Fretbase: Guitars, Tabs, Chords and More

The Rittenhouse Guitar Giveaway

Brian — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:53:54 +0000

Are you a fan of relic’d guitars? Lately we’ve been hearing more and more about relic guitars, especially after Fender announced the Road Worn series. One of the drawbacks we’ve noticed with the Fender Road Worn guitar is that each of the Strats and Teles all have the same wear and tear marks. You basically lose what is probably the best part of a worn out guitar - it’s uniqueness.

Well we’ve found a great alternative for you. Rittenhouse Guitars makes custom built relic guitars that individually constructed and given their own unique look and feel. In addition Abe Rittenhouse only uses top quality parts, including Lollar pickups (you can also request your favorite brand if you like).

But it gets even better…

Rittenhouse is giving away a Custom Relic Rittenhouse Guitar that’s worth up to $1,549.00! All you have to do to enter the contest is one of the following:

Become a fan of their Facebook page and write “I want to win a Rittenhouse Guitar from www.rittenhouseguitars.com”
Follow @AbeRittenhouse and tweet: “I want to win a custom relic guitar from at www.rittenhouseguitars.com”
Write a blog (like this one!) and email them
Refer someone who buys a guitar (worth 5 entries!!)

Find out more at Rittenhouse Guitars

Guitar Played By John Lennon Sells for Over $300K

Dave — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:03:35 +0000

When times are tough, people start selling pieces of history (actually, people sell anything they can) and today comes a story about yet another guitar that sells on the auction block. At a Christie’s auction, a 1958 Hofner Senator originally played by John Lennon sold for $337,226 at auction. The guitar sold with a fax of a 1982 letter from George Harrison confirming that the guitar was owned by John Lennon and used for songwriting purposes. Lennon originally bought the instrument in 1959. My guess is that he paid less than what it just sold for.

John Lennon Guitar Sells for $337,000 at Auction (Gibson Lifestyle)

John Mayer’s Tribute to Michael Jackson (video)

Brian — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:11:05 +0000

An emotional public memorial was held today for Michael Jackson at the Los Angeles Staples Center. The ceremony was attended by thousands and watched by millions across the world. Some of celebrities that paid tribute included Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson and guitarist John Mayer.

John Mayer paid tribute to Michael Jackson by performing an instrumental version of Jackson’s Human Nature. We’ve managed to already find a video of Mayer’s performance for you to watch. Check it out…

It’s apparently from a Spanish network but it’s the music we’re here for…

John Mayer on Fretbase.

Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters and Led Zeppelin

Brian — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:40:20 +0000

What is the newest supergroup that is going to totally rock and blow everyone’s mind? Take note game show fans. That might be a future Jeopardy question.

In the biggest news since Chickenfoot, Antiquiet has broke a story about an upcoming project that involves Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, Nirvana and John Paul Jones of the mighty Led Zeppelin. The trio are currently hard at work in a Los Angeles studio somewhere working on an album.

Apparently Dave Grohl had alluded to this line up way back in 2005 during a Mojo interview. “The next project that I’m trying to initiate involves me on drums, Josh Homme on guitar, and John Paul Jones playing bass. That’s the next album. That wouldn’t suck.”

John Paul Jones helped to corroborate the story this past summer when he told a journalist “I’m working on some other music, which is more rock based, with a couple of other people. We hope to be everywhere this summer.” When pressed for more information, the legendary bassist was coy. “It’s a secret, actually,” he said. “I shouldn’t have even said that, you know? There are some exciting projects coming up, let’s put it that way.”

But it was Antiquiet interviewing Josh Homme’s wife Brody Dalle of Spinnerette who confirmed the group’s existence. Dalle offered the following tidbit: “I’m not at liberty to talk about it… but I think [the project] is pretty fucking amazing. Just beats and sounds like you’ve never heard before.”

Martin Guitar Throws in the Player’s Pack with New Guitar

Dave — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:53:41 +0000

C.F. Martin & Co has launched a new summer promotion. From now until September 30, 2009, buy any new full gloss Martin guitar from an authorized Martin dealer and you’ll receive a free Martin “Players Pack” valued at over $230.00. The special “Players Pack” promo includes 13 sets of Martin strings, a Martin nylon guitar strap, Martin polish and polishing cloth, string winder, pitch pipe and six Martin picks.

Martin Guitar Official Site

Martin guitars on Fretbase

New and Improved Fretbase

Brian — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:00:12 +0000

You may have noticed something different about Fretbase lately. We’ve been working on some improvements to the website and we hope everyone is enjoying some of the new and improved features. Fretbase is a structured wiki of guitars, gears, artists and songs that can be edited by anyone. It’s meant to be a resource for guitar players looking to research guitars, gear or find out what they’re favorite artist uses to create their sound.

Here are some of the new features:

Gear: We’ve added amplifiers, effects, strings and other related gear to the site
Reviews: You can now write reviews of our guitars and gear - we want to hear what you think!
Homepage: Highlights the most popular stuff in our database and shows stories from around the web
New Logo: We have a really nice logo now :) (Thanks TJ!)

Our goal continues to be to create the best archive of guitars and guitar related information so that we can become your online resource for all things guitar-related. Please let us know what you think!

If you find any problems or encounter any weird issues with the site please contact us and let us know as well. And if there’s a feature or something you think is missing we should add to make this a better site - well we want to hear about that too.

Thanks for visiting!!

Keith Urban Scores New Telecaster

Dave — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:57:05 +0000

Most of us would be perfectly happy with a standard issue Fender Telecaster, but not Keith Urban. Urban gets his custom made…and he pulls out all the stops. The latest in his arsenal is a custom made Fender Telecaster that was inspired by guitars played by Paul Stanley of KISS. The guitar looks like it has broken pieces of mirror all over it. It is definitely worth viewing at CMT. How does it sound? In the words of Urban, “You’ll be blinded into thinking it sounds good.”

Keith Urban’s New Guitar Has Arrived (CMT)

Fender Telecaster (American Standard)

Smokin’ Joe Robinson’s Fingerstyle (video)

Brian — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:02:46 +0000

We’ve stumbled across an incredibly talented guitarist from the land down under: Smokin’ Joe Robinson. Not to be confused with Smokin’ Joe Bonamassa, this Smokin’ Joe is a fingerstyle genius at the ripe old age of 18. Before we all collectively moan about yet another kid that can play guitar way better than we can, this kid deserves some serious attention. His playing is pretty mature for his age and he has an incredible fingerstyle along the lines of Atkins and Jerry Reed. Full story…

We found out about Smokin’ Joe Robinson while checking out Jackson’s Rare Guitars, an Australian guitar shop that has a great selection of rare and vintage guitars, great videos and a cool blog. It seems the wise folks at Jackson’s Rare Guitars had Joe play some of their Collings guitars as a promotion.

Well enough about it. Here’s Smokin’ Joe Robinson ripping on a Collings:

Musician’s Friend Starts Selling Used Gear

Brian — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:00:03 +0000

Mega-Internet music retailer Musician’s Friend will start selling used gear next week. Musicians Friend will rate used gear using 5 different categories ranging from “Like New” to “Salvage”. They are also including their 45-day satisfaction guarantee however we’re not sure if that’s just for “Like New” gear or if it applies to “Salvage” gear as well. Right now they’re previewing a select set of “Like New” gear on their site.

It’s pretty obvious the new Musician’s Friend new category of gear is meant to directly compete against Ebay and sites like Craiglist. The used gear market is huge and musicians are more than willing to save a few bucks buying a used Fender Stratocaster over a brand new if they can save a few hundred bucks. Full story…

There are other sites on the web that focus on the used gear market as well - Gbase.com, Daddys.com, HarmonyCentral - but it’s unclear if these sites have quite the traction as Ebay and Craigslist.

Also given that we’re in the midst of a recession it’s likely that more and more musicians are turning to the used gear market. All in all we think this is a smart step for Musician’s Friend but it remains to be seen if they can execute. We’ve looked at Guitar Center’s attempt at a used gear section and we don’t find ourselves returning very often - it’s a bit difficult to navigate.

For Musician’s Friend we think it’s all about achieving a critical mass of gear that will bring the audience needed to build that business. Let us know what you think!

EHX’s Effectology

Brian — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:21:13 +0000

The geniuses over at Electro-Harmonix have started a new series on their blog called “Effectology” that display some of the amazing capabilities of the EHX effects when placed into the right hands. In their first installment Bill Ruppert managed to make an electric guitar sound like a blue harmonica using a HOG, Micro Synthesizer, Wiggler and a Holiest Grail.

And in their second installment Bill Ruppert recreated the sound of Pink Floyd’s “On the Run” from “Dark Side of the Moon” (pedals used: Micro Synthesizer, Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai, Frequency Analyzer, Big Muff Pi, Stereo Pulsar). It’s some very impressive stuff.

Check out the videos…