I’ve not let the contentious me out the box for a while but something has happened recently that’s made me a little prickly. Guitar solo competitions. I hate them. I really really hate them. When did playing the guitar, or music in general, become a competition? Are...
I'm writing as I think, this will probably contain some bad language, so if you are offended by curse words, you might want to skip this! Over the next few days, weeks, months and hopefully years a lot of words will be said about Nicholas Harris. Most of them will be...
A couple of weeks ago someone asked the following question in the Wampler Pedals Tone Group on Facebook… “How long do you guys let your amps warm up in standby? I used to play about 10 mins before switching it over. Now I'm doing it within the first 5 minutes, and no...
Artist relations – A tale of two Dave’s. I can almost guarantee that the FIRST thing people ask when you tell them you work for a company like Wampler Pedals is something like this… “I bet it’s great hanging out with artists all the time.” Many people actually apply...
It’s that time of year again! NAMM is upon us and we are all gearing up for the trip out to California to show at what is arguably the biggest and best musical instrument trade show in the world! Descending upon L.A. from Indiana, Virginia and the U.K., the 2016...
There are going to be a lot of pieces written today and most of them will come with more personal insight, fandom or knowledge than I can ever bring, but I wanted to give an insight to the level of his impact to our world from a non-fan, from someone who never really...
As 2015 disappears into the distant memory of broken strings and replaced tubes, I've decided that my final post of the year should be a tongue in cheek look at how to use the internet, and mainly social media, in 2016. As always, this is just me talking nonsense and...
A couple of months ago I asked the question to many people in our industry what does the word boutique mean to them and how does it relate to their company/business and the industry we work in… The reason I did this is because I have an issue with the word - as...
If, like me, you are a massive Star Wars fan (I've been told I've seen each of them on the day they were released, I can vouch for Ep. 1,2,3,5 and 6 because I wasn't quite 4 when Ep 4 came out) you'll love this. Guitarist Cooper Carter has taken the orchestral score...
We are all pretty upset to find out that one of Vai's favourite guitars, "BO", was stolen from outside the Wiltern Theatre in L.A. on Saturday. As always, Wampler Artist Dave Weiner was there with Vai for the show and he's told us that Vai is extremely keen to see his...