jaguar failed to inspire Jazz players, but did appeal to Rock n Roll guitarists. To capitalise on the new demand, Fender...
Different types of tuning
Main types of tuning available for the guitarist.As a guitarist, you can often find yourself collecting different types of guitars like a Les Paul, Stratocaster or Telecaster to produce different types of sounds and tones to mimic famous guitarist and...
Washburn Paul Stanley PS-500
Solidbody / Production 1998 - 1999. You may not know this, but Washburn is one of the oldest guitars brands, dating back to 1887, and in the late 19th Century its parent company Lyon & Healy was the largest musical instrument maker in...
