Ernie Ball celebrates the 25th anniversary of acquiring Music Man with an ultra-playable, articulate solidbody.
Right out of the case, the 25th Anniversary model is a stunning guitar, with its quilted maple top (flame maple top is standard) and matching quilted headstock finished in a high-gloss polyester Venetian Redburst finish. The body shape resembles that of the Tele-esque Music Man Axis model with some significant differences. The body is slightly larger than the Axis and has a proprietary mahogany center tone block surrounded by a chambered basswood body that features individual oblong oval cutouts—instead of large hollow chambers typically used on chambered guitars. This unique design provides weight relief and added resonance to the instrument. The body is top bound with a strip of flawlessly applied single-ply cream binding and features both a top arm contour and “tummy cut” on the back of the guitar, which is finished in black high-gloss polyester. The guitar has an attractive maple neck with ample birdseye figuring, which is finished with the ever-so-comfortable gunstock oil, handrubbed special wax blend. The neck carve is borrowed from the Silhouette Special model, which is best described as a slightly offset medium C carve. The neck is topped off with a 12" radius fingerboard—a generous cut of beautiful, dark brown rosewood (maple also available) that contrasts nicely with the 22 polished, high-profile, wide nickel frets and mother of pearl dot fret markers. The matching finished headstock features the classic Music Man compact (only 5-7/8" long) 4+2 tuner design, with the added touch of a high-gloss clear finish applied to the back. The truss rod can be easily adjusted at the base of the neck without the need for string removal.
Appointments Aplenty
The appointments and hardware selection for the Anniversary model represent that of an experienced design team. The guitar is voiced with a pair of chrome-covered DiMarzio pickups and feature Alnico V magnets. The proprietary pickups are wired in a clever fashion to a 5-way switch and chrome 2-way series/parallel toggle that together offer a total of 10 distinct sounds: Pos. 5 (Neck Humbucker), Pos. 4 (Inside coils both pickups), Pos. 3 (Both pickups full humbucking), Pos. 2 (Outside coils both pickups), and Pos. 1 (Bridge Humbucker). All positions can be voiced in series or parallel. Equally clever is the design of the 3-point leveling black plastic pickup mounts that allow you to adjust the pickups parallel to the strings. Given the tonal variations available, it would be interesting to add the option of blending various dual pickup combinations with another volume knob. The guitar features well-placed chrome “dome” style volume and tone knobs wired to a 500k pot and .022μF tone capacitor.
The vintage-style, chrome Music Man, bent-saddle tremolo bridge (fixed bridge available) is a two-post variety that is set flush to the body with a protective strip attached under the bridge. This was a smart design decision, as this guitar’s tremolo will see heavy use, given its silky feel and its admirable ability to stay in tune. The chrome strap buttons feature white plastic bushings that match nicely with the chrome input jack. The neck is firmly attached to the body at the 17th fret with the use of a 5-bolt sculpted neck joint with chrome neck plate and provides easy access to the upper frets. The 1-5/8" white melamine nut is finely cut with what appears to be the appropriate tuning offsets with its edges smoothly honed. The pearl-button, locking Schaller M6-IND locking tuners are well seated and add to the guitar’s classy appearance. The control cavity is tidy and coated with a graphite acrylic resin with black aluminum control cover.
Playability Defined
The efforts of the EBMM design team are also apparent in the playability and tone of the 25th Anniversary model. The guitar is lightweight, resonant and balanced in both standing and sitting positions. The neck is very comfortable due to its carve and finish; that along with the excellent fretwork makes this guitar play very “fast.” The selection of tonewoods provides the basis for the guitar’s full tone with a tight low end. The midrange emphasis from the mahogany center block is augmented by the fatness and balanced tonal response that basswood typically provides, and blends well with the snap and clarity on the high end that a maple top can provide. The bolt-on 25.5" scale maple neck adds to the guitar’s articulation and, unlike other chambered guitars, the chambered body does not soften the attack but rather adds to its resonance.
Plugged in, you immediately get the sense of the capabilities of this instrument. Using a vintage blackface Fender Bandmaster driving a 2x10 Music Man cab, the guitar responds with authority: tight, full lows, strong lower mids with just the right amount of snap and high-end definition. The bridge pickup exhibits a strong fundamental tone across the entire frequency range, with a slightly compressed voice that responds very well to pick attack. The neck pickup is bloomy yet articulate, with just a hint of overtones. The dual pickup combinations offered some interesting differentiation, with Fender-esque quack tones to be found in positions 2 and 4 and wonderful, full, clean dual-humbucking tone in position 3. The series/parallel voicing offered a wider differentiation in tonal response. The parallel setting produced a softer tone with additional high-end response at a slightly lower output than the series setting. The substantial sustain and articulation of this guitar was merely enhanced when put through the paces with a Carr Mercury at full tilt. Chords sound huge yet controlled in all positions, with single notes sounding full and clear. Even in high-gain settings, the guitar’s articulation was very impressive.
The Final Mojo
The 25th Anniversary Model is a well-designed instrument that succeeds in joining outstanding playability with an articulate, sustain laden voice in a single offering. Happy Anniversary to the folks at Ernie Ball/Music Man and we look forward to seeing what the next 25 years bring from the team.
Buy if...
You're a Music Man collector or seeking a dual-humbucking guitar that could possibly define playability.
Skip if...
You're on a budget (perfection comes at a price) or seeking true single-coil tones with your humbucking rig.
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MSRP $3600 - Ernie Ball/Music Man - music-man.com |
The Man in Black returns with the unreleased Songwriter album. John Carter Cash tells us the story.
“The Man Comes Around” is a much-played song from the final album Johnny Cash recorded before his death in 2003, American IV: The Man Comes Around. Now, the Man in Black himself has come around again, as the voice and soul of an album he initially cut in 1993, titled Songwriter. It hits the street on June 28.
For fans who know Cash only through his much-loved American Recordings series, this is a very different artist—healthy, vital, his signature baritone booming, his acoustic playing lively, percussive, and focused. This is the muscular Johnny Cash heard on his career-defining recordings, from his early Sun Records sides like “Cry! Cry! Cry!” and “Folsom Prison Blues” to “Ring of Fire” and “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” to later, less familiar hits like “The Baron” and “That Old Wheel.” In short, classic Cash—the performer who became an international icon and remains one even 21 years after his death.
I recently visited the Cash Cabin recording studio—a log cabin on the Cash family property in Hendersonville, Tennessee, that was originally built as a sanctuary where Johnny wrote songs and poetry—with PG’s video team of Chris Kies and Perry Bean to talk about Songwriter with John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash.
In addition to getting the lowdown on Songwriter from John Carter Cash, he showed us some of the iconic guitars—including original Johnny Cash lead guitarist Luther Perkin’s 1953 Fender Esquire and a Martin that was favored by the Man himself—that dwell at the busy private studio. Check out this visit.
Available in 4-string and 5-string versions with unique finish options. Each purchase includes a certificate of authenticity signed by Wimbish.
Wimbish collaborated with Spector's USA Custom Shop to create the DW-4 and DW-5 models, echoing the iconic instruments that have been favored heavily throughout his recording and performing career.
These signature basses faithfully replicate Wimbish's originals, down to the smallest details like neck contours and nut widths. Customized EMG pickups, developed in collaboration with Wimbish, capture the distinctive sound that has shaped his monumental musical impact. These models invite players to explore the feel and response that have defined Wimbish’s signature style over the years.
Available in 4-string and 5-string versions, each model boasts unique features & finish options. The DW-4 comes in Amber Stain Gloss and Black Stain Gloss options, while the DW-5 offers Dark Blue Stain Gloss and Faded Natural Gloss. Every purchase includes a certificate of authenticity signed by Doug Wimbish.
Wimbish comments, “Spector took the time to get every little nuance right, and that to me is dedication and being thoughtful enough to know ‘I want to nail it,’ and they did. I’m able to pick these instruments up for the first time and play them like I’ve already had them for years.”
For more information, please visit spectorbass.com.
Spector: The Doug Wimbish USA Signature Series
Spector Euro 4 LX Doug Wimbish Signature Bass Guitar - Amber Stain Gloss
Euro 4 LX Doug Wimbish, Amber Stn GlsAn uncommon approach to shaping vintage fuzz sounds results in unexpected surprises.
Unique fuzz sounds with mid-’60s spirit and unconventional tweakability. Beautiful and well-built.
Many players will find basic ’60s fuzz sounds elusive.
$249
Fish Circuits Lunatique
fishcircuits.com
Some things you can take at face value. Consider the Fish Circuits Lunatique fuzz. Fish’s choice of “Lunatique” as a name for this beguiling gated, ring-modulating, octave fuzz is not an empty promise. Many of the savage, spitty, crispy, crumbly sounds that emit from this unit sound like a little berserker wrestling bats in the belfry amid a swarm of bees.
But if tone madness is among Lunatique’s first orders of business, there are also many tones here that sound merely nuts rather than rabidly bonkers. The four simple controls interact in ways that produce unexpected, unique results, and its voices vary wildly depending on the pickups and guitars you pair it with and where you set your guitar’s tone and volume controls. For any player, producer, or recordist interested in fuzz’s potential beyond the same old beer-commercial hook or solo, the super-stylish Lunatique is a fun, intriguing alternative that has roots in mid-’60s tonalities and branches that spread much further.
Ground Control to Sonic Station
The Lunatique looks and feels awesome. The bright blue enclosure evokes the candy-store appeal of old Colorsound pedals, and I love the screen-printed metal control panel. The Lunatique has the comforting heft of vintage electronics, too. But while it might look like a space hog, the Lunatique is only about a 1/4" wider than a Boss pedal and about 30-percent longer. The control array looks simple, and for the most part it is. But unless you are unabashedly spontaneous and cool with mayhem and unknown outcomes, the chaos control demands a bit of study. It’s the key to the pedal’s multiple personalities.
Essentially, it enables you to dial in how much octave and ring modulation interacts with the fuzz circuit. As you add more octave, your guitar signal hits the fuzz circuit less hard, which also has the effect of activating the gate a little sooner. That control dynamic and the pedal’s response will find many mistaking the chaos control for a bias knob. The chaos pot also controls a low-pass filter, situated after the fuzz circuit, that cuts high frequencies as you turn it clockwise. In a basic sense, the left side of noon has little octave-up content, a heap of treble, and the fuzz is less likely to gate. On the right side of noon, you hear a lot of octave and ring modulation, the treble is less spiky, and the fuzz will gate a bit more. In the many overlapping layers of these effects, there are scores of fuzz colors to explore.
"In the Lunatique, neither gain mode is especially ‘nice.’"
A Balm for Option Fatigue
One of my favorite idiosyncrasies in the Lunatique’s design are the 2-position Fuzz and Body switches which take the place of the variable knobs most builders would use for gain and tone. According to Mike Poisson (the big fish, if you will, behind the Lunatique), this was partly the product of aesthetic concerns—a preference for switches where possible rather than a clutter of knobs. But in the case of the gain switch, the two positions represent specific gain levels that felt and sounded right to Poisson. He found that a rotary knob offered little additional nuance. And personally, I wasn’t left wanting for additional levels other than the two provided here. It’s an interesting, effective solution.
Those familiar with Fish Circuit’s Model One overdrive will find parallels with that pedal’s “nice” and “nasty” modes. Though in the Lunatique, neither gain mode is especially nice. Both bristle with attitude and a punky, feral mid-’60s personality. In the lower-gain setting and in the thinner body mode, the fuzz tends to sound ferocious without feeling dominating. It’ll slot easily into a distinctive place in most mixes and offers cool contrast for tasks like doubling bass riffs. Garage-psych nuts that quest for the gnarliest lo-fi fuzz tones from the deepest recesses of the Pebbles compilation LPs will be in heaven too.
In the full-body mode, the pedal is arguably at its most conventional. Single-note lines sound fat and complex, if spitty. Fleet-fingered solos that don’t leave space for the splintered decay artifacts you hear in more spacious contexts, benefit from the sharp, defined attack and less corpulent, overtone-rich sustain, which lends clarity to otherwise filthy melodic leads. Punky power chords also benefit from the tighter decay and can sound powerful, extremely focused, and very much in their own lane in a mix. I would love to record a really nasty garage-hardcore record with this sound.
At most settings, pitch irregularities—even those from finger vibrato—will cause the signal to fracture and crumble sooner. On the other hand, minimizing vibrato lends many tones an almost synth-like linearity that sounds pretty cool in contexts apart from traditional rock guitar, particularly when you add volume swells. Such sounds can be spooky and alien stuff, particularly with modulation effects. Oh, and it bears keeping in mind that the Lunatique will get loud. There’s no shortage of volume ceiling here.
The Verdict
As I said at the top, “Lunatique” is a fair representation of what this fuzz is and does. By no means will it be every player’s bag, and the reader should take my relatively enthused scores with a grain of salt (I like chaos). But players that like the attitude of a Jordan Boss Tone, Maestro FZ-1, or Mosrite Fuzzrite yet are weary of canonical sounds, and who prefer more tunability, more surprises, and more distinctive tones will savor the way the interactive controls for this unique circuit can mutate and recast the mid-’60s fuzz template. That it’s a truly beautiful little pedal, too, only enhances its wild appeal.
PG contributor Tom Butwin highlights 7 preamp options for your acoustic guitar. Wherever you’re looking to plug in your acoustic, these stomps have you covered with a wide range of functionality, sounds, and applications.