Dunlop Tortex TIII

We recently had a story here on TGM asking what kind of pick(s) you preferred, and we got a ton of great responses from all of you. Two of the picks that were most mentioned were the Dunlop Jazz III’s and the green Dunlop Tortex .88′s, both personal favorites of mine as well. Well, much like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, you can now have the best of both of these popular picks as Dunlop has just released the Tortex TIII series which combines their standard size Tortex material with the more pointed tip of the Jazz III.

Those of you who read the previous article know that I have been filing my picks to a Jazz III-type point for over 30 years now, so this new pick is exactly what I’ve been looking for. No more having to borrow fingernail files from cute girls in the audience (dang, that was a pretty good introduction!). I actually picked up a few of these at NAMM in the Dunlop booth and didn’t realize they were any different at first, but I’ve used both the .88 and 1.00 and they are perfect. If you’re a regular Tortex user, give these new picks a try and see what you think. And if you’re a Jazz III user, these are the perfect pick for acoustic work.

You can find out more at www.JimDunlop.com

I am a huge Jeff Beck fan (that’s an understatement) and have been playing an old 60′s blond, black guard Telecaster with humbuckers in it ever since I saw him play the original one at the ARMS Concert back in 1983. This guitar was built for him by Seymour Duncan and in this video interview Seymour talks about how the original came to be, and also about the limited edition reissue that was announced at NAMM.

My TeleGib is my main guitar for fly gigs as I can get about every sound imaginable out of it, and it is much safer to travel with than a Les Paul. I currently have a set of WolfeTone Marshalhead pickups in it and the guitar sounds great and is a blast to play. The good folks at Wilkinson/FretKing Guitars just sent me one of their new Vintage Reissued Series ’62 Tele’s as a backup and I just installed a Seymour Duncan Little ’59 mini humbucker in it last week. Took it for a test drive this weekend at a gig and was amazed at the output and tone. I’m mostly a Les Paul guy these days, but a Tele with humbuckers may well be the most versatile guitar out there (in my humble opinion).

So have a look at the video and let me know what you think…

HardWire HT-6

TC Electronic Polytune

Not wanting to be outdone by TC Electronic’s Polytune, which was the first polyphonic tuner to hit the market, DigiTech’s HardWire line of pedals has just introduced their own new HardWire HT-6 Polyphonic Tuner. The difference between a regular, chromatic (or monophonic) tuner and the new generation  of polyphonic tuners is that rather than tuning one string at a time, these new tuners allow you to tune all six strings at once with one quick strum. The obvious benefit is that you can very quickly see if you’re in tune between songs, and if you hear that something is out of tune, a quick strum shows you exactly where the problem is as opposed to going through one string at a time to find the offender. And on both, when you pluck just one string it automatically reverts to chromatic mode.

I’ve been using the Polytune for awhile now and I have to admit that it is fun and easy to use. I like the layout of the Polytune over the HT-6, but that’s just a matter of personal preference. I have a good friend who was content to settle for his old TU-2 until he used my pedalboard one day and immediately went out and bought a Polytune. They are somehow quite addicting, and having to go back to a chromatic tuner (as I did on my travel pedalboard last weekend) was a bit disappointing. That being said, I am on my third Polytune, while my trusty Boss TU-2 has been on one pedalboard or another for many years without a single incident. With the first one I had, there was a significant discrepancy between the note when in polyphonic versus chromatic mode. While it’s true that polyphonic mode is accurate to +/-1.0 cent and chromatic mode to 0.5 cent, mine fell far outside that range. The second one simply only powered on when it felt like it. So number three is on the board for this week and we’ll see how it goes.

Sonic Research Turbo Tuner

If this new Polytune has any issues, I think I’ll give up on polyphonic tuning for the time being, and try the Sonic Research Turbo Tuner. This is true strobe tuning in a bulletproof enclosure, with instant pitch recognition and the most accurate tuning available at an amazing +/-.02 cents!

Now I know there are some of you out there rolling your eyes and thinking, “Who cares, my old (name your favorite brand) tuner is just fine. This guy is an idiot.” Okay, that last part might be true, and your old tuner probably is just fine, but we’re gigging musicians here and when something like polyphonic tuning comes along I think it’s worth giving it a try. Aside from the mechanical issues I’ve had, polyphonic tuning is great and I think we’ve seen just the tip of the iceberg in polyphonic tuners.

It’s also interesting to note that while at NAMM, aside from at the booths of other tuner companies, we didn’t see a single tuner other than the TC Electronic Polytune. They were everywhere! Pretty impressive rate of adoption given they were just introduced at last year’s show.