Matt's New ALL DIGITAL Guitar Rig - Guitar Smarts #41

On this week’s podcast Kiran recalls his recent visit to the brand new UK Gibson Garage, a guitar store built and operated by Gibson guitars in London’s West End. This new store has got all the Gibson products you could wish to see, and is not just meant to be a high quality guitar store, but a shrine if you will, to the history and impact of Gibson guitars. You can head here to try out some of the finest Murphy lab guitars, Mesa amps, Epiphones and even Kramer guitars as they all now fall under Gibson ownership. What is it like to be there? Kiran will tell us in this podcast. 

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!

On this week’s podcast Kiran and Matt are discussing some of the new releases from this years NAMM show in the US.  What caught our eye though was Yamaha's re-release of the Pacifica model. Listeners of the show will know that we love the old Pacifica model, which was seminal guitar back in the 90’s whose build quality and playability changed the expectation of what your 200 pound or dollar learner electric guitar was capable of. Now though, Yamaha have taken aim at the premium, professional guitar market with the same brand name, which is equally exciting and also mind boggling, and Kiran & Matt discuss that to great length in this podcast. 

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!

We are kicking off 2024 by celebrating 60 years of Eric Clapton. Back in October 2023, Eric celebrated 60 years as a professional musician and artist. Arguably one of if not the most celebrated and revered guitarists of all time, it’s hard not to understate his contribution to the world of guitar playing and music making. Over on the Eric Clapton website, there was a fantastic article celebrating this milestone, that included a long list of achievements and considerations that reinforce Eric’s position as a living music and guitar legend. This week, Kiran and Matt dissect that list, and find themselves rediscovering their admiration for Eric’s contribution not just to the world, but to their own lives as guitarists. 

Find the article we spoke about here:

https://whereseric.com/eric-clapton-news/303-eric-clapton-celebrates-60-years-as-a-professional-musician/

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This week we have our final episode of 2023. I want to start by thanking each and everyone of you who have joined us and listened to the show throughout the year, it’s really a great pleasure for Kiran and I to share these conversations with you and we have great plans to bring you even more in 2024, so keep those subscriptions active and look out for more as we get into January. This week we talk about 2 new guitars, one for Kiran and one for me. I recently purchased an old Fernandes superstrat that came up for an absolute steal on Reverb, and Kiran talks us through the special purchase he made at the London International Guitar show. It’s fair to say we have both ended 2023 on a high as far as our guitar collections are concerned, but lastly we also talk about what we hope for in 2024. Reach out to us and let us know what your guitar plans are for 2024, are you looking to buy that guitar you;ve always wanted, are you going to sell some stuff, or like me are you going to find a renewed motivation to practice and improve. Let us know over on the Guitar Geek Hangout on Facebook. 

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!

This week we have a short episode for you - shorter than usual at least. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Guitar Breaks founder, Ian Edwards, at the London International Guitar Show in late October. Guitar Breaks are a company that specialise in all-inclusive guitar workshops offering you the opportunity to get away from it all, explore different techniques and skills, discover new styles, hone your own playing style and experiment with great equipment. All in the presence of some Pro Guitar Players, and top educators. Their list of pro player guest hosts speaks volumes, recently including people like Matt Schofield, Josh Smith, Ariel Posen, Joel Landreth, Jack Rush, Pete Friesen, Charlotte Hatherley, Chris Buck, Rabea Massaad, Mike Goodman and many more. Ian has a real passion for the musician community and the opportunities he creates to connect guitarists with the professional community are second to none, these events and clinics are not to be missed.

https://www.guitar-breaks.com/

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!

Its been a while, but we are finally back! After a few weeks of downtime due to some illnesses, work trips and general business we are finally able to bring to you our first episode from the London International Guitar Show 2023. 

It was a fantastic show, we met many people, introduced the show to a lot of new listeners, spent a little bit of money and enjoyed looking at some truly wonderful guitars and amplifiers from some of the UK’s finest luthiers. I think it’s fair to say that we learned you don’t have to travel far in this country to find someone building absolutely world class instruments and amps, and we spoke to some wonderful guitar builders that you will hear from in this episode. There was Rich from JWJ guitars who quite frankly is making the most stunning acoustics I have ever seen and played, we also spent some time with Karl from Karl Longbottom Custom Guitars, who’s carpentry roots helped to launch him into a new career as a guitar builder and it was very clear to us that he’s got the gift for it, his guitars were some of the most stunning on show for sure, and somebody else who’s flair for design and quality of work really caught our eye was Nick Burman from Burman Guitars, not many people manage to develop their own unique guitar designs that work but Nick’s models are absolutely stunning, and they are constructed to absolute perfection. So, enjoy our rambling today on this show, and enjoy the interviews with Rich, Karl and NIck, and please go and check them out on their websites, social media pages and join their mailing lists, you will not be disappointed!

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!

We are here with another episode of the pod, this week Kiran and Matt are talking about their desert island discs. Each of them have chosen the 5 albums that they would be happy to listen to for the rest of eternity, knowing that they could listen to nothing else. Play along, make your own list, and head on down to the Guitar Geek hangout to let us know what albums you would have chosen for your personal stay on a desert island for the rest of eternity.

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!

Welcome! This week we dissect a great night playing at Damo Lodrick's local Jam night, where we let loose and rocked out in celebration of Damo's birthday. Matt can't make his mind up about a possible Esquire mod or a new guitar build whilst Kiran feels the need to buy a new guitar. Finally, we finish off with a discussion about using Midi to control Matt's Line 6 Catalyst  100 guitar amp as a get out of jail rig for if and when his Helix decides to crash. 

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!

This week we are grateful for the suggestions of our friends over on the Guitar Geek Hangout page on Facebook. We asked what you might like to hear us talk about, and you spoke! This week we are taking inspiration from our listeners Fred Simpson and Olly Browning who both asked similar questions related to tone. Of all the famous guitar rigs there are, who’s would we choose to play through if we could, and along with that we talk about tone philosophy, is it good to chase the tone of someone else or does finding your own voice go hand in hand with creating your own sound? Is there a more tantalising topic for guitarists than that which speaks about our beloved guitar tone? I fear not, so, please come along to the Guitar Geek Hangout page on Facebook to have your say, and to see what the other listeners of the Guitar Smarts podcast think all about it.  

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!

We are back...again! This week we discuss Matt's strange preference for relaxing after a long day gigging, we talk about the careful but accessible method that Matt took to finally level the frets of his much beloved Epiphone Les Paul that has been screaming out for this work for years, and we talk about the recent news brought to light by KDH about Lee Anderton and his personal involvement in some well known brands and the complicated relationship between this information and his retail business at Anderton's Music Store. 

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Have a very merry time playing guitar this week, and we will see you soon!