chrissie-hynde

Anyone who has listened to rock radio between 1982 and now has heard the sweet telecaster jangle of Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders. Aside from being a brilliant songwriter, she is also a rock and roll hall of fame member and the first woman guitar player to ever grace the cover of Guitar World. I have always dug her great tones and her super vibey rhythm parts that seem to push and pull the band always in the right direction. The Pretenders 1982 album “Learning to crawl” is a bonanza of great songs and smart guitar parts with the help of Billy Bremner and Robbie McIntosh covering the lead work. If you don’t own The Pretenders “Learning to crawl”, I highly recommend picking up a copy…preferably on vinyl…that is if you dig classic songs and killer telecaster guitar tones through blackface amps!

chrissie-hynde-rules

Steve Vai Legacy 2 guitar player magazine cover

I had the good fortune of being hired by Carvin and Steve Vai in 2007 to re-design the new signature Steve Vai Legacy 2 tube amplifier which was release at the 2009 winter NAMM show. Working with Steve Vai for the better part of two years was a pleasure and an honor. Steve made my job very easy because as a player and as a person…he knows exactly what he wants to hear and had a great command of how to convey his thoughts and ideas in a way that let do my work effectively and without a lot of trial and error. Needless to say it was one of the highlights of my amp designing career and hopefully Steve and I will be able to work together again in the future.

Here is a quote from Steve Vai from the his 2009 guitar player magazine article:

“The most interesting new thing, gear-wise, is my new Carvin Legacy 2 amp”, he says “I got with Benjamin Fargen – who is this fantastic, brilliant amplifier designer in Northern California and he lent his expertise to what the Carvin engineers had done. We added another channel, although it’s not really another channel as much as it the clean channel with the boost. With a lot of amps the clean channel goes from 1 to 50 and then the dirty channel goes from 80 to 100, so there is this whole middle ground that’s missing. So we designed this boost on the clean channel, and it gives you that very warm,breaking-up,pushed-but-not-quite-distorted tone.”

steve vai guitar player ben fargen quote

Sugarland

Mastodon

Hey guys- Stop in to the shop and say hi the next time you are out in California!

Cheers!

Benjamin

• www.thenickleslotsmusic.com
• http://www.myspace.com/thenickelslots
• http://www.digstation.com/TheNickelSlots

Steve Amaral, Guitarist for The Nickel Slots (Photo by Laz Kauffman)

Steve used a Fargen custom shop 2 x EL84 amp that is a cross between a Vox AC-15 and Marshall 1974X.

Here is what Steve had to say about his Fargen amp during the recording process for The Nickle Slots:

“I used the amp on all of the songs, and played either my Fender Telecaster with Texas Specials or my Reverend Double Agent”

“I really happy with all of the guitar tones and solos on the recording. Some of my favorite tracks are 120 Days 120 Nights, Stop Sign, Good Old Days, Evolution, If You’ve Got Nothing Good to Say, and RaceHorse.”

“I played the amp thru a 4×12 Marshall bottom with 25 watts Celestians. Plugged the guitar straight into the amp!”

“Like I mentioned I continue to get complements on my guitar tone. And when we mastered it with Eric Broyhill he said that my guitar tone was a pleasure to mix.”

Guitarist Ede Wright on stage with his Fargen Blackbird 80 amp

Please support this very talented musician and go out and pick up his new release Earthbound Gravity.

Ede Wright album cover for 'Earthbound Gravity'

Here is a picture of my man Nigel Thomas from ‘The Foxes’ in the studio with his Blackbird 1 x 12″:

Guitarist Nigel Thomas of 'The Foxes'

]]> http://www.fargenamps.com/the-foxes-rock-the-uk-with-new-video/feed 0 http://www.fargenamps.com/bruce-springsteen-unsung-guitar-hero http://www.fargenamps.com/bruce-springsteen-unsung-guitar-hero#comments Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:00:21 +0000 Ben Fargen http://www.fargenamps.com/?p=171 I was digging through my CD collection today (gasp!!…not mp3’s or ipod??) I grabbed Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” as it’s been a while since I had a listen to it. The songs played as I continued wiring a Dual Classic amp I was finishing up. I realized how I had never really payed much attention to the guitar parts on that album because they are so entwined within the songs and because frankly – the guitar tone is just OK, an old Telecaster through a Fender Twin I think?

Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (album cover)

What grabbed me is the way Bruce pilots the band with push/pull rhythms and energy that ebbs and flows from start to finish on almost every song. He has the ability to “conduct” the band with his guitar and that is really rare for a singer/songwriter who happens to play guitar. I always felt John Lennon was another musician that had this ability as well – the ability to drive a band where it needs to go and arrive when it needs to get there. It’s not about technical know-how or even amazing tone with these guys. It’s about feel,timing, guts and energy.  So many of these things are easy to forget about with all the other distractions of being a musician.