“REAL TO REEL” ~ CARL VERHEYEN & KARL RATZER

Available for digital download now at:
http://www.theconnextion.com/carlverheyen/carlverheyen_cat.cfm?CatID=241

PLAYERS:
Karl Ratzer: Telecaster®
Carl Verheyen: Stratocaster®
John Ferraro: Drums
Cliff Hugo: Bass
Dan Wall: Keyboards, Piano

SONGS:
“Bad Day for Robots”
“The Sails”
“L.A. Visit”
“Send in the Clowns”
“Tacos for Everyone”
“Dolphin Dance”
“Loud Guy Blues” (Version 1 & 2)
“5 Step Snake Blues”
“Solar”

Just 10 sleepless hours after I finished an intense five day mix-down of my 2000 CVB release “Atlas Overload,“ I found myself in the studio with one of the baddest guitar players on either side of the Atlantic: “The Telecaster Terror,” Karl Ratzer. After our mutual guitar string company had orchestrated a collaboration in the form of a live concert in Vienna, it was suggested that stylistically we are quite complimentary together.  Two days of recording were planned in early 2000 with a rhythm section in Los Angeles, neither of us knowing what it would sound like or where the soul of the project would be: jazz, blues, rock, country or funk? As it turned out it was all of those things, and this recording represents just a fraction of what was recorded and what we could still do. There are seven tracks with the band, and two duets with just Karl and me. I especially enjoy the interplay and musical connection with Karl. Since those two days in January of 2000 we have played together a few more times in Austria.  I always ask him to sit in with the CVB whenever I’m on tour there, and last year I was honored to be a special guest soloist at his 60th birthday concerts in Vienna. I hope there are many more collaborations in our future!                                                                                                                                          –Carl Verheyen, July 2011

NAMM Jam – Guitar Player ‘s Guitar Superstar 2011

Reeves Gabrels and I jam at summer NAMM 7/11, then are critiqued by Muriel Anderson.

THE FIRST RETAILER REVIEW OF LSL INSTRUMENTS™ “CV SPECIAL” SIGNATURE GUITAR!

Fat Sound’s Take

If our first of the new LsL CV signature Saticoy’s, “Carolita,” is indicative of the norm for this new model from Lance Lerman then every die-hard Strat player should own one.

Carolita was pre-sold on arrival which saddened me a bit. I’m happy for the new owner and, of course, glad to have the business, but given the opportunity this guitar would have gone home with me. It’s impossible to say that any guitar is “the best I’ve ever played” for a given style, but Carolita is certainly up there in the very top rankings when it comes to the Strat style guitars I’ve had in my hands.

Carl and Lance have teamed up to create one of the finest sounding, most soulful feeling guitars I’ve had the pleasure of playing. The neck carve is fantastic……seeming to disappear in my hand…….the new CV specific, LsL hand-wound pickups truly incredible and I really dug the warmth and overall vibe of Carolita’s “CV Blue” finish.

It’s rare when an S-style piece can effortlessly cover both the shimmery, swirly, percussive and bubbly cleans and the thick meaty ‘Texas Tone’, but this guitar does it. The two extremes of my favorite Strat tones in one fantastic playing guitar that felt, in my hands, as if I’d owned it for decades.

One S-style guitar that will cover the signature tones of Clapton, Stevie, Hendrix, Knopfler, Cray……..?……..sounds like total BS and as I type this I’m thinking “Oh Lord, they’ll nail me to the Ultimate Salesman Tree for sure this time,” but Carolita was that guitar. I just hope all of the CV models are this good…..if so…..I gotta have one.

Highly Recommended!!   –Stu Carter, owner, Fat Sound Guitars™

Fat Sound Guitars

Pure Boutique Since 1993

8316 Chapel Hill Rd.

Cary, NC 27513

(919) 467-1003 (local)

1-888-328-7686 (FAT-SOUND)

+011-1-919-467-1003 (international)

http://www.fatsoundguitars.com

http://www.fatsoundguitars.com/store/index.php

 

Action

The action height on my Strats®, Teles® and Gibson® guitars is very important to me.  The amount of “purchase” I have on the top three strings determines how well I can bend and what kind of bends I can do. The bottom three strings follow the contour set up by the top three, and my only criterion is that there is no buzz happening, either open or fretted.

With Stratocasters® I start by leveling out all the saddles. I will then arrange them in a stair-step formation following the neck radius.  From the high E string to the G string they rise and pretty much level off in the middle at the G and D strings. Then the A string is a bit lower and the low E is almost all the way down to the level of the high E string.  It usually ends up a little bit higher because I am very anti-buzz on my low strings.

Sighting down the neck from the headstock, the saddles end up looking something like this:

                        ____     ____    

            ____                             ____    

____                                                      ____

 

This diagram is a lot more radical than what it really looks like, but it does demonstrate the level saddles and basic contour of the bridge.  Experiment with your setup using your neck’s radius as your guide.  Make sure you can get your fingers under the top three strings to bend accurately.  Remember to intonate after you’re set!

By Carl Verheyen

©2011 Carl Verheyen. All Rights Reserved.

LsL Instruments “CV Special” (specs as of 5/23/11)

• Bodies made from the lightest Alder we can find.
• Carl Verheyen-designed, LsL hand-wound pickups that are based on his ’61.
• Slightly hotter bridge pickup.
• Dark 7.25″ radius fingerboard with LsL’s “Lowered Apex” fingerboard edges. The “Lowered Apex” creates a rounded transition from the neck to the fingerboard that begins behind the fingerboard and creates a soft, worn-in feel that melts in your hand.
• Hand-shaped neck that is based on Carl’s ’61 which has a medium “C” shape that is about .88″ thick at the 3rd fret.
• Hand-cut bone nut.
• Lower torque Bournes pots for fast, easy controls.
• LsL modified vintage style Wilkinson bridge with steel block and push-in, adjustable tension tremolo bar and 2-1/8″ string spacing.
• The bridge will feature LsL’s modification that replaces the standard plastic tremolo bar insert with our custom-made brass insert. This removes the small amount of play in the trem bar giving it a tighter, more responsive feel.
• 60s style string tree.
• LsL’s thin, NC, checked lacquer finish with very light aging.
• Available in CV Blue (metallic), Vintage White and 3-Tone Sunburst.
• LsL 3-ply pickguard.
• Medium high, 6105 nickel-silver frets.
• Tone circuit using oil-filled capacitor.
• Like our LsL Saticoy’s, the middle tone knob controls tone on the neck and middle pickups while the lower tone controls the bridge pickup alone.
• The “CV Special” will be strung with Dean Markley’s Carl Verheyen “Balanced Bridge” Helix HD Gold string set: .009, .012, .016, .026, .037, .046.
• The guitar will be set up and shipped with the Carl Verheyen floating bridge setup. This is Carl’s iconic setup that allows you to use the trem bar to not only lower the pitch of the strings but raise them too. This setup allows the pitch of the high E string to be raised a half step. The B string will raise in pitch by a whole step and the G string will raise a minor 3^rd.
• Backplates will feature Carl’s engraved signature.
• Like all LsL’s, each guitar will be named with a unique female name.
• Finished model will weigh less than 7.5 lbs.
• A G&G hard-shell case will be included.
• Made in USA.

Shipments are expected to begin in July, 2011

http://www.lslinstruments.com/CVSpecial.html

Carl Verheyen Unveils “Carl’s Education Special” – Limited Time Offer!!!

School’s almost out so Carl Verheyen is offering another of his occasional deals on his product, this time “Carl’s Educational Special.” Purchase all four titles at once and receive a discount! The two instructional DVDs Forward Motion: Advancing on the Electric Guitar (normally $29.95) and Intervallic Rock (normally $25.00), and two instructional books Improvising Without Scales (normally $17.95) and Studio City (normally $9.95).

These four titles will be available for a total price of $75.00 plus shipping via Carl’s official website Store only http://www.carlverheyen.com. “Carl’s Educational Special” will run from Wednesday, May 18 until Wednesday, June 1 only.

Verheyen has the following to say about the four titles selected:
“Intervallic Rock Guitar was the first DVD I did back in 1994. It originally came out on VHS and turned a lot of people on to a different style of improvising. When it was finally released on DVD, a demand arose for a follow-up. I taped my follow-up called Forward Motion a few years ago, expanding my concept to chord voicings and other related techniques.” 

“Improvising Without Scales took the concept a step further with line development cataloged in a similar way I practice. The book comes with an audio CD of all the lines contained in the text played in a rock context.” 

 

“Studio City is an anthology of all the columns I wrote for Guitar Magazine between 1996 and 1999. It describes, in detail, the studio work I was doing, as well as tales from the road with an emphasis on the skills required and the gear used.” 

My LA Support Team

Whether it’s a live concert with the CVB, a solo acoustic concert, a duet concert with another guitarist, a stadium show with classic rock group Supertramp or a recording session, I go by this paramount rule:  I will not suck!  No matter if it’s a guitar overdub on someone’s record, or a 90-piece orchestra date on a huge film scoring stage, I’m going to play and sound my best. A tiny jazz club or an 18,000-seat arena – it’s all the same to me. If people are going to hear me I’m going to have the best tone possible and be ultimately prepared for whatever it is I need to do. I’m sure many of you guitarists feel the same way.  Consequently it seems I always have some piece of gear in the shop.  I’d like to use this space to give a little shout-out and thanks to some of the crew, businesses and individuals that help me keep my gear together.

My pedal boards are wired and/or rewired by Alan Cyr. He’s an all-around genius that does amp repair, pedal repair and circuit design for me.  Patrick Selfridge, Paul Smith and Sergio Hamernik at Mercury Magnetics advise me when my transformers need upgrading in various tube amps.  Tubes, caps, and even speakers all get “consumed” around here so it’s important to keep everything in good working order.

Stan Lamendola goes on the road with me as my #1 guitar tech, and he and I go back to the mid-‘80s when he did trafficking at the first cartage company I was with. He eventually moved to Andy Brauer Cartage and I followed him there.  He’s been a trusted ally, dealing with my gear since the early 1980s.

Norik Renson has been doing fret jobs, setups, level and dress jobs, pickup changes and everything he can to keep my vintage and modern guitars in perfect working order since he first built me a Tele-styled guitar in 1981.  His partner Bret Sandberg is always there when you need him for emergencies, too.  These guys do the big stuff on my guitars.

Myles Rose has been my first call tube consultant for many years, actually keeping a record of the work he does on my amps to better understand my personal taste when it comes to biasing and tube choices.  He’s got great ears and he’s that rare breed of tech that is not afraid to pull the guts out of a 1968 Plexi Marshall head at sound check because he thinks it can sound better! It doesn’t matter if doors are in 30 minutes and show time is in 90 minutes, he’s fearless. I’m honored to be one of his clients.  Billy Yates has been inside a few of my AC-30s, Fender Twins and Princetons.  He’s got a great set of ears because he’s quite a good player himself.

The guys at LsL Instruments have been building my new signature guitar and in doing so we’ve been very interested in the tones, output, weight, wood, radius, hardware, etc. of some of my vintage guitars. This has led to some incredible tweaking and maintenance on some very tired 50-year-old guitars. Lance Lerman, Avi Shabat and Robie Canlas are total geniuses when it comes to all things solid-body.  Scotty and Richie, Lisa and Melanie – the whole crew rock!

Chris Johnson and his team at Hollywood Studio Rentals have been my go-to cartage guys for film dates and all the big sessions.  Todd Raines and Mike Brown are so reliable, I know I can walk in at five minutes to the downbeat and all will be up and running.  Peter Huggins and Greg Bell have been doing the CVB cartage and their show-must-go-on mentality is all I need to jump on stage with total confidence. It helps that they like the music, too, because I play better when those guys are just off stage.

I owe a lot to this incredible team of techs and artists in their own right. Their reliable work shows a lot of integrity and I have the confidence of knowing …they will not suck!

By Carl Verheyen

©2011 Carl Verheyen. All Rights Reserved.