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| Wednesday 22 February 2012 |
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21 February, 2012
I’m extremely proud and excited to introduce a different type of Newsletter for you this week.
‘Deptford’ John Armitage is widely regarded as one of the most experienced, knowledgable and respected Guitar Techs in the industry. He has been responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of instruments for artists such as Iron Maiden, Manic Street Preachers, Motorhead, Stereophonics, Whitesnake, Scorpions and more recently Take That and George Michael in a career spanning over 30 years.
Deptford John has kindly offered to share his invaluable expertise exclusively to A Strings in a series of ‘Tech Tips’ over the forthcoming months. These will be published via the A Strings Newsletter and archived in the Backstage Blog on the website.
To find out more about Deptford John or to enlist his services via his Guitar Hospital workshops, visit his website – http://guitarhospital.co.uk/
‘Deptford’ John Armitage, owner of the Guitar Hospital chain of workshops
www.guitarhospital.co.uk
Enquiries to thedoctor@guitarhospital.co.uk
Basic Guitar Maintenance
1. Always wipe your guitar strings down when you have finished playing, using a soft, lint free cloth to do the job properly. Slide a cloth under the strings too as sweat and dirt gathers on the underside of the strings also.
Wipe down the back of the neck and body where your forearm rubs on the guitar as sweat and dead skin cells that stick to these areas slow your movement up and down the neck as well as causing your forearm to ‘rub’ on the body creating friction on a soft part of your skin. Planet Waves make great cleaning cloths.
2. When changing your strings it’s important to clean off the general detrieus from the fretboard. This will keep the frets brighter and create a cleaner note as well as preventing the fretboard from drying out. Gorgomyte is a fantastic product for this job.
3. Buy a 1” soft bristle paint brush and use it to clean the dust that accumulates on the bridge, the area under the strings and around the pickups and headstock. This light dusting will keep your bridge dust and rust free.
4. Always check your strap hooks are tightly screwed into the body of the guitar. On solid body electrics if the hole gets too big, jam a couple of cocktail sticks covered in wood glue into the hole. The wood is exceedingly hard and will not disintegrate as easily. Screw the strap button into here again and it will be as good as new. 
Electric & Bass Guitar Maintenance,Tech Tips with Deptford John Armitage,Uncategorized
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24 November, 2011
A bit of a delay in submitting the review i’m afraid but here are my initial thoughts on the prototype Mango Duo Attenuator…
- Application – Simples. Plug in, plug out. I used the settings i usually use – switch the small dial to Variable, control the volume with the larger dial. The real beauty of using a dual Attenuator unit as opposed to 2 separate units is that I could stay in 1 place to set the volumes of each Amp. Usually it would be a case of moving from 1 amp to the other to set the volume which doesn’t give a true representation of the overall balance between the amps. Saves time and definitely improved the overall mix of the amps.
- Sound – Theoretically they should sound exactly the same as 2 x Mango Silencer 50s, but I don’t know why but they seemed to perform so well at low volumes/high attenuation. I didn’t lose any of the highs I usually experience at low volumes. I was using 2 different types of Vox AC30 though, so the combination of the 2 sounds may have influenced what I was hearing.
- Build – I love the new style boxes. Nigel said that he couldn’t find a box that was suitable in the same range as the Silencer 50 so had to go for a different style altogether. I prefer these new ones. Neat, utilitarian looking and they don’t seem to heat up nearly as much as the single units. Underneath the unit was fairly warm at the end of a 2 hour practice session, but the top and sides were cool. 3-4 miniutes at the end leaving the fan on and the unit was cool all over.
Being a prototype, there aren’t any labels on this unit. Production models obviously will have labels to avoid any kind of confusion.
I’ve been informed that the cost of these units will literally be 2 x Silencer 50s as all the same components are used x 2, and the case for the unit is more expensive to the single units. But without hesitation, I would choose a duo (or trio??!) unit over many singles for convenience, space and sound.
I’ll post some more pics when I get opportunity to get my decent camera out!
11 November, 2011
A while back I suggested to Nigel Butters of Mango Amplification that a 2 in 1 or even 3 in 1 Attenuator would be handy for many people. I reckon around 75% of people who i’ve sold the Mango Attenuator 50 16ohm units to are using them in Brian May style setups, and a good proportion of these users have 2, 3 even 4+ amps.
As we’ve discussed before, unless you’re playing a large capacity venue, it’s not feasible to use multiple valve amps at full volume. Even if the venue can withstand the volume, the sound engineer is bound to have a moan.
Back to the story…
So Nigel called me earlier this week with a prototype ready for me to collect and try out. I’ll be giving it a blast tonight in a band environment and will let you know the results imminently. In the meantime, here are some pics. Excuse the quality…
3 November, 2011
For a very limited time, Elixir have multi-packs of their most popular strings available for your consumption…
Available in…
Electric
9-42 + 10-46
£20-95 – saving you £8.90
Acoustic 92/8 Phosphor Bronze
10-47, 11-52 + 12-53
£27.49 – saving you £11.36
Take a closer look here…
3 November, 2011
Introducing the pedalboard of the future… TODAY! 
The DigiTech iPB-10 is designed for iPad integration. Download the app on to your iPad*, slot it into the iPB-10 and enjoy
- 87 different pedals
- 54 amps
- 26 cabs
Configure your sound in the comfort of your armchair and go to your next gig (be it real or imaginary) with the pedal board of your dreams!
I wonder how long it’s going to take for the iPhone version of this to come out…
*Compatible with both iPad and iPad2
2 November, 2011
“Cryogenically frozen guitar strings? Get outta here” I hear you holler. Well believe it baby. These strings are definitely the coolest strings in the shop, and at £6.49 a set, they’re worth a punt.
Check them out here…
Dean Markley Blue Steel electric guitar strings
The Electric and Helix HD electric sets will be added soon, along with their Bass and Acoustic string counterparts.
2 November, 2011
Well the Rugby World Cup came and went. Wales were robbed of a place in the Finals and as a result you didn’t get your discount. Don’t blame me, blame Alain Rolland.
There is a tidal wave of new gear available at A Strings. Because there’s so much being added on a daily/weekly basis, stuff disappears from the front page before you’ve had chance to see it, so prepare for an update overload…
Before I get into that though, thank you for the great response to Peter Hince’s Q+A. Peter has kindly offered to answer more questions for us in the future – so by all means email me if you have any questions you’d like me to put to him.
Also, I’ve read the book and it gives a completely different take on what you’d imagine touring life to be. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the behind the scenes part of touring life.
The legendary Deptford John (Guitar Tech to anybody who’s anybody over the past 20 years) and I have been discussing some exciting exclusive features for A Strings’ Backstage area. More of this soon…
13 October, 2011
Wales are playing their biggest ever game of Rugby on Saturday morning against France.
Why would you want Wales to win?
Because if they do win, this code
walesrwc11
will be good for 10% off EVERYTHING in the A Strings online store.
So get your Red tops on, tune into ITV on Saturday morning at 9am and get cheering. Who knows what will happen the week after…?
7 October, 2011
Click this link to see the latest A Strings newsletter.