Vibramate SR1

130 Guitarist July 2011
QUICKTEST
MISCELLANEOUS
CONTACT: A Strings PHONE: [phone] WEB: www.petersontuners.com
CONTACT: Bare Knuckle PHONE: [phone] WEB: www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk
Two matched yet very different humbuckers
and surprisingly sweet for
clean tones: a great sound.
Verdict
If you’re a fan of hard rock and
metal, give these a try. Yes they
look great but more impressive
is that they’re not trying to be
all things to all men. They aim
directly at those genres and hit
the bullseye. Superb. [SB]
Bare Knuckle
Aftermath
£240
The latest humbucker to
emerge from the increasingly
popular and well respected
British pickup maker is the
Aftermath. This set sits
towards the upper end of the
high-output contemporary
scale and, although available as
single units (at £125 each), both
bridge and neck options are
significantly tonally different,
and have been conceived to give
rock and metal players the best
tones in both positions.
The guts of the bridge unit
comprises a trio of oversize
ceramic magnets, while the
neck pickup uses Alnico V.
The eye-catching Tyger finish
– a new custom option in the
BK range – is achieved using a
grinder, belt-sander and the
application of various acids.
“We hit upon it quite by
accident and it looks great,”
Bare Knuckle’s Tim Mills tell
us. Best of all, this option is
available at no extra charge.
Sounds
There’s aggressive rasp aplenty
from the bridge pickup, a bright,
visceral tone yet smoother than
an EMG-89, for example. This
is a passive pickup of course, but
it will satisfy rock and metal
tone hounds searching for
something fuller and warmer.
The neck humbucker is hotter
than a PAF, but still round and
greasy, while the mid position is
a likeable mix; good for riffing
The Bottom Line
We like: Excellent and varied
tones; impressive range of
finish options
We dislike: Nothing. Not
even the price
GUITARIST RATING
Peterson iStrobosoft HD
£11.99
Strobe tuning on your iPad
For many professionals, strobe
tuners have been the way to go
for years, and Peterson is the
company synonymous with
them. After putting its strobe
technology into stompboxes it’s
now available in the form of the
iStrobosoft (£5.99) for Apple’s
iPhone, iPod Touch and as the
iStrobosoft HD (£11.99), a new
native iPad version, which we
have here for review.
In Use
You can plug your guitar into
the iPad using your usual input
device, or use Peterson’s own
adaptor cable (£14) or mini
capsule mic (£12), which are
available separately. For
acoustic guitars the iPad’s
built-in mic works just fine.
A chromatic tuner with all
features on the main screen and
no hidden menus, the
iStrobosoft has glowing flat/
sharp indicators and displays
the note and octave with a cents
display showing how far out it
is. The main strobe display,
with its four bars of moving
bands, looks great on the iPad
and can be easily seen from
across a room. With
accuracy to 1/10 of a cent,
Peterson says that
iStrobosoft offers the
highest degree of
precision available
in a tuner app and
that makes it
great for not only
tuning but also for
making intonation
adjustments if you set up your
own instruments.
Verdict
For the asking price this has to
be considered a genuine
bargain and as long as you have
your Apple device and a
connector with you, you’ll
never be without a tuner. [TC]
The Bottom Line
We like: Strobe tuning for
little outlay (if you already
have an iPad!); highly visible
display; precision tuning
We dislike: No sweetened or
Buzz Feiten tunings
GUITARIST RATING
GIT343.rev_quick 130 5/19/11 5:06:20 PM