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Now, strings have generally been one of the aspects of guitar playing that I really don’t give much time to, if it ain’t broke etc. Of course they need to be regularly replaced to avoid the tinfoil chewingly bad experience of rusty strings. A sales rep once told me a story about a guitarist he knew, who’d feverishly recommended one set of strings and utterly shunned another. He looked at me with a cheeky smile and said ‘I didn’t have the heart to tell him, but they were both store branded sets and came off the same production line.’ so tastes in strings can be down some kind of placebo effect with packaging and whatnot, but if you do buy a Chinese made non-brand set for two pounds, chances are they’ll be crap.

However, when something truly quite different comes along like the Elixir Nanoweb strings, it’s probably worth having a look.

The Elixir Nanowebs are simply, very good quality strings wrapped in high tech stuff. Created by Gore, a company that makes all sorts of products, the most notable and famous of which being heavy duty outdoor clothing.

First stringing up the guitar, you really can’t help but sit there for ages trying to see the mega thin coating. The coating is so thin it’s almost like the string has a soft aura, but no visible layer. It’s only when you kink the string that the coating becomes visible and it is damn thin.

First impressions after tuning up are that these are unusually crisp sounding and have a slick almost waxy feel to them. The coating, rather than dulling the sound actually brightens it!

This is all well and good, however the main selling point of these strings is lastability and lasted they did. The strings amazingly kept the ‘just restrung’ feeling for ages, far longer than a standard set. By the time that would have made a normal set deteriorate so much that I would have considered a restring, these were still going strong and had dulled very little. The first thing to dull were the top strings, with the wound strings hanging on to life a great deal longer. I finally conceded and replaced the set after breaking the bottom E in some kind of drunken sing along. Which was heart breaking as they still sounded and felt fine!

So to sum up, these are great sounding strings that just keep going and going. But beware, they will last for two to three times longer as the manufacturer states, but just because they’ve got space age stuff on them doesn’t mean they won’t snap after eight pints and a heavy handed folk/rock camp fire medley.

Oasis are said to have “swiped” Robbie Williams drummer Chris Sharrock. It was reported that Zak Starkey, their previous drummer, has quit the band and the remaining members of Oasis have spent no time at all replacing him with Chris Sharrock.

Chris has work with a number of bands and artists in his career including the La’s and most recently Robbie Williams.

Chris and Zak seem to be following in each others footsteps. They have both been involved with The Lightning Seeds and it now seems they can both say they have been part of Oasis.

We can assume that Robbie Williams will be far from pleased with this news, as himself and Oasis have had rivalry since 2000.

The Drum kit set up that Chris Sharrock uses is the Premier Maple Classic series:

14″ x 8″ Maple Classic Rack Tom (x3)
14″ x 9″ Maple Classic Rack Tom
14″ x 10″ Maple Classic Rack Tom
14″ x 14″ Maple Classic Floor Tom
16″ x 16″ Maple Classic Floor Tom
18″ x 16″ Maple Classic Floor Tom
22″ x 14″ Maple Classic Bass Drum (x2)
22″ x 18″ Maple Classic Bass Drum
14″ x 5.5″ Steel Modern Classic Snare (Parallel Action)

Kustom have been kicking out little entry level practice amps for quite some time now. The KBA10 and KGA10 have become the staple diet of beginners across the country, being supplied in Encore Playnow packs and being available for as little as £49.99.

The KBA10 of the Kustom X series is Kustom’s entry level bass amplifier and it’s a perky little thing. First impressions out of the box are that it’s clearly a well made little box, weighing in at just over six kilograms it’s a sturdy little thing. When you’ve been to enough trade shows you’ll realise that this is something that Kustom pride themselves in and thankfully have extended right down to their entry level amps.

The controls consist of quite simply; Volume, Bass, Mid and Treble. These are all mounted on a polished chrome control panel, sporting damn shiny knobs.

To give the amp a road test I used a Yahama Bass at around the £200 mark. Plugging in, first impressions are, this amp is very hasty. But after all, it is very small. It’s perky to say the least, possibly to make up for not having a gain control (i’m guessing), the amp goes ballistic after the volume is raised above a third. This isn’t a problem however as there is plenty of area to play with in this bottom third that any bedroom rocker would find quite satisfying and with some tone control tweaking there’s a good variety of clean tones to find. When the volume passes half way the amp enters the dark realms of overdriven, overloaded small amp and you may need to shower afterwards. This sound is pretty filthy and I’m sure there are plenty of leather wearing, safety pin through the eyeball types who would love it.

To sum up, there are practice bass amps out there that are cheaper, but they really can’t compete with the Kustom build quality. The amp provides a suprising amount of bass for such a small thing, due to the sturdy box. It provides enough volume for the solo practising mature player and enough volume for the young beginner to get shouted at by their parents (thankfully there is a headphone socket so that’s OK).

Over 300 of the worlds leading musical instrument distributers and maufacturers will be packed into Londons ExCeL venue on the 14th and 15th of June to inspire you, the consumer with their latest gear.

London International Music Show is 4 shows in one; London Guitar show, Drummer Live, Unplugged and the Sound Recording & Technoligy show all under one roof and one ticket gets you into all shows.

The show promises all the lastest gear and technology with siminars, conferences and even celebrities of the music world. You can expect to see exhibitors from “Acoustic Guitar Magazine” through to “Yamaha Music UK”, and instruments from xylaphones to bassoons.

On the Live stage you can see Paul gilbert playing on saturday for the London Guitar show, Chad smith will be beating them skins for the Drummer live line-up, and the list goes on….

For updates on the event visit www.londoninternationalmusicshow.com and be sure to not miss the best music event this year.

Aaaaaaw, isn’t it cute! If Slash were a Hobbit, he’d play one of these!

The Tanglewood EE15 is a mini Les Paul and it really is diddy The guitar is wonderfully scaled down, the only thing remaining normal size is the hardware. The 21st fret is ban on 34cm (just under 13.5 inches) from the nut and is clearly aimed at three types of guitarist; kids, travelling guitarists with small luggage space and performers who want to make the audience laugh.

This mini rocker sports 6 die cast machine heads which are very smoothly geared and don’t seam to slip out of tune. The neck has a slightly squashed D profile and is well suited to small and large hands alike. The fretboard is made of a fine piece of rosewood with 21 quite fat frets. Body wields one humbucker, tone, volume and the mandatory tuneomatic style bridge. The body is made of good solid wood that is shown off well through the translucent cherryburst finish.

When plugging this guitar in I did what I deamed to be most appropriate, slapped up the over drive and lauched into Master of Puppets. I then nearly fell off my seat laughing at how good it sounded. It’s supprisingly hard to tell that this is such a small guitar when it’s plugged in, the single humbucker certainly delivers a punch.

The supprising thing about this guitar is that it has a considerable amount of tone. The solid body delivers a good deal of warmth that would be quite acceptable for a full size guitar. The only down side to this size is that the intonation is quite sensitive and needed a little tweak out of the box. Though this is of little consequence for the very young player.

To sum up, this little thing is certainly worth its weight in gold and certainly packs a heavy punch than its size would suggest.

The Stagg 10 GA is definitely one of the lowest priced guitar amps in the history of the universe, selling for as little as £24.99.

At this price you’d be right to be wary (I know I was), you’d need to ask questions like; ‘is it made from old beer cans?’ and ‘will it not sound like a dying cat?’. The only way to find out is to plug it in.

Compared to its predecessor the Stagg CA-10, this amp has definitely moved up a notch in build quality. The CA-10 was a funky little ultra portable practice amp, however the plywood casing was a bit too thin to provide much in the way of bass or tonality and it didn’t look very cool. These issuses have been remedied in the 10 GA, the case is much chunkier and care has been taken making the ‘look’ of the amp.

On the control panel the 10 GA features gain, overdrive selector switch, volume, treble, mid, bass, mini jack headphone socket, mini jack CD/MP3 input and the necessary power switch. The knobs themselves are a retro style with smooth action and are solidly mounted.

To test the 10 GA I used an Ibanez at around the £200 mark, so not to taint the sound with a lesser guitar and not to colour the sound too much, as would happen with a £3000 guitar with custom pickups. The amp was quite surprising, starting with the clean sound it provided a very chirpy bright sound and not a tinny one. After messing around with the EQ I managed to get very acceptable bassy blues and twangy jazz sounds. Then moving on to the inevitable overdrive button. It does exactly what it says on the tin, the sound is a very fuzzy grungy one and after tweaking the EQ there seemed to be a good variety of sound. After messing around with the rather confusing Mid control (it’s hard to tell if it’s boosting sweeping at times) it was possible to get some nice vintage sounds and also the clinical metal sounds.

To sum up, it’s VERY hard to criticise an amp of this quality when it only costs the same as two albums or your Christmas turkey. As a starter amp it’s ideal and it can go louder than even the most supportive parent would find acceptable. As a secondary practice amp (while your stacks in storage) it’s ideal, being portable and light. All in all this amp is not a cracker prize, it’s damn cheap and does the job well.

The Alesis Performace Pad, a versatile piece of kit suitable for various uses. Eight velocity-sensitive drum pads and a built-in electronic drum machine which sounds like the classic DM5 module. There are foot-switch inputs for a bass drum pedal, HiHat pedal, and a Line-level input to connect a CD Player, iPod, computer, or other audio device.

So, powering up the module you are presented with the display for the unit which i have to say is rarther navigateable. Plenty of pre-set kits are at your disposal and immediately i’m blasting out some beats. You can assign the various on-board percussion sounds to any of the eight pads. Now this usually takes a bit of time and a lot of patience, however I whipped out the manual (unusual, yes) and within a couple of seconds i found the step-by-step instructions and was pleasently surprised at how easy it was to assign the sounds to the individual pads and also manipulate the sounds as far as volume/velocity.

I have to say, if you’re a drummer thats after a percussion set up but dont want to carry the extra equipment or simply dont have the room to accomodate djembe’s conga’s and other various world instruments then this is what you need. Set it up on a stand next to your kit and your away.

So, you’ve heard my opinion, now lets see what the details are:

• 8 natural feeling, velocity-sensitive drum pads with Dynamic Articulation™
• Built-in professional drum machine so you can record and play back your own beats
• 50 Preset / 50 User drum kits with 233 sounds assignable to any pad
• Built-in rhythm patterns to complement your playing
• Large LCD display with easy-to-navigate interface
• Dynamic Articulation stereo samples with reverb and ambience for realistic playing
• 2 foot-switch inputs for external kick and HiHat (sold separately)
• Stereo input to play along with your CD or MP3 player
• MIDI output to play external MIDI devices
• High-quality 24-bit stereo and headphone outputs
• Lightweight, durable enclosure

Alesis Performance Pad : Buy Now from PlayRecord.Net