On September 16, some of the world’s most historic guitars – including famous ’Bursts and T-Bone Walker’s 1949 ES-5N – will come to Denmark Street in London, where they will be played live and loud by some of Britain’s top guitarists.

Chris Buck of Cardinal Black will be joined on stage at The Lower Third venue by Chris Turpin of Mirador, the hard-hitting rock band he co-fronts with Jake Kiszka of Greta Van Fleet.

Together, they will play a bevy of Holy Grail vintage guitars – many of which made rock history in the hands of players such as the Stones’ Mick Taylor.

There will also be a special presentation of vintage Rickenbackers by guitar historian Martin Kelly, the author of Rickenbacker Guitars: Out of the Frying Pan Into The Fireglo, and Richard Barrett, formerly of Tony Hadley’s band and Guitarist’s resident virtuoso.

“I genuinely can't wait for it,” Chris Buck said after being announced as one of the headliners of the show.

“Having the chance to play such iconic, culturally significant guitars is undoubtedly a perk of the ‘job’. It's like going into the Ferrari museum at Maranello after hours, and someone left the keys in the ignition."

Chris Turpin of stellar rock band Mirador and roots-blues outfit Ida Mae echoed Buck’s sentiments.

“Denmark Street is hallowed ground in the story of the British guitar hero. To give voice to these legendary guitars – many of which have become cultural icons and changed the course of rock ’n’ roll – is a bloody privilege,” he said.

Stellar guitars already confirmed to be played on the night include the 1959-spec ‘Grainger’ 1960 Les Paul Standard formerly played by Gary Grainger of Rod Stewart’s touring band from the mid-’70s into the ’80s.

Also on show is the ex-Mick Taylor ‘Exile’ ’Burst, a rare original late 1950s ’Burst, and the aforementioned 1949 Gibson ES-5 that, in the hands of T-Bone Walker, gave birth to electric blues.

There will also be a delectable selection of Golden Era Strats in ultra-rare Custom Colours, plus benchmark vintage electrics from 60s ES-335s to ’54 Goldtops and rare Rickys, with many more landmark guitars to be announced in the coming days.

The show, called ‘Legendary Guitars on Denmark Street,’ is proudly presented by Guitarist magazine in partnership with the historic recording studio (now guitar store) Regent Sounds, where the Stones cut their debut album, just across the road from The Lower Third venue.

Joining Turpin and Buck on stage will be former Guitarist and Guitar Techniques editor Neville Marten and the magazine’s current editor Jamie Dickson, who will offer insights, perspectives and stories about the guitars being put through their paces on stage, drawing on decades of experience to bring the heritage of these unique guitars to life in company.

“I'm totally stoked to have been asked to join this rare and exciting event,” Neville said.

“It's really good to be doing something with Rickenbacker, too, since these guys built some of the most influential guitars in history and yet don't always receive the love they deserve.

“It never hurts to cast an eye over an original ’Burst or two, either, and I hear some sensational artist instruments will be getting an airing, too. I can't wait, and I look forward to seeing you there.”

Doors for the event open at 6pm, with a bar on hand for refreshments, and the show will run until after 9pm, giving plenty of time to savour the sounds and sights on offer.

Ticket holders will also get all-day exclusive access to Regent Sounds’ stunning vintage lounge where some of the guitars that will appear in the show that evening, including T-Bone Walker’s ES-5, will be on display.

There will also be other exclusive perks for guests to the event to be announced in the run-up to the big night.

Tickets for this unique and unmissable live celebration of Holy Grail guitars are priced at £49.50 and can be ordered online now at Future Events.

FOMO can be a hell of a drag. No-one wants to miss a great show. But say you are up onstage at your own gig, under what circumstances would you think of bailing on it to have a better time elsewhere?

Stevie Ray Vaughan had the answer to that question. The late blues guitar icon could remember the night as clear as day when he spoke with Guitar World in September 1988: the time when he was up onstage and just decided that, no, he had somewhere better to be.

Now, this might be the only story of someone walking out of a Stevie Ray Vaughan gig and the person doing the walking was Stevie Ray Vaughan. But his hero, Albert King, was in town, and Vaughan had yet to see him play live. He had already copped a lot from listening to King.

“I do owe a lot to that man. That’s where a lot of my ideas about how to play guitar came from,” said Vaughan. “I don’t know of anybody who can play sassier than Albert. There’s a lot of different kinds of blues guitar, a lot of different styles, but the first time I heard Albert King I thought, ‘This is it!’ I still think so.”

Picture the scene on this night in 1972. Vaughan was playing in one of Austin’s legendary/notorious dive spots – “a little dump in Austin called the One Knight on 8th & Red River, a block from the police station.”

Like many of the bands who played there, Vaughan would be playing for tips.

“There was no cover at this place, just a pass-the-hat situation,” he explained.

The One Knight was quite the place, like the Double Deuce without Swayze on the door, Harleys out front, and it was tiny. This was the spot where Pink Floyd were told in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome to jam onstage because they were not a blues band. It’s not called Stubbs.

But as Michael Corcoran writes in this superlative Overserved Substack, back in the day the One Knight used to host the elder Vaughan brother, Jimmie, and Doyle Bramhall’s band, Storm, every Monday night for five years. Stormy Monday. And there was a legendary night involving The Velvet Underground.

This, however, as not going to be one of these legendary nights, not after SRV got wind that Albert King was making an unscheduled appearance across town.

“He was substituting for Bobby Bland, who was in the hospital,” said Vaughan. “Actually, Bobby was supposed to open for the group Cactus, but when Cactus found out it was Albert, they insisted on opening up for him.

“Anyway, that night somebody came over and said, ‘Albert King’s in town, filling in for Bobby Blue Bland. You wanna go?’ And I got on the microphone and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna go see Albert King, and if you got any brains you will, too.’ And I just packed up and went. Man, it was quite a night.”

King’s influence is all over Vaughan’s playing. If there’s sassiness, then that’s where it’s coming from. Vaughan studied his every move.

“I remember seeing him on TV doing Born Under A Bad Sign. I just couldn’t get enough of the guy,” admitted Vaughan. “And I began trying to figure out what he was playing, just listening to his records day and night and kind of feeling my way around the neck, figuring out those bends.”

Vaughan made it across town in time for the show. He was one of the few.

“There were only about 75 people there when Albert played, but every single person was there to hear Albert King,” he said. “The vibe was really happening.”

In his stocking soles, Albert King stood at 6ft 4-inch or 6ft 7, depending on whom you asked. And he was broad, too. They didn’t call him the Velvet Bulldozer for nothing. There was no missing the big man on stage. And yet Vaughan still maneuvered a better vantage point, standing on a table side of stage by the PA system.

“I just stared at him,” said Vaughan. “And partway through the show, he takes his mic stand and walks over there to the side of the stage, plants it and just stood there singing and playing to me the rest of the night.”

And this is when the two blues legends met for the first time. King appreciated the support and made a beeline to Vaughan after the show to thank him.

“I mean, here was this little kid, all of 18. I guess I yelled right or something, 'cause he really took a liking to me,” said Vaughan. “After he finished playing, he walked over to me, handed me his guitar and shook my hand. I was, like, stunned. I'll never forget that evening. There wasn’t very many of us there, but he gave it everything he had.”

That was the code of honor that all the blues greats had: they put everything into the show. Playing the blues is a little like stand-up comedy in that respect: the audience matters. They’ll make the show or break it. Cats like the Albert King knew this. Like the best of the original bluesmen, he knew people – and he never forgot a face.

A few years later, King was passing through Texas again. This time the show was on the calendar and Vaughan did not do anything so foolish as to book himself a show that night. He made sure he got to Antone’s early. He wanted to see King soundcheck. He wanted to see it “from the word ‘go’”. King spotted him immediately.

“First thing he did was he walked up to me, started pointing his finger and said, ‘I remember you, ‘bout three-and-a-half years ago we met,’” said Vaughan. “He never forgets people. He started calling me by name, telling me where we met, what happened and everything.”

Vaughan did not know it at the time. But it was a good thing that he decided to take in the soundcheck because he was about to become part of the show, and a little bit of blues history was about to be made. The kid whose style was cribbed from King was about to have the night of his life.

“Later on that night, I was sitting in the audience, and he starts talking about this little kid, 98lbs, soaking wet, you know… then all of a sudden I hear my name,” said Vaughan.

“He called me up to the stage with my guitar and I thought I was gonna play maybe one song with him. But I ended up playing with him for the rest of the night. It was amazing, you know? He’s an amazing guy. Nicest guy I ever met.”

When I first learned the Mixolydian mode, I found it elusive to incorporate into my improvised solos.

For those unfamiliar with Mixolydian, it is one of the seven modes of the major scale. Each mode is derived from the same sequence of half steps and whole steps that make up the major scale’s structure, but starting on a different note, which serves as the root of that unique mode.

For example, the C major scale comprises the notes C, D, E, F, G, A and B. The formula for the major scale is based on the intervallic distances between these notes. As there is a whole step between C and D and another whole step between D and E, the formula for the scale begins “whole,” “whole,” often indicated as “W W.”

If we reckon all the intervals of the major scale, the resulting formula is W W H W W W H, with H signifying a half step. The harmony inherent in the scale/mode is derived from the first, third and fifth notes (1-3-5). So, in C major these notes are C, E and G, which form a C major triad.

The C major scale is also known as the C Ionian mode. If one were to start on the second scale degree, D, and think of that as the root note, or tonic, the note sequence would be D, E, F, G, A, B, C. This is known as the D Dorian mode. Continuing this process, D Dorian is followed by E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian and B Locrian.

Figure 1 shows the G Mixolydian mode: G, A, B, C, D, E, F. The harmonic color, or flavor, conveyed by it is G7. For myself, I did not find it appealing to just play the notes of G Mixolydian over a G7 chord; it was not a sound I found to be compelling.

I was aware of all of the modes and thought that, since G is the fifth degree of the C major scale, maybe I can superimpose all or some of the triad arpeggios built from C major over a G7 chord in order to find another approach to using G Mixolydian.

Figure 2 illustrates the seven triad arpeggios that live within the C major scale, followed by a bluesy lick built around a G major triad (G, B, D). These are also the triad arpeggios of G Mixolydian.

A great way to explore using this approach is to jam over a G7 vamp and alternate between playing familiar blues licks in G and short phrases that outline these triadic forms.

Figure 3 presents a stock G blues lick. In Figure 4, I improvise over a G7 vamp, purposefully moving through the related triad arpeggios, starting on bar 1 with Dm and C, then descending to Bdim, Am, G and F. I then wrap up the phrase with a G7 blues lick.

Figure 5 offers a more ambitious example of this approach, again alternating between bluesy G7-flavored licks and the related G Mixolydian triadic forms, with a little chromaticism added in for a more interesting sound.

This approach offers a great way to unlock new sounds based on G Mixolydian while also opening up your fretboard vision and knowledge.

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

Alex Lifeson and Geddy had been getting together for casual jams for years. However, they still took everyone by surprise last October when they announced their reunion under the Rush moniker – with Anika Nilles filling the shoes of the late, great Neal Peart.

The pressure was on. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Lifeson spoke candidly about the challenges he faced ahead of the Fifty Something Tour’s kickoff in Inglewood, California, on June 7.

“14 months of rehearsal – it was difficult,” he admits, “and in the last month of rehearsals, there were times I was sitting on the edge of my bed thinking, at 2 o'clock in the morning, if I made the right decision.”

Lifeson boils these worries down to “rehearsal syndrome,” which caused him to question, “Can I play? Am I good enough?

“It wasn't really until Sunday when we played that gig that it all kind of came down this funnel and spilled out, and it was at that moment that I thought, ‘Yeah, this has all been worth it, and this is where I really am happy to be.’”

Lifeson has been battling a series of health issues in recent years, including recovering from stomach surgery, gastroparesis, Chronic Psoriatic Arthritis, as well as giving up weed at the age of 72.

As his long-time friend and Rush brother-in-arms, Geddy Lee, says, “It was really hard for him to get ready for this tour because he's battling genetics, and he's wrestling with [it] because he's crazy.”

The bassist goes on to say that Lifeson makes things even more difficult for himself by choosing “this fucking incredibly complicated setup of pedals and sounds, just because he wants each moment of the song to be true to the original moment of that song.

“So he really tackled a lot, and we were watching from the sidelines, going, ‘Poor guy.’” There were also instances when Lifeson told him he’d be ready in five minutes, and 30 minutes later, Lee was still patiently waiting for him to finish setting up his pedals so they could rehearse a song.

“We have the technology now to do those sorts of things,” Lifeson says. “So I really embraced it, but it requires a lot of attention and a lot of work.”

Lifeson's new digital rig ditches physical amps in favor of IK Multimedia TONEX and Fractal modelers to replicate decades of recorded sounds live.

“With the advent of AI [machine learning] helping, they sound like the greatest amps ever,” he previously told Rick Beato.

“There’s depth in the bottom-end. There’s real character. It’s not just the fuzziness and the noise that you get from an amp; it responds beautifully.”

Rush's Fifty Something tour continues through the USA and Canada throughout the remainder of 2026, before heading to South America and Europe in 2027.

Queen guitarist Brian May has found a 17-year-old fan who he believes sounds closer to his own iconic playing than most have ever gotten.

Matthias Reisböck has the tools for the job. He’s got a Red Special copy, he’s got May’s curly locks and, most importantly, he’s got the touch and feel of a guitarist once voted the world’s best. He regularly posts Queen covers on his Instagram, and May can’t believe it.

“Bloody hell,” he commented on one video. “You’ve got the touch, young sir. I can retire now. A fabulous rendition.”

Other comments have included “you’re sounding more like me than me” and, on his take of the Bohemian Rhapsody guitar solo, he beamed: “Perfect tone. I think that’s about the closest to my feel in that solo anyone ever got.”

Unsurprisingly, that recognition has left Reisböck jumping for joy. May is, he says, the reason he picked up an electric guitar in the first place.

“When I discovered the Bohemian Rhapsody film, I knew I wanted to play the guitar like him,” he says in a post reacting to one of May’s delighted comments. “I started playing about three years ago during a challenging and hard time for me.

“I began to play on my grandmother’s old acoustic guitar and learned the first few chords, feeling that I really wanted to become a guitarist. I watched YouTube videos of Brian and Queen and fell more and more in love with the music, Brian’s sound and his technique.”

Guitar heroes are looking out for the next wave of star players. Nuno Bettencourt recently uncovered a “generational talent” on social media. Earlier this month, Steve Vai and Dave Navarro championed a teenage folk guitarist who blew them away.

Meanwhile, a 16-year-old Thai shredder has stunned America’s Got Talent judges and looks to be the show’s latest child prodigy. They’re out there in droves, and if they’re playing Queen covers, there’s every chance Brian’s watching…

Carlos Alomar has looked back on his first encounter with Paul McCartney, after he was recruited to play on one of the former Beatles’ solo records in the 1980s.

Alomar boasts the unique merit of having met more than one Beatle in his time. By the time he joined Macca on Press to Play, he’d already crossed paths with John Lennon and Ringo Starr.

But the session veteran’s involvement with Macca was far more involved, in more ways than one.

“It was truly a wish-come-true moment,” Alomar says in the new issue of Guitar World. “I’m not sure why Paul liked my playing, but maybe my success with David Bowie, Iggy Pop, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Duran Duran and others might have tickled his curiosity.”

Alomar, who also played with David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop, was asked to record some finishing guitar tracks for Press to Play. Macca was skeptical at first, but he eventually warmed to the idea.

“I got a call from producer Hugh Padgham, whom I’d met when he produced David Bowie’s Tonight [1984],” Alomar remembers. “He was now producing Paul and wanted to know my availability. Paul had laid down some guitar parts, but Hugh felt that a ‘finishing’ session with me would complete the tracks.

“At first, the answer from Paul was, ‘No.’ But a little later, I received a call confirming that, on second thought, Paul thought it was a good idea.”

Alomar first met McCartney in the Beatle’s office. The two hit it off. Their first encounter was relaxed and friendly, if a bit hazy.

“When I arrived, Paul invited me up to his study. Paul was super intrigued by my stories about being on the R&B Chitlin’ Circuit tours. We talked about Bowie, James Brown, the Apollo Theater, and Harlem.

“While listening, Paul turned his back to me slightly to get something. What emerged was a perfectly rolled Jamaican ‘carrot’ ganja joint,” he adds with a laugh. “We talked and talked, and time stood still.

“Finally, I said, ‘Maybe I should listen to some of the tracks before it gets too late – or we get too wasted.’ That’s when we headed down to his Hogg Hill Mill studio [in East Sussex, England].”

It was an excellent first encounter, and Alomar would lend his unique rhythm guitar style to tracks such as Press, Pretty Little Head, Stranglehold and Only Love Remains, all of which turn 40 this summer.

Pick up the newest issue of Guitar World at Magazines Direct to read Alomar’s full interview. The issue also includes features with Peter Frampton and Kim Thayil.

More and more bands are turning to everything from amp modelers to headless guitars to shrink their gig rigs. Typically, that means modeling a big, beefy tube amp and packing it into a tiny unit for the best of both worlds. But it doesn’t have to be.

Australia’s lovable psych rock lunatics, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, believe in small amp supremacy, and their new pedal is here to spread the message. The Tiny Amp Destroyer is a tiny amp in an even tinier box, and, by Stu Mackenzie’s count, it’s “fucking sick.”

Made in collaboration with Greek co JAM Pedals, it’s based on the sound of a tiny $29 practice amp Mackenzie found at the pawn shop Cash Converters that sounded “cool, loud, and awesome.” It’s been on every Gizzard record since he bought it, which means it probably features on at least 45.

The Tiny Amp Destroyer is being billed as a three-footswitch gain machine, combining two independent drive stages with a standalone treble booster. Tonally, it traverses focused low-gain overdrive plains, through to “raw, boxy distortion” valleys and “dense, blown-out saturation” plateaus.

But it isn’t just the amp alone. The process started by pushing two JAM Boomster booster pedals into the amp and pushing it to the point of unruly, unstable breakup. The pedal is the soundtrack of the bargain combo being pushed far beyond the point of comfort. It’s the amp screaming for dear life. Small amp lifer Josh Homme will likely be first in line. And it all furthers our case that the age of “bad” guitar tone is officially over.

Active Bass and Treble controls, plus Magic and Notch dials, give players “the freedom to shape that instability,” for as much or as little control as they please.

This being Gizzard, of course there’s a splash of insanity in there. In this case, the lights change from blue to purple, depending on how cranked (or un-cranked) its dials are.

“It rips so hard, it’s insane,” Mackenzie says. “People should play way tinier amps. Fuck all this huge amp business. So I thought, ‘Everyone needs a Tiny Amp Destroyer,’ because it makes your massive amp sound tiny. And it’s just way better.”

“TAD is not an amp in a box,” adds Jam Pedals. “It is the sound of the box losing the fight.”

The first 50 units sold by JAM Pedals come hand-signed by Stu Mackenzie and Jason Galea, the band’s longtime artist who created the pedal’s visuals.

It’s priced at $399/£319 and available to order now.

See JAM Pedals for more.

On August 12, 2026, at Jones Beach Arena on Long Island, New York, Ritchie Blackmore reunited with Deep Purple for the first time in 33 years.

It was an astonishing feat, and not something anyone – including Purple’s current guitarist, Simon McBride – saw coming.

“It was all very last-minute,” McBride tells Guitar World. “Gillan got an email from Ritchie about a week before the gig, requesting to get up and play with us.”

Given the perceived layer of thick, unthawed ice between the camps, one would think there was a lot to hash out. It wasn’t the case. “The talks were very short,” McBride says. “Gillan asked us if we’d mind, and there were no objections from anyone.”

And really, how could they say no? “Ritchie was a big part of the band’s legacy,” McBride reminds. “I know they’ve had their differences, so it was nice to see them put that aside. From my point of view, it’s not every day you get to appear on stage beside one of the greatest icons in guitar history.”

Naturally, Blackmore’s legend status had McBride more than willing to step aside for his one-song cameo.

“I just said to Ritchie, ‘I’ll be your rhythm guitar player today. Just do your thing.’”

Blackmore did indeed do his thing, as only he can. “It was pretty cool,” McBride, who grew up digging Blackmore’s licks and, at 47, is the youngest member of Deep Purple.

“I got to stand on stage beside the guy who started this whole thing,” he says. “Ritchie is a legend, a great player, and a great innovator. I think all musicians grew up listening to his work.”

McBride joined Deep Purple in 2022 as a replacement for Steve Morse. Before that, he’d been around the blues-rock scene for decades, but he and Blackmore had never crossed paths before the Jones Beach jam.

“I was a little curious as to what he was gonna think of me,” McBride admits. “But he was a super-cool, nice guy.”

In fact, Blackmore liked what McBride was putting down. “He was really complimentary, which was a shock to me,” McBride says. “It’s very bizarre when these legends admire my playing. My head starts to explode! [laughs]”

But McBride is in no danger of getting a big head; he knows that evening was all about Blackmore. “It was a magical moment,” he says. “I think there were a lot of tears in the audience. And on stage, there were just smiles everywhere. I’m very lucky to have been part of such an iconic situation.”

That magic hasn’t stopped internet trolls from criticizing Blackmore’s playing. McBride isn’t having it. “People will always say stupid things,” he says with an eye roll. “I ignore that. Ritchie is in his 80s and plays great.

“He has health issues. If I can play that well when I’m that age, I’ll be happy. People should look at it for what it was: a magical night. There’s a lot of history in this band. That show was a part of it. A reunion between old mates who haven’t seen each other in years.”

In the days since the reunion, good vibes have flowed from Blackmore and Deep Purple’s camps. There have been photos showing old friends sharing laughs over cold beers. “That was great,” McBride says. “There were a lot of stories.”

“It’s a little bit of closure for the guys, he concludes. “There's a lot of history, and not all good. But they are older and wiser… it was great to see them close the door on all the negative history.

“As for me, I just wanted Ritchie to be happy and do his thing, which he did. Ritchie is and always will be a great player.”

When you think of movie directors, you probably think of a bullhorn-wielding figure, script in one hand, camera in the other. Now, add a guitar slung casually across their shoulder, and you’ve got Robert Rodriguez. The Texas-born filmmaker is the director behind cult classics like From Dusk Till Dawn and Planet Terror, as well as box-office smash hits like Sin City and the family-friendly Spy Kids franchise – and he’s just as passionate about guitars as he is about making movies.

While many film fans know him for his flicks, fewer may know him as a keen guitar player – although guitars are featured heavily in his works. Take his Mexico Trilogy – El Mariachi, Desperado, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico – where a wandering, guitar case-carrying musician named El Mariachi takes on the bad guys.

​We dial in with the director, and it seems he’s more than happy to get a chance to talk about his passion for the six-string.

“I was super-excited to get that call,” he says from his home in Texas. “I’m a huge fan of the magazine, obviously, since I was a kid. I was thinking, ‘Am I the first director to be on Guitar World?’” he quipped, and well, he very well may be the first we’ve featured.

Rodriguez grew up in a musical family, so it was inevitable he’d pick up an instrument, he tells us.

​“There was always music in the family. My mom used to take Spanish guitar lessons. She would have us all sing. As the family grew, she would learn guitar and sing Spanish songs – and she would have us sing for anybody who came over,” he recalls.

“I remember taking my first guitar lessons around 12 with my older brother. He was always a better guitar player. Around that age, a family friend was teaching us, just kind of simple chords,” says Rodriguez. “But there was a real romanticism towards the guitar in the family. I think probably because it was just so portable, too. We could all kind of go learn piano, but this one you could just pass around the house. I just found that I loved the iconography of it. I loved how it felt.”

​The guitar has become one of Rodriguez’s secret weapons, helping him unlock his creativity in other areas of his life, like filmmaking.

“I realize it’s instant meditation. So it really triggers a lot of ideas if you’re creative and kind of helps bring a lot of focus,” he says. “That’s why you’ll always see pictures of me with a guitar on a movie set. I’m probably the only director who always has a guitar on his set.

​“As soon as you’re done filming the shot, you put the camera aside, and you’re waiting for the next setup. Instead of pacing around or looking at my phone, I would pick up a guitar, and it would instantly keep me in creative mode. I’m not thinking about the guitar. I’m thinking about what the next shot is going to be, and inevitably, I would end up writing something.”

​These snippets of ideas would often lead to full-blown tracks that would go on to underpin iconic moments in his films, as Rodriguez explains.

“I remember I was on the set of Spy Kids 2, and my still photographer came over, and he goes, ‘What’s that thing you’ve been playing for the past few days?’ I went, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Do you like it?’ He goes, ‘You should record that.’ ‘I’ll go record it tonight. Maybe it’s the theme for this movie!’

​“It wasn’t the theme for Spy Kids 2,” he says. “It was the theme for the next movie I was doing, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, that I had already shot – it turned into the song. I recorded it that night, and Salma [Hayek] ended up singing it. It’s the end title song, and that theme is the theme of that movie.”

Rodriguez’s approach is a little left-field when compared to his peers, but it could be argued that his attitude to filmmaking, composing, and, of course, the guitar, is what makes his films unique. “I’m a better filmmaker by playing guitar. I’m a better storyteller by playing guitar,” he says with confidence.

And, as he tells us, music is just as important as the lines the characters are saying. “You have a soundtrack of dialogue to tell people about your movie. Well, the music’s like a soundtrack that tells them about your character.”

Rodriguez has amassed a pretty broad collection of guitars over the years. Some models he bought for movie projects, some were elaborate gifts from studios, and others are the tools he uses to perform live with his band, Robert Rodriguez’s Chingon Band, a music collective the director put together to perform popular songs from across his filmography with their signature Latin rock style.

“It’s kind of cinematic Latin rock, but for people who don’t even like Latin rock – it’s got its own, very cinematic quality to it,” he says.

To pull off this unique blend of “Mexican Spaghetti Western,” Rodriguez tells us that 24 frets are an absolute must, and that’s why, for a long time, he relied on a PRS Custom 24. However, his head has recently been turned by a striking custom build from Castedosa Guitars that got some serious action during a special Chingon performance in Los Angeles at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures to celebrate the anniversary of From Dusk Till Dawn and Spy Kids earlier this year.

​“When I met the Del Castillo brothers that are now in my band, they were playing these Yamaha or Takamine 24-fret acoustics,” he says. “They would do these harmonized runs all the way up to the 24th fret. So when they joined my band, I thought, I like that sound, but I want to do it with electric. Not a lot of electric guitars are 24 frets, so I had to go with a PRS. So that’s why that became my main guitar,” he elaborates.

​“I’ve always had painters paint my guitars,” he tells us. “The famous Latin painter, George Yepes, painted this one. He’s the one who did the cover of our Mexican Spaghetti Western album and the famous Los Lobos album La Pistola y Corazón. I was a fan of his art and wanted playable fine art, something I could hang on my wall yet also pull down and play.”

As much as Rodriguez loves his personalized PRS, it is now playing second fiddle to his new Castedosa Maravilla.

​“I heard about Carlos Lopez starting his own company, [Castedosa Guitars], and I bought one of his baritones, which is an awesome freaking guitar. This baritone is so killer, but I had limited use for it in the band,” he says.

​“I told him three years ago, ‘If you ever do a 24-fret guitar, that would be my main guitar.’ Then I saw that he started making them, and I told him about the LA show. So he made that guitar and had Sergio Robleto do a painting on the back because he wanted to showcase Latin art on the back of some of his guitars,” says Rodriguez.

“I didn’t know he was going to throw that in. And I also thought he was just going to make me a guitar for that one show. But as soon as I played it, I was so blown away that I knew it would be my main guitar going forward!”

​“The PRS is great, but this is a custom,” he continues. “You can just tell these are magically hand-built guitars that sound great. So for my live stuff, that’s definitely my main guitar now.”

We shift focus to one of the director’s early guitars, and it just so happens to coincide with one of his early films, Road Racers. He tells us how he acquired an old Silvertone to use in the movie, and it could be argued that Rodriguez had more than a little hand in repopularizing the guitar stylings of Link Wray.

"I actually got Link Wray to sign it for me, because the whole reason his music came back is that I made this movie called Road Racers just before Pulp Fiction. It’s like a love letter to [Wray]. It was a movie after El Mariachi,” he explains. “I got this guitar to use in that movie, and a friend that co-wrote it with me owned a bunch of old Link Wray records. We’re like, ‘Let’s put all this music in.’ There are five or six Link Wray songs in Road Racers,” he elaborates.

“I was able to license the originals really inexpensively. So when Quentin [Tarantino] heard that I got the licensing for an actual Link Wray song for so little, he put two of the songs in Pulp Fiction – and that got Link Wray’s resurgence.

“So when I met Link, he’d come to Austin in ’97. I got him to sign the guitar and told him that I put his music in Road Racers, and that’s why it’s in Pulp Fiction – he was like, ‘Oh, you’re the reason I got back!’ He was so grateful.”

Now, the crown jewel in his collection once belonged to another guitar hero of his, none other than Stevie Ray Vaughan.

“Some of my best guitars were given to me,” he says. “I’ve got Stevie Ray Vaughan’s 12-string. The guitar is from Stevie’s Live Alive tour. He gave it to his friend Larry Warren back in June of 1989. Larry eventually put it up for auction in 1997,” he explains.

“I did a big favor for a friend of mine at a movie studio by helping them out with some extra filming on one of their movies and not charging them an arm and a leg. They were in a bind; in fact, I probably did it for free, and they were so grateful that they bought me that guitar at an auction. I was stunned! You know, that’s one of the best guitars in my collection.”

Being a proud Texan himself, Rodriguez is quick to point out how much love he had for Stevie from a very young age, getting into music in 1979. “I mean, talk about a blowout year. I was 10. We had Dire Straits’ first album – Mark Knopfler’s stuff blew our minds. Van Halen’s stuff blew our minds, and Andy Summers, what he was doing in The Police. That was all in one year,” he continues.

“So we were all about the guitar and trying to figure out, ‘How do you play that?’ Then Stevie Ray Vaughan came out, and there was no going back.”

Now, that isn’t the only guitar he has with an SRV connection. Rodriguez was also lucky enough to snag the famous “Family Guitar,” which Stevie would play alongside his brother.

“The Rockin Robin double neck is one that Jimmie Vaughan had donated to a big charity auction, and I didn’t think it should leave Texas, so I bought it. It’s a real piece of Texas history,” he says. “And having four brothers myself, I loved that he and Stevie used to play that guitar at the same time for the song Pipeline during shows like the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.”

The director has been gifted many instruments over the years, from the financiers of a movie presenting him with a 1964 Fender Stratocaster, to being handed a striking cherry Gibson Les Paul on the set of Grindhouse. He was even gifted a model from Metallica’s shredder-in-chief, Kirk Hammett.

“Kirk Hammett gave me his LTD Nosferatu,” he says. “He had come over to look at some paintings that I had from [Frank] Frazetta, and he was so grateful he gave me a guitar.”

The conversation shifts to nylon acoustic models, and a road-worn, battle-scared Cordoba catches our eye.

“My favorite one that I bought back then when we started the band was this old Cordoba FCE, which I’ve had for about 24 years. I love the thin body of it,” explains Rodriguez.

“I’ve always had this on a set. That’s why it’s all beat to hell. It’s something I bought specifically for recording the Once Upon a Time in Mexico score back in 2002. It’s used throughout that score and just about any other score later that has acoustic nylon in it, which is most of them. I also played it at our live Chingon concerts. It was not used on screen in any movies, but certainly looks like it should be!”

Rounding out our chat with the director, we ask what advice Rodriguez has for aspiring musicians and filmmakers.

“Learn it all,” he says confidently. “Never stop learning. Always be a student and try to live a creative life and actively apply creativity to everything you do. If you actively say, I’m being creative, you’ll see everything change. I found I was happiest, most successful, most prolific, and most fulfilled when I was being creative.

“If somebody asks you, ‘Why do you keep playing that guitar?’ You tell them, ‘It’s just part of my creative process. I’m actually unlocking the secrets to the universe while I’m playing it.’ And you wouldn’t be lying! It’s very much like meditation in that it’s all in the practice of it.”

What is it?

If there was ever one pedal that the vast majority of players have owned at some point, it is the humble Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive. In fact, I’m not even convinced people buy them; they just seem to materialize out of thin air the moment you decide you want to turn your hand at the electric guitar. All joking aside, this famous yellow box is one of the most popular, most enduring stompboxes in the world, being a firm favorite for many guitarists across genres and generations – but how does it actually hold up to the standard of today? Well, that’s what I’m going to find out.

This pedal is a pretty simple affair, with dials for Volume, Drive, and Tone. Despite these limited controls, there are plenty of ways to run this pedal, and it all depends on the sound you are after and, of course, your rig. For a fraction of the cost of many boutique pedals, the SD-1 delivers a classic, usable overdrive that works equally well as a standalone boost or as a stackable gain stage in more complex setups.

As for the drive, the pedal uses asymmetric soft clipping to give it an amp-like overdrive that feels more organic than some other budget-friendly pedals, with a smoother transition from clean to driven tones.

You can’t talk about this little yellow box without mentioning some of the guitarists who have used one. The roster of artists who have relied on the Boss SD-1 is like a who's who of iconic players. Guitar wizard Steve Vai has used the SD-1 both in the studio and on stage, Prince was often seen with one at his feet live, and even The Darkness axe man Dan Hawkins used one on the band's breakout album Permission To Land. Other notable players of this yellow wonder include Josh Homme, Zakk Wylde, and Kirk Hammett. The pedal’s presence in the rigs of such varied players shows just how versatile the SD-1 can be.

So, with so many players swearing by it, and with an overdrive market that’s fully saturated with more “transparent drives” than you can shake a Les Paul at, I’m going to test the famous SD-1 from a modern viewpoint and see if it still holds up to today’s standards.

Specs

• Launch price: $66/£59/€62
• Type: Overdrive
• Controls: Level, Tone, and Drive
• Features: Asymmetric soft clipping drive pedal
• Connectivity: 1/4" ins/outs
• Bypass: Buffered
• Power: 9V
• Dimensions: W 73 mm x D 129 mm x H 59 mm
• Weight: 0.4 kg
• Options: N/A
• Contact: Boss

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

If there’s one thing Boss has always nailed, it’s making pedals that feel like they could survive a drop out of a moving van. Simply put, the SD-1 is rugged, dependable, and superbly put together. The chassis is that classic Boss metal shell that’s sturdy, weighty, and finished in that unmistakable canary yellow.

As with all Boss pedals, turn the screw on the front of the footswitch to access the battery compartment. I love that. It’s so much less of a faff than having to peel it off your pedalboard and unscrewing a tiny backplate. This way you can change the battery without it ever leaving your board.

The jacks are properly mounted to the chassis, so you don’t get that worrying wiggle you sometimes find in cheap guitar pedals, and the footswitch is classic Boss. It’s wide, smooth, with just the right amount of resistance. You can stomp it barefoot or in boots, and it always registers.

Everything here feels like it’s made to last for literal decades, and honestly, most SD-1s probably do. I’ve certainly played some that are older than me and still going strong!

Usability and features

Usability and features rating: ★★★★★

Usability-wise, this pedal is straightforward, unfussy, and instantly familiar to just about anyone who’s plugged in a guitar before. As I said before, you get only three knobs: Level, Tone, and Drive, and that’s it. No hidden switches, no convoluted menus, just the essentials for dialing a reliable driven sound. I reckon you could hand this to a total beginner and they’d have a usable sound in about ten seconds flat – like all Boss pedals, set everything to noon, and you’re pretty much good to go.

Now, I would say that while it’s simple, it’s not limiting. There’s a surprising amount of range in those three controls. The Level knob gives you loads of output, so you can use the SD-1 as a clean boost or really slam the front of your tube amp. The Tone control has a wide sweep, going from dark and woolly to bright and biting; be warned, though, it can get a touch harsh if you push it too far. The Drive knob is equally versatile, taking you from the subtlest edge-of-breakup to a full, singing overdrive.

Another thing I love is that it stacks beautifully with other pedals. You can run it into a fuzz, another overdrive, or a distortion, and it just plays nice. If you gig, you’ll appreciate the fact that the pedal’s footprint is compact, so it fits on even the most crowded boards.

Whether you’re a beginner sorting out your first board or a seasoned player who wants something reliable and no-nonsense, the SD-1 just works.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

For testing, I’m starting out by plugging my Fender Telecaster straight into my trusty Fender Twin, set completely clean. With all the controls on the pedal at noon, you get this barky, slightly honky, and gritty tone. It’s not super high-gain; instead, it’s an immediately usable light overdrive.

Compared to the Tube Screamer I usually have on my board, the SD-1 comes across as a bit brighter and more present, while the TS leans warmer and a little smoother overall. Of course, these are different circuits, using different clipping diodes, but they’re cut from similar cloth, and I can see why they are often compared to each other.

Dial the gain down, and the pedal cleans up beautifully, giving you those edge-of-breakup tones. For me, this is a great clean boost if you crank the Level.

Turn the gain up, and you’re in full-on overdrive territory. This is perfect for classic rock rhythms, bluesy leads, or even a bit of punk bite. I find the sweet spot is usually around two o’clock on the Drive, but there’s plenty of room to play. It does tend to get a little fizzy if you push it too far, though.

Some players love that extra sizzle; I usually keep it dialed back. The Tone control, too, can get a little sharp if you max it out, but the usable range is huge, so it’s easy to find your sweet spot.

Where things get really fun is running the SD-1 into an already cooking amp. Suddenly, that midrange bump helps your solos leap out of the mix, giving you extra sustain and presence.

Stacking it with other drives or boosts is a classic use of this pedal. The SD-1 excels at tightening up low-end flub and adding clarity, making even high-gain setups feel more focused and articulate.

What I appreciate most is how well the SD-1 responds to your playing dynamics and your guitar’s volume knob. Dig in, and you get more grit; roll back, and it cleans up without losing character.

It’s transparent enough to let your guitar and amp shine, but it always adds a little something extra. That’s why it’s stuck around for decades. Whether you’re after a subtle push or a full-on drive, the SD-1 can definitely do it.

Verdict

Okay, so the Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive is a classic; there’s no getting away from that, but I actually think it holds up surprisingly well in 2026. The pedal landscape has gone through a monumental change since this unit launched in 1981. There’s now more budget brands than ever before, and cheap, almost disposable stompboxes are ten a penny, but none can hold a candle to the build quality of the humble SD-1 – there’s a reason this stomp tops so many best overdrive pedal lists.

At around $69, it’s hard to think of another pedal that’s so cheap, so reliable, and that so many famous players continue to use on their boards. Is it the most complex or best-sounding overdrive in the world? No, of course not, but it is a surprisingly versatile one.

What really sets the SD-1 apart is its ability to fit into almost any rig. Whether you’re stacking it with other drives, pushing the front end of a tube amp, or using it to add just a hint of grit to a clean tone, the SD-1 delivers.

For new players and veterans alike, it’s a reminder that sometimes, the tried-and-true classics really can’t be beat.

Guitar World verdict: This classic overdrive is just as relevant today as it was when it launched in 1981. It’s versatile, affordable, dependable, and incredibly easy to dial in – really, what more do you need in an overdrive pedal?

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• Best overdrive pedals: from mid-hump to transparent tone

Canadian manufacturer Eastwood Guitars is adding to its hot streak of recent vintage-inspired builds by crafting the Micawber, a five-string T-type inspired by Keith Richards' iconic Tele and his trademark open G tuning.

Keef famously removes the sixth string entirely for the tuning, as he finds it superfluous. The decision has yielded enduring guitar riffs like Start Me Up, Jumpin Jack Flash, and Brown Sugar.

Eastwood is taking things a step further by releasing a 25.5” scale T-type with a natural blonde finish born to have only five strings from the factory.

The Micawber looks like a classic Tele at a glance, but is anything but after a closer inspection, with a custom Gotoh T-Style bridge with individual string saddles and a quintet of Gotoh tuners in place. It also has a slightly thinner fretboard – it's 1.343" at the nut – making the axe tailor-made for Stonesy playing.

It has a custom-wound single coil blade pickup in the bridge and a neck humbucker, wired to a three-way switch. Position one, which is the bridge pickup, is also aided by a Blend dial, with a low-pass added to position three.

The tonewood recipe, meanwhile, marries an ash body with a maple, modern C-shaped neck, and a maple fretboard with 21 medium-jumbo frets.

Coming in at $1,299, you could argue it’s not exactly a bargain – and people will constantly ask you where the rest of the strings are. But this is a specialist build. It was always going to raise the price, rather than slice one-sixth off it.

It follows Eastwood remaking Mike Bloomfield’s crudely modified folk-killing Tele earlier this year. However, the launch of an Angine de Pointrine-inspired microtonal double neck shows that contemporary trends are on its mind just as much.

Like the double neck, the Micawber is available now for preorder via a crowdfunding campaign. Deposits are $200, and at the time of writing, it’s bagged eight of its target 12 pre-orders to go into production.

See Eastwood Guitars for more.

Five-string guitars, of course, aren’t wholly new to the market, with Jacob Collier’s signature Strandberg proving that. It’s also been outselling the six-string variant, as players invest in the jazzer’s unique D-A-E-A-D tuning.

Newman also dropped a similarly Keef-inspired build in 2024.

Peter Frampton has looked back on how he got his hands on one of Jimi Hendrix’s most experimental instruments – which he later used in David Bowie’s band

The Humble Pie legend often finds himself at the heart of intriguing gear stories. The tale of how he ended up with one of only three electric sitars that were once owned by Hendrix is no exception.

“I was finishing [1977 solo album] I’m in You at Electric Lady in New York, which was Jimi’s studio,” Frampton recalls in the new issue of Guitar World.

“As we were leaving on the last night, the studio manager came out with a guitar case and said, ‘We’ve really appreciated you being here; I hope you had a good time. We have something here that we think Jimi might have wanted you to have.’”

Plenty of Hendrix’s gear has ended up in the hands of notable players, often as gifts. Frank Zappa acquired the Strat Hendrix charred at the Miami Pop Festival in 1968, Vito Bratta recorded a White Lion classic with his black Strat, and even My Chemical Romance’s Ray Toro has gotten in on the action.

But when the studio manager opened up the case that day, Frampton was caught off guard.

“I was expecting it to be a Strat, but they opened it up and showed me this electric sitar, and I went, ‘Oh, my God,’” he recalls. “Jimi’s road manager Gerry Stickells once wrote, ‘Jimi had three electric sitars. I know where two are, but I can’t find the other one.” [Laughs] I’ve got it here!”

Stickells can consider that mystery solved, then, and Frampton later put the sitar to use in Bowie’s band. It’s believed that Bowie himself used it to track Zeroes, from 1987’s Never Let Me Down, with Frampton taking it to the stage.

Frampton’s tenure with Bowie came at a key point in his career. A chance to join the Who fell through at the time, with Frampton telling GW in 2022 that Bowie helped him regain his “credibility”.

Elsewhere in the interview, Frampton revealed how he met his new favorite guitar player at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch during a private all-star party.

To read Frampton’s interview in full, grab a copy of Guitar World magazine today. Paul McCartney is the cover star, with the feature tracing 60 years of his finest riffs.

Copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

Gabe Dalporto had a huge task ahead of him when he became Guitar Center CEO in late 2023. There is still work to do, but he feels the stores’ recent success has come from player feedback helping steer its ship.

Dalporto joined in 2018, as part of its board of directors, before stepping up five years later. He landed the job after highlighting his expertise in digital transformation, customer acquisition, and overseeing customer service, but it hasn’t been plain sailing.

“We made a lot of decisions that, maybe, in isolation made sense – cut a little cost here, cut a little cost there – [but] in aggregate, really pissed off our customers,” he says of the brand’s early efforts to turn the ship around (via Modern Retail).

Customer feedback became a vital tool. Players sounded off about a lack of knowledgeable sales reps after cost-cutting left many stores understaffed. Store inventory was flipped from 70% entry-level to 70% “serious musician”. And guitars were unlocked and taken down from high hangers.

Events at Guitar Center stores, including one featuring Kiki Wong and Yvette Young, aim to re-establish a sense of community. Billy Idol and Steve Stevens were added to its Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“What we’re trying to do is to engage with all the incredible local musicians in all of our markets locally and provide a national stage for them,” Dalporto explains.

“The last thing we want to be is Best Buy – a completely and utterly standardized national box retailer. We want to feel like the local music store that has deep personal connections with local artists.”

Safeguarding physical stores was one of Dalporto’s key priorities. But more recently, he teased an in-house guitar brand that will be bringing anything but more clones to market.

The shape of its new brand also hinges on conversations with dedicated players. A subreddit called r/GuitarLab was even set up to kickstart conversations.

The idea was to “come build a guitar with us from the ground up,” with questions probed around hardware specs and what players like – and loathe – about guitar controls.

It’s all working towards Dalporto’s dream of making Guitar Center “a theme park for musicians.”

The changes appear to be working. According to Bloomberg, Guitar Center’s most recent quarterly sales are up 5.2%, and the time customers have spent in its 300 US stores has risen 16% year on year. An expected $16 million tariff refund is also set to be a shot in the arm.

Phoebe Bridgers’ new album, Lost Weekend, arrived on Friday (August 14), and the album’s credits have revealed a bumper cast of guitarists across its 16 tracks.

Fans have already homed in on the fact that Godflesh guitarist Justin Broadrick is a surprise guest star on Bobby and Best Dressed, with Bridgers seemingly taking her love of metal beyond her B.C. Rich collection alone.

However, Broadrick has since clarified on his socials that she approached him about his shoegaze/post-metal side-project, Jesu, rather than his industrial outfit.

But that collab only scratches the surface. Alongside spots from super-producer Jack Antonoff and her Boygenius bandmates, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, there are plenty of surprises in store.

Other guitarists include regular Bridgers sideman Harrison Whitford – the son of Aerosmith riffer Brad – American Football’s Mike Kinsella, and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Recording veteran Greg Leisz plays pedal steel on six tracks, and Blake Mills, who has previously worked with Bob Dylan, Perfume Genius, and Beck, provides synth guitar on the opening track, The Outside, as well as other bass and guitar contributions across the record.

Adding to that is Bridgers’ protégé Christian Lee Hutson, indie-folk session guitarist Meg Duffy (War on Drugs, Perfume Genius), and Alex G. Bridgers herself plays across the album, too – despite a gardening accident that changed the way she approaches the instrument.

Looking closer still at the album’s credits reveals that baritone guitars are as preeminent as acoustic and standard-scale electric guitars.

All those factors conspire to make Lost Weekend one of the most eclectic lineups of guitarists in years.

Bridgers went one step further on Jimmy Fallon, as her live band featured a host of exciting young talents. A Joe Bonamassa- and Slash-backed shredder was the pick of the bunch.

According to Chart Data, Bridgers’ third album, and first since 2020’s The Punisher, accumulated over 13.8 million streams across its first full day on Spotify.

Speaking to Guitar World, Harrison Whitford reflected on his experience working with the 32-year-old songstress.

“Playing with her taught me how it feels to situate oneself within great songs,” he said. “She’s a fantastic rhythm guitar player, and I’ve always attempted to complement that.”

Back in 2005, Brian May and Roger Taylor embarked on their first full Queen world tour since the death of their enigmatic frontman, Freddie Mercury.

Not only did it find May and Taylor performing under the Queen moniker for the first time since 1986, it also saw them joining forces with a new lead vocalist.

Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers was given the unenviable task of filling Mercury’s shoes, but he stepped up to the plate. Queen + Paul Rodgers, as the project was officially called, was a huge success, lasting for two world tours, several high-profile shows and a studio album over the course of four years.

And, as May explained in the May 2005 issue of Guitar World, the lineup had rather surprising origins: a celebration event for the Fender Stratocaster.

For Fender’s 50th Anniversary Strat Pack concert, May and Rodgers joined the bill to play a cover of Free’s All Right Now. May knew they were on to something.

“We were both so knocked out by the sheer chemistry between us on stage,” May remembered. “Afterward, we were talking together when someone – I guess it was me – said, ‘Well, you know, maybe we should do more of this sometime.’”

Taylor remembered May’s excitement over the prospect of getting the band back together with Rodgers at the helm.

“After the Fender gig, Brian got on the phone to me and said, ‘You really have to look at what we just did,’” Taylor recalled. “He sent over a videotape and I could see what he was talking about. I wondered why we hadn’t thought of doing this before.”

To test the waters, May and Taylor teamed up with Rodgers to play at Queen’s induction into the UK Music Hall of Fame. The trio was easily convinced. The Return of the Champions World Tour was swiftly announced. A studio album, Queen’s first post-Mercury, was made.

“Paul does amazingly well, I think,” May said of the collaboration at the time. “The first time I heard him sing We Will Rock You, I knew we had something valid and new here. Paul brings things out of that song I never even knew existed before!”

Despite skeptics surrounding the project, Queen + Paul Rodgers got the Queen machine up and running again. Mercury’s presence was undeniably irreplaceable, but it gave May and co. the chance to honor his legacy by taking the band’s music back on the road. And it can all be traced back to that Stratocaster event.

Things eventually fizzled out in 2009 after Rodgers reunited with Bad Company for a summer tour. It was an amicable split; no one thought it would be a permanent arrangement.

“We did two world tours and a couple of live recordings, and...made a studio album… which was pretty historic,” Rodgers told Billboard (via NME). “They hadn't really gone in the studio with anybody and recorded something like that for a very long time. So it was quite an achievement, I think.”

On the flipside, Queen hasn’t been the only rock institution that Rodgers joined – or at least came close to joining – in his time. Earlier this year, it was reported that Rodgers was approached to front the new Van Halen album.

It was a huge cause for celebration when Ritchie Blackmore stepped on stage with Deep Purple for the first time in over three decades last week.

Blackmore joined the band he co-founded in 1968 to play their timeless classic Smoke on the Water at the Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York, on August 12. It was his first appearance with the group since 1993, when he left the band mid-tour.

Yet there have been some cynical murmurings in the guitar community about his playing that night in New York. For some, the guitar solo Blackmore delivered was a little underwhelming.

But the 81-year-old, who is recovering from a heart attack, took no prisoners when reflecting on his performance in an exclusive interview with Guitar Player.

“It was very moving because I went on very quickly and had to play immediately,” he said. “I couldn’t warm up, but I wasn’t there to be playing correct notes. I was there to see old friends.

“I hadn’t seen them in [nearly] 40 years, and we’re all getting older,” he added. “I think we realized it could be the last time we see each other, maybe.”

That might be tough to read for some Deep Purple fans, who would no doubt love a third Blackmore-Deep Purple reunion. But that’s the reality, and with health issues hugely limiting where he can play – the New York venue was a drivable distance from his Long Island home – that might have been his last hurrah with the band.

The reunion was the veteran guitarist’s move. He saw the band was in town and offered his services for a special appearance, then teased it online.

“I woke up one morning thinking, the day before their show, ‘You know it would be good for the fans if I just got up for one song, probably Smoke and just show that were not at each other’s throats and don’t hate each other,’” he told Guitar Player.

What is it?

Only launching in 2025, Klowra is the new kid on the pedal block, but right out of the gate, it's had an impressive start, exploding onto as many Instagram and YouTube demo videos as humanly possible. Arguably the most talked-about pedal of its relatively modest product line is the competitively priced and feature-rich Limbo, a compact stereo reverb pedal with a selection of nine studio-grade reverb algorithms.

As you'd expect, the unit comes loaded with algorithms for realistic physical spaces like a hall, church, and room as well as atmospheric textures like Swell, Hazy, Shimmer, and Tide. Of course, there’s the obligatory Spring and Plate settings too, rounding out a comprehensive clutch of reverb modes.

​But that’s not all that’s on offer. There’s a Ramp function that lets you smoothly fade and morph between your live front-panel knob settings and a saved secondary preset, creating unique dynamic effects. There’s also Freeze and Infinity modes, which, as you’d expect, let you sustain notes or ambient textures indefinitely without the reverb decaying away.

As for connectivity, you get both left and right ins and outs, meaning this can be a fully stereo reverb if you’re so inclined. There’s also an input for connecting an expression pedal or external footswitch, unlocking extra control over the pedal’s parameters on the fly. Finally, the Limbo is powered via a standard 9V DC supply, center-negative, 250mA minimum.

Specs

• Launch price: $129.99 | £111 | €129
• Type: Reverb pedal
• Controls: Decay, Bright, Mix, Texture, Size, Mode selection, Pre-delay, Ramp Attack, and Ramp Release
• Features: Nine built-in studio-grade algorithms: Hall, Church, Room, Spring, Plate, Swell, Hazy, Shimmer, and Tide
• Connectivity: Inputs: 2 x 1/4" TS instrument inputs (Left/Mono, Right), outputs: 2 x 1/4" TS instrument outputs (Left, Right), external control: 1 x 1/4" CTRL/EXP jack (for TRS expression pedals or TS/TRS momentary footswitches)
• Bypass: True or buffered
• Power: 9V DC, center-negative barrel connector (minimum 250mA current draw required; battery power not supported)
• Dimensions: 54.7mm H x 124.8mm D x 69.2mm W (2.0" H x 4.9" D x 2.7" W)
• Weight: 0.45 Kg
• Contact: Klowra

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

In recent years, I’ve seen a real boom in ultra-affordable pedals that are so packed with features that they are taking aim squarely at the heavy-hitters like Strymon. But while it’s all well and good being dense with algorithms and extras, it doesn’t mean squat if it comes shipped in a subpar, cheaply made enclosure.

Thankfully, that’s not the case with the Limbo. All told, this is a neatly presented and well-constructed little pedal. It’s a good size, too. Coming in a little larger than a Boss compact, it won’t take up too much prime pedalboard real estate, but it’s large enough to tweak comfortably.

Like every good pedal, the controls feel exceptionally smooth and responsive, making it easy to dial in precise settings without any wobble or play. The footswitch has a reassuring, soft click, and I’d say with confidence that it’s solid enough to trust for live performance. I also appreciate the thoughtful placement of the inputs and outputs, which are spaced well and logically arranged along the sides. This not only helps with tidy cable management but also makes setup on a crowded board nice and straightforward.

The white-on-blue ethereal graphics are pleasing but do make the control names less clear to read at a glance than they could have been. But despite its tiny price tag, the Limbo has a somewhat premium sheen to it overall, and it certainly makes me excited to plug it in and see what it can do.

Usability and features

Usability and features rating: ★★★★½

There’s a lot going on with this pedal. For the most part, it’s intuitive, but some of the deeper editing is a little convoluted and does require me to poke my nose in the manual. Let’s start with the easy stuff.

So, selecting a reverb mode is a piece of cake. The light blue selector switches through the nine algorithms. Like all the dials, these are all well labeled, albeit in a pretty small font that can get lost in the graphic a little.

I think the order of the reverbs could be improved. It starts on Hall, then Church, Room, Spring, and Plate. For me, it would make more sense to go from smallest to largest in terms of space, but admittedly it is a small gripe.

As you’d expect, there’s the standard array of reverb controls such as Decay, Bright, Mix and Size, with a Texture dial that, as Klowra says, “Adjusts the texture of the reverb reflections. Turning the control to the right softens the early reflections and produces a smooth onset of the reverb.” It proves a useful control to fine-tune these sounds to taste and need.

The three dials at the top also have secondary modes: Pre-Delay, Ramp Attack, and Ramp Release, which relate to the Ramp mode.

To access the Ramp or Freeze modes, you simply press and hold the footswitch. You need to press the indicator LED to switch between the modes. These are helpfully color-coded, with white indicating the Freeze/Infinity function is selected, blue showing the Freeze/Infinity is actively being triggered, while orange lets you know the Ramp function is selected and purple shows the Ramp is actively being triggered. So far so good, it’s all pretty accessible stuff.

If you want to save a setting, you can press and hold the LED button, and it will save the current parameter settings as what Klora calls a Snap-Set.

To access the deeper pedal functions, you need to press and hold the footswitch while powering on the Limbo. Through a combination of button presses, you can tweak things like the bypass of the unit, whether trails continue after you turn the pedal off, and even the brightness of the LED.

I recommend you have the manual handy if you plan to play around with these settings; it’s not something you can really do on the fly, but it does show how much thought has gone into this pedal. It’s so impressive that I need to keep reminding myself this pedal retails for a little over $100!

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

When it comes to reverb pedals, versatility and character are everything, and the Limbo delivers both in spades. Its bread-and-butter algorithms, like Hall, Church and Room, cover all the familiar territory you’d expect from a modern stompbox, but what’s remarkable is how polished and musical they sound.

For testing, I’m using a Fender ‘68 reissue Telecaster into a super clean Fender Twin, with the reverb turned all the way off, obviously.

Starting on the Hall mode, this setting can take you from realistic concert venues to bright present reverb. Church, meanwhile, offers a grand, cathedral-style resonance that’s lush and immersive, with enough parameter control to really dial it in so it doesn’t totally wash you out.

The spring setting is pretty nice too. Klowra says this “uses physical modeling tech with three virtual springs to emulate classic spring tank circuits.” Twisting the texture knob adjusts both reverb tail modulation and spring drive, which creates some fun surf-rock results.

Now, these are all pretty common and standard reverb pedal staples, but I’d say across these modes, the Limbo holds its own against the best in the business. There’s nice depth, clarity, and presence that rivals industry stalwarts like Strymon or Eventide.

That said, I think the Limbo really earns its keep with the experimental modes. Swell transforms your playing into dreamy pads with faded attack and gradual volume swells, ideal for shoegazy ambient textures – especially when I stomp on the Big Muff to fuzz things up.

Klowra says that the Hazy setting “lets you drift between serene morning mist and raging sandstorms.” Pretty visual suggestions there, but it’s a fun setting nonetheless. It’s almost synthy in the way the reverb reacts and blooms.

Next we have Shimmer. As someone who did almost 10 years in a guitar store, shimmer verbs can feel a little played out at this point for me, but I must say this one sounds fantastic. You can hear that classic octave-up sound, but tweaking the Texture dial lets you really shape the character.

Lastly, we have the Tide setting, which is perhaps the most unique mode. Adding what I’d describe as softly pulsing white noise under your playing, it mimics the sound of crashing waves on a beach – and it’s weirdly relaxing to play through. Personally, I probably don’t have a musical use for this sound, but if you’re into creating dream-like soundscapes and instant atmosphere, then you’ll get a lot out of the setting.

I think these experimental modes encourage you to push boundaries, explore new sonic territory, and discover tones you won’t find anywhere else. Add in the ability to freeze your reverb trail, and things get even more inspiring. For players who crave both classic reverb and adventurous effects, the Limbo more than delivers on all of these fronts for sure.

Verdict

I think the Klowra Limbo isn’t just another affordable reverb pedal gunning for a slice of the market. It’s a genuinely impressive entry that manages to punch way above its weight class. Klowra, as a brand, may be new on the scene, but the Limbo is proof that it's paid close attention to what modern players want and need, and have delivered it in a package that’s both accessible and inspiring.

For starters, the Limbo’s build quality is rock-solid. And better yet, sound-wise, the Limbo covers all the expected bases and then some. The classic Hall, Church, Room, Spring, and Plate algorithms are actually excellent, with a musicality and depth that rivals some of the more expensive and established competition.

But where this pedal truly sets itself apart is in the more experimental modes. Swell, Hazy, Shimmer, and especially Tide provide a sonic playground for curious guitarists who like their sounds a little less run-of-the-mill.

Oh, and I can’t forget the price. For a little over $100, you get a true stereo, feature-rich reverb pedal that feels thought out and lovingly built. That’s almost unheard of. I’d say the Limbo is more than just a budget reverb option; it’s a versatile tool for both traditional and adventurous players alike.

Guitar World verdict: Klowra Limbo is a superbly built, affordable reverb pedal that rivals pricier competitors. With versatile algorithms from classic to experimental, a wealth of controls, and a bargain price, it’s an inspiring choice for both traditionalists and sonic explorers alike.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Klorwra

Perry Frank

• Best reverb pedals: from spring to shimmer, these are our top picks for your pedalboard

Mike McCready was sinking just as Pearl Jam’s career was taking flight. The early ‘90s were a blur as he was blacked out on alcohol and drugs and withdrew from the band.

Speaking to Guitar World in April 1995, he recalled how he and frontman Eddie Vedder had grown apart, keeping their distance from one another for the past couple of years.

“I didn’t have a lot of confidence,” said McCready. “I was literally afraid of everybody. I didn’t know how to relate to Eddie, and after the band really took off, I went off in my own world.”

One of the first things McCready did when he got help and got sober was reach out to Vedder.

“I told Eddie, ‘Listen, man, I know I’ve been fucked up for a long time, but I want to reestablish the relationship that we had in the beginning,’” he recalled.

McCready got there in the end, but there were many false starts. He would get on the wagon then come off. His bandmates tried to help as best they could. Looking back at it, he admits he thought that he was going to be kicked out of the band.

“We had a lot of meetings where they would say, ‘Hey, Mike, you’re getting way too fucked up.’ But we’re all really good friends and we love each other,” said McCready. “I think they actually thought I was going to die, but they never took steps to kick me out of the band, which I can’t believe because I fucked up so many times. I was drunk and making an ass out of myself and they were concerned about it.”

McCready bit the bullet and checked himself into rehab. That’s when he realized the strength of his relationship with the band. Before, he had been in a bubble. That’s the company you keep when you’re using.

McCready would have to get sober by himself, but he was not alone. Stone Gossard came out to visit him. They would all check in with him.

“They called me all the time, and it was cool because I really needed their support,” said McCready. “They’re my greatest friends. I couldn’t believe it; when you clean up, you start realizing that people actually care about you. You just don’t think about it when you’re using all the time because you’re only into the people you’re using with. It clouds everything.”

But the newly sober McCready needed something else to occupy himself with. As he tells it, getting off the alcohol saved him from blacking out and the downward spiral, but there was nothing to attenuate life’s highs and lows. He wanted to have a drink when everyone else was. He wanted to drink every day. He just couldn’t.

Instead, he got busy. McCready getting clean is the origin story of Mad Season, the all-star grunge supergroup featuring the late Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley, and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin. While in rehab, McCready had met a bass guitar player called John Baker Saunders.

Saunders would soon join Seattle indie-rock stalwarts The Walkabouts, but right now he had a purpose. Mad Season were going to make an album.

Staley was going through his own issues with substance abuse at the time. Maybe being around these guys could help clear his head, give him something positive to focus on. Pearl Jam had recorded their third studio album, Vitalogy, in sessions snatched between touring commitments. For Mad Season’s debut, Above, sadly their only studio album, McCready could give the material his full attention.

“It’s great to be clear-headed and wake up early and get on with my day,” he said. “And putting this Mad Season thing together has been a blessing.”

As the urge to drink receded over time, he realized two things. One, that his relationship with his bandmates was tighter than it had ever been. And secondly, he was a better musician for that clarity.

He had labored under the misconception that he’d need some stimulant, legal or otherwise, to perform at his best, or to find ideas.

“Playing live, I’m a lot more focused on the music rather than just being in a daze, the way I was before,” he said. “The whole concept of me thinking that I needed something – be it valium or crystal meth or pot – to write songs or be creative is bullshit.

“I couldn’t put anything together when I was doing that crap. LSD might have helped me in certain ways, but it fucked me up a lot more than it helped.”

Raphael Saadiq has been a torchbearer for organic bass grooves in contemporary R&B since his early-’90s breakout as Tony Toni Toné’s frontman.

Since then, he has provided basslines for East and West Coast rappers such as A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop Dogg, and Q-Tip, and he's played a key role on D’Angelo’s critically acclaimed neo-soul albums.

When asked in the May 2004 issue of Bass Player about the loose, way-back-in-the-pocket feel that he and groove masters such as Pino Palladino brought to ’90s R&B, Saadiq simply replied: “We call it the grease.”

“It’s a way of laying behind and then jumping right back on top of the beat when you feel you’re pulling back too much, sort of like a rubber band.”

And while the feel may be rooted in the pocket, Saadiq’s approach to tone is decidedly old-school. “I use old flatwound strings, backing off the treble and doing some thumb plucking. It gives me a tone somewhere between a kick drum and vintage James Jamerson.”

It was Jamerson's work on Marvin Gaye's How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You) that first sparked Saadiq’s interest in bass at age seven.

“My father and my uncle played guitar, so I was around a lot of music, but when I heard Jamerson on that song I told my dad, ’Whatever instrument that is, that's what I want to play.’”

Little did he know at the time, but family connections would bring Saadiq a lesson from one of the greatest players to have ever picked up the electric bass.

“My godfather, James Levi, played drums with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters. He always had musicians over at his house, and one day he asked this bass player to help me out.

“The guy drove me home, came up on my porch, pulled out his bass, and started playing and giving me pointers. Years later I found out it was Jaco Pastorius.”

With additional inspiration from local hero Larry Graham, Saadiq earned his calluses in every musical setting and venue imaginable.

“I'd get on stage and play solo bass, or play with a drummer behind a rapper all night, changing my bassline every 16 bars or so.”

That diversity has stayed with Saadiq, who loves to jump from project to project, sometimes spontaneously contributing to an artist in an adjoining studio.

“The original greats on my instrument, like Jamerson and Chuck Rainey, played music that was for everybody, young and old, of all races. I’ve always wanted to make music that can touch that many people.”

The first of these two 1954 Strats is dated March 1954 and it has serial number ‘0108’ on the spring cover. The rumour is that the Strats with trem-cover numbers were actually salesman samples.

They’re often very heavy and the bodies were usually made using multiple pieces of ash, rather than the single pieces Fender did later. The weight difference can be as much as 3lb. I’ve had a couple from January 1954 in the past, but the earliest Stratocaster I currently have pre-dates the ‘0108’ by a couple of months.

I’ve had some with slot heads for the switch or pickup-adjustment screws, but this is the only one where every screw in the guitar is a slot-head. The potentiometer date stamps on the ‘0108’ show the 42nd week of 1953 and there’s no ‘worm rout’ in the bridge pickup cavity.

Fender later figured out how to cut a wire channel in there by using a rounded router bit, but with very early Strats they just notched the wood out with a chisel. It has the more translucent polystyrene pickup covers, which gives it a much cooler look because they go a little grey as they age.

There’s also the short skirt knobs, the round spring cover holes and the football-shaped switch tip. I’ve had maybe 20 trem-cover serial number Strats in my life and they always sound darker and a little boomier, especially on the middle and neck pickups.

I wouldn’t say they’re as sonically balanced as the later ’54 guitars were. The early pickups also had softer-sounding Alnico III magnets with a shorter G-string slug. The darkness may also have something to do with the 100k potentiometers Fender used on the earliest Strats, rather than the 250k.

I definitely think it’s the extra weight, too, just like heavy ’Bursts always have a deeper roar than lighter ’Bursts. The body shapes are similar, although the belly cut is just a little deeper on very early ones.

By late ’54, you see a lot more one-piece bodies and some very pretty quarter-sawn ones. The white polystyrene covers don’t go translucent and there’s the full skirt polystyrene knobs. The neck profile was not as big by late-’54 guitars and centre-pocket tweed cases replaced the form-fit cases.

The very early trem arms have a sharper bend that was soon softened out and continued getting straighter throughout the ’50s and ’60s. We know Fender got a lot of feedback from the musicians when they lent guitars to local barn-dance guys, and I’m sure the biggest complaints about the early guitars were the weight and the neck size. That early U-shaped profile is kind of clubby, and although collectors prefer them, I don’t know many players that do.

In mid-’54, Fender started to make hardtails. People often think that option came later, but Fender planned that from the beginning and I think that was done to try to sell Stratocasters to Telecaster players.

Not everyone wanted a vibrato on their guitar, and because hardtail Strats sustain better they just prefer the overall sound. Putting in five springs and locking that bridge plate down gets you pretty close, but the hardtails always sound a bit better to me.

These guitars are both very original. At some point the earlier one had somebody’s name across the body and they used little brads to put the letters in.

There are lots of tiny holes, but they just look like regular nicks and I haven’t been able to figure out the name. We’ve also had a lot of ’54s with the big elongated truss rod plug.

We used to think they were modified to match the Strat Fender used in the publicity photos, but from what I understand now, it’s because Fender often had to do some reworking in that area. They either had to make a larger plug or paint around the general area to hide evidence of work being done.

Collectors get very excited about owning very early ’54 Strats because they’re so scarce. Fender only made around 200 and the majority of them have been monkeyed with. The late ’54 we’re looking at is essentially the same as a ’55 because by around August or September of ’54 Fender had settled on the production version. My feeling is that Strats made from late 1954 onwards are the best for tone and playability.

• 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.

One thing that has always appealed to me about blues guitar soloing is that it can express emotions much in the same way as the human voice.

A key factor in making the most of what the instrument has to offer is articulation. It’s all about the many variables in the pick attack, as well as fret-hand technique.

But another option is to “hide” the pick and incorporate a fingerpicking approach. I do this by tucking the pick into the flexed knuckle joint of my index finger and then pick the strings primarily with my thumb and middle finger.

To demonstrate, Figure 1 is a fingerpicked phrase based on the F minor pentatonic scale (F, Ab, Bb, C, Eb). I use my thumb to pick the lower strings and my middle finger to pick the higher strings. There is a “pop” to the notes and a breadth of tonal variations that can only be achieved with fingerpicking.

One of the greatest purveyors of fingerpicked blues soloing is Albert King, and you’ll find yourself in A.K. Land pretty fast when taking this approach. In Figure 2, I begin by thumbpicking the G string then use my middle finger to pick the B string, leading into a big, two-step “overbend” and release, from Ab to C to Ab.

On beat 4, I bend and release the Bb note on the 1st string’s 6th fret with my index finger (practice those index-finger bends!) and then slide the finger down to the 4th fret.

In bar 3, I make reference to the V (five) chord, C, via the C major pentatonic scale (C, D, E, G, A), with some chromatic passing tones added. In bar 4 I reference the IV (four) chord, Bb, by playing a few notes from Bb major pentatonic (Bb, C, D, F, G), before wrapping up with a return to the I (one) chord, F with lines based on F minor pentatonic.

By fingerpicking a note, you can greatly vary its volume, tone and character, more so than when using a pick. In Figure 3, I stick to picking only with my thumb on the low strings to demonstrate just how much warmth this way of playing can produce.

Herein lies the beauty of the blues: each simple melodic line can be phrased and articulated in so many different ways, which is dictated by how you feel. And this is greatly impacted by how you perceive the audience to feel.

When performing live, there’s a rapport between you and the audience. You know it’s right when you hear cheers, and you know something’s not right when everyone heads for the bar.

A good example of how I build from a blues approach to branch off into other sounds can be heard on The Ballad of John Henry. As shown in Figure 4, there’s an E minor pentatonic lick (E, G, A, B, D) that alternates with G5 and A5 power chords.

When soloing over it, I can start with the blues element by fingerpicking, as I do in bars 1-2 of Figure 5, then shift to using the pick (bars 3-4) and incorporating the more exotic sound of the E Phrygian-dominant mode (E, F, G#, A, B, C, D) before returning to straight blues. You can start with rock and end with B.B. King! Or vice versa.

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

What is it?

The Cry Baby has to be the most well-known wah pedal in existence, and a perusal of current manufacturer Jim Dunlop’s website reveals no less than 37 different variations in the roster, including signature models for a whole host of players.

Now, while there’s nothing wrong with buying, say, the Jimi Hendrix edition if that provides exactly the sound you want, that model has one basic voice with a sweep that covers one specific frequency range – great if you want to bash out your version of Voodoo Chile but possibly not so great if you want to get wacka-wacka funky with Theme From Shaft.

If you like to play a wide variety of musical styles, a better fit for your rig might be the newly released Cry Baby BB535 Reissue, which is based on a long-discontinued model from 1994 known for its throaty growl and sports a choice of six frequency ranges for the sweep, plus a variable boost.

Specs

• PRICE: $229 | £229 | €269
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Wah pedal
• FEATURES: Buffered bypass, up to 12dB of boost, 6x freq ranges: 444-2,117Hz, 385-1,888Hz, 300-1,468Hz, 248-1,217Hz, 214-1,050Hz & 173-847Hz 
• CONTROLS: Boost switch, Boost volume, Wah Range selector, treadle, Activate footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V battery or 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 12mA
• DIMENSIONS: 115 (w) x 251 (d) x 75mm (h) 
• CONTACT: Jim Dunlop

Build quality, usability and sounds

With the solid, weighty construction seen in all Cry Baby units, this model features controls on its right-hand side that can be adjusted by foot if needed.

A rotary switch with a hard rubber covering selects the frequency range, while a tiny red mushroom-shaped switch can be pushed in to engage a boost of up to 12dB, set by an adjacent knob. The boost (which only works if the wah treadle is engaged) is based on the MXR micro amp and has plenty of poke to take things up a level as needed.

Treadle action is smooth but firm, with enough stiffness to leave it in a fixed position for cocked wah sounds. There’s a reduction of top-end at the toe position as you work through the six frequencies, coupled with an increase of low-end at the heel, so each basically offers a different midrange sweep.

Switch position 1 is the brightest and will let you ‘wacka wacka’ back to the ’70s, while switch position 6 provides the darkest tone and a pronounced vocal ‘wow’. In between those two you’ll find equally valid variations on the expressive vocal quality in which the pedal excels – try them all and find which feels best for you underfoot.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

Guitar World verdict: Six range options and a boost to lift things when needed makes the Cry Baby BB535 Reissue a very versatile wah pedal that has you covered for whatever style of music you play.

Hands-on videos

Jim Dunlop

R.J. Ronquilo

Guitar Center

• “For many wah enthusiasts, Clyde McCoy wahs are considered the ‘Holy Grail’, and Xotic has replicated its tonal recipe”: Xotic XW-2 Wah – Red Limited review
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Perhaps The Darkness – the quadruple platinum, outrageously infectious rock band – made their riff-roaring, double-entendre-laden debut, Permission to Land, 20 years too late. There was a significant backlash on its release: due to the outlandish lyrics and falsetto vocals, many critics were quick to assume the band were a glam rock parody.

Yet here the four-piece unapologetically are, 23 years on, having secured three BRIT and two Kerrang! awards, and with eight albums under their rockstar, or catsuit, belts.

GW sat down with Darkness guitarist and producer, Dan Hawkins, at a weekend-long classic rock workshop, hosted by WaterBear – the College of Music.

What was your first guitar?

My dad had a couple knock-off Les Pauls; they’re the reason why [brother and Darkness frontman/rhythm guitarist] Justin and I are musicians. When I think about an electric guitar, the shape and weight of a Les Paul comes to mind. The only reason I got one was because Justin got one; he’d made some money doing an IKEA advert.

We went to a shop in West London. I said: “That one looks cool, I’ll have that.” Justin said: “Yeah, I’ll have that black one.”

Thin Lizzy – mostly a Les Paul band – are one of your favorites. Did they inspire your guitar playing?

People are always surprised when I say Eric Bell is my favorite Lizzy guitarist, because it completely goes against my look, choice of guitar, and tone. I consider Whiskey in the Jar the best guitar-ing in the world.

I challenge you to put a band’s entire catalog on shuffle, and have it take you through an entire weekend – apart from The Beatles. There’s so many different rhythms and approaches.

There’s a Les Paul Custom here today that Jimmy Page briefly had his hands on.

When Led Zeppelin reformed for their final gig at the O2, Page asked Gibson to make an exact replica of his stolen Les Paul Custom ’57 3-pickup. They sent it to him and he said, “This sounds absolutely perfect – but it’s too heavy for my age!”

It’s the heaviest Les Paul you can get because of the wood, the amount of metalwork, and the extra pickup in the middle. It’s an absolute back breaker.

I happened to phone [Gibson’s] Pat Foley the day it ended up back in his office. The Darkness were recording One Way Ticket To Hell…And Back and I said, “I need a Custom Black Beauty 3-pickup.” Foley sent it to me. It was fate!

One of the pickups has been swapped, hasn’t it?

Its pickup was a Burstbucker, but my other guitars were really high output 498s. It wasn’t loud enough. So my guitar tech – who’d just come off an AC/DC tour – swapped it with one of Angus Young’s pickups. It sounded amazing. I didn’t ask what it was; all I know is it came from one of his SGs.

How many guitars are in your collection?

Every 10 years I have a massive clearout. I have seven Les Paul Standards for my touring guitars, four in Europe and three in America. I play Les Paul Standards from the 2000s. The pickups are too loud – to hear your guitar’s tone you have to drop it back a bit. I worked that out three years ago, so all my albums are just fucking blaring and really distorted!

It took The Darkness 11 years to get proper recognition. When did you first feel out of your depth?

Most of my career, really! Being a musician is weird – it’s an insular thing. I was a session guitarist for a bit, which is unbelievable because I can’t read music; I play by ear. I used to pretend to flip the music sheets during sessions. How the hell I blagged that, I don’t know!

What’s the toughest choice you’ve made as a musician?

There is an answer I want to give, but legally I can’t. Sometimes you have to make really tough choices about who is and who isn’t in your band. We had to stop for Justin to get better, and I understand that. He came out of rehab and suddenly started doing solo stuff; that’s what the rift was.

It’s a miracle my band made it through unscathed. In that capacity, it can affect you really really badly – talk about a recipe for disaster, mental health-wise. I feel I’ve made some good decisions over the years. I’m currently in a really good place.

What does your stage setup look like?

A really big pedalboard, made by Mike Hill, who’s sadly passed. I play with a 100ft cable, which is unusual, straight through to a Marshall 100 watt Super Lead. I’ve got a couple of distortion pedals – mainly old Tube Screamers.

I don’t know why I bother having pedals; the outputs of my Les Paul Standards are so loud they distort the sound of the amp. I’m just piling shit on shit, really… but I’ve got something to stand on!

How has streaming affected your band?

There was a moment when it changed. Our second album didn’t do as well, but it still sold around 100,000 CDs. That was considered a bit of a disaster at the time. These days I’d be like: ‘Oh my god, can you imagine!’ Each record sold used to generate £16, now it generates nothing.

An upside to streaming, and people’s obsession with living their life through a lens, is that the appreciation of live music and human interaction has gone through the fucking roof. You see that in ticket sales and how much people are prepared to pay.

The youngsters know what they want – they want to go to a gig and push each other around. They want records and physical things, and to beat the shit out of each other at gigs. They don’t want AI.

What’s your most memorable encounter with another guitarist?

I’ve been back-to-back with Brian May playing Tie Your Mother Down at Hammersmith Apollo. I thought, ‘What’s Brian doing?’ then I realized he was doing the rock triangle. I’d never done it before. I was like, ‘Oh my God, if I move he’ll fall over!’

It was before he was a Sir. It would have probably been best if I killed him before he was a Sir. If he survived, he would have had me beheaded in the Tower of London. I think those are the sort of privileges you get!

You recently supported Iron Maiden at Knebworth. What’s it like playing to their crowd?

When we started our career we played with everyone: The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Metallica, Alice Cooper, Def Leppard – it’s all we did for two years.

I’ve played gigs – and I’m talking about Metallica here – where the first 5,000 people are either throwing bottles of piss at you, or they’re facing the other way with fingers in their ears. But it wasn’t like that with Maiden. It just went off and it was fucking amazing.

• The Darkness will tour the UK in December.

This lesson is about something that many players already do intuitively without even thinking about it or realizing they’re doing it, and that is using what I call the “all-purpose passing chord,” which is simply strumming one or more open strings when switching from one fretted chord shape to another.

For example, in the laid-back intro and verses to Soundgarden’s Blow Up the Outside World, when changing from an open E chord to C every two beats, guitarists Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil would momentarily lift their fretting fingers off the strings during the last 16th note of the beat that precedes the next chord and strum the open top four strings with an upstroke.

FIGURE 1 shows a similar move, with strumming prompts included.

Notice how, by briefly letting go of the strings during those upstroke strums, you’re buying your fretting fingers valuable time to move to the next chord shape in an easy way, and doing so while keeping the rhythm flowing.

Of course, you could just omit the 16th-note upstroke strum entirely and simply strum another eighth note with a downstroke then switch to the next chord. But using the all-purpose passing chord offers you a convenient way to fill out the rhythmic feel and convey a more detailed 16th-note groove with an occasional pair of down-up 16th-note strums.

It also allows you to let go of the chord a little sooner than you would if holding it for an eighth-note duration.

When playing open “cowboy” chords in the guitar-friendly keys of C, G or D, or their relative minor keys of A minor, E minor or B minor, the open-string notes – E, A, D, G, B, E – all live within the parent C, G or D major scales and musically “agree” with each of these keys.

So briefly playing the open strings between chords in these keys sounds totally natural. It also adds a mild feeling of tension and release to the proceedings. Mind you, strumming all six open strings or the lower ones draws more attention to the open notes than does only strumming the top three or four strings, which is why many players typically only strum the higher open strings between chords. That also has to do with the act of strumming an upstroke, versus a downstroke.

FIGURE 2 offers another example of this useful technique, with a progression of four open chords that brings to mind the chorus to Alive by Pearl Jam. Again, notice how we simply let go of the strings on the last 16th note of the beat immediately before each chord change while keeping a flowing groove that mixes eighth- and 16th-note rhythms.

While the all-purpose passing chord is usually strummed with an upstroke, it can also be used with a downstroke, say, if you’re playing a punk or metal song that has you strumming all downstrokes for an urgent feel and “pumping” effect. In this case, the downpicking technique would dictate that you hit the bottom two or three open strings instead of the higher ones.

The all-purpose passing chord can also work well with barre chords in these same keys. Bear in mind, though, that, if you’re playing in another key, the open-string notes may fall outside its related scale and end up clashing and sounding odd or sour.

For example, in the Green Day song American Idiot, guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong plays the series of barre chords Ab5 - Db5 - Gb5 - Db5 - Ab5 and briefly strums his open low E and A strings between the first three chords.

Then, after returning to Ab5 at the end of the progression, the guitarist intentionally whacks his open G, B and high E strings with a downstroke, so as to add a brief splash of ugliness to the proceedings. The open B and E notes are obviously alien to the key of Ab, but they contribute to the riff’s and song’s expression of angst.

A classic example of this same kind of artistic ugliness can be found in the iconic two-bar intro and chorus chord riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. Here, guitarist Kurt Cobain is playing in the key of F minor, strumming the repeating chord progression F5 - Bb - Ab5 - Db.

Between Bb and Ab5, he deliberately lifts his fingers off the fretboard and strums his open bottom five strings with a downstroke. He later does the same thing between Db and F5. As with the previously cited example, these fleeting dissonances add a feeling of angst and rebelliousness to the chord riff.

One more thing to bear in mind when using the all-purpose passing chord is the tempo of the song you’re playing. The slower the tempo, the more noticeable these passing chords will be. Something that sounds acceptable and cool when played at a brisk tempo could sound strange and bizarre when played slower.

So, keeping all this in mind, feel free to employ the very useful all-purpose passing chord as you see and hear fit to do.

When you think of the iconic guitar sounds on some of the biggest records in rock, consumer equipment definitely isn’t the first type of gear that comes to mind. But a small and mighty consumer device from SRS called The WOW Thing changed that, and proved that great guitar tones can come from the most unlikely of places.

This is the story of how a quirky, lo-fi spatial effects processor built for consumer audio became a studio secret weapon: “the little plastic box that makes guitars a big thing.”

History

SRS Labs began as SRS (Sound Retrieval Systems), a psychoacoustic research branch of Hughes Aircraft in the early 1980s. The mission was to create a realistic 3D soundstage from stereo audio.

In the 1990s, acquired and rebranded SRS Labs, they brought multiple products to the consumer market, including a tiny box full of sonic voodoo called the WOW Thing. This modest desktop hardware was intended to make inexpensive computer speakers sound more full and spacious.

Nobody working in professional audio should have cared. But a mix engineer working on what would become one of the biggest albums in rock history accidentally stumbled on what it could do, and the secret eventually got out.

Sonic secret sauce

The WOW Thing works by utilizing a unique blend of extreme equalization, psychoacoustic processing and phase delays. This dramatically widens the stereo sound field and boosts low frequencies.

It’s built around three proprietary technologies. SRS 3D widens the stereo image. Originally conceived for car playback where speakers are not ear level, Focus “lifts” the sound vertically. Designed to make small speaker drivers sound huge, TruBass uses psychoacoustic bass enhancement to give the source material a deeper natural low end.

It employs similar EQ moves to what’s traditionally done in mixing guitars – emphasizing low end, a scoop to clear low midrange, and a subtle lift in the high-end presence. Processing like this is ubiquitous today with plugins, but in the early 90s it was fairly revolutionary.

Discovery

“Wider, brighter, and huge.” That’s the way engineer Randy Staub (Metallica, Mötley Crüe, U2) described how the WOW Thing sounds on guitars. He stumbled on the software version while listening to music on his home computer and discovered what it could do to distorted guitars: thicker bass, a high-end lift, and gentle low-midrange scoop that helped them sit perfectly in a dense mix.

At the time he was mixing Metallica’s Black Album and was searching for a way to make the guitars sound bigger and wider. The WOW Thing provided the sonic secret sauce he was looking for.

He told Ultimate Guitar: “I started using the WOW Thing on guitars to spread them out in the stereo image, and that’s what I’ve been using for years and years.”

In the mix

He also set the device to boost the bottom end, add more presence to the high frequencies and attenuate some midrange. It helped the rhythm guitars feel bigger and separated them from the vocals and snare, which tend to occupy overlapping areas of the frequency spectrum.

The WOW Thing provided a way to make doubled guitars larger-than-life in a unique way, rather than standard processing like EQ and compression, which created definition between the layers of tracks.

Since it was designed to process stereo material, Staub used it on stereo guitar busses and pairs of panned guitar tracks. The result is a thick, defined sound that’s still a gold standard 35 years later.

Korneff Audio’s plugin

Eventually, recording engineer Dan Korneff (Breaking Benjamin, Papa Roach, My Chemical Romance, Paramore) got turned on to it and was using it in his mixes when he decided to create a plugin version. “This happy accident changed what we thought was possible for electric guitars,” he says. “Instantly you can hear the guitars get wider and deeper.”

As the WOW Thing secret got out, original units became increasingly difficult to find. Korneff Audio, formed in 2019, designed a plugin version that closely models the hardware in sound and GUI, operates in mono and stereo, and extends the capabilities.

Under the hood are selectable frequency centers for the TrueBass control (from 40Hz to 400Hz) and options of two different spatial processing types for the WOW control to sound like the desktop or Megawide rackmount versions. There’s also a Blend control for parallel processing, and a switch that sets the low end mono to achieve a wider stereo effect.

The TrueBass control adds low-end depth that thickens and cranks a source to add novel low end effects. This makes it versatile enough to use with downtuned and extended range guitar tracks. It sounds equally great on guitar busses too. There’s also a TrueBass Dynamics switch that adds a four-band frequency-dependent compressor for better control over the low end.

As far as why Korneff decided to create the plugin he says, “I wanted my guitars to be as huge as Randy Staub’s,” Korneff said, explaining why he created the plugin. “This does all that and more – like the guitars are giving you a bear hug.”

Happy accidents

Recording has always rewarded outside-the-box thinking and new approaches to timeless techniques. It’s fascinating that a consumer audio device that originally sold for just $20 became a secret sonic weapon that found its way onto iconic rock records.

The effect the WOW Thing has had on professional mixing is proof that the tools used for production matter less than how they're used.

“Frank who?”

Kylie Gaspard is describing her inbox flooding with DMs from her friends about a guy named Frank sharing Beginner, a song by her alt-rock band, Cashier.

“They were like, ‘Frank Ocean!’,” laughs Gaspard, vocalist of the Lafayette, Louisiana-based band. “He listened halfway through, took a picture and posted it. I think it’s in a Rolls Royce. Really crazy, super surreal, and really awesome. He's everything.”

“He’s one of the best artists of the past 15 years, for sure,” says Cashier lead guitarist Jo Perillo.

A mega star like Frank Ocean discovering and sharing one of Cashier’s songs validated their DIY philosophy.

“It made me feel like we could pop off doing it ourselves,” Gaspard says. “It’s definitely reaffirming,” Perillo agrees.

Cashier weren’t always the alternative rock, shoegaze-leaning band that caught the ear of big-time celebrities. Before Covid, they were a textural indie rock band that Perillo says sounded like Alex G. Then the Big Muff showed up.

“I feel like that's like the sound of Cashier,” Perillo says. “We both have a Big Muff and a Rat. Basically, the Rat is, like, the normal sound. I have my Big Muff after and Kylie has hers before it, but just for the heavier parts. My always-on is the Fuck Overdrive by this pedal company called Smallsound/Bigsound that doesn't exist anymore.”

The other key piece of gear that helped push the band toward their heavy sound is a Squier J. Mascis Jazzmaster. Borrowed from a friend, Perillo’s Jazzmaster became Cashier’s version of Metallica’s EMG pickups or Kurt Cobain’s Small Clone.

“I've been borrowing it for seven years very graciously from a friend,” Perillo says with a laugh. “She just told me, ‘Oh, you can keep using it.’ It's a great guitar. I feel like it enabled Cashier to come into its own because I didn't really have a very rock-sounding guitar.”

It’s these things combined that have helped the band achieve the sound that they have on The Weight, their debut on the Philadelphia-based label Julia’s War Recordings. The EP is a departure from their shoegaze-influenced singles.

“Shoegaze is such an umbrella term now,” Gaspard says. “On The Weight, we’re more obviously alt-rock. The songs don't have much meat to them.”

So what’s next for the band?

“Hopefully the EP and our singles can feed everyone enough [for now,]” Gaspard says. “Contractually, next year there will be an LP. It’s definitely being worked on. I have the pressure of a deadline, so I can get it done.”

• The Weight is out now via Julia's War.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

What is it?

We cannot begin this review without applauding the sheer tenacity of a family business that started just as Covid-19 ran rampant across the globe, only to be hit two years later by the horrors of war. That the company then managed to turn out individual designs such as our offset S-style Mercury is, quite frankly, astonishing.

Formed by older brother and head luthier Vadym Gavrylenko and sibling Dima in 2020, the company’s small team operates from its purpose-built facility in Bila Tserkva, in the Kyiv region of Ukraine.

The brothers used the pandemic’s periods of enforced lockdown to create an exclusive range of guitars and basses. These tip their hats respectfully to the past while retaining a strong design ethic that you won’t see anywhere else.

Vadym’s training as an aerospace engineer brings to the table materials like duralumin, a strong and lightweight aluminium alloy that’s used for the Mercury’s two metal control plates, knurled knobs and dressed away neckplate.

The material is polished rather than plated, so should age naturally with the guitar. Aerospace is also where the company’s many cosmic references have their origin – other models include Jupiter and Titan. But down to the nuts and bolts.

Using European alder for the body and a hard rock maple neck (reinforced with two rods of another space age material, titanium), the 304mm (12-inch) radius neck housing 22 nickel silver frets is glued on, not integral. The neck seems shallower than its stated ‘C profile’ might imply but measures a not outrageously slender 20.5mm at the 1st and 22mm at the 12th fret.

On the maple ’board you’ll notice those attractive ‘Trinity’ inlays beginning at the 1st fret, and the easy truss rod adjustment nut that sits between the topmost two wires. You will have seen a similar approach on Music Man and Blade instruments, and it’s such a good move if you’re not bent on slavishly observing tradition. You may also spot a somewhat unusual fingerboard nut.

It’s micro-adjustable: every string sits in its own separate bell bronze screw head, and each ‘mini nut’ has two slots arranged in a cross pattern. Lift the string and a quarter turn of the screw either way raises or lowers the height minutely. Is it a sledgehammer to crack a walnut? Of course – but we love it!

Those control plates, too. While this idea first appeared on other more famous offsets, these are no direct lift. Instead, the duralumin is thicker and more chamfered, and reminds us of the tailfins of old American cars like the ’50s Ford Fairlane and Fleetwood Cadillac (or again, perhaps something more aeronautical). Whatever their inspiration, the whole assembly is really rather cool.

Housed within a 3mm mint green acrylic pickguard sits a trio of pickups (well, four actually, but we’ll get to that) in HSS format. This is Valiant’s M80 set and comprises neck and middle single coils with oversized magnets, said to offer smoother tone and better balance across the strings, plus the bridge pickup – which looks like a standard-footprint open-topped humbucker but is, in fact, a pair of singles placed side by side.

Now, a word about the finish. Obviously without the decades-old heritage of certain other guitar companies, Valiant’s distressed Mercury is not pretending to have got this way through years of wear.

Instead, it’s as though Vadym and Dima simply wanted to evoke a worn-in vibe, and in beaten-up Sonic Blue with matching headstock (cool shape, too), it certainly does the trick. Non-distressed instruments are, of course, also available.

Hardware and electrics-wise, everything is super quality. Locking tuners and floating vibrato bridge are both from Gotoh’s superlative 510 range, while volume and no-load tone pots are CTS 500k, the three-way toggle and two slider switches come from the legendary Switchcraft stable, while the jack socket is Pure Tone. It’s a great line-up across the board, but how will it fare in action?

Specs

• PRICE: $3,300 | £2,950 with hard case
• ORIGIN: Ukraine
• TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric
• BODY: Solid European alder
• NECK: 1-piece distressed, tinted maple with painted headstock, medium C profile with easy pickup-end adjustment 
• SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Bell bronze, adjustable/42mm
• FINGERBOARD: Hard rock maple with titanium reinforcement; 241.3mm (12”) radius; ‘Trinity’ inlays in black
• FRETS: 22 extra-hard nickel silver, medium jumbo
• HARDWARE: Gotoh 2-point 510 vibrato (chrome); angled 4-bolt neckplate, butterfly string retainers, thick cream acrylic pickguard, chrome control plates, duralumin knobs w/ wooden inserts 
• TUNERS: Gotoh 510 locking
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 55mm
• ELECTRICS: Valiant Guitars M80 HSS set; single CTS 500k volume and CTS 500k ‘no load’ tone pots; 3-way Switchcraft selector switch plus parallel/series/single-coil slider for each pickup set 
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.4/7.5
• OPTIONS: Multiple options, including pickups, colours, pickguard styles/material, fixed or vibrato bridge, stainless steel or nickel silver frets, etc 
• RANGE OPTIONS: Mercury Primal (£2,750) is more or less our guitar but without distressing. Mercury Distressed M (£3,595) is again much like ours but with Jazzmaster style vibrato bridge). Mercury Maximus (£3,395) features no distressing but a fine-quality figured top. 
• LEFT-HANDERS: Yes, no extra cost (see dealer)
• FINISH: Distressed Sonic Blue (as reviewed); range of colours is vast
• CONTACT: Valiant Guitars

Build quality, usability and sounds

As mentioned, the neck is indeed a C shape, but that slightly slimmer profile, with satin finish and bare wood here and there, gives it a lovely feel in the hand. It also seems wider than its standard 42mm (1.65-inch) nut width might suggest. The fret ends are beautifully dressed, and the fretboard edges perfectly rolled so there’s no sharp or ‘hard’ feel. Overall, it’s a very comfortable and ergonomic play.

There are a few buzzes and rattles around the lower to middle frets. However, Valiant informed us that, in order to get the Mercury to us quickly, there wasn’t time for a full setup.

It’s also fair to state that our review is being written on the UK’s hottest June days on record. And we all know what havoc temperature and humidity – either way – can wreak on our guitars’ necks.

The good news is that the simplicity of the truss rod and bridge adjustment (that Gotoh 510 vibrato is extremely responsive and tuneful, too) meant that we had the strings singing clear and clean in about five minutes. Doubtless Valiant will do the final fettling on the Mercury’s return. But this is a really great neck.

Sounds-wise, it takes a while to get one’s head around what’s going on here, so strap yourself in. But persevere, as your intrepid reviewer did, and you are treated to a wondrous array of tones, from dreamy ambient vibes at one end to out-and-out filth at the other.

Looking at the pickup array, you can think of it in two different ways: as four separate single coils, or as two humbuckers, with the neck and middle coils some distance apart. Therefore, the bridge ‘humbucker’ is actually two independent single coils, and the neck and middle ‘single coils’ are also configurable together as humbucking.

The Switchcraft three-way toggle selects neck (neck and middle together as a humbucker, or neck single coil only), the middle position is all pickups on (as four singles or two doubles), and the bridge setting offers full humbucker or just the single coil closest to the bridge.

And that’s before you get to the two ‘ser’ (series), ‘par’ (parallel) and ‘sc’ (single coil) sliders. The one nearest the neck operates on the two large-pole single coils, while the other focuses on the bridge unit(s). Boiling it down to the essence, pretty much any combination of pickups, both single coil and humbucker – including all four on at once – is available.

That’s a lot to take in, but switching and finding some simply stunning sounds only takes a few minutes. In practice, this means you have a studio guitar par excellence – perhaps like Brian May’s Red Special – but playing live you can choose to select whatever tones your music requires. The Mercury must surely be the most versatile guitar this reviewer has played in a very long time. And if he can work it out, anyone can.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

Blending traditional design with the new is a far more hazardous journey than many might suspect. Some guitar designers have attempted to imbue the familiar with their own styling touches but failed miserably.

The Gavrylenko brothers on the other hand, perhaps due to their Ukrainian heritage or simply because they understand guitars so well, have done the opposite.

While there are enough visual cues to evoke instruments we know and love, there’s no rip-off here but bags of personality and, dare we say, both passion and fun put into the process.

Sure, our Mercury benefitted from a tweak or two using the simple tools provided, but we eliminated the issue easily.

Guitar World verdict: A rattle or two doesn’t detract from the fact that this is one of the most impressive designs we’ve encountered in quite a while. Indeed, we take our hats off to this brave young team. Long live the blue and the yellow!

Hands-on videos

The Studio Rats

Kris Barosci

• Best electric guitars 2026: our top picks for every playing style, ability and budget
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

There are several benefits to be taken from this solo, even if I do say so myself, depending on how you might choose to approach it. First, the selection of ideas is particularly useful to call upon in a trio situation where there is limited harmonic support available from a simple groove-based backing like this.

Second, there are useful pentatonic/blues scale ideas, transferable to any key and not limited to the trio format. And, not least, third, there is a kind of SRV vibe, so that’s always nice!

In a broader sense, this solo is also an exercise in rhythm. Often the phrases coincide with the drums, but, as you’ll hear, the first example plays swung eighth notes, which deliberately contrast against the accents of the kick drum and bass guitar. Elsewhere, I’m somewhat mindful of where there should be a space, to let a drum fill breathe or simply to take a moment to decide where to go next.

One of the steepest learning curves we can embark on is to record ourselves improvising in a scenario like this, then listen back and evaluate the results. To get the full benefit, it’s important that we make an ‘honest’ recording – don’t overthink or compose anything at first.

Listening back can be tough, but this is information nobody else can give you. It’s also true that there can be some nice surprises, often resulting from the moments when we feel we slipped and didn’t play something the way we intended to in that moment.

Coming back to an earlier point, many players are also surprised to hear how much they’re filling the space, especially in a slower/half-time context such as this. All that said, do use these ideas as extra vocabulary, but aim to improvise as freely as you can. Hope you enjoy and see you next time!

Example 1

We start this opening phrase with a series of swung eighth notes, deliberately contrasting against the accents from the bass guitar and kick drum. I’m drawing on pentatonic patterns here up to and including the second bar (not counting the pickup bar). In bar 3, we change to some rhythmic.

Example 2

We're starting with quite a long pickup bar here but moving swiftly on to break the flow a little. This allows some of the bass guitar and kick drum accents to ‘poke through’ during the gap, giving the feeling of interplay between the elements – and avoiding possible listener fatigue from a constant barrage of notes...

The overall feel is derived more from triplets (both quaver and semiquaver) than swung quavers. The last E will be reused at the beginning of Example 3. We thought this phrase sounded better with it in isolation and didn’t want to cut it from the next phrase!

Example 3

Starting with that duplicate E, this final example has one of the longest pickup bars we’ve seen, but it all makes sense once you land on beat 1 of bar 1!

This starts with some sustained blues bends, before mixing up some triplets, swung quavers and doublestops in bar 2. We revert to a more rhythmically simple pattern in bar 3 before digging in to some heavy accents on an E7#9 chord.

This coincides somewhat with the drum accents, but the most important consideration is to dig in with confidence. A good drummer will probably follow…

Hear it here

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble – Texas Flood

This album is packed with exemplary playing in a trio format. What’s more, it was recorded live from the studio floor.

There is something to be learned from every track, but perhaps the most relevant to the approach highlighted in the example solo are Pride and Joy, Texas Flood and I’m Cryin’.

Though always technically proficient, Stevie manages to create excitement without sounding like a rock player. His rhythms also sound super-confident.

Robin Trower – Robin Trower Live

Another example of a trio-based record, here Robin fills a lot of space without coming across as unaware of the other instruments or the vocals.

His soloing can oftentimes be frenetic, but there are many areas where he’ll happily hold a note and let the bass and drums carry things.

Check out Too Rolling Stoned (with its somewhat conspicuous edit!), and for the ultimate laid-back live feel make sure to have a listen to Daydream. The live version Day Of The Eagle is also one to track down.

Philip Sayce – The Wolves Are Coming

This is a very ‘in your face’ production, but the arrangements are carefully constructed to allow all the instruments to have their place in the mix. Have a listen to Oh! That Bitches Brew, Your Love and The Moon Is Full.

Honourable mention also goes to Intuition for its more laid-back feel, dynamics and bluesy soloing. Though this is very much a studio production complete with rhythm guitar and keyboards, it’s not too hard to imagine this arranged for the trio format.

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

Consider Liam and Noel Gallagher, the wily Mancunians who conquered the world captaining the mega-ship that was Oasis. The former was the ultimate frontman – the lightning rod and mouthpiece with endless swagger and an inimitable voice. The latter (though he certainly wasn’t soft-spoken when a journalist’s microphone was around) was the studio craftsman, shaping the band’s enormous sound, and penning those steamroller riffs and choruses that’ve gone ‘round the world a million times over.

The Gallagher brothers happen to be an extreme example of that most vital of Rock Band relationships – that of the singer and guitarist. But they also embody the stereotype – the creative chemistry that yields sublime results (he didn’t co-write it, but what would Wonderwall be without Liam’s sneer?) and the intrapersonal tension (Liam going full Jack Nicholson in The Shining with one of Noel’s ES-335s).

To me, the brothers Oasis are one of rock’s defining singer/guitarist partnerships, but, who do you rate as the best singer/guitarist duo (or trio) of them all?

To get into the fine print, yes, the singer in question can also play guitar in the studio and onstage with the band (even if it causes some tension). They also don’t have to have ever thrown shit at each other, or even taken endless passive-aggressive shots at one another in the press!

Let us know your choice in the comments below.

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. Today, we examine the legendary Danny Gatton’s 1953 Fender Telecaster.

If there were any justice in this world, Danny Gatton would have been a superstar. He more than lived up to his nicknames, “The Telemaster” and “The Humbler,” thanks to his spectacular technique and mastery of multiple styles, including jazz, country, rockabilly, blues, and more – an amalgamation he called “redneck jazz” and fellow guitarists described as mind-boggling.

Despite earning a heap of acclaim, releasing a handful of albums on major labels, and appearing on the cover of guitar magazines, Gatton never surpassed cult-hero status.

Gatton worked his way from playing clubs in the Washington, D.C. area during the ’70s to the public spotlight backing rockabilly revivalist Robert Gordon and classic country icon Roger Miller during the ’80s. During this period, his main guitar was a 1953 Telecaster (serial number 4883) that featured several highly personalized modifications.

Gatton refretted the neck and installed cubic zirconia side markers on it, replaced the original knobs with a pair of custom heavily knurled stainless steel knobs made by Jay Monterose, and bent down the pickup selector switch to keep it out of the way when manipulating the volume and tone knobs.

The ’53 Tele’s electronics provided the essence of Gatton’s unique, multi-voiced tones. His pickups were custom made by Joe Barden, featuring a humbucking design in a standard Tele-size single-coil pickup featuring two side-by-side bobbins with blade polepieces.

The pickups were wound to deliver single-coil tones without hum. Gatton used a standard audio-taper 500k ohm pot for his volume control, but his tone control had a linear-taper 1-megohm pot and a .05µF capacitor that enabled him to create wah effects.

Other distinct features included a stainless steel plate behind the bridge that was the mount for Gatton’s “Magic Dingus Box” remote effects controller, a trophy plate from the October 1988 Greasers Halloween Car Show placed below the high E string, and autographs that Willie Nelson and Roger Miller carved into the finish.

Gatton used this Tele to record his acclaimed independent solo album Unfinished Business. It can also be heard in its full glory in a recording of his live performance in the early Eighties at Berkeley Square with Robert Gordon that was released in 1996 as The Humbler.

During the early ’90s, after Gatton signed a record deal with Elektra and the Fender Custom Shop began collaborating with him on a Danny Gatton signature model Telecaster, Gatton traded his ’53 Tele to his good friend Jack Jensen for a 1934 Ford four-door sedan. Although the ’53 Tele had served him quite well, he couldn’t resist the offer to trade it for the car of his dreams.

After Gatton’s tragic suicide, Jensen returned the Tele to Gatton’s widow, Jan. On October 24, 2015, Heritage Auctions sold Gatton’s ’53 Tele for $62,500. The winning bidder was private collector and Gatton fan Nathan Lefcowitz, who planned to continue playing, performing, and recording with the instrument.

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

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.

LsL Instruments Saticoy 24

This might have been the week in which we saw the future of the S-style. This precious sub-species of electric guitar was put on the endangered list this year following Fender’s global cease-and-desist campaign against brands big and small in a fight to win global copyright protections for the Stratocaster.

LsL Instruments was one of the first companies to have been revealed as receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Fender, and it has now unveiled its first design since the legal brouhaha began. It’s called the Saticoy 24, and this modified 24-fret take on the double-cut paradigm could well be a taste of things to come for the S-style.

The changes are subtle yet dramatic; longer horns, a reshaped pickguard, a flatter top and aggressive contouring on the back of the body and lower cutaway make for a smart refresh.

Look at the woods used. That camphor burl is something (though we’d love to see this in off-white with a natural back). The carved neck heel speaks to a high-performance design. Very nice.

For more: LsL Instruments

MXR/Flanger Doubler

MXR puts the M-126 rack unit into a pedal, and our first thought is Dimebag Darrell who use the unit habitually with Pantera. This was the secret sauce that thickened up Dimebag's, err, chug to give it the musculature required in a single-guitar metal band.

Disciples of the late Cowboy From Hell’s tone should consider this an essential purchase. But then are myriad other uses for the Flanger/Doubler.

All analog, this BBD-driven circuit gives you all kinds of flanger swoosh and swirl, textures that range from full and harmonically rich to hollowed-out and metallic. The control surface is faithful to the original rack unit, with that cool Invert mode for reversing the polarity of the wet signal. It can your modulation, a texture device, a tone-thickener, maybe even a slapback delay too.

And there’s a Mix knob too and a CV expression pedal input and line level switch for handling hot inputs from keyboards synths et cetera.

For more: Jim Dunlop

Martin Joe Bonamassa 00-18 and Retro Road 00-10E

Having collaborated on a $19,999 replica of his “museum-grade” 1941 000-45 in 2024, Joe Bonamassa and Martin have teamed up once again to offer another vintage-inspired doozy – and this time there’s an affordable Road series option too.

The new 00-18 is based on a 1937 pre-War model from Bonamassa’s collection, with this replicating all the detail of the dark “shade-top” finish of the original.

You’ve got mahogany on the back and sides, spruce top, and all the period-correct details, such as the Golden Era scalloped X-bracing, a splash of faux tortoiseshell on the binding, and that Old Style 18 Multi-Stripe. Just stick a lovely mic in front of it and it’s gonna sing on record.

The 00-10E comes strapped with Martin’s E-1 electronics, something that came in handy when Bonamassa was testing these guitars out. He had a gig to play and no acoustic electric guitar to hand. Oh, why not use the Martin?

“The electronics sounded great,” he says. “The first time I tested it, I had this gig in New York with Slash, and we were doing an acoustic opener. I didn't have an acoustic guitar at my house with a pickup, but Martin had just sent over these two. I was like, ‘Oh cool, it's got a pickup’, and I plugged it in. I was like, ‘Great!’”

The Mexican-made 00-10E swaps out mahogany for sapele but it’s still an all-solid build and nails the vintage look too. It’s priced $1,299. The 00-18 is priced $3,999.

For more: Martin

Old Blood Noise Endeavors Beam Splitter V2

This has been quite the week for guitarists looking for a pedal to add beef to their sound and the illusion that they have been double or, in this case, triple-tracked.

OBNE’s Beam Splitter always confused me because the premise sounded a little complicated – or rather the control surface, with all those knobs, looked complicated. But the sounds were something else. And now it has revised them, adding MIDI, presets, expression pedal control and more.

The pedal takes your guitar’s signal and triples it then runs it through three drive/distortion circuits in parallel with one another. You can then apply a delay to one or two or of the drive/distortions, then all kinds of weird effects – “flanging, chorusing or broken vibrato” – can be applied. Turn one guitar into three and then see what happens. We dare you.

For more: Old Blood Noise Endeavors

ALSO LAUNCHED THIS WEEK

New finishes for the Fender American Vintage II series

Considering the vintage guitar market has overheated to the point of inaccessibility for most working musicians, the American Vintage II range is as good as it gets.

These offer vintage-inspired Fender electric guitars and basses that are – to quote the Big F’s Justin Norvell – “a near 1:1 comparison” with their vintage counterparts, which is to say that, if you pick up a ’61 Strat, it has specs that have been reverse-engineered to sound just like that.

Well, as good as it gets just got better this week with more sweet finish options for the range. This was a Telecaster-heavy drop. There’s a Thinline in Candy Apple Red that would stop traffic, but the ’61 Strat in Surf Green and a slab rosewood fingerboard (clay dot inlays, 7.25” radius, Vintage Tall frets…) is a real work of art.

For more: Fender

Floyd Rose Original Laser-Etched Paisley Limited Edition

If ever there was a piece of aftermarket guitar hardware that could wean Brad Paisley off his regular diet of three compensated brass saddles then this would be it.

Here is a genuine chrome USA Series Original vibrato – the gold standard of double-locking vibratos IMHO – with this laser-etching that calls to mind the psychedelic era and obscure Telecaster finishes, and it deserves to be mounted on something audacious.

Nothing less than a flamingo-pink Jackson Soloist or similar. They’re only making 50 of these at $355 a pop. Come on, Brad. You must have a Tele just ripe for routing!

For more: Apple Store

Steadfast Designs Steadfast Stopbar

Okay, so the Floyd Rose is too much like jewelry, all that faff in setting it up, well, here’s an aftermarket hardware option for the Junior-style guitar in your life that promises 75 per cent faster string changes.

It’s comprised of CNC-machined, billet aluminum, available in a variety of finishes, and you load the strings in from the other way first, through the tuning peg, then through the stopbar. Done.

For more: Steadfast Designs

Fender Made in Japan Limited Japan-Inspired Collection Stratocaster

Okay, Japanophiles, set your VPNs to Tokyo, head over to Fender Japan site and take a look at this. We’ve got Hybrid Strats in Kyoto Orange, Matcha Green, Indigo Blue, Katana Silver – and a ninja-approved near-black finish with shuriken inlays.

They are all beautiful, possibly out of reach unless you get on a flight to Tokyo, and are proof once more that Fender Japan is the cutting-edge of Fender design. Quite literally with that Katana Silver model.

For more: Fender

Darkglass KosmOS 1.17 NAM expansion

The open-source NAM A2 tone revolution finds another convert as Darkglass adds Tone3000 integration to the Anagram unit. With more and more leading hardware brands embracing the platform, are we moving to the stage where all units will have NAM A2 support, then compete on hardware user design and proprietary models and effects?

For more: Darkglass Electronics

Sully Guitars ‘71 Trella 24

The Atomic era Googie design idiom is alive and well in luthierie. Is the Trella 24 a radical new take on the set-neck singlecut or the high-performance shred guitar? You decide. But why not both. Ever since seeing Kiki Wong play it with the Smashing Pumpkins at Lollapalooza we want it bad.

For more: Sully Guitars

Manson Guitar Works x Z.Vex Origin of Symmetry Fuzz Factory

To mark three decades of the Fuzz Factory and 25 years since Matt Bellamy used one on Plug in Baby – and thereafter getting Z.Vex to supply the onboard fuzz circuits on his signature guitars – Manson has unveiled these special edition pedals that sure are pretty… And pretty, pretty pricey, too. One’s printed, the other hand-painted.

For more: Manson Guitar Works

What is it?

As guitar players, we have been on quite the journey when it comes to digital amp modelers. We now find them at the centre of many rigs, pro, home and weekend giggers alike. They have also provided a means through which the budget-conscious can get access to some pretty impressive tones. Products like the Quad Cortex Mini have also seen the tech shrink to sizes that will please those looking to incorporate such gear into their pedalboards. The Valeton GP-5 takes all of this to the extreme.

It’s an amp modeler and multi-effects that packs a maximum of 100 rigs, featuring up to nine blocks each, all in a tiny, one-footswitch package and for around $79. It also runs NAM captures… sort of. More on that later, but the point for now is that this does an astonishing number of things for such a small price and size.

Often, with so many functions and so few controls, using these things can be a mess of multiple button presses and some serious manual diving. The GP-5 looks to get around this by relying on a mobile Bluetooth app, which could make this the perfect space-saving, entry-level modeler.

Specs

• Launch price: $79 | £79 | €79
• Type: Amp modeler and multi-effects
• Controls: Volume, Parameter
• Features: Bluetooth app for editing, NAM capture compatibility via Snaptone
• Connectivity: ¼” input, ¼” TRS output, USB-C, Bluetooth
• Power: 9v, center negative, 100mA
• Dimensions: 93.5x42x52mm/3.68”x1.6”x2.0”
• Weight: 0.5lbs/236g
• Contact: Valeton

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

Comfortably fitting into the palm of my hand, at 0.5lbs the GP-5 is light by conventional pedal standards, but surprisingly weighty for a small thing. Its metal chassis feels well put together and robust enough to withstand the abuses that often come with life on a pedalboard.

We have a grand total of two controls named Parameter and Volume, plus a footswitch. All feel unexpectedly premium, with the exception of the Parameter encoder that has a little bit of horizontal movement, but not problematically so.

Its tiny dimensions necessitate minimal I/O, and as such, we have one ¼” input, a single ¼” TRS output, and a USB-C port. This all sits beside the power input, which has an impressively small (for digital gear) 100 mA draw, making it a breeze for pedalboard power supplies.

The screen is nothing exciting in its blue stylings, but then again we are talking about a $79 piece of gear here, so this is absolutely acceptable. The only requirement is that it is bright enough so as not to be easily drowned out by other lights. A requirement happily met.

Usability and features

Usability and features rating: ★★★½

Turning the pedal on, the initial experience of browsing through the presets is incredibly simple. The Parameter knob scrolls through them, and the Volume knob does as you would expect. So far, so easy.

A press of the Parameter button grants access to some global settings, and holding it down activates the Bluetooth. Both functions are hidden, but easy enough to deduce through a little experimentation. We also have a tuner that is accessed by the tried and tested method of holding down the fooswitch.

Deeper editing functions are usually problematic with such minimal controls, but here is where the app comes into its own. Once I have it downloaded onto my phone, it's a case of turning the GP-5’s Bluetooth on and selecting it from my phone's menu.

Bluetooth can be a frustratingly fickle beast, and with my Google Pixel 9 Pro, it is misbehaving a little. The vast majority of the time I am up and running seamlessly, but every now and again it just decides it doesn’t want to connect, and sometimes inputs on the pedal lag behind changes on the app.

A bit annoying, but not too frequent, and a simple ‘off and on again’ is all it usually takes to fix it. While this didn’t happen often enough to be any more than a minor inconvenience at home, it potentially writes the pedal off for any live use, where quick and reliable parameter changes may be required. At least with my Google Pixel Pro.

The app itself is incredibly simple. The signal chain is laid out clearly with aesthetically plain, but easy-to-understand icons. Tap the block you want to adjust, and you will be presented with a selection of straightforward slider bars to adjust the block's parameters, and a drop-down menu should you want to change the effect. Easy.

Utilities for saving and scrolling presets are equally easy to access across the top of the app, and the bottom displays options for importing impulse response files, a drum machine, Global settings, as well as access to documentation and update details. It’s all about as easy as it can possibly be.

With this type of affordable product, there are usually restrictions in the signal chain in order to reduce the amount of processing power the unit needs, and this is the case here. There are 10 blocks (up to 9 active at once) that cannot be moved around and are preset to different effect types.

These effect types are Gate, Pre, Dist, Snaptone (NAM), Amp, Cab, EQ, Mod, Delay, and Reverb. Pre is a selection of compressors, boosts, pitch, and auto-wah effects; Dist presents a selection of 10 drives; then there are 32 amps, 20 cabs/20 user IR slots, five EQs, ten delays, and ten reverbs.

So, although the signal chain is restricted, it's a pretty full complement of guitar effects and amp models.

What is frustrating, however, is setting up the Valeton Suite software on my Windows 11 laptop. Valeton notes an issue on Windows 11 that requires manually updating a driver to allow the operating system to recognise the GP-5, but, in my case, this doesn’t work despite Valeton’s easy-to-follow instructions.

While this is a pain, it is not a dealbreaker, as the same tasks can be completed on the mobile app, with the exception of batch managing files. The main thing I'm looking to do is test some NAM files.

But that falls short of a completely smooth experience, too. Valeton does not use NAM files directly; it instead converts them into its proprietary Snaptone format for use with the GP series pedals. Turns out, it cannot currently convert the new NAM A2 files at the time of writing, so we are restricted to the older A1 architecture.

This would not be a problem if Valeton notes this in the app to give the user a heads-up. Instead, I am left waiting for a conversion that ends with a ‘timeout’ message and some of my time wasted. In contrast, importation and conversion of the A1 versions of NAM captures go off without a hitch.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★½

The thing with units like this is that it would be wrong to expect top-of-the-range sounds. It’s $79. But the bottom line is that the GP-5 punches well above its price tag.

I love a Fender Twin Reverb, so I’m starting with the Dark Twin model and am immediately impressed by the lovely clarity in the high end and the scoop in the mid range. The low end is a tad muddy, but not unforgivably so.

The Foxy 30TB model also does a fantastic job of imitating the famous mid-forward Vox AC30 sound, but weirdly the EQ controls on this model don’t do much (not the case for other models). For high gain, I’m immediately drawn to the EV 51 (EVH5150) model because of its super tight low end. This is perhaps the highlight for me, as I can’t stop having fun chugging through some hard rock riffage.

Something that is apparent through all the amp models is that they don’t clean up particularly well on my guitars' volume controls, so they are not the most dynamic of things.

And while the aforementioned amp models are great, this is not universally the case, as exemplified by the Match CL model, which has a plasticky midrange that sounds cheap to my ears.

In this criticism, however, I will refer you again to the absurdly low price. The fact that we have plenty of decent models to choose from, even amongst the not-so-great, is a win at $79.

The drives are particularly impressive, with highlights including the Green OD bringing the Tube Screamer tone that is a pre-requisite for every multi-effects and Darktale distortion doing a great job of imitating the Pro Co Rat. Neither imitation is 'perfect', as the former doesn’t quite have the chewy, compressed feel nailed, and the latter doesn’t have that fuzzy edge that the real thing does, but they are close enough to sound fantastic in their own right.

I actually think the Darktale distortion is my favourite effect in the whole pedal, as it's high-gain with a cutting but not piercing high-end, which is endlessly rewarding for quick palm-muted classic rock riffs. Arguably, not quite the same as the real thing, but honestly, I’m having so much fun with it that I don’t care.

As we are in the land of high gain, it’s worth turning that noise gate on, which does its job without feeling like it's cutting off too much sustain. What more can you ask for from a gate?

It’s not all good news, though, as there are some effects that are bordering on unusable. The Autowah, for example, while it sounds good, drops way too much volume with a clean tone, and the pitch-shifting effects all add dissonant artifacts that are unpleasant to listen to.

Then we have some at the opposite end of the scale that offer fantastic value for money. The M-Vibe is an effect I would happily pay the $79 for alone. It retains plenty of low end while adding the movement that only uni-vibe type pedals can, making breaking out those Jimi Hendrix tunes a joy.

Effects like the two Chorus options fall between these, both adding some rewarding movement, whilst perhaps being a feeling a little too artificial to blow me away with the lush wobbly tones I get from pedals like my (much more expensive) Way Huge Blue Hippo.

We are, of course, not limited to just Valeton’s models, as we have the aforementioned Snaptone versions of the totally free and potentially market-disrupting NAM captures to play with too.

NAM is its own thing and worth looking into for high-quality amp and drive pedal captures at the grand total of $0. My experience of it so far - via other pieces of hardware - is that the captures are impressively touch-sensitive and genuinely representative of the amps they are using, if you get the right capture. And there are plenty of great ones available via the Tone 3000 website.

But the GP-5 Snaptone is a converted version of this tech, presumably to reduce the processing power needed to run it. To test the difference it makes, I run a full A1 legacy (as previously mentioned, the GP-5 can't run the new A2) capture of a Sundragon Jimmy Page signature amp on the Darkglass Anagram Guitar Essentials I’ve just finished reviewing, and compare it to the Snaptone version of the same thing in the Valeton.

First impressions are that Snaptone is a step up from the factory Valeton amp models. It reacts much better to my playing dynamics, and as a result feels more alive under the fingers. Compared to the full NAM capture, the full thing is more dynamic, has more high-end detail, and is a little less gainy.

So, Snaptone isn't quite the same quality as the actual NAM captures, but still undeniably improves the tones available on the GP-5.

Verdict

It’s not perfect, but with so many features at $79, there are bound to be a few compromises. For that sort of money, Valeton’s sights are set clearly on the beginner market, and there, the biggest considerations are that the unit is easy to use, affordable, and has enough inspiring sounds to keep learners playing.

The ease of use here is heavily dependent on the app, and there are some issues when it comes to the Bluetooth connection and the Desktop version. While this is annoying, its saving grace is that the general operation of editing patches on the app is well designed and straightforward.

Even though there are a few duds, there are plenty of great sounds in the unit, and some that are arguably worth the cost of the pedal on their own. Chuck in the Snaptone feature, which improves the amp tones available, and the Valeton GP-5 is a bargain.

Guitar World verdict: For such a small price, it’s hard to complain too much. Whilst there are some compromises, there are enough good tones in the GP-5 to cover all of the sounds a beginner will need, and having the option to run Snaptone versions of NAM captures is a real boon. In short, the GP-5 is great value for those getting started with modern, digital guitar multi-effects.

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Hands-on videos

The Studio Rats

Dagan Wilkin

Sweetwater, Riffs, Beards and Gear, Steve Sterlacci

Ritchie Blackmore may be forever associated with stacks upon stacks of Marshalls. However, it turns out that, at least at the beginning of his Deep Purple years, his Marshalls were actually Voxes – a fact he says Marshall wanted to keep on the down-low.

“I really loved my Vox sound, but I wanted to change to Marshalls for the look,” he told Guitar World in a 2018 interview.

Being a regular at Jim Marshall’s shop in Ealing, London, gave Blackmore the unique opportunity to spend hours tweaking his tone.

“I’d go to the Marshall factory in Bletchley, where I met Ken Bran and Dudley Craven, who devised the circuit for me in a Marshall setup. They’d be there with their soldering irons, and I’d be batting away on the guitar trying to get the amp to sound like a Vox.

“I’d be playing so loud that all the women there, who were doing the construction of the amps, would storm out together, saying, ‘We can’t work with that loud nonsense going on.’ 60 people or so working there would leave the factory,” he admitted.

To accommodate Blackmore, Marshall went so far as to devise a soundproof room for the Deep Purple guitarist to use.

“I was there so often looking for this sound,” he recalled. “One of the secrets that they will deny to this day – ’cause they told me they would – was that they could not come up with the sound that I wanted.

“I wanted this Vox sound which was very distorted and very cutting, but seemed to have a bass resonance. And they just couldn’t get that. So in the end they said, ‘What we’re going to do is get one of our combo amps, and we’ll take out the innards and put in the Vox innards. So you’ll actually be playing a Vox, but it’ll say Marshall.’ That was the big secret of the day.”

Despite this workaround, the Marshall team were “determined” to get the right sound for Blackmore, so that he eventually became arguably the loudest guitarist of that era.

“What they did was put an extra output stage into one of their 200-watt amps [the Major], which gave it a fatter sound, a bit more distorted,” he explained. “This extra output stage basically made the 200-watt into a 280-watt.

“So for the first probably five years of Deep Purple – ’70 to ’75 – I did have the loudest amp in the world. Although I’m sure it’s dwarfed now by people who have a million watts. You know how it is. Everyone’s got to have one more, one more.

“Going up to – what? – 11 now, I guess,” he quipped.

With sonic explorers Angine de Poitrine starting their sold-out US tour this week, the guitar world’s most viral two-piece will no doubt have everyone talking about their mind-bending microtonal guitar tones once again. Alongside King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, they're reshaping the idea of what modern guitar players can do thanks to the use of microtones.

As well as getting into the gear, I’m going to take you through everything you need to know about microtonal music. In this article, we'll take a journey through the history of music itself, dabble in some mathematics, and come out at the other end with a much better understanding of why microtonal guitar sounds so weird to the Western ear.

By the time you get to the end, you'll have learned some music theory and, if I've done my job correctly, expanded that Western mindset way beyond the constraints of the frets on your electric guitar.

Standard tuning

Let’s start with standard tuning on a guitar. Western music is built on something called the 12-tone equal temperament system (12-TET). On the guitar, you can find this by playing every note in sequence from the open string to the 12th fret on the low E. That’s every note in the 12-TET system, and pretty much every major pop, rock, blues, funk, or heavy metal song was built on those 12 notes.

This isn’t all the notes that exist in music, though. It’s just what Western music evolved to become thanks to the adoption of the 12-TET system – more on which in the history section.

There are many more notes in between the 12 core tones we use in Western music. It’s like colors: you have your reds, blues, and yellows, but there are countless shades in between that you can use to paint a picture.

To keep things simple when we get into the math of this, it’s easier to look at the notes as cents rather than as a frequency (Hz). If you’ve used a guitar tuner, you’ll have come across cents before. They’re a measure of pitch, broken down into little sections. There are 100 cents per fret on a guitar, with 1,200 for a full octave, and 50 for the quarter tones currently being utilized by King Gizzard and Angine de Poitrine.

The notes between the notes

In nature, sound isn’t split up into sections; it’s just one continuous note that rises. Technically speaking, there are infinite notes available to us. The problem is we can’t hear all of them. A trained ear can distinguish roughly 240 distinct pitch changes within a full octave; that’s an accuracy of about 5 cents. This varies depending on where you are in the frequency range, as the human ear is more accurate in the midrange and less so in the low and high-end.

With microtonal music, you’re playing those notes in between the 12 we’re used to. Bands like Angine de Poitrine and King Gizzard use guitars with extra frets to access these smaller intervals, called quarter tones, giving them additional sounds you can’t easily play on a normal electric guitar. Where a normal guitar neck has 12 frets per octave, a microtonal one can have 24.

Here's a demonstration of this using cents. Imagine your open guitar string is 0 cents. The 3rd fret would be 300, and the 4th 400. That quarter tone in between? That’s 350 cents. It sits exactly between major and minor, and to a Western ear, it sounds like an unresolved note because we’re so used to hearing music in the 12-TET system. For a Middle Eastern or Indian musician, these in-between notes have been a core part of their music for thousands of years.

The history: how the West lost the in-between notes

Microtonal music isn’t the exception to the rule we think it is. For most of history, microtonal music was just music. When humans first began to sing, blow into tubes of bone, or pluck animal gut-derived strings, there was no system of notes to abide by. Sound was already in the world; we just created ways to imitate it.

Here’s one scholar’s reconstruction of one of the oldest known melodies in human history. It comes from a Babylonian text of a musical system based on tuning in fifths:

Before we get to microtonal music specifically, it’s important to understand more about how Western music developed into the 12-TET system we use today. This is pretty math-heavy stuff, so make sure you’ve got your thinking cap on.

The Pythagorean Comma

Legend has it that Pythagoras first discovered the mathematics of musical tuning by stretching a piece of string along a block of wood, somewhere around the year 500BCE. His device, now called a monochord, had a movable bridge, and by using this, he realized you could divide that string into intervals that sounded pleasing to the human ear.

To give you a real-world example of this, just pick up your guitar. If you take any string and divide the length exactly in half, you get an octave. This is the 12th fret on your guitar. Similarly, if you divide the string into thirds, the first third of your string will be the 7th fret of your guitar. Known as the perfect fifth, this note comes from the remaining two-thirds of the string that vibrates. You’ll note these are natural acoustic sweet spots where harmonics ring out nicely.

Using Pythagorean tuning, the idea was that if you stacked 12 perfect fifths on top of one another, you would be on the same note you started on, just 7 octaves higher. Fast forward to the Renaissance and Baroque period, however, and we run into a big issue with tuning in perfect fifths.

The keyboard had been invented, and composers were making music on organs and harpsichords with multi-part harmonies and complex chords. When they tried to tune them using pure fifths, they sounded completely out of tune after a certain point.

Here’s the problem:

• Moving up 7 octaves: An octave is 1,200 cents, so you add 1,200 seven times in a row. That gives you 8,400 cents.
• Moving up 12 perfect fifths: A Pythagorean perfect fifth is 701.955 cents, so you add that twelve times in a row. That gives you 8,423.46 cents.

That’s a difference of just under 24 cents, nearly a quarter of a fret, which, as we discussed earlier, is a difference pretty much anyone can hear. Because we’re adding a set of even numbers against a set of odd numbers, there’s no way their paths would ever cross in order for them to align perfectly.

This gives us what is now known as the Pythagorean Comma. If you tune an instrument in mathematically perfect fifths using the string length, you will eventually overshoot the octave and sound out of tune. It also affects the tunings of other intervals, like thirds. Don't worry, though; humans will solve this problem in a few thousand years.

Two solutions, one problem

As music evolved throughout the years and became more complex, musicians started to encounter this issue with tuning in 5ths. There were a few solutions to this.

India & the 22 shrutis

Ancient Indian music mapped the octave out into 22 ‘Shrutis’ somewhere around 200BCE and 200CE. This comes from the Natya Shastra, a treatise on the performing arts which was highly influential in the evolution of Indian music.

Keeping it to stringed instruments, a great example of this approach is the Veena, a relative of the sitar. Unlike the fretted instruments of the West, the frets on a Veena weren’t glued into the neck; they were tied on or attached by wax. This meant players could move them to wherever they needed to suit the microtones and scales of the piece they were playing.

Indian classical music is also notable for another feature of microtonality: string bending. Western stringed instruments used gut strings, and these bent so easily they were unpredictable. They could stretch out of tune, and the low action of instruments of the time also contributed to the difficulty with accurate string bending.

The frets on a Veena were curved and made from metal, allowing players to bend the strings into those spaces in between the notes. They also were well above the neck wood, like you’d find on a scalloped guitar neck. This allowed players of the time to bend up to five semitones from a single fret.

Here’s a great example of bending a 'meend' on a sitar:

The Arab world and the Maqam

In the Middle East, musicians took a different approach entirely. The Maqam came about gradually, evolving from the Islamic Golden Age, when scholars began translating Greek texts of Pythagoras. Less a scale and more a set of rules to follow, the Maqam tells the musician which notes to emphasize and how to phrase a sequence, but it’s more based on improvisation than rigid rules.

Safi al-Din al-Urmawi, an Iranian musician, encountered the same problem that Western musicians did with the Pythagorean Comma. Middle Eastern musicians went along a different path, though, choosing to keep stacking perfect fifths, ending up with a 17-tone system. To play these microsteps, they relied on instruments like the oud, which allowed players to hit all the correct notes required in a 17-tone system.

Al-Urmawi’s system meant that a whole step wasn’t two notes as we have with the 12-TET system. Instead, a step was broken down into three unequal micro-steps. To envision this on your guitar neck, imagine you’ve got 17 frets, but they’re all spaced out differently. Some would be closer together, and others further apart.

These frets would equate roughly to 90 cents, 90 cents, and 24 cents on a modern guitar neck. This concept still exists today in the Baglama (or Saz), a traditional Turkish instrument, which, as we’ll find out, is one of the major influences in microtonal guitar music of the modern age.

The oud goes to Europe

There’s one other important subject we need to touch on in order to fully understand microtonal music, and that’s the oud. The first ouds were around in the 8th century and were fretless instruments, which were needed to play the Maqams of the time using the 17-tone system. This allowed players to hit those microtones and execute vibrato and slides that mimicked the sound of the human voice.

The oud was introduced to Europe during the Moorish occupation of Spain beginning in 711CE. Europeans loved the instrument, but as mentioned earlier in the article, they wanted polyphony. If you’ve ever tried to play a chord on a fretless instrument, you’ll know it’s incredibly difficult to keep the whole thing in tune.

To get around this, they took thick pieces of gut string and tied them around the neck of the oud to create frets. This allowed them to play chords, but took away the microtonal capabilities of the oud. They also took the Arabic name ‘al-’ud’, which became the Spanish ‘laud’, French ‘leut’, and is how we ended up with the English ‘lute’.

The lute was popular for a time, but Western musicians didn’t love the deep body, which made it difficult to play standing, as well as preventing hard strumming. So instrument makers began flattening the body and pinching the waist, creating a shape that was much more recognizably close to today’s acoustic guitars.

This gave us the vihuela and the Baroque guitar. Over time, tied-on gut frets were replaced with metal ones, and strings that were grouped in courses became the six single strings we know today.

The 12-TET system

The 12-tone equal temperament system (12-TET) is the answer to the Pythagorean Comma we mentioned earlier, and is still used in modern guitar playing today. To get around the issue of perfect fifths not matching equally with octaves, Western musicians realized they needed to divide the octave into 12 perfectly equal steps.

The idea works like this. We take all 1,200 cents of our octave and divide it into exactly 12 equal steps. Every fret on your guitar is exactly 100 cents from its neighbour all the way up the neck. Of course, the distances between the frets shrink as you move up, but if you get your digital calipers out, you’ll notice that the distance between the nut and 1st fret is exactly halved by the time you get to the 12th and 13th frets.

With this system, our perfect fifth, the 7th fret, lands at exactly 700 cents. Pythagoras’ perfect fifth was 701.955 cents. It’s very difficult to hear a 2-cent difference, so to our ears they sound pretty much the same. The major difference comes from when we move further up. Twelve lots of 700 cents is exactly 8,400 cents, so our 7 octaves and 12 perfect fifths now land in the same place.

Two solutions combine

Heading back to the Middle East, musicians began to realize that the 17-tone system was difficult to teach and incompatible with Western music notation, which had become the global standard. Thus, Arabic music was standardized into 24 equal quarter tones in the 19th century. This was just for notation; the actual notes of maqams still vary by region and player, but the 24-TET system is a Western approximation of the Middle Eastern system that allows the two to interact.

Back in mid-19th century Europe, Antonio de Torres Jurado completely changed the game by redesigning the Baroque guitar. He increased the body size, added bracing to the inside, and introduced the 650mm (25.6”) scale length. The 12-TET system became a permanent feature of the guitar as we know it today, and classical guitars still have this same scale length.

Once the 20th century arrived, composers began to try and break the rules again. Julian Carrillo had microtonal guitars and harps built specially for his Sonido 13 microtonal music theory. Alois Hába wrote microtonal music in Czechia, commissioning a quarter-tone piano to be built. Harry Partch built a 43-tone intonation system and a whole orchestra of instruments in order to play it.

Electronic music then made it cheap for anyone to start using microtones. Wendy Carlos designed her own non-octave scales, famously used on ‘Beauty in the Beast’ in 1986. In Turkey, classical guitarist Tolgahan Cogulu invented the adjustable microtonal guitar with frets that slide in channels so it can be set up for maqams, 24-TET, or any other kind of microtonal tuning.

Microtonal music today

Somewhere around 2014, Stu Mackenzie of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard bought a Turkish Baglama, which shared the lineage with the instruments al-Urmawi would have used back in the 1200s.

Enamoured by its sound, he got his luthier friend to combine the electric guitar with the baglama, resulting in the instrument we now know as the Flying Microtonal Banana. The rest of the band bought cheap guitars and retrofitted them with extra frets, resulting in multiple albums written and recorded in the 24-TET system.

Angine de Poitrine have taken this idea to a new plane. A double-necked microtonal guitar and a Boss looper pedal, alongside a look only a mother could love, have taken microtonal music almost into the mainstream.

Interestingly, we’ve essentially come full circle. Microtonal music was the norm in ancient times; it was categorized and systematized via mathematics, and now musicians are breaking down the walls again.

Is it a rallying cry for real music against the incoming onslaught of AI slop? Or a rebellion against music tuned and gridded to within an inch of its life? Maybe it’s just the natural progression that stems from an abundance and easy access to information for all, and our natural inclination as guitar players to experiment.

Whatever it is, hopefully this newfound popularity encourages more guitar players to experiment with sounds less popular in the Western hemisphere.

How to play microtonal music

Bending

Something that should already be within most guitar players' repertoire. We don’t think of it as microtonal, but the blues note, or quarter-tone bend, has defined electric guitar for a long time, and it’s a microtonal note. If you need assistance with this, do it with your guitar tuner engaged, and aim for the space halfway between one note and the next.

Slide

Using a guitar slide essentially turns your guitar into a fretless instrument. Every pitch on the string is suddenly available, giving you the same freedom that fretless oud players have. Try landing on these positions between the frets rather than sliding through them to add some maqam-style flavour to your licks.

Detune a single string

Some clever folks on the internet have realized you can play some of Angine de Poitrine’s music on a regular guitar by detuning a couple of strings by a quarter tone. Example video below:

Pitch-shifting pedals

Any pitch shifter that gives you a treadle for continuous movement can be used to create microtones. Not every pitch shifter or octave pedal lets you do this, but those like the Digitech Whammy, or the EHX Pitch Fork and Boss PS-6 paired with an expression pedal, can help you unlock those in-between sounds.

Microtonal guitars & necks

Due to the Angine hype, you can now preorder microtonal guitars on the Eastman Guitars website. They also have necks you can stick on a guitar you already own, and even a double-necked instrument similar to what everyone’s favorite Quebecer duo uses.

Most good luthiers will also be able to turn any regular guitar into a microtonal one by adding new frets in between the existing ones. This is how King Gizzard got hold of multiple microtonal instruments, and it is a great way to repurpose an old guitar you're not using anymore.

You can also purchase custom microtonal necks on Etsy from JLJInstruments.

Top microtonal guitar tracks

Totally new to microtonal music? Here are some top tracks and interesting videos to get you started.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Angine de Poitrine

Julian Carrillo

Harry Partch

Jon Catler

Brendan Byrnes

Tolgahan Çoğulu

Kasim Sulton didn’t fancy himself as a session musician – but that hasn’t stopped him from appearing on dozens of iconic records.

He’s worked with everyone from Steve Stevens to Richie Sambora, but it’s his relationship with Todd Rundgren and Meat Loaf that he’s remembered most for – especially Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell. “I had no idea the album would become one of the top-selling records of all time,” Sulton tells Bass Player.

“Jim Steinman was shy and reserved; Meat Loaf was loud and boisterous. Together they bottled lightning. Of course, the musicians involved – myself, Todd Rundgren, Roy Bittan, and Max Weinberg – took our performances seriously.

“But for the most part, the music and the sessions were quite funny. You couldn’t help but laugh at the content of most of the songs!”

Sulton was also a member of Rundgren’s Utopia, and tours with the guitarist’s solo band today. “Todd is demanding, but he trusts the people he surrounds himself with. We just celebrated 50 years working together, and I feel we have a pretty good understanding of each other.

“As long as you’re working hard and not slacking off or dialing it in, Todd is easy. If you ask him what you should be playing, he’ll probably tell you, ‘I don’t know! Figure it out – that’s why I hired you!’”

Now 70, Sulton remains very inspired. When he’s not working with Rundgren, he’s writing solo music. Looking back, he says: “What kept me working with Meat Loaf was a true sense of what Jim Steinman’s original idea was and how best to perform those songs.

“Not too many people were in the room when that record was being made. I was. I’ll remember Meat as a big teddy bear who loved performing in front of an audience. And Todd is the consummate artist – one of the best lyricists in the second half of the 20th century. I’m proud to have worked with them both.”

How did you break into session work?

I never really considered myself a session musician. I cut my teeth in live situations. I was always happy to be in a recording session or going into the studio to work on my own music; and I always looked forward to performing in front of an audience. I think I became pretty popular on the studio call list because of my work with Todd and Utopia.

What led to your landing the gig with Utopia?

I was close with [orchestrator and pianist] Michael Kamen, who was friends with John Siegler and Roger Powell, both in Utopia at the time. John was leaving the band and asked Michael if he knew anyone who might take his place. He recommended me.

After borrowing $20 from my uncle, I took a bus up to Woodstock, where the band was based, and auditioned. Utopia were a prog rock band at the time and my bass playing was adequate – but my real selling point was the fact that I could sing.

Tell us about Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell sessions.

About six months after I joined Utopia, I was sitting in a rented home in Woodstock, New York. Todd called and asked if I wanted to play bass on a record he was producing. I said, “Sure,” and asked what the artist’s name was. When he said, “Meat Loaf,” I thought he was joking, and I said as much. He said, “Just show up at the studio tomorrow!”

Next day, I witnessed Jim Steinman sitting at a small upright piano and Meat Loaf, Ellen Foley, and Rory Dodd performed the entire record. There was no demo tape – just these four people belting out the seven songs for Bat Out of Hell.

What was it like working on songs like Bat Out of Hell and Paradise by the Dashboard Light?

No one gave me any direction. I had free rein to come up with any bass lines I thought would be good. In retrospect, I took liberties that might be frowned on in today’s sessions – what I mean is, I played a lot! I riffed and stuck in little ad-libs all over the place that, to this day, I’m extremely proud of.

Todd has been critical of Meat Loaf and how people view the project on the whole. What were your thoughts then compared to now?

After we finished the record, I honestly thought I would never hear it again. It was great to have a hand in that music, working with Jim, Roy Bittan, Max, and Todd.

But at the time it didn’t strike me as a landmark record. In hindsight I can see that it spoke to a segment of youth that connected with the brilliance of Jim’s lyrics.

Elsewhere, you played a big role in Utopia’s only top 40 hit, Set Me Free.

I was signed as a solo artist to Bearsville Records during Utopia’s time on that label. I was given 100 hours a year to work on demos, and I used every minute recording what I hoped would be my first solo album. I went in to see Albert Grossman to tell him I was ready to officially start on that record, but he didn’t think I was, and that I needed to write more and record more demos.

I disagreed. As a hot-headed 21-year-old, I told him I wanted out of my contract. He said, “Sure thing, that’ll be $50,000 and 5 points on whatever you record. Welcome to the real world!”

That’s when I took out my frustration in a song. I wrote Set Me Free in 20 minutes. It became the only top 40 hit Utopia would ever have – thanks in no small part to the contributions of Todd and the band.

In the ’80s you worked with Steve Stevens and, later on, Richie Sambora. What was that like?

Steve is a brilliant guitarist, and I had the pleasure of working on his solo album along with my childhood friend, drummer Thommy Price. His influences span a pretty wide spectrum, from Segovia to Robert Fripp.

I toured for a year with Richie, and it was one of my most memorable experiences. Richie is an exceptional guitarist and was so generous and kind to me that I wrote his mother a letter at the end of the tour, telling her what a great son she raised.

You were also a member of Joan Jett’s band.

I played with Joan from 1986 to 1989. Thommy Price was her drummer – we grew up together. When her bass player left Thommy thought to call me. Like most successful artists, Joan knows exactly what she wants. Not so much demanding, but confident.

I’ve found that people hire me not only because of what I bring to the table, but because I’m clear on who I’m working with. Doesn’t matter if it’s Joan Jett or Celine Dion, I’m there for them, not for myself.

Meat Loaf had a big rebound with Bat Out of Hell II, which you were a part of. Did you see that coming?

Who could have predicted lightning striking twice in the same place? When Todd and I recorded all the background vocals on Bat II, we had an idea that it was going to be a decent-selling record. We didn’t expect it to sell 17 million copies! Kudos to Alan Kovac, who managed Meat Loaf at the time and was integral to the success of that record.

Later you were a member of The New Cars. What did you make of Benjamin Orr’s playing style?

The beauty of Ben’s playing was in its simplicity. The New Cars was a pretty cool project. I know Ric Ocasek didn’t like it! We were writing new music and hoping that we could continue. Were it not for an unfortunate accident involving Elliot Easton, it could have survived much longer.

How has your rig changed from your early days to now?

I like to keep it as simple as possible, whether with Utopia, my solo band, or anyone – an amp and a bass. Unless, of course, the gig requires a pedalboard with some effects on it, in which case an Eventide H9 and a couple of Keeley stompboxes do everything I’ll need.

Any regrets?

I’ve met three Beatles and worked with one. I wish I could have shaken George’s hand and thanked him. I’m proud of the fact that I’m known and respected by musicians I grew up listening to and admiring. What more can a kid from Staten Island ask for?

What is it?

With a roster of players from Eric Clapton to Alvin Lee, Larry Carlton, Gary Moore, Rich Robinson and so many more, there is no doubting the iconic nature of the Gibson ES-335. Its late ‘50s release saw it play a part in defining the look and sound of the electric guitar in an era that was stuffed full of innovation, and as a result, the ES-335 is every bit as relevant to the modern player as it was to the trailblazers of the day.

Gibson has made some tweaks to the design since then, but those genre-defining sounds are still heard in many a modern record. So, what better way to channel them than using a vintage-spec instrument? That is where the Gibson ES-335 ‘50s that I am currently holding comes in.

To quote Gibson, it “delivers the classic features of the earliest ES-335 models”, meaning we get the poignant semi-hollow design with ‘50s features that should satisfy the purists, and get that vintage tone that so many of us covet.

Let’s plug it in and see if it meets the high bar its legacy sets.

Specs

• Launch price: $3,499 | £3,099 | €3,599
• Made: USA
• Type: Six-string electric guitar
• Body: 3-ply poplar/maple/poplar
• Neck: Mahogany, rounded C
• Fingerboard: Rosewood
• Scale length: 24.75mm
• Nut: Graph Tech, 42mm
• Frets: 22 medium jumbo
• Hardware: Vintage deluxe tuners, ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge
• Electrics: HH, Custombucker alnico III pickups, 2 volume, 2 tone, 3-way selector
• Weight: 8.4lbs/3.8kg
• Finishes: Ebony, Vintage Natural, Tobacco Burst
• Cases: Gibson hard case
• Contact: Gibson

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

It’s hard to see where Gibson could go wrong aesthetically here, as the ES-335 is a classic shape that still feels modern despite its advancing years. The Ebony finish on this review model is stunning in my view, but perhaps not to everyone's taste, so for those who prefer a bit more color, there are the Vintage Natural and Tobacco Burst options to choose from.

It's the classic three-ply poplar/maple/poplar body with single-ply cream binding, mahogany neck, bound rosewood fingerboard, and 22 medium jumbo frets all flawlessly finished, as you would expect from a guitar coming in at $3,499.

That price does grant me the right to be incredibly picky, and being so, the Graph Tech nut is a bit sharp on the right-hand side, digging into the hand a little.

Hardware-wise, we have vintage deluxe tuners and an ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge with an aluminum stop bar tailpiece. This is backed up with the expected three-way pickup selector, two volume controls and two tone controls, all of which feel smooth in use, creating a premium feel.

Gibson is regularly on the receiving end of some criticism when it comes to tuning stability, with the break angle of the headstock often getting the blame, but there are no such issues here, proving the quality of the components and a testament to what is a well-put-together guitar.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★½

As you would expect of a Gibson ES-335, it’s a 24.75” scale length, resulting in a reduced string tension compared to the 25.5” of Fender-esque models, meaning that the strings feel slinky enough to easily bully into buttery vibrato and big bends, with the medium jumbo frets allowing plenty of purchase on those strings to accentuate this.

Adding to this buttery feel is the great setup that this particular example arrives with. Well intonated, and with a low action at 1.5mm on the low E and 1.25mm on the high E, it's a guitar that allows thoughts to transfer from the brain to the fingers with ease.

That’s as long as those thoughts aren’t of Joe Satriani or Vai-esque levels of speed. The rounded C neck isn’t quite as chunky as that of my Custom Shop '51 Telecaster, but it’s not far off. It’s the sort of palm-filling feel that a lot of players from bluesy backgrounds enjoy, but not one suited to shred. Not a worry though, as the guitar isn’t aimed at that.

The shallow cut of the bottom horn makes getting to the 21st and 22nd frets a little awkward on the odd occasion I am inclined to reach for them. I'm a little reluctant to point this out, as I am absolutely on board with this compromise in order to maintain that classic ES-335 body shape, but it is a compromise nonetheless.

Similarly, the placement of the output jack on the front of the body means a straight jack will stick out with potential to get clipped by an errant arm. An angled lead is an easy way to solve this, though.

Following this classic spec is a 12” fingerboard radius, which is flat enough to allow those speedy pentatonic runs to fly off the fingers, without compromising the feel of open chords down the bottom.

In short, this is an easy guitar to play, furthered by a brilliant out-of-the-box setup, and the aforementioned flawless fretwork.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

Making some noise with a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe tube amp, a Browne Amplification Ethane dual overdrive, and an MXR Carbon Copy delay pedal, the Custombucker pickups and their alnico III magnets are a bit of a dream in combination with the characteristics that a semi-hollow construction brings to the table.

Starting with the bridge pickup and a clean tone, there is some bite here, but the extra low-end resonance associated with the semi-hollow thing stops it from getting too harsh. Like most bridge pickups, it isn’t a go-to clean tone, but if you find yourself in a busy mix, struggling to be heard, it will offer the cut you need in a way that is more viable than most cleans from solid-body bridge pickups.

On the neck (and keeping things clean for now), that low-end resonance results in endless warmth with some lovely high-end chime, perfect for the jazzier side of things or some strummy chords. Put both pickups on together, and the bridge adds its cut for when that warmth is a little too much.

Throughout all of this, and particularly when at volume, the semi-hollow thing comes into its own as the guitar vibrates in sympathy with the amp, creating the trademark sustain of these types of guitars.

The flip side of this is that when you start gaining things up a bit, feedback occurs much earlier than on a solid body guitar. The purpose of the solid maple center block is to mitigate this a little, and the result is that I can go from a low-gain crunch to a mid-gain classic rock type sound with that feedback staying musical and rewarding.

The endless sustain this produces is nothing short of addictive. There isn’t much scope to push the gain further than this without the guitar tipping over into uncontrolled feedback, and the guitar lacks the high end to maintain clarity at high levels of drive, but that isn’t really the aim here.

Sticking at low to mid gain settings, with the guitar's characteristic warmth purveying through all, the bridge offers a nice cut for the classic rock thing, whilst the neck is lovely and rounded, perfect for cello-like solos or some lightly driven rhythms.

Though the ES-335 has an association with the blues, this guitar proves the model's reputation for versatility is well earned. The warmth from the neck, combined with a little bite from the bridge, makes this a fantastically dynamic instrument that is capable of a variety of tones in the modern pop and funk realms too. It might not be ideal for high gain or speedy legato acrobatics, but it is a good choice for pretty much everything else.

Verdict

In short, then, the Gibson ES-335 ‘50s could be many players' do-it-all guitar. And to be honest, at $3499, this is exactly what we should expect.

It’s well built, a dream to play, and as long as you are not looking for a monstrous high-gain tone, it provides tones that boast a versatility that the ES-335 doesn’t always get credit for. It’s no wonder that it is a guitar often seen in the hands of the working guitarist.

Guitar World verdict: At this price point, there is no room for anything other than excellence, and despite a few niggles, that is what this guitar delivers. It's the classic Gibson ES-335 sound and shape in a well-put-together guitar that reflects the era from which it was originated. In other words, it delivers exactly what it promises.

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• Best blues guitars: these six-strings are ideal for all types of electric blues covering various price points

Facebook Marketplace has plenty of deals, but when one user listed his Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar for sale, he didn’t expect a country star to pick it up.

American singer-songwriter Riley Green has released four studio albums, with his latest, That’s Just Me, released in April of this year. Since his 2019 debut, he’s scooped up five Country Music Awards, making the Jacksonville native one of the genre’s biggest rising stars.

His success means he has money to play with. So, when a sunburst J-45 caught his eye on the social media marketplace, he snapped it up. Then, he collected it himself.

“Didn’t really wanna sell this girl, but thought I would throw it on Marketplace,” the seller, Shane Allen of Front Beach Softwash in Panama City Beach, Fla shared on Facebook.

“When I got to the place that I agreed-upon meeting spot, it turned out to be Riley Green himself who was interested in buying it,” he added. “Let me tell ya, folks. This guy didn’t have to meet up with this regular Joe. Heck, he could have sent anybody to buy my guitar! Instead he invited me to meet him and look at [the] guitar.”

Green has just shy of 17 million monthly listeners on Spotify and 3.1 million Instagram followers. He’s a big deal, but opted not to send a lackey to pick up his new squeeze.

“When I [saw] that he was the one buying it,” Allen’s post wraps up, “well, it made selling it feel a little better.”

Green is set to feature as a coach on season 30 of The Voice next month, and is currently in the middle of his largest headline tour to date. Now he has a new guitar for his arsenal, and the world knows the humble means by which he got it.

Dream guitars have also been pried from Facebook Marketplace by the Travis Barker-backed artist KennyHoopla (that one under shady circumstances) and Gibson’s Certified Vintage manager.

One of John Lennon’s amps also popped up on the site, and the buyer had no idea.

Fender Japan is celebrating the nation’s culture and heritage with the all-new Made in Japan Limited Japan-Inspired Collection Stratocaster. It celebrates ninjas and matcha drinks in equal measure.

The Big F’s Asian arm has always had a license to do things a little differently. Everything from next-gen wiring setups to hybrid offsets have caught eyes in recent years. This latest collection twists the Stratocaster through a very Japanese lens.

Themes as wide-ranging as the city of Kyoto, historical archetypes of samurai and ninjas, matcha, and indigo dyeing all bring the iconic electric guitar to life in new ways.

They’re built on a vintage-modern formula, with an alder body, maple neck, and rosewood fingerboard as their foundation. Crafted to the standard 25.5” scale length and adorned with two-point synchronized tremolos with vintage-style stamped steel saddles and vintage-style locking tuners, their electronics go a little more off-piste.

Each variant features the newly designed Hybrid II Custom-Voiced pickups. The trio of single coils is voiced to sound retro and modern in unison. A modern C-profile neck and a 9.5” fingerboard radius with medium-jumbo frets make them play more like contemporary machines.

But it’s the looks where things get interesting. The Kyoto Orange model pairs a one-ply gold anodized aluminum pickguard with gold hardware, matching gold dot inlays, and a matching headstock. The Indigo Denim finish keeps the pickguard inlays but opts for black nickel hardware and a sleeker colorway, while the Matcha Green model does something similar with chrome hardware. The black pickup covers and control dials are also a lovely touch.

There’s even a Katana Silver axe with a unique Silver Burst-reminiscent pickguard to resemble the deadliness of Japan’s famous swords. It’s rounded out with a silver pickguard and rhombus-shaped acrylic white pearl inlays, nodding to the intricate markings that often adorned blade handles.

Last but certainly not least is the silent but deadly Ninja Black model that, surprise surprise, has very little color to it. A blacker-than-black pickguard and matching nickel hardware keep the guitar stealthy in the night, save for the shuriken-inspired acrylic white pearl inlays that jump out of its rosewood ’board like a true assassin.

“Each model incorporates color schemes and designs that symbolize its unique world,” Fender Japan says. “This is a truly special Stratocaster that fuses Japanese culture with Fender’s renowned craftsmanship.”

All five models are priced at ¥275,000 (approx. $1,700) and are exclusive to Fender Japan.

See Fender Japan for more (you’ll need to set your location to Japan).

For more killer colorways from Fender Japan, see the MIJ Hybrid II 2026 Collection and the Summer of Love-inspired Blue Flower Series. Fiesta Red and Lake Placid Blue they are most certainly not.

The old saying, ‘everyone has to start somewhere,’ has been repeated a billion times in a billion contexts for a reason – it's true for even the most successful in any field.

Take Bon Jovi, who have spent the last 40 years taking their particular brand of hard-rock – peppered with literal million-dollar choruses – to stadiums and arenas around the world.

Needless to say, they've gotten that live show in tip-top shape during that time – their 2013 outing, for instance, was the single highest grossing concert tour in the world that year.

But what were we saying about ‘everyone has to start somewhere’ again?

Back in 2013, former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora told Guitar World about the band's very first arena engagement, an opening slot for ZZ Top at Madison Square Garden.

ZZ Top were at the absolute peak of their commercial success, but the up-and-coming Bon Jovi were hungry, and all too eager to leave a real impression on the packed crowd. In that regard they did succeed, though not in the way they had in mind...

“We were opening for ZZ Top at Madison Square Garden. The first Bon Jovi record was in the can but hadn’t come out yet,” Sambora recalled to Guitar World.

“We had no management. We were just brazen kids who wanted to play Madison Square Garden. We probably had no business doing it. Not that the band wasn’t ready, but we had no road crew, no infrastructure.

“I knew this was a heavy blues-rock crowd, so I told the guys, ‘I’ll go out there and blow for about 60 seconds, then we’ll go into the first tune.’ I hit the first chord and my Marshall blew up.

“I had a spare head, but it took about 45 seconds to switch and get the tubes warmed up. The crowd started chanting, ‘Z-Z-Top! Z-Z-Top!’ Consequently, we played a 40-minute set in about 19 minutes.”

Reflecting on the experience 30 years later, Sambora saw it – rather than an embarrassment to be buried – as a learning experience. “Getting through moments like that,” he told Guitar World, “is what shapes you as a pro.”

For Anna Cara, a 22-year-old guitarist from Newcastle, England, temporarily replacing Nita Strauss in the Alice Cooper Band is daunting. The music Cara covers with Cooper was laid down by greats like Dick Wagner, Steve Hunter, Kane Roberts, Vinnie Moore, Orianthi and, of course, the out-on-maternity-leave Strauss, making the gig even weightier.

But Cara isn’t alone. She has help in the form of guitarists Ryan Roxie – who has played with Cooper since 1996 – and Tommy Henriksen, who joined Cooper’s ranks in 2012. That experience, along with their collective forays beside the likes of Slash and Joe Perry, makes them the perfect partners in guitar-related crime for Cara, who has watched the band’s antics all her life.

“I really loved Orianthi and Nita,” Cara says. “I used to play along to their videos as a kid, so I can’t even describe the feeling of this. It’s so crazy.”

“You’ve got to be adept at learning a whole spectrum of music,” Roxie says. “When I heard Anna play, I knew right from the get-go that she’s cut from a different cloth. She can play mechanical shredder stuff with ease but also can slip into classic-rock mode at the drop of a hat.”

Henriksen, who discovered Cara and likens her tone, vibrato and versatility to that of Gary Moore, agrees. “I kept telling Ryan, ‘You’ve got to see this kid play, man,’” he says. “She’s got that thing. I can’t explain it. There’s not many people who have it, but she’s got it.”

Humble as Cara is, when pressed, she’s able to describe what that thing is. “I like playing with feel and emotion,” she says. “I enjoy shredding, but the main thing for me is feel and emotion. That’s what I enjoy, and that’s what’s kept me playing.”

Until Strauss makes her triumphant return, Cara is on the road with Cooper, a place where there are no tricks, gimmicks or safety nets. “Nothing you hear is on tape,” Roxie says. “If it’s a bad night, you’ll hear it. That’s rock ’n’ roll. Real guitars, scratchy voices. It’s the real deal.”

“There’s a lot to learn,” Cara says. “I never think I’ve done it, or that this is my level of guitar. I don’t think that way. I think about how I can get to the next level and push myself to be better. But it’s hard to put into words. I couldn’t ask for more from life because this is one of my biggest dreams. I’m still processing it. I look over at Alice, and he’ll point to me during these songs, and it’s just unreal.”

But Roxie, who has been around the merry-go-round many times, advises Cara to embrace her new reality. “If you stick with it, you’ll get your shot. Tommy and me got our shot years ago, and we’re still trying to make the most of it. Now Anna has her shot, and the world is her oyster.”

Tommy, Anna came into Alice Cooper's orbit through you, right?

Tommy Henriksen: I found Anna for [my band] Crossbone Skully. I’m always looking on Instagram and YouTube for musicians, and when I was putting Skully together, I was like, “I wanna put a bunch of [bedroom guitarists] together and get them out there.”

What appealed to you about Anna’s guitar playing?

Henriksen: She never showed her face, just her playing guitar. She wasn’t doing all that stupid stuff – not posing or anything. I sent her a message and said, “I love what you’re doing. You’ve got great vibrato and feel. Can I call you and your parents?”

I didn’t know how old she was. [Laughs] I FaceTimed with them and said, “I like your daughter’s playing. She’s a natural. She plays like Gary Moore. She’s got the vibrato of a 55-year-old man.” I’d never heard a girl – and don’t take that the wrong way! – play with that type of vibrato other than Orianthi. I asked who showed her that, and she said, “My dad!”

Eventually, Anna joined Crossbone Skully. What led to that?

Henriksen: I said, “I’m putting together a band. I’m going to call you. Be show-ready. You’re going to be going on a plane to L.A.” Months later, I called her and said, “Are you ready to come to L.A.? We’re going to make a few videos. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

I picked her up, and the first place I drove her to was Johnny Depp’s house, where the studio is. This kid has never been out of Newcastle, and now she’s at Johnny Depp’s house. Johnny goes, “Let her play any guitar she wants,” so I handed her Johnny’s guitar. That’s how she wound up working with me.

Eventually, Nita gave Alice notice that she’d be leaving the band for a bit, leading to Anna taking her place. Anna, this all must have been a whirlwind.

Anna Cara: When I was discovered by Tommy in 2022, I was 19. Since then, there have been years of development, and I’ve become a better musician and live player. I’m still in disbelief because I used to watch Alice Cooper’s live videos when I was 14 and play along with them.

Ryan, you’ve been with Alice the longest and have been in the band with a lot of great guitarists. What did you think of Anna after first hearing her, and did you get the sense she’d be a good cultural fit?

Ryan Roxie: Absolutely. Fitting into any gig is just as important, if not more so, than musicianship. You have to have a high level of musicianship, but in this band you wear a lot of hats and share a lot of things. You have to be adept at learning a whole spectrum of music.

When I heard Anna play, I thought, “How the hell is that sound coming out of a 22-year-old’s fingers?” Usually, to get a tone like that, it comes from years of playing. You’ve heard the stories about smokey bars and how you get experience, but she got it from many years of woodshedding in her room and putting out videos.

Tommy, was it you who first presented – to Alice – the idea of Anna filling in for Nita?

Henriksen: Alice was looking for a guitar player, and I said, “Do you want a girl or a guy? I’ve got either/or.” But the first thing I did was send Anna’s stuff to Ryan because I wanted him to see her. Ryan heard her play and said, “I see it. I hear it.” And that was it. Alice was into it, too. Next thing you know, he’s like, “Let’s bring her to Vegas to watch the show and get her familiar with everything.”

Anna, can you put your finger on that thing that Tommy is alluding to? Is it inherent to you, or is it learned?

Cara: When I started, I learned a few things from my dad. We used to play together, but it was more of a hobby to him. When he showed me songs, the things he always focused on were vibrato and rhythm. He said, “Nail that before trying to do any fast shred stuff.” From there, I was watching Tony Iommi, Eddie Van Halen and Gary Moore. I liked players with the right feel and tone.

Roxie: The crazy thing is that I’m 60 and she’s 22, but we have the same influences. That might have something to do with the way she plays – old-school influences. It reflects in her playing.

What’s the division of guitar-related labor like, and has it changed compared to when Nita is in the band?

Roxie: Alice loves lead guitar, so there’s usually a minimum of two, if not three, solos per song. Everybody gets to get their ya-ya’s out. [Laughs]

The catalog sort of dictates itself, where, depending on the genre, you can tell who is going to be featured for the solo. If it’s an ’80s Kane Roberts thing, Anna is going to take that. If it’s more classic rock and chunky, Tommy’s got that. If it’s somewhere in the middle, I kind of float around in all those areas. We’re trying to carry the spirit of the original songs.

Henriksen: Most of the time, I prefer playing rhythm. I can do a solo, but I’m Malcolm Young, bro. [Laughs] If I’ve got a solo, I have a couple of licks, like three of them, and I just put them in a different order.

Roxie: Yeah, but I’ve said this to Tommy many times; he’s the most-improved guitar player I’ve ever played with in the history of this band. He was a bass player by trade, but he started taking guitar seriously when he joined. He’s progressed every year and has taken it seriously.

Cara: It comes down to the trio thing; everyone has a certain thing they’re good at. When we’re rehearsing, we’ll come up with really cool harmonies and things like that.

Can you pick out a favorite Alice Cooper song to tackle on guitar?

Henriksen: Caught in a Dream because of the rhythm. It’s not easy like everybody thinks. Also Cold Machines because we’ve never played it before. It’s in drop D and has that industrial metal vibe.

Cara: Feed My Frankenstein. The rhythm and solo, the duo-solo Ryan and I do, is just so much fun. Poison, too. I love the harmony solos.

Roxie: The challenging stuff is the fun part. We’re doing a song called Chasing Rainbows, which is from the ’40s, I think [Ed. note: Harry Carroll’s I’m Always Chasing Rainbows was first published in 1917], but Alice covered it on 1976’s Goes to Hell. There’s piano on that, and one of the funnest things I’ve ever done is transposing that into a piece for us to play live with the whole band.

What gear are you using these days?

Henriksen: I’m pretty much playing B.C. Rich stuff. One day, I was on a hunt, and really, because Joe Perry is the coolest guy to ever be in a band and has the coolest guitars, and I remembered seeing him with his B.C. Rich on Live! Bootleg, I thought, “I want to get a B.C. Rich.”

I got a Bich and a Mockingbird from a guy from my old neighborhood. I paid five grand for both, and it was from the original owner, who got them in 1980. After that, I said, “I’m just playing B.C. Rich right now.” Then I went out and found an ’80s Warlock. Aside from that, I use whatever built-in effects we have.

Roxie: I grew up on Gibsons, and I’ve always tried to represent those classic, iconic shapes. It’s not just for tones, but I’ll play a Flying V for ’80s stuff, an Explorer for industrial stuff and a Les Paul for ’70s songs.

But I’m not working with Gibson anymore as a clinician, so now I get to play whatever I want, and I’m kind of like a kid in a candy store. [Laughs] What I’ve grabbed onto lately is Rock N Roll Relics, Billy Rowe’s company. It’s a great boutique company, and he has a bunch of killer shapes.

Beyond that, I have a custom effect coming out with Citadel. We’re calling it the Pin Sound. It’s a cool, sort of Van Halen boost, like a micro amp with a noise gate. Look for that to come out by the end of the year. Oh, and for acoustic stuff, Alvarez has been very gracious to us, and they sound great.

Cara: We’re all using Kempers live. I’ve got to give Tommy credit for the tones on that. For guitars, I’m using Ibanez’s X Series. I’m thankful to Ibanez for sorting that out because they feel amazing.

With the X Series, Tommy sent me a picture and was like, “Check this one out!” I have this nickname, Blackthorn, and when we saw the guitar, we were like, “Oh! It looks like a thorn,” so it made perfect sense to have that guitar.

But I’ve also got a Les Paul because I grew up playing Gibson. I love SGs too, but I got my Les Paul from Alice’s son, Dash Cooper. He’s letting me use it for this run, and it’s been fun to have that classic sound.

What’s the key to locking in together within a three-guitar band?

Roxie: It’s easy in this band. We know whose name is on the marquee, and it ain't mine, it ain’t Tommy’s and it ain’t Anna’s. [Laughs] That keeps us in check. But we’re lucky to have a boss who, although it’s called the Alice Cooper Band, wants everybody to shine, have their moment and make the most of it. Alice is confident and secure with his iconic status, and his ego is in check. That makes us all aware of our own egos, too.

Henriksen: The whole thing is about rhythm. It’s about timing and feel. When you lock it in, dude, it just sounds like a wall of guitars. It’s cool to have that. We’re all playing something different – and on different parts of the neck – so that makes it fun.

Cara: The music is timeless. It’s such a range of genres. I don’t just gravitate toward one type of music, and I don’t listen to modern stuff because I love the ’70s and ’80s. With the guitar playing, along with what Ryan and Tommy said, I just get into it. That type of playing is big for me.

It seems being a guitarist with Alice is all about balancing individuality with the needs of the collective.

Henriksen: I’m always on Instagram, watching every kid, and they’re just amazing. I’m trying to learn new licks all the time, dude. But everyone has a different approach, and I’m just out there trying to figure shit out. [Laughs] But it’s so cool when you see stuff that inspires you, because I’m always trying to get better.

Roxie: Anna’s journey is just beginning, but for Tommy and me, we don’t want our journey to end. It’s that simple. Once you’re in this game, if you’re good at it and still love doing it, why quit? As long as the wheels are going, we want to keep going. We are individuals, but that doesn’t mean shit unless the collective comes across as something sincere.

Night after night, our performance speaks for itself. It’s not perfect, and no one ever claims it is, but that’s rock ’n’ roll. It ain’t supposed to be perfect. We all miss notes, but the collective is so strong that we cover for each other.

Tommy and Ryan are well established. But for you, Anna, joining Alice represents being recognized on a large scale for the first time. What do you want the guitar world to understand about you, first and foremost?

Cara: One thing that was really nice for me, and I can’t recall his name, so apologies, but he said, “It’s so inspiring to see someone your age up there doing it.” And, you know, it’s hard work, so you’ve just got to keep trying. I kept posting on social media all the time. I’d do that because I wanted to be seen. I could have just stopped; I could have not uploaded the blues cover that Tommy saw.

I could have given up and said, “You know what? Not today. I’m not going to put anything out today.” That would’ve had a butterfly effect. If I’d done that, I wouldn’t have been seen by Tommy and none of this would have happened.

Just keep trying. Work hard and do it because you love it. A lot of people just want to learn the next lick or scale and enjoy it. Enjoy the feel of the music. That’s the main thing for me: enjoy playing every day.

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

Angine de Poitrine’s powerhouse guitarist Khn has carved out a unique path in 2026, exposing the masses to the weird wonders of microtonal music. He says his early guitar teacher is partly to blame, and he’s a man most guitarists would be terrified of.

“The music school in town had this little venue called Le Ménestrel, where I’d go to watch concerts by students,” Khn tells Guitar World. “I’d see these hedonist teenagers who were part of this stoner-speed-freak social microcosm known for its alcohol-induced misdeeds.”

He felt the music they played was a “high-effort, low-payoff deal.” It was highly complex and would alienate “the vast majority of people.”

Yet this wasn’t something he observed and then subsequently avoided. No, he dived right into equally unforgiving realms. In his last year of high school, he signed up for classical guitar lessons. It saw him cross paths with quite the character.

“[He was the] kind of teacher a lot of kids would be a bit scared of,” Khn says. “Someone who always looked mad and had quirky habits like keeping his tuner in an old Ziploc bag.”

Quirky is AdP’s forte. Khn was right at home.

“This short and highly strung man in cowboy boots lit a hand-rolled smoke in a little room, asking me to play something,” he recalls of his first lesson. “He stopped me after 15 seconds, visibly irritated and disgusted by my shit, before grabbing my hand and filing down my nails to a good angle.

“He then proceeded to install an old taped-up metal ring to keep my right hand’s pinky close to its neighbor. He made me play a variety of finger-picking patterns on open strings while heavy-handedly correcting my posture and bombarding me with information.”

The lessons underscored his shortcomings. But he enjoyed how pushy a teacher he was. He reveled in his discipline.

“Those kinds of teachers will kick the living crap out of your ego if they feel like you don’t push yourself, because they feel strongly about music,” he explains. They’d also reward hard work.

Frank Zappa’s zany music is a key part of AdP’s musical DNA. Khn’s teacher was also a fan and encouraged his students to form bands to play his arrangements.

“He made us improvise noisy, chaotic, atonal transitions between the songs, directing with hand signals,” he continues. “Someone passing down knowledge and sharing a passion with such generosity would be my definition of a guitar hero.

“Outside of his school duties, he pushed us into our first gigs where we were getting paid to play to a real audience. It made us feel proud, but also self-conscious, opening for 50-year-old fellas with experience. I keep strong memories of those years.”

The Canadian revelations have previously said their first forays into microtonal guitar playing began as a joke but quickly became a viral smash. Their first guitar had extra frets crudely sawn on; now their glow-up is complete with a custom-built Godin double-neck. But how did they get here?

Khn’s full interview features in the October ’26 issue of Guitar World, with Paul McCartney gracing the cover. Copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

2026 marks four decades since U2 entered the bona fide rock-star club. But while other top-drawer rockers learned their craft in bedrooms and bars – playing for friends and forgiving fans – Adam Clayton’s evolution as a bassist took place on the world’s biggest stages.

“Even up through our first few records we got by on very little, at least musically,” he told Bass Player back in December 2000. “But we were always able to make something of it, just in the way we played together.”

Of course, superstardom was never the point. The three Dublin schoolboys who answered drummer Larry Mullen’s ad for bandmates simply wanted to find out what it was like to stand onstage and bash out three-minute songs – and, at first, they were terrible. That all changed when they began writing their own material.

“On the early records, it was really just a case of Edge and Larry struggling to keep the whole thing together. We were all surviving on minimal technique, and the formula in those early days was 4/4 bass over a relatively complex beat from Larry, with Edge doing his arpeggios over the top.

“But by the time we got to War, the songs were more structured, and the bass sound was featured more. Also, I suppose by then I could actually play things in time – and in tune – so I was able to be a bit more melodic.”

As elemental basslines like With or Without You and New Year's Day gave way to the Jamerson-style bounce of Angel of Harlem and Sweetest Thing, Clayton went from struggling to hold together simple eighth-note grooves to incorporating bass influences from Motown to reggae into his ever-evolving style.

“It's always depended on the tune with us, so as our songwriting became more developed and there were better chord progressions, I found I would fall into more interesting things.

“I wouldn't literally know where I was headed when I started out, but Larry’s drums have always told me what to play, and then the chords tell me where to go. Because of this, my parts are very much created as the song is evolving.”

Does the whole band compose this way?

We do write in an unconventional way, I suppose. If we try to arrange a song that's already been worked out on acoustic guitar, it's hard for us. But if we start with a few bits and then work around each other to develop the song, we seem to go to more interesting places.

Bullet the Blue Sky is a great example; it’s really just one musical moment, extended in time. Larry started playing that beat, and I started to play across it – as opposed to with it – while Edge was playing something else entirely.

Bono said, ‘Whatever you’re doing, don't stop!’ So we kept playing, and he improvised that melody.

Is it true you were U2's musical leader in the beginning, back in the late ‘70s?

Perhaps – but that's only because punk rock had just happened, so it wasn't really important that you knew how to play so long as you had some equipment!

I’d simply decided I was going to be a musician, so I got this Ibanez copy of a Gibson EB-3 and a Marshall head, and I guess those crucial ingredients made the others figure I knew a bit more about music. I did know a thing or two about my equipment, but I certainly didn't know anything about playing.

What were the band's goals in those days?

The ambition was just to end the song together! We had these interminable rehearsals where we would never actually get to the end of the song. But we also wanted to be a part of what we felt was going on.

It was a time of throwing off the idea that people who played guitars in bands were these rock gods who were to be obeyed and saluted. We got off on the idea that you could play a three-minute song with a few basic chords as fast as you possibly could, and that was a good enough reason to be onstage.

It meant that you had a life right now – that you didn't have to spend three years in your bedroom trying to figure out how to play Stairway to Heaven.

Rolling Stones veteran Ronnie Wood has added some extra star power to the Hollywood Vampires as they kicked off their European tour in London.

The horror-tinged supergroup, which sees Alice Cooper flanked by guitarists Joe Perry, Tommy Henriksen, and actor-cum-rockstar Johnny Depp, already have plenty of appeal. But when they have a little black book as prestigious as they do, it would be rude not to make the most of it.

Wood, fresh from dropping the Stones’ 25th album, Foreign Tongues, joined the band for the first two songs of a three-track encore. First, he spearheaded a cover of Tiny Bradshaw’s blues classic The Train Kept A-Rollin’, a song made famous in the British blues boom of the 1960s by the Yardbirds. Then he headed up a take on Brown Sugar, a track that predates his stint in the Stones. Imelda May also featured on vocals.

While Wood handled two songs he knows all too well with the cut and thrust you’d expect from a man used to entertaining large crowds, his choice of electric guitar caught the eye. He opted for his left-of-center signature guitar, the Duesenberg Starplayer TV Ronnie Wood, which has become a regular feature with his main band.

The guitarist’s appearance continues a run of form for the band, using London dates to wheel out their friends in high places, with Tony Iommi’s 2023 appearance to play a Sabbath classic a notable example.

Wood disappeared for the final track, a cover of his former bandmate Jeff Beck’s instrumental classic, Hi Ho Silver Lining. Beck’s final studio album was a 2022 collaboration with Depp.

The Hollywood Vampires have dates across Europe over the next few months, concluding in Łódź, Poland, on September 10. Their new live album, At Montreux Jazz Festival, is out today (August 14).

What is it?

Coming out of the Mediterranean archipelago of Malta, the Attic Audio Putty is a multi-role overdrive pedal that can be a preamp, boost, overdrive, or even a fuzz. Partly inspired by the Boss FA-1 preamp, which found a cult following as part of The Edge’s setup, this is a utilitarian stompbox that aims to fill many gaps on the pedalboards of all sorts of guitar players.

Attic Audio is a one-man band, helmed by Luke Galea. The catalogue is small, with just a few active products in the range, including a tongue-in-cheek Klon clone housed in a Big Muff casing and a passive reamp box. All of Attic Audio’s pedals come with a lifetime warranty and free repairs, a nice plus of buying from a smaller builder.

The Putty requires a 9V pedalboard power supply and can’t be run on battery power. It runs at a higher internal voltage as specified in the manual, so no feeding it 18V. The footswitch can operate as both latching and momentary, and if you hold it down during power up, you can toggle which power state it defaults to when it comes on.

It’s an active EQ with +/-15dB gain and ~350Hz cutoff on the bass control, and +/-10dB gain and ~1.2kHz cutoff on the treble side. The EQ can be placed pre- or post-gain.

The gain knob is listed as a saturation control rather than conventional drive, and it has three clipping modes: lo, off, and hi for varying levels of saturation. It’s also got a symmetrical or asymmetrical button, with pressing in unlocking the former and unpressed engaging the latter.

Specs

• Launch price: $217.16 | £179 | €120
• Type: Preamp / overdrive / fuzz / boost pedal
• Controls: Gain, Volume, Bass, Treble, Clipping mode toggle (Lo/Off/Hi), Pre/Post EQ toggle, Clipping type push-button (symmetrical/asymmetrical)
• Features: Boss FA-1-inspired preamp circuit using saturation-based gain rather than a standard clipping stage
• Connectivity: 1/4" TS input (2.2MΩ impedance), 1/4" TS output (470Ω impedance)
• Bypass: True bypass (momentary/latching)
• Power: 9V DC, centre-negative, 20mA max
• Dimensions: 122 x 66 x 39mm
• Weight: 0.32 kg
• Contact: Attic Audio

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

Taking the Putty out of the box, it feels relatively lightweight and comes in at 320g on my scales. The chassis is lightly textured all over and comes in a very bright white with some small dashes of color. The hand-drawn graphic of a piece of putty seemingly squashing the word itself sits in the centre along with the Attic Audio logo and a white LED on either side of the footswitch. The LED is really bright and easily visible. Just don’t look at it directly unless you want to see spots.

Getting hands-on with the familiar four-knob layout, each component feels very well applied. The knobs have a firm-ish travel that makes fine adjustments easy, and each sits slightly proud of the chassis itself. The switches are quite small, and some may find them fiddly nestled between the knobs, especially as they require a decent push to get them into position.

The sym/asym button feels a little flimsier than the rest of the controls. It moves around in its housing and doesn’t provide a very satisfying click when you push it in. It’s an outlier, though. The footswitch feels very robust, and I don’t doubt it will put up with repeated stomping in momentary mode. It’s got a very quiet operation, with just a faintly audible click when it returns to the up position.

Usability and features

Usability and features rating: ★★★★½

On the face of it, the Putty is another overdrive with the standard four-control layout. But there’s a little more to it than that. Three additional switches bring the total to seven controls, which means there’s more flexibility here than you might think at first. Handily, the manual gives four settings to start with that cover the range of sounds this pedal is capable of producing: a clean boost, a light rhythm tone, a more overdriven sound, and fuzzy distortion.

Most players will find it easy enough to start turning knobs, though, and the additional switches give you plenty of flexibility to tweak the pedal so it works well with your amp or other gain stages. Those who have a packed pedalboard may find the side switch for symmetrical or asymmetrical clipping slightly awkward to reach, though.

The momentary/latching switch is a cool feature and works really well in practice. It makes more sense if you’re not using it as an always-on pedal, of course, but handily it works whether the pedal is engaged when you first press it or not. That means you could pre-empt switching it off by holding it down and releasing when you need the change, if you wanted.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

With every knob at around 2 o’clock, the EQ on post, and clipping mode off, I start with the pedal engaged on the clean channel of my Orange Rocker 32 tube amp, using the humbucker pickup on a Sire S7.

The Putty as a clean boost is really, really good. It does exactly what a clean boost should do: it takes the core amp tone and livens it up. The resulting sound is fuller and fatter without drastically altering the overall tonality.

Setting the clipping mode switch to ‘lo’ makes it act more as a transparent overdrive pedal, with a nice bit of grit that’s great for light rhythm work. I do need to play with the EQ settings to get it sounding right with my amp, though. Turning the gain up, switching to the ‘hi’ clipping mode, I can eke out a lot from a totally clean amp. It doesn’t quite get to metal distortion, but certainly enough for fuzzed-out hard rock riffs.

Playing with the sym/asym switch allows for symmetrical or asymmetrical clipping, and there is a noticeable difference at higher gain values. It sounds more aggressive and fuzzier with the switch engaged in symmetrical mode. It’s a really cool additional feature that unlocks a lot of extra tones from the core knob settings.

With the EQ on pre, it doesn’t really do much. With it in post, there’s a more noticeable difference on lower-gain stuff, and a very noticeable difference on higher-gain settings. As you’re EQing an already saturated sound, it makes sense that you’d hear more of a difference here. The low-end EQ is particularly powerful, and adds some thunderous low-end energy to my tone. The clean channel of my amp has absolutely no right sounding this heavy.

Switching to the dirty channel of my amp with a nice crunch setting, the pedal can easily push the tone into metal territory. It gets super saturated and heavy sounding, and even maxing out the gain control and the ‘hi’ clipping mode engaged, it never farts out, delivering maximum aggression while maintaining clarity. It can be made to sound like fuzzy RAT-style distortion, or just used as an overdrive pedal to tighten up the amp sound.

Verdict

To be totally honest, when I was given the Attic Audio Putty, I thought it was going to be another overdrive pedal, but it proved me wrong. Although I like it best as a clean boost, it’s got enough flexibility of tone here to play pretty much any role, whether that’s boost, fuzz, drive, or distortion.

It’s super easy to use despite the depth of tone on offer, and try as I might, I couldn’t really get it to sound bad. It works beautifully with other drive pedals in my collection, on both the clean and dirty channels of my amp, as well as being in front of the amp or in the effects loop. The only real downside is I didn’t have two of them, so I couldn’t get it to act as a clean boost and as an overdrive simultaneously.

Guitar World verdict: There are a lot of people building pedals right now, and the Attic Audio Putty proves there’s still plenty of space for innovation. Despite its decidedly utilitarian function, you can do a lot of different sounds, which ends up making it quite the creative tool. From tone sweetening to pushing a clean amp to full-on chaotic saturation, there isn’t a bad sound here. It’s pretty keenly priced too, making it a worthy option for players who need a multi-role overdrive pedal that fits into various slots.

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Scottish superstar Lewis Capaldi happened to be performing at a festival in Malta this past week when he decided to add a vintage guitar to his arsenal.

Play Vintage, which, as the name suggests, is a vintage guitar boutique and an official Gibson and Epiphone dealer, had the pleasure of welcoming Capaldi after the singer-songwriter casually walked in with a friend.

“Lewis Capaldi just walked in randomly with a friend,” Play Vintage co-founder Andrew Francica tells Guitar World.

“We didn’t recognize him immediately – honestly thought it was James McCartney for a minute,” he quips. “We did some backline work for them a few years ago at the Isle of MTV festival, so as soon as we heard that unmistakable Scottish accent, we quickly figured it out.”

Play Vintage is run by two guitar players – Francica and Daniel Bezzina, both active in Malta’s tight-knit music scene – and has been open since 2020.

When Capaldi showed up at the store, he “tried out a bunch of different guitars – it’s funny that he liked a lot of our own personal guitars that we regularly play and gig with,” including Fender offsets and Martins.

He eventually landed on a 1920 Gibson L-3. “The Gibson he bought is a very peculiar one; it’s a small-bodied archtop with a round sound hole and a huge neck,” explains Francica.

“It sounds like a mix between an acoustic guitar and a jazz box. I think his mate sealed the deal when he told him, ‘That sounds like it’s EQ’d and recorded!’

“We love early Gibson stuff,” he continues. “It’s very particular and definitely not for everybody’s taste, but they always have a very sweet sound that’s totally unlike anything that you get nowadays.

As for the guitar itself, it is “in great condition” and, as Francica notes, “still has most of its original parts and original case; it also had a fresh refret and nut, so it is totally ready to go!”

Capaldi didn’t play it live on stage because, true to the era, “it doesn’t have any pickups.

“We suggested that he install a nice K&K pickup in it. It would be amazing to see him play that live!” Francica concludes.

Head to Play Vintage's official website to check out the store’s full collection.

Jethro Tull’s first album, 1968’s This Was, featured guitarist Mick Abrahams and leaned in a decidedly bluesy direction. That approach didn’t work out for the British soon-to-be-prog rockers, and neither did Abrahams, leading to a short spell during which some guy named Tony Iommi took up six-string duties in Tull before bandleader Ian Anderson found his long-time running mate in Martin Barre.

Barre’s first album with Tull, 1969’s Stand Up, was a harbinger of things to come, meaning less blues, more flute from Anderson and undertones of prog. But there was heaviness, too; the record featured riffs that stood up to anything Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore or Jimmy Page were doing.

“We’d recorded Stand Up, and that was a new direction for Ian because Tull was a blues band,” Barre says. “And then suddenly we were this other animal you couldn’t put a title to.”

Barre did his best to put a title to said animal by kicking the riffs-meet-prog into overdrive for Tull’s third record, 1970’s Benefit, showing that he, too, was on the precipice of guitar-god greatness. Of course, Barre didn’t know that at the time – and doesn’t necessarily see it that way today.

“I just played,” he says. “We didn’t really investigate tone and sounds. We just got in there, and the sound of Jethro Tull was there, needing to be examined.”

Examine it they did. Songs like With You There to Help Me, To Cry You a Song and Teacher showcased Barre’s open-minded approach as well as Anderson’s status as a guitar maestro.

“I guess it was what was going to become prog,” Barre says. “The birth of prog sounds stressful, but it was exciting. We didn’t know if people were going to like it. Jethro Tull was a blues band, and they were like, ‘What’s happened to you?’ But slowly, we won them over. We had what people would call a ‘blank canvas’ because nobody knew what to expect. It was a relief in many ways.”

The relief didn’t last long, as Benefit was disregarded upon its release in April 1970. Rolling Stone even called the album “lame and dumb.” But as time has gone on, Tull did more and more of that winning people over that Barre talks about, and in retrospect, time has been kind to Benefit.

By the time Benefit came out, Tull were moving away from blues and toward prog, but the album also has a ton of heavy riffs.

At that point in time we’d been touring, and we’d met bands like Led Zeppelin and all these great bands. We knew Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Cream; they were bands we loved and listened to, so we were going to be influenced by them. That’s what everybody was doing.

When I play, I think, “There’s a riff that hasn’t been invented, and it’s probably not difficult.” I love the power of a great riff. There are classic riffs that were immortalized by Hendrix, Beck and Jimmy Page, but I love the concept that music can be so simple but so important because the riffs are so dynamic. I guess everybody fed off everybody else.

The general understanding of Tull’s music is that Ian played the acoustic guitar parts and you the electric, but that wasn’t entirely the case on Benefit. Ian is a better player than he’s credited.

Yeah, he is. He was a guitar player before Tull, and he told me he started listening to Clapton, Beck and Hendrix and realized he was never going to be as good as them, so he turned to the flute, but he is a great guitar player.

It’s a very focused area of play, but what he does – because I’ve learned his acoustic parts – is really good. They’re fun to learn, demanding and very, very precise.

Do you remember recording With You There to Help Me, which has a distinctive guitar flare and features you and Ian?

We both played electric. Ian played a rhythm track, and then I put all the riffs, bits and pieces. It was all live in the studio, so the whole band played that track live to record it.

Were there many overdubs on Benefit?

No, it was nearly all live. Maybe we used some overdubs, and I don’t know if [we had] an eight- or 16-track, but there weren’t many, so you didn’t have the luxury of doing 20 takes and then taking the best bit from each one.

Even when you overdubbed a solo, it was a live solo from beginning to end. You couldn’t drop in and repair it, so we mainly recorded it live in the studio.

To Cry You a Song has an incredible harmonized guitar riff. Was that you and Ian together?

Yeah, that’s me and Ian again. It was fun. It was inspired by Blind Faith’s Had to Cry Today. It’s a similar feel and riff, and we just had a lot of fun with it. I think it shows in the recording. You can tell it was something that was really easy and positive to put together.