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At first glance the GRG270 looks very Rock and/or Roll. Then you take a closer look and realise that it really is Rock & Roll, it’s been bread, nurtured and plucked with nothing but versatility, speed and more versatility in mind.

Starting at the top, the headstock is a pretty typical ‘Super Strat’ shape, quite pointy and aggressive. It sports six closed unit machine heads, which are well machined and precise. Not that you really get to use them that often, as the locking nut soaks up any strain on the strings and does an admirable job of keeping the guitar in tune.

The neck is the part of this guitar that is geared entirely for speed. It, being the GRG2 design, is delightfully flat in the areas you’re most likely to do all your legendary twiddling. Even the neck joint is beautifully rounded to allow comfortable access to the top frets.

The ‘SuperStrat’ style body does exactly what it says on the tin and is where the beef lies. The pick-up arrangement is humbucker, single coil, humbucker and the cherry on top is the Floyd Rose ’style pickup’.

Plugged in the guitar is definitely perky. The bridge pick-up generates quite a punch, with all the ‘mid crunch’ the budding metalist would need for a good chugging. The middle single coil provides a welcome respite from the high output humbuckers and generates a very sweet sounding clean sound, great for backing and rhythm. The neck humbucker provides a suprising amount of warmth for a 24 fret guitar (the pickup being lower down the body than a 21 or 22 fret guitar) and doesn’t dissapoint when trying to get those bluesy tones.

As for the tremolo, now certainly there are a lot of Floyd Rose ’syle’ tremelos out there and it is certainly a mine field. An unfortunate amount of them being similar in quality to a Christmas cracker prize. Thankfully this trem is very well machined and has a positive and smooth action, with no creaking and no dropping the entire guitar out of tune when it’s set back to it’s resting place.

All in all this guitar is an absolute must for anyone after a guitar that can produce almost any crunch, squeek and squeel that a modern guitarist might need. I dare you to find a guitar of similar price that can outdo this one on sound, quality and playability.

Some times in life you have to ask yourself this; ‘is there anything in the world that Yamaha doesn’t make?’. Thankfully two things that wouldn’t appear on your list would be guitars and basses, because they make them, if that makes sense?

Yamaha have been making guitars since the late 1960’s, giving rise to Yamaha electric guitars in the 1970’s. Guitars like the legendary SG-2000 carved a noticeable grove in guitar history, followed by the BB series bass guitars in the 1980’s. Then the Yamaha Pacifica came abruptly into existence in the nineties which was promptly endorsed by such artists as Sheldon Reynolds, Michael Lee Firkins and Mike Stern.

As the years have past the guitar building industry has become fiercely competitive, giving rise to ever more eastern guitar factories that are ever more competitive on price and quality. Yamaha is without a doubt on the podium with the current winners in the race for price and quality. Out of the box they’re a pleasure to play and miraculously stay in the medium price bracket. Until now. Now we’re shoehorning them into the LOWER bracket.

We are currently running a SERIOUS sale on all in stock Yamaha. It really won’t last very long, so quickly go to our homepage and click on “Yamaha” in the manufacturer list down the right hand side of the page. GO GO GO!

Ibanez guitars have carved themselves a good history. Going through many different design changes, there was the replica stages, where Fender and Gibson styles were immitated and Gibson took them to court over headstock design. This was setted out of court with Gibson. They also worked in innovative designs whilst keeping up to date with modern components.

Soon Ibanez was known by aspiring rock-gods as the guitar of choice. With flatter fingerboards, high-output pickups, slimmer necks and an all round ’spikey’ heavy rock design to the body.

Known artists such as Steve Vai, Krist Novoselic and Joe Satriani have all flown the Ibanez flag. We want to give you that opportunity to sound and play like the best too. All in stock Ibanez guitars are now reduced to go for a limited time only, and with limited stocks.

The savings are huge, so stock will go quickly. Check out our homepage for the offers, or simply click on “Ibanez” in the manufacturer list down the right hand page of PlayRecord.Net.

There are enough guitars available to buy at the moment to make a… erm.. grown guitarist cry (yes, that’ll do). With China, Korea, Japan, Vietman, Korea, well pretty much the entire far east spewing out ever cheaper guitars and competing over quality, it certainly is a buyers market. Below I’m going to outline a couple of these brands and hopefully shed a little light over what you’re going to get for your money.

Encore Guitars

Encore guitars have long been the staple diet of the beginner guitarist, the low price and very well put together guitar packs as the main attractions. Also it’s worth mentioning that Encore are in the midst of an overhaul and are upgrading all the hardware on their guitars, but keeping the prices the same. Encore’s main sellers as far as beginner packs are concerned would be the Encore Playnow Packs, which are available in guitar and bass versions and also the classical guitar packs which are available from half size to full size. These guitar packs are perfect for beginners and bedroom players, though they are lacking in the quality of output needed for gigs, so if you’re thinking of performing you may want to jump up a notch.

Stagg Guitars

Stagg guitars are in a similar league to Encore, however it has to be said that they seem to be generally better finished than the Encore. A bit more attention has been given to small things like paint finish and seating the frets, which make the guitars a little more comfortable to play and easy on the eye. When it comes to guitar packs though the the Encore packs come with a good quality Kustom amp which are marginally better quality than the Stagg amps. So it’s up to you whether you’d prefer the better quality amp or guitar.

Stagg unlike Encore, does deviate from the Les Paul and Strat ’style’ guitars in their electric range, with semi acoustics and various shapes of electrics such as the flying V shape F300-MA.

Vintage Guitars

Not actual vintage guitars (as in old) but Vintage the brand! These are the next logical step up the ladder from Stagg and Encore, the most notable difference being the Wilkinson branded hardware. This hardware is generally very well machined and will definitely stand the test of time. Also that ‘quality of output’ needed for gigs I mentioned earlier is provided by the Wilkinson branded pickups, which give you that punchy more professional edge. So as the next level up, I would categorise the Vintage range as ‘entry level gigging guitars’. After this I think you’ll be entering a different realm of guitar price, which I will be talking about in the near future.

So, it seems that even though we kicked-up a fuss about a Hip-Hop artist performing at our biggest festival this year, we loved his performance and decided to get ourselves to the nearest shop to buy his album…..

The so called “Glastonbury effect” has meant that Jay-Z has now seen his album sales rocket by nearly five-fold..not bad for an album that came out in 2003. He’s not on his own though, many of the artists have seen an increase in album sales since the event, such as
Amy Winehouse and Neil Diamond.

So are we in a time now where Glastonbury will be hailed as a commercial, sales boosting marketing campaign?… quite possibly. The industry will be feeling the bennefit of sales, especially with the amount of downloading that has impacted on high-street business over the last few years. No doubt the major’s will be rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the next “Glastonbury Effect”.

Further Reading
A.M. Nuggets: Glastonbury Festival Pics & Reviews
I wish I was there: Massive Attack at Glastonbury 2008
Amy Winehouse performs/fights at Glastonbury
Lupe Fiasco - Glastonbury Speech

Vintage have been making entry to mid level guitars for many years now, covering that middle intermediate ground quite competently. The V99 is closer to the entry level priced from as little as £128.98. However the only thing that gives away this price tag is the bolt on neck, apart from that this is a pretty chunky piece of kit.

The headstock boasts six vintage style Wilkinson WJ44 machineheads which are, as you’d expect from branded machine heads, very smooth ans well machined. The neck consists of a 22 fret, bound, Rosewood fretboard which is tidily assembled with Les Paul standard style inlays and certainly looks the part. The body is made from Eastern Poplar, which is surprisingly heavy with a very high gloss cherry burst finish.

Plugged in, it is very apparent that the Wilkinson pickups are very warm sounding with a high output. The neck pickup delivers that unmistakeable full bluesy sound, while the bridge pickup is sharper, but not as sharp as you’d expect, it still retains a warmth not usually heard from the neck pickup of a Les Paul style guitar. The pickup selector switch itself feels like it’s particularly good quality and reflects the overall quality of the hardware on this guitar, the Wilkinson hardware makes a huge difference to the guitar. The only thing that gives away the fact that the guitar is actually sub £200 is the bolt on neck, but that’s well seated and sports a comfortably low action.

To sum up, for less than £130 this guitar is a bargain. With branded quality hardware, a fantastic finish and a quality neck with low action it’s a real testament to the quality of guitars coming out of eastern factories for very low prices.