Fender Custom Shop 69 Bridge/Middle/Neck Pickup

Have you taken a look at our Daily Deal section of ProAudioLand? If you haven’t, you definitely should (located at the top right of our front page) as it is by far the best way to snag a product at a one-time-only extremely low price – often as much as 75% off MSRP! Today, we’re featuring the Fender Custom Shop ’69 Stratocaster Pickup – a single pickup that can be used for neck, middle or bridge – as part of the promotion. That’s right – normally this pickup goes for $99.99 but you can snag yourself one at the unbelievable price of just $39.99 (for 3/27/13)! Not too familiar with the Custom Shop ‘69s? No problem! We installed three of these bad boys on one of our own company Strats and are more than happy to give you our impression. Long story short – this pickup is brimming with that classic ‘60s tone that made the Stratocaster a legend in the rock world!

Fender’s Custom Shop ’69 Stratocaster pickups were designed to produce one of the mo...

The Whole Lotta Humbucker Set, with Nickel Cover @ $224.95
Check below for other models. 

Great news for guitar players who just have to have that warm, fat sound of a humbucker and even better news if you happen to be looking for  a set that can deliver some signature British rock tone helped crafted by the likes of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.

Once a limited-edition U.K. exclusive, Seymour Duncan has now made their Whole Lotta Humbuckers available for the entire world – and you’ll be glad to know that ProAudioLand has them in stock at the best prices around!

Back when Seymour Duncan was in his youth, he gained a lot of experience with tone and pickups while working at the Fender Soundhouse with artists such as Page, Beck and Clapton – among others – trying to find their defining sound. Suffice it to say that more than a few of the players and their signature sound went on to transform the world of rock!

Here’s what the man himself, Seymour Duncan, had to say about the new world...

A pedal that’s as aesthetically pleasing as it sounds

Get the Budda Buhwah at the lowest price guaranteed! 

If you are one of those musicians who have yet to experience a Budda pedal – it’s cool, you’re not alone. Although the company’s name and reputation has certainly grown over their 15 years in the business, they remain better known for their boutique amplifiers (which is how they got their start) than their pedals which to this day tend to remain rather elusive. In fact, its first foray into the pedal business just happens to be the Budwah – a highly touted wah-wah pedal that owes its immaculate tone to the company’s backbone in amplifier construction, resulting in a product that has been tailored to work with an amp’s own response rather than for the pedal’s own performance. So, in a world filled with plenty of big name wah pedals from some of the best manufacturers in the business – from Dunlop’s classic Crybaby to the fan favorite Morley Bad Horsie – does the Budwah have enough t...

UPDATE: YOU CAN CHECK OUT THE BBE BLACKSMITH RIGHT HERE!

New Year means new gear! And the guys over at BBE do not disappoint. I’m talking of course about the just announced BBE Blacksmith Distortion pedal which is said to be deeply inspired by the hand-made stomboxes crafted by Paul Gagon in the ‘80s for the who’s who of hard rock. For those of you unfamiliar with Gagon, he was well known for designing pickups and amps for Grover Jackson and worked with plenty of A-list artists, from Jeff Beck to Steve Vai and tons more. He found that many artists loved the tone of Marshalls (I know, shocking, right?) but wanted a bit more grind than the legendary amps could offer. Though these amps could definitely go to the venerable “11,” these rockers told Paul they wanted to push it closer to “15 or 20.” That’s when Gagon designed his innovative LED-based distortion circuit which fed a 3-band passive PLEX-EQ on a classic Plexi tone stack. The end result added up to a creamy smooth hi-gain experien...

The naked body of a Stratocaster

Good morning music fans! Here at ProAudioLand, we always want to give our readers the best possible information in their quest for the perfect tone and what better way than to delve deep into the heart of what goes into a creating a signature sound. Yesterday, we talked about some of the best upgrades, tweaks, tips and customizations that can turn your run of the mill bass into a high-end, low-frequency workhorse worthy of carrying that backbeat for years to come. We discussed some specifics such as the instrument’s body and how that can affect certain traits such as playability and overall sound, the importance of regularly changing your strings in order to maintain a quality tone, some tips of general up-keep and plenty more. If you didn’t catch it yesterday, you can do so right here.

Alright, now today were going to be keeping that same spirit but moving on to another instrument – the one and only electric guitar. Pretty much the most popular instrumen...

Your choice in guitar strings is more important
than you probably thought! 

Today we will be picking up where we left off in yesterday’s article which if you missed you can catch right here. Alright, so in part I, we gave you guys a guide to the basics of electric guitar strings and their effect on an instrument’s tone. We took a look at the different type of strings along with their inherent pros and cons. We found out for example that while roundwound strings are the most common and inexpensive option available, they tend to have the shortest lifespan, can wear into the fretboard and fret wire of the instrument and are more susceptible to noise when the fingers are slid over them. Flatwounds on the other hand retain their initial tone longer, don’t cause nearly as much wear and tear and generally are more comfortable to play with but do not possess the initial high frequency, bright punch of the roundwounds. There was also a bit of information on other string variants such as hexwound ...

Ernie Ball's Super Slinky roundwound
strings are a popular choice for rock. 

Alright, we all know that there are a lot of things that go into creating a guitarist’s signature tone. There are the obvious ones such as the pickups along with everything that goes with them such as the type, materials used, size, winding and construction. Then there are of course the other big players such as amps, cabinets, cables, effects and the type of guitar you sling. But among all of these choices, no one single variable can alter the entire tone of your ax as drastically – and economically – as your choice in strings. Yeah, I know – nothing you didn’t realize already I’m sure as anyone who has bought a new set of strings can easily hear the difference between a new batch as opposed to a dead set. But there’s so much more that go into strings than just new versus old, plenty more, which brings me to today’s topic, that’s right, all about strings.

Let’s start off with their basic construction.  The end o...

Fender CD-100CE L/H Acoustic Electric

You know, every once in a while I find myself at a local music shop just killing some time and for some reason, I always end up going towards the acoustic guitar room. And being the avid tech guy that I am – along with all things music in general of course – I also spend a lot of time at big electronics stores such as Best Buy. Although I’m not sure if this is true for the rest of the country but down here in Southern California, Best Buy has added a music gear section to their store. Yes, a big pain for any impatient friend that goes in there with me indeed. Anyways, as I make my way through the store in the need for a memory card or what have you, I again find myself having to make a trip to the acoustic guitar room but getting more to my point, it seems like no matter what store’s acoustic room I’m at, I almost always hear some random customer asking one of the sales associates – the oddly termed “pros” – the same question; what’s the difference...

 

Alright, today we’re going to be talking about one of the lesser appreciated members of the music gear family – the ¼ inch cable! It’s pretty much that one piece of equipment that we all own regardless of our instrument of choice but do they ever get enough recognition for the job they do? If you simply take a look at any random music gear forum on the World Wide Web you will undoubtedly run across this very polarizing question; do cables affect tone? If you want the short and simple answer – and read the entire article before you scream at me all you naysayers – then yes, yes it does. Is it a noticeable change in tone? Well, that’s a different question altogether because in order for a cable to notably change one’s tone, it depends on a few things. Capacitance, for one, is very important. How the cable matches up to the pickups on your guitar is another.

For those of you rolling your eyes thinking that I’m simply trying to get you guys out there to buy expensive cables for no good re...

How’s it been, music fans? Hopefully your week went as good as ours and everyone out there is ready for a great start of the weekend, but before we do that, how about we talk guitar? We’re going to do things a little differently today from our usual format of tips and tricks. Think of today’s article as more of a discussion to get some of the less experienced home studio producers slash musicians out there thinking about the bigger picture as well as explore some common “misconceptions” when it comes to guitars, tone and recording. Alright, let’s get started!

The “Perfect” Guitar Tone

A lot of guitarists out there are always talking about searching for the perfect tone. Not just the perfect guitar tone, but THE perfect guitar tone – a seemingly mythical universal combination of gear and settings that is guaranteed to sound great pretty much anywhere. Nothing wrong with that, but what they often fail to realize that you have to think about the guitar track as part of the whole mix and no...

For those of you who are joining us from yesterday’s article, we will be continuing our in depth look at the factors that determine the tone of a pickup. For those of you who have yet to check out part one of our two parter, you can do so here. We all know that pickups are very important in a guitar’s overall tone. They’re pretty much responsible for turning the strumming of strings into decipherable electrical signals – I’d say that’s pretty important! While certain other factors such as the wood and body shape of a guitar also play an important role in tone shaping – and aside from effects pedals, preamps and amps – a pickup is probably the single most prevalent factor in attaining a specific sound. In yesterday’s article, we spent a lot of time talking about pickup magnets and how they affect tone such as a stronger magnet will yield a brighter sound or how tempering an alnico magnet can increase overall balance – very interesting stuff so definitely check out yesterday’s article if...

Not too many parts to it but each can affect tone

How’s it been music fans?! Well, hopefully everyone out there had a great weekend enjoying the last few days of summer and if it was anything like it was over here in sunny Southern California, it was a hot one! Now, how about we talk some pro audio? Guitar pickups; they’re very important, that we all know, they also seem to come in a limitless amount of variations, and I’m not just talking about the manufacturers or brands here. Hot rock pickups, vintage blues, metal screamers, country cuts... although I made most of those up, the point remains the same – if you’re looking for a specific pickup tone for a specific genre, chances are very likely that you can probably find one. Now whether their definition of the perfect metal tone, country tone or what have you matches your own, that’s a whole different story! Anyways, have you ever wondered what exactly gives a pickup its specific tonal characteristics? Well, that’s the focus of today’...