L3F1 MUSIC

Strat Style

Where to go for left handed guitars and left handed bass guitars? Part Four – lefty Iceman guitar

These days, with more and more major guitar manufacturers ceasing to make their products in left hand, one might well ask the question "where do I go for left-handed guitars and left-handed bass guitars these days?"

In actual fact, there are guitar and bass models that are popular with guitarists that you cannot get left handed at all. Some have never been available in left hand.

Fortunately there is one guitar brand in the world that makes left handed guitars and left-handed bass guitars only: Gaskell Guitars.

Gaskell Guitars (http://www.gaskellguitars.com) is from Australia, and was started by New Zealand-born left-handed guitarist Kevin Gaskell.

Gaskell Guitars is international renowned for "lefty guitars and basses, designed by a lefty, for lefties only."

Gaskell makes guitars and basses that are otherwise not available in left hand option by original manufacturers. Here is another one in our series of articles on this subject:

Ibanez, a renowned Japanese guitar manufacturer that is strongly identified with excellent quality "superstrat" style guitars (Fender Strat style bodies with Floyd Rose tremolos) have a model called the Iceman. It is more widely known as a "Paul Stanley guitar" by the more casual guitarists.

Today, it has been re-popularized by Sam Totman, from Dragonforce.

It was designed by Ibanez and Greco working together in 1974. It was released in 1975 by Ibanez as the "Iceman" and by Greco as the "Mirage." Greco sold theirs to the Japanese market only and Ibanez sold theirs internationally.

Even though it has been in and out of production for 35 years it has never been made in left hand by Ibanez!

Gaskell Guitars makes a left handed Iceman style guitar!

Gaskell's is called the "Ice-Axe" and is inspired by the 1990's version.

No matter where you live in the world you can get a Gaskell guitar or bass without too much hassle. And now you can get an Iceman style guitar for the first time!

I suggest you look at their website for more info. It is worth it! You will be surprised!

Left-handed guitars and left-handed basses only. Designed by a lefty, for lefties. How much more better than that can you get it?

About the Author

Kevin Gaskell is the business owner and designer of Gaskell Guitars which is a manufacturer of left handed guitars and basses, located in Sydney Australia. Gaskell guitars are available world wide. http://www.gaskellguitars.com

deciding on strat style guitar pickups?

i have a johnson strat style guitar and am looking to replace the pickups to some better stuff. it has some pickups made by emg, but i'm sure they arent as good as pure emgs. i want a set that will give me some nice deep distortion, but half the time i write some clean stuff. is there a good combination of pickups, or a set that could get what i'm after? i do however treasure metal distortion much more than clean, but i want the best of both worlds. any suggestions?

If you want a good high output sound with a clean distorion or bite, put Seymour Duncans.
You can wire them in series to get more output. And if you use a distortion device, you will be amazed at how clean it is and the response is more in line with today's musc.

Feedback is nice and clean also and the harmonics response instantaneously.

Strat Style
Homemade strat-style guitar with GFS lipstick pickups

Squier Bullet Strat With Tremolo $119.99 Squier Bullet Strat With Tremolo Our Bullet Strat with tremolo is a simple, affordable and practical guitar designed for beginners and students. A perfect choice for a first guitar no matter who you are or what style of music you want to learn. Welcome to the Fender® family! Specifications: Model Name Bullet® Strat® with Tremolo Model Number 031-0001-(Color #) Series Bullet Series Colors (504) Daphne Blue, (506) Black, (532) Brown Sunburst, (540) Fiesta Red, (570) Pink, (580) Arctic White, (Polyurethane Finish) Body Basswood (42mm) Neck Maple Fingerboard Rosewood 9.5" Radius (241mm) No. of Frets 21 Medium Jumbo Pickups 3 Single-Coil Strat Pickups Controls Master Volume, Tone, Tone Pickup Switching 5-Position Blade: Position 1. Bridge Pickup Position 2. Bridge and Middle Pickup Position 3. Middle Pickup Position 4. Middle and Neck Pickup Position 5. Neck Pickup Bridge Synchronous Tremolo with Cast Saddles Machine Heads Covered Tuners Hardware Chrome Pickguard 1-Ply White Scale Length 25.5" (648 mm) Width at Nut 1.625" (41 mm) Unique Features Slim (42mm) Body Profile, Traditional Strat® Headstock Shape, White Dot Position Inlays Strings Fender Super 250L, (.009 to .042) Nickel Plated Steel p/n 073-0250-003 Accessories None Introduced 9/2007 Get Your Squier Bullet Strat With Tremolo Today!

Squier Vintage Modified Strat $349.99 Squier Vintage Modified Strat Vintage Modified! Players from beginner to intermediate and beyond have done it for years. Whether installing hotter pickups, alternate pickguards or just plain personalizing their instruments with fancy paint jobs, modified means adding new twists to familiar designs. The Vintage Modified Strat incorporates the best of classic Fender® styling, as well as some more flashier finishes. Features include a gloss-finished maple neck and Duncan DesignedTM AlNiCo 5 pickups. Available in Three-color Sunburst (500), Olympic White (505), Metallic Red (525) and Cherry Sunburst FM (530). Vintage style with some modded twists. Squier's Vintage Modified Strat guitar incorporates the best of classic Fender® styling and some flashy finishes. Features include a gloss-finished maple neck and Duncan Designed™ Alnico 5 pickups. Specifications: Model Name Vintage Modified Strat® Model Number 030-1200-(Color#) Series Vintage Modified Series Colors (500) 3-Color Sunburst, (505) Olympic White, (525) Metallic Red, (530) Cherry Sunburst FMT, (Polyurethane Finish) Body Indian Red Cedar (Cedro) Neck Maple, C-Shape, (Polyurethane Finish) Fingerboard Rosewood, 9.5" Radius (241 mm) No. of Frets 21 Medium Jumbo Pickups 3 Duncan Designed™ SC-101 Single-Coil Pickups Controls Master Volume, Tone 1. (Neck Pickup), Tone 2. (Middle Pickup) Pickup Switching 5-Position Blade: Position 1. Bridge Pickup Position 2. Bridge and Middle Pickup Position 3. Middle Pickup Position 4. Middle and Neck Pickup Position 5. Neck Pickup Bridge Vintage Style Synchronous Tremolo Machine Heads Standard Die-Cast Tuners Hardware Chrome Pickguard 3-Ply Parchment on: 30, 4-Ply Red Shell on: 25, 4-Ply Tortoise Shell on: 05, 3-Ply Black on: 00 Scale Length 25.5" (648 mm) Width at Nut 1.650" (42 mm) Unique Features Vintage Style Tremolo, Custom Pickguards by Color, Gold and Black Squier Logo, Engraved Neckplate, White Plastic Parts, Dot Position Inlays Strings Fender Super 250L, (.009 to .042) Nickel Plated Steel p/n 073-0250-003 Accessories None Introduced 1/2007 Notice Product Prices, Features, Specifications and Availability Are Subject To Change Without Notice Get Your Squier Vintage Modified Strat Today!

SKB 3i Series Molded Strat and Tele-Style Case $249.99 SKB is revolutionizing the industry again with the first injection molded guitar case! The 3i-4214-66 accommodates "Strat" and 'Tele" style guitars and is the latest size in SKB's 3i series of waterproof cases.

GATOR CASES Guitar Case for Most Strat -Style Electric Guitars $69.99 This Gator Cases guitar case features plywood material with a Tolex PVC covering to guard your Strat -style electric guitar against bumps and scratches while you're on the go. The ergonomic handle allows easy portability.

Squier Bullet Strat Electric Guitar with Tremolo $129.99 Fender's Bullet Strat with tremolo is a simple, affordable and practical guitar designed for beginners and students. A perfect choice for a first guitar no matter who you are or what style of music you want to learn. Welcome to the Fender family!

The Vox AC30 Amplug Packs A Lot Of Amp Power In A Tiny Package

The Vox AC30 amplug enables you to play electric guitar quietly through your ear phones and get a very close approximation of a Vox AC30 amp. It's great for night practice sessions or when the baby is taking a nap. It costs around $40 US and can be found at most local guitar stores or online.

The device itself is small and made of plastic and has a rather flimsy feel to it. Though after two weeks of hard use it hasn't shown any signs of breaking. It has one port for your earphones and another auxiliary port in case you want to play along with a song. It also has three small wheel adjustments for gain, tone and volume, and a tiny on/off switch. A red led lets you know if it's on. It requires two triple-A batteries which were, amazingly, included.

How does it work? Just plug it into your guitar, then plug in your earphones and switch it on. Then adjust the tiny gain, tone and volume wheels as needed.

How does it sound? Well, it sounds quite nice. Now if your guitar has cheap pickups then the sound will not be optimal. But, if your guitar sounds good through your normal amp it should sound great through the amplug. Some reviewers say the amplug sounds just like a Vox AC30 amp. You can get a nice clean sound by keeping the gain at around two or three, or you can get a real distorted sound by cranking the gain up to nine.

There are other versions of the amplug. There's a Classic Rock version, Metal, Bass, Lead, Acoustic, and even a Joe Satriani version, each giving a slightly different sound. The Lead version has a hi-gain sound with a touch of digital delay. The Classic Rock is supposed to sound like a high-gain, British amp; the Metal version is supposed to sound like US high-gain metal; and the Satriani version sounds like, well, Satriani. Who knew you could become Joe Satriani with just a simple plug?

The AC30 is the most versatile of the bunch offering a nice clean sound or a fairly dirty distortion. It's great to rock out with the dirty distorted sound, but after awhile, the clean sound is quite welcome. The amplug will fit any type electric guitar: strat style body, Les Paul, etc. On guitars whose plug ports are not recessed like the strat, the amplug hangs out there precariously and you have to be careful not to knock it off while you are jamming. So no Pete Townsend-like guitar heroics, unfortunately.

Final Thoughts: I've been using the amplug AC30 for about two weeks now and it's fantastic. I'm not tied down to the amp, so I can wander about the house at night playing guitar and no one else in the house is the wiser. This is great for two reasons: no one gets woken up, and no one has to listen to my desperate attempts to play like Jimmy Page.

About the Author

Rand Whitehall writes on a variety of topics including GNU/Linux, cooking and more.  Check out his new sheet metal fabrication, <a href="http://aluminumbendingbrake.com">aluminum metal bending brake</a> site featuring the <a href="http://aluminumbendingbrake.com/tapco-aluminum-brake.shtml">tapco aluminum brake</a>.

Eric Johnson: Total Electric Guitar $16.25 Here is a unique opportunity to study with one of the great electric guitarists. Eric Johnson gives a master class in advanced picking techniques for speed and accuracy, left- and right-hand muting, blues bends, pedal steel-style bends, and unique chord...

Travis Tritt - Greatest Hits From the Beginning $5.56 Ten of the country artist's greatest hits are offered on this career retrospective. Included are "Help Me Hold On," "Put Some Drive in Your Country," "Anymore," "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'," "Foolish Pride" and "T-R-O-U-B-L-E." Who could ask for anything more in a "Tritt Hit" collection? 50 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English....

Hataraku Chocobo (Japanese Import WonderSwan & WS Color Video Game) Squaresoft $170.00 This amazingly deep strategy-sim game from Squaresoft involves raising the Final Fantasy mascot mainstay creatures, CHOCOBOS! The game is entirely in Japanese as it was only released on the WonderSwan in Japan. It plays on all WonderSwan systems and is in color on a color system....

Spectrum 54 Note Electronic Keyboard $46.02 Solid Body / Nickel Plate Pick Guard / 2 Volume / 2 Tone / 3-Way Pickup / Includes Tuner - Strap - Picks - Headphones - Cable - AC adapter - Cloth...

Fender® Standard Stratocaster®, Left Handed Electric Guitar, Candy Apple Red, Rosewood Fretboard, with Moore Brothers Music PikCard, Strings, Polish Cloth, Peg Winder, and Strap in a 6 item Bundle $499.99 Left-handed Fender® Mexi Standard Stratocaster® guitar in Candy Apple Red, offering legendary Fender tone with classic styling. Features include three single-coil pickups, vintage-style synchronized tremolo with high-mass bridge block, modern C shaped tinted neck, shielded body cavities, medium jumbo frets, parchment pickguard, and 70s-style headstock logo....

Strat Style