The legendary guitarist’s pursuit of his perfect tone has led him to collaborate with Ibanez, Peavey and many more over the years and his most recent liaison – with Vox to create a signature line of pedals – has seen him as involved in the design stage as ever.

With three of the new pedals now under its belt, Vox was able to bag Satriani for a special Q&A session at Frankfurt Musikmesse 09 – and MusicRadar was invited to record proceedings.

In this first part of the Q&A, Satriani takes questions from the crowd on his Vox Satchurator distortion, the first of his Vox pedals, and talks us through his reasons for wanting a custom distortion, why distortion is important to guitarists and why the Satchurator is special.

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While much of Frankfurt Musikmesse 2009 was caught on video, sometimes it’s a single picture that can paint a thousand words. So here’s an entire book’s worth: a gallery of gear, rock stars and, er… pizza.

Musikmesse in pictures

Coffee fail: what happened to the humble kettle, bag of unidentified brown granules and fully-meltable plastic stirrers you used to find in hotel rooms?

A Stoneboard leopard-skin keytar? 30 minutes into the show? Only in Frankfurt…

Akai Miniak synth: photographed, filmed, wanted…

Fender Custom Shop… mmmm, Fender Custom Shop

The Reactable. It’s going into production, don’t you know?

When Peavey met Jaws…

Alesis DM6 electronic drum kit…

…and the e-Practice Pad

The Marshall limo arrives – this is how Dave Mustaine rolls in Frankfurt…

And believe it or not, that is Dave Mustaine demoing his new signature Marshalls… it was loud. And dark

Intrepid reporter Chris Wickett says “sleeping is cheating.” Is that TWO empty glasses?

Klanginitiative cube kit: they’ll be all the rage next year (maybe)

A row of sheer Raw Power courtesy of the Gibson stand

While checking out Open Labs’ DBeat, we couldn’t walk past this Opensynth without snapping

Ludwig Liverpool 4 drums: a faithful recreation of Ringo’s 60s kit

A wall of Orange

More Orange. But then again, not orange

This pizza was called The Fire. It was very hot. There was no tomato in it. Just cheese and Jalapenos. And black olives

Green pedal, red pedal, orange trainers. It can only be…

…Joe Satriani at the Vox Q and A. Notice MR’s Chris Vinnicombe stage left

Yamaha NX: nylon strings are all the rage, you see

Here’s a picture of a Roland Ax-Synth. Just because…

A Vox Phantom: a proud member of MusicRadar’s Guitar Porn Series

Spooky fireball guitar thing

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Delays used to be one sound, analogue or digital and then one fixed delay time. The TimeBender does just what the name implies – bends time. Featuring 10 delay types including Analog, Digital, Moving Head Tape, Fixed Head Tape, Dynamic (ducking delays), Reverse and Time Warp, the TimeBender goes where no delay has gone before.

Further advancements include full-time tone control, modulation, multiplier, tap tempo and repeat ping-pong patterns on all delay types. For the first time you can get a Fixed Head Tape delay sound with tone rolled off, modulation and set to repeat in triplets.

The TimeBender goes beyond normal delays to create custom repeat rhythms or patterns on the fly by simply strumming the guitar. Up to 6 taps can be set to quickly create delays that would normally take a rack of effects and hours of programming. For instance; a 6 tap moving head tape delay can be created where the delay taps are not equally spaced but fall on beats set by the guitarist.

Topping off the TimeBender is the ability to add intelligent harmonies to the delays. Choose from over 100 different voicing’s including octaves, 5ths, 3rds, etc. When the repeats are turned up layers of singing angelic tones are created to form never heard effects.

The TimeBender offers more than a full rack of delay effects topped with intelligent harmony and the ability to quickly set the repeat rhythms – never has a delay so advanced been this easy to use and packed in a pedal. The TimeBender is the delay that all other will be judged by.

The DigiTech TimeBender is available from all good guitar retailers at an RRP of £299 inc VAT.

For more information please call Sound Technology on 01462 480000 or visit www.soundtech.co.uk.

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Our Frankfurt-based reporters are back in Blighty, and they’ve brought back the highlights from the final day of Musikmesse 2009.

If you’re a (very) late-comer to the party, never fear: here are day one’s, day two’s and day three’s highlights to get you back you on track.

Show floor highlights: day four

Orange Crush Series
Brand new updates on the popular entry level Crush Series of guitar and bass combos. Full spec TBC but much more power is expected

Ludwig Liverpool 4 Ringo Starr Kit
A loving recreation of Ringo’s 60s kit, a shaky camera and a whole lot of drool…

Klanginitiative’s Cube Kit
Upgraded from a day one basement entry to a full video demonstration. File this under cool/mental…

Peavey PXD Series
Caught a glimpse of these back in NAMM 2008, so it’s about time we got them down on film. Tom from Peavey provides the skinny…

From the basement…

Chicks On Picks

Spooky fireball guitar thing

When is an Orange not an Orange?

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Welcome to day three of Frankfurt Musikmesse 2009! After a sleepless night of video editing and over-peppered pizza (don’t ask) we’ve managed another glorious lap of the show floor.

While backing-up some of yesterday’s top picks with hands-on video demos (hello, Akai Miniak), we’ve found fresh highlights in the shape of Yamaha’s NX series nylon acoustics and Gibson’s Raw Power Series.

Be sure to check back on Monday when we’ll be welcoming home our Frankfurt heroes… by making them post even more videos, hidden treasures and trade show tales. Until then…

Show floor highlights: day three

Exclusive: Joe Satriani talks Vox pedals
Satch’s signature pedals have come a long way in six months – get the skinny from the man himself here

Gibson Raw Power Series
Brand-new stripped-down, all-maple electrics make their worldwide debut. The series includes SGs and Les Pauls…

Carmine Appice signature ddrum kit
Huge kick, regular toms: “this is the same kit I had in 1967,” says Carmine Appice. We’ll let the drumming legend himself explain the rest…

Yamaha NX guitars
Nylon string, pre-aged wood electro-acoustic guitars break conventions, but don’t disappoint. Just ask Rodrigo y Gabriela…

Doepfer Dark Energy
A standalone analogue synthesizer with USB and Midi interface, Sounds cool, looks cooler…

Vox ToneLab ST
The most compact TomeLab yet, this Valvetronix, tube-powered do-it-all unit offers 33 different amp models and an array of cabinets and effects

Nord C2 Combo Organ
The C1 had evolved! Baroque pipe organ, rock solid key action and a bunch of new accessories make the C2 well worthy of its dedicated video demo

Yamaha Absolute Series drum kit update
New finishes, new “next generation” YESS tom mounts and a promise of greater sound projection. We are intrigued…

From the basement…

Hand-shaped cymbals

The Wholigans

Vintage guitar porn

Red pedal, green pedal, orange trainer…

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Despite new Fender products being somewhat thin on the ground at the show this year, the Custom Shop collection on display is as drool-worthy as ever. Earlier today, while I stood gazing in awe and wonder like the world’s poorest kid in an extremely voluminous confectionary emporium, Mike G got snappier than several crocodiles enjoying a rudimentary card game.

Here are the results… click to zoom.

Check out www.fender.com for more.

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The Q&A lasted 45mins and we’ll be bringing you the highlights of this later (including just why distortion is red and delay is green…). However we thought we’d share our exclusive chat with Joe which happened straight after the Q&A. We chatted what Vox products are in the pipeline next, how Satch used the new Vox pedals on the new Chickenfoot album plus how he had to adapt his style when playing alongside fellow Chickenfooter and lead singer, Sammy Hagar. Enjoy the video – we did!

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Orange always seem to have one of the coolest and certainly most distinctive stands at any show, and Frankfurt Musikmesse 2009 is no exception. Nestled amongst the iconic valve stacks, we noticed brand new updates on the popular entry level Crush series of guitar and bass combos.

Full specifications were still TBC at the time of writing, but for now, here’s some up close and personal shots of some of the new Crush combos’ control panels (click to expand):

Crush 35LDX

Crush 20LDX

 Here are the bass amps:

The Crush series bass amps are more powerful than ever

Crush 50BXT

Crush 100BXT

For more information, visit www.orangeamps.com.

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First, the NTX’s narrower nut and smaller fingerboard radius is perfect for us electric types (no wonder Rodrigo y Gabriela like ‘em so much), but secondly because it’s coming in a rather sexy black edition that makes you look ace as this baby sounds. Check out our video below and we think you’ll be impressed as we were.

The NX range will begin shipping from June 2009

NTX700 – £575rrp
NTX/NCX900 – £785rrp
NTX/NCX1200 – £1,149rrp
NCX2000 – £3,135rrp

For more information about the NX range and other Yamaha guitars, head to the Yamaha Guitars website. To read an exclusive review of the NX series, head to next month’s Guitarist.

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This year marks the 30th year since the Trace Elliot amplifier brand was first launched in Essex, UK. To commemorate this great occasion, a special promotional video has been commissioned.

It was 1979 when the first Trace Elliot amplifiers became available and these quickly revolutionised the way the industry perceived bass amplification by setting new standards for bass players. Coincidentally it is also 20 years since this was repeated for acoustic players with the launch of Trace Acoustic in 1989.

With both ranges again generating much interest, these milestones are being celebrated with the imminent release of an entertaining and insightful video. This refers to the continuity of the origin of the brand’s design and also reveals some of the reasons that make these brands different.

The five and a half minute video was officially released on the first day of the Frankfurt Musikmesse 2009 (April 1), and will be freely available in several formats as well as on YouTube.com and mobile phones via Bluetooth.

As well as information on all current Trace Elliot and Trace Acoustic products, the video will also be available to view from the Trace Elliot website.

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