1959 Gibson ES335 on eBay | Mike Landau Owned!

Here's an eBay listing for a 1959 Gibson ES335 dot-neck owned by Mike Landau!

Mike rarely gives interviews and never comments on the gear he consigns on eBay, but for this guitar he had this to say:

"I've had the pleasure of owning this fine guitar for about 17 years now. I bought the 335 at Rudy's in New York while on tour with James Taylor, I think is was around '92 or '93. Its an amazing playing AND amazing sounding instrument, plus its definitely got the look. I used it on many sessions over the years, funny enough, I used it on a lot of Nashville artists some years back, including a couple solo's on Tim McGraw and also on his lovely wife Faith Hill."


"The guitar is all original except for an expert refret by Jim Tyler when I first got the guitar. I have the original tuners as well (I put new ones on when Jim refreted it) sadly its time to part with it now, I just don't play it that much anymore, I hope it find's a good home - Its a very juicy guitar!"

The original Patent Applied For pickups, with the black PAF stickers still attached on the underside, measure 8.56K ohms for the front pickup and 8.52K ohms on the bridge.  The 50-year old Alnico magnets would probably also have mellowed very nicely. 

The seller, LA Vintage Gear has listed several Mike Landau owned pieces on eBay in the past and are currently also listing Mike's custom Matchless Chieftain 2 x 12 which you can check out here.

eBay Item Number: 200511658923

Blankenship Amp Owned By Mike Landau On eBay!

Up for your perusal is a Mike Landau owned Blankenship Fat Boy Supreme with Sour Cream option -- a 6-position bright switch.

Unlike the stock Fat Boy Supremes which come with a single 15" speaker, this amp is outfitted with a pair of 12" Rola Celestion G12-65's which seem to be Mike's favorite. 

And to up the deliciousness factor, this particular amp comes in a rich chocolate-brown tweed.

According to Blankenship's website, their Fat Boy amps allow the player to switch  between a pair of 6V6 or 6L6 power tubes, without having to re-bias the amp.  The Sour Cream option gives the customer a choice of either a Volume and 6-position bright switch or two dedicated Volumes, controlled by a footswitch.

Decisions, decisions..

Past listings by the seller, LA Vintage Gear, also included a pristine 1967 Fender Twin, also owned by Mike, that was reworked by Roy Blankenship.

eBay Item #:  200504434748

Fender Custom Shop 1960 Relic Stratocaster Owned by Michael Landau on eBay!

Here's an eBay listing for a Relic 1960 Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster owned by Michael Landau! 

According to the seller LA Vintage Gear, this Sonic Blue Strat was specially built for Landau by the Fender Custom Shop in 2002.   And for many big name pros that usually means a visit to the custom shop to hand-pick choice bodies and necks out of the batch.  A privilege for the lucky few! 

And if there's anybody that knows what he wants in a Strat, it's Mike.

Weighing in at 7.8lbs, this axe comes with all accessories and a Certificate of Authenticity.

(eBay Item #:  270581947272)

And here's a link to a Mike Landau-owned Tyler Studio Elite!

Orange Amps Announces.. The Personal Computer?

Orange Amps has announced the first guitar amp that incorporates a PC.  Or is it a PC that incorporates a guitar amp? 

Now which wise-acre thought this one up?   Looks like guitar amplifiers are going the one-year-to-obsolescence route too.   This one is anyway.

And if computer hardware specs get you goin',  the Orange Personal Computer is "a fully fledged computer with 4GB DDR2 RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, Intel chips, Windows 7 x64 home premium, 8 x USB2.0 ports, is Wi-Fi enabled and has an integrated GeForce 9300 graphics card with an optional dedicated ATI 5670 512MB card."

Using the included yet-unspecified music software and modelling technology based on Orange amps past-and-present, the user can record and playback directly from the in-built PC. 

Ok, we've had this technology for about a decade now, albeit in separate, individually upgradeable components.  Nothing bad about that. 

Computer acting up?  Get it fixed, or ditch it and get a new one.

Digging the latest amp simulation gizmo?  eBay the old one for a few bucks. 

Craving the latest music production software featuring Quantize templates based on the rhythmic feels of Eddie Van Halen, Mike Landau and Bo Diddley, zero-latency effects plug-ins, and 200 tracks with 900 levels of Undo?  

Well, you get the idea.

This thing looks to me like more landfill fodder.  Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

The OPC is due for a June 2010 release.

http://www.orangeamps.com/

Billy Gibbons and Robben Ford -- Birthday Tribute

Funny how things come in pairs.

Billy F. Gibbons celebrates his birthday today with another esteemed colleague, Robben Ford.

With a career with ZZ Top spanning close to 40 years, Billy Gibbons (born December 16th 1949) continues to bring his 'just turn it up as loud as you can and go for it' brand of good time Texas rock 'n roll to legions of fans around world.




Robben Ford (born December 16th 1951) made a name for himself as a young blues guitar phenom playing in the bands of Charlie Musselwhite and Jimmy Witherspoon. But the hip youngster was as devoted to the blues as he was to the jazz giants. Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter also featured heavily in Ford's listening habits, inspiring him enough to take up the saxophone which he also played in Musselwhite's group.

A stint in Tom Scott's LA Express made Robben a name in jazz-fusion circles culminating in him joining horn-legend Miles Davis in 1986 before returning to his blues roots in 1988 with Talk To Your Daughter.

Robben has a new project Trial By Fire, featuring Jimmy Haslip, Gary Novak and session maven Mike Landau. I'm looking forward to this one!

PAF Pickups Owned By Mike Landau on eBay

Here are a pair of PAF's owned by Mike Landau. (Item #: 200404684665)


L.A. Vintage Gear has been auctioning a lot of stuff for Landau recently and according to them these are from his "extensive pickup stash". The original covers and black Patent Applied For stickers are still intact.


Gibson applied for a patent on their humbucking pickups on 22nd June 1955 and were awarded the patent only on 28th July 1959.


But interestingly, from 1957 to 1962 Gibson stickered every pickup with a Patent Applied For label. It was only after '62 that the patent number started appearing.

One of the pickups in this matched set was rewound by John Suhr -- probably due to a broken coil -- while the other remains stock. L.A. Vintage Gear has taken this mod into consideration and shaved a fair bit off their Buy It Now price.


You can hear these pickups in action in the Michelle Branch clip below. Mike's rhythm tones are amazing -- gutsy and with tons of attitude. You can't put a sticker or a Buy It Now on that:

Mike Landau's Session Work On YouTube

Here are a couple of clips of session maestro Mike Landau in the studio. That tone, that vibrato, those Tylers!



In the first clip he plays a beautiful wah-inflected solo. I love the way he just nails those changes starting at 0:16!



In the second clip we see Landau using some of his 'mystery' voicings -- he seems to favor rootless chords, sus4's, add9's and the occasional superimposed triad -- processed through a rackmounted Dyno-My-Piano Tri-Stereo Chorus. Or a cheap Arion SCH-1 Chorus pedal, depending on the era in question. Based on Mike's hair my bet is on the Tri-Stereo here. Check out the spicy volume swells.



In the third clip Mike places an Ibanez TS808 Tubescreamer at the front of his signal chain for a touch of extra gain, but decides to turn it off before he starts tracking. His sound through the Bogner amp (?) is positively huge, with a tad of harmonizer to fatten up the sound. He fluffs the descending line at 2:47 -- twice -- but what the hey, they'll fix it in ProTools.

James Taylor's live-in-the-studio Squibnocket DVD features Mike's playing extensively.


Check Out Mike Landau CDs Here!

Mike Landau's 1963 Gibson ES125TDC on eBay

Here's an eBay listing for Mike Landau's '63 Gibson ES125TDC. (Item #: 200397545734)

According to the seller, LA Vintage Gear, this guitar is in good shape with no lacquer crazing or checking, which is remarkable for an instrument of this age. Nitrocellulose finishes are sensitive to temperature changes and will develop a patina of small checks when subjected to sudden temperature fluctuations.

Gibson's ES125 full hollowbody was a budget line guitar that proved extremely popular in the early '50s. The ES125T non-cutaway soon followed in 1956 -- the 'T' denoting Gibson's thin hollowbody construction. The thin body was more resistant to feedback at higher volumes than a full-hollowbody instrument.

Production of the ES125TDC began in 1960, following the highly successful ES125T and ES125TC.

The ES125TDC -- T (thin hollowbody), D (double P90 pickups), C (cutaway) -- like its predecessors, was a runaway success. Despite its popularity, Gibson decided to discontinue the entire ES125 line in 1971.

Mike's guitar comes with a custom Cedar Creek case. I'm really digging the luxuriant, royal purple lining!

Mike really seems to be clearing out his attic.

Check out these other listings for Mike's '79 Fender Precision bass and GT500 Goldtone banjo.

Mike Landau's 1967 Twin Reverb on eBay

Here's a listing for tonemeister Mike Landau's '67 Twin Reverb. (Item #: 200397540137)

According to the seller LA Vintage Gear (a 100% positive feedback seller I might add), this amp is in pristine condition despite being more than 40 years old. Conspicuously absent are any traces of rust anywhere on the amp.

Reworked by custom amp builder Roy Blankenship of Blankenship Amps, only the old capacitors and resistors were replaced. Those things do 'brittle out' or leak, as is common in amps this age.

The only other modification is that the original Jensen speakers have been replaced with Celestion Rola G12-65's, which appear to be the newer reissues.

'66 Fender Vibrolux Formerly Owned By Mike Landau

Here's an eBay listing for a 1966 Fender Vibrolux Reverb which, according to the seller, was formerly owned by session guitarist and tonemeister Michael Landau. (Item #: 170393365488)

The two-channel Vibrolux Reverb has separate Normal and Vibrato channels, two 10" speakers and two 6L6GC's in the power section for a 35 watt power rating. In some circles, the Vibrolux Reverb came to be known as the 'poor man's Twin'.

This particular amp has been fitted with new-old-stock Mullard tubes and the two original 10" Oxford speakers were replaced with Eminence Ragin Cajun and Copperhead speakers. Fender turned to Oxford speakers when Jensen, their original supplier, stopped producing speakers for the musical instrument industry in the late '60s.

According to the seller, the amp was serviced by Bob Bradshaw at Custom Audio Electronics, and other than some new capacitors, no tone modifications were made to the amp.

Bob Bradshaw -- "I Like To Think That My Systems Don't Have A Sound"

Bob Bradshaw's Custom Audio Electronics has been building rack and pedal control systems for more than two and a half decades.

Picking up where Paul Rivera left off -- Rivera was designing early pedalboard systems in the late 70s before deciding to concentrate on amp modifications -- Bradshaw upped the ante with his footswitch controller and patchbay routing systems, allowing guitarists to interface their vintage Fuzz Faces to their rackmounted, studio-quality Eventide Harmonizers.

And by virtue of the controller patchbay system, any combination of pedals and effects could be recalled with the tap of a single footswitch. With the proliferation of rackmounted guitar effects and preamp devices in the 80s, Custom Audio Electronics took off.

Bradshaw became the go-to guy for studio stalwarts Buzz Feiten, Steve Lukather, Mike Landau, Paul Jackson Jr., Dann Huff and Tim Pierce who also happened to take their rack systems along when touring, with Bradshaw himself tagging along on occasion as guitar and road tech for Feiten, Landau and Lukather.

In this vid, Bradshaw gives credit to Steve Lukather for introducing many of his 'rockstar employers' to the Bradshaw system.

At a recording session with Eric Clapton, Lukather apparently let Clapton check out his Bradshaw system which led to the guitar legend ordering a rack system of his own. Soon Bob was shipping out systems to David Gilmour, The Edge, Yngwie Malmsteen, Eddie Van Halen and Peter Frampton.

And legend has it that when the guitar tech for Prince custom ordered a system, the 'Purple One' tried it out at a soundcheck and decided he preferred having his Boss pedals at his feet instead.

The '90s saw a backlash against rackmount systems with the resurgence of analog pedals and a trend towards lo-tech and lo-fi. Blame it on the grunge era.

While he never stopped customizing effects systems, Bradshaw also launched a line of Custom Audio Electronics Amplifiers -- which were actually designed by John Suhr of Suhr Guitars, a topic for another article -- and recently teamed up with Jim Dunlop on their MXR line, licensing his designs on the MC401 Boost/Line Driver and the MC402 Boost/Overdrive pedals.

Mike Landau Owned Tyler Studio Elite

Here's a cool eBay find (220480641051) -- a Jim Tyler Studio Elite in BBQ Black, which according to the seller is a one-of-a-kind prototype matte finish and apparently, originally built for Mike Landau.

This guitar features a maple fingerboard on a maple neck , three Seymour Duncan mini-humbuckers, Wilkinson VS100 bridge and a Mamywo body.







Tyler generally eschews the Fender-style 'skunk stripe' method of installing trussrods into a maple neck. Instead, he glues his maple fingerboards onto his maple necks, just as he would a rosewood 'board.

'Mamywo' is a Tyler concoction meaning 'Malaysian Mystery Wood' aka jelutong which is a very light and resonant hardwood, commonly used for building houses in Asia (back in the day).

A VTT push/pull control on one of the tone pots enables the player to bring in the neck pickup into the mix, no matter if the selector switch is on the 3rd, 4th or 5th positions -- very similar to the mod I described here -- which is always great for wringing out a couple more tones out of any three-pickup guitar.

Also included is a certificate of authenticity signed by Jim.