PA Speakers/Monitors Review Category

We've expanded our user review section into Live Sound, and the first category to go live is PA Speakers and Monitors! Now you can share with your fellow musicians what you love/hate about those new speakers you bought, and as more reviews come in, use it to help you decide which products you want to invest in.

Winter NAMM 2007 Coverage Begins

Harmony Central's Winter NAMM '07 coverage is now live! I'll be adding press releases as they come in, so check back frequently.

NAMM Anticipation

You can sense the buzz in the forums that the big daddy of industry trade shows--Winter NAMM--is fast approaching. The HC video team is getting their shooting schedule together, and the press releases are already rolling in. In the next week or so the Winter NAMM 2007 page will go live, and you'll be able to get a sneak peek at what's in store. Not from everyone, of course...some big names like to keep their new goods under wraps until the show starts, but others provide preview releases that I'll be posting. So stay tuned to the home page for the Winter NAMM link to go up!

Funny Friday Video

OK, this I just had to share:) This might as well be Michael Scott and Dwight from The Office!

Product/Trade Show Archive

Feel like a trip down Music Gear Memory Lane? The New Product/Trade Show Archive is the place to start.

Now the thousands of products Harmony Central has posted since 1995 are easily accessible, as is our coverage of NAMM, AES, and Musikmesse trade shows. It's cool to see how the site and the industry have evolved over the years, so take a look around!

AES Videos

Check out the 121st AES Show Theater page for all the product and performance videos from the 121st AES Convention in San Francisco! Not only will you get up close and personal with the hottest gear from the show, we've also got some great performance clips from Camp Freddy, "The World's Most Overachieving Cover Band" that includes Slash, Joe Satriani, Duff McKagan, Chester Bennington, Matt Sorum, Lars Ulrich, Scott Weiland, Rob Trujillo, and many more amazing players.

News and Reviews Are Down

As you know there was some site maintenance happening last night. Apparently something happened to the news and reviews database, resulting in many areas of the site being down. Don't worry, this isn't a new home page layout or anything like that...we have people working on it as I type this and hopefully we can get things going again soon.

Acoustic Guitar Reviews

In order to make the site more manageable and easier to navigate, we have created a new landing page and review category for acoustic guitars. We hope this makes it easier to find the information you're looking for!

RSS Feeds Updated

As the title would imply, we've updated our RSS Feeds to a new service. If you're currently subscribed, ditch those old feeds for the ones now posted on the RSS page. There's even one for the Guitar Hero vids, so you can be up to date when the interviews start being posted.

More Guitar Hero Vids To Come...

Almost 2,000 views for the Guitar Hero vids on YouTube in just a few days! It's nice to see the word getting out about these guys. We also shot interviews with all 10 performers, and those will be showing up in the coming days. There's an RSS Feed for the Guitar Hero videos here, as well as an iTunes podcast (link to come). The videos from these locations will be of higher quality than what you see on YouTube, so give 'em a look, and leave comments on the Guitar Hero blog.

Anton Tsygankov - Guitar Hero 2006 Finalist

Anton Tsygankov, also Russian, rocks the house at Guitar Hero 2006!

Joe Cefalu - Guitar Hero 2006 Finalist

Here's Joe's soulful rendition of Mariah Carey's "Vision Of Love."

Edward DeGenaro - Guitar Hero 2006 Finalist

Ed mesmerized the crowd with his fretless guitar playing!

Nathan Hahn - Guitar Hero 2006 Finalist

Nathan came up from Texas to rock the crowd at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco!

Sergei Roudzinski - Guitar Hero 2006 Finalist

Direct from Moscow, here's Sergei Roudzinski's eclectic performance from the Guitar Hero 2006 Finals!

Ron LoCurto - Guitar Hero 2006 Finalist

Here's Ron's electrifying performance from Guitar Hero 2006!

Joshua Karickhoff - Guitar Hero 2006 Finalist

Josh is just 15 years old, but he rocks like a seasoned pro. Check him out!

David Powers - Guitar Hero 2006 Second Runner-Up

Here's David's explosive performance!

Patrick Woods - Guitar Hero 2006 First Runner-Up

Patrick's phenomenal performance on the acoustic earned him second place in Guitar Player's Guitar Hero 2006 Finals!

Trey Alexander - Guitar Hero 2006 Champion

Here's Trey's winning performance from Guitar Player's Guitar Hero 2006 Finals!

Trey Alexander:

Guitar Hero Videos Are Imminent...

Stay tuned to the Theater--the Guitar Hero videos are being encoded, and they look and sound great! Performances will be posted first and followed shortly by the interview segments!

Home page changes

You may have noticed the home page of HC just got a lot shorter (man that sucker was long). What we did is move the "New @" and "Most Popular" product links from various retailers to their own page, which can be found at www.harmony-central.com/shopping. This new page will have some aesthetic changes made to it in the near future, plus we also plan to add content from the retailers--such as their product reviews, etc.--to this area. When your G.A.S. is becoming uncontrollable, this is the place to go!

Guitar Hero 2006 Wrap-Up

Wow, what a weekend! First of all, congratulations to all the finalists, and to Trey Alexander, Guitar Player's Guitar Hero for 2006! Trey's performance was phenomenal, and he is one of the most genuine, down-to-earth guys I've had the pleasure of meeting.

I didn't envy the judges at all, because all of the performances were stellar in their own right. First runner-up went to Patrick Woods, the only contestant to play on an acoustic. And I have to say, I've never seen anyone play an acoustic guitar the way he did--it was certainly a sight to see. Third place went to "Superman" David Powers (you'll get it when you see the videos;), who grabbed the crowd from the moment he stepped onstage until the final notes of his song rang out. Again though, all 10 of these guys were simply amazing, and I don't know how the judges were able to make their choices.

I'd like to say thanks to everyone at Guitar Player for being such gracious hosts, as well as the guys from Hughes & Kettner and everyone else I met over the weekend. I can't wait to get some videos up for the HC community so you can catch a glimpse of this great event! The house band alone was worth the drive, and combined with hearing 10 of the world's finest players do their thing, it's a night I'll never forget.

I highly suggest you check out the music of each of these guys:
Trey Alexander
Patrick Woods
David Powers
Ron LoCurto
Joe Cefalu
Ed Degenaro
Joshua Karickhoff
Nathan Hahn
Sergei Roudzinski
Anton Tsygankov

Guitar Hero 2006

Just checkin' in from San Fran! Got to spend some time this evening with some folks from Guitar Player, Hughes & Kettner, as well as the 10 Guitar Hero finalists. Truly a great group of guys--all getting along great without an ego in sight. I wish them all the best of luck tomorrow, and hope we can get some great footage and interviews from the event!

Upcoming Event/Trade Show Coverage

I'm excited to be heading down to San Francisco this weekend to cover Guitar Player Magazine's Guitar Hero finals! The plan is to get some quick interviews with the contestants and judges, and a whole lot of performance footage from the ten finalists. I'll post here when stuff starts to get posted.

Craig Anderton will be heading down to San Francisco as well in a couple of weeks for the 121st AES Convention. I'll be here manning the news desk, posting press releases like mad I'm sure:) Craig will be capturing the hottest stuff at the show on video too so you can have as close to a hands-on experience as you can have without actually being there!

Podcast Directory

Back to the grind this morning after a nice long weekend. Hope you all had a safe and enjoyable Labor Day holiday!

I see press releases from time to time announcing a new podcast, or a new episode of a podcast, and I thought it would be a good idea to create a "Podcast Directory" page on HC. I have a few links so far from previous press releases, but to really get this page happening I'd like to have a lot more. So, if you've got a podcast that you think would be relevant, go ahead and submit it to news@harmony-central.com. Please include a short blurb that lets me know what subjects your podcast covers, how often it's updated, and anything else you think is relevant. I'd like to keep these in the realm of gear/recording as much as possible. I look forward to getting this up and running, so spread the word!

Dinosaur Jr.'s Gear Stolen In NYC

Bummer. This happened to the Derek Trucks Band not too long ago. If anyone knows anything please contact the authorities.

http://jmascis.com/content/view/47/2/

After a blistering set last night in Brooklyn, NY the band awoke this morning to find that their trailer had been broken into and all of the gear has been taken.

J's Amma guitar, the mountain man guitar, Lou's Rickenbacker... EVERYTHING IS GONE. They are still taking inventory to see what else is gone but they were pretty much wiped out.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! Spread the word to everyone you know, every music store, pawn shop, club... anywhere you can think they may show up.

If you have ANY information let us know - management@jmascis.com. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Thank you.

The band is driving to Amherst to see if they can get enough gear together to play the scheduled show @ Toads in New Haven, CT but it may have to be cancelled.

edit: I just added this to digg to help bring awareness - please digg it so we can get the news out there!!!! - Link. Thanks for your help!

listed below is a list of gear that was stolen out of the Dinosaur Jr trailer last night (Tuesday 8.29.06) outside of their hotel in Long Island City, NY. We would appreciate spreading the word and passing this list around in hopes of recovering their gear. Please notify and alert your local guitar shops, pawn shops, music and web stores etc. to keep an eye out for this gear. Feel free to send this list to any and all band, tour and production managers, guitar freaks, touring personnel, venues, musicians and or thieves that you think could help us.

If anyone has any information about this gear, please call Brian Schwartz at the number below or on his cell at 303.956.9671 or Bart Dahl at 212.777.0922 or on his cell at 720.331.1836. Thanks and Best, Brian

Guitars:

• 1959 Fender Jazzmaster SN# 38927

Decal coming off. cracked headstock at top near low E peg. color black with purple/bluish sparkle coming through. adonized pick guard gold metal. tuneomatic bridge gold, tuning pegs gold.

• 1961-3 Fender Jazzmaster SN# 62012

Purple sparkle, black pickup covers. headstock repaired, a whole new piece of wood was glued on for the top part of the headstock under the tuners and up a 1/2” , along the whole top of the headstock. gold tuneomatic bridge, gold tuners

• 1964-5 Fender Jazzmaster SN# L21581

Orange, white pearl pickguard, stickers we're all over it, original tuners.

• Fender Purple Jazzmaster new SN# R074329

Purple sparkle with matching headstock gold adonized guard tuneomatic bridge.

• Rory Gallagher Stratocaster new SN# R25507

has a big gold grover tuning peg on low E

• Rickenbacker 197? Fireglo Bass SN# 4001

Checker-board binding.

• B.C. Rich Warlock Bass SN# 4242413


• Custom pedal board with custom audio electronics RS-10 foot controller, Teese RNC2 wah pedal, boss stage tuner, mute box, and cables

Cymbals:

• [1] Paiste 20" 2002 medium


• [1] Paiste 20" giant beat


• [1] Paiste 20" 2002 crash


• [2] Paiste 19" 2002 crash


• [2] Paiste 15" 2002 sound edge top hi-hats


• [1] 15" 2002 sound edge bottom hi-hats

•One Black backpack with Sony headphones, tools, etc.

Brian L. Schwartz
Bleemusic, Inc.
4780 Sterling Dr.
Boulder, CO. 80301
303.998.0001 Tel
303.998.0015 Fax
www.bleemusic.com

Drummers Rejoice!

We're happy to announce the addition of Modern Drummer product reviews to the Harmony Central Library! Check 'em out!

Video update and New Products page

Hey y'all--
Until we get the Flash player implemented on the home page Video Hot Spot, we thought a happy medium would be to only have sound-free clips in the meantime. So you don't need to worry about your overbearing boss catching you surfing HC when you should be working;) So go ahead and set your home page back to Harmony-Central.com if you changed it!

We've also updated the New Products page. Basically this page is all the press releases from the current month that involve new products or product updates (event-type releases are filtered out). We should have some navigation up soon that will allow you to go back through previous months, and eventually we'll have the entire 10+ years worth of press releases we have in an easy-to-navigate archive.

Ara

Summer NAMM videos continue to roll out...

Our video team is still adding to our long list of videos shot at Summer NAMM. Be sure to check the Summer NAMM Video page for the latest and greatest!

The Harmony Central Library

We've been consolidating a lot of articles, reviews, and trade show reports that have been kind of floating around the site into one place. With a wealth of information from HC's resident gear expert Craig Anderton, The Library is a great resource for any musician. Check it out and visit often as we'll be adding new content on a regular basis! Have a great weekend!

The Video Issue

As most of you have probably seen by now, we recently launched the Video Hot Spot on the home page. Most of the feedback we've received has been positive, but we also hear the concerns of other folks as far as the whole auto-start thing. The solution we are working on is switching over to a Flash-based player, which will give us more control over how these videos start and how users interact with the media. The last thing we want to do is chase people away from the home page, so sit tight and know this is a top priority for us.

In the meantime, check out the new Blood Drive pedal from Coffin Case. Do these guys know how to market themselves or what?

Welcome to the Harmony Central Blog!

A quick introduction...my name's Ara Ajizian, I serve as the content/news editor for Harmony Central. Thought this would be a good place to let you all in on what's hot in the day's news, new features/ideas for the site, and anything else that may cross my mind.

A little about me: I've played bass for 13 years now...nothing too fancy about my playing but I hold down a solid groove. Been getting into six-string for the past few years though as I feel it's a better instrument for writing, and I'm enjoying the challenge of becoming a guitar player. My gear includes a 40th Anniversary Strat, Marshall TSL602 combo, Epiphone Les Paul Gold Top, '94 American Standard Fender Jazz bass, and an old Hartke 15" combo that needs replacing. I've got a little garage band I put together recently...nothing serious right now as I have small children, but I look forward to getting out in the local scene as time permits. In the meantime I'm also working on a long-distance recording project with my good friend and former bandmate in Las Vegas. We're both learning about computer recording as we go along, but we're quick learners. And of course the HC community can be a big help in that regard!

Anyway, that's enough about me. I look forward to hearing feedback from the community and just getting to know some of you better.

Ara