$25.00
After enough years of playing guitars, you learn that the smallest things can make an extraordinary difference—and some of the things we obsess over matter far less than we think. Steve Bartek and Ira Ingber share what decades of recording sessions have taught them about guitars, amps and making a part work for the song. Juha Ruokangas reveals just how deep the variables run in building a responsive humbucker, followed by our time with his Väinö and Aino pickups. Riverhorse takes decades of analog ears into the modern home studio. Different paths, same lesson: experience has a way of revealing what matters.
BARING ALL WITH STEVE BARTEK & IRA INGBER
Recording Sessions, Stories, And Guitar Tone
By Scott Ulrichs
Steve Bartek and Ira Ingber have spent decades recording guitars and finding the sounds that serve
the song, and their stories range from Danny Elfman and Bob Dylan sessions to vintage Fender amps,
Klons, Celestion Alnico Golds and their own There Goes My Compass. More revealing is how they
think as musicians. They imposed limitations, tracked much of the record together in real time and let
the compositions determine where the music went. After all the talk of guitars and gear, Ira gets to
the heart of it. The player’s intention matters more to the sonic signature than the gear.
MASTER GUITAR BUILDER JUHA RUOKANGAS
The Soul Behind Artisan Pickups
By Scott Ulrichs
How much can one gram of coil tension matter? According to Juha Ruokangas, enough to make it a
different pickup. Beginning with the sound and feel of exceptional vintage PAFs, Ruokangas worked
through wire, turns, coil dimensions, tension, magnets and materials to understand what makes a
pickup truly responsive. The goal wasn’t simply reproducing a vintage specification, but capturing the
sensitivity, attack, bloom and feel of the great old pickups through a process repeatable enough to
deliver that character consistently—without surrendering it to wax potting.
RUOKANGAS ARTISAN HUMBUCKER PICKUPS
Listening Beyond First Impressions
By Scott Ulrichs
You don’t really know a pickup after playing it for an afternoon. We lived with two sets of Ruokangas
Väinö and Aino humbuckers in our Gil Yaron Les Paul and PRS Hollowbody II, giving us time to hear
how they responded in two very different guitars. What emerged went beyond first impressions.
Note separation, clarity, bloom, attack and the relationship between pickup and instrument all came
into play—along with a revealing test at serious volume. These are pickups worth getting to know.
HOME STUDIO RECORDING ADVENTURES
For The ToneQuest Brethren
By Riverhorse
What happens when an unapologetically analog guitar player decides it’s time to record again?
Riverhorse finds out. The vintage amps, Strats and sounds aren’t going anywhere. The challenge is
learning how to capture them in a modern home studio. An OX Box leads to JBL monitors, a UA Volt
276 interface and LUNA—and a learning curve he makes no attempt to disguise. Somewhere
between the manuals, videos and late nights, the technology gets out of the way and the red light
finally comes on. You spent years finding your sound. Now record it.