Gear Review: FU-TONE.com Noiseless Tension Springs

One of the evils of guitar tremolos is the reliance on springs to return the tremolo to its neutral position.  These springs essentially operate like a combo amp reverb tank built inside your guitar — they ring when physically excited.  Skeptical?  Strum some full chords followed by a quick palm mute and you’ll hear those springs ringing.  The ringing can add a boingy or hazy quality to your tone, masking the qualities you want to hear.  As you increase gain from clean to distortion, the ringing in amplified through your pickups and can become quite noticeable and annoying.

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Gear Review: JBE Pickups HB Two/Tone

JBE Pickups (formerly Joe Barden Pickups) manufactures a variety of guitar and bass pickups, including the HB Two/Tone humbuckers.  For nearly 20 years, I’ve been pleased with the performance of these pickups in my Klein Electric Guitar.  When it was time to upgrade the pickups in my newly acquired Kiesel Zeus (reviewed here), installing the HB Two/Tones was a no-brainer.

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Gear Review: Kiesel Zeus Z6X guitar

Kiesel Guitars (formerly Carvin Guitars) has been producing the headless Allan Holdsworth Signature guitar for many years, but only recently started expanding their headless offerings — first with the Vader in 2015 and now with three additional models in 2018. The Zeus, as reviewed here, was introduced in January of this year.

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The Benefits of Upgrading Your Mic Preamp(s)

If you are looking for a quick and easy way to upgrade the sound of your recordings, consider purchasing at least one high quality mic preamp - and use it to record everything! The differences between a cheap preamp and something like an API 512c may be subtle to some when A/Bing the two, but the difference can become quite profound when you start mixing multiple tracks. Believe me, it makes a big difference and can breath new life into the microphones you already own.

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