Eventide has unveiled the newest addition to its acclaimed H9 stompbox line: the H9 Core.

The H9 Core, (which is available now), delivers the sounds of Eventide’s H910 and H949 harmonizers, (the prized studio processors used on stage by Frank Zappa, Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen). All of Eventide’s stompbox effects, including new H9 exclusives, UltraTap Delay and Resonator, can be added to H9 Core.

H9 Core features a simple, one-knob user interface and is fully featured as a standalone stompbox.

Using H9 Core with the H9 Control app for Windows, OSX (via USB) or iOS (wirelessly via Bluetooth) makes creating and managing presets, live control and in-app algorithm purchases easy. H9 owners can sync up to five H9s to a single Eventide.com account so their H9 algorithms can be used by five H9s simultaneously.


“The un-bundled H9 Core is the perfect add-on for an H9 owner,” said Ray Maxwell, Eventide’s VP of sales and marketing. “Alternatively, H9 Core is a great place to start for users who want to customize their H9 with only the algorithms they want at a lower price of entry.”

All of Eventide’s stompbox algorithms and their associated presets are available for audition and in-app purchase through the H9 Control app. Drag and drop presets into custom preset lists for your upcoming shows.

H9 and H9 Core feature True Analog Bypass, MIDI and a built-in tuner. For more information about H9 and H9 Core, visit eventide.com.

Check out this video created and posted by the folks over at Spin.

In the clip, Yngwie Malmsteen teaches Spin senior editor — and self-declared guitar novice — David Marchese a few things you need to know to shred like a guitar god.

Malmsteen goes from "bending in tune" to providing pointers on style and showmanship. Pretty funny when Marchese says "Good job!" at the end of the video.

Anyway, enjoy!

The Mad Professor Royal Blue Overdrive is a medium gain pedal with tube amp-like crunchy ‘strike hard for distortion’ (as Mad Professor call it) tones available. Just one quick note, the delay in this demo is coming from an Empress Superdelay in the effects loop of a Ceriatone Chupacabra 50 amp.

The overdrive is really smooth but also touch sensitive so you could use the volume control to switch between a clean and overdriven tone very easily (with an amp set clean). If you have a volume pedal that has the ability to switch between a minimum and maximum volume setting (like the Ernie Ball MVP) you can easily replicate a 2 channel amp just by controlling the volume output from your guitar.

In the case of this demo, there's a blower switch on a Cilia CGA7  so as to set the volume to very low on the guitar to get a clean tone and then flick the switch to instantly bypass the volume circuit for the overdrive tone. In addition players can also set the pickup selector to the neck and roll off the volume for a super clean tone and then the blower switch will go back to the bridge humbucker with the volume at 10 (actually it is completely bypassed).




Not many overdrive pedals allow this kind of amp-like control and it also means you can chain the pedal with another boost or overdrive pedal to create various layers of gain.

This pedal has slightly more gain than the Sweet Honey Overdrive and has a smoother character, by rolling off the treble you can get a nice creamy overdrive tone great for legato lines. Roll off the bass and increase the treble to cut through the mix with a more bitey Marshall style crunch. Overall it's a great overdrive pedal that covers a lot of ground.

Thanks to the fine folks at GuitarNoize.com for this great review /demo.

For more information head over to the Mad Professor website.

Metallica's James Hetfield, sits down at Guitar Center San Francisco for an amazing intimate interview...

In a small Guitar Center jam-room in the heart of San Francisco, James shared stories about his road as a youngster to becoming a musician, getting his first guitar, quitting the high-school football team over his long "Heavy-Metal" hair, rising to fame, and even jamming through the interview!


All the while, customers continued to shop in the store, having no idea it was the legendary James Hetfield of Metallica playing in the practice jam room!


Hetfield's new ESP Iron Cross is now available.



Check out Metallica's Through The Never now available on Bluray, DVD and Digital download.

Kirk Hammett shared some pretty cool stuff during an interview in the Guitar Center San Francisco store.

He discusses his playing history, his influences, and he even shares a timeless riff he wrote when he was 16 that is still just as evil and epic to this day.

Kirk also runs down his unique ESP custom shop signature model, "White Zombie," guitar.

Guitar center has announced that they will be carrying a limited number of the ESP Kirk Hammett White Zombie guitars that he is playing throughout the video interview...

MTV’s Guy Code blog ran an article this week entitled “Why Are There So Many Cute Girls At Metal & Hardcore Concerts Now?”

The article begins by noting the increase in women, (excuse me — “cute girls”), at recent metal shows, (recent NYC gigs by Pig Destroyer and Dying Fetus are cited as examples), which, readers seemed to think, was a fair observation.

Metal journalists always love to make jokes about how the metal nerds have never even seen a woman before as much as the next self-deprecating Deicide fan, but there definitely have been more women at metal shows over the past ten years or so (not saying there weren’t women at metal shows before then, by the way — just that there’s been more women at shows).



So while most of the blog comments seemed to agree with heavy metal journalist Leyla Ford that it’s time to stop thinking of women in metal as women in metal, if the only point of the MTV article was “Hey, metal is not exclusively dominated by men anymore!”, and while, that in and of itself might not be especially offensive.... the weird part was a step-by-step set of, "Instructions," for how to 'pick-up' metal chicks at the shows!

Read More...

Metallica frontman James Hetfield wasn't too optimistic while discussing the current state of metal music, confirming that the band's Orion festival won't be held again, even dubbing it a financial disaster...

Telling KTBZ-FM how North America is bleak at best compared to the situation in Europe and South America... James noted: "I don't know what's happening in the West. The United States has gotta step up and want their music. I'm not sure what's going on in the States as far as rock and metal goes and concert-wise, but there's not really any willingness to get a big show out there and make it worthwhile to actually get out there and play. You see other bands gathering up six different bands just to go out and play."

"It's pretty tough in North America," Hetfield added (via Blabbermouth). "Right now, it seems like metal is struggling a little bit here. Obviously, the Orion [Music + More] festival that we had tried to do the last couple of years has really not been going well."


The frontman then opened up about the festival's actual state, adding, "Gosh, it's been a disaster financially, and it's not able to happen again because of that. So it's a bummer. So, you know, we're doing what we can to keep being alive here. And I hope to get out and play in the States. It seems like forever since we've been out and about."

During a separate 97.1 the Eagle Rocks radio chat, James discussed the immense amount of riffs reportedly accumulated for the new effort. As the singer/guitarist described it, not all of them are exactly top-notch. "Well, that is a gift," he explained, just to jokingly add: "Finding a good idea in it all is also a gift. When you walk into a studio and you've got 800 riff ideas, they're not all good, believe me. [laughs]"

In related news, guitarist Kirk Hammett touched on a slightly different matter - a guest appearance on the new Exodus album. Chatting with 107.7 the Bone alongside band leader Gary Holt, Kirk seemed quite interested in laying down a guest solo or two. "What a great idea!" he enthusiastically said, adding he's "totally down" for doing it.