What is it?

The Hazee Delay, the first in the Pollinator series, is a bit of a departure for Beetronics in that it’s the company’s first totally digital pedal.

In true Beetronics style, though, this is not just a standard digital delay pedal but one that’s designed to deliver textural delays and ambient sounds.

This is a pedal solely for modulated delays, not simply delays where there’s a bit of wobble on the repeats – we’re talking delays where the modulation is a totally integrated component of the sound as the modulation comes first in the signal chain and is then delayed.

There are eight modes of modulation available – four tremolo and four filter – each mode featuring a different type of repeat, giving you a choice of forward repeats, octave up repeats, reverse repeats and octave up reverse repeats.

There are just four knobs to adjust the effect: the delay pedal staples are Time, Mix and Feedback, and the Mod knob controls the modulation rate.

Specs

• Price: $249 | £229
• Type: Digital delay pedal
• Origin: USA
• Features: Buffered bypass
• Controls: Time, Feedback, Mix, Modulation, Mode selector, Bypass footswitch
• Connections: Standard input, standard output
• Power: 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 80 mA
• Contact: Beetronics FX

Build quality, usability and sounds

The Hazee Delay controls are very interactive – small changes can have a big effect on the sonic outcome – so experimentation followed by considered adjustment is the key to getting the pedal to work for you.

It can be an inspirational and creative tool in that certain modes may encourage you to adapt your playing in reaction to what you’re hearing, rather than adjusting the controls to fit your playing.

There’s quirky stuff here, for sure, but the modes that are most conventional are those that offer the non-pitch-shifted forward repeats.

For example, the filter will give you auto-wah effects and even something that sounds like a rotary speaker at fast Mod rates, while the tremolo offers a nicely rounded pulse; keep the delay time at minimum if you want something closer to a straight effect.

With the pitch-shifted and reverse repeats, the other modes offer a more ‘out there’ take on things and are capable of pulsing and shimmering sonic layers with rhythmic movement as the repeats and modulation interact.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★

Guitar World verdict: This pedal encourages you to twist the knobs until you find a favoured sweet spot and offers plenty to explore in the realm of strangely voiced repeats and finely textured ambient soundscapes to sit with your core sound. Not your average digital delay by any means, the Hazee Delay is a vibe machine that could help get those creative juices flowing.

Hands-on videos

Beetronics

Kris Barosci

The Studio Rats

• “Lo-Fi and Pitch modes take you well beyond the usual analog delay paradigm”: Beetronics Bee Bee Dee review
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery, but from a guitar perspective that has never sat right with The Edge. In fact, he’s never been that impressed by those who look to copy his sound and style.

In a 1996 interview with Guitar World, the U2 icon reflected on the guitar scene at the time, and discussed the fact many were settling with imitating a style as opposed to developing their own.

“It is so hard to really pull something out of yourself,” he conceded. “If you think about guitar players down through the years who have that fire, who have that ability to play and really, really connect with you, there aren’t that many.

“The odds are really stacked against you doing it, so most people settle for the imitation – that’s reliable at least, and kind of impressive, if not life-changing.”

He turns to Jimi Hendrix for an example. Trailblazers will always have their imitators, but he questions what value that actually brings.

“Jimi Hendrix’s work was life-changing, astonishing,” The Edge observed. “But all the people down through the years who’ve played his style have been, at best, impressive. Is it craft and not art?

“I tend to cringe a bit when I hear people who’ve obviously taken my style. I think it’s a joke that’s often played on me in that it’s the simplest of my ideas that ends up taking off – it’s my one-note solos that work! And the problem is you cannot argue with something if it really works.”

Naturally, many players will always wear their influences, perhaps a little too proudly, on their sleeves. Wolfgang Van Halen, for instance, once suggested his dad ruined ‘80s guitar because of the legion of copyists his magic conjured.

The Edge was getting tired of imitation, which is perhaps why, in 1997, U2 made a stylistic U-turn and embraced electronica on Pop, peeling away from the blues rock pool.

In the same GW interview, The Edge spoke out against the stupid mentality of the “white blues rock thing”, and shrugged off players who commit to 15-minute guitar solos.

But musical brilliance doesn't always mean virtuosic prowess. As he found out while tracking one of the band’s biggest records, sometimes the simplest ideas work for a reason.

“I remember on Achtung Baby [1991], I wanted to “fix” the solo in The Fly, and I just wasn’t allowed. ‘No! You cannot touch that! You cannot argue!’” he reports. “As much as my pride would have loved me to go back and do something more elaborate, I knew that this thing did work.”

It proved a valuable lesson for the guitarist. Blazing virtuosity and fanciful fretboard dances aren’t always the answer, even if most players have that urge to do so. Sometimes, it’s better to leave an itch unscratched.

This feature was originally published in the January 1995 issue of Guitar World.

Punk lore has it that British punk began on the 4th of July, 1976, when the Ramones played the Roundhouse in London. They shared the bill with the Flamin’ Groovies; the Stranglers were the opening act.

The following night Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy played another London rock club, Dingwalls. It’s been said, only half in jest, that everyone who went on to be in a major London punk band was at one of those two shows. Steve Jones certainly has fond memories of the shows: “The Ramones were rocking. It was great!”

“We met all these kids there afterwards,” Johnny Ramone recalls, “and they said, ‘Oh, we’re starting our band this week. We just formed, but we haven’t rehearsed yet. We were waiting to see you guys.’ And it was the Damned and the Clash.

“We thought it was cool that all these kids were forming bands. I think one of the Damned said, ‘You want to go back to the Sex Pistols’ loft? They’ll play for you.’ We said, ‘Oh no, we can’t do that. We don’t wanna.’ We thought kids would be asking us this everywhere we went. We didn’t know they were gonna be famous or anything. We just thought they all looked cool. They looked like little kids to us.”

There was also a dark side to this leather-jacketed children’s crusade. The London bands, recalls Johnny, “all hated each other. Like, the Damned hated the Sex Pistols, and they all hated the Clash. They all hated each other, like little tiny gangs.”

It was the second night, at Dingwalls, says Johnny Ramone, that he first encountered Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten. “He comes up to me and says, ‘You know, I think Patti Smith sucks.’ I go, ‘I don't give a shit. I don’t like her either.’ And he goes, ‘Oh you don’t?’

“He was trying at first to be, you know, like, nasty. And when he heard what I had to say, he was all friendly. I guess he wanted to get a reaction out of me with that stuff about Patti Smith or something. Like I cared.”

Actually, British punk rock had begun to develop long before the Ramones arrived in 1976. In the early ‘70s, a growing pub rock scene had resulted in a “back to basics” vibe in British music.

In 1974 Malcolm McLaren had taken on the management of the Faces copy band that the kleptomaniac Steve Jones had formed with his friend, drummer Paul Cook. Together with Vivienne Westwood, McLaren ran the Sex shop on London's fashionable King's Road, selling bondage gear and underground designer wear.

McLaren had also had a brief stint managing the New York Dolls at the end of their career. He returned to London with a white Gibson Les Paul that had belonged to the Dolls’ Syl Sylvain. In what retrospectively seems a heavily symbolic gesture, the instrument was passed on to Steve Jones. Originally the group’s singer, Jones was to become the definitive punk guitar stylist.

By 1975, the name and original lineup of the Sex Pistols had fallen into place. Musically, Cook and Jones didn’t have too much in common with the two new Pistols. Singer Johnny Rotten had wide-ranging tastes – everything from reggae to Captain Beefheart to experimental ‘70s German groups like Can.

Bassist Glen Matlock was an avid pop fan. His love for the Beatles was to prove a constant source of conflict with the others. As his main guitar influences, Jones lists Ron Wood, James Williamson, Johnny Thunders, and Free’s Paul Kossoff.

The pub rock scene had given rise to acts like the Stranglers, Eddie And The Hot Rods and the 101ers – whose singer, Joe Strummer, would eventually go on to lead the Clash. These acts would later become more associated with punk; but Jones maintains that the Sex Pistols’ sound and approach developed independently of any outside groups or punk “agenda.”

“I just thought of the Sex Pistols as a rock band. When we started, we didn't say, ‘Okay, we're gonna call ourselves “punk” and it’s gonna sound like this…’ I just couldn't play very well and John couldn’t sing. And that’s the sound it created – purely by accident, I guess.”

“I’d only been playing for like three or four months before we did our first show. All I could do was just play a barre chord and move it up and down the fretboard. One chord, you know. It wasn’t until about a year later, until we did Never Mind The Bollocks, that I loosened up a bit.”

Judging from the incredibly powerful guitar work on Bollocks, Jones developed very quickly. So quickly that it was widely rumored that guitar veteran Chris Spedding actually played on some or – depending on who’s telling the story – all of the tracks. But if that’s true, then Jones learned to imitate Spedding’s work awfully well later on.

Jones has his own explanation of how his bruising, rhythmically precise chordal style developed so quickly: “It's ‘cause I was doing a lot of speed at the time. I would just practice for hours and hours, literally over and over again. I’d practice to records and all of that – wake up, take me little Black Beauty and just play for 12 hours.”

The interplay between Jones and Cook is another factor in the Sex Pistols’ tremendous power. Together they took the Ramones’ muted, down-picked eighth-note feel and somehow made it sound 10 times larger. “I think it came from masturbating too much,” Jones suggests.

Jones and Cook never really seemed to need a bass player. When the two of them played together – whether in the Sex Pistols or, later on, in the Professionals – they instantly got that sound. And, like the Patti Smith Group, the Sex Pistols were without a bassist at certain critical formative stages in the band’s career. Musical differences with Glen Matlock led to his expulsion just as sessions for Never Mind The Bollocks were getting under way.

“He was into the Beatles too much,” Jones says. “He kept trying to teach me these weird, funny chords and it just didn’t sound good. He kept saying, ‘Play a B7,’ And I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.”

Matlock’s replacement was Rotten’s friend, John Ritchie, who took on the name Sid Vicious. Selected mainly for his look and his compatibility with Lydon, Vicious couldn’t actually play the bass when he joined. As a result, for most of Never Mind The Bollocks, says Jones, “whenever we put tracks down, it was just me and Paul. We didn’t have a bassist playing with us; it was just guitar and drums.

“Except for Anarchy In The U.K. – Glen Matlock was still around for that one, and he played bass with us at the same time we put down guitar and drums. But on the rest of the songs, it was just me and Paul, and I would put the bass on afterwards.

“Sid wasn’t around and he couldn’t play anyway. He was in the hospital or always fucked up. Which was a godsend, really, because he kept wanting to play on the record, and we were trying to think of ways to get him out of the studio. He was just making a fucking mess. And then he got hepatitis and had to go into the hospital for a few weeks. So it was a perfect opportunity for me to play the bass. God bless him.”

Yet another reason why the Bollocks tracks are so tight and have such devastating economy of arrangement is that they were heavily demoed. Each of the songs was recorded numerous times in various studios. As the Pistols and McLaren led the British media on a mad chase, getting booted off major record labels more quickly than they’d been signed, there was ample time to polish the tracks.

But Jones bristles at the suggestion that he overindulged in guitar overdubs on the final version of the album. (Rotten used the phrase “21 tracks of guitar” to describe the venture.) “Lies!” Jones cries. “What the fuck does he know, anyway?

“I mean, there are guitar overdubs on there – like on Anarchy In The U.K., there’s mainly two guitars doing the rhythm with some kind of flange or phase on them. And then there’s one playing chords here and there; not throughout the whole song, but coming in at certain places. There’s one doing a feedback thing near the end, and another doing power chords at the end. I would say there were about six guitars on there. A far cry from 21!”

Most people assume that Jones got his wall of guitar sound by plugging his Les Paul into one or more Marshalls. But he’s keen to set the record straight on that point as well. “All I was using was one Fender Twin Reverb, which I stole off Bob Marley at the Hammersmith Odeon.

“It was an older one with a silver front. I put Gauss speakers in, which took away the real trebly Fender sound and gave it a lot of midrange. It was a nice, warm sound, but it had a lot of distortion on it. I just had it turned up to 10 the whole time.”

Jones complains that latterday guitarists are clueless when it comes to playing punk. “A lot of people just don’t know; they get it completely wrong. They say, ‘Okay, we’re going to do a Sex Pistols song.’ And they play it three times faster than the actual song was.

“But that’s where the power is – when it’s slowed down, when it’s paced. Everyone thinks punk has got to be fast and stupid. They get it all wrong.”

The artists and crazies within McLaren’s social circle created a bold new visual style around the Pistols and punk itself, including a style of album graphics that’s now routinely taught in university art history courses.

McLaren made the Pistols the center of a media circus that was much like a performance art piece in its own right. But the whole thing wouldn’t have meant doodley-squat if the Pistols hadn’t been an absolutely great rock ’n’ roll band.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

You could forgive Blondie for soaking in the incredible run of success they were enjoying in 1980.

They’d certainly paid their dues – spending years slogging it out in New York City’s dingy punk spawn point CBGB’s and throwing spunky guitar-pop darts at a wall to no avail, before they hit it (really) big in 1979 with the irresistible Heart of Glass.

Disco-tinged as that song was, Blondie were and are still a guitar band first and foremost, and six-stringers Chris Stein and (at that time) Frank Infante were heartily enjoying their much-expanded tools-of-the-trade budget.

“By the time I got to CBGB’s. I didn't have any money or resources,” Stein recalled to Guitar World in a 1980 interview. “I used this old Supro Ozark guitar. I played it for a long time but it was only on loan; I had borrowed it from this guy who later had a sex change operation and decided he wanted his guitar back.”

By the end of 1980, though, those trying days were three chart-topping hits behind Blondie, and the sort of kid in a candy (guitar) shop stories we all dream of were now well within reach for them. And, when asked by GW during that peak-era interview where the Burns Ampeg guitar sitting on his living room couch came from, Stein had a story to tell...

“We’re in Indianapolis and we’re staying in this hotel across from a huge, gigantic pawn shop,” Stein recounted to GW. “So Frankie [Infante] or somebody went over there and came back with this really weird story. He said, ‘This guy in the pawn shop says he has a roomful of Les Pauls upstairs, but he won't let me see them.’

“So we went over to the store and there were lots of guitars all over the place, and the guy said, ‘Yes, there is a room upstairs filled with guitars, but you can’t see them because we’re only selling them all at once.

“So we finally came back and we waved hundred dollar bills in his face and said, ‘Let us in and we’ll buy the guitars individually.’ We were on tour with Rockpile. We had two bands and roadies there ready to spring for them. Finally he let us into the room which was filled with guitars.

“It was sort of like a dream, you know,” Stein continued. “We spent the whole day opening up these dusty guitar cases. They had been saving them up for years. A lot of them were brand new. I got six guitars all together. They weren't all Les Pauls. There were some really old Epiphones, in great condition. I got a Gibson Trini Lopez custom model. And I also got that Burns Ampeg.”

Offbeat in design and origin story, the Burns guitar in question appealed to Stein's punk roots.

“I mostly used to use Strats before this, and I still use Strats,” Stein explained. “But I like Burns [company founder James Ormston Burns] and I like what he is about.

“I was immediately attracted to it because it looked like a Telecaster I once carved up with two sets of horns and painted black. I had to sell it because we were out of money. Burns has been fucked over by the system so much that he says this guitar is against the system. He says it's the devil’s guitar.”

Don't get me rambling about Drive-By Truckers. They're one of my favorite bands, and if I've had a beer or two and they come up, you might be in for an excruciating tangent about how, as good as their records are, the triple live album It's Great to Be Alive! is really what best captures the spirit and power of the band, and how... Ah, see, there I go.

I bring this up because the Truckers' two leaders, singer/songwriter/guitarists Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, happen to be my favorite guitar duo of all time. The vivid stories they tell of the South – of rotten politicians, dirtbag romances, gut-wrenching tragedies, and larger-than-life figures from the history books – wouldn't be what they are without Hood and Cooley's glorious call-and-response playing.

Cooley has an answer for all of Hood's barreling rhythm work – swaggering fills, sneering solos, sweet or nasty phrases. And never mind when they were fully a guitar trio, augmented by the great Jason Isbell.

Anyway, I wouldn't call them the best guitar duo of all time, that's not for me to say, but they're my personal favorite.

You, however, can say what the best guitar duo of all time is. In fact, we'd like you to tell us who you feel should wear that crown. And yes, you can name a trio if you're partial to, say, Skynyrd.

Who had the greatest chemistry? Who pushed each other to the greatest heights? Who best knew how to serve the song together? Let us know in the comments below.

• On Apple News? Head here to join the discussion.

There are a myriad of well-known licks in guitar playing, but the Gaslight Anthem’s Tele-wielding band leader says there’s one that all players need to learn above the rest.

In recent years, Fallon has become a prolific solo artist and is set to release his latest solo LP, Not Bad for New Jersey, in September. That’s led him to tell Guitar World what he thinks should be a fundamental piece of knowledge for every guitar player. Regardless of genre.

“Some people underestimate what a great guitar player is; there’s multiple facets to it,” he says, building up to his point.

“There’s the traditional shredder, but then there’s Julian Lage or John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Take Snow (Hey Oh), for example; that lick isn’t hard to play, but it’s super hard to get up to speed for five minutes. I don’t think a lot of people could do it cleanly.”

Fallon is keen to point out that the upper echelons of playing are not reserved for superstar shredders alone. He puts himself firmly in the Frusciante camp here, and puts a clear divide between guitar solos and lone-standing licks.

“Instead of solos, I want to learn licks,” he quips. “It’s about the relationship between the two. That kind of playing is overlooked. We have a lot of Ron Woods and Mick Taylor’s [of the Rolling Stones], but we need more Keith Richards’s and [Bob] Marley’s.”

That leads him, at last, to the lick in question: Your Favorite Mistake by Sheryl Crow.

“It’s crazy. It’s slamming,” he purrs. “That opening lick is so dope. It’s Wendy Melvoin, and it’s perfectly played.

“If you’re a guitar player out there, go listen to her – that is the way you should play guitar. But only half of you. The other half needs to be shredders, because every Izzy needs a Slash.”

Indeed, for every Yngwie Malmsteen-inspired shredder who can dance through arpeggios like it’s a task as easy as putting socks on, there needs to be understated players who keep things simple and grounded. They complement one another.

Fallon isn’t speaking out against shredders; he is simply proving that there are other ways to be great. And he’s certainly doing it in a more understated way than Keith Richards, who said he laughed his ass off when the ‘80s shred scene built up speed, or modern prog hero Steve Wilson, who said shredding wasn’t music but sport.

Guitar World’s full interview with Fallon will be published online in due course.

Samantha Fish has played with a who's who of the blues world, but one especially memorable mentor has been bona fide blues legend, Buddy Guy.

Back in 2013, after a whole night driving across Canada to make it to Guy’s show on time, Fish was coaxed to the stage to jam with the guitar ace himself.

“I see this look on Buddy Guy’s face that’s like, ‘What’s this girl's name? I’ll put her on!’” she recalled in a 2019 interview with Blues Blast Magazine.

“That’s when Buddy called me up. I was so nervous. My recollection of it is terrible, ’cause I was so damn nervous. I do remember him saying, ‘When shit like that happens, I can play all night.’”

Since then, Fish has carried on Guy's mission of “keeping the blues alive,” even trading licks with him on stage as a special guest on multiple occasions.

Those experiences have presented plenty of valuable lessons for Fish, who revealed the most important ones she learned from Guy in a recent Guitar World interview.

“​​Well, Buddy Guy is, as far as guitar players go, one of the best conversationalists on the planet,” she says.

“What he does with his guitar, and when you're doing a back and forth with him, trading licks, he's fully immersed. For me, the best thing you can do for a guitar, as a guitarist, is try to make it sound like a human voice. Emote a voice out of it... and he just does that perfectly too.”

Fish notes that Guy “takes a lot of pauses,” and when he stops playing, the audience “just goes nuts”. It's all about finding the space, playing with emotion, and trying to squeeze every ounce of emotion out of each note.

“It’s amazing,” she raves. “People really do respond to it. He's just one of the best emoters there is.”

Fish will be taking part in Buddy Guy’s 90th birthday concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on May 1st. As part of a stellar lineup, she’ll be honoring his legacy and celebrating all things blues alongside Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Susan Tedeschi & Derek Trucks, Joe Bonamassa, and, of course, Guy himself.

Bassist Tim Bogert first came to prominence via Vanilla Fudge’s eponymous debut in 1967. His virtuosic style helped define that band’s sound during a prolific five-album stint that lasted up until 1969.

“Vanilla Fudge were an amazing band,” said Billy Sheehan. “Tim was all over the place on bass – but everything he did worked. He was a huge influence on me.”

Bogert and Fudge drummer Carmine Appice went on to create Cactus, which churned out four studio albums before dissolving in 1972, when the duo teamed up with guitarist Jeff Beck to form the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice.

But despite boasting the kind of explosive musicianship not heard since Cream, the trio never found the chemistry to match its collective talent.

“The nights that BBA were on, we were frightening,” said Bogert in the March 2011 issue of Bass Player. “But we were only on maybe one of three nights.

“That group was like a dragster when it does a burnout: you get a lot of smoke and a lot of noise, but it doesn't go anywhere. But when it hooks up, my God, it's amazing. That's what that band was like. I lived for those moments when it all hooked up; they're some of the best musical memories I have.”

Lady, the second song on the group’s only studio album, exemplified Bogert’s freewheeling inventiveness on the bass guitar.

“For Lady, I played whatever flopped out of my head at the time, trying to be appropriate, flashy, or both. We did the basics in one take, and then everything else was over-dubbed.

“No-one taught me to play the bass; I just picked it up and did my thing. So it was out of ignorance of the rules that my style developed.”

To record the track, Bogert played a Fender Precision Bass with a Telecaster neck and La Bella flatwound strings through a Sunn Coliseum head and custom cabinet made by Tony Frank of Univox.

“I'd mic the cabinet, which had two 15-inch speakers, and play the bass hard – you had to with the flatwound strings, so it would distort and break up.”

The guitar and drums set the mood in the first three bars with a gritty stop-start riff, joined by the bass in the second half of bar 4, as Bogert enters with an echo of the track’s defining E minor pentatonic figure.

At 00:07, Bogert – who employs a two-finger plucking technique and occasional rakes – settles into a simmering groove that makes full use of the open E string.

Note how he matches the rising intensity of the drums with a high staccato root-note figure at 00:22, which he contrasts with flowing, chromatic 16ths through beats three and four.

Bogert opts for a simpler riff under the first 12 bars of the 16-bar verse, sticking to root notes while the vocals sketch out harmonies atop his basic foundation. Appice and Bogert both sing on the track: Bogert is the higher of the two voices.

As the promise of a guitar solo unfolds at 02:05, Bogert navigates Beck's dense, multi-layered guitar work with fearless creativity, injecting the music with fluid chromatic runs and rich, Jamerson-influenced syncopation.

The low-end excitement continues as Bogert soars up to a high B on the G string under the B major chord at 02:47 before working his way down to the open E, leading to a period of quiet E7-based reflection.

This is followed by two more verses, during which Bogert’s on-the-fly development continues: Highlights include a cool descending D Mixolydian run at 04:08, and some wide-ranging skips at 04:14.

After a semi-false ending, followed by a drum solo, the final section pivots around bass-heavy reiterations of the track's E-minor pentatonic theme.

This is a custom-made Super 400 that Gibson built for Merle Travis. I bought it at Christie’s in New York when his stuff went up for sale, along with several other guitars that belonged to him. It intrigued me because it has some features that were rarely seen in 1968.

By the late 1960s humbuckers were standard pickups for the Super 400 and this body has humbucker cut-outs. But Merle must have specified P-90s, and Gibson placed a very thin plastic cheat ring under the neck P-90 cover to hide the humbucker rout. The bridge pickup has a standard spacer that also conceals the hole.

The really cool pickguard is obviously custom-made, and the Bigsby has the burnished brown colour that you sometimes see on archtops. It’s actually an enamel finish that has chipped off in certain places. It has a palm bar, which is more like a long wire with a hook on the end.

When he played, Merle would operate the Bigsby with his pinky finger as he picked with his thumb and index finger. The bar is fixed so it doesn’t swing out of the way; he had about a hundred guitars with this setup. That was Merle’s thing and I’ve bought several instruments that belonged to him, including a 1952 Fender Esquire. He mounted a big old Bigsby right on the end of that with the same long bar.

The pickup selector is a standard three-way switch, but it’s in a completely different position from a standard Super 400 switch. It’s maybe an inch lower and almost directly in line with the pickup. A second switch, next to the pickguard, was used to put the guitar in standby.

The witch-hat knobs are pretty standard for late-1960s Gibsons, and there’s a big plastic plate where the jack socket is mounted. I’m sure somebody broke the jack at one point and just stuck that sucker on to cover it.

There’s also a homemade wire hook for his strap that is screwed into the tail block. It’s not the first time I’ve seen one and it’s the kind of thing techs did back in those days. I don’t really care because, to me, this is an artist guitar.

The guitar has such a thin neck, I’m sure it was carved that way especially for Merle. It’s a very comfortable instrument to play and it’s made from three pieces of maple with a fair bit of flame.

In contrast, the back of the body, which appears to be carved from a single piece of maple, has no figuring at all. The sides are maple, too, but the really interesting thing about the body is that it has less depth than a regular Super 400.

The scary part is that this represented Gibson’s best in 1968 and, to be honest, the materials are just not that great.

I sometimes look at guitars from this era and wonder where they found such unremarkable wood. I can’t believe they used maple like this for their flagship model guitar, particularly one made for an artist like Merle. But I guess they didn’t really care that much.

The truss rod cover says ‘custom’ and the front of the headstock has a Les Paul Custom-style split diamond inlay that is echoed on the back of the headstock, in regular Super 400 style. The fingerboard is ebony, with typical Super 400 inlays, and it has been refretted with wire that’s a little flatter and wider. The Kluson Sealfast tuners are also original and have never been replaced.

The biggest differences between this custom-made guitar and a regular Super 400 that you could buy off the shelf are the thinner body, the pickups, the pickguard and the switching arrangement. It’s wonderful to be able to feature it here because most people don’t get to see guitars like these and it isn’t one that we have publicised.

There is a little wear and tear because this guitar has been played and loved on, and Merle did keep it to the end of his life. I have a cute little thank you note from Christie’s and the original poster board that they made to display the guitar.

There is also a CD that was in the case when I bought it with session outtakes and noodling on this actual instrument. On it, you can really hear how Merle used the vibrato and he was an absolute master of it.

I had a conversation about this with Brian Setzer a couple of weeks ago and he was commenting on Merle’s command over the instrument. He was such an exceptional guitarist.

• Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York / 001 (516) 221-0563
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

What happens to iconic guitars after a famous (or cult hero) guitarist dies? These days it’s common to see instruments sold at high-profile auctions and vanish into the clutches of anonymous collectors with deep pockets.

However, some guitars live on in museum collections, remain under close guard as family heirlooms, or pass along to famous player friends, where they continue to make history.

We decided to take a closer look at five of the most celebrated Telecasters, (actually, one is an Esquire) played by guitarists we’ve loved and lost, and figure out where those instruments are now. We start with George Harrison’s legendary 1968 Fender Rosewood Telecaster Prototype...

Sales of electric guitars skyrocketed in the mid-’60s, shortly after Beatlemania reached the U.S. However, American guitar companies were initially hesitant to capitalize on the phenomenon by striking deals with the Beatles, even though the Gibson, Gretsch, and Rickenbacker (and later Epiphone and Fender) guitars they played instantly became desirable icons.

Rickenbacker did make an early effort by giving George Harrison a prototype of its 360/12 electric 12-string, which made that model an instant success, but the relationship didn’t go much further than that.

The generation gap between the marketing/artist relations departments of American guitar companies and young rock ’n’ rollers was apparently still too wide, as manufacturers preferred to align with more “respectable” jazz, country, and pop performers at the time.

However, that attitude started to change during the late ’60s. In July 1968, Fender’s director of sales, Don Randall, met with Paul McCartney and John Lennon at Apple Corps, hoping to convince the Beatles to sign an endorsement deal with Fender.

As a symbolic gesture of trust, Randall gave the band Bassman and Twin Reverb amps, a Jazz Bass and Bass VI, a Rhodes electric piano, and a Fender PA system.

Lennon and McCartney greatly appreciated the gesture but remained reluctant, so Randall decided to sweeten the deal by giving lead guitarist George Harrison a very special instrument that was already in the works: a prototype of the Rosewood Telecaster model that Fender was planning to introduce.

Fender designers Philip Kubicki and Roger Rossmeisl built two prototypes each of the planned Rosewood Tele and Strat models, choosing the best example of each for Harrison and Jimi Hendrix, respectively (Hendrix died before Fender could give him the Rosewood Strat).

Coincidentally, Rossmeisl already had an indirect relationship with the Beatles as the designer of the body shapes for the Rickenbacker 325 and 360/12 guitars and 4001 bass played by Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney.

The Fender Rosewood Telecaster did not depart too radically from the standard Telecaster’s design other than its two-piece rosewood neck and body construction, which consisted of two slabs (top and back) of Indian rosewood with carved chambers and a very thin layer of maple in the center.

Beyond that, it retained the two single-coil pickups, a three-way blade selector switch, master volume and tone knobs, and other standard Tele features.

A clear satin finish preserved the rosewood’s natural root beer brown color and grain figuring, and a black pickguard was chosen over the usual white version because it complemented the rosewood’s deep, rich hues better.

Rossmeisl had already developed both the short-lived “smuggler’s” variant of the Telecaster body, where a huge hollow cavity was hidden underneath the pickguard to relieve excess weight, and the Telecaster Thinline model that made its debut in 1968.

Rosewood was even heavier than the dense variety of alder supplied to Fender during this time period, so the chambered designs that Rossmeisl devised became a necessity to produce a guitar that was even remotely comfortable. Regardless, Harrison’s Rosewood Telecaster still tipped the scales at more than 10 lbs.

The Rosewood Telecaster occupied a seat next to Randall when he flew to England in December 1968 to personally deliver the prototype to Harrison. Although he never felt fully comfortable with the guitar’s excess weight, Harrison loved the Tele’s looks and tone, and he immediately put it to use for the Get Back sessions in January 1969.

It remained his studio companion from February through August 1969 as the Beatles worked on Abbey Road. The Rosewood Tele can be heard on several classic Beatles songs, including Don’t Let Me Down, Get Back, I’ve Got a Feeling, the single version of Let It Be, and the solo-tradeoff section of The End.

Most importantly, it is the guitar that Harrison played during the Beatles’ final live performance on January 30, 1969, on the rooftop of the Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row in London, captured for the feature film Let It Be.

Fender probably hoped to capitalize on the film to promote the Rosewood Telecaster, but they released the model prematurely in 1969, well before the film was released in May 1970. Public response to the model was passive, mainly due to its then-expensive $375 price tag.

By the time Let It Be reached theaters, dealers lost interest in stocking the model, even though a few eagle-eyed Beatles fans sought the distinctive Tele they saw Harrison playing. The Rosewood Telecaster appeared on and off in Fender catalog and dealer price lists until 1972, when they finally shipped all of the remaining stock.

Harrison also lost interest in the Rosewood Telecaster well before the film came out. In December 1969, he gave the Tele to Delaney Bramlett while he briefly toured as a member of Delaney & Bonnie. Bramlett played the guitar often on stage during the ’70s and beyond.

He even famously loaned it to Jerry Garcia in 1970 when the Grateful Dead guitarist joined Delaney & Bonnie on stage for a jam when their bands were on tour together. Bramlett made a few modifications to the guitar over time, including routing the body for a humbucking pickup in the neck position and sanding the finish off the back of the neck.

In 2003, Bramlett sold the Rosewood Telecaster through Odyssey Auctions in Hollywood on September 13. The winning bidder was actor Ed Begley Jr., who snagged the instrument for $434,750. Apparently, Begley was meant to act as a distraction from the real buyer, which was Harrison’s widow, Olivia.

The news of the guitar’s return to the Harrison family became public knowledge anyway, and it still remains in their possession, often seen in the hands of George and Olivia’s son Dhani.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

In this column, I’d like to talk about guitar playing as it relates to songwriting. And as every guitarist knows, it’s all about the riff!

All great riffs have that instant allure that immediately captures the listener’s ear and attention. This is true in every style of guitar-based music. Songs like (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Purple Haze and Walk This Way are all great examples of the power of the almighty riff.

I wrote a song called Let It Burn for our 2017 album, Like an Arrow, that is built from a simple, catchy riff based on an open G chord. It all started, as is often the case, during a soundcheck. I was playing a Fender Telecaster or Esquire, and I said to our late drummer, Brit Turner, “Hey man, play the ‘train’ beat!”

I began playing Figure 1, which became the main riff in Let It Burn. With my fret-hand in a 3rd-position G chord shape, I begin by repeating the low G root note in a syncopated, punctuated rhythm, followed by oblique bends and releases on the G and B strings.

In these bends, the note on the G string is bent while the note on the B string remains stationary. These bends are followed by single-note riffs based on the G major pentatonic scale (G, A, B, D, E).

We jammed on that for about five minutes, setting up the “runka-runka” feel of typical Chuck Berry-style rock and roll. I then went home and put the verse section together by singing over the G5 - G6 rhythm part. As shown in Figure 2, I moved from the rock and roll figure to a ringing C/G chord, and then back to the runka-runka part.

This is how I began to put the lyrics and melody together, and a song evolved from the initial riff idea. This prompted me to map out the first half of the verse section, shown in Figure 3.

The alternating G and C/G chords in bars 1-5 led me to the D5 - C5 - D5 in bars 6-9. At that point, I felt that it’d be great to bring in some kind of harmonic twist. When it comes to mixing rock and roll with the unexpected, in my opinion, the three of the greatest bands are Rockpile, NRBQ and, of course, the Beatles.

I thought, “What would they do?,” and came up with the musical curve ball shown in Figure 4. Starting on the relative minor chord, Em, I arpeggiate the chord and then chromatically drop (descend) from the E root note to D#, D and C#, resulting in the progression Em - D#aug - G/D - A9/C#.

The verse section then wraps up with a return to rock and roll in Figure 5.

All of this set up the chorus, and I now had my story; the protagonist in the song’s lyrics had had enough of this town and wanted to see it in his rearview mirror, and, preferably, on fire, so the vocal line is, “Let it burn!”

Figure 6 illustrates the end of the chorus section, which balances the rock and roll approach of the D5 - D6 chord movement with a heavier Bb - F figure in bar 2, which then brings us back to the intro.

Now that all the elements were there, I had to put on my arranger/producer hat and give the song some order and structure and sharpen the picture so that it would work as effectively as possible. And herein lies the balance between initial inspiration and a completed, fully realized song.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Besides great guitar playing, two things come to mind when Angus Young is mentioned: Gibson SGs and his iconic school uniform.

The Australian riff machine has stayed loyal to the Gibson double-cut across his career. He’s bought many, and played them all across his prolific career. But one holds dominion over all the rest.

“I’ve lost count of how many SGs I have,” Angus Young admitted to Guitar World in 2009. “But none of them match up to that one guitar.”

His late brother and rhythm master, Malcolm, favored a heavily modded 1963 Gretsch Firebird. Angus, by comparison, has never been able to look past his red 1968 SG. And it’s not for a lack of trying.

“I’ve tried getting copies of it, but no, they’re not even close,” he said. “You might get the feel, but you don’t get that same kind of sound out of it. I don’t know why. I wish I did.”

The '68 SG in question is one of Young's most iconic instruments. It was used for most major AC/DC recordings and taken across the globe on numerous world tours. It was also the source material for an Angus Young signature SG in 2009. Noted for its unusually slim neck, it became the bedrock of the AC/DC lead sound.

Young's 2009 GW interview charted the creation of their 15th studio album, Black Ice. Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden) was tasked with producing the 15-track barnstormer, and he wanted to change things up a little by prizing Young away from his tried-and-trusted workhorse.

“I’ve got a couple of other guitars that I use onstage and as spares,” Angus relayed at the time. “I’ve got an early Sixties black SG, and we’d try that one. I’ll try anything and, if it works, use it.”

So, what fans are hearing on Black Ice isn’t always that guitar – Young is happy to experiment.

“Another guitar that I’ve got, a ’68 SG, dates from the Highway to Hell days, and I’ve used it for backing tracks and stuff,” he continued. “It’s a factory reject, I think – it has the number ‘2’ on it. I got it for 70 or 75 bucks when I first came to America. It was quite beat up.”

The Aussies played their first US shows in July 1977, meaning the $75 price tag is roughly $650 in today’s money. That alone makes it sound like a steal, but given its provenance, it's probably added a couple of zeros by now.

Today, the SG is finding plenty of love in the hands of Derek Trucks, Samantha Fish, Grace Bowers, and Yungblud as new generations take to the iconic axe. That said, a new signature Angus Young SG from Gibson wouldn't go amiss...

In a 2020 interview with Bass Player, AC/DC low-end legend Cliff Williams explained how he got the AC/DC gig in 1977, and charted the gear that defined his sound.

Welcome to Guitar World’s weekly gear round-up, your one-stop-shop for keeping up to date with what’s been happening in the big wide world of guitar gear over the past seven days.

From new electric guitars to amp modeler updates, the guitar industry is never short of fresh releases, and it can sometimes be hard to stay in the loop with every new launch.

To make things a little easier, we’ve put together an essential must-read guide that will cover the major releases, the boutique drops, and everything in between.

Below you'll find my personal highlights from the week, along with plenty of honorable mentions for the new gear you might have missed. Agree with my picks? Have a highlight of your own? Let us know in the comments.

Harley Benton Aged Series

Way back when I first started playing guitar, the first ‘proper’ six-string I was eyeing up was a Fender Road Worn ‘60s Stratocaster. The sunburst finish. The relic’d paintjob. The aged hardware. It was, in my eyes, the quintessential Strat.

Well, that ship sailed, I got a Les Paul Studio instead, and life went on. But I’ve always been pining for that road worn-style Strat. However, with a perfectly fine S-type already to my name, it always felt a bit frivolous to fork out on one.

Thanks to Harley Benton’s new Aged Series, I can finely get my hands on one for as little as $238. Seriously – these guitars look uber-cool. Hand-relic’d guitars with aged hardware, available in a bunch of colors and silhouettes, for under $250? What’s not to like about this? We always say it with Harley Benton, but this really is a home run.

John Page Noah Levine Signature DL Baritone

To be honest, I’ve never been too fussed about baritone guitars. Sure, they sound cool, look great, and do things a bit differently, but I’ve never felt an overwhelming urge to buy one. Well, I think I might be getting the urge, thanks to John Page’s new Noah Levine Signature DL Baritone.

Built for Noah Kahan’s lead guitarist, Levine’s new baritone is a beautifully styled, relic’d long-scale with a choice of Fishman Fluence or Lollar P-90 pickups, four gorgeous colorways, and a Bigsby tailpiece. That Olive Drab version is particularly easy on the eye.

The guitar doesn’t land until the 27th, but pre-orders are open now. It continues John Page’s recent hot form, and cements the brand’s position as one of the most adventurous and exciting modern electric guitar designers currently out there.

Kramer Malina Moye Pacer Deluxe

It’s about time Malina Moye got a signature guitar. Across four genre-blurring albums that draw influences from Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, Elizabeth Cotton, Eric Gales and plenty more blues greats, Moye has established herself as a sorely underrated modern day guitar hero.

A former Fender artist known for her flipped-southpaw style, Moye has now defected to the ranks of Gibson-owned Kramer, which has made her its first woman of color signature artist.

Her first signature guitar is a doozy. Available in right and left-handed configurations, it builds on the S-style Pacer Deluxe platform, decking it out with DiMarzio pickups, gold hardware and a very tasty Splash Blue finish. Extra points for the color-matched headstock.

ALSO RELEASED THIS WEEK

Orange Baby Terror

The latest entry to Orange’s popular Baby series, with 20W of power and some unique features to boot. Petition to get a ‘Tubby switch’ fitted to every amp…

MXR Textures Granular Synth Engine

Yet another innovation from MXR that crams expansive granular synth guitar tones into a tiny form factor, Textures continues the ambient stompbox trend that’s been gaining momentum over the past few months in tremendous fashion.

Origin Effects EQDeluxe

A tribute to the Pultec EQP-1a, which, for the unacquainted, was a passive EQ famed for its low-end weight and clarity. The EQDeluxe promises studio-grade EQ and drive effects aplenty.

Third Man Hardware x Beetronics Old Zoo Lion Meat

The latest cross-company collaboration from Jack White’s Third Man gear company, the Old Zoo Lion Meat is an old school-style fuzz pedal that looks like a tin of tuna. No real lion meat included.

Shergold Telstar 12-star

A 12-string version of Shergold’s flagship Telstar single-cut, which not only promises to provide a platform for classic Roger McGuinn-style tones but a foundation for further experimentation.

Bad Cat Mod Shop Cub 15

Bad Cat has revisited and revived its definitive Club amp for a Mod Shop version, which pays homage to the original 1999 Mark Sampson Cub.

Steve Hackett has opened the door to the possibility of a Genesis reunion – or at least it is one to file under “never say never.”

Speaking to the Word in Your Ear podcast and YouTube show, Hackett was an open book, discussing his early days with the trailblazing British prog institution, living off 15 bucks a week, and the formative influences that shaped his style and musical education.

He talked intensively about his almost seven-year-long stint in Genesis, during which time he recorded some of their definitive albums – Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound et cetera – and made himself a poster boy for prog guitar.

And so the conversation just gravitated towards one obvious question: with all of the original members still alive, might Genesis reform one day?

“Well, I’ve always said that if they wanted me to reform, I would do it,” says Hackett. “I would even play harmonica, or do a walk on, but what is a reformation?”

Presumably, that would be all of the circa ’70 to ’75 lineup, together onstage, playing a show. But there are considerable barriers to this. Peter Gabriel has shown little interest in previous reunion tours. Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford might already consider the project done after The Last Domino? tour in 2021. When that tour was put together, Phil Collins was quoted as saying it was the “easy option” to just go out with Banks and Rutherford.

The are more serious reasons why the classic era lineup might not play together. Phil Collins has had long-standing health problems. When he, Rutherford, and Banks took to the stage for The Last Domino? shows, his son, Nicholas, was sitting in for him on drums. Collins senior performed seated, and told the BBC that he struggled to even hold a drumstick. He first encountered these issues during the band’s 40th Anniversary reunion Tour.

“Something happened on the Genesis reunion tour. At the end of each show I had a drumming duel with Chester Thompson, and one night something happened. It just went,” he said, speaking at a press conference in 2016. “I tried everything – bigger drumsticks and so on, but it just never came back. It’s a mystery what happened, I just couldn’t get it back. But I’m 65 and have played drums since I was five. I’d like to have the choice about being able to play, but I’m not going to cry myself to sleep about it.”

On March 26, 2022, during the final night of the The Last Domino? Tour, at London’s O2 Arena, Collins told the audience that that was it.

Hackett tells the Word in Your Ear host that musicians all have a different perspective of the past, and even when they do revisit old material there is an instinct to move it forward and develop the songs.

“I’ve rerecorded some of this stuff, and I’ve sometimes dealt with orchestras, so there’s some sort of sense of development there,” he says. “I’m gonna be doing that in Quebec, but it means that I get a chance to choose what I think is the best of it, and I like to think that it’s agenda free. Of course, there will be a few guitar parts that get heard that maybe were a little submerged back in the day, but that’s my prerogative.”

Not all bands can agree on what the so-called classic period is. Hackett alludes to the ‘70s being a more artistically satisfying period for musicians like them. Gabriel left in ’75. Hackett followed him in ’77. The hits that came for Genesis in the ‘80s might change what the band would consider to be the classic period.

“It wasn’t carte blanche to go out and do what you liked. I think the tail was wagging the dog rather more, and I suspect for today – for anyone who is signed to a major record company – it is the same. The Americans will be saying, ‘I don’t hear a single.’”

Hello there, and welcome to Guitar World Editors’ Picks – our monthly guide to the guitar tracks that have captured the attentions of our editors over the past four weeks or so.

With the aid of our Spotify playlist below, we’ve rounded up all our favorite new releases from the month of July, and noted our personal highlights – the playing, tones, and songwriting that most set our six-string senses a-tingling.

Highlights this month include a ferociously technical new single from the future of shred, a piece of defiantly optimistic post-punk, a slice of “ecstasy for the ears” indie, and some irresistible jazz fusion (and not the ’70s kind).

All that and much more in our playlist below.

Michael Astley-Brown – Editor-in-Chief

Track of the month: Baxty – Threshold (ft. Pierre Danel)

The future of shred is a 26-year-old Chilean by the name of Bastian Martinez – you might know him as Baxty. His latest missive, Threshold, proves that, yes, virtuosos can thrive outside the social media battlefield – of course, it helps if you’re able to fuse the celestial prog of Dream Theater with the djent-adjacent rhythmic trickery of Animals as Leaders, as he does here.

Baxty’s devastating alternate-picking is the song’s dramatic centerpiece, but his yearning bends have all the feel of golden-era Satriani. Then, as if the track needed yet more firepower, Novelists’ Pierre Danel solobombs in to drop some terrifyingly clean sweep passages. Modern technical guitar playing doesn’t get better than this.

Also playing:

• Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery – The Black Sea
• Queens of the Stone Age – Easy Street (ft. Nikki Lane)
• Emma Ruth Rundle – Enough

Matt Parker – Deputy Editor

Track of the month: Protomartyr – Sounds We Cannot Hear

There has been an awful lot of bleak, shouty post-punk made in the last decade, which does seem like a reasonable response to all the shouty bleakness. However, the first taster of Protomartyr’s new album, Hotel Usona, hints at a defiant optimism.

It certainly ain’t all sunshine and roses lyrically (opening line, “Another 81 dead since dawn”), but as Greg Ahee’s cacophonic guitar tone is periodically let off the leash, there’s a melody fighting its way through the mire. Interwoven with the brass and keys, it’s like a cavalry call. I don’t know if you’d call it hope, but it feels like something fresh… a new way to use noise.

Also playing:

• Devil Master – You Worms' Vain Delusions
• Steve Lacy – Doom
• Grandmas House – Blue Oblivion

Jackson Maxwell – Operations Editor

Track of the month: The Strokes – Going to Babble On

I'm not opposed to my beloved Strokes changing things up, I admire them for it, really. That said, I do feel like they're often meandering aimlessly in AutoTune-colored waters on Reality Awaits, their first new album in six years. But that said, the album does feature a gem in Going to Babble On, one of the rare moments on the album where the always underrated twin guitar attack of Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi gets to shine.

Saying “One of us is riffing and the other adds color!” in a two-guitar lineup is like saying “I need to breathe oxygen!”, but fuck if those two aren't so good at it – their riffs are always killer, and there are warbly leads, pretty arpeggios – and listen to that Thin Lizzy-like flourish at the end! Thin Lizzy always were punk at the end of the day...

Also playing:

• Billboard Style – Billboard Style
• The Linda Lindas – Closer (ft. Hayley Williams)
• Hermanos Gutiérrez – Los Ojos Del Cóndor

Matt Owen – News Editor

Track of the month: Hovvdy – You Will Go Far

As this month's playlist will attest, there's a lot of angsty, technical, heavy, and darn right loud music coming out at the moment. And that's great. Heck, I had Polyphia as my highlight last month. I ain't complaining.

But this month my repeat-listen has been something a bit... softer. You Will Go Far, the latest single from Hovvdy's fortcoming record, is ecstasy for the ears. Those melancholic acoustics are so smooth they'll have you feeling like you can float. An excellent progression to noodle and improvise over, I might add.

Also playing:

• beabadoobee – Switchblade
• Nothing But Thieves – Stray Dogs
• PRESIDENT – dark heaven

Janelle Borg – Staff Writer

Track of the month: Marla Kether – Reverse

You may have spotted Marla Kether being the queen of cool on stage, holding down the low end with acclaimed British rapper Little Simz. However, what you may not know is that Kether is a fully fledged artist in her own right.

Her new track, Reverse, is an oh-so-funky number that offers a glimpse of what to expect from her upcoming record, Luso.

Fusing Latin jazz and broken beat, the track is built around Kether's addictive bassline – brought to life via her Squier Jazz Bass, “Scout” – and establishes her as one of the most exciting voices in bass, not only in the UK but, dare I say, on the global jazz scene.

Also playing:

• Charli XCX – Camera
• Los Bitchos – Hang Up (Pt 2) ft. Sinkane & Adrian Quesada
• Toast – Two Hearts

What is it?

The term Stratocaster-style guitar is a bit of a loaded one at the moment, but that’s what we’re dealing with today in the Sire Larry Carlton S7 Ash Top. It’s a double-cutaway instrument with the ever-versatile HSS pickup configuration, a vibrato bridge, and a 25.5-inch scale length. S-type? ST-type? Double-cut? I’m not sure anymore.

But I digress; Sire is a South Korean company that first found fame through its partnership with jazz legend Marcus Miller. In a rather shrewd move, instead of releasing a pricey signature model, Sire bucked the trend by releasing cut-price instruments with the sort of features you’d expect from pro-level instruments.

In 2020 Sire partnered with Larry Carlton, legendary session guitarist, to recreate that same magic. Carlton, whose credits include Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Dolly Parton, and plenty more, has his name put on S-styles, T-styles, 335-style semis, and LP-type guitars. The ethos is the same: good value instruments that deliver pro features at a price most musicians can afford.

Looking at the spec sheet of the S7 Ash Top, it’s hard to believe that it sits so far below the $1k mark. The alder body is paired with a solid Swamp Ash top; it’s got a roasted maple neck and fretboard combo with a 9.5-14-inch compound radius, and 22 stainless steel, medium jumbo frets.

A Graph Tech TUSQ nut is positioned below a set of staggered locking tuners, negating the need for a string tree, while Sire’s own 2-point tremolo bridge anchors the guitar at the opposite end. The Sire LC Super HSS super pickup set is augmented by a push-push knob that splits the humbucker, with a single volume and tone knob and a 5-way position switch.

Specs

• Launch price: $869 | £739 | €749
• Made: Indonesia
• Type: Six-string electric guitar
• Body: Alder body with solid Swamp Ash top
• Neck: Roasted maple / C shape
• Fingerboard: Roasted maple with rolled edges
• Scale length: 25.5 inches, 647.7mm
• Nut/width: Graphtech Tusq XL / 42mm
• Frets: 22, medium jumbo, stainless steel
• Hardware: Sire premium locking tuners, Sire modern 2-post tremolo bridge
• String spacing at bridge: 54.3mm
• Electrics: Sire LC Super HSS pickup set, volume, tone, 5-way lever switch
• Weight: 8.15 lbs, 3.7 kg
• Options: Non-ash top available for $769
• Left-handed options: No
• Finishes: Natural (as reviewed), Amber Burst
• Cases: No
• Contact: Sire

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

Taking the Sire S7 Ash Top out of the box, I’m once again reminded why I don’t really like natural finishes on electric guitars. They just look like your grandmother's kitchen table. That said, pictures of the swamp ash top on the Sire site don’t quite do this guitar justice. It’s got a bit more depth to the color and grain of the wood under natural light, versus the rather surgical shine of the product photography lighting, and it grew on me in my time testing it.

The back of the body has a cherry-red stain, and the alder grain is visible underneath, revealing a three-piece body construction. The difference in colors creates a rather dramatic contrast between the dark back and the lighter wood of the Swamp Ash top, which is immaculately bound together.

The body has a forearm carve, as well as a belly cut to make it more comfortable to play. There’s no sculpted neck heel, but the lower horn is slightly carved on the back side, though, to be honest, I never feel like this really aids playability, as my hand tends to go over the front of the guitar when reaching for the upper frets.

The fretwork is exceptionally well done, much better than I’ve seen on a lot of Indonesian-made guitars of late, and better even than some of the Mexican-made instruments I’ve had pass through my hands.

The ‘Edgeless’ fingerboard ends are nicely rounded off, with nary a sharp edge to be seen or felt. The tangs of the fret ends are neatly finished, so there are no visible gaps or bumps on either side of the fretboard edge.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★★

Sitting down to play the Sire S7 sans amplifier, I’m immediately impressed with the playability. It’s listed as a ‘C’ neck profile but feels decidedly modern and fast-playing as I tear through some of my favorite licks and riffs. It’s a nice all-rounder neck that, combined with the compound radius, feels effortlessly playable no matter where I am on the fretboard.

It feels satisfying bending and playing against the medium jumbo frets, although a full jumbo-sized fret would likely take it into proper shred guitar territory. As it is, it feels more suited to more classic rock styles rather than all-out guitar acrobatics, which I don’t mind one bit. It’s still comfortable enough to pull off frenziedly fast legato, and I can’t find any dead spots or scratchiness across the length of the neck.

Trying some power chords with alternating strikes of the two high strings open, the high E pops out of the nut slot when I really lay into it. This only seems to happen on the upstroke, occurring a couple of times when I was striking the strings very hard. It points to a nut that's likely been cut too shallow, but could also be compounded by the lack of string trees.

The tremolo comes ‘decked’, with the bridge sat against the body so you can’t pitch up, only down. This means it’s a lot more stable, preventing any forward lean when bending the strings and making the tuning more sturdy. You can set it up to float if you want as it’s a two-point design.

In the decked configuration, it works really well, maintaining stability even under heavy load. I can pitch it down two-to-two-and-a-half tones, and it puts up with the abuse, pretty much perfectly maintaining its tuning alongside the locking tuners.

One thing I do notice when playing is that the position of the push-push tone knob is a little further away from my picking hand than I’d like. While a push-push knob is much more ergonomic for live players, its position –– spaced apart from the volume knob ––means you have to reach over the tremolo arm to get it, which can sometimes get in the way when you need to make a quick change.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

Plugging the Sire S7 into my pedalboard and feeding it into the clean channel of my Orange Rocker 32 tube amp, the first thing I notice is that the humbucker feels quite a bit louder than the other positions. Going from soft-picked arpeggios and laying into some power chords results in quite a jump due to that midrange bump, so some players may need to slightly adjust their playing style (or the pickup height) to account for this.

Flicking through the positions with the clean channel engaged, as well as a nice helping of spring reverb with a sprinkle of tape delay, it's got all those typical S-type honk and spank tones you’d expect. It sounds great with some of my favorite Spaghetti western-inspired licks, and adding in some tremolo is the cherry on top.

The neck single coil is particularly great. It’s warm and round but never feels dull, and I found myself noodling here for a good twenty minutes during my testing. With some generous reverb and delay, it’s great for those Explosions in the Sky-inspired spacious licks, and chords sound full and articulate.

The split humbucker sound was my least favorite of the bunch. There’s a little harshness in the top end here, although I was able to tame this with a little roll back of the treble knob. If you have a particularly bright amp, you might find that this is a little much in this position, but you can help cure it by rolling back the tone knob a touch. In combination with the five regular pickup selector positions (where position two gives a mix of the split humbucker and middle pickup regardless of the push-push switch setting), that gives a total of six pickup selections in total for a lot of versatility.

It’s not just good at the clean stuff, either. Adding in my Joyo Tauren Klon clone into a Victory Amps V1 Sheriff overdrive pedal, I get some properly good, raunchy rock, PAF-tones from the humbucker. It can chug, too. It’s not quite djent territory, but cranking up the gain I can get some nice modern hardcore tones with chugging power chord licks, and it lends itself well to some prog metal fretboard expeditions.

Verdict

Much in the way AI is disrupting the world, I think we’re getting to a point where players are recognizing you don’t have to pay premium prices when looking for a new guitar.

Of course, there will always be those loyal to the old guard, but this Sire is living proof that if you’re not fussed about brand loyalty or particular headstock shapes, you can get a lot more bang for those hard-earned smackeroonies.

The most striking thing about the Larry Carlton S7 for me was that I couldn’t help myself from picking it up. I’m always testing gear, and I often have a round-robin of guitars on my $7 D’Addario guitar neck rest. The Sire has been solidly in position for the past week, and I’ve picked it up to play countless times, whether testing pedals, an audio interface, recording demos for an upcoming project, or taking it to rehearsal with my band.

The fretwork is particularly good, miles better than guitars I’ve tested costing closer to the $1k mark, and apart from the issue with the high-E nut slot, I can find little to fault here with it. The fact that the non-solid wood top is available for well below $800 makes the S7 a real dark horse, and for those working players who need playability and tone without spending loads, I can’t think of many guitars that deliver better than this.

Guitar World verdict: I’ve tested too many guitars to remember over the past few years, from budget-friendly to those costing in the thousands. Honestly, I think the Sire Larry Carlton S7 Ash Top is one of the best value-for-money instruments out there right now. The build quality is superb, it plays like a dream, and unlike other guitars in this price range, the electronics don’t let it down. It had a couple of tiny niggles, but overall it plays and sounds like an instrument that costs two times as much.

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John Squire’s departure was a huge loss for the Stone Roses. The Mancunian indie band had released two monumental albums before he stepped aside in 1996, and Simply Red’s touring guitarist, Aziz Ibrahim, was subsequently sworn in.

Ibrahim delighted in the opportunity. But it also presented a huge learning curve.

“It was a dream come true. They didn’t tell me how to be; they just wanted me to be an entity, a unique individual, and to let my personality shine,” he says in the new issue of Guitarist. “They wanted that to come out in the music, so it was about identity.

“I started to understand what being in a band was about, which is about what you have to say, not what you’re told to do.”

It was a stark contrast to serving as Mick Hucknall’s foil. But there was an ugly side to the job, too.

“That was bittersweet,” he says of replacing Squire. “The downside was that I knew you couldn’t replace somebody as loved as John. It was difficult in terms of being accepted, but also with the racism I faced during that period. In those days, people could get your phone number easily, and I used to get death threats and all manner of calls.

“For that to be related to music was mind-blowing. It was difficult psychologically, but, musically, it didn’t take me long to learn.”

He was given freedom to be himself, but that didn’t stop Ibrahim recognizing the need for a change of style all the same.

“The hardest thing was that John is such a unique individual, so that was an education,” he observes. “That was the beginning of my reverse-engineering the damage in my playing. And when I say ‘damage’, what I’m referring to is the technical playing.

“I was geared up to play Steve Vai solos, which needed dexterity, and I was [particular] about pickups, fretboards and fret height. But being in The Stone Roses sent me in a completely different direction. It was now about individuality, tonality and the sense of the song.”

There’s nothing quite like being yanked out of your comfort zone to test your mettle, and Ibrahim was thoroughly tested during his time in the band. Sadly, the Stone Roses would go on hiatus by October 1996, with Ibrahim going on to work on vocalist Ian Brown’s solo albums. There, his Asian heritage could shine more brightly, with faux sitar licks aplenty.

Ibrahim’s full interview can be found in the new issue of Guitarist, an issue that puts the world’s greatest signature guitars under the microscope.

Digital and print copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

With their red-hot blend of influences including AC/DC, Rory Gallagher, and Gary Moore, The Zac Schulze Gang are fast becoming one of the UK’s hottest new blues acts.

Their debut album, Straight To It, certainly lives up to its name, with the hunger and urgency of a young band cranking things up and trying to leave their mark on the world.

And though he’s only 26 years old, frontman Zac Schulze is the kind of player who is on a mission to bring vintage sounds kicking and screaming into the modern age.

Big Guns

As with a lot of younger players, it was Joe Bonamassa who exposed Schulze to the musicians who ruled the world in the ’70s and ’80s.

“I’d been playing for a year when my dad bought me the DVD of Joe playing the Royal Albert Hall in 2009,” says Schulze. “That’s what turned me onto the blues; for people my age it was easy to relate to. That made me want to find out more about who inspired him as a player.

“Gary and Rory were the two I found with so much energy in their playing, as well as feel. With so many people out there doing the Stevie Ray thing, the Gary and Rory style felt a bit more unique.”

In The Flesh

Aside from the vocals, the debut album was recorded live to capture the trio’s natural energy. For Zac and band, it was a case of staying true to themselves and recording something they could actually deliver on stage.

“We wanted to keep it upbeat,” says Schulze. “There might be one or two tracks that are a bit lower in energy, but we did it all live apart from the vocals and wanted to keep that sound. In the past, I’ve gone into the studio and ended up recording 170 parts in one song. But what’s the point in doing that if you can’t pull it off live?”

Straight & Narrow

It was a simple tonal recipe for the recordings: one main guitar and one amp, with just a simple overdrive in front.

“The main guitar was my Strat, which has a 1978 Fender neck with a Japanese Squier Silver Series body,” Schulze says. “I ended up getting the guitar on eBay for £120. Me and my dad went to pick it up from a woman’s house and it turns out it was her ex-husband’s. Somewhere out there is a guy wondering where his Strat went [laughs]!

“Lee from Green Pickups in Manchester then made me some custom pickups. We plugged it into an Orange Rockerverb with an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer for more gain.”

Take Control

With such a simple rig, Schulze uses the controls on the guitar itself to dial in the tones.

“A lot of magic happens through working the volume,” he says. “I use the drive channel but clean it up through my guitar. That’s how Clapton and Page used to do it back in the day. I use a fair amount of gain, so I have to control my signal. John Mayer once said something along the lines of, ‘You end up sounding like yourself when you fail to sound like the people you’re trying to sound like.’ That quote really resonated with me.”

Fire & Water

From the new songs, Betterland is the one that Schulze chooses as his proudest achievement.

“I wanted to base that solo on All Right Now by Free, where it goes from a bass break into something melodic,” he says. “I started with something Clapton-esque in B minor and then went for a major/minor mix, almost like how Chris Buck plays. It’s a solo that builds, it goes somewhere. The same goes for Angeline; those two songs are more pop-rock than blues. Sometimes it’s nice to play over music with more chordal elements to it.”

Zac on the greatest guitar tone ever caught on tape

“I think Bad Penny by Rory Gallagher would have to be up there because it sounds exactly like how it should sound – a battered old Strat going through a Vox AC30. I had the pleasure of playing through that amp before it got auctioned off.

“If you have a great song with a great tune, you’ve basically won. It’s such a powerful tone – kind of woody but also very in your face. Similar things could be said of [Gary Moore’s] Still Got The Blues, it was just perfect. It wouldn’t have sounded the same on a Telecaster through a Twin.”

• Straight To It is out now via Ruf.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Dominic Davis has known Jack White since they were kids growing up in Detroit. The two jammed together for years and caught a vibe – but Davis didn’t realize how strong their chemistry was until later. “After a couple of years of not finding anybody to play with in college, I was like, ‘Wow… the guy was special,’” he tells Bass Player.

Eventually he did find others to play with. He formed Steppin’ In It before moving into a session career, working with everyone from Pharrell Williams to Adele to Beyoncé. “It’s always interesting,” he says. “Everybody does something different.

“Pharrell sent me a finished album and wanted me to do exactly what he’d done. But with pop songs there’s a lot of ear candy. You hear about trying to ‘have a moment,’ – maybe there can be a bass moment there. If I’m forced to do that, I will, but I don’t usually think like that.”

His understated yet virtuosic approach works so well that it led to old pal White inviting him to join his band over a decade ago. Since then Davis has appeared on five of White’s solo records, the latest of which is 2026’s Frozen Charlotte, and he’s about to tour the globe with White again.

Davis has other projects too. “I’ve been doing a bunch of soundtrack work,” he says. “I moved to Nashville 14 years ago, and there’s lots of sessions, lots of producing records, and lots of hanging with friends in the studio. In Nashville you never know who’s gonna call or where you’re gonna wind up.”

What inspired you to take up the bass?

I was always interested in music. Growing up, there was a cardboard Kay guitar in the house. I grew up in Detroit with a single mom, and we were pretty poor, but she always encouraged me. She bought me a crappy pointed headstock guitar with a fake Floyd Rose – it just would not stay in tune!

I’d go to Jack’s house when we were 9 or 10 and we’d play in his attic with his brother Eddie. One day, since my guitar wouldn’t stay in tune, Jack’s brother Eddie said, “You know what? I bet you’re a bass player.” He put a bass in my hands, and that was the beginning of it all. I still play guitar, but I’ve always felt like a bass player.

What was it like growing up with Jack in Detroit?

I don’t know that I was terribly receptive. He was into some things that kids our age weren’t. He was always making things, like cutting up Dr. Pepper cans and making trains, planes or whatever.

One time he was listening to one of those big Lifetime classical music box sets. No one else was really listening to that. But when I moved to college, it took me forever to find people to play with, and that’s when it dawned on me that Jack had something special; he was motivated in a way that other people weren’t.

Eventually you transitioned into a healthy session career.

Yeah, I got pretty lucky. The band I started in college, Steepin’ In It, was kind of like Americana before Americana had a term. We got a reputation for backing folks up around Michigan.

We ended up playing with the actor Jeff Daniels a bunch, and with Greg Brown. That was a natural step into session work – we were already backing half of the singer-songwriters in Michigan.

What’s been your typical bass rig during sessions?

I’m a Jazz Bass guy, so I usually bring a J and a P-Bass. And I usually bring something short and weird, like a Kay or a [Teisco]. And whether they want it or not, I always bring the upright, because it seems like it’ll get used if I bring it!

I have a pretty giant session pedalboard. It’s everything you could want – a bunch of octaves, synthy things, and a couple of compressors. Not everybody wants to use amps, especially in Nashville, so I rarely use an amp on a session, unless it’s a rock session like with Jack.

What led you to become a mainstay in his solo band?

For years he dealt with his bands The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and all that. He was only doing that, aside from the Loretta Lynn album [Van Lear Rose], but when he moved to Nashville he started producing more.

I started coming down and playing on tons of stuff, like for Wanda Jackson and Tom Jones. It was a natural progression. I think for Jack, assembling bands was about him calling all his old pals.

What’s it generally like recording with Jack?

In high school he’d call and say, “Hey, come over – I wanna record!” and that’s how it still goes now. He’s pretty fearless in the studio. He doesn’t necessarily need a plan; he kind of chases it a lot. You just gotta trust him and know it’s gonna work, ‘cause there’s a lot of experimentation.

There’s a lot of pulling things from thin air, more so than a typical Nashville session where you get demos ahead of time, and you have a session leader who sends you all the charts.

Put us in the room with the band and Jack during a typical session for his latest, Frozen Charlotte.

It used to be half and half where there were finished songs, and he’d sit down and play you the whole thing, then the other half were experiments. But with the last couple of records, it’s more him just playing you riffs, and we connect parts.

We’ll say, “Maybe this should be longer,” or, “This should be shorter,” when there’s not a lot of lyrics yet. He’s an old-school guy but he’s also futuristic; he kind of walks between those worlds. He’ll be very specific about what he wants you to do, but he’ll let you be yourself somehow.

He’ll be like, “Big picture – octaves,” then he’ll say, “How about a higher octave or a lower octave?” instead of telling you exactly what to play. For this record I was trying not to do exactly what he did. You can hear the riffs aren’t exactly the same.

Like with Derecho Demonico, I’m keeping it all in one octave so it sounds a little tougher. I was sort of dissecting trios and hearing that a lot. In Led Zeppelin tunes, John Paul Jones is often playing a harmony, or not playing exactly the same riff. That was sort of theme for me. It doesn’t always sound right for me to do exactly what he’s doing.

I’ve learned from arranging White Stripes songs that you don’t have to play all the time. When we do Ball and Biscuit I play like 50 notes the whole song! It’s just roots on the one. On the album there’s a rhythm guitar that’s barely there. So, it’s like, “Okay, I’ll do that.” If we start playing it like a regular 12-bar blues song, it would go into a territory The White Stripes never would have gone to.

When we did My Doorbell a couple of tours ago, I just played tambourine! Sometimes a tambourine or a shaker will be more impactful than playing bass. But then there are some where you can really play the riff with Jack and be like his thumb.

What do you need as a part of your bass rig, no matter what?

I don’t need a whole lot, really – maybe a pick and my palm mute would be what I need most. But I use octaves pretty often, so that’s always part of my rig.

For my whole career it’s basically been octaves, fuzz and some sort of saturation distortion. I’ve also got an EHX POG, a MXR Poly Octave, and an MXR Bass Synth. I like octaves with presets; on mine I have four different octave settings.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from Jack?

I used to be a “bass on 10 and everything else on 0” guy, but Jack’s changed that. It’s so drastically different than the way I used to do it. Maybe it’s the bigger rooms, but now I’m bass on 2 and mid on 10. Jack’s really hammered home that the mid is kind of deeper than bass, or that you’ll hear it more.

And I play too hard! I can’t help it when I’m up there, but I wish I could have a lighter touch, especially with the pick. I’m really trying to play behind the beat, but it’s hard with him because he gets so excited, and it’s so energetic tempo-wise. But I’m trying to learn how to keep things back a bit.

• Frozen Charlotte is out now on Third Man Records.

Tony Iommi’s first solo album in over two decades is a cause for celebration. Even more so because it's set to feature his close friend, Queen guitarist Brian May.

The Black Sabbath legend announced From the Dark earlier this week with the lead single, World Alone. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Iommi revealed May recorded the solo on another track, Death Wake.

“In the very early Seventies, he was in one studio, and I was in another. We just hit it off,” Iommi recalls of his first meeting and friendship with May. “We’ve been friends for, God, nearly 60 years.”

May played the solo on When Death Calls, from Sabbath’s Headless Cross album in 1988. He then lined up alongside Dave Grohl on Iommi’s 2000 solo track, Goodbye Lament, as part of his eponymous, guest-filled LP.

More recently, May gifted Iommi a left-handed version of the Red Special for Christmas. Their friendship is enduring and it will continue on From the Dark.

“We stay in touch all the time,” Iommi says of his friendship with May. “He’s played onstage a couple of times with me, and then we’ve done a couple of album tracks we played on together. He’s a very, very close friend.”

They could have doubled their money on From the Dark. Iommi offered the chance for May to play more. But the Queen legend didn’t want to overstay his welcome.

“I did say to him, ‘Do you want to play on something else?’” Iommi remembers. “He said, ‘No, no. Your solos are good. I don’t need to play.’

“It was great that he did. I just played him a couple of things, and he’d done it here at the studio in my house. Then of course he’d play something and go, ‘Oh, I don’t know about it.’ I go, ‘I like it.’”

From the Dark is due for release on October 23. It comes after the guitarist had teased flirtations with orchestras and, more surprisingly, that he’d been experimenting with a Kemper for its recording.

In related Iommi news, the Black Sabbath legend also recently reflected on Ozzy’s passing, one year on.

Legendary Australian composer Mick Gordon is to perform his seminal Doom video game soundtrack live for the very first time when he headlines the UK’s RADAR Festival in 2027.

For a generation of metal guitar nerds weaned on the claustrophobic brutality of the first-person shooter, this is like not only finding the Ark of the Covenant but breaking its seal, opening it and finding all of the secrets to his Meshuggah-through-the-event-horizon sound.

Gordon will be joined by a full band – and an orchestra – and of course he will be bringing his Doom Machine along for the performance.

“This isn’t a DJ set, and it isn’t a tribute act,” says RADAR Festival. “It’s the actual composer, the actual score – the riffs played properly loud in a room that can withstand all the ripping and tearing.”

We predict that sales of Schecter Damien 9-string guitars will rocket in the Greater Manchester area in the weeks following Gordon’s performance (though an Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci JP7 and a Mayones 8-string guitar were just as important to the Doom sessions).

Gordon’s Doom soundtrack is one of the foundational texts of progressive modern metal. It’s ugly, brutal, rhythmically audacious, super aggressive and yet still manages to send a chill down the spine with its post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

It’s the kind of headphones record that has you checking the corners upon entering a room. Heck, it’d make a municipal parking lot complex feel like hell itself.

Gordon probably won’t take to the stage in a powdered wig, red velvet jacket and gold brocade but he nonetheless has a Mozart-esque command over his sound, and an electric guitar tone that is far beyond electric, squished through layers of compression (the Origin Effects Cali76-TX was used extensively when making Doom).

He told Origin Effects that he saw “guitars as a flavour rather than a genre”. In his pursuit of modernism he had to almost destroy tone to reconstruct it for the Doom world.

“Well, you take angry 7, 8 and 9-string guitars, vintage Soviet synthesizers and punch-knuckle-smacked drums,” he told Bethseda. “Then, you spice it up with burning valve distortion, electrically starved transistors, dusty ancient reel-to-reel tape machines, bleeding feedback arrays and gut-grinding sub-woofers. Finally, you smash all these elements together, give the player a shotgun and let the hunt begin!”

Earlier this year, Gordon famously did give away all of his secrets, or at least those he saved down onto his Fractal, when he sold the Axe-Fx unit he used on the Doom soundtrack. The amp modeler also had his presets from Wolfenstein, Prey, and LawBreakers soundtracks.

So, gamers, djent-heads and fiends for quasi-mechanised chug, the time is almost nigh when you can hear this all live and in concert. Let’s just hope it isn’t a harbinger of things to come on this Toilet Earth of ours. We’ll keep the chain gun locked up in its gig bag for now.

RADAR Festival 2027 is hosted over the weekend of July 30 to August 1st, and Super Early Bird tickets are on sale from August 7. Sign up at RADAR Festival.

There’s no official lower limit to how far a bass player can tune, but if you’ve reached drop F, you’ve probably gone far enough. This month, however, manufacturers have been doing their best to encourage us to venture further into the sonic abyss.

Highlights include Dingwall’s Amos Williams Signature Combustion, a BEAD-tuned four-string built for subterranean lows, and the Ron Petzke Cyclops Bass from Dunable Guitars. If you’ve ever thought your bass simply wasn’t capable of moving enough air, Dunable and Petzke would like a word.

Other artist-driven releases include Ashdown’s Combo of Doom, created with Black Sabbath legend Geezer Butler, La Bella’s Aston “Family Man” Barrett Signature strings, and JCA Audio’s Endless Bass plugin, which packs multiple amp tones, DI and sub channels and a parallel mixer into a single plugin.

With a host of new basses, strings, pedals and plugins designed to make your low-end even louder, here’s our pick of the biggest bass gear releases in July.

Dingwall Guitars Amos Williams Signature

Although most of us would sooner drop an SVT on our foot than venture into tunings as low as progressive metal band TesseracT, there can’t be many bass players who haven’t at least considered going lower.

TesseracT remain one of prog metal’s heaviest hitters, and anyone drawn to the low-end manoeuvres of bassist Amos Williams should take a serious look at his Signature Combustion from Dingwall Guitars.

The four-string version features Dingwall’s renowned 34.75–37-inch multi-scale design and comes factory-tuned to BEAD, offering plenty of extended low-end range straight out of the box.

There’s an environmental angle, too. In keeping with Williams’ commitment to reducing waste, each bass is constructed from carefully selected body offcuts that would otherwise be too small to build a complete instrument. The result is a sustainable approach that also means every bass is genuinely one of a kind.

Joe Calderone Audio & Toby Peterson-Stewart Endless Bass

Lauded as one of the modern-day heroes of the electric bass, Toby Peterson-Stewart has teamed up with Joe Calderone Audio to create Endless Bass, a custom plugin that’s designed to give you control over multiple amp tones, with a dedicated DI and sub channel, plus a full parallel mixer – all in one plugin.

“We made Endless Bass to provide the most complex bass tone, with the simplest workflow,” says Peterson-Stewart. “All modern bass tones are an amalgamation of different parallel channels that are combined together to make one big tone. So we decided to put it all into one plugin.”

The parallel mixer can be accessed from the plug-in’s Mix Page, with each channel featuring its own full parametric EQ. There’s also a Pre-FX page with fuzz and chorus, although crucially, these effects don’t affect the Sub channel.

The result is a streamlined multi-layered bass signal that would otherwise require several amp, effects and mixing chains, all from a single plugin.

Ashdown Geezer Butler Combo of Doom

Here’s one for the Sabbath fans – following Geezer Butler’s monstrous bass rig for Black Sabbath’s 2025 “Back to the Beginning” concert, Ashdown has unveiled the Combo of Doom – a UK-built 200-watt bass combo created in collaboration with the legendary bassist and limited to just 70 units worldwide.

The control panel features a five-band EQ, tube-emulated drive, Shape and Active/Passive switches, while an effects loop, Line In, balanced XLR DI, headphone output and optional footswitch provide plenty of flexibility for both stage and studio use.

Visually, it shares the same purple Tolex as Butler’s colossal Ashdown rig, but at just 10.5kg, and with a single 1x12-inch speaker, it’s a far more portable alternative – and a tempting proposition for Sabbath devotees and bassists alike.

Dunable Guitars Ron Petzke Cyclops Bass

If your idea of a sensible bass tuning ends somewhere around standard, look away now. Dunable Guitars has teamed up with Bongripper bassist Ron Petzke for a limited-edition USA Cyclops Bass built specifically for players who like their low-end to venture into truly ridiculous territory.

Designed with drop F in mind, the recipe is suitably stripped-back: a single D-Bird pickup, a charcoal finish and a hefty slab of swamp ash.

With its USA-built construction and limited-edition status, this latest model from Dunable looks less like a conventional bass and more like a dedicated piece of heavy-duty artillery for anyone who thinks drop G simply isn’t low enough.

La Bella Aston “Family Man” Barrett Signature Flatwound Bass Strings

La Bella reckons its 760FS Deep Talkin’ Bass flatwound strings played such an important role in Aston “Family Man” Barrett’s legendary tone that the company has developed a signature set in tribute to the late bassist.

"For decades, ‘Family Man’ relied on La Bella flatwound strings to deliver the deep and powerful tone that became the heartbeat of countless classic recordings,” say La Bella. “His basslines provided the foundation for some of the most influential music ever created, making La Bella strings an integral part of his unmistakable sound.”

The set uses .045, .065, .085 and .105 gauges, finished with distinctive red, gold and green silk ends – a nod to Barrett’s Jamaican roots and musical legacy.

Serek The Grand Batch #12

If you like your basses with a little more attitude than your average slab of mahogany, Serek’s latest limited-edition Grand should be firmly on your radar.

Batch #12 is the latest instalment in Serek’s semiannual series, and it arrives with a mahogany body finished in Wild Mountain Berry, accented with Cream stripes and topped with a custom-engraved “Four Thousand Holes” pickguard from Decoboom.

As with previous Grand models, Batch #12 features a TV Jones Thunder’Blade pickup and Serek’s “Skuzz Serkit” passive fuzz circuit. A roasted maple neck, Indian rosewood fingerboard and Hipshot hardware round out the spec.

Jad Freer Audio SARTO

We’re already partial to the Jad Freer Audio CAPO, and always pleased to see the Italian-based company release another of it’s studio-style preamp pedals. The SARTO is billed as a “channel strip in a small box” – a compact preamp/EQ pedal designed to bring clean-tone shaping to just about any instrument.

It’s based on the clean preamp circuit from the CAPO and is built around an ultra-high input impedance, making it particularly well suited to piezo-equipped instruments such as upright basses.

An extended EQ section and resonant high-pass filter give players plenty of control over the frequencies that can make or break a live or studio sound.

There’s also a balanced XLR output, making the SARTO a practical option for bass players who want to go straight to a desk or recording interface.

Winzz Guitars EBS714 & EBS715

Winzz Guitars is looking to bring neck-through construction and modern active electronics to a wider audience with its new EBS714 and EBS715 electric basses. Both combine an okoume body with a walnut top and sleek matte finish.

Winzz has fitted the pair with active dual-humbuckers and a three-band active EQ, giving players boost-and-cut control over the bass, middle and treble frequencies alongside a master volume.

Chrome hardware completes the package, but the real attraction is the combination of a 35-inch scale, neck-through construction and active dual-humbuckers.

Swiff Audio Maestro Series WT09B 5.8GHz Wireless System

If you’re tired of cables getting under your feet, Swiff Audio has another wireless option for your bass rig – and this one promises to keep things seriously stable.

The Maestro Series WT09B 5.8GHz Wireless Transceiver System arrives just two months after the 2.4GHz WT09A, upgrading to the less congested 5.8GHz frequency band for what Swiff describes as studio-grade tone and rock-solid wireless performance.

The launch also comes with some serious player endorsements. Guitar virtuoso Bernth Brodträger and slap bass extraordinaire Charles Berthoud have both officially joined Swiff Audio as global brand ambassadors for the Maestro Series – suggesting the company is keen to position its latest wireless system as a serious tool for serious players.

BOSS CB-EB15 Bass Guitar Gig Bag

It may be BOSS’s first bass guitar gig bag, but the CB-EB15 looks like the company has done its homework – offering plenty of protection and practical touches for bassists who need to get their instrument from A to B in one piece.

The exterior is made from durable 600D polyester, with thick padding throughout and extra reinforcement to protect the strap button on the lower bout. A cushioned end guard features an adjustable fit, allowing the bag to accommodate basses of different shapes and sizes.

Inside, your bass gets a velvet-lined interior and two detachable neck supports with adjustable straps, while heavy-duty zippers add another layer of protection. There’s also a sizeable external front pocket for accessories, along with a padded carry handle and two padded backpack straps for even easier transport.

Kramer has partnered with genre-blurring blues guitar hero Malina Moye for a historic signature guitar.

The arrival of Moye’s first signature electric guitar has been a long time coming. The underrated artist has melded blues, hip-hop, R&B, funk and soul across her four studio albums. Her 2023 record, Dirty, was voted one of the best guitar records of the year by GW readers.

With her flipped-southpaw style, Molina has channeled Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, Elizabeth Cotten, Eric Gales, and many other greats of the instrument.

Now, having played everything from Flying Vs to Stratocasters, Moye has turned to the Kramer ranks for a milestone model that cements her place in the history book as the brand’s first woman of color signature artist.

Moye’s signature builds off Kramer’s S-type Pacer Deluxe platform and is available in left and right-hand configurations. At its core, there’s an alder body and maple neck with 10” radius fingerboard, as well as a TUSQ nut, 2-point tremolo and gold hardware.

Since it’s been designed to cover all bases from sultry soul to rootsy rock, it features Moye’s preferred DiMarzio pickups – specifically, Virtual Vintage Blues, Area 7 and Super Distortion.

Finishing touches include a Splash Blue finish – with color-matched headstock – a tortoiseshell pickguard, locking tuners and Moye’s signature on the rear of the headstock. Oh, and the Moye inlay at the 12th fret is a very nice touch indeed.

“I really wanted to make sure it was perfect – a completely different type of Kramer,” Moye says of her new signature. “And you know what? I think we nailed something really hot.”

The Malina Moye Pacer Deluxe is available now for $1,299.

Visit Kramer for more.

D’Addario has set the record straight after it found itself embroiled in an online AI controversy.

The string maker was recently accused of using AI-generated music in the demo for its new NYXL HD strings. It then came under fire for its response video, which showed the recording’s workflow in an attempt to confirm that AI had not been used in its creation.

The video was scrutinized by the online guitar community. Some believed the pitch and tempo discrepancies between the original demo and the response proved AI had in fact been used.

But now D’Addario has published a lengthy statement explaining the making of the demo track, asserting that generative AI was not used, but AI-assisted production tools were.

“We share the growing alarm that generative AI can remove the musician from the creative process,” the statement begins. “In a recent post featuring one of our products, many people questioned whether we employed generative AI in our demo track.

“The track was written and performed by one of our employees who was proud to create an original piece to show off a new string he helped to develop.”

D’Addario charts the “complex” way the track was created. It notes an excess of plugins to “compress, auto-tune, EQ and distort” the DI guitar that was used, alongside 12 programmed synthesizers and a drum track with four compressors.

“The result is a track that exhibits the hallmarks commonly found in generative AI music, and it is understandable that this sound would elicit such a response from the community,” D’Addario observes.

“There were excessive non-AI tools used to make the original composition sound ‘more produced’. This added a lot of extra noise and inorganic details to the mix which people misunderstood as signs of AI-generation.”

As for the discrepancies present in the session video, D’Addario explains the response clip showed a pre-mix and pre-master demo. The original, meanwhile, used two AI mastering tools that further muddied the water.

“This is where the confusion lies,” it says. “While Generative AI was not used in the creation of this music, by virtue of using Logic’s ‘Mastering Assistant’ feature and LANDR’s Assister Mastering, AI did assist with the mixing and mastering process post DAW export which caused noise and drift.

“Most of the digital artifacts that people online have taken issue with come from an unusual take on modern production techniques.”

D’Addario ends its statement by apologizing for the confusion caused, stressing it is, above all else, experts in music accessories – not audio production.

“We knew we had nothing to hide; we just needed the time to understand why our take on the situation was so different than others in the community before we responded,” it says. “We’re genuinely sorry for the delay in response and confusion it caused.”

D’Addario’s statement has gone a long way to de-escalate the situation, though opinion is still divided. Several D’Addario artists including Yvette Young, Plini and Mike Dawes have voiced their support, but some commentators are yet to be fully convinced by the company’s explanation.

Visit D’Addario’s Instagram page to read the full statement.

Philip Sayce has earned a reputation that puts him at the top of the list of modern high-energy blues-rock guitarists. Operating entirely outside the major label machine, he’s built a loyal following through relentless touring and word of mouth.

The independent artist cut his teeth handling guitar duties on tour with artists like Jeff Healey and Melissa Etheridge – that’s where he mastered the art of live performance.

You can hear exactly where that journey has led on his recent live album, Scorched Earth: Volume 2 Live in LA / London. Recorded at London’s Garage and LA’s Baked Potato, it captures his power trio completely raw.

What made you want to pick up the guitar?

Growing up, my parents played The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks and a lot of ’60s music. British music, world music and blues were always around; my dad loved blues.

I started guitar late because my brother and I were taking piano lessons and my parents had saved for a piano, so I felt guilty asking for a guitar. I was around 15 when I finally asked. I always wanted to play because that’s what was listening to in the house – huge Clapton solos and things like that.

Once I got a guitar, I went deep into learning how to play. I played constantly on a cheap Sears acoustic with brutally high action. This was around the time Stevie Ray Vaughan passed away, and his music hit me spiritually.

I felt that same pull from Albert Collins, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Jeff Healey, Clapton, George Harrison and Jeff Beck. I remember my dad telling me how Stevie Ray was “true example of greatness.” He thought Stevie was the only guy that was as good as Clapton.

Did you have any formal training?

I’m mostly self-taught. I would sneak into clubs when I was underage and stand close to the stage, trying to understand how people were getting their sound and phrasing. I watched anyone who could play, tried to absorb something and then went home and figured it out.

Even if I only picked up on one little thing, I’d go home and work on it for hours. I also learned from tablature and books.

How did you first connect with Jeff Healey?

We met through the Toronto scene at a downtown club when I was around 18. An associate introduced us and Jeff asked me to jam. He played bass, I played guitar, and we did Robert Johnson and Willie Dixon material – the Cream versions. Afterwards he asked if I wanted to join his band. He was a hero to me, so I said yes immediately. I was so grateful for that opportunity.

So after high school, my friends went to college and I went on tour with Jeff. I call it the University of Jeff Healey – I watched, listened and absorbed everything. He gave me space to sing and solo, building my confidence. I also learned professionalism and how to deliver every night.

When did that chapter end?

After about four years, Jeff told me it was time to do my own thing. Around that time, producer Marti Frederiksen was working on a Jeff record in Toronto. He came to see me play and suggested I come to Los Angeles with him and write songs. My wife and I eventually moved there. It was scary, but I got some session work and later toured with Uncle Kracker when his song Drift Away was huge.

How did Melissa Etheridge come into the picture?

I met producer John Shanks at a guitar store while trying amps and we hit it off. Later he said Melissa needed a guitarist who could play and sing. I met her for lunch, then auditioned with Kenny Aronoff and Mark Browne. They reported back to Melissa and I got the gig. I was already a fan; I had played her songs in high school.

Did you have to adapt your style?

Not really – Melissa is roots-based, with strong rhythm and emotional delivery, so it came from the same place as blues. She was generous and let me be myself. Sometimes she’d say, “Play and stretch out!” which gives you confidence. Watching her connect with audiences was a lesson in communication.

What was that transition from clubs to arenas like?

There were things to learn. An arena doesn’t mean you get to play ten times louder. You really have to focus on monitors because you can be far from everyone on stage and feel some lag. You watch the band leader, learn stage presence and command the room. As a sideman you know it’s not your stage – your job is to support the artist.

Did you always know what direction you were headed in, or did you try different styles?

For the most part, it’s always been the blues-based rock I play now, although I sometimes move towards funk, rock or soul. I started singing out of necessity when my high school band lost its singer before a battle of the bands competition. But my favorite guitarists were also great singers, so that’s what I wanted to do.

How did you first get turned on to vintage Strats?

It was always a dream to own one because my heroes – Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Knopfler and Buddy Guy – played them. I kept hearing that ’62 and ’63 were the sweet spots. Big Daddy was a guitar I missed out on years ago, then a buddy saw it 10 or 15 years later and sent a picture. It was the same guitar, so I sold some gear and bought it.

What is it about your ’63 Stratocasters that makes them so special?

Fender hit a sweet spot with the neck shape, feel and response. Mine are from August and September ’63 and both feel right. The pickups are outstanding.

Big Daddy is the biggest, meanest Strat I’ve heard. Mother has ’58 pickups now, so it’s more airy and sparkly, but has that ’63 chunk. I’ve had them re-fretted several times with the tallest, widest wire I could find because so much of my playing is bending.

Why do you think modern guitars don’t have the tone and feel of vintage guitars?

I don’t think modern builders are getting it wrong or missing anything. The wood on a vintage guitar that’s 60-plus years old is dry and settled. When those guitars were made, that wood might have already been 100 years old. You can get really close now but there’s maybe that last five or 10 per cent where it comes down to the resonance and the age of the wood.

The pickups make a huge difference, too. The pickups in Mother are from ’58 so slightly underwound, and they sound great. We did a project with Seymour Duncan, recreating the Mother pickups – it was fascinating getting into the details of what made them sound that way. The team did a fabulous job and the Duncan Mother pickups sound fantastic.

How does your PRS Silver Sky fit in with your vintage Strats?

It has its own lane so it’s not competing with the ’63s. It’s comfortable, stays in tune and goes where you want it to go. Vintage guitars are like muscle cars. The Silver Sky is like a modern performance car. It handles beautifully and doesn’t fight you.

Do you play differently depending on the guitar?

Not in a big way. It’s about what the guitar gives back. Once the old guitars are dialed in by a good luthier, they feel like old jeans or an old baseball glove. The Silver Sky is comfortable too; I like warming up with it.

When did you start seriously exploring tone beyond just guitars?

Playing beside Jeff forced it because his Marshalls sounded huge and I needed something that could keep up. I contacted Cesar Diaz, who worked on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s amps, and sent him a late ’60s Fender Dual Showman. It came back with unbelievable punch, sustain and clarity.

Later I brought him a Super Reverb and Bassman. I got to spend time in his shop while he built some pedals for me. It was very hands-on – I would play, give him feedback and he’d mess with the amp. He dialed in my Super Reverb in about 20 minutes!

He was amazing. We worked on getting my guitars and Fuzz Face to interact with the amp the right way. Cesar approached amps the way a tailor fits a suit. Watching him work was like seeing magic happen.

Did that experience also influence your choice of speakers?

Absolutely. Cesar turned me on to Electro Voice speakers, and I used EVM 12Ls in touring cabinets with Jeff, and later Melissa, because they were strong and reliable. Once you feel a 4x12 with EVs it’s hard to go back.

For the past 15 years I’ve worked with Tommy Cougar in Sweden, who studied Cesar and Dumble. He’s incredible – in my opinion, the best living amp guy in the world right now. He also turned me on to JBLs for my Super Reverb.

Did that experience shift how you think about tone?

Yeah, it taught me that tone is really about response. The amp has to react to your hands. If you play softly it opens up, and when you dig in it pushes back. When that relationship works, you stop fighting the instrument and start communicating through it.

How did you start working with Alexander Dumble?

Producers Dave Cobb and John Shanks introduced us. I had already used some Dumble amps on sessions, so I knew his work. When I went for a visit, he was warm, generous and not as mysterious as people imagine.

We played through several amps at his house, including an early Steel String Singer. I also left him a Fuzz Face to work on. It took months to get it back, but he didn’t charge me and it sounded fantastic.

Was there something about the Dumble amps that really stood out to you?

Each amp was built for a specific player; they weren’t interchangeable. The feeling was like putting on glasses and suddenly seeing clearly. Notes jumped out in three dimensions, with a stickiness that gave back what your fingers put in. It inspired you to play differently because the detail and connection were right there.

Out of all your records, is there one that you feel was a turning point for you?

Each record is a snapshot of where I was personally, so it’s hard to choose. But Peace Machine from 2005 was a turning point – it was raw, unfiltered and high energy. I called up some musicians that I loved working and recorded it mostly live in just a few days.

What’s most important to you in your music today?

Connection – like when you meet someone and feel like you know them right away. I feel most connected to the kind of music that inspired me when I first started out; music that’s honest, truthful and brings people together. It’s really about being authentic and sharing what’s in your heart.

• Scorched Earth: Volume 2 is out now.

A great way to devise a creative and unusual rhythm part is to superimpose a variety of triads over a static one-chord vamp. As you may know, a triad is a three-note entity that, in its most universal function, represents a specific type of chord.

The most common types of triads are major – built from a root, major 3rd and 5th – and minor – built from a root, minor 3rd and 5th.

When playing over a one-chord vamp, that chord represents a key center from which many different triads can be built.

Let’s begin with a simple, funky rhythmic vamp built on an A7 chord, as shown in Figure 1. This is a repeating one-bar pattern that starts with hammer-ons on the A and G strings, followed by syncopated accents on the top four strings.

You could just play different voicings and inversions of A7 over this groove all day long and it’ll sound great.

But the way to get the most out of this approach is to recognize A7 as a chord derived from the A Mixolydian mode (A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G), which is the fifth mode of the D major scale (D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#).

This means you can use all of the scale’s triads – D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm and C#dim – to discover new rhythm patterns to play over A7 that are even more colorful and interesting.

Figure 2 illustrates the triads Em (E, G, B) and F#m (F#, A, C#) played on the top three strings alongside the A7 chord voicing. If you know your triads on the neck, you can devise some really cool rhythmic ideas.

For example, Figure 3 demonstrates Em and F#m triads played on the D, G and B strings before moving over to the top three strings.

Figure 4 offers an example of utilizing the F#m and Em triads over the funky A7 rhythm part.

Notice that the triads are strummed in syncopated 16th-note rhythms and shift smoothly from one to another via finger slides. Figure 5 switches things up by ending with a dyad/single-note type of riff.

In Figure 6, I branch out from minor triads by including some triadic inversions: on beat 2 of bar 1, I bring in a 1st-inversion G triad (G, B, D), sounded with B, the 3rd, as the lowest note. On beat 3, I include a 2nd-inversion D major triad (D, F#, A), with A, the 5th, on the bottom.

​As you can see, these options provide more sounds than does simply riding on voicings of A7. There are Em and F#m triad shapes to be found all over the fretboard and on different string groups, so be sure to explore every area of the neck to discover where these triad shapes reside.

As long as we return to our key center of A7, we have some cool options to explore. In Figure 7, I incorporate some chromatic movement between G and A triads to bring in another variation.

Look to map out all of the voicings of the aforementioned triads that live within the D major scale and try to find inventive ways to move between them when playing over a static A7 vamp.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Aside from his longtime slot as Billy Idol’s rhythm guitarist, Billy Morrison has collaborated with a veritable list of big names throughout his career, including Ozzy Osbourne – whom he calls his “best friend” in an upcoming Guitar World interview.

“Everyone with a heart was crying the day of that show,” he recalls of the July 2025 Back to the Beginning mega concert.

“Obviously, his health had been declining, and I had been witness to that. I had seen him in more than one hospital with tubes attached. I visited him coming out of surgeries.

“But you know you don’t go there in your head. Ozzy was so strong and overcame so much. He would text me: ‘I'm in pain. This thing, it's getting me down.’ I would just say: ‘You're the strongest man I know.’”

Morrison admits that he expected him to “overcome everything like he’s Superman,” since Osbourne famously bounced back, “time after time after time.” Therefore, he was far from ready when the Prince of Darkness passed away.

“The hardest day I've ever been through was his funeral. I flew to his funeral in England, and I delivered a eulogy. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.”

After knowing each other for three or so decades, Morrison reveals that “humor was what bonded us.”

“Sharon would tell you that we were like two 11-year-olds when we got together,” he chuckles. “That's what made the friendship special. We understood each other in situations where, perhaps, other people didn't understand us.

“And as friends, there were huge life events for both of us where one of us helped get the other one through... We had a connection.

“I miss him.”

Guitar World's full interview with Billy Morrison will be published in the coming weeks.

There is a distinct difference between watching a band work through a setlist and that rare experience of witnessing virtuosos caught up in pure, unadulterated joy.

On night one (7.28.26) of their four-night stand at Madison Square Garden, Rush delivered two-and-a-half hours of the latter – a rapturous jubilee that felt less like a choreographed arena rock show and more like master musicians kicking back and letting it rip – simply because they can.

From the opening swells of Xanadu, the energy inside the arena was beyond juiced – and it never let up. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson spent the evening trading “holy shit” grins and laughing out loud, visibly drinking in the deafening waves of adoration from the tri-state crowd, making decades of formidable prog-rock mastery feel like second nature.

Lifeson was sparkier and more unruly than ever. He knows the holy texts, of course, and he gave fans the brilliant, note-for-note solos on Tom Sawyer and Limelight they knew by heart. But for much of the night, he went off on his own loose-limbed benders, taking madcap detours and stretching out phrases just to see where they’d land. It was fretboard swagger at its most generous.

And Lee! After all the hand-wringing over his June bronchitis scare down in Texas, he came to rumble. There was no tentative easing-in, no cautious vocal pacing. He hit the microphone full-throated, leaning into his bass with a physical, nimble crunch. Whatever resting period that forced hiatus gave him, it worked – his voice had a bright, soaring punch that reached for the high rafters without a flicker of strain.

Then, of course, there's Anika Nilles. Stepping into the drum throne of the beloved Neil Peart (who passed away in 2020) is a monumental – and some would say, unenviable – task, but the German-born drummer proved to be a dream behind the kit: fast and fluid, swinging with a luscious, elastic groove that gives even the oddest of odd-time signatures a supple, human heartbeat.

In the time since the Fifty Something tour debuted at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, CA, in early June, cellphone videos of Nilles acing the around-the-kit tom fills to Tom Sawyer have been shared millions of times, but those viral clips don't prepare you for the physical impact of seeing her do it live – it’s the intoxicating spectacle of a genius executing genius things, and with a high-beam smile, no less.

Overhead, poignant video tributes to Neil Peart wove throughout the show, grounding the night’s jubilation in tender, warm remembrance. Rather than heavy eulogizing, the visuals captured Peart's humor, artistry and legacy, elevating the performance into a true-life celebration.

Setlist

Set One

• Xanadu
• Limelight
• Far Cry
• Subdivisions
• Freewill
• Bravado
• Headlong Flight
• La Villa Strangiato
• Vital Signs
• The Spirit of Radio

Set Two

• 2112 (Overture, the Temples of Syrinx, Grand Finale)
• Distant Early Warning
• Red Barchetta
• Dreamline
• Natural Science
• Time Stand Still
• Red Sector A
• YYZ
• The Garden
• Tom Sawyer

Encore

• By-Tor and the Snow Dog
• Working Man

What is it?

It seems EarthQuaker Devices is in a constant flux between light and dark duality — call it Yin and Yang, if you will — across most of its recognized pedals. On one side, it's known for beautifully ambient pedals that create luminous soundscapes, while the other side unleashes bellowing, sonic mayhem. Its latest stompbox, the Sunn O))) HalfLife Octave Distortion & Booster, firmly falls under the latter description. The HalfLife stompbox (as you probably guessed with its play on words) is a more compact, condensed and pedalboard-friendly version of the Sunn O))) Life pedal, and lives on as a successful ongoing collaboration between Sunn O))) — the loudest of drone metal doomsayer bands — and EQD.

HalfLife is also the standard-issue successor to the extremely limited-edition Sunn O))) HalfLife Fer MMXXV, which featured a striking, cast-iron enclosure made using a centuries-old Nanbu-tekki casting technique. Like the Life Pedal before it, HalfLife is designed to capture Sunn O)))'s core front-end signal chain driving multiple vintage Sunn Model T 100-watt tube stacks into glorious saturation. As an aside, and as someone who owns the V3 version of the Life pedal, I can declare the current HalfLife stompbox doesn’t half-ass any of the chaos-inducing tones of its predecessor.

Specs

• Price: $259
• Type: Analog Octave, Distortion and Boost
• Made: USA
• Controls: Octave, Filter, Distortion, Magnitude, Amplitude
• Features: Three-mode clipping, octave-up, expression pedal control
• Connectivity: 2 x 1/4" instrument and 1 x 1/4" Octave Expression input
• Bypass: True bypass with Flexi-Switch technology
• Power: 9V DC center-negative; 15 mA current draw
• Dimensions: 127 × 70 x 57 mm
• Weight: 0.74 lb
• Contact: EarthQuaker Devices

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

Do I even need to talk about build quality? Like all the other stompboxes in its stable, this EQD is about as solidly built as they come and employs premium components. Housed in a rugged, textured enclosure with contrasting red and black spirals, the pedal pairs distortion with a blend-able octave up at the first stage with the Amplitude footswitch, while the Magnitude footswitch activates the second stage — an all-discrete MOSFET clean booster.

Controls for Octave, Filter, and Distortion occupy the top portion of the pedal, and just below that are Mag (output volume for Boost), Clip (Clipping switch for OpAmp, Asymm or Symm modes), and Amp (output volume for Octave/Distortion). I would also urge anyone to become very familiar with where each specific control is because the tiny UV screen-printed characters are nearly impossible to read from above — just in case you need to make any heat-of-battle adjustments on a dark stage.

Rounding out its features are standard 9VDC power, an expression jack for Octave blending, and EQD's proprietary Flexi-Switch technology for seamless momentary or latching true bypass operation.

Usability and features

Usability and features rating: ★★★★½

Inspired by the vintage Shin-Ei FY2 Companion and FY6 Super Fuzz boxes and a vintage white-logo RAT distortion-style circuit, with a low-pass filter control, there isn’t much to deal with in this triple-threat of a stompbox arriving in a more pedalboard-friendly size. Most of your guesswork will be made by using your ears and selecting which of the three clipping modes will provide the utmost in aural black magic.

The first OpAmp removes the clipping diodes entirely, unleashing its full output for an aggressively brighter, high-volume attack. Assym employs an asymmetrical clipping configuration using two silicon diodes and one LED, producing a slightly compressed, smoother amp-like crunch. Finally, Symm recreates the original double silicon diode configuration, delivering the classic, familiar rodent-like saturation that made the white-logo circuit a favorite.

Unlike the original Life Pedal, which features a dedicated Octave footswitch, HalfLife's upper octave is only controlled by dialing it in using the O knob or controlled dynamically with an expression pedal connected to the Octave EXP jack, allowing the octave to be blended in as needed.

The final Magnitude stage is designed to overload your preamp tubes with a clean, high-impedance boost while preserving your amp’s natural character, driving it harder without adding coloration or introducing distortion of its own.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

Whether paired with single coils or humbuckers, HalfLife delivers a thundering octave/distortion experience tailor-made for doom architects and those who poke around in subterranean noise.

While it nods heavily to the classic ProCo Rat design, it departs from its saturation in a more symphonic fuzz-stortion that’s tightly layered and articulate. What’s interesting is you can hear the fuzzy textures become progressively darker in its clipping modes as you sweep from the brighter and grittier frequencies found on OpAmp, to the warmly compressed Big Muff-style saturation in Asymm, and finally plummeting down to the deep hirsute fuzziness in Symm mode.

I can only imagine that if I brooded in bands like Boris and Burning Witch, I would dwell within the sludgy depths of Symm mode.

The highly responsive Filter knob sweeps from dense darkness to the cutting slice reminiscent of a cranked Sunn Model T's Brite channel. The upper octave tracks clearly on single notes above the ninth fret, provided you are flying high with your neck pickup.

Here, the spiked upper octave tones add a clanging, metallic ring to the signal. It’s an intensely fun pedal that can easily coax the bottom-heavy fuzz found on Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins as well as the shimmering, furry pulse of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless album (Yes, I’m dating myself).

Finally, the highly transparent Magnitude clean boost is loud with a capital “L.” Be mindful of your level setting, as its massive output — combined with the Amplitude stage — can quickly push an amplifier into explosive meltdown and endless sustain. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

Verdict

Whether it admits it or not, EarthQuaker Devices knows exactly how to weaponize distortion — and it's quite good at it. Any aspiring dirt purveyor worth their salt will naturally gravitate toward the HalfLife’s crushing wall of sound. For players seeking targeted drone strikes of blend-able upper-octave fuzz, aggressive distortion, and a powerful clean boost designed to push an amplifier into massive, amp-melting territory, the HalfLife delivers the droned, bottom-heavy fury inspired by Sunn O))) with uncompromising force.

Guitar World verdict: With its combination of brutality and flexibility, the Sunn O))) HalfLife Octave Distortion & Booster is a true “FAFO” pedal for sonic mayhem. It unleashes a full-scale assault of saturated ecstasy, proving once again that this Machiavellian alliance with those shadowy Sunn O))) guitarists is a notorious victory for EQD.

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A guitarist has been left fuming after American Airlines shattered his acoustic guitar, sparking outrage online.

Airlines have demonstrated time and again why they have a ‘heavy-handed’ reputation among musicians.

In one of the more grisly cases we've seen, Titus Tucker, who has over 35,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok, posted images of the aftermath of a flight. In the shared clips, the guitar’s hardshell case is seen badly damaged, and the instrument inside is “unrecognizable.”

Its back and sides are now separate entities. There’s also a heart-wrenching mangle of wood atop the guitar’s severed top, which looks to have been broken from the soundhole to its edge.

“They dragged it out like a dead body,” he’s heard saying in a video clip. He then points to a brutal-looking gash on the case, saying, “This is a tire; there’s no other explanation.

“That’s a brand new case, and a brand new guitar,” he adds.

One small silver lining is that Gator Cases can be found in the comments, saying, “DM incoming,” which suggests he’s likely getting a new case. But, of course, it does little to rectify the sheer savagery American Airlines has shown toward Tucker’s beloved six-string.

Horror stories like these are, sadly, all too common, and it’s no new phenomenon, either. This is not an isolated incident.

Back in March, a baggage handler went viral on TikTok after a clip of them carelessly tossing guitars around like confetti surfaced on the platform. It very quickly clocked up over four million views.

And in August last year, Emily Wolfe went to war with Southwest Airlines after her guitar was decapitated, despite it being in a hard case. The Airline refused to acknowledge responsibility, as Peter Thorn and Gilby Clarke spoke out about similar gut-punch incidents.

Fender CEO Edward ‘Bud’ Cole has caused a stir online with recent comments on AI.

During an interview with T3 published in May this year, Cole compared tribute bands to artificial intelligence, dubbing cover music as “a sort of analog AI”.

His comments came as part of a longer discussion of AI’s place in the world, in which Cole voiced his support for embracing modern tech in the guitar scene.

“When the Telecaster came out, it was polarising,” he began. “There were people that loved it and adapted, and some people that thought it looked like a rope from a rowboat, or it looked like a plank.

“I think AI has existed in music as long as there's been recorded music. I actually believe cover music has been sort of analog AI for a long time.”

As he explains, Cole sees AI as a stepping stone of sorts that is on the brink of “freeing up people to move beyond the same old covers”.

His thoughts haven’t gone down well with the guitar community, attracting scrutiny from key figures in the online scene.

Rhett Shull, who’s had his own personal tangle with AI in the past, has spoken out against Cole. So too has JHS Pedals founder Josh Scott, who's also highlighted the dangers of AI in the guitar industry. Samuraiguitarist addressed it in a YouTube video.

The negative side to AI have been well-publicized. Not only is it already stripping away creativity and jobs from the arts, it's also being used by bad actors in the guitar scene for more nefarious purposes.

But Cole’s comments comparing cover music specifically with the tech are what guitarists have taken issue with.

As some players have pointed out, they are overly reductive of cover bands in general, ignoring the craft required to learn the music and instrument, and the human aspect that comes with playing in a real band.

Most players start their gigging life playing in cover bands. It teaches them irreplaceable skills that can only be learned through the cover music experience.

Working with other musicians, learning your favorite songs, rehearsal etiquette, getting comfortable on stage, experimenting with tones, broadening your stylistic horizons… heck, even soft people skills. All core experiences that bear no similarities to AI. To boil cover music down to “analog AI” is clumsy at best.

But as Cole himself would point out, there are instances where AI can be used positively for guitar purposes. For instance, Positive Grid’s Spark AI helps with developing tones, and there are AI tuition tools. That’s something he alludes to in his T3 interview, perhaps with a view to developing the Fender Play learning platform.

“I think we have to be careful, but we should look at how this technology can help us,” says Cole. ”I believe that AI is actually going to help create a whole new world of guitar players that use it. To help connect with other musicians, to be more productive. And across the chasm into becoming a student of songwriting to a master of songwriting. That's the hope anyway.”

Regardless, the wording of Cole’s comments concerning cover music specifically hasn’t escaped criticism from the guitar community.

It’s the latest controversy that Cole has found himself embroiled in, after Fender came under fire for its high-profile legal campaign to protect the Stratocaster body shape. In a recent development, Fender sued Thomann for copyright infringement.

In November, guitarist Chris Caffery will perform his 1,500th show with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the yuletide rock theater phenomenon that packs US arenas every winter.

Until last year, though, Caffery was more likely to be asked about the shows he wasn’t playing as Savatage. The metal group that birthed TSO in the mid-’90s – and whom Caffery first played with in 1987 – had been in suspended animation since their world tour in support of their 2001 album, Poets and Madmen.

He’s quick to point out that Savatage never broke up. That changed in 2025 with their first tour in more than two decades. Its success set the stage for more live shows this year, including a performance alongside an orchestra at the legendary Amphitheatre of Pompeii, and high-profile appearances at European festivals such as Wacken, Sweden Rock, and Alcatraz.

In addition to the upcoming concerts, fans have an old one to look forward to – the release of the 1990 Hollywood show, Madness Reigns from the Gutter, which captures the Gutter Ballet era lineup at their absolute peak.

Savatage just played their first two shows of 2026. What does it mean to be able to perform that material again?

I never wanted to stop. I always got upset when people would say, “Chris Caffery, ex-Savatage,” because we never broke up. We just stopped playing. Savatage kind of sat there collecting dust for a while – but luckily, our dust was used live a lot, so we all got better as musicians.

During COVID, co-founder Jon Oliva did an interview about wanting to do one last Savatage record. There was really no plan, but festivals started making offers. Our manager got us on a conference call, and I basically was crying – it's what I’d been waiting for.

When we got to Brazil [where the 2025 tour kicked off] and walked up on that stage, it was crazy. Even before we played the first note I was like, “We’re back home!” It felt like we’d never left; it was the place we were supposed to be. We went out there and represented that music really well.

All members of Savatage participate in TSO, and both touring troupes of TSO rehearse together every year. Did you guys ever jam in private after TSO rehearsals wrapped up?

We never jammed because everything was really scripted – rehearsals, soundchecks, when you start and when you stop. But we always spoke about wanting to do it.

It’s not like there was a time when Savatage didn’t want to play, but there were so many other elements that were not allowing the pieces to fall into the right place for Savatage to come back.

I think the main thing was that nobody wanted to go in and half-ass it. I completely understood that. We were on a very high level the entire time with TSO; production, music, business. We were like, “If it’s going to be done, it has to be done right.”

And I think the time gap created the demand that allowed us to have all the pieces fall together. Last year we played, I think, better than we ever had. We might not have been at the same tempo physically as when I was 21! But musically it was very good.

On the upcoming Savatage live album from 1990, you’re heard playing alongside the late Criss Oliva.

When you listen to me and Criss play rhythm guitar together, it's a mirror. Maybe the tone is a little bit different with his guitar and what he was running his rig with – he was Criss Oliva, and I am not – but the way we played guitar was identical.

There was something that happened when we played together. That rhythm sound was better as an army than it was with just one. When I listened back to that recording I was like, “Wow, that band was a machine!”

You first toured with Savatage in 1987, when the band opened for Dio and Megadeth. Initially you were asked to play offstage before you joined the band officially.

Paul [O’Neill, longtime producer and lyricist] wanted to make the sound a little bit bigger live because he was adding depth into the recordings – it wasn’t the band's idea. I offered to fly myself to Florida.

I said, “If they think I stink, I’ll eat the ticket and go home – but if not, let me do the tour.” Within five minutes of playing with them they left the room, came back and said, “We want you to do this.”

That tour was incredible for me, because Dio was one of my favorite singers. Holy Diver was one of my favorite records ever, and so was Mob Rules and Rainbow’s Rising.

I was familiar with Megadeth, but I had no idea how big they’d already gotten. It was incredible to watch every single kid in that audience singing along with, ‘If there’s a new way, I’ll be the first in line.’ They were on the verge of taking their spot, and it was crazy to watch. And Savatage had Hall of the Mountain King, which was so epic – it was just a really powerful metal bill.

Do you still have any gear from those days?

I do. My Marshall 800 was my main stage amp back then, and I use it the same way now. I had another distortion pedal out of the front face of the amp, and that's really all I used. I didn't need a delay or reverb or anything else. I’ll always use one 9-volt guitar pedal – I think it adds that sound and that tone into whatever you throw on top of it.

What are you playing now?

For this run in Europe I’m taking four Jacksons – three Rhoads and my black mirrored Kelly. Dean Zelinsky made me a blue Tele and I wanted to have a gargoyle put on it, because I wanted to have a guitar to honor Criss without making a Criss Oliva Gargoyle guitar.

My goal is to find an artist at one of these festivals and have them put something on there as a tribute to Criss. It’s just a really, really great guitar.

Outside of Savatage and TSO, you also moonlight semi-regularly with Doro and the “king of polka”, Jimmy Sturr.

It’s always fun with Doro. I started working with her over 20 years ago, and ever since then, when she's needed a guitar player and I could do it, I've been helping her. She’s like Lemmy, where she's reached a different level, and it’s always an honor.

With Jimmy, I don’t necessarily play the polka songs. He adds an element of rock music into his show, and I go up and I'll do Skynyrd. He's even doing Walk This Way from Aerosmith now. I have fun and I do it when I can.

I wouldn’t say I'm the greatest chameleon as a guitar player. I couldn’t play in a jazz band; it would probably be a lot of practice to figure out all the different country scales and tunings if somebody wanted me to do something like that. But if somebody asks me to play in a rock or metal band, it’s just kind of natural.

Whether with Criss Oliva or Al Pitrelli in Savatage, or with Joel Hoekstra or Alex Skolnick in TSO, or filling in with Doro or Metal Church, you’ve been a part of some impressive guitar tandems.

Listen to [the Scorpions' 1978 live album] Tokyo Tapes – it sounds like one guitar, but it’s two. That’s my bible for how heavy metal rhythm guitars should be playing together. When you have two guitar players and one goes into a lead, you don’t become Van Halen. You become Balls to the Wall and Blackout. You fill the wall up, like a stereo sound.

People don’t understand there’s a definite art to rhythm guitar. Somebody got on me the other week; they were talking about the top 10 heavy metal guitar players, and I threw Scott Ian into that mix. One guy was like, “You don't know anything about Anthrax. Dan Spitz was the man.”

I'm like, “You have no idea what I was talking about!” I was not talking about Scott Ian because of a lead. Scott’s like Mustaine and Hetfield when it comes to that kind of picking. Heavy metal rhythm guitar playing is an art.

This year marks three decades since the release of TSO’s debut album. Is it too early to ask how you’ll commemorate that live?

I've learned that I don't say anything until TSO says it – but yeah, it's the 30th anniversary. And fuck, do I feel old! It’s crazy what that band’s accomplished. We all have so much to be proud of.

I’m the only person that’s actually played every TSO live performance possible. I couldn’t play with both bands, but when we played together as one I was always there, and I never missed one single performance with TSO East. I’m really proud and happy about it – it's such an iconic show and band.

As for Savatage, is it too soon to ask what 2027 might have in store?

I’d love to see something new out – but my crystal ball isn’t working! I’m just happy Savatage are playing. We want to play everywhere, and as long as it’s going to be a good situation and everybody's going to be safe to travel, we’re going to take on what we can.

• Madness Reigns from the Gutter is released on September 18. It’s available for pre-order now.

Tony Iommi has finally unveiled the first details of his new album, which will be his first solo record in 21 years.

From The Dark is set for release on October 23 via BMG Records. It arrives after years of teases, with Iommi sporadically revealing he’d been embracing orchestral arrangements and also using amp modeling tech for the first time.

For the album, Iommi has assembled a core band that features Operatic Norwegian vocalist Jørn Lande, Mercyful Fate bass player Becky Baldwin, and Karl Brazil, who has drummed for James Blunt and Robbie Williams.

The album's lead single – the unsurprisingly riff-heavy, high-octane World Alone – premiered today on Iommi’s YouTube channel. Notably, the two other songs that Iommi has released in recent years – Scent Of Dark and Deified – will be released as part of the deluxe-edition CD.

Iommi has co-produced the record with Mike Exeter, who worked on Black Sabbath’s final album, 13, as well as Iommi’s 1996 album with Glenn Hughes.

“It’s an album we’ve really enjoyed making,” Iommi notes. “We’re not trying to prove anything – it’s a great album, it rocks!”

From The Dark has been a long time coming. The project was first revealed back in 2023, but Iommi has said he wasn’t in a rush to finish the record. Now at last, we’re on the cusp of hearing it.

The full tracklist can be found below.

1. Over The Violent Sun
2. Black Times
3. World Alone
4. Beyond The Dead
5. Stormwatcher
6. Death Wake
7. Return Of The Arbalist
8. Legacy

• From The Dark is available to preorder now ahead of its release on October 23.

Celebrated Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard has died overnight following a motorcycle crash in Dublin, at the age of 56.

According to the Irish Independent, Hansard was involved in a single-vehicle crash in the early hours of Wednesday morning (July 29).

His death was confirmed by his agency, ATC Management, which also conveyed his family's shock and grief.

“With broken hearts, we announce the passing of Glen Hansard, who passed away in the early hours of this morning, following a road traffic accident in Dublin,” reads the press statement.

“Glen’s family is deeply shocked and heartbroken by this tragic loss and respectfully requests privacy at this extremely difficult time. The family is grateful for the support they have received and wishes to thank the emergency services who attended the scene.

“As this matter remains the subject of an active Garda [the national police force of Ireland] investigation, no further comment will be made at this time.”

Hansard cut his teeth on Dublin's busking scene before forming The Frames in 1990. He came to international attention after featuring as a guitar player, Outspan Foster, in Alan Parker’s The Commitments.

His music-acting-songwriting career continued to take flight after his duo with Czech singer and pianist Markéta Irglová was the subject of the critically acclaimed movie Once. Released in 2007, the movie and core song, Falling Slowly, earned him an Oscar for Best Original Song.

Alongside his other work, he built a respected solo career, highlighted by his Grammy-nominated 2015 album Didn't He Ramble. Hansard went on to collaborate and perform with the likes of Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen.

Throughout his career, Hansard was known for using Takamine Guitars. His NP15 model took him from the streets to international stages and was dubbed by the brand as one of its “hardest-working guitars.”

In an interview with Written in Music just a few months ago, Hansard expressed his enthusiasm for future tours and projects. He was scheduled to tour Ireland in October.

“At every gig, I want to give the audience everything I’ve got,” he said. “That’s precisely what makes every performance challenging and special for me too.’”

Orange Amps is expanding its Baby guitar amp line with the Baby Terror – a 20-watt solid-state lunchbox head built for backpacks, desktops and small stages.

Looking like something you could easily lose down the back of a sofa, it offers Gain and Volume controls, alongside a three-band EQ and Presence dial. The amp is specifically voiced to take in both “warm rounded cleans, classic crunch, and cutting drive.”

It’s also been designed with overdrive pedals in mind. A Tubby switch pushes the low end earlier into the signal path to increase the fullness and body of its tone, particularly with cleaner tones. Disengaging it brings a leaner sound to the fore.

A second footswitchable Volume control has also been added for when more thrust is needed in a mix, such as for lead boosts. Orange says this won’t color the gain in the process.

It’s generously kitted out round the back, with an effects loop and a balanced line out with ground lift for live use and home recording. It also offers the option to pair it with their preferred Impulse Responses. And for the cab enthusiasts, there are 8- and 16-ohm speaker outputs.

The Baby Terror features a single-ended, class A, JFET front end and comes with a quality padded custom-designed protective bag.

“It’s a pretty versatile little thing,” says Orange’s chief amp wizard, Ade Emsley. “It’s way more versatile than the previous offerings in this format.

“It’s essentially channel A from the Dual Baby, he adds, with two footswitchable Volume controls and four stages of cascading, single-ended JFET gain, so it sounds very tube-like.”

Orange’s Baby amps have proven to have a bigger bite than their diminutive forms suggest, making them a surprise hit, and so Orange revitalizing the recipe is nothing but a good thing.

It comes off the back of Ed Sheeran’s well-received signature acoustic amps, and the OR60 head, its purest-sounding head yet.

The Orange Baby Terror is available now for $249/£199/€229.

See Orange Amps for more.

Known for his seismic basslines with punk rock outfit Bad Brains, Darryl Jenifer has spent the last few years exploring a very different musical landscape. His latest project, The Weather Channel, swaps hardcore intensity for psychedelic grooves – but the philosophy underpinning it all remains exactly the same.

“People ask me to describe the new record, but to me it's just another part of what I've always done,” says Jenifer. “I've been making riffs and chasing ideas since I was a teenager. I'm just trying to keep that dream alive.”

As a kid growing up in Washington D.C., Jenifer’s career direction was decided by one of the early pioneers of the bass guitar.

“When I was young, Stanley Clarke was my hero. I went to see him at the Capital Center in D.C in 1978, and after the show, I got his autograph on a dollar bill.

“I loved his speed and technique, but eventually I became more interested in vibration instead of notes. The pulse became more important than showing people what I could play.”

In the years since, Jenifer has remained remarkably unfussy about his bass setup, relying on the same instrument for decades.

“Too many musicians get trapped chasing equipment, but my advice is always to forget gear. Forget pedals, and forget trying to sound like somebody else.

“I've been playing the same Modulus since the ’80s. I bought it because it had a graphite neck. It’s the only one that could survive a Bad Brains show! Give me that bass, a cable, and an Ampeg SVT and I'm ready for anything.”

What’s the concept behind The Weather Channel?

The title came from the feeling of the music. Whenever I’d hear music playing behind weather forecasts, it always had this smooth, calming groove. One day somebody asked what I'd been working on and I said, “I've been writing some smoothed-out shit.”

My stuff with Bad Brains is hard music. This is just smooth music. So I thought, The Weather Channel. That's exactly what it is.

Was it a conscious decision to move in that direction?

I've never believed you're supposed to play a certain style because of where you're from. If you're Jamaican, people expect reggae. If you're from Washington, D.C., you're supposed to play go-go. But that never made sense to me.

If I'm into punk, I'll make punk. If I'm listening to Roy Ayers or Lonnie Liston Smith, I'll make something inspired by that. I just play what I love.

A jazz musician might hear it and say, ‘That's some punk Weather Channel music,’ but I don't consider myself a musician, so I've never thought that way.

Musicians study theory. They learn the language of music. I never had the patience for that. I think of myself as a riff maker – a guy who loves instruments and has a knack for creating music.

You've said you think differently about writing music these days.

When I was younger I used to force it. I'd sit down and tell myself, “I'm going to write a riff that feels like this.” Sometimes I'd even imagine pictures. I'd think, ‘This riff should sound like a brick wall falling over.’ That was how I translated ideas because I couldn't talk in musical language.

Now it's different. I believe in true inspiration. I'll come into my studio, meditate, smoke a little, play for 20 minutes without trying to write anything – and suddenly something appears. That's when I quietly hit record.

So I don't go looking for riffs anymore. I create the conditions where they can find me. The music starts telling me what it wants to be. That's the difference.

Do you analyse those moments afterwards?

Only enough to shape them. I've realized over the years that music almost has a life of its own. Sometimes an idea keeps coming back, even if it annoys me. The same thing happens with my artwork. I'll make something and think, “I don't even like this,” but other people connect with it. That's when I think maybe it wanted to exist more than I wanted to make it.

Music is a spiritual force. Sometimes it just wants to happen.

There's something hypnotic about The Weather Channel. It works as background music, but there's always enough happening to pull you back in.

That's exactly how I wanted it. Growing up in D.C. there was a radio show called The Quiet Storm. That music was everywhere. Roy Ayers. Lonnie Liston Smith. Smokey Robinson. Kool & The Gang when they got smooth.

My friends used to laugh because that's what I listened to. I've always had that side in me. So this album is really my Quiet Storm record.

You assembled a fantastic band, too.

The beautiful thing is none of it was planned. Everybody lives around here. One person would say, “Call John Medeski.” Someone else would say, “You've got to get Ben Perowsky.” It all happened naturally.

That's another reason this record feels honest. Nobody was chosen because of their résumé. It was just people making music together.

How much direction do you give players of that calibre?

I'll show them the basic idea. Maybe there's a verse and a B section. That's it. Then they bring themselves into it. It's like cooking. Everybody throws a little something into the pot and suddenly you've got something nobody expected.

Afterwards I go through everything and shape it. I call it combing the music. Like getting a haircut before you leave the barber shop. The music is already there. I'm just cleaning it up.

You've always seemed creatively fearless.

That's probably the biggest gift I've been given. When Bad Brains suddenly switched from hardcore into reggae, we weren't trying to surprise anybody. It just felt right. When Sailin' On suddenly turns into something that sounds like Stevie Wonder, that wasn't calculated. That's just where the music wanted to go.

I've always trusted that instinct. Sometimes musicians tell me something I've written is harmonically wrong. Maybe it is. If it feels good, I'm keeping it.

What advice would you give young bass players?

Learn to love a simple four-string bass, and pay attention to your touch. People won't remember how many notes you played, but they remember how you made them feel.

A Japanese man has been arrested and had 40 guitars seized after reportedly giving his neighbors insomnia from years of high-volume playing.

The Japan Times reports that Kyoto resident Kazunori Yokoi, 61, has been abusing the volume controls of his amplifiers and CD player for the past seven years. Three neighbors, in their 60s and 80s, are said to have suffered from sleep deprivation. A fourth has reportedly developed tinnitus from the guitarist’s decibel-shattering antics.

Yokoi is said to have received multiple warnings, but the complaints continued, forcing the police into action. Subsequently, an investigation found noise levels measured over 80 decibels in the neighborhood. That's roughly the equivalent to the noise of a blender, a handsaw, or heavy traffic.

The investigation also alleged that Yokoi would face his radio out towards the street and blast tunes around the clock.

Yokoi was arrested on assault charges, and Japanese police seized over 40 guitars from Yokoi’s home. Multiple amps, a CD and radio cassette players were also seized. There’s no mention of amp modelers in the report, so Guitar World is going to go out on a limb and say he might have been a tube amp purist.

One long-suffering neighbor is quoted as saying, “All kinds of sounds were jumbled together all day,” (via Kyodo News). Another said the music he played was hard rock.

According to the police, the 61-year-old guitarist admitted to making the noise but denied that his love of loud had harmed anyone.

Noisy neighbor guitarists can be problematic. Ozzy Osbourne was once famously so fed up with Randy Rhoads’ late-night guitar sessions coming through his hotel room walls, he insisted on fitting a remote control onto his pedalboard so he could power it off from the comfort of his bed.

Perhaps this Kyoto neighborhood could learn something from that...

Some 40 years after the passing of charismatic frontman Phil Lynott, Thin Lizzy’s enduring popularity transcends the hard rock genre. Lynott’s timeless songwriting, and the contributions of a succession of stellar guitarists, resulted in a catalogue of classic material that’s inspired bands as diverse as Metallica and Primal Scream.

Lizzy’s most celebrated and influential recordings were made between 1974 and 1978, by the line-up of Lynott, drummer Brian Downey and guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian ‘Robbo’ Robertson.

While Robertson’s stint with Lizzy would be tempestuous, his input – both as a lead guitarist and in writing Lizzy’s signature twin-guitar harmonies – helped define the band’s sound, captured at a coruscating peak on 1978’s Live And Dangerous.

After leaving Lizzy in July of that year, Robertson recorded two albums with Wild Horses (remixed for the recent Standing Our Ground - Complete Recordings 1978-1981 boxset), followed by stints with Motörhead and fellow Glaswegian Frankie Miller.

He spent the ’90s and Noughties working predominantly as a session musician and producer, and in 2011 Robertson released his debut solo album, Diamonds & Dirt, reissued in May this year as Diamonds & Dirt: Expanded Edition, with a previously unreleased instrumental album.

Though happily retired since Diamonds’ original release, the reissue has prompted Robertson to grant Guitarist a rare interview to look back on Lizzy’s classic era.

You were a fan of Lizzy’s Vagabonds Of The Western World and could play the songs before you auditioned. What did you like about Eric Bell’s guitar playing?

There was a bit of Hendrix about it, but there was that Celtic lilt to it as well. That’s what turned me on to Vagabonds.

Peter Green is your main influence. What did you like about his playing?

Fleetwood Mac’s Blues Jam At Chess is my favourite album. [I tried Les Pauls] because of that album and that specific guitar [Peter Green’s ‘Greeny’]. We did a lot of shows with Colosseum II in Europe. Gary [Moore] was using that Les Paul from the Lizzy days, so I got to play it. It was quite difficult, the action was horrendous. Gary had big, big hands.

When you joined Lizzy, you famously refused to replace the solo Gary had recorded on the demo of Nightlife’s Still in Love With You before he left. Was that played on Greeny?

Yeah, it was. I remember hearing [that] with Gary, because he was using the Echoplex a lot, on short delay. When Gary wasn’t widdling it just came – and that’s the magic, to me. That’s why I refused.

You and Scott Gorham effectively replaced Gary when you joined Lizzy, after temporary recruits John Du Cann and Andy Gee didn’t work out. Gary toured with Lizzy in 1977 after you’d sustained a hand injury while defending blues-rock singer Frankie Miller from an assailant with a broken bottle at London’s Speakeasy Club. And when you left in 1978 Gary rejoined permanently. Despite all of that, there didn’t seem to be any sense of rivalry between you.

The press take great delight in creating umbrage where there isn’t any. I always had the utmost respect for the man. There was one interview where he said something like, ‘Robbo’s never off that bloody wah-wah pedal,’ [laughs] and that sparked this so-called feud in the press. It wasn’t a feud – that was just Gary being funny.

Many fans know the name of the Les Paul Deluxe you played with Lizzy, with the finish scratched away by the bracelets you wore.

Yeah, the ‘Auld Bitch’, which I’ve still got. It was my first Les Paul, given to me the minute I joined Lizzy. I think it was still on hire purchase [laughs].

It was stolen around 2010, when a cab driver in Stockholm drove off before you could retrieve it from the boot of his car. 10 years later it appeared on Facebook Marketplace. Fans recognised it and alerted your friend Per Olsson, who arranged for you to buy it back. It had ended up with a 16-year-old who’d never heard of Lizzy. Is it true that you spoke to him on Skype to prove the guitar was yours?

“Yeah, it’s quite recognisable. I was over the moon. That sort of thing never happens to me [laughs].”

You also have a rare hollow-bodied 1953 Les Paul, purchased when you joined Lizzy in 1974. It was customised by Les Paul himself for his wife, Mary Ford, who found standard models too heavy. How did you trace its provenance?

It was on consignment from Mick Ralphs [Mott The Hoople, Bad Company]. Mick’s roadies told me it came from Mary Ford and Les Paul. They’d tracked the history down. I used it on two gigs; it was dreadful because it fed back.

But it looked great, Burgundy red-ish. I had to have it, even though it had a Bigsby. My contention was that we needed a spare [laughs], which is bollocks because you couldn’t use it live. Plus, with the Bigsby, if you broke a string, it’d take you an hour and a half to change it. [I played it in the studio] on Jailbreak. Anything with slide, and anything clean-ish, is that one.

Jeff Beck had it for a little while. We were rehearsing together in Nomis Studios [London rehearsal/recording studio, founded by Wham! manager Simon Napier-Bell]. I was rehearsing with Motörhead.

I wanted to know how he got that top note on Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers, and he said, “It’s a guitar synth.” I started joking, “You can have that if you give me your Roland guitar synth.” He let me use the guitar synth while he had the Les Paul. That’s how I got into using the guitar synths with Motörhead [see 1983’s classic Another Perfect Day].

You were introduced to Lizzy by your friend Charlie McLennan, their roadie, in Glasgow in February 1974. You had your guitar with you and impressed Brian Downey by playing some of their songs. Shortly thereafter, you moved to London and successfully auditioned at Club Iroko, after Charlie tipped you off that they were looking for new guitarists. What do you remember about your audition?

They were rehearsing every day and auditioning every day. Andy Gee [ex-Pete Bardens, Ellis] was still there, playing the Auld Bitch. That was his guitar. And [there was] another guy. I can’t remember his name. A very straight-looking geezer. I think he was a session guy. I remember watching the two of them play, thinking, “This is bollocks.”

When you, Phil and Brian started playing, was there an immediate chemistry?

Certainly with Downey. It didn’t matter what song they said, I already knew [them] all. I threw Gonna Creep Up On You back at them because it had the wah-wah on it.

You got the gig slightly before Scott. What made him the right choice?

It was Phil’s decision because he liked his look, and he was American. Brian and I didn’t think he was up to it, to be honest. He was perfectly capable of playing the major and minor chords in the right place, but not the lead. You’re playing a minor blues and you’d say, “Take a solo,” but he played it [in] major. That’s what jarred with Brian and I.

Scott has said you were the more advanced lead guitarist at that stage.

He was more of a rhythm player in the beginning. The solos he did take were meticulously worked out. They weren’t solos, as I understand solos. Even from the early days, I would just say, ‘Run the track and I’ll just jam.’ We’d do it three or four times, and then edit them, so there’s some spontaneity.

I’d write a riff or a melody line [of the guitar harmonies]. I started off by just banging on the tape echo. I’d show Scott the easiest part, or the part that suited him best, then I’d put the other part on top. I was playing by ear.

Were you influenced by Fleetwood Mac’s harmonies on songs like Albatross?

No, I was listening to the lead playing more than the harmonies. I was into Wishbone Ash, that probably had some effect. Definitely the Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East.

Lizzy released the classic Jailbreak and Johnny The Fox albums in 1976. Scott has said that your management and label said the band was in danger of losing its record deal if you didn’t get a hit.

I don’t think we knew we were on the chopping block. We were aware that the contract was coming up, so we knew that it had to be a good album. But when you’re that young, you think, ‘Nah, it’ll be cool.’ I’ve got a soft spot for [Johnny The Fox].

There was tension because it was so quick after Jailbreak. Rather than just doing what Phil had got on his acoustic, there was more involvement from the band. That led to stress [laughs].

You assumed you’d been fired after the hand injury at the Speakeasy and began forming Wild Horses with former Rainbow bassist Jimmy Bain. Scott has said that he wanted you back for the Bad Reputation album. Despite not being pictured on the cover, your input was far greater than anyone realised.

When they asked me to do it, I’d already started Wild Horses. I went out there as a session [player]. When I got there, it was skeletons. There were no harmonies on the riffs, just Scott’s guitar, so what you were hearing was very small.

I doubled everything. On Dancing In The Moonlight, you can hear the same augmented chords I put on The Boys Are Back In Town. I was pretty focused on that one and a bit pissed off about the way it was handled – the album cover and all that nonsense.

You stayed for the Bad Reputation tour and subsequent Live And Dangerous dates, then left in July 1978. To set the record straight, as far as you’re concerned, you were never back in the band as a permanent member?

Yeah. There was no big blow-up. It might have been a build up of little things [laughs]. It fizzled out. It was time to go back to Wild Horses.

You maintained a close friendship with Phil until the end of his life. Phil and Gary guested with Wild Horses, and Phil and Scott had writing credits on the band’s first album, so things must have remained amicable?

Yeah, exactly.

Gary Moore replaced you for the Black Rose album. However, you’d played Waiting For An Alibi and S & M live, and the title song during a soundcheck. What did you think of Black Rose?

I didn’t like the sound: very compressed, no definition on the guitars. The identity had gone a little bit. Gary’s sound was different to mine. My sound was a substantial, clean sound. When I left, the sound was smaller.

Gary later said that the lineup with you and Scott was his favourite. Most fans consider Live And Dangerous to be Lizzy’s definitive album because the band was at its best on stage. Do you agree?

Yeah, we built ourselves as a live act. If we were having a good night, I would pick up on accents that Downey was playing, Phil would latch on to it, and we’d work off each other, while Scott was playing a solo. We enjoyed playing live. We had to – we were doing two world tours a year [laughs].

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Jimmy Page and the late Jeff Beck’s origin stories overlap in all kinds of ways. They emerged from the same scene and became friends. Both had stints in the Yardbirds, both became greats of the instrument.

But in a 1977 interview with Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press, which was republished in the November 1991 issue of Guitar World, Page revealed just how close he and Beck came to forming a band together – and this band was the O.G. Led Zeppelin.

“We were going to form a group called Led Zeppelin at the time of the Beck’s Bolero sessions, with the line-up from that session,” said Page. “It was going to be me and Beck on guitars, [Keith] Moon on drums, and maybe Nicky Hopkins on piano.

“The only one from the session who wasn’t going to be in it was [John Paul Jones] Jonesy, who had played bass. Instead, Moon suggested we bring in Entwistle as bassist and lead singer as well.”

Not only would it have a twin-guitar act of Beck and Page, this Original Led Zeppelin was to have the rhythm section of the Who, with Keith Moon on drums and John Entwistle on bass guitar.

“After some discussion we decided to use another singer,” Page added. “The first choice was Stevie Winwood, but it was decided that he was too heavily committed to Traffic at the time, and probably wouldn’t be interested.

“Next, we thought of Stevie Marriott. He was approached, and seemed to be full of glee about it. Then a message came from the business side of Marriott, which said, 'How would you like to play guitar with broken fingers? You will if you don’t stay away from Stevie.' After that the idea sort of fell apart.”

This ‘Original Led Zeppelin’ could have returned to Moon’s original idea of having Entwistle front the band. But the year was 1967, and things were moving fast.

“We just said, ‘Let’s forget about the whole thing, quick.’ Instead of being more positive about it and looking for another singer, we just let it slip by,” said Page. “Then the Who began a tour, the Yardbirds began a tour and that was it.”

And all things considered, it worked out just fine. Page might have been upset that the Yardbirds were coming apart but they were soon to evolve. John Paul Jones called Page and asked if he wanted to do something together. “Jonesy was in,” said Page.

Terry Reid was mooted to front the next iteration of the Yardbirds, though he had signed up with Mickie Most. But he was eager to help. Reid put Page in touch with the singer in a band called Hobbstweedle. Robert Plant was his name.

Page had to pinch himself. He couldn’t believe it. This guy Plant had the stuff.

“When I auditioned him and heard him sing, I immediately thought there must be something wrong with his personality, or that he had to be impossible to work with,” Page remembered.

“I just could not understand why he hadn’t become a big name yet. So I had him down to my place for a little while, just to sort of check him out, and we got along great. No problems.”

And Plant knew a drummer by the name of John Bonham and that was that… The real original Led Zeppelin was born. Though Keith Moon can still take the credit for naming the band.

“It was Moon,” Page answered when asked who named the band. “I’m sure, despite anything Entwistle may have said. Entwistle must have just been upset that the original Led Zeppelin never took off.”

Recently, we were saddened to learn of the loss of a giant figure in guitar electronics, not to mention an unforgettable character who preferred to bill himself as a ‘tone explorer’ or ‘sonic alchemist’, rather than a sober-minded engineer.

“Alan Entwistle – our fearless leader, innovator, guitar and pickup designer, historian, joker, vivid imaginer and very dear friend – has left us,” read the moving Instagram post from James Davies, Entwistle Pickups brand manager and close friend of 35 years. “He really was an amazing person who always lifted any room he entered with his jovial manner and quirky sense of humour.”

Speaking to us last year, Entwistle had sharp memories of the instrument that set him on his path.

“The Höfner Galaxie was the first decent guitar I bought. I didn’t have Fender Strat money in my wallet! I went into Reidys in Blackburn – it must have been in 1965 – and they had all sorts of stuff, Voxes, Strats, Shaftesbury… and there was this Galaxie sat there. It was really nice, clean and, of course, it was red!

“It looked the business and it was on sale for 55 guineas, so I took it on a two-year hire purchase agreement. I really got into it; it had lots of sounds, different tones.”

As an art school graduate with a knack for wrangling electric setups, by the late ’60s, Entwistle was much in demand as a repairman to the blues-boom generation.

But he announced his talent for electronics early on – one formative project combined his father’s stereo with a microphone ‘borrowed’ from a public telephone – and rapidly gained a reputation for both his own guitars built from the ground up and the head-turning pickups within them, soon to become highly prized on the aftermarket scene.

Entwistle’s abiding love was for the classic tones of the ’60s (he cited Höfner, Framus, Klira, Vox, Mosrite and Burns). But while his retro-modern pickups caught that same vintage character, he also forged ahead with a series of innovative variable tone devices, most notably the ATN 5 and ATN Tone Shaper.

“Think of the ATN as a ‘global’ control,” suggested Guitarist’s Dave Burrluck of the passive-circuit rotary control that Entwistle developed in the mid-80s as an evolution of the Gibson Varitone, “that filters and thins the sound progressively as you move through the positions.”

Featured on various respected brands – including Vintage, Revelation and Entwistle’s own Rapier line – the ATN gave modern players close control over his own idiosyncratic pickups.

“It’s quite subtle, but it does become more dramatic if you back off your volume control slightly,” he observed. “So if you select bridge and middle, and move the ATN back anti-clockwise one or two positions, it begins to sound like an electro-acoustic and can get very jangly.”

Despite the long hours that went into these technological advances, Entwistle was adamant his products should remain within the budget of everyday players.

“Alan never saw the advantage in making unaffordable guitars only available to the few,” noted the tribute on the Entwistle Pickups website, “as he knew it was possible to produce great products at a much lower cost. This extended to his pickups, where he had no interest in hand-making boutique pickups at astronomical prices, when a well-designed, well-made factory pickup sounded just as good.”

Celebrated as a great British designer, Entwistle nonetheless spent much of his life and career in Eastern Asia and the Southern Hemisphere (where he moved in the late ’70s).

Sadly, in February 2026, a desperate GoFundMe appeal announced that the veteran designer was in intensive care in China, having suffered a recurrence of the brain tumour he had bravely fought a year earlier, and facing crippling medical bills.

The end came on 30 April, yet there is no doubting Entwistle’s legacy as an all-time electronics visionary, who buzzed with ideas until the very end.

“Even at nearly 80, he was still creative and highly motivated, looking forward to what his next range of guitars might be,” concluded Davies’ valedictory post.

“Over the last six years, I got to help him develop certain products and learned a wealth of information from him (although probably only a fraction of what he had in his head). I know I will never meet anyone quite like him and that the world is now a sadder place, but I will treasure those times.”

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Iconic pedal steel guitar company Sho-Bud is expanding into recorded music with the debut of its record label and publishing arm, Sho-Bud Records. Originally founded as Sho-Bud Music in 2002, the imprint is now being reintroduced under its new name.

Music industry veteran Mike Gormley will be leading the effort. His decades of experience in the music business include managing The Bangles and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and writing for the Detroit Free Press, Variety Magazine, and Billboard Magazine. He also served as a music executive for A&M Records and Polygram Records.

“Sho-Bud is not simply a brand. It is part of the sound of American music,” he states. “When a name carries that much history, the responsibility is to honor it, protect it and help introduce it to new audiences.”

According to Sho-Bud co-CEO Will Jackson, the idea was partly inspired by the artists who use the brand’s instruments. “We saw a chance to do more than build great products — we wanted to help those artists reach a wider audience,” he says.

“By combining our technology expertise from other arenas with a strong network of industry partners, we've created a platform that supports artists through traditional and emerging channels, including vinyl, streaming, sync licensing, social media and live production.”

CFO and General Counsel Fred Waid also confirms that, by working “even more closely with the people who play our instruments,” the record label’s work will help shape the future of Sho-Bud instruments.

Founded in 1955 by Shot Jackson and Buddy Emmons, Sho-Bud has established itself as a go-to for pedal steel guitars.

It helped shape the “Nashville sound” and became a staple of country and Americana music throughout the ’60s and ’70s, as leveraged by the likes of the Beach Boys, Yes, and the Eagles.

Earlier this year, Sho-Bud continued expanding its offerings by acquiring Mosrite Guitars – the underdog firm loved by Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, and Johnny Ramone.

What is it?

It's the nature of electric guitar and bass design – no matter how brilliant the blueprint is, once it reaches the market, there will almost always be a subset of owners who find joy in tweaking, adding or removing components, and stamping their own identity on it.

The Fender Jazz Bass is one of those instruments whose design was nearly perfect from the off, and remains so after almost seven decades, but there's now a sizeable market for Jazz-inspired bass guitars with the added power and flexibility of active electronics.

It helps that the Jazz is such a versatile platform to begin with; further enhanced, it really can end up being the clichéd “everything you ever need” bass – comfortable and stylish but traditional, and distinctive-sounding but with masses of flexibility.

Strangely, for a company that has made inroads into so many diffuse areas of the guitar and bass market, Ibanez had never hopped aboard.

The company's long-running Soundgear and BTB ranges, and the newer EHB headless models, cater particularly well for the rock and metal crowd; its Talman range adds a couple of quirky retro models. But in between, there's a long-standing gap; we’ve never seen an Ibanez take on the do-it-all ‘Super Jazz’. Until now

In 2026, we're seeing a whole new range of basses from the Japanese giant - the Mode, or MDM (Mode Modern) series. A clearly Fender-inspired outline, and all-important Jazz-sized single-coil pickups, but with the accoutrements of modern bass guitar.

The £999 entry to the range is the solid-coloured MDM1000, available with four, five or six strings, but here we have a four-string example of the next model up - this is the sunburst-finished, ash-bodied MDM1300.

Specs

• Price: $1,299 | £1,099 | €1,199
• Made: Indonesia
• Type: Four-string active bass guitar
• Body: Ash
• Neck: Roasted maple, MDM profile
• Fingerboard material/radius: Roasted maple, 12” radius
• Scale length: 34”/864mm
• Nut/width: Plastic, 38mm
• Frets: 24, medium, stainless steel
• Hardware: Ibanez Aero-light tuners, MR5S bridge, black
• String spacing at bridge: 19mm - adjustable at bridge
• Electrics: 2x Delta S4J pickups, Ibanez Sonitech S preamp, controls for Volume, Balance, Tone (push-pull for activating EQ), Bass, Mid, Treble, 3-way Mid selector switch, 2-way Hexa Mid selector switch on rear panel
• Weight: 9.3lb/4.2kg
• Options: MDM1000 range (from £999) with solid-colour finishes, available in 4, 5 or 6-string. MDM1305 5-string (£1,189). MDM1600 range (from £1,189) with exotic wood top, available in 4, 5 or 6-string.
• Left-handed options: N/A
• Finishes: Natural Stained Amber Burst
• Case: Ibanez gig bag included
• Contact: Ibanez

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

The body shape is instantly recognisable as Jazz-inspired, but with a deep treble-side cutaway for access to all 24 frets. The prominent grain of the ash, and the subtle burst finish, are very attractive; like the best of this style of instrument, its aesthetics would be just as suited for a soul/R&B band as for a metal project.

The build is fantastic overall; the hardware is tactile and high-quality, and the fit and finish is extremely well-executed, with no real flaws to mention anywhere – not necessarily a given with basses around this price.

The only sticking point with this review sample is the weight – at around 4.2 kg, it’s more than most will want for a four-string Jazz-style bass.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★★

I’ve heard Ibanez’s slim, narrow Soundgear neck profile described as being “like playing bass on ‘Easy’ mode” – and that statement came back to mind immediately when I began playing the MDM1300’s roasted maple neck.

It’s a Jazz-spec 38mm nut width, with a slim profile and a very smooth satin finish, and its easy playability is exactly what we’ve come to expect from an Ibanez bass – really superb.

There’s even a detachable finger ramp supplied; it’s as if the bass is egging you on to play faster and more technical fingerstyle passages.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

Another feature of the Mode series is an exhaustive EQ section – not satisfied with the conventional Bass/Mid/Treble layout, Ibanez has added a three-way mini-switch to offer a choice of midrange frequencies.

Then, set into the rear cavity cover, a second DIP switch for Ibanez’s new Hexa Mid circuit, which shifts the mid response to a lower register – combined with the first switch, this is a total of six possible frequencies for the Mid knob to boost or cut.

If you’re dialing in a very precise tone, it’s great news; if you’re prone to option paralysis, it’ll confound you. But you can pull up on the passive tone control and bypass the whole lot.

After you’ve found your way around the smorgasbord of midrange possibilities, the Ibanez starts to deliver on its promise of versatility, taking everything my bass test rig could throw at it – from a clean, compressed Gallien-Krueger to a gritty Sansamp tone, a vintage Ampeg overdrive to a modern-day Darkglass roar.

The Sonitech S preamp is clean, articulate and, of course, has that incredibly powerful EQ; fingerstyle, slapped, or picked, every note comes out with abundant punch and clarity. It doesn't sound like a vintage Jazz Bass, but you could immediately slot it into a recorded or live mix as a polished, professional modern Jazz-style tone – which is more the point.

There’s also something to be said for how much better it’s possible to sound on an instrument that simply makes playing smoother.

Verdict

It’s strange that Ibanez has never entered the ‘Super Jazz’ space before but, on this evidence, the Mode series stands as one hell of a first effort.

This example is a heavyweight, but makes up for it with stunning playability and a preamp that offers a borderline-excessive amount of adjustment.

At its price, it’s very difficult to rival the degree of quality and versatility shown here – if a modernised Jazz Bass is what you’re after, you’d be doing yourself a real disservice by not auditioning the Mode series.

Guitar World verdict: Ibanez has come into the modern Jazz Bass-style market for the first time, and pulled it off with quite some aplomb. The Mode series is a class-leading package – an excellent, unique preamp, good looks and the kind of silky-smooth playability that Ibanez fans will know and love.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Ibanez

Jonny Dibble

BassTheWorld

• Ibanez Bass Workshop SRFF805 review

Among all the great blues guitarists, Buddy Guy holds the crown as the most expressive when it comes to playing solos with rhythmic variety. In particular, he’s got an uncanny knack of drifting away from the band’s time, particularly in a slow blues, where there’s more space to play with. Clipped notes, sustained vibrato notes, quick-fire note bursts, accelerating repetitive licks and moments of silence: these and more have become his beloved rhythmic trademarks for blues soloing.

One of my favorite eras of Buddy’s is the mid-to-late ’60s, and this encompasses albums such as I Left My Blues in San Francisco (1967), and A Man and the Blues (1968), as well as his incredible work with Junior Wells. There’s something special about this period, where his playing was cleaner, and yet more raw-sounding. He was considerably ahead of his time.

And don't forget his renowned tone: neck and middle pickups on a Strat (legend has it that he originally taped his three-way selector to get the sound). I’ve gone for this pickup position in all the examples, with some mild breakup on the amp. He has also used neck and (especially) bridge positions, so feel free to experiment.

All of the examples are in C# major. This is perhaps an unusual key for guitar players but one that Buddy has enjoyed playing in over the years. The benefit of this key is when you’re using minor pentatonic shapes 1 and 2, you're in the middle of the fretboard, so bending and vibrato is easier. But it’s rhythm that we’re really going to dig into, so let’s get into it!

Match My Sound: play-along enhancements

For this lesson, we've partnered with MatchMySound to offer the ability to record yourself and see how close you are. MatchMySound is a great tool to help track your progress.

Click on the word 'options' (lower left, below the tab/notation) to select from 'demo audio track' (just guitar), 'backing track' (just the backing), 'full audio' (backing and real guitar audio) and 'metronome' (just a click to play along to).

Below that, select 'options' for how you can record your performance.

At the upper right, the magnifying glass images let you alter the playback speed for learning and pushing your playing onwards.

Follow the cursor to keep up with the tab/notation accurately on screen.

Lastly, to view the music better by filling your desktop/tablet/phone screen, click on the square brackets at the top right.

Buddy Guy rhythmic examples

Example 1a - On the grid time feel

Before you explore playing around with time or playing ‘off grid’, it's important to be able to play on the grid, showing you can synchronise with the band. In a 12/8 blues groove, most players gravitate to underlying groups of three (played on the hi-hat on the backing).

In this example, this is evident but also there are fast pull-offs that come from a smaller 12-note grid. Even though you’re playing with different rhythmic groups here, notice that almost every line begins on one of the strong beats.

Example 1b - Shifting the rhythm

Buddy Guy is about vibe and spontaneity rather than precision. This extends to some of his string bending as well as his timing. Here you're shifting some of the lines to either side of the strong beats as this will make your phrasing sound less predictable. Experiment with the speed and placement of the faster pull-offs.

With repeating licks like this, it’s worth making it sound more conversational and expressive, as opposed to being completely uniform.

Example 2a - On the grid time feel

One of Buddy’s trademark ideas is using pedal note bluesy double-stops. He does this with thumb and first finger (or you could use hybrid picking as I’ve done in the video), which means you can easily achieve wide intervals that jump strings.

On this first ‘on the grid’ version, view the whole phrase as a classic blues call and response line.

Example 2b - Off the grid time feel

Here you're letting go of the grid. The ‘dragged’ sound should feel a little lazy in the picking hand as this will give you a behind the beat feel. The second half of this line includes a ‘4 over 3’ grouping that’s common in slow 12/8 blues.

Don't overthink this, as aiming for precision can often ruin the effect. Just as with harmony, you can create considerable tension with rhythms like this, with a feel good release when you hit the final note.

Example 3a - On the grid time feel

Buddy loves to milk simple blues phrases over time (and often over an entire 12-bar solo). Here you’ll start off with a typical pentatonic lick that’s grouped as six notes per beat.

As before, the bends can be loose in terms of tuning (anything from a ¼ note to a ½ note bend will sound good). The first finger bend is a Buddy Guy trademark but it can be tricky: explore bending towards your face rather than towards the floor, as it can feel easier to do.

Example 3b - Elastic/bungee time feel

The notation can be a little bit daunting here but all you’re going for is a “start slow and soft, then gradually get faster and louder” vibe. As with the previous example, the release of tension will be at some future point – ideally when the chord changes.

Again, it’s not about precision. You can put the brakes on if you feel yourself going too fast, but if you end the line too early or late it doesn’t really matter. For added expression, try picking close to the bridge for a spikier sound and vary the dynamics from whisper quiet to loud.

Example 4 - Putting it all together

In this longer 12-bar solo all of the previous ideas are put together so you can see the examples are interchangeable over different parts of the progression. There are also some extra Buddy-isms, including the ‘catch bends’ in bar 2.

Normally, the fretting fingers push a lower string out of the way during a bend up, but here you can allow the fingers to be slightly flatter to push onto the second string. It’s got a glorious out of tune sound that’s worth getting into your playing (you can also hear where the great SRV got this from).

This line resolves in bar 3 with the second finger bending down from F# to E# for a sus4 to major 3rd sound that Buddy was fond of using. You're also being more explicit with the harmonic change to the V chord (G#7) during the turnaround by playing notes from G# minor blues, rather than C# (this is another trick that SRV loved to use).

Buddy Guy in action

Damn Right, I've Got The Blues

Here are two live performances by Buddy Guy of one of his most famous songs, Damn Right, I've Got the Blues. The first is from 1994 and he's in full showman mode, bursting with enthusiasm and sporting a rich neck pickup overdriven amp tone. His searing string bends, on-grid/off-grid rhythmic phrasing and shredding speed bursts are nothing short of stunning.

The second performance is from 2019 and while he's slightly less animated here, his soloing displays gorgeous string bends and expressive vibrato. His rhythmic phrasing is masterful as he weaves around the band's feel with sustained notes and dragging lead licks.

Harley Benton has hopped on the relic hype train with the launch of its Aged Series – which offers hand-aged electric guitars and bass guitars for as low as $238.

Love 'em or hate 'em, artificially aged guitars have experienced a boom in popularity over the past few years.

Gibson has pioneered the Murphy Lab. Fender has debuted the Heirloom treatment. Charvel, EVH, Solar Guitars, you name it. Almost everyone is leaning into the relic trend right now. Heck, there are even relic guitar stickers to make your box-fresh guitar look faux-damaged.

Nowadays, players want the best of both worlds; to have the battered aesthetic with a brand-new condition.

But these relic’d guitars can be quite expensive. Fender’s American Ultra Luxe Vintage guitars start from $2,849. Gibson’s Murphy Lab? An Ultra Heavy Aged 1959 Les Paul will set you back $10,699.

Enter Harley Benton. The affordable gear champion’s new Aged Series comprises a bunch of classic double-cut, single-cut and offset silhouettes, each of which offer a relic’d finish. The best part? They cost under $250 – and they’re all aged by hand.

The Aged Series has taken two years to refine, scale and finesse. Each model is available in Light Aged and Heavy Aged versions, with finishes such as Olympic white, Sunburst, Seafoam Green, Shell Pink and Black all on tap.

It’s the hand-aging thing that’s the real sell here, along with that incomprehensibly low price point. That’s almost custom shop-level attention to detail at an entry level budget.

Granted, it remains to be seen just how effective the aging looks up close, but from afar they look like the real deal. Kudos to Harley Benton for also aging the hardware.

The Aged Series includes S-type, T-type and offset electric guitars, as well as a P Bass-inspired four-string. Specs across the board include alder bodies, caramelized Canadian maple necks and laurel fretboards, as well as ISOLA alnico 5 pickups.

“We’ve always had ambition here at Harley Benton,” the company says. “The Aged Series is a dream that’s been years in the making. We’ve been working hard to develop a durable finish to nail the character and patina that make these guitars so breathtaking.

“The result? Authentic, hand-aged instruments, each one unique in aesthetic, all for incredible value, and we’re ever so deeply enamoured.”

Head over to Harley Benton for more info.

The inclusion of the S-types here is particularly notable, given the backdrop of Thomann's recent legal tangle with Fender over a high-profile copyright dispute. Depending on how that case develops, it remains to be seen how long these models will stick around for.

Pete Townshend is largely credited as one of the first guitarists ever to smash a guitar on stage. However, Jimi Hendrix managed to build quite a reputation for the almost ritualistic way he destroyed instruments – even going as far as to set them on fire.

Eric Barrett, who served as Hendrix's roadie during his heyday, was just 21 when he found himself on the frontline of the guitarist's stagecraft.

“During the last number, Jimi took all of his frustrations out on the equipment,” he writes in an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Experienced: On the Road with Jimi Hendrix and Beyond – published by The Sunday Times – as he looks back on his first run of shows with Hendrix in 1968.

“He beat the hell out of the amplifiers and poked bloody great holes in the speakers with the neck of his guitar. No wonder the last roadie took a bucketload of acid and fucked off mid-tour.”

While Barrett can’t clearly remember whether Hendrix “set fire to anything” during that first short tour of Italy and Switzerland, he confirms the legend did go out of his way to smash “plenty of guitars and amps.”

In typical rockstar fashion, “He’d never warn me before a performance. I don’t think he knew himself until it came time for the encore.”

As a responsible roadie, Barrett tried his best to save a couple of Jimi’s guitars from this fate.

“Before he went on stage, I’d always point out an old guitar, or one I’d rebuilt, and say, ‘Jimi, if you’re gonna smash a guitar tonight, please use that one,’” he continues.

“Sometimes he’d listen to me, other nights he didn’t. I remember one really beautiful Fender Stratocaster; I watched in horror as he destroyed it during the encore in Bologna.”

Backstage after the show, Barrett was left wondering why Hendrix would deliberately smash perfectly good guitars.

Hendrix’s reply? “‘Eric, I just couldn’t get any more out of it, man. I squeezed every note and every sound that guitar was ever going to give me. It had nothing left to give.’”

In a 1968 interview with reporter Jay Ruby, later published in the November 1991 edition of Guitar World, Hendrix reflected on his guitar-smashing antics, giving more insight into why he did it.

“It was just because we felt like it,” he said. “It might have been because we had some personal problems.

“You feel very frustrated, and the music gets louder and louder. You start thinking about different things, and all of a sudden, crash, bang. Eventually it goes up in smoke.”

By that point, Hendrix had already set fire to his guitar at London's Finsbury Park Astoria in 1967. He famously repeated the stunt at the Monterey Pop Festival that same year, inspiring generations of guitarists, including Kurt Cobain, Matt Bellamy and Phoebe Bridgers.

Angine de Poitrine remain the buzz band of the year. It’s essentially now a legal requirement for guitarists to have a strong opinion on them. If only there was a way to choose a side without three days of doom-scrolling. Wait, there is... It’s Fret Buzz!

Catch me up. Who are these clowns?

Is your Wi-Fi down or something? Angine de Poitrine are a Québécois experimental rock duo and viral phenomenon. They’re everywhere. Selling out tours. Drawing record crowds at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Wigging out on Later With Jools Holland. Opening for Jack White. Poor old Rick Beato has begged people to stop emailing about them. He can’t keep on top of his inbox.

What kind of music do they play?

A sort of stabby, scronky math-rock, using loop pedals and microtonal guitars. It’s pretty good. But the music is arguably just a footnote in their overnight fame.

Do you think their polka-dot costumes and papier-mâché masks might have something to do with it?

It seems likely. If you’ve ever thought, “I quite like rock ‘n’ roll but wish it had a soupçon of street-theatre whimsy”, this is the act for you. The lineup features a guitarist (Khn) with a proboscis you could use to artificially inseminate livestock. And a drummer (Klek) who looks like the bastard child of a dalmatian and the Pulp Fiction gimp.

Slipknot and Ghost wear masks too. But I don’t hear you taking the piss out of them…

That’s because we’re scared they’ll send us a dead crow in the mail. I mean, what are these guys going to do – perform a strongly expressed mime?

Where did Angine de Poitrine come from, anyway?

The official PR line is that they’re 333-year-old time-traveling aliens. And they’re not a band, by the way, they’re a “mantra-rock Dada Pythago-Cubist orchestra”.

That sounds a little pretentious.

Yes it does.

It sounds to me like they’re getting on your nerves.

Well, like I said, the music is really interesting. But the backlash has already started. Devin Townsend recently pondered: “Would they have that same attention if they weren’t wearing big clown noses?”

Well, would AC/DC get the same attention if Angus Young wore jeans and a T-shirt?

Yes! We think so. Wouldn’t they? We’ve never actually thought about that before.

So Devin has spent his entire career dressing soberly, in a bid to draw precisely no notice to himself, has he?

Er, not really. There were the white top hats. And now you mention it, I think he dressed up as a superhero in the PowerNerd video.

I mean, are polka dots inherently annoying?

They don’t have to be. Buddy Guy and Randy Rhoads’ guitars were riddled with the pox and we still love those guys. That reminds us: Khn might even have a signature Godin microtonal double-neck in the works.

What are microtones anyway?

Oh, you Westerners! Microtones are the in-between notes you pass through when you’re tuning to standard pitch. Angine de Poitrine are far too arty to be constrained by your fusty 12-semitone system.

So these guys could discover, I dunno, H sharp?

Er, sure... If Cruella de Vil doesn’t flay them for their spotted skin first.

• Correction July 30, 2026: This article was updated to remove a line that incorrectly stated “poitrine” was French for ‘boobs’, as opposed to meaning ‘chest’ in this context.

Steve Hackett’s ’57 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop is as storied as they come, having been featured on a wide range of Genesis albums and tours from ’73 to ’77, as well as on his solo recordings. Not bad, considering he bought it for $800 mid-US tour.

“They gave me a hard time about it when I brought it through customs,” he tells Guitarist in a new interview.

“I'd paid $800 for it, and I had a bill of sales. ‘Oh, is that rather cheap for one of those?’ And I thought, ‘Are the bastards going to take it off me or what?’ But it's still here.”

Featuring PAF pickups and a Tune-O-Matic bridge, this mahogany-with-maple-cap Les Paul was bought to replace the LP Standard that was stolen and subsequently held for ransom during the North American leg of the Selling England By The Pound tour. Yet it turned out to be a worthy investment, as it ultimately defined Genesis’ guitar sound throughout the better part of the ’70s.

For Hackett, owning Les Pauls also served as a full-circle moment, after spending his teenage years window-shopping and pining after gear he couldn’t afford.

“My God, when you're young, and you're big borrowing and stealing to try and get hold of anything like this, up and down the shops… looking at guitars that I couldn't afford, amps that I couldn't afford… I used to think anyone who's got a Les Paul and a Marshall stack has made it already,” the guitarist recalls.

As he puts it, “If you've got that equivalent, you've got that equipment. You've got the sound of rock and roll. You are that magician. Now go out and do that thing.”

Hackett's arsenal of guitars – including his ’57 Les Paul – appear on his collaborative album with Marillion's Steve Rothery, which has been in the making for the better part of eight years.

Titled The Roaring Waves, the record will finally see the light of day on August 28 via InsideOutMusic.

PRS has appointed its first-ever Chief Executive Officer, Jack Higginbotham.

Higginbotham has been a key part of the Maryland brand since it was founded in 1985. He started his career in the woodshop, and worked his way up to become the company’s Chief Operating Officer.

Now, he leaves his role as COO to become the first person to hold the title of CEO in PRS history.

“Jack Higginbotham has been a leader with PRS since the beginning. He is deeply deserving of this role,” Paul Reed Smith, the firm’s namesake and Managing General Partner, says. “I look forward to continuing our close relationship building and selling guitars and amps for the world.”

“PRS is an exciting place to be, now more than ever, and I’m thankful to be surrounded by talented, focused teams in the US, UK, Europe and Japan,” notes Higginbotham.

“As Paul is heard to say, ‘This is our time.’ As I navigate my fourth decade as a PRS employee, I’m looking forward to using my experiences as well as our collective experiences to position us well for the next 40 years. I am grateful for the opportunity and look forward to what is to come!”

It’s no surprise that Higginbotham was seen as the outstanding candidate for the role. In his 41 years at the company, he’s been at the forefront of many PRS developments, helping bring to life key products such as the Silver Sky and SE Series.

He was also instrumental in working with John Mayer on the SE Silver Sky line.

However, despite the milestone surrounding the appointment, it’s unlikely it will result in any extensive operational overhaul. Instead, it looks to be a natural structural evolution that will maintain, rather than reinvent, the wheel.

Indeed, PRS says “Higginbotham will continue to oversee the worldwide day-to-day business operations of the company”, and will travel the globe to “strengthen manufacturing processes, dealer relationships, vendor connections, and every aspect of PRS Guitars”.

Many of his responsibilities as CEO will therefore be carried on from his COO days. Likewise, the structure around Higginbotham remains unchanged, meaning the current setup – with Paul Reed Smith at the heart of guitar development – will be unaffected.

At a granular guitar level, expect business as usual. If anything, Higginbotham’s ascension to the CEO position has executive advantages that come with having a clear, identifiable Chief Executive at the helm of the company.

Head over to PRS to find out more.

French guitarist, singer and band leader Laura Cox began her career by posting videos of herself playing classic rock guitar solos on YouTube around 18 years ago, and she was amazed when the views and likes began rising to astronomical levels.

Before too long, she’d formed a band, walked out on stage and entered a professional recording studio for the first time to make her debut album, 2017’s Hard Blues Shot. Since then, she’s released another three, including the latest, Trouble Coming, from last year.

We spoke to Laura during her UK tour in May this year and were eager to hear about how she went from playing in front of a camera at home to taking centre stage as a headline act.

Tell us about how you began your career online.

I was around 15 when I started playing the guitar. Then, two or three years afterwards, I was really into watching YouTubers playing covers of classic rock solos, and it was really motivating for me. I thought, “Okay, I’m gonna do the same. I’m gonna post and maybe get some feedback.” I don’t know, I thought it would be fun. I was also a bit introverted, so for me it was easy to do this – easier than form a band and play on stage. So I started uploading videos on YouTube back in 2008, I think.

At the time there weren’t a lot of women doing this – playing rock – and that’s why it kind of worked. I didn’t have any plans or strategies to get followers or views or anything. I did this on YouTube for years, but I kind of got stuck into this pattern, you know?

I wish I could have started the band earlier because I think I spent maybe eight years on YouTube and I never played with real people. So I think I was missing something, like just jamming and playing with people, sharing music together.

Comments on YouTube guitar videos can be notoriously vicious. How was your experience?

A lot of the comments were really positive, really encouraging and motivating. But there was also a few criticising my looks, or almost sexual harassment. But, honestly, for me, it was the internet, it was not real life. I didn’t care and I was really detached from it.

And I think that’s a good way to see things because if you start to take every comment really seriously and it gets into your head, it’s not good. YouTube for me was for fun, and sometimes I checked the comments and if they were good, that’s good, and if they were bad, I’m gonna sleep tonight and it’s gonna be okay.

Who were your influences when you started playing?

When I started playing the guitar, I was really inspired by Slash, Mark Knopfler and Joe Bonamassa – these were my three guitar heroes – and I spent hours and hours working on their solos, and they kept me motivated.

They don’t know the impact they had on me, but they made me the player I am now, for sure. And I have to say that now I’m less into guitar-hero music, and I’m more into songwriting music like in more modern bands, I would say, but I won’t forget that they made me who I am now. I’m really grateful for that.

When did you put your band together?

It was a bit more than 10 years ago, around 2014, and thanks to YouTube, this is what helped the project start: we found a label and booker around 2016 and my first album was released in 2017 [Hard Blues Shot as the Laura Cox Band], and I think YouTube really helped with this side of things.

What was it like going into the studio for the first time to record an album?

Horrible! [Laughs] It was a nightmare. Because my only experience of music was playing guitar in my room in front of a webcam where I was alone, so I could re-record and re-record. But playing in the studio, recording an album with a band and engineers and every second is costing me money, I was really stressed.

We had a lot of technical difficulties, the gear was falling apart and nothing was working. I was kind of going into depression after the first studio recording because we couldn’t see the end.

Every day we were thinking, “Okay, we’re late on the schedule, we still have to record this and this,” and it was never ending. But with the years and the albums coming out it’s getting better and better, and with my latest album I didn’t record it this way in the studio, I recorded a lot at home, and it felt way more comfortable.

You described yourself as a bit of an introvert. What was it like actually getting out and playing in front of people?

It was a fun experience. What was weird is that I waited. I had been playing guitar for eight years before being on stage for the first time.

Usually you play guitar, you start a band, and then you play at your high school parties with your band when you’ve just picked up the guitar and you barely know how to play. But, for me, it was different because I had already gathered a few million views before going on stage, so I had this pressure…

I mean, all my first experiences in music were stressful, but now I’m trying to be less stressed about everything. At the first concert, I remember we played all the songs very fast – I just wanted the show to be done, you know?

Let’s talk about your live gear. You’ve recently moved from playing a Les Paul to an SG – why was that?

This guitar was a surprise for me because I’ve always been a Les Paul girl since I started playing the guitar. I was a big fan of Slash, he got me into playing Les Pauls and I’ve been playing one all my life, basically until two years ago when Gibson told me, “We have a new SG coming out. Maybe we can send it to you, just to try,” you know?

At the beginning, I thought, “Okay, I don’t need this, I don’t need to try it. I already have what I need.” But then I told them, “Yeah, why not?” So I got my hands on this guitar and it’s crazy how easy it is to play an SG compared with a Les Paul.

Every time I was practising in my living room, when I grabbed the guitar, I took the SG because it’s lighter and it felt good in my hands. So I thought, “Okay, maybe I should use it for a gig, just to check,” and then I didn’t want to give it back to Gibson! So I told them, “I’m gonna buy it. I’ll keep it.”

What’s the main difference between the two models, would you say?

You have to fight against the Les Paul, I think, to play it. But with the SG everything feels really fluid, really easy and natural and comfortable, and you don’t have to fight it. So I just went for the easiest way, and once you play an SG on stage, it’s hard to go back to the Les Paul. So right now, what I’m doing is switching between the SG and Les Paul Juniors on stage because [the Juniors] are the lighter version of the Les Paul.

Now I think I’ve found what I was looking for. So [the SG] has been my main guitar for two years now and the neck feels really perfect. It’s not too narrow, not too wide; it just feels good and it lets you play naturally.

What modifications have you made?

I changed the pickups. Originally, it had ’61 Burstbuckers, which I swapped for Gibson ’57 Classic pickups. But I’m still not really satisfied, so maybe I’m gonna switch back. But I really wanted the double white pickups, you know? So I’m gonna check what I can find, but I love the look with the white pickups.

I changed the pickguard, too, because it was black originally, and I changed the pots and the knobs. It’s mostly for the looks. I’m still looking for a few things, but I feel really, really good playing this guitar on stage, so I think it’s going to stay my main guitar for the next few years.

What about the Firebird?

I bought this one years ago, I believe it’s a Firebird [V] from 2013. It’s all stock, from what I know. I [haven’t] changed anything because it sounds good like this.

I wanted a guitar that was a bit different from my guitars with humbuckers, so I thought, “Okay, the mini-humbuckers can bring something else to my tone, and to my playing, and to the way I’m writing songs,” and it sounds good with a lot of things I do. It feels really fun to play live with this weird shape. It’s always something that people who don’t play guitar notice instantly.

After the shows it’s always, “Oh that guitar looks so cool!’ So, yeah, I love this one. At some point I almost thought I would sell it. And then some people told me, “Don’t do it!” and they were right because I just took it out of the storage again and now I won’t let it go.

You’re a Marshall amps endorsee, so what sort of amps do you use live?

Live, I have two heads, one main and one spare, but they’re the Studio Vintage 20. They’re really compact but really loud. I used to have the matching cabs, the 2x12 cabs, but I recently changed to a 4x12, a 1960AX cab. The head is only 20 watts, so I was happy to get a bigger cab to have a bit more headroom and fullness to the sound.

Are you looking at recording another album this year?

Yeah, definitely. I have nothing for now, but the next album should be recorded, hopefully, before the end of the year. After the UK tour, I’m gonna lock myself in my room and try to get some ideas because

I don’t want to wait too long between the last album and the next one. I really want to keep this inspiring dynamic. I’m really motivated to release new stuff.

• Trouble Coming is available now via earMUSIC.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Jack White’s Third Man Hardware is back with another collaborative pedal, this time creating a buzz with Beetronics with the Old Zoo Lion Meat.

The bizarrely named pedal, which looks like a can of tuna, is a short-run fuzz pedal limited to just 333 units. It’s not the first time White’s left-of-center gear firm has spat out a fuzz box, but none have been this streamlined.

The stompbox redresses Beettronics’ tuna-can design, offering “thick, vintage-inspired tones” and a no-frills single-dial design. Turning the ‘Phlegmatic Roar’ dial sets the overall output volume, while the fuzz is dictated by the Volume knob of a player’s electric guitar.

When rolled back, it promises an articulate clean. When at its most extreme, expect a “roaring wall of vintage fuzz”.

In a quirky twist, the pedal’s underside features a transparent back cover, meaning Beetronics’ bee-bestowed circuit board is visible. And there’s not even a hint of tuna to be seen.

Artwork has been provided by Rob Jones, with whom White has worked before. The pedal ships in “an over-the-top blister pack” which is, fittingly, designed to look like a vintage meat label, and plays on the biblical story of Samson and the lion.

As a statement from the collaboration says: “Eat up, then plug in to give your guitar a belly full of bees, like the carcass of Samson’s legendary leonine corpse.”

Each pedal is priced at $150 and is exclusively available via Reverb.

However, at the time of writing, the drop has already buzzed off. As such, Reverb recommends users hit the heart icon in case any second-hand units appear on the site in the future.

For other eye-catching Third Man Hardware collabs, see its one-of-a-kind reverb, made with JHS Pedals, and the Knife Drop, a synth/octave/overdrive built with Eventide.

Beetronics, meanwhile, ventured beyond the usual analog delay paradigm with its recent release, the Bee Bee Dee.