Guitarist–meets-businessman-meets-pedal-wizard Mike Matthews’ company Electro-Harmonix is, undisputedly, one of the earliest pioneers of guitar pedals – converting the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Jimmy Page – into loyal fans. However, the company has faced its fair share of hardships and pivots to survive – and thrive – in 2026.

The ’70s were a particularly fruitful period for the company. After starting with just $1,000, a scrappy attitude, and a knack for innovation in 1968, EHX was grossing $5 million annually by 1978 and had offices in New York, Toronto, London, and Tokyo.

However, great success and great hardship can go hand in hand.

After a series of business decisions – coupled with an aggressive campaign by a trade union in New York that targeted EHX’s 200-something employees – caused one of the company’s potential lenders to pull its funds, Matthews was forced to file for bankruptcy. Even more heartbreaking, he had to sell the Electro-Harmonix trademark.

“I went bankrupt in ’82. I still tried to hang in there,” he recounts in an interview on The Zak Kuhn Show.

“Finally, the doors were shut. We brought in the generator to just keep the power on. I had loyal people that worked with me. But finally, in ’84, I was completely bankrupt, and it was very devastating, depressing.”

Matthews was forced to do a complete 180. His new plan and target market? The Soviet Union.

“I got involved with vacuum tubes because I was going to the Ministry of Electronics. Everything in Russia was centrally controlled,” he explains.

“In the ’70s, [I] was doing some business with communist countries, like with Hungary, which was communist-controlled. They came to my booth in Frankfurt and wanted to order about $1,000 worth of pedals. They picked out some stuff. I went back to them. I said, ‘Look, instead of ordering this and this and this, order this, because they'll sell better.’ And they said, ‘Okay, we'll take your advice.’”

“So the next year they came back and gave me a $2,000 order, and they said, ‘Mike, you pick out what we should buy.’”

Eventually, Matthews built enough rapport with the Eastern Bloc to secure an invitation to exhibit at the first consumer trade show open to Western countries.

“I jumped on it, and I got carried away. I took a whole band, and I took a guy to set things up… we would go on three times a day.”

This first introduction to the Soviet Union led Matthews down a path that would not only save the company but also secure its future – all under his new brand name, Sovtek.

“I got involved with the vacuum tubes. When we were in Russia, everybody wanted to buy our stuff, but they had no money. So I started thinking, well, ‘What can I buy from Russia, so they'll have money?’”

He continues, “At first, I was thinking of integrated circuits… so I went over to the Ministry of Electronics there… I saw, hanging on the wall, vacuum tubes. That's how I got into vacuum tubes.”

As the Cold War came to an end and the Soviet Union collapsed, another phenomenon was brewing in the guitar world.

“In the ’70s, we built tens of thousands of different pedals… the thing that puzzled me was that pedals that were built in the ’70s were selling for more than what they used to sell for when we had built thousands,” Matthews adds.

“This new vintage market developed, and so initially I started making them [the pedals] in Russia, because Russia collapsed, and they were desperately looking for work to survive.

“I hooked up with a very small military factory in St. Petersburg. They started making these pedals. That's how they came out with the first Electro-Harmonix pedals made in Russia.”

This Russian side quest eventually led to a full EHX comeback – and Matthews even managed to get the trademark back and restart Stateside operations.

The EHX founder's business learnings continue to guide him to this day – right down to his favorite pedal. “[It's] whatever sells, because I mean, it's a business. If I'm not focusing on business, I can't make more money, and if I can't make more money, I can't get more designers to design more products, especially in digital.”

In an exclusive Guitar World interview, Matthews looked back on the brand’s groundbreaking Hall of Science – a veritable candy store for audio pioneers that predated the likes of the Gibson Garage and Fender flagship stores by decades.

It may be an old joke, but there’s something to be said for taking things up a notch, and this month the bass community did just that with a heap of new products, ranging from downloadable plugins to vintage-style reissues, and a whole lot more besides.

In the month that saw Suzi Quatro promote the release of her 18th studio album, and Paul McCartney launch his first solo album in over five years, we’ve been talking shop with the best luthiers, bass builders, and low-end gurus, to bring you a must-read report on the latest new gear.

For starters, Fender marked the 75th anniversary of the P-Bass with three new limited-edition models. Will anyone ever topple the Precision from its perch as the best-selling bass of all time?

EMG was also celebrating its 50th anniversary with the launch of three new signature pickup sets for session legend Lee Sklar, Living Colour trailblazer Doug Wimbish, and Metallica powerhouse Robert Trujillo.

Here’s our pick of bass gear releases in May.

Pachyderm Instruments Whamola

Despite slapping down the years on a variety of bass guitars, most of which have been custom jobs from Brooklyn luthier Carl Thompson, Primus bassist Les Claypool has also employed a range of other instruments, including the famous Whamola, which is featured on the song Whamola by Claypool’s Frog Brigade as well as the South Park theme song variations and the Robot Chicken theme.

“It’s a one-string instrument with a handle on it, and I hit it with a stick,” says Claypool. “It’s basically a percussion instrument, the way I play it: it doesn’t have a lot of tonality to it, but I tend to pick up whatever’s handy.”

Pachyderm Instruments has now announced that a small run of Whamolas will be available at the merch booth during the Claypool Gold Tour, which began on May 20th and will continue through July 4th.

We make no promises that fans will come out playing it like he does, but if anyone knows about taking the instrument to the next level, it’s Les Claypool.

Rickenbacker 4000V CB TB

Few players are as closely tied to the Rickenbacker sound as Geddy Lee, whose snarling 4001 tone helped define classic Rush records throughout the ’70s.

Ahead of the upcoming Fifty Something reunion tour, Rickenbacker has revealed a new custom bass built to Lee’s own specs: an unapologetically retro four-string. that blends vintage appointments, and a Turquoise Blue finish.

Originally offered on the late ’50s combo series instruments, the Turquoise Blue finish is accented with checkerboard binding around the body. Another notable throwback is the bridge, which is the 425 style with four saddles as found in the early 4000 and 4005 models.

The 4000V CB TB is fitted with a Vintage Single Coil Toaster Top and a Bass Horseshoe pickup. Rather than volume and tone controls, Lee requested two volume knobs (one for each pickup) that are wired to a mono output.

Most of the rest of us will never get to own one, but a bassist can dream, right?

Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Bass Big Muff Pi 2

For many, the stompbox daddy of all fuzz is the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi. The recently released dual op-amp Bass Big Muff 2 has now been upgraded with the release of the Deluxe Bass Big Muff 2.

Bass-centric upgrades include a blend knob, and a foot switchable crossover section that splits your signal into two bands. The pedal’s I/O section has also been expanded to include a pad switch on the input, a DI output, and a Direct output.

Looking for a Big Muff? Well this one’s massive.

Fender Limited Edition 75th Anniversary Precision Bass Collection

It was way back in 1951 that Fender first put their Precision Bass into production, so 2026 sees the 75th anniversary, not just of that instrument, but pretty much the concept of the electric bass itself. Without it, your instrument of choice would be radically different, and we wouldn’t have jobs.

Fender is marking the occasion with a trio of limited-edition models.

Leading the pack is the American Vintage II 1951 Precision Bass, a recreation of Leo Fender’s original slab-bodied design. It’s finished in classic Butterscotch Blonde and equipped with a period-correct single-coil pickup.

At the other end of the spectrum sits the more contemporary American Professional PJ Bass, which pairs a traditional split-coil Precision pickup with a Jazz Bass bridge pickup. Other modern upgrades include a HiMass bridge, figured maple top options, and gold hardware.

Meanwhile, the Player II Precision Bass offers a more accessible route into the anniversary lineup. Despite its lower price point, the Player II P-Bass still packs upgraded appointments, a performance-focused neck profile, and a Diamond Dust Sparkle finish.

Darkglass Anagram Marketplace

Darkglass Electronics has officially launched the Anagram Marketplace, a plugin ecosystem designed to expand the capabilities of its flagship Anagram multi-effects processor with third-party effects, and creator-developed tools.

Darkglass describes the move as “the next evolution of the Anagram platform”, transforming the unit from a standalone processor into what is effectively an app-based environment for bassists, producers and sound designers.

Available through the Darkglass Suite, the Marketplace introduces downloadable plugins created both by Darkglass and external developers, opening the door to a continuously evolving library of sounds and processing tools.

Surely worth the attention of every single person who has ever applied finger or thumb or pick to string.

EarthQuaker Devices Scrolls Bass Odyssey

On the list of effects pedals guaranteed to get the average bass guitarist's pulse racing, an all-analog bass preamp is unlikely to feature highly. However, having complete control over your tone has long been the secret weapon in many a pro player's rig. Some use it to add extra polish to their overall sound, while others use it in conjunction with other effects to tweak them to perfection.

The Scrolls Bass Odyssey from Ohio's highly-rated EarthQuaker Devices combines a comprehensive active EQ section with a tube-style drive circuit. Add to that an effects loop, parallel output and balanced XLR out, and you’ve got a studio-ready pedal that’s ideal for use in any setup with multiple signal paths.

Play one of these high-end pedals and you’ll understand exactly how boutique makers such as EarthQuaker Devices earn their keep.

EMG Signature Bass Pickup Sets

EMG is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the launch of three new signature bass pickup sets for Metallica powerhouse Robert Trujillo, Living Colour trailblazer Doug Wimbish, and session legend Lee Sklar.

The Lee Sklar P Set is a recreation of the original split-coil pickup configuration housed in Sklar’s famed “Frankenstein” Precision Bass.

According to EMG, the set revives the look and sound of the company’s earliest production runs, complete with raised-logo covers and a specially tweaked preamp designed to mirror Sklar’s long-running 18-volt setup.

Doug Wimbish’s DW Set takes a similarly archival approach. The PJ configuration – previously exclusive to his signature Spector basses – has now been released as a standalone aftermarket set for the first time.

EMG says the pickups were recreated directly from the exact PJ combination Wimbish has used since the early ’80s, with vintage-style branding and both long- and short-Jazz sizing options available.

Meanwhile, Robert Trujillo’s existing RT “Rip Tide” signature set has received a flashy anniversary makeover in a new gold finish. While the electronics remain unchanged, the updated aesthetic joins a broader series of special-edition EMG anniversary products tied to Metallica’s long-running relationship with the pickup giant. All three pickup sets ship with EMG’s solderless wiring system.

Nordstrand Acinonyx V

Nordstrand Audio has expanded its retro-inspired Acinonyx lineup with the launch of the new Acinonyx 5 – a five-string evolution of the company’s offset short-scale bass design that arrives after a limited-edition run last year.

At the heart of the Acinonyx 5 is a compact 30.7-inch short scale, paired with an Indian rosewood fingerboard featuring a compound radius for a more modern feel across the neck. Nordstrand also promises a comfortably worn-in playing experience, describing the neck profile as one that “fits the hand like an old broken in glove.”

Seamoon FX More!

Sounding like a machine from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, the More! By Seamoon FX is a totally different breed of octave pedal.

Unlike regular octave pedals or synth-style processors, the More! appears to focus on enhancing the fundamental low frequencies beneath the original signal, offering what Seamoon describes as a more “felt than heard” effect.

The pedal sports a notably stripped-back control layout, featuring a single level knob alongside a toggle switch that shifts between two distinct bass emphasis modes. One setting prioritizes deeper sub-bass response for smoother, weightier tones, while the second introduces a more aggressive mid-bass character with increased dynamic saturation.

Kikichi Guitars

Japanese boutique bass builder Kikuchi Guitars has officially launched in Europe and the United States, bringing the craftsmanship of veteran luthier Yoshiyuki “Yoshi” Kikuchi to a wider global audience.

Kikuchi’s résumé reads like a history of high-end bass building. After founding Atelier Z in the 1980s, he relocated to New York in the early ’90s, where he worked alongside respected builders Roger Sadowsky and John Suhr. He later oversaw production of the acclaimed Sadowsky Metroline Japan basses – experience that now feeds directly into his own boutique operation.

With a pedigree rooted in some of the most respected names in boutique bass building, Kikuchi Guitars arrives as a serious new contender for players chasing vintage-inspired tone with modern precision.

What is it?

Long before the boom in boutique pedals, the one company that could be relied upon for pushing the ‘quirky and weird’ envelope was Electro-Harmonix – and the New York maker is still in motion.

As part of the cute and pedalboard-friendly Pico range, the Atomic Cluster Spectral Decomposer is described by the company as “unlike any effect Electro-Harmonix has made before”.

Specs

• PRICE: $129 | £129 | €119
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Spectral Decomposer pedal 
• FEATURES: Buffered Bypass, T
  ap tempo
• CONTROLS: Volume, Speed, Blend, Atoms, Sharp/Smooth Mode button, bypass footswitch 
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (supplied) 100mA
• DIMENSIONS: 50 (w) x 91 (d) x 47mm (h) 
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

Build quality, usability and sounds

Falling into the broad category of synth and glitch pedals, the Atomic Cluster “breaks down your signal and interpolates it into a variety of musical and whimsical sounds,” says EHX.

This is done mostly via the Atoms knob, which reduces the frequency resolution of your guitar and generates resonant oscillations, the number of which reduces as the knob is turned anti-clockwise. This is best heard in Sharp mode where you get an instant transition of oscillations for a rhythmic effect.

Switching to Smooth mode produces a more diffused effect, with a nice fade between oscillations. The Speed knob sets how quickly the oscillations refresh. Any sound you dial in can be mixed in proportion with your dry sound with a Blend knob up to 100 per cent wet.

With the Atoms knob at maximum, the effect is bright and metallic with a chaotic undercurrent of glitchy burbling, but as you roll it back the brightness reduces and that burbling becomes more coherent, revealing itself in Sharp mode to be more like synth-style arpeggiation with distinct notes.

This is something that, when synchronised (you can use the footswitch tap tempo in place of the Speed knob), can add bubbly flavour behind fast strumming. Switching to Smooth mode, though, results in an effect that can be exploited with guitar dynamics as those distinct notes now fade into each other for a more undulating sound.

Play chords and you’ll get a sustained ambient pad sound, but with single notes the altered envelope of the generated sounds is akin to a backwards effect and it works particularly well if you dig in with a bit of dirt. Balancing Speed and Atoms yields plenty of variations on the theme for subtle blending with dry guitar or upfront prominence.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★☆

Guitar World verdict: The Atomic Cluster is niche and not the most predictable of effects. It’s unlikely to appeal to traditionalists, but if you like quirky and off-the-wall, it’s out there waiting to throw a spanner in the works of your guitar tone.

Hands-on videos

Electro-Harmonix

Pedal of the Day

• Best Electro-Harmonix pedals: We break down the very best EHX pedals available in all effects categories
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

What is it?

New from Electro-Harmonix is the Pico Intelligent Harmony Machine, a pedal that puts some of the functionality of its larger namesake into a diminutive Pico chassis, which could easily slip into any vacant pedalboard gap.

The pedal’s function is to create two- or three-part harmony in any key over a range of different intervals.

Specs

• PRICE: $149 | £119 | €131
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Pitch-shifting pedal 
• FEATURES: Buffered bypass, 12 selectable keys, 10 single intervals, 10 dual intervals
• CONTROLS: Volume, Mix, Key, Interval, Natural/Sharp or Dual button, bypass footswitch 
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (supplied) 100mA
• DIMENSIONS: 50 (w) x 91 (d) x 47mm (h) 
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

Usability and sounds

Volume and wet/dry Mix knobs complement two more rotary knobs that set the Key and Interval. These two are not detented, but each different pitch or interval resides in a particular segment of their arc of travel and the LED will flash briefly as you move from one segment to the next.

The Key knob has the keys clearly marked, but there is no legending around the interval knob for the eight single intervals between the octave-down and octave-up at the two extremes of its travel.

A button determines whether a natural or sharp key is selected, and it has a secondary function that brings in Dual mode where the Interval knob selects two different intervals simultaneously.

First impressions are that the tracking seems really good – instantaneous and solid with no lag to the pitch-shifted notes.

The pedal is designed to work with single notes only but will go polyphonic if you choose an octave interval, which means you can dial in an approximation of 12-string jangle with the upper octave and the Mix knob set appropriately low. Choose the octave down, turn the Mix knob up full and you’ll be able to play basslines if needed.

The main attraction, though, is the harmonies. For the single harmonies you can choose 6th, 4th and 3rd down, plus 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th up.

There is a metallic tonality to the pitch-shifted voices in isolation, but the pitching is close enough and, in the proper context, mixed proportionally with your dry sound, they are very effective in the blend.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★

We particularly liked the musicality and extra thickness of the Dual harmonies, most notably the ones that combined pitched-down with pitched-up intervals.

Pick your key, stick to the notes in it, and you’ll be rewarded with tight harmonies that can sound like two (or three!) guitars playing together.

Guitar World verdict: If you want to bring harmonies into your playing, the Pico Intelligent Harmony Machine will do the job without breaking the bank or eating up too much of your pedalboard real estate.

Hands-on videos

EHX

Guitar Center

• Best Electro-Harmonix pedals: We break down the very best EHX pedals available in all effects categories
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

What is it?

The new EHX Effects interface is a generic version of the idea they first trialled with its Big Muff Pi Hardware Plugin.

Like that pedal, the Effects Interface can operate as a stand-alone 2 in, 2 out audio interface, but that's where the similarities end. Instead of having circuitry of its own, the Effects Interface instead allows you to loop in any number of pedals from your rig to use as an insert in your DAW.

Alternatively, if you use a laptop in your rig, you can use the Effects Interface to insert computer-based plugins into your signal path via the pedal itself.

Specs

• PRICE: $359 | £365 | €359
• TYPE: Direct box/Pedalboard Audio Interface
• MADE: USA
• CONTROLS: Level, Monitor, Stereo Input, Stereo Output, Footswitch
• FEATURES: Hardware Plugin Mode (Pedalboard Insert), Pedalboard Mode (DAW Insert), Audio Interface
• CONNECTIVITY: Stereo Input, Stereo Output, Power, USB-C
• BYPASS: Buffered
• POWER: 9V DC Center-negative, 200mA or via USB-C
• DIMENSIONS: 146 x 57 x 114 mm
• WEIGHT: 1.45lbs/0.66kg (shipping weight)
• OPTIONS: None
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

The Effects Interface has a neo-retro vibe, with chunky, tactile sliders and a well laid-out front panel. The case is about the size of an old-school Big Muff, so it's compact enough to fit on a pedalboard or on the studio (or bedroom) floor next to a 'board.

There's a footswitch for when you're using the pedal as a DAW effects insert, and stereo input meters to check your level. Since one of the best uses for this pedal is using analogue distortion pedals to gain-stack inside your DAW, this is a crucial feature.

Even with a delay pedal or similar you can use the output of the Effects Interface to generate a bit of extra 'push.'

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★★

The unit itself is simple. Connecting a pedal is straightforward and the indicators on the front panel tell you when it's powered and connected. The metering is solid and makes the pedal usable rather than a frustrating exercise.

On the DAW side, the plug-in required to use the Effects interface is good, telling you clearly when the unit is connected, and what the status is. On first connection, it needs to be calibrated, but this is straightforward.

All of that said, as you'd expect with a pedal this niche and technical, it's not a plug-and-play affair. Although it is possible to set up in under five minutes, you will need to consult the manual and follow the instructions.

Once it's set up, there's not much else required to figure out, but if you want to use it to insert DAW plugins onto your board, you will need to switch around the settings on the plugin, and follow some suggestions for reducing latency.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

Used as a pedal insert, the Effects Interface is at its best when used to apply analog gain stages to tracks in your DAW projects. Bored of the same digital emulations? Run your drums through a real Big Muff, Tube Screamer, or Smallsound/Bigsound Mini. This is incredibly powerful, as you effectively end up with a new collection of gain plugins.

Taking things a step further, delays and reverbs open up sonic options, especially when you start to include pads and granular reverbs. However, if you're experienced at studio sound manipulation, most of what digital effects on your 'board can do is already easier to create with plugins.

Instead, where the pedal shines is dynamic and expressive effects. Think things like loopers, or any pedal with a rocker footswitch. I found myself processing distorted drums with a wah pedal while chuckling like an idiot, and bit-crushing guitar busses by re-processing them through a pair of DigiTech Whammy pedals that were manipulated in real time.

Because the input and output sections of the Effects Interface are an active amplifier, there's a bit of gain applied by the pedal that also gently improves the punchiness of most things that you throw at it, and also stacks pretty well with gain stages that are in the loop.

Obviously with any pedal of this type, there's a concern about latency. In the case of using the pedal as an insert for pedals, for example, by sending a bus or single track to it, the latency is unnoticeable with a fast computer.

Moreover, it is simple to bump the recorded output of the track – since you'll probably be printing the output – back into time. In general, for use on guitars, I found that the slight lag resulted in a double-tracked effect that was actually pretty useful as an effect in of itself.

Verdict

While there are other ways of doing what the Effects Interface does, it really tries to make this process smooth and intuitive for guitarists. That makes sense.

Besides some of their more out-there offerings, EHX are a company that have thrived on a line of pedals that broadly speaking do one thing, and do it well. That much is true of the Effects Interface as an insert.

Guitar World verdict: Every once in a while a pedal comes along that takes you by surprise. The EHX Effects Interface is one – a pedal I didn't even know I needed. The only drawback is the price. It's not cheap, at about the price of an audio interface.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Electro-Harmonix

Sweetwater

Guitar Center

• Best Electro-Harmonix pedals: We break down the very best EHX pedals available in all effects categories

JHS Pedal owner Josh Scott has found the prototype for the Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail – a legendary reverb pedal made famous by John Frusciante, Jim Root and countless more.

Scott, who is one of the world's foremost effects pedal historians, has been hunting down the OG pedal for some time, all the while being told a prototype didn’t actually exist. That changed when he paid a visit to the Electro-Harmonix archives to research his soon-to-be-published book, Made on Earth for Rising Stars.

Created with illustrator Daniel Danger and six years in the making, the book explores the history and artistic impact of Electro-Harmonix through a series of interviews, musings on creativity, and, as Danger puts it, “the deepest of dives into guitar pedal nerdom.”

It's ironic that a pedal called the Holy Grail would, in fact, become Scott's holy grail. He sees it as the crème de la crème stompbox by what he believes is “one of the greatest companies in American history when it comes to innovation.”

It was during the research process that the prototype – which does exist – was discovered.

“We were digging in the basement at Electro-Harmonix,” Scott, speaking on a YouTube live stream dated January 26, says. “We'd always ask, but we were always met with, ‘Nah, there are no prototypes.’ At some point, you're like, ‘There has to be prototypes.’”

He can’t remember whether it was he or Danger that found it. But find it they did.

“To my memory, we were packing up one day, after interviewing some engineers,” he continues. “Then all of a sudden Owen, who’s Mike's [Matthews, founder and owner] son and works in artist relations, goes, ‘Have you been down to the basement?’

“This building is massive, it's in Queens, and it's like half a city block. The basement is for R&D and tube storage, but he means the basement basement.”

And there it was. With a stainless steel front plate, with “Holy Grail 1, handle with care” scrawled upon it in Sharpie, and “insane” wiring beneath it.

At its heart is a chip that has since revolutionized pedal making.

“In 2000, Mike Matthews goes to this trade show, and he sees this chip set, the Crystal CS4811,” Scott adds. “With it, you can essentially load in their pre-programmed algorithms, and you can mess around with it and tweak it.

“This is a big deal; it's the beginning of simple DSP (Digital Signal Processing) for guitar players. This unit, to my knowledge, is the world's first digital spring reverb unit. Mike Matthews saw the opportunity, had it in the hands of an engineer, and produced a product before anyone else.

“Now, what's funny is that the original units shipped with three reverb sounds on the outside, but some people figured out that you could hack it and have eight total sounds via the dip-switches,” Scott then says.

As he explains, though there were eight dip-switches inside, each unlocking different characters, the pedals had a simple three-way switch on their face.

What happens next, now that Scott has the lost prototype in his magic hands, remains to be seen, but the book is now available for pre-order, and it's being published by Jack White's company, Third Man Books.

Jack White and JHS collaborated on a wacky delay pedal, the Troika Delay, last year. It's well worth checking out.

See Third Man Records for more info on the book.

Hello, and welcome to Guitar World’s 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 abreast of every new launch that may be of interest to you.

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.

'Tis the eve before NAMM 2026 (has everyone put their stockings out ready?) so the gear launches are coming in thick and fast. You'll probably need a coffee for this one...

Gibson Keith Richards 1960 ES-355

Gibson's latest Collector's Edition guitar turned out to be a replica of Keith Richards' iconic 1960 ES-355. Though famed for his five-string Teles, Keef is a dab hand with six-strings, too, and his ebony-finished 355 was his pick of the bunch when it came to fully stacked guitars.

The meticulous recreations were built using advanced 3D scanning and Murphy Lab aging techniques, and recreate the exacting feel and vibe of the Rolling Stones' legends OG model. Gibson calls it the coolest guitar in rock 'n' roll We're inclined to agree.

For more: Gibson

Boss GX-1

Watch out Zoom, Valeton, Hotone and Mooer – Boss has set its sights on taking control of the entry level amp modeler market with the GX-1. With AIRD tech, Boss engineering and a fool-proof operation layout in its corner, the GX-1 looks like it has all the makings of a pedal that could blow the competition out the water.

We've already reviewed it and we loved it. GW's Matt McCracken thought it to be the ideal modeler for beginners, thanks to its button-heavy topography that makes dialing in tones a breeze. The $229 price tag doesn't hurt either.

For more: Boss

Electro-Harmonix Effects Interface

Electro-Harmonix has continued its experiments to bridge the digital and physical effects world an Effects Interface utility tool that turns pedals into plugins, and pedals into plugins. It can be used as a standalone pedal that brings your favorite plugins to your 'board, or as a studio tool to run your recorded audio through your favorite pedals.

It's a more versatile reamp box, in other words, but without the need for converters and complex cabling methods. It connects via USB-C, and away you go. A studio essential in the making? Probably.

For more: Electro-Harmonix

Ibanez Layer Delayer

Ibanez's pedal escapades are world famous because of the Tube Screamer, but the Japanese firm isn't exactly up their with some of the other boutique and effects specialists that are known for their boundary-bending builds.

Well, Ibanez might just be hoping to assert its credentials as a pedal maker to be reckoned with thanks to the Layer Delayer. It is its most ambitious pedal to date, hands down, and promises to give you all-new ways to sculpt and craft echo effects. 2026 could be the year of Ibanez pedals...

For more: Ibanez

Seymour Duncan Slash 3.0

Slash played a Gibson SG at Ozzy Osbourne's Back to the Beginning farewell show, but it wasn't any ol' SG – it came fitted with custom humbuckers that were designed to offer more output without compromising on tone.

Now, they've been released as the standalone Slash 3.0 set. They're the GN'R rocker's first Alnico V set (his previous pairs came with Alnico II magnets), and they were tailored by pickup-making legend Maricela "MJ" Juarez. Expect punch and aggression aplenty, as well as an enhanced output with a tighter low-end.

For more: Seymour Duncan

Donner HLX-500

Donner might just have launched the entry-level headless guitar to beat. No stranger to headless designs, the Chinese guitar maker has now launched what it is calling "the ultimate modern headless electric guitar", and while that might be a stretch, there's a lot to like here.

To start, it's just $330, which is an absurdly affordable price point for a headless guitar. Then, you have the specs. It is ergonomically sculpted in the vein of Strandberg guitars, and even has an asymmetrical neck profile to try and bring some of that 'progressive' design ethos to the HLX-500.

On paper, it looks like it could be the ideal instrument for those who are looking to test the waters of headless guitars without forking out big money for a specialist build.

For more: Donner

Poly Effects Kanso

When Poly Effects and Josh Smith put their brains together, the result is usually a boundary-pushing pedal unlike any other that can be used to conjure up any number of gnarly tones. The Kanso, while perhaps not quite as sophisticated as the Flat V overdrive, is certainly no exception.

It's tiny, and there's only one footswitch – dubbed the 'FKnob' – which can be used to engage effects, toggle between diodes, and switch between controlling bias and character. In other words, you get a helluva lot of grizzly gain tones from a very, very compact gadget. No wonder batch 1 has already sold out...

For more: Poly Effects

PRS Silver Sky New Finishes

If you caught John Mayer playing at the Grateful Dead's 60th Anniversary celebratory shows last year – or, indeed, if you saw any footage of him playing live in 2025 – you'll probably have seen him playing a mysterious brown-finished Silver Sky. People on social media have been asking about it for months.

Well, now its finally been launched as an official colorway for his PRS signature guitar, which is also now available in Black Plum Satin. They've been joined by a bunch of other new-for-2025 launches and updates, including a semi-hollow DGT, a new-look Zach Myers model, and the all-new S2 Vela HHT.

Last year was a busy one for PRS, which celebrated its 40th anniversary. It shows absolutely no signs of slowing down going into 2026.

For more: PRS

Vox VFZ-1

Vox has leafed through the history books and ramped up its pedal arsenal with the launch of the VFZ-1 and VTB-1. The first is a 1960s-inspired, Maestro Fuzz-Tone-esque fuzz pedal that looks to inject your rig with some classic high gain tones, while the other hopes to recreate the coveted Treble Booster tone favored by the likes of Rory Gallagher and Brian May in a compact package.

Both are easy to use, look pretty darn classy, and, judging by the demo, sound killer as well.

For more: Vox

Vox AC15 & AC30 Hand-Wired Greenback Combos

It's going to be a busy NAMM season for Vox. Along with the above pedals, the British firm has expanded its Hand-Wired series with a suite of Greenback combos and cabs. In the series, the new AC15 and AC30 amps – two of Vox's quintessential guitar amps – come packing with Celestion Greenback speakers for all the unparalleled character, touch sensitivity and harmonic depth you'd expect from a Vox amp.

They've been refined for modern times, though. Now, they offer a master volume for better control, a transparent FET-buffered effects loop, and a tube-driven spring reverb.

There's also a new Hand-Wired AC30 head, which is paired with a cab that offers wo 12" Celestion Alnico Blue speakers.

For more: Vox

Walrus Audio Mantle Bass Preamp

Meet the Mantle – a "first of its kind" analog bass preamp and DI box, created in collaboration with Ian Martin Allison of Scott's Bass Lessons. With two proprietary custom-wound Sapphire Transformers that have taken years to develop, the Mantle is a streamlined, no-nonsense preamp pedal that packs a serious punch.

With its Neve-inspired input transformer and API-esque output transformer, it promises studio-grade refined tones on stage, in the studio, and anywhere in between. I'm not a bass player, but even I can appreciate this one.

For more: Walrus Audio

Walrus Audio Canvas Volume Pedal

Is there a range of pedalboard utility tools out there that can match the Walrus Audio Canvas range? We're struggling to come up with anything. The lineup has previously featured screen-equipped tuners, DI boxes and pedalboard power supplies. Now, it has its first volume pedal.

The humble volume pedal is oft-misunderstood, and the Walrus Audio Canvas Volume pedal looks as feature-packed as an output-controlling tool could get. There are eight selectable tapers, including seven inspired by classic volume pedals, as well as mono, stereo and dual-mono routing options.

Not the sexiest pedal, admittedly, but as far as volume pedals go, this looks pretty beefed up.

For more: Walrus Audio

Marshall Lunar New Year

2025 was a pretty huge year for Marshall, which ended up stealing the show at NAMM exactly 12 months ago thanks to its city-like booth and the announcement of the much-anticipated Modified Series. Oh, and let's not forget those Spinal Tap Infinity amps.

It's been a quieter start to 2026, but the British amp icon still found time to produce some limited-edition combos to mark the Lunar New Year. Crafted in collaboration with Beijing artist FCCK, the amps flash some seriously cool artwork that celebrate the year of the Horse. So that's what all the horse-themed teasers were all about...

For more: Marshall

Silvertone 1446

Is the Silvertone 1478 the coolest offset ever made? I'd certainly put it up there, so you could imagine how happy I was when I heard just this morning that Silvertone would be reissuing the sick-as-heck electric with some new specs for 2026. At just $499, I am thoroughly tempted, and you can best be sure I'll be making a beeline for the Silvertone booth when the NAMM Show kicks off next week.

It's been joined by the revival of the 1446 – the semi-hollow favored by Elvis Costello, Hubert Sumlin, Chris Isaak and more – and the 1449, which was once played by Beck and Brad Shultz of Cage The Elephant. A hugely welcome return for the brand, this. Let's hope it sticks around.

For more: Silvertone

Squier Mini Strats

Okay, this might be the most practical guitar to play for most people, but just look at it. It's a Squier Strat. In a Sea Foam Green. And it is tiny. What's not to like?!

The Squier Mini Stratocaster is part of Fender's early 2026 roll-out, which also includes a huge update to the Mustang Micro Plus headphone amp, some new-look Squier Sonic models, and a 30th Anniversary Hot Rod Deluxe combo.

But, yes, for me, that teeny tiny Strat takes the cake. It's just a shame I'll have to wait until July for it to officially start shipping...

For more: Squier

NAMM 2026: Electro-Harmonix has unveiled the Effects Interface Hardware Plugin – a “first-of-its-kind” tool that turns plugins into pedals, and pedals into plugins.

The premise is simple. With the Effects Interface, EHX has sought to provide a unique new solution to two very real problems for guitarists. Namely, running an audio track from a DAW through your favorite pedal, and conversely having your favorite digital plugin as part of your physical pedalboard.

It intends to do that with minimum fuss, using a no-nonsense hardware approach that requires an impressively small amount of kit. It negates the need for converters, direct boxes, complex cabling methods and other supplementary gear that existing re-amp boxes all require, and does it all with USB-C. Plus, it operates as a fully functioning pedal, live and in the studio.

In practice, there are three modes to unpick. Audio mode operates by sending any audio track through your chosen pedals through the Effects Interface’s smart I/O layout. This works for everything from drives, fuzz pedals, and delays to reverbs, modulations and beyond.

Pedal mode, meanwhile, does the opposite. It lets you take software plugins from a computer and use them as physical pedals. Any standalone or group of plugins can be sent to the Effects Hardware, and engaged in real time like a regular ol’ stompbox.

That’s a very enticing prospect indeed. That means you can now put, say, Neural DSP plugins right on your pedalboard. In the EHX demo, three Neural amp models are used in conjunction with the Effects Interface for seamless amp-switching while playing.

Of course, that means you’ll need your laptop handy if you intend on using it live this way, but that seems like a minor consideration relative to the doors the Effects Interface could potentially open for your rig.

And, what’s more, there’s also an additional Audio Interface mode for using it as a two-in, two-out interface for recording.

The frills-free operation is reflected in the topography. There are sliders for input and output levels, a Wet/Dry control for balancing signals, and a sole footswitch. There’s also stereo I/Os on the panel, and a headphone jack for monitoring.

“The Electro-Harmonix Effects Interface Hardware Plugin knocks down the walls between physical and plugin effects,” EHX sums up, “effortlessly turning your pedals into outboard gear and your plugins into pedals mounted to your pedalboard, all with a simple USB connection.”

The Effects Interface Hardware Plugin is available now for $359.

Head over to Electro-Harmonix to find out more.

It's not the first time EHX has attempted to bridge the gap between the physical gear and plugin spaces. Last year, it unveiled the Big Muff Pi Hardware plugin.

What is it?

The Tone Bender, that classic British fuzz pedal born in the mid-’60s, was produced in several variations and under several different brand names back in the day, a practice that still continues as pedal companies bring out new creations based on the vintage circuitry.

The latest is Electro-Harmonix’s Bender Royale, which is based on the three germanium transistor-equipped Mk III Tone Bender from the late ’60s. The boffins at EHX have expanded its original three-knob feature set to create an evolved version with six knobs and a pair of toggle switches.

Standard Volume and Fuzz knobs are still present, but you get individual Treble and Bass knobs, rather than a single Tone control. There’s also a Bias knob to adjust the input bias voltage of the fuzz circuit, and a Blend knob that gives you the full fuzz sound when set at its maximum but will blend in some dry sound as you roll it back.

A Fat switch brings in more low-end and middle frequencies, plus you also get a switch offering two biasing diode options for the final germanium transistor fuzz stage.

Specs

• PRICE: $149/£149
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Fuzz pedal 
• FEATURES: True Bypass, adjustable series impedance into the fuzz circuit, latching and momentary footswitch action
• CONTROLS: Volume, Fuzz, Treble, Bass, Bias, Blend, Fat On/Off, Clip (Ge/LED) switch, internal impedance trimmer, bypass footswitch 
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (supplied) 12mA
• DIMENSIONS: 70 (w) x 111 (d) x 50mm (h) 
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

Usability and sounds

Plugging in the pedal, its Tone Bender DNA is immediately apparent and it comes with two distinct but equally useful voices via the Fat switch, which transforms the leaner basic sound to something thicker and closer to the sound of our vintage Mk II Professional.

The other toggle switch provides a more subtle change, with the LED option endowing a rougher edge to the sound than that of the smoother Ge setting.

That’s four combinations available right there, but you can then adjust the Bias knob, which has the most conventional Tone Bender voicing around noon and which can also dial in gated and sputtery (although not too extreme) drive-like crunch.

Add those very effective Tone knobs and the blend options, and you have great-sounding fuzz with extended flexibility.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

The Bender Royale may well be based on a Tone Bender – and it can certainly deliver that familial sound – but, with that expanded feature set, this Electro-Harmonix offering can also be considered as a generic fuzz, and we mean that in a good way.

Guitar World verdict: The simple fact is that this amount of user-adjustable variation in a fuzz pedal is a real treat, facilitating a wide range of everyday fuzz needs from thick and smooth to raspy and raucous – plenty of versatility for your ’board in a single compact pedal.

Hands-on videos

Electro-Harmonix

R.J. Ronquillo

• Best Electro-Harmonix pedals 2026: We break down the very best EHX pedals available in all effects categories
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

If you’re looking for a reason to treat yourself at the start of 2026, Sweetwater just handed you the perfect excuse: a blowout sale on a vast quantity of Electro-Harmonix pedals. Seriously, this sale has that’s got me double-checking my calendar, I would've thought it was Black Friday!

Whether your New Year’s resolution is to finally nail that Gilmour fuzz, add some lush chorus shimmer, or just get weird with loops, there’s something here for every pedal head.

Let’s start with my favorite EHX pedal, the Big Muff Pi. This fuzz box is the secret sauce behind countless classic riffs, from Smashing Pumpkins to Pink Floyd. Right now, you can snag a Big Muff for only $70.79.

For the uninitiated, this pedal isn’t raw gain; it has sustain for days, a creamy midrange, and a smooth bass. If your board is missing a Muff, now’s the time to fix that.

Chasing that ‘80s chorus swirl? The Small Clone is also on sale, and this is the pedal that made Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” so hauntingly lush. Plug in, hit the switch, and you’ll be swimming in liquid chorus tones that range from subtle shimmer to full-on seasick warble. Right now, you can bag one for only $69.55.

Next, I need to shout out the Electro-Harmonix C9 Organ Machine. The C9 transforms your guitar into nine classic organ and keyboard sounds, from fat, swirling Hammond tones to punchy transistor organ vibes. If you’ve ever wanted to add a vintage organ flavor to your rig without lugging a Leslie to rehearsal, the C9 is your ticket. It's currently down to $207.60.

Of course, Sweetwater’s deals won’t last forever, so if you’ve been eyeing an EHX pedal, now’s the time to make your move. New year, new sounds, and all that. Why not kick off 2026 with a little sonic inspiration?

JHS Pedals and Electro-Harmonix have come together to release the Big Muff 2 – a new take on the timeless fuzz pedal, based on a recently unearthed schematic that spent 50 years buried in dust.

Few pedals command the same reputation as the hallowed Big Muff. First released in 1969, the flagship fuzz was first conceived and created by EHX founder Mike Matthews and Bells Lab engineer Bob Myer, and later underwent revisions and changes under the direction of other engineers.

One of those concept revisions, though, never saw the light of day. Instead, the hand-drawn schematic that hypothesized the creation of a Big Muff 2 was put together, filed away in a notebook, and forgotten about for 50 years.

It wasn’t until 2021, when Josh Scott of JHS Pedals was visiting Myer’s New Jersey home while researching his new book – which charts the history of EHX – that the unreleased circuit was unearthed.

Fast-forward to the present day, and that alternate, previously unheard of take on the classic Big Muff circuit has been turned into a reality.

It was, as JHS puts it, a remarkable discovery. The schematic was labeled “Big Muff – Using (2 Dual Op-Amps)", and while an Op-Amp Big Muff was released in the 1970s, it was designed by Michael Abrams and Howard Davis. Myer’s own plan for the pedal was shelved and forgotten about for five decades.

The journey starts with that discovery. Myer’s garage was filled with old prototype pedals, tools that helped forge the earliest EHX innovations, and countless notepads that traced the journey. Among the reams of material was that circuit design, which Myer put together after Matthews requested a Big Muff variant that didn’t use transistors.

“This is the never-before-heard version of what could have been,” Scott explains of the pedal in a launch video. “It's super-modern. It feels really heavy. It does this crazy crossover between super-aggressive Big Muff, but it will also do overdrive well.”

The circuit itself delivers a uniquely aggressive edge to the Big Muff sound, with enhanced low-end, cutting midrange presence, a sharper attack and an “exceptional” output volume.

“For nearly 50 years, this “Lost Big Muff” design sat forgotten in his notebooks – until now,” JHS writes. “We found it. We built it. And have brought it to life.”

News of the pedal has been joined by the opening of preorders for Made on Earth for Rising Stars: The Electro-Harmonix Story. Written and assembled over six years by Scott, the book serves as a deep dive into never-before-seen corners of EHX and pedal history.

The book will also explore the firm’s hallowed Hall of Science – an oft-forgotten footnote from EHX, which set the template for the future of guitar stores then disappeared without a trace.

Only 5,700 Big Muff 2 pedals will be made. Visit JHS Pedals for more.

Electro-Harmonix thinks it has found the solution to the artificial intelligence energy crisis – and the answer lies above the Earth's surface.

AI is becoming commonplace in modern society, from asking ChatGPT for zucchini recipes to having your amp sim craft specific tones on demand. But the technology also needs an extraordinary amount of energy to operate.

As per Forbes, ChatGPT's daily usage is equivalent to the consumption of 180,000 U.S. households, if each used 29 kilo watts. A single prompt can suck up around a bottle's worth of water.

This is where EHX's stargazing solution comes in. The Big Muff maker says there’s a near-limitless supply of energy in the planet’s magnetosphere, just asking to be tapped into.

Earth's magnetosphere is active with unusual magnetic material caused, essentially, by a combination of the sun and the planet’s rotation, which, as Nature reports, could theoretically be harnessed as an energy source. But there is a big debate within scientific circles about whether or not it's actually possible.

But fear not. Where scientists continue to debate, EHX founder Mike Matthews has shared a newsletter in which he says “we have a plan to tap it”.

“I am currently assisting Bob [Myer, former Bell Labs scientist] with building a system on Earth to stimulate and retrieve energy to Earth by means of an oscillation,” he elaborates on an EHX page dedicated to the magnetosphere.

Matthews says he and Myers intend to “team up with the right partner(s) who will provide parallel satellites orbiting earth at about 500 miles.” They would be saddled with “electronics to build up an increasing oscillation” that EHX and Myer would co-design. And the application for this energy is, theoretically, endless.

“This,” he adds, “would conceivably be an easy first step to getting the energy 500 miles up.

“For example, spaceships launched from Earth use most of their energy to get into orbit. With this energy, those spacecraft can be refueled. Additionally, there are numerous defense applications and cryptocurrency mining uses.”

And, of course, it would conceivably generate a glut of energy to ease the AI energy crisis, offsetting the need for vast energy infrastructure expansion on the ground.

The plan is ambitious, but Matthews has never been one to shy away from a challenge; from creating the Memory Man, the world's first analog delay pedal, and being the first firm to drive down consumer costs for flangers and digital delays, EHX has often spearheaded electronic innovation.

There is, of course, a difference between revolutionizing pedalboards and the global energy crisis.

A page dedicated to the topic has also been set up on the Electro-Harmonix website for those after more context.

What is it?

First seen in the POG2, the Attack slider is a feature that has particularly hit the spot with players, adjusting the note envelope for swelled or bowed sounds whether or not you’re using the pitch aspects of the pedal.

Now, that specific effect has been made more accessible to all in a dedicated pedal in Electro-Harmonix’s diminutive Pico range.

The Swello is designed to slow the volume envelope of your playing to create swells, something it does polyphonically, so chords as well as single notes get the full treatment.

It also has an optional low-pass filter that can be used for polyphonic envelope filter effects.

Specs

• PRICE: $149/£119/€139
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Attack envelope pedal 
• FEATURES: Buffered bypass, user-adjustable resonance settings
• CONTROLS: Volume, Attack, Frequency, Mod, Filter button, bypass footswitch 
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (supplied) 100mA
• DIMENSIONS: 50 (w) x 91 (d) x 47mm (h) 
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

Usability and sounds

An Attack knob increases the attack time as you turn it clockwise, while a Volume knob sets the output volume – and those two are all you need for straight swell effects, which start from a subtle shaving off of the transient and run to a slow ramp up to full volume.

The pedal seems to be set up just right to react to dynamic nuances, no matter how hard or soft you play: no need to mess with any sensitivity knob!

It applies a volume swell to each note played and does not retrigger existing sound when a new note is played, so playing is very smooth and natural, with the excellent tracking handling fast passages with ease.

Violin- or cello-like sounds are possible depending on where you play on the neck, and some doublestops and judicious bending can get you close to cool pedal-steel sounds.

If you want extra colour, you can bring in the filter with a choice of a low- or high-resonance setting (either of which can be adjusted from the factory settings to your own preference if desired) and set a cut-off frequency with the Freq knob, effectively using it as an EQ control.

For movement in the sound, the Mod knob can dial in a degree of upward or downward filter sweep, allowing you to explore a whole range of altered sounds, including wahs, distinct filter sweeps and reverse effects via various juxtapositions of the Attack, Freq and Mod knobs.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

Guitar World verdict: A really musical effect, perfectly implemented in a convenient tiny footprint, the Pico Swello is a joy to use and is capable of giving you an alternative voice whenever needed.

Hands-on videos

Electro-Harmonix

Thomann

That Pedal Show

• Best Electro-Harmonix pedals: We break down the very best EHX pedals available in all effects categories
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Few effects firms have had the impact or commanded the universal adoration of Electro-Harmonix. Without it, it’s highly likely that the pedal market – plus guitar playing and music itself – would look and sound very different in 2025.

The brand launched by Mike Matthews enjoys a position few others could manage. It’s become one of the most ubiquitous names out there, but maintains the aura of an indie builder. It’s both boutique and accessible; wild and dependable; liberal in its experimentation and, since its 1990s revival, conservative in its business.

Products like the Big Muff, Small Clone and Small Stone have not just entered pedal history, but become the foundation stones for a whole industry of builders, spawning a mythology almost independent of the music they made.

Of all the brand’s eras, the late ’70s period is its most iconic and fetishized –and it’s easy to see why. This is an incomplete story of that time, told through the memories of Matthews, key EHX employees and friends from the period.

More particularly, it’s about the firm’s space-age physical location, the Hall of Science – a giant, all-singing, all-dancing (but non-selling) venue-cum-demo space that became a bricks-and-mortar metaphor for the peak of EHX’s outrageous, risk-taking pomp.

Million-dollar baby

Between 1968 and 1978 EHX debuted the LPB-1, Big Muff Pi, the Electric Mistress, the Memory Man and the Small Stone. To say it grew rapidly is an understatement: a firm that started with little more than Matthews’ $1,000 savings expanded to a $50,000 annual turnover, and on to $5 million within 10 years. In today’s money, that’s around $24 million.

“I started working for Mike right out of my first year of college,” says Matt Meng, former Director of Manufacture and Development. “I think I was employee number seven. By the time I left in 1980, Mike had about 350 employees.”

Matthews is renowned for his off-the-wall thinking, and Meng believes it was never further from the studwork than in the ’70s.

“As someone in my 20s and late teens, it was wonderful to work for him. He had all these crazy ideas. I’d describe him as a genius, but a madman – a real crazy scientist.”

That’s one of several images Matthews has fostered over the years, albeit not unfairly. “I just did unorthodox things,” says the man himself, now in his 80s.

In some ways that’s the whole mantra of EHX’s golden era – from the tones and the business model to the way they worked. As King Crimson and David Bowie guitarist Adrian Belew says: “The thing I always loved about their pedals was that you could make them do things they weren’t actually meant to do.”

The guitar pedal Ark of the Covenant

By the late ’70s EHX was riding high – and so was New York’s West 48th Street, aka Music Row. At the time it was the world’s leading music mecca, home to ruthlessly guarded ‘Are you ready to buy?’ guitar stores and a surefire pitstop for the great and good of players, from wannabes to session pros and touring superstars. Everyone was there, spending their advances and buying up vintage guitars like candy.

At this point, Matthews came up with one of his most unorthodox ideas: a way to get EHX gear in front of those at the center of the musicians’ universe. He called it the Hall of Science.

Even those in the know find it notoriously hard to describe the concept; but picture an Apple Store for pedals and music tech, painted black throughout, and you’re sort of there. Except you couldn’t buy anything.

“It’s the pedal equivalent of finding the Ark of the Covenant,” says Josh Scott, JHS founder and devoted EHX scholar. “It’s very difficult to explain; It’s weird. At first we couldn’t even decide what it was – ‘It's a store. No, it’s not a store, It’s a venue.’ You’d just go in a circle!”

Adding to the mystery is the lack of photos and online documentation. Even Matthews laments that he doesn’t have any pictures. And because it wasn’t a proper retail space, and the company later went bust, there are very few records.

But if the Hall of Science seems ahead of its time, and a little crazy, it’s because it definitely was – it predated the likes of the Gibson Garage, Fender flagship stores and indeed the Apple Store by decades.

“The idea was Mike’s,” confirms EHX lifer Larry DeMarco, who was tasked with running the place. “He was always a visionary. The idea of a standalone exhibition center was truly revolutionary in the late ‘70s.”

West 48th Street was already packed, of course. “There were about 15 different music stores – Manny's Music, Sam Ash, Terminal Music, repair shops – everything,” says Matthews. But as usual he spotted an opportunity others had missed. “There was a four-story garage. On the bottom floor we rented half of that space. It was pretty big. We turned it into the Hall of Science.”

In the gutter, looking at the stars

Mention of Apple Stores might conjure images of spotless brightness and exquisite presentations. But it’s important to note that this was New York in the 1970s; those terms did not quite apply to West 48th Street at that point.

“New York City back then was rough,” DeMarco recalls. “Times Square and the surrounding environs were packed with peep shows and porno joints. Hustlers, hawkers and three-card-monte games were all over the place. We were located a bit north of Times Square between 6th and 7th Avenues. You never knew who or what was going to come through the doors.”

That’s if you could get through them. “It was disgusting!” Meng says. “I remember opening up one morning. You had gates that came down with padlocks on the bottom. I remember finding vomit on the padlock and saying, ‘How do I how do I open this this? I can’t even go in and get a bucket of water to rinse it down!'”

If you made it safely inside, however, you found a veritable candy store for audio pioneers. “The entire place was done in black,” says DeMarco. “There was a stage that stretched across the back of the room and behind the stage was a wall-to-wall LED display that blinked randomly – but it always seemed to be in time with the music!

“Black wooden benches provided seating; on the east side of the room, self-demo stations were provided, where people could wank away and hear themselves through headphones.”

To your right as you entered were the glass display cases. It would make sense to fill them with pedals; but no – instead they were filled with EHX-branded LED jewelry. Above, the ceiling was adorned with electric artwork.

“I got plastic pallets, four feet by four feet, put LED bulbs in them and hung them from the ceiling,” says Meng. “Our engineers designed the patterns, so no pattern would repeat itself, and they were multicoloured. I remember it was certainly very futuristic, very out there and very mesmerizing.”

Meanwhile, the stage was used for live demonstrations, which more often than not seemed to unravel into jam sessions. “It was very beautiful,” says Matthews. “At first Manny's was pissed off that we opened it, because they thought we were gonna start selling stuff from there – but we didn't.”

Looking for a sound you’ve never heard before

Matthews maintains he held to his agreement not to sell gear. But always open to making a buck, they did shift the artwork, to everyone from Bloomingdale’s to Gallery Lafayette in Paris.

Meanwhile the jams were legendary, with a different genre days and prizes given to the best performances. Alongside running the joint, DeMarco was part of the in-store band alongside guitarist/bassist Kenny Richardson and drummer Larry Holloway.

“Kenny and Larry were wonderful musicians,” DeMarco says. “I typically played through the same rig I used at trade shows. The chain started with a MicroSynthesizer and ended with a Deluxe Memory Man. Larry had a setup of EHX Talking Drums – he made them talk and sing!

“Occasionally we’d get an oddball product in. I recall a 19-inch rack-mount guitar synthesizer, festooned with a cryptic array of sliders and no presets. You’d dial up an incredible sound by fiddling with the sliders. But move them a fraction of an inch and that great patch would be lost forever! I’m not sure it ever made it to market…”

The fact stuff like that saw the (LED) light of day at the Hall of Science is part of its allure to EHX obsessives, and anyone who was fortunate enough to wander through the doors on a Saturday afternoon. Belew recalls: “I’d go there and, of course, Mike Matthews would just talk my arm off about all the new pedals they were designing, and show me some of them.

“I’m one of the players still digging around for a sound I’ve never heard before. And that’s what made Mike’s pedals unique – if you played around with them long enough, something really strange would happen!”

Science and celebrity

The Hall of Science was the perfect venue for such experimentation, in the booth or on the stage – and the performances didn’t stop inside the building. “One time Mike asked me to demo some pedals live out front of the store,” Belew says. “Like, ‘I’ve got these new boxes. You record a sound into them and then you can play them like a drum kit.’ And we did that right out on 48th Street!

“I have no idea what it must have sounded like, but there was a band backing me. So I’d record a percussive guitar sound in one box at a time then play drum patterns with the band. I had about eight boxes on a stand. Really, it was early sampling – and crude as it was, you’d never heard anything like it.

“Mike was very generous to me and all the other players I knew who worked with him. You could always depend on him inventing things no-one had ever thought of before and giving them crazy names.”

Despite, or perhaps because of, Matthews’ agreement to only sell artwork from the space, it drew all kinds. “We welcomed everyone from Stevie Wonder to Buddy Rich,” says DeMarco. “I remember Howard Leese of Heart bought a huge LED display from me. A young Marcus Miller jammed out on stage. Tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis pulled up out front in his Rolls Royce with a vanity plate that proclaimed ‘VITAS G’!”

Matthews remembers getting a call at the office to be told Roberto Durán – one of the greatest boxers of all time – had just walked in. “He started flirting with my common-law wife,” recalls Matthews. “I was thinking about slugging him. But I held back because he was a professional and he’d have knocked me out!”

It’s hard to think of another gear spot with this kind of pull. Even today, when the cult of guitar gear has never been stronger, it’s mainly around vintage collections. The idea of a space stocking cutting-edge, slightly bonkers audio products and pulling in A-listers in the process seems unimaginable. And yet it happened; and that was only part of the picture.

We felt invincible

While all that went on, Matthews was back at EHX HQ leading the charge on his ever-expanding line of pedals, and more products with forward-thinking specs and madcap marketing schemes. For instance, the first battery-powered amp, 1975’s Freedom amplifier.

“I remember renting a truck. It had to be an American-made truck,” says Meng. “We put custom-made umbrellas on it to demonstrate wind energy. We were driving down Fifth Avenue so the movement simulated the wind – and we had a press conference about how ‘the answer is blowing in the wind!’”

The Freedom amplifier took an unholy amount of size D batteries, but nonetheless campaigned on the appeal of “freeing yourself from the bureaucratic domination of electricity.” Essentially it was the first prepper amp. And again, this actually happened.

“It was an incredible period for Mike, EHX and, by extension, myself,” says DeMarco. “In addition to running the Hall of Science, I did a lot of traveling and demoing. Crazy stuff like doing a show solo in East Germany before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

“I had to travel through Check Point Charlie and take a train from East Berlin through Dresden and into Leipzig. I got stopped on the train and questioned by the East German police. Every place in East Germany looked as it did the day WWII ended.

“I carried the EHX banner around the world, from Fiji to Stockholm, and was with Mike in Russia as a member of the EHX Work Band. We felt invincible.”

Matthews’ sheer charisma is well-documented. “It was wonderful,” says Meng. “I was sent off to do things I knew nothing about! I’d studied business management in college, but I didn’t even finish my fourth year because I was so into Electro-Harmonix. I learned so much more hands-on than in school.

“I remember getting up at three o’clock in the morning because Mike wanted to meet me at the intersection of some road. I’d go meet him and we’d walk for hours before starting the day at Electro-Harmonix. He was, at times, up all night doing things.”

The sense of EHX and Matthews’ invincibility strikes a chord with Meng, too. “Mike showed up at my apartment once and I was cooking a roast beef. He loved the smell of it. Talking business, he actually ate the whole five-pound roast beef! I don’t even know if he was aware he’d done it.”

The death of a dream

Of course, nothing we make is truly invincible. You’ve seen the films; you know the story arc. By the late ’70s EHX was flying too close to the sun, but it wasn’t sheer folly that brought about its end.

Its successes were being noted. New York’s labor racketeers were trying to muscle in, causing trouble for staff and production issues in the process. Cracks were starting to show in Matthews’ “unorthodox” financial approach. By the early ’80s the Hall of Science was no longer sustainable, and Matthews sold the unit to Sam Ash.

“I don’t remember when the doors closed,” says DeMarco. “But I remember how I felt – ‘gutted’ is an apt descriptor. Electro-Harmonix was more than a job to many of us. When the company folded, it was the death of a dream we’d all shared.”

When Matthews re-entered the pedal world in the ‘90s, having noticed the price of vintage EHX units, it was in his own words as “an arch-conservative,” as opposed to his previous “aggressive” position. But some of his hunger for experimentation remained.

All those involved in the Hall of Science have left their own legacies. “It taught me that I could do whatever I put my mind to – and that you really needed a team effort,” says Meng, who went on to a successful career outside EHX. “Even if all the ideas are wonderful, you need to have good people to help implement them.”

There must be lessons to be learned by struggling modern retailers; stores and brands need to offer experiences to get people in the door. It’s what we’ve seen at Fender Flagship Tokyo and the Gibson Garages. Stores can’t just tell people a story anymore – you need to put people in it. That was the genius of the Hall of Science concept. Although we recommend you actually sell the gear from the space…

Josh Scott is, of course, a noted pedal maker in his own right. He’s studied the EHX golden period in detail, and has literally written the book on the firm (Made on Earth for Rising Stars: The Electro-Harmonix Story). He says his research, and personal interactions with Matthews, taught him two things.

“When you look at their story, EHX is at the top of the world. It’s a movie plot,” Scott says. “The biggest thing – and it's exactly what he said to me – is be careful that your really good ideas are actually good for your business. That’s big.”

It’s the second point that nails not just the essence of EHX, but the reason musicians adore their products; and it also defines the real allure of the Hall of Science. Scott says: “Give creative people the space to make things – and see what happens.”

Do you have any photos of the EHX Hall of Science? We'd love to see them! Get in touch via guitarworld@futurenet.com.

Likewise, if you have any memories of the space, or Music Row and West 48th Street in the ’70s and ’80s, please share them in the comments below...

What is it?

While some players are totally sorted by having a spring reverb integral to their amp, there are plenty of others who embrace reverb as a creative effect, and many companies out there are ready to cater to those desires with a range of pedals that can supply all manner of ambiences.

To date, Electro‑Harmonix has been scratching that itch with its Oceans 12 pedal, and that dual stereo reverb now has a sibling in the form of the Oceans Abyss, which, as the name implies, takes a deeper dive into the world of ambience.

This triple-footswitch reverb pedal features two full-stereo reverb engines that can be combined into a signal path comprising up to eight blocks and encompassing several other effects including delay and modulation, all with a range of routing options.

Add a stereo send/return loop to incorporate other pedals to that signal path and EHX’s description of the pedal as an “advanced reverb laboratory” makes perfect sense.

Specs

• PRICE: $495/£475
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Reverb pedal
• FEATURES: Buffered bypass, 128 presets, tap tempo
• REVERB TYPES: Room, Hall, Spring, Plate, Reverse, Dynamic, Auto-Infinite, Shimmer, Polyphonic, Resonant
• CONTROLS: NavCoder, Preset button, Home button, Settings button, Reverb A controls (Pan, Pre-Delay, Time, Blend, Low, High, Edit button, Moment button, Tails button) Reverb B controls (Pan, Pre-Delay, Time, Blend, Low, High, Edit button, Moment button, Tails button), Effect footswitch (bypass), Footswitch A, Footswitch B
• CONNECTIONS: Standard inputs (L & R), standard outputs (L & R), Standard TRS Send, Standard
  TRS Return, EXP, Footswitch,
  MIDI IN, MIDI OUT, USB
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (supplied) 500 mA 
• DIMENSIONS: 180 (w) x 150 (d) x 65mm (h)
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

Usability and sounds

The Oceans Abyss has a clearly laid out user interface: the essential hands-on controls for Reverb A are on the left; those for Reverb B are on the right. Between the two, there’s a display showing signal path and adjustable parameters, and a NavCoder knob with rotate, push and tilt actions that does all the hard graft of addressing what’s shown in the display and setting up your sound.

Any sounds you create can be saved to 128 preset locations, and the unit comes with 100 of those already loaded with factory-programmed sounds.

The full architecture of the signal path is that of two rows of four effects blocks – the top row associated with Reverb A, the bottom with Reverb B – with loads of different serial and parallel connections available between them, although you can also have just a single linear chain with both Reverb A and Reverb B blocks in it.

Furthermore, a preset doesn’t have to be centred around reverb. In fact, you don’t have to have a reverb effect block at all. While there’s an overall effect bypass footswitch, the A and B footswitches bring the A and B associated blocks in and out.

The reverb algorithms on offer are your standard Room, Hall, Spring and Plate, while Reverse, Dynamic, Auto-Infinite, Shimmer, Polyphonic and Resonant make up the more esoteric contingent.

Other blocks in the chain can deliver delay (Basic, Analog and Tape), modulation (Tremolo, Chorus, Flanger and Phaser) or utility effects (Graphic EQ, Saturation, Bit Crusher, Volume and the send/return effects loop).

Besides the hands-on dedicated knobs and sliders for the two reverbs, there are other adjustable reverb parameters available in the menu, plus parameters for all the other effects blocks. To set up and edit your sounds you’ll need to get the hang of getting around the screens, menus and parameters with the NavCoder, but there’s a useful Home button to take you back to the main screen at any point.

The complexity here would, of course, benefit from a computer-based editor/librarian, and hopefully EHX will have its forthcoming USB-connected EHXport app up and running to take care of all that by the time you read this.

As usual with a pedal like this, trying out all the factory presets is the best way to get the measure of what it can do, as well as giving you some useful starting points for creating your own sonic preferences.

There’s plenty to take in: from basic meat-and-potatoes reverbs utilising a single effects block, through simple combinations such as a delay block feeding a reverb block, to esoteric ambiences taking full advantage of routing the signal through numerous blocks.

The standard reverbs all deliver the sense of space that you’d expect and are easily tweaked to get them how you need them. The Spring reverb can get the ‘drip’ that surf guitarists seek out, while the other reverbs have plenty of creative potential with liberal amounts of fairy dust in the likes of the Shimmers’s octave-shifted wash and the dual bidirectional pitch shifts of the Symphonic reverb.

The delays and modulations amply cover familiar territory and – while modulation, delay and reverb combinations may be standard fare in some quarters – you also have the saturation and bitcrusher blocks here to grunge things up. Two saturation blocks in series make a convincing Big Muff, especially coupled with a Graphic EQ block to really focus the frequencies.

Referencing other EHX pedals, you get Small Stone and Memory Man presets here, and there’s some creative use of just delay in two presets that utilise all eight blocks to construct some really interesting reverb effects – one stacking up eight blocks of the Analog delay type all feeding into each other, the other similarly using blocks of Tape delay.

For onstage use you can swiftly move from preset to preset with presses on the A or B footswitch simultaneously with the effect footswitch, or, to make things really simple, if you just want to use two different sounds during a gig, you could set them up as parallel A and B chains in a single preset and engage them as needed. There’s also a press-and-hold function to trigger infinite sustain for the associated reverb.

There’s provision to incorporate up to three external footswitches and assign them to a number of functions such as loading presets, tap tempo and even sending an impulse, which simulates kicking a spring tank! You could also add an expression pedal for control over parameters in any effects block, and there’s comprehensive MIDI capability for recalling presets, control over nearly every available parameter, and clock sync.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

The big-box reverb has become a thing in recent years and this latest Electro-Harmonix entry into the area doesn’t disappoint: from the simplest reverb to complex shifting ambiences, there’s something here for everyone.

Guitar World verdict: As much a sound designer’s playground as a guitarist’s onstage resource, the Oceans Abyss offers enormous potential to sculpt some really esoteric sounds if you want to get into that, but it’s also a flexible single-box solution for providing a bunch of switchable reverbs, delays, modulations and more to get you through any gig.

Hands-on videos

EHX

John Nathan Cordy

Chords of Orion

• Electro-Harmonix Oceans 12 review
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

The Prime Day guitar deals are finally here, and with it I usually expect to see more than a few cheap pedals going ever cheaper. This year is a little different, though, because one of the best pedal deals I’ve seen isn’t on a cheap, no-brand Amazon pedal, but a cheap, well-known pedal from Electro-Harmonix.

The Electro-Harmonix Lizard Queen is an octave fuzz pedal from one of the biggest pedal manufacturers in the world, and it’s got a massive $59.40 reduction from the usual $99 price at Guitar Center. That means it’s less than half price, with the total coming to below the $40 mark. As far as cheap pedals go, it’s one of the best I’ve seen so far this year, and absolutely worth picking up if you need an octave fuzz for your pedalboard.

• Score guitar pedals from just $20.79 at Amazon
• Shop all the latest Prime Day deals at Amazon

The circuit was originally designed by Josh Scott of JHS Pedals as an homage to the EHX pedals of the 70s, and because they never actually made an octave fuzz pedal. While the limited edition big box version is sold out, you can still grab this nano enclosured version for a ridiculously low price and save yourself some pedalboard space.

It’s a fixed gain fuzz without a gain knob, so you’ll have to rely on the volume knob of your guitar to get varying levels of saturation. For me it’s at a nice level for most players, and there’s plenty of headroom to get a nice volume boost past the 11 o’clock mark on the volume knob.

The balance knob has ‘shadow’ and ‘sun’ written at its extremes, and at shadow you get a smoother fuzz that reacts better to your volume knob, while the sun end offers a harsher, spitting character.

The dedicated octave knob allows you to add in as much or as little of the upper octave as you like. This gives you plenty of flexibility in combination with the other controls, giving you access to classic and more modern tones with ease.

It really cuts through the mix in a full band setting, and despite the simplicity of the three knob layout I found there was plenty of ability to dial in a tone to suit. For me, I loved the sound of the higher octave settings with the balance knob more towards the ‘sun’ end of the spectrum, which delivered some truly spectacularly spitting octave fuzz sounds.

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Electro-Harmonix has added to its collection of ambient, shoegaze-friendly pedals with the Oceans Abyss Advanced Reverb Laboratory.

At its heart, it’s a reverb pedal with dual engines that are independently programmable, with a bunch of full-stereo algorithms to boot – and that’s a recipe for spacey sound plundering aplenty.

A 10-strong cluster of reverb voices includes familiar suspects like Room, Hall, Spring, and Plate, alongside Auto-Infinite (accessible via long-pressing a footswitch), Shimmer, and Polyphonic.

Taking a little digital modeler magic along for the ride, a host of effects – including tremolo, chorus, flanger, phaser, and a bit crusher – are also present. Players can create custom signal paths with up to eight effects blocks.

It has space for 128 fully customized presets, reverb tails can be easily enabled or disabled, and footswitches are dual-action for momentary and latching variations of the sounds it has to offer.

Easy-view features include an OLED screen, illuminated slide pots, and buttons for navigation on the darkest of stages. The menu, meanwhile, offers multiple graphic views, with Signal Path, Performance, and Explorer modes on hand, depending on player preferences.

EHX's featured demo kickstarts with some sizable, '80s-infused shred, but as it progresses, it shows the delicate, celestial sounds and downright weird galaxies the pedal can also drag a player's guitar through, with the Polyphonic mode – offering two configurable bidirectional pitch-shifts within the 'verb's tail – one particular highlight of its weirder side.

Holding down footswitches A and B engages Infinite Hold mode, which does as its name suggests: a player could hold a chord and then solo over the top of it. The video example is decidedly Gilmour. Who needs a full band?

Connectivity sees a stereo effects loop included, full MIDI compatibility with “nearly every available PC and CC parameter” accounted for, alongside a tempo clock for time-based effects.

Almost every parameter is also controllable with an expression pedal for more tactical performances, and the footswitch jack accommodates up to three external footswitches that are assignable to different functions.

Finally, a USB-C cable connects the pedal to Windows and Mac computers where the pedal can be controlled via the soon-to-be-released EHXport app.

It comes supplied with a 9.6VDC / 500mA power supply.

“Expanding on Electro-Harmonix’s award-winning reverb technology, the Oceans Abyss is a full-featured reverb workstation with in-depth controls over two high-power reverb engines and additional effects blocks for massive end-of-chain tones,” says EHX.

In all, it looks to be a supremely powerful ambient reverb pedal that looks to wrestle some of the market away from the likes of Strymon and Meris, both of whom have become the biggest names in the world of high-end ambient reverb machines.

The Electro-Harmonix Oceans Abyss Advanced Reverb Laboratory is available now for $495.

Visit Electro-Harmonix to get drenched in its ‘verbs.

Mike Matthews doesn’t play guitar. He’s a businessman. Always has been, always will be. Business opened for Matthews in his hometown – the Bronx, New York – circa 1946, when he was just five years old.

As a child, he’d stop at nothing in his feverish pursuit for profit, collecting golf balls from New York City sewers with a coat hanger and sneaking out to the lake to collect fishing lures during his time at summer camp.

After high school, Matthews attended Cornell University and, at the request of his father, majored in electrical engineering. A product of the Great Depression, Matthews’ father insisted that he pick something that would ensure financial stability for his son. Sure enough, after graduation, IBM came knocking and offered Matthews a job.

Still, his entrepreneurial spirit simmered. Matthews’ schedule at IBM was flexible, and when the Rolling Stones released (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction in 1965, that simmer turned into a boil.

Can you describe the first time you saw the need for a guitar pedal?

“On the radio while I was at school for IBM, the Number 1 hit was Satisfaction by the Stones, and Keith Richards playing the Maestro Fuzz-Tone. Then, 10 weeks later, I went out again to another school, and Satisfaction was still the Number 1 song. Everybody wanted fuzz tones, but they couldn’t build them fast enough.

“In those days, all of the music business was on 48th Street in New York City. There were about 10 music stores, different repair shops and this and that. One guy in a repair shop said to me, ‘I’m building these fuzz tones one at a time. You want to come in with me? Then I can get them out much faster.’

“I said, okay, but then he didn’t do anything and I was stuck trying to figure out how to get these fuzz tones built. So I found a contractor in Long Island City called All Instruments, and they built the fuzz tones.

“Meanwhile – I don’t remember how or why – but Al Dronge, the president of Guild Guitars, contacted me and said he wanted to buy all the fuzz tones. He decided to call them Foxey Ladys.

“I had them printed up every two or three weeks, and I’d leave IBM to pick up a few hundred of these fuzz tones at All Instruments. Then I’d drag them out to the Guild warehouse in Hoboken, New Jersey, where Guild would write me a check. After that, I’d go back to work at IBM. That’s how I got started.”

Was the Foxey Lady the catalyst for your friendship with Jimi Hendrix?

“No, I didn’t collaborate with him at all, but the first Big Muffs I made, I brought to Manny’s Music on 48th Street. A few days later, Henry Goldrich [son of founder Manny Goldrich] told me he had sold one to Jimi Hendrix.

“Jimi had used the Fuzz Face on his early recordings, but he always invited me to go down to the studio, and I saw on the floor that he was using a Big Muff.

“Back when I was in college during the summers, I hooked up with a place called the Highway Inn in Freeport, Long Island, and I said, ‘Look, let me bring in some acts. I’ll promote it. I’ll take the gate, and you’ll have a big bar.’”

“In those days you could buy acts real cheap. Chuck Berry, I booked him for $1,000 a night for two nights, with the General Artists Corporation (GAC).

“Then that same promoter from GAC called me up and said, ‘Mike, I need you to take this other band. I can give them to you for three nights for $500.’ So I hired this band called Curtis Knight and the Squires. I didn’t know what the hell they were.

“Chuck Berry would do two shows a night and after the first show, I went in to count the gate while Curtis Knight and the Squires went on.

“Steve Knapp was the second guitar player backing up Chuck Berry, and he came running to me, telling me, ‘Hey, you got to hear this guitar player. This guy is really great. Jimmy James [an early stage name used by Jimi Hendrix] is his name.’ I liked his playing.

“After that, Jimi and I became friends. Every couple of weeks, while I was working at IBM, I’d take a break and go up and visit him. He was staying at a hotel in Times Square. [It was a] fleabag hotel and had no bathroom in the room. He had his hair set in these pink curlers and we would just talk band drama.

“I went to see him at a gig; during the break he sat down with me and said, ‘Mike, I gotta quit. I want to form my own band. I want to be the head writer.’ I said to him, ‘Well, if you’re going to be the head writer, then you’ve got to sing.’

“He says to me, ‘Well, that’s the problem, Mike, I can’t sing.’ ‘Look at Bob Dylan,’ I said. ‘Look at Mick Jagger. They don’t sing, but they ‘phrase’ great and people love them.’ He says, ‘Mike, you got a point.’”

What can you tell me about the beginning of Electro-Harmonix?

“In early 1968, the problem was that when you pick a note on the guitar, you could easily have a circuit that builds up the amplitude and it dies out, so when you play a new note, you get all these pops and crashes because the circuit could not respond fast enough to hitting the new note.

“A guy at IBM recommended this circuit designer, Bob Myer, who was a big inventor for Bell Labs. I went out to Bob’s house to listen to a prototype. The prototype he built was a little box.

“I says, ‘Bob, why do you have this box plugged in?’ He says, ‘Well, I didn’t realize that the output of a guitar was so low, so I built a little one-transistor preamplifier to boost the signal.’”

“Now, in those days, back in ’68, all amplifiers were designed to have a lot of headroom, so you’d turn an amp up to 10 and they wouldn’t distort. I took Bob’s one-transistor preamp and put on a volume control.

“When you turned the volume up enough, it would get into overdrive. I started selling that [via] mail order. That was the first Electro-Harmonix product, the LPB-1 Power Booster. I sold hundreds of thousands of them throughout the years.”

What philosophy has kept Electro-Harmonix so potent for more than five decades?

“In the early days, I would tell the designers, ‘I want this,’ and then they would do it. In more recent years, I would let our designers come up with different proposals. [At other companies] designers usually come up with too much stuff to stick in.

“This is a business, so you’ve to get a product out. If you put in too much stuff, you never get the product out. That’s how we’ve run the last few years.

“Right now, we have a tremendous number of sensational circuit designers. The most senior is a guy named David Cockerell who lives in England and worked for us full time back in the mid-’70s. He’s the one that designed the Small Stone [phase shifter], which was the biggest-selling Electro-Harmonix product of all time.”

Even though EHX thrives in simplicity, have you ever seen a complex product work?

“Yes. I was sick for a time, and I let the engineers overdesign this product called the POG III, which we finally got out. It was so complex, it took four-and-a-half years to come out, and we spent a fortune.

“But finally, POG III is out. That’s our Polyphonic Octave Generator, and it’s really sensational. We just started shipping it in November.”

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

Through his work with Dinosaur Jr., J Mascis has curated one of the most instantly recognizable alternative guitar tones that many budding electric guitar players aspire to emulate.

However, while some guitarists put considerable effort into capturing the very essence of J Mascis’ sonic DNA, the truth is that J Mascis himself didn’t put much thought into his fuzz-loaded tone when he originally began Dinosaur Jr. in the mid-1980s.

In fact, he stumbled upon his hall-of-fame stoner rock tone purely by accident – and only after he was rather harshly heckled by an audience member during an early Dinosaur Jr. gig.

In the new issue of Guitar World, the Jazzmaster-toting guitar hero looks back on the early days of Dinosaur Jr., and recalls how, around the time they were putting together their 1985 debut, Dinosaur, he only started learning the guitar as a means to write and perform.

“I was just learning guitar, Mascis remembers. “I picked it up to write songs and start a band, so whatever I was writing... that’s all I could play, pretty much.”

As such, his appreciation of guitar tone and the mechanics behind dialing in a suitable sound weren’t especially sophisticated.

“I didn’t know much about guitar tone,” he says. “I remember I had this Yamaha [G-100] solid-state amp because I saw that Bob Mould [Hüsker Dü] had one. I thought, ‘How bad could it be if Bob Mould has one?’

“Then the hotshot guitar player at our gig said, ‘Your guitar sounds terrible.’ I had the deluxe [Electro-Harmonix] Big Muff, and he’s like, ‘You should leave that thing on,’ because I had [the amp] clean. So I turned on the Big Muff and was like, ‘Yeah... okay.’”

The rest, they say, is history, and Mascis’ love affair with the Big Muff (the ‘Ram’s Head’ version, specifically) would go on to define the Dinosaur Jr. sound, feature heavily in the Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized The World documentary, and eventually lead to a signature Electro-Harmonic Muff that received rave reviews.

At the time, though, it wasn’t just tone that Mascis approached with an unorthodox mindset – it was also his playing in general.

“We were kind of just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what stuck,” he adds of Dinosaur Jr.’s early records. “We didn’t have a ‘sound’ yet; every song seemed different. There was a country song, a Joy Division song. Plus, I hadn’t been playing guitar for that long.

“A lot of the chords had two fingers because I couldn’t do barre chords; they hurt my hands. I’d just make up chords with the least amount of fingers possible.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the newest issue of Guitar World, which features interviews with J Mascis, Kiki Wong, Joe Perry, Jim Babjak and more.

Jimi Hendrix’s solo career is pivotal to the history of the electric guitar. In a stunning revelation, Electro-Harmonix founder Mike Matthews tells Guitar World it might not have happened without him.

The pair met when Hendrix was playing for Curtis Knight and the Squires, and Matthews was promoting gigs for the Highway Inn, Long Island.

Matthews had booked Chuck Berry to play the venue, and Berry’s agent insisted he also take the Squires.

“I didn’t know what the hell they were,” Matthews recalls. “Chuck Berry would do two shows a night and after the first show, I went in to count the gate while Curtis Knight and the Squires went on.”

“Steve Knapp was the second guitar player backing up Chuck Berry, and he came running to me, telling me, ‘Hey, you got to hear this guitar player. This guy is really great. Jimmy James is his name,’” Matthews continues.

Jimmy James, it turns out, was a stage name employed by the young Jimi Hendrix. “I liked his playing,” says Mike, understatedly.

The pair became friends, and Matthews regularly visited Hendrix in New York, where the world’s greatest guitarist was staying in a “fleabag hotel.”

Mike remembers, “He had his hair set in these pink curlers and we would just talk band drama. I went to see him at a gig; during the break he sat down with me and said, ‘Mike, I gotta quit. I want to form my own band. I want to be the head writer.’”

Matthews shot back some pivotal advice: “Well, if you’re going to be the head writer, then you’ve got to sing.”

“Well, that’s the problem, Mike. I can’t sing,” Hendrix reportedly replied. Mike encouraged him to reconsider, saying: “Look at Bob Dylan. Look at Mick Jagger. They don’t sing, but they ‘phrase’ great and people love them.”

“Mike, you got a point,” came Hendrix’s response.

While Hendrix continued to have doubts about his vocal abilities, he nevertheless got behind the mic, recording some of the most important albums in rock history. It might be that Matthews’ encouragement is what spurred him onto that success.

Elsewhere in the interview, Matthews claims to have influenced Hendrix’s gear as well. Matthews sold his first Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz pedals to Manny’s in New York. He reports that Henry Goldrich, Manny’s son, later told him Hendrix had bought one.

Although Hendrix never used the pedal live, Mike claims: “[Hendrix] always invited me to go down to the studio, and I saw on the floor that he was using a Big Muff.”

Hendrix’s legacy is continued on the Experience Hendrix tour, where guitar heroes including Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Eric Johnson have performed on stage with the ‘Izabella’ Stratocaster Jimi played at Woodstock.

In other recent EHX news, Matthews has revealed the legendary pedal firm’s struggles in the face of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Electro-Harmonix founder Mike Matthews has discussed how new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump will be affecting the legendary pedal firm, as the impacts of the “Trump tax” begin to be felt across the guitar gear world.

Earlier this month, Trump put into effect 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, and also introduced new tariffs on goods entering the US from China. Over the past week, the effects of these have been widely reported by gear manufacturers.

Moody’s downgraded Fender’s credit rating score, directly citing new tariffs and estimating production costs could increase by $20 million partly as a result. Boutique builder Morgan Amps calculated the price for one of its own amps could rise by $1,000 as a result of hiked costs.

Now, Matthews has highlighted what these new tariffs will mean for EHX – a company that has the inventory to weather the storm for a short time, but will nonetheless inevitably be affected by ballooning costs if they persist.

“We’re gonna have to continue to buy our raw materials from overseas, even with the tariffs,” Matthews concedes in an interview with Bloomberg [paywall]. “Trump’s policy on tariffs will definitely bring very big companies into America for the manufacturing, but small and medium companies, their volume will not be big enough.”

As Bloomberg reports, EHX has been repositioning its strategy to avoid an over-reliance on China, sourcing some of its components from places such as Taiwan to do so.

Furthermore, EHX can afford to delay immediate shipments from China, and owing to the firm’s “very deep inventories on most all of our pedals we make, we can ride out this storm,” Matthews adds.

However, this is not a longterm solution. Like many gear firms, EHX sources its internal pedal components overseas – China included – and as such there will come a point where Matthews and EHX will have to address a potential price rise.

Not only that, these tariffs are exacerbated by the fact EHX owns a vacuum tube factory in Russia – a country which has a 35% tariff against its imports.

And, given the competition EHX already faces in the pedal market, its first price rise in two-and-a-half years to absorb the rising production costs might be too risky.

“I’ll have to scratch my chin to think about it – you know, can I still make a profit?” Matthews adds. “You sort of like just guesstimate. Like by raising your prices, what will that do?”

Whatever the case, bringing circuit board manufacturing into the US is out of the question – “That would be a really huge investment” – and as Matthews reveals, he might not be in control of EHX for much longer.

“I am open and have been in the process of trying to sell the company,” he concludes. “It’s a difficult time.”

NAMM 2025: No need to be hunched over the Klondike, sieve in hand, scraping around in the sub-zero mud – there’s now an easier way to get your hands on some precious metal. Yep, MXR is launching the 50th Anniversary Phase 90, giving the iconic phaser pedal, beloved by Eddie Van Halen and countless others, a gold makeover.

We’re not sure how pure the gold is that MXR has used in the engineering of this super-shiny gold finish, but if electric guitar tones were measured in carats the Phase 90’s chewy swirl would be 24 – and then some.

This 50th Anniversary special edition might have a new look but the tone is very much early to mid ‘70s. You have one knob (Speed) that does everything you need. Just stick it on your pedalboard and you are good to go for the phase-shifting sounds that EVH used on Van Halen’s Atomic Punk, Eruption, etc. David Gilmour used one on Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond, and this one will, quite literally, shine on....

It's set to drop on March 18 and they are limited edition, so you’ll want be quick if you plan to scoop one up. MXR isn’t saying how limited but you know what it is like with special run pedals, scalpers, and the eye-watering prices on the used market... Speed is of the essence.

If you are wondering where you have seen this before, in 2022 MXR did officially release a super-rare 50th Anniversary edition of the Phase 90 in gold. This, however, was only for its “closest friends in the industry”. Now, the Jim Dunlop-owned guitar effects pedal company has said, “it was too good to keep to ourselves”.

Script Logo, Block Logo... redesigned by Auric Goldfinger, we at Guitar World are huge fans of the Phase 90 in all its guises – our own Chris Gill even wrote a love letter to the Phase 90 and its impact on guitar culture.

It is compact. It couldn’t not be simpler to use. Its four-stage phase-shifting is one of those elemental modulation sounds that can be use in all kinds of different styles, and it has. Besides EVH and Gilmour, you might find it on the pedalboards of John Frusciante, Robin Trower, John Petrucci, Tom Morello, and many more.

If you have always wanted one but for whatever reason did not like the color orange, your ship has officially come in. The 50th Anniversary Phase 90 is available from March 18, priced at $200.

Don’t sleep on it; these gold anniversary editions don’t last long – EHX’s Big Muff Double Anniversary Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal sold out within hours of its release.

Keep an eye on Jim Dunlop for more details.

A few months ago, Reverb maintained tradition by announcing its best-selling effects pedals of the year – a list that seemingly identified a winner from 2024’s mini amp modeler arms race.

Now, the online gear retailer has delved deeper into the data to produce a list charting the most popular pedals in each US state.

Like its overarching pedals round-up – and its list of the best-selling electric guitars from 2024, which saw a previous chart-topper toppled – the state-by-state run-down makes for rather interesting reading.

Perhaps the most unsurprising-yet-still-interesting-to-see stat is the fact that Boss comfortably dominated proceedings. Indeed, Boss pedals were the go-to units for 13 states, which roughly equates to 25% of the entire country.

Across the board, Boss’ RE-202 Space Echo, BD-2 Blues Driver, TU-3 Tuner and CE-2W Waza Craft chorus all topped state-level charts, as did the RC-5 Loop Station in Colorado and RV-6 Reverb in Alabama.

It was one of the key takeaways from the larger list – that Boss is still the name to beat in the effects pedal game – and that’s been further cemented here.

Other popular brands to achieve a multi-state presence include Electro-Harmonix – whose Pitch Fork was favored in Nevada, and Nano Metal Muff was most popular in Wyoming – and MXR, which had its Reverb, Duke of Tone overdrive and Carbon Copy delay show up on the map.

Some other note-worthy results include the Strymon Big Sky reigning supreme in Texas, the EarthQuaker Devices Dirt Transmitter topping sales stats in its home state of Ohio, the Chase Bliss Mood finding favor in Maine, and Idaho championing the super-budget Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz.

Oh, and as Reverb notes, some states had rather expensive tastes: Alaska, for example, went all-out for the R2R Electric Supa MKII – a rare and collectible boutique fuzz of which only 200 were apparently made.

There was also a strong showing from amp modelers and digital amp sim pedals, which further reflects the wider findings of the general rundown. Across the map, Line 6’s HX Stomp, the IK Multimedia ToneX One and Universal Audio Ruby all made the cut.

It is worth noting the Reverb methodology, though. In instances where an effect was the top-seller in multiple states, Reverb awarded it as the winner only in the state with the most purchases. Whether that could increase the overall dominance of Boss even further is unclear.

“Ohio supports their own, Alaskans have expensive taste,” Reverb writes of its findings. “13 states – or roughly 25% of the country – chose a Boss pedal more than any offerings from other brands.”

The full list can be found below.

Visit Reverb for more.

What is it?

Electro-Harmonix seemed to hit the ground running in 2005 when it released the first version of its Polyphonic Octave Generator, which offered several octave voices with solid tracking.

Since then, there have been plenty of different POG versions and several related spin-offs including two HOG pedals and the ‘9’ series that emulate the sounds of various keyboard instruments. And now we have the ultimate expression (to date) of the format in the POG3.

The new pedal has a much more upmarket feel than its predecessor, sporting three footswiches and red LEDs on each slider. But it offers more than just a facelift as there’s an extra slider to add in a +5th voice, 100 onboard presets, and an enhanced effects section with individual dry effect routing and expression control over almost every parameter.

The POG3 generates extra voices one and two octaves up, and one and two voices down (plus that new 5th voice). Each has its own dedicated slider so they can be blended with or without the dry sound, which also has its own (Dry) slider.

Usability and sounds

A variety of treatments can be applied to the generated voices – and optionally to the dry sound – via three more sliders and three knobs. The treatments are to set the Attack time for a fade-in, to adjust a Filter for tonal options or synth flavours, and to apply Detune for a spacious chorus/doubling effect. You also get individual pan knobs for each voice slider if you use the stereo outputs.

There’s great tracking here and instant access to the practical use of straight octaves, such as getting bass sounds from a standard guitar and faux 12-string (or even 18-string!) sounds. Beyond those are realistic organ sounds and plenty more that’s traditionally the province of a keyboard player.

10 factory presets will get you started, but operation is straightforward, making it easy to conjure up ethereal and otherworldly sounds that are crying out to be fed into ambient reverb/delay.

For real-time performance options, you can add an expression pedal for Whammy-style pitch bends, and control of the filter for wah, synth sweeps and more.

Verdict

If you like what a POG does, you’ll love this! Taking things to a new level, this is sonic wizardry at its finest for those looking to get creative with sound.

Specs

Price: $645/£599
Origin: USA
Type: Polyphonic Octave Generator pedal
Features: Buffered bypass, 100 presets, mono or stereo output, 6 separate voices, 6 expression modes, direct output for input signal, comprehensive MIDI capability
Controls: Navcoder, Master Volume, Input Gain, 6x Pan knobs, Dry, -2, -1, +5th, +1, +2, Attack, Filter, Detune, Q, Env, Spread,
3x Dry buttons, Left button, Right button, Direct button, Exp button, Focus button, Preset down footswitch, Preset up footswitch, Bypass footswitch
Connections: Standard input, standard outputs (L & R), standard Direct Out, EXP/CV In, MIDI In, MIDI Out, USB
Power: 9V DC adaptor, (supplied) 300mA
Dimensions: 180 (w) x 148 (d) x 67mm (h)
Contact: Electro-Harmonix

Hands-on videos

Electro-Harmonix

Pete Thorn

• Electro-Harmonix Pico POG review

NAMM 2025: In case recent releases haven’t made the current state of the looper pedal market competitive enough, Electro-Harmonix has now dropped a teeny version of its best-selling Nano 360 Looper that, despite its shrunken footprint, packs more features than ever.

The regular Nano 360 Looper has remained relatively unchanged for around a decade or so, so this upgrade is certainly a welcome one, with the Pico 360+ boasting overdub controls, fadeout abilities and a downsized chassis as its chief updates.

Coming as part of EHX’s pocket-sized Pico range – which transfers the magic of some of the firm’s most revered pedals into tiny pedalboard space-saving housings – the affordable single footswitch stompbox offers six minutes of recording time, unlimited overdubs, and 11 memory slots.

Granted, that’s a core dwarfed by the 300 minutes of total loop time and 100 memory slots of Mooer’s recently announced GL100, but EHX is confident that those specs are plenty good enough. With that in mind, it’s seemingly focused on delivering better features elsewhere.

Over to the Overdub knob, then, which sets the feedback level of an, erm, overdub. In practice, the level of all previous layers are lowered the more you stack. Setting the knob at 50% lowers the previously tracked overdubs by, you guessed it, 50%. EHX says this helps players “create an ever-changing loop.”

With smoother live performances in mind, an adjustable Fadeout mode is also included. This allows for smooth fadeout endings when the loop is stopped.

The majority of the pedal’s functions – such as record, playback, overdub, undo, redo, stop, and erase – are all operated via the footswitch. Other competitors may outshine the Pico 360+ by throwing a veritable kitchen sink of features at their own pedals – Zoom’s new MS-90LP+ offers a handy undo feature to quickly fix mistakes, for instance – but the EHX charms with its simplicity.

The tiny looper captures high-quality, uncompressed audio at 24-bit, 44.1kHz, and, pleasingly, ships with a 9V power supply. It’s available for $137.70, making it far cheaper than many of its competitors.

“The Nano Looper 360 has been one of our best-selling pedals for just over a decade,” says EHX. “Enter the new 360+ Looper with an updated feature set and a smaller footprint.”

Among those it is set to rival is the Digitech JamMan Solo HD, which, with no bias at all, has been described as “the pinnacle of compact looper development” by its makers.The king of looping himself Ed Sheeran also has a line of loopers.

Boss' ever-reliable RC-1 Loop Station and TC Pigtonix's “grown-up” Infinity 3 are two other looper pedals vying for player's hearts. The options are endless. Resistance is futile.

The EHX Pico 360+ is available now. Head to Electro-Harmonix for more.

The first thing you’ll notice when you hear Lizzard’s new album, Mesh, is that they’re a power trio with an emphasis on the word “power.”

There’s nothing one-dimensional or minimalist about this latest collection of songs – which, at times, sounds like nearly twice as many musicians locked in a room together and going for sonic gold.

Welcoming new shades of prog and shoegaze into their kaleidoscopic wall of noise, the beguiling layers of ambiences will appeal to just about any kind of listener.

“We’re really into bands like Radiohead, Gojira and Tool,” says singer/guitarist Mathieu Ricou, who is based in France and works with a British rhythm section. “I especially love Robert Fripp and King Crimson. We toured with Adrian Belew once, which was a huge deal for me. Seeing him do all that crazy shit was incredible.”

So how exactly does a band with only one guitarist manage to sound as rich, deep and complex as other groups with twice as many?

There are a few tricks, says Ricou, who uses his Boss DD-3 Hold function to create live loops, and pitch shifter pedals like the Electro-Harmonix POG to add textural weight, while also encouraging his bass player to dial in extra distortion where necessary.

“The short loop time on the DD-3 is actually why I love it,” Ricou adds. “I embrace the limitation. It forces you to find something that works – you can’t just go crazy or it will fall apart.”

For the latest recordings, the frontman used a Fryette SIG:X head going into an Engl cabinet via his POG, Morley wah and Z.Vex Fuzz Factory, as well as an Eventide H9 in the loop handling reverbs and a DD-7 for his regular delays.

The choice of tube amp was inspired by Page Hamilton of Helmet, who has used a Fryette Pitbull Ultra-Lead extensively over the years.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the rig is the guitar in Ricou’s hands, built by a local luthier by the name of Christophe Dufour, owner of Custom Design Guitars.

“He does everything exactly the way I ask,” Ricou says. “I don’t use pickup selectors, so I asked him to fit a blend knob like a bass. It gives me more tonal options, with a Van Zandt single-coil in the neck and a DiMarzio Tone Zone in the bridge.

“I hope I don’t sound too French when I say this, but we already know how most typical guitars sound. Why stick to someone else’s palette? Ultimately, my tone is pure. All I want to hear is the hands, the strings and the valves.”

• Mesh is out now via Pelagic.

Today’s guitarists are blessed with about 26,844 distortion pedals to choose from, give or take two. But back in the late ’70s the selection was much more limited, with stompboxes like the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (which some would still call a fuzz unit), MXR Distortion+ and Boss DS-1 leading the way when it came to readily available products from big-name companies.

In 1978, a relatively small sound reinforcement company called ProCo Sound in Kalamazoo, Michigan, quietly introduced their own distinctive take of an op-amp-based distortion circuit combined with diode clipping and called it “The Rat.”

The Rat’s circuit was a happy accident that happened when designer Scott Burnham mistakenly installed a 47 ohm resistor instead of a 470 ohm resistor in his circuit, resulting in a much higher amount of gain with harmonically rich overtones.

One could describe ProCo as being an early “boutique” pedal company at the time, but that’s really a precious description, considering that the products were made in a damp, rat-infested basement (hence the inspiration for the “Rat” name).

Word quickly got out, and by the ’80s a Rat distortion pedal became a commonly sighted fixture on many hair and thrash metal bands’ pedalboards, although a few fusion jazz guitarists also were seen stomping on this furry friend.

Although the Rat pedal went through numerous cosmetic changes over the years, including the original large-format “The Rat” pedal and a smaller (but oddly heavier) Rat pedal that came out in 1984 and became known as the “Rat 2” when an LED on/off indicator was added in 1986, the inner circuit has remained essentially the same since day one until today.

The internet is rife with old wives’ tales and folklore, including arguments about differences between the original LM308 op-amp chips and the OP07 that started appearing around 2005 and myths of the mojo of pedals assembled by a dude nicknamed “Woodcutter.”

Honestly, Rat pedals made today don’t sound all that much different from ones made in the ’80s and ’90s. The biggest tonal differences are usually due to inconsistent component tolerances between one unit and another, so a brand new $90 Rat could actually sound better than a $900 LM308/Woodcutter example.

Two common complaints surface about the Rat’s sound: it cuts bass frequencies and its treble frequencies can be harsh. The bass cut is actually a bonus, as it generates a midrange-dominant tone that cuts through a mix with a band. Yes, it doesn’t sound as massive for bedroom metal, but tones that sound big in isolation inevitably get lost on stage amongst other instruments.

The treble scenario is easily fixed by the pedal itself thanks to its low-pass filter, which is adjusted via the Filter knob. This control works “backwards”, with the “zero” setting providing full treble that becomes darker and warmer as you turn the knob up.

The list of Rat pedal fans is pretty long and impressive, including classic rockers like Jeff Beck, who used one live from the mid-’80s up until 1999 and on the Guitar Shop album, Robert Fripp, David Gilmour, Joe Perry, Andy Summers and Joe Walsh, grunge/alternative guitarists like Kurt Cobain (Nevermind), Dave Grohl, Buzz Osborne of the Melvins, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Graham Coxon of Blur and Frank Black with the Pixies, metal players James Hetfield (Kill ’Em All), Trey Azagthoth and Nuno Bettencourt, jazz guitarists Bill Frisell, Arto Lindsay and John Scofield to assorted users like John Ashton (Psychedelic Furs), Nels Cline, Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) and Mike Stroud (Ratatat, appropriately).

NAMM 2025: Keeley Electronics says its new rotary speaker guitar pedal is so good “it’s knocking industry titans off pedalboards” thanks to the fact it offers “the finest tone we’ve ever achieved”.

So, what justifies such hype and hyperbole? Well, the Rotary is (shock horror) modeled on vintage rotary speaker cabinets and the magic of Leslie speakers first found in organs – think Jon Lord-era Deep Purple – which use rotation for a suitably spinning sound.

Keeley has described it as a “one-of-a-kind” chorus effect, and wants to further help extend that fun to electric guitar players with its latest release.

Beneath its laser-cut aluminum case is a series of all-new circuit boards responsible for Keeley’s giddy excitement. These ’boards can be manipulated via a “simple and intuitive” interface.

There’s one giant knob for controlling the effect’s Speed, two smaller sidekicks for Blend and Drive, and two footswitches that turn the pedal on/off – with True and Buffered bypassing switchable on-the-fly – and engage/disengage a Slow/Fast feature.

Using the Blend dial to find the sweet spot between wet and dry signals delivers either “a subtle warble or a full-on sonic whirlpool”. The Drive is on hand for tube-like harmonic saturation – original Leslie speakers used tube amps as part of their charm – for added tonal depth and character.

Furthermore, a flickering LED speed indicator encourages players to “become one with the sound”, and a Mid Boost mini-switch – which is easy to miss – unfurls three different EQ curves that aim to fatten up the chorus effect.

Tweakability goes far beyond those dials, though. The ramp rate, which dictates how quickly the pedal transitions between Slow and Fast modes, can be adjusted, and a Brake mode can slow down the rotation for a stopping effect and an extra touch of dynamics.

With stereo ins and outputs, the pedal is tailored for modern rigs and tube amp defenders alike, while the choice of True and Buffered bypass options helps players keep their tone pristine amid winding pedal chains.

“The Rotary is built with artfully designed circuitry and housed in a proprietary angled aluminum enclosure, ensuring both simplicity and durability,” says Keeley. “It faithfully recreates the swirling textures and vintage warmth of those rotary cabinets.

“The quality is so impressive that it’s knocking industry titans off pedal boards.”

Some of the more high-profile rotary pedals currently around include the Strymon Lex V2, Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere Mk II, and the Electro-Harmonix Lester G Deluxe. It’s by no means the most fiercely contested corner of the pedal market there is, but Keeley is clearly keen to lay down the gauntlet as it looks to assert its dominance in this particular niche.

Designed and manufactured in the USA, the Keeley Rotary is available now for $229.

Visit Keeley Electronics for more.

The Rotary rounds out a strong 2024 for Keeley, after the firm collaborated with Andy Timmons for a signature overdrive pedal that saw him ascend to "tone heaven” earlier this year.

Other notable offerings form the past 12 months include a series of four-in-one overdrive and distortion pedals, the Octa Psi – a fuzz pedal that took three years to perfect – and the Zoma reverb/tremolo pedal.

Let’s be real for a sec: Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be. Companies can use it as an excuse to blow out unpopular gear or stuff that just never found an audience. But this year, the pedal deals have never been better – take it from me, as someone who’s been trawling the web every BF/CM for seven years (yep, that’s as sobering for me as it is for you).

For 2025, we’re seeing big brands embrace the discount season like never before. We’ve got Boss blowing out three of its flagship delay workstations. Line 6 slashing the price of its entire Helix range, including the recently launched HX One. Heck, even Electro-Harmonix are offering respectable savings on classics including the POG2 and Deluxe Memory Man.

If you’re in the market for a do-all amp modeler/multi-effects pedal, now’s the time to buy, as IK Multimedia discounts its TONEX, and Fender offers savings on the Tone Master Pro.

Then there are the company-wide savings, with JHS Pedals, Keeley, EarthQuaker Devices, Walrus Audio, Eventide, Old Blood Noise Endeavors, Wampler, Jackson Audio and J.Rockett Audio all getting their price cuts on.

If you want a good starting point for all those brand discounts, Musician’s Friend has a handy Effects Deals landing page that made my life a lot easier when compiling these deals.

In my book, all of the above makes this the best Cyber Monday for pedalheads, with decent savings on pedals you might actually want to buy.

So, without further ado, here are this year's best Cyber Monday guitar pedal deals (so far) – and check out our main Cyber Monday guitar deals hub for more up-to-the-minute coverage.

Shop more Cyber Monday guitar deals

• Amazon: Guitar gear deals
• Fender store: 50% off guitars
• Guitar Center: Up to 50% off
• Musician's Friend: Up to 60% off sale
• Positive Grid: Save on Spark
• Sweetwater: Save up to 80% on gear
• Waves: Plugins just $19.99

If you’re after some genuinely chunky discounts on classic pedals this Black Friday, well Musician’s Friend is certainly living up to its name right now – offering up to 50% off on a range of Electro-Harmonix stompboxes, including perennials like the Big Muff, POG 2 and the Deluxe Memory Man.

It won’t surprise you to hear that some of the best value can be found on the fringes of EHX’s ever-dependable range, though.

For instance, the NYC firm’s killer take on Keith Richards’ beloved Maestro fuzz tone, the Satisfaction Plus (see what they did there?) is now available for just $49.50 (down from $99). The Stereo Pulsar Tremolo has also plummeted by 50% to $51.70.

However, for my money (and yours), I reckon the Electro-Harmonix Turnip Greens is one of the best pedal deals out there this weekend. It’s a combo package of both the Klon-style Soul Food overdrive and Holy Grail Max reverb and it has dropped to half price – at $123.30.

The latter is not in the sale and priced at $185 as a standalone, so if you’re after a ’verb, you can get the same circuit for $60 less than the Holy Grail Max would cost on its own – and get the Soul Food thrown in as a further sweetener.

The Soul Food is in the sale, too at $89, so adding all that up, you’d be looking at a total price of $294, meaing this is a saving of nearly 60% off the cost of buying both individually – even on Black Friday pricing.

You get the same controls as the Holy Grail Max, including all four reverb types (Spring, Hall, Plate, and Reverse) and the same dials on the Soul Food, with independent footswitches for each pedal – plus you can select between True and Buffered Bypass. It’s just all wired into a single box.

I’m not alone in being a fan of the Turnip Greens, either – YouTube guitar guru Mary Spender name-checked it as her favorite pedal and – as she told Guitar World in her 2020 interview – the clip she made on the underrated unit is the one that launched her into the guitarverse spotlight.

It’s fair to say Black Friday has become pretty frothy in terms of the marketing-to-actual deal ratio in recent years, but this feels like real value for money and is tempting more than a few grizzled GW staffers, as a result…

Shop more Black Friday deals

• Amazon: Guitar gear deals
• Fender store: 50% off guitars
• Guitar Center: Up to 50% off
• Musician's Friend: Up to 60% off sale
• Positive Grid: Save on Spark
• Sweetwater: Save up to 80% on gear
• Waves: Plugins just $19.99

“Back in the day, I took pride in having no pedals. All I had was a tuner. Now I have a crapload of pedals! I was talking to Charles [Black Francis], and he said, 'Look, we’re playing different venues all the time…' and for me, the easiest way to carve out a sound for each venue was the pedals. But I do like the tones and the variety, and now I just enjoy collecting and using pedals.

“I have a crapload of distortion and boost pedals. I’m still looking for that sound, and I’ll have slots on my pedalboard that change maybe one or two times per tour. I’ll want another sonic thing to entertain myself on stage.

“Sometimes I’ll use a boost into an overdrive and maybe into another overdrive. I’ll have three things overdriving that thing; some might think that’s weird, but I have no qualms about it.

“The thing I don’t use is chorus. I just don’t like it. [Laughs] It reminds me of when I go into a coffee shop and someone is performing, and they put the chorus pedal on. It’s just not good in my ears; it sounds compromised.

“I like overdrive and gain because of the whole character of the sound… I find it interesting that none of them sound exactly alike. But if my pedalboard gets any bigger, I’d have to seek help!”

“After my tuner, I’ve got a Lehle [SGoS Amp Switcher with Tuner Out], a pink Maxon AD999 Delay, a Boss GE-7 Equalizer, an Atomic Boost OC 44 by Stewart Amplifier Company, which goes into my Fulltone OCD [overdrive].

“After that, I’ve got my Fatbee [overdrive] by Beetronics FX. I’ve got an old [two-knob] Keeley Compressor in the top corner of the pedalboard, along with an EHX Pitch Fork [pitch shifter] and an Eventide H9 [harmonizer, Dark Edition].”

“At the lower area of the pedalboard, I have pedals for wah, which is my DOD and a Roland EV-5 Expression pedal. I love my wah. I can’t use other ones. I can’t do it. It sounds old-fashioned, and they don’t make them anymore.

“Aside from that, I’ve got a multi-effects station that’s color-coded, where I can activate the pedals on my ’board without having to find them. At the bottom of the pedalboard, I’ve got an EHX Holy Grail [reverb]; off-board, I’ve got pedals that I rotate in, like the Crowther Hot Cake [overdrive], the Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz and Aclam’s The Mocker fuzz.”

If I had to choose only one pedal for a full show...

“Can I pick two? [Laughs] I like the Atomic Boost. It’s a good thing to put in front of my OCD pedal. I’d go with one of those two. But an OCD through a Marshall is the Pixies sound.”

• The Night the Zombies Came is out now via BMG.

What is it?

It is one of the tropes of guitar effects pedal culture that designers look to the animal kingdom when naming their fuzz pedal, and we are fully onboard with this.

There’s something thematically appropriate about it. Of all the effects on your pedalboard, it is the fuzz that has the greatest capacity to rewild your electric guitar tone and chew through the speaker cone. There are some we would even blame for that stain on the rug…

You’ve got the the Z.Vex Woolly Mammoth, the Fuzzly Bear from KMA Machines, the Fulltone Queen Bee, the EHX Lizard Queen. You might even include the Beetronics Tuna Fuzz in that list, albeit the animal in question has been steamed and canned. There’s the Foxx Tone Machine and its posthumous Warm Audio clone. Way Huge has its Purple Platypus and Catalinbread has its Katzenkönig “King of the Cats” Tone Bender/Rat crossbreed. And now Fender has one, too.

The Fender Hello Kitty Fuzz is released as part of a collection celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Japanese cartoon cat, which includes the return of the cult classic Squier Stratocaster, new and improved and shipping now in pink or white finishes, alongside an extensive range of accessories and wearables.

Like the Strat, you can choose between pink and white versions of the Hello Kitty Fuzz. Both have Yuko Shimizu’s cat graphic staring impassively back at you, red bow by her left year, paws by her side, with “FUZZ” painted in big bold bubble font. All this seems too cute to step on, right? But there is an op-amp fuzz circuit in that housing, and when tone is the line, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do…

Specs

Launch price: $99/£94/€109
Type: Op-amp fuzz pedal
Made: China
Controls: Volume, Tone, Fuzz, internal trim pot for treble
Connections: 1/4” input, 1/4” output, power supply input
Bypass: True, buffer, both (switchable)
Power: 9-volt battery or adaptor (not included), 88mA
Dimensions: 62mm (D) x 112mm (H) x 56mm (W)
Weight: 1.1lbs/0.5kg
Options: Available in White and Pink (as reviewed)
Contact: Fender

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

First off, we have to question whether Hello Kitty is a real cat. She took zero persuading (persuading?) to get out of the box. Not one hiss. Secondly, especially this being so close to Halloween, we had to wonder whether this wasn’t just the Fender Hammertone Fuzz out trick or treating. This, too, shares that same super-rugged metal enclosure design that reassuringly feels heavier than expected.

It similarly has a trio of 'witches’ hat” amp-style knobs, with the 'F' for Fender branding molded on top. The standard 1/4” input and output jacks are located on the top of the unit, as is the power input (this takes 9V DC from a pedalboard power supply of your choice, drawing 80mA, or you can use a battery). Like the Hammertone series, this is a compact and pedalboard-friendly proposition.

Sadly there is no room for an octave toggle switch – or any secondary mode switches – here, not if we want to accommodate the graphic, but then what we have here is a very different circuit. The Hammertone Fuzz circuit deploys a pair of silicon diodes in service to fuzz sounds of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The Hello Kitty Fuzz has an op-amp doing the heavy lifting. A white LED lets you know when the effect is engaged but it is a little hard to see. We are reviewing the Pink enclosure; which seems less of a problem than it could be for the White version.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★☆

One neat touch on the Hello Kitty Fuzz is the legends under the controls are in English and Japanese but unless you are part eagle you will have little chance of making them out without holding the pedal up to the light. Zero chance on the stage. Luckily, there are only three knobs to familiarize yourself with, and the numbers around the dial are easily legible.

The pedal is true bypass. The footswitch makes a satisfying clunk when you step on it. All things considered, we prefer silent switches but at $99 we are not complaining. Nor are we touching the internal trimpot if we can help it. That way madness lies.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★☆

With all that in mind, we started with everything on 10, on a bridge humbucker, a tube amp with just a hint of breakup and wowzers! There is a lot more woof here than you might expect, especially when we rolled the tone knob back on the guitar. Talk about crossing the streams; this was human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria… Fender could have stuck a German Shepherd on the box and no one would be complaining.

At extreme settings, this fuzz is more Cujo than Hello Kitty. Those settings might not be usable for most players but it is reassuring to find all that volume and fuzz and chaos in a pedal whose trade dress took kawaii-culture global .

Dialling it all back, starting at noon like you do whenever you are in a guitar store, and now you’re talking. There’s a warmth to it. Gradually up the fuzz and there are a lot of sweet spots to be found. It’s funny how fuzz can change character in real-time as you play. This, of course, is not unique to the Hello Kitty Fuzz. Nonetheless, it’s part of the experience, that you can hit a chord and it’s got a bit of bite, then play a single-note line and it’s got that sustaining, violining quality.

When we think op-amp fuzzes, we tend to think Siamese Dream. That was Billy Corgan’s favorite flavor of fuzz back then, and you can definitely dial in some Cherub Rock-sounding tones.

There’s plenty of action on that Tone control. You could cut crystal with our Telecaster’s bridge single-coil but rolling it back on the pedal smooths the top-end off a little. Conversely, that Tone can apply a bit of sheen and fizz. You can make the argument that the Hello Kitty Fuzz is at its best with the Fuzz generously applied; it teases out pleasing overtones, and as ridiculous as it might seem to recommend a product with Hello Kitty on the front as a decent option for woolly stoner metal riffs, we’re going to do it.

Fuzz divides opinion. Sometimes it can feel a bit empty when it is the only dirt box in your signal chain and it’s feeding a clean guitar amp; it needs something underneath it. Stacking the Hello Kitty with a drive pedal – don’t go overboard – or dial in a bit of break-up on your amp and there are some great textures to work with, tones for garage rock and that ‘70s jam band vibe.

Verdict

So yes, we have another pop-cultural crossover moment here, a commercial collaboration for the collectors. Is it worth it? Sure. For fans of Hello Kitty, it’s a no-brainer – add-to-cart, collect the whole set. But even for those who might be put off by the aesthetic, queasy at all things cute, the hype, whatever, an op-amp fuzz with this much gain on tap, with the capability to clean up nicely, and a super-easy three-knob layout is always welcome on the pedalboard.

It could be worthwhile trying this out alongside Fender’s Hammertone Fuzz to see which you prefer; they offer two distinct flavors, and the octave feature allied to the fact you can pick one up for $79, might recommend the latter.

Fuzz-agnostics are always advised to audition as many different pedals as you can. Some will surprise you. This could well, too. All things considered, the Hello Kitty Fuzz justifies its $99 price tag, and confirms what we have always suspected; that the world needs more animal-themed pedals, cute or otherwise.

Guitar World verdict: The Hello Kitty Fuzz looks so cute. But don’t be fooled. Like many of her feline counterparts, animal passions stir within, with a sound so mean you worry this fuzz will walk off your ‘board one night and return with a songbird in its mouth.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Beers N Gears

Joe Hart

Guitar Center

• Best fuzz pedals

If you're a regular Guitar World reader you'll likely be well aware of all the Black Friday guitar deals that have been flying around this week. There's a huge amount to sift through, so with a week to go til Black Friday officially arrives, here are the biggest and best savings you can get your hands on right now.

At Sweetwater we spotted a massive 25% off all JHS Pedals, making it a brilliant choice to beef up your pedalboard for less. It includes classic pedals like the Morning Glory V4 and JHS PackRat, as well as newer offerings like Lari Basilio's signature Violet Distortion/Overdrive and their new Flight Delay pedal.

Guitar Center has loads of great deals too, and up to $280 off Fender Player Series guitars is undoubtedly one of the best going. The lineup consists of mainly Stratocasters, but there is a rather fetching Saturday Night Special Telecaster included in the sale too.

If you prefer to shop at Musician's Friend, they've got up to 50% off a range of Electro-Harmonix pedals which is an awesome deal. It includes legendary pedals like the Big Muff and Soul Food, and the awesome Stereo Pulsar is the headline discount with a 50% reduction.

Many manufacturers have been getting in on the action this week too, and Fender is still running a variety of sales with up to $200 off their guitars. If you're in the market for a new smart amp then you'll want to check out the Positive Grid Black Friday sale, where you can bag a discount of up to 50% off.

Finally, if you're buying something for yourself then it's definitely worth checking out the Reverb early Black Friday sale. With second-hand gear going at up to 80% off, it's a great way to save some cash by buying used, and there's a huge selection of gear on offer including some brand-new items.

As usual, we've picked out some of our favorite deals for you in our editor's pick section if you need a recommendation on some brilliant budget gear. Next week is the big event itself, so make sure to stay tuned for all the best deals action.

Editor's picks

Guitar sales to shop

• Amazon: Guitar gear deals
• Andertons: Save on guitars
• Fender Play: 50% off annual
• Fender store: $200 off guitars
• Gear4Music: Clearance deals
• Guitar Center: Save up to 50%
• Guitar Tricks: One-year sub just $99
• IK Multimedia: $200 off Tonex Max
• Musician's Friend: Up to 50% off
• Plugin Boutique: Money off plugins
• Positive Grid: Save on Spark
• PMT: 2nd hand deals
• Reverb: Up to 80% off
• Sweetwater: Up to 60% off
• Thomann: Cyberweek sale
• Waves: $19.99 plugins

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at Guitar World, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything guitar related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products we recommend.

First and foremost, we are guitarists, and we want to match other players with the right products for them, at the best prices.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers where you will have a positive shopping experience.

Why you can trust our choices

We spend a lot of our time scouring guitar retailers for fantastic deals on our favorite gear. Not only is it our job to research and recommend the best gear in our buyer’s guides, but we’re also dedicated to helping players get the best deals for the gear they need, too. After all, the only thing better than new gear day is a hearty discount.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view on which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

Good things, they say, come in small packages, and the miro-sized Olinthus Cicada is aiming to be just that for players with extremely limited pedalboard space.

Quite possibly the world's smallest overdrive pedal, its roughly the size of its namesake insect, meaning it can fit snugly in the palm of your hand. Despite its humble size, its creators say it has “the roar of a lion,” with its circuitry based on the heralded Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer.

Olinthus prides itself on making “whimsically but precisely designed” devices, and here offers a “rich, silky overdrive” that may require tweezers to fiddle its dials, but packs a sound belying of its microscopic nature.

It copies the TS808's Level, Drive, and Tone trio of dials, and the pedal is either engaged or bypassed by depressing its bottom edge. This provides “a satisfying click,” for users, and if that isn’t enough, there's also the handy spec of an LED light.

Beneath its unassuming chassis, its circuitry is just like its more standard-sized counterparts, but hooking it up to other pedals proved something of a head-scratcher.

With such a small chassis, Olinthus had to get creative with how the pedal connects to the rest of a player's gear. The solution is a complimentary three-way TRRS splitter cable to unite standard pedal power and quarter-inch input/output cables. It does slightly increase the device's real estate, but it's hardly rivaling the Big Muff.

“Yes, we're aware that an overdrive pedal this tiny is a bit ridiculous,” says Olinthus. “But by challenging our notions of what an effects pedal has to be, a new world of possibilities opened up that we never expected. Turns out, making it small also makes it pretty awesome.”

Available directly from Olinthus' Reverb Shop, players can slip one into their pocket for $99.

There's also the possibility of using it to complete the world's tiniest pedalboard. The Cicada can sit alongside Peterson's StroboStomp Mini tuner, IK Multimedia's miniscule amp modeler, the TONEX One, Electro-Harmonix's super compact POG, and a pick of its Pico pedals, which includes reverbs, delays, pitch shifters, and freeze pedals.

Head to Reverb for more.

For Luck and Strange, his fifth solo album, Pink Floyd legend David Gilmour leaned on both the familiar and the new, gear-wise. For instance, though he's known primarily as a Fender man – his Black Strat being the most expensive Stratocaster ever sold – Gilmour found himself falling for a Gibson ES-335 during the album's recording.

“I've not got a huge history with Gibson guitars, but this one [the ES-335] is one I've bought comparatively recently to have a different tone, a different thing,” Gilmour explained recently on his YouTube channel. “This is a very, very different sort of guitar to what I'm used to.”

For home demos, though, things were a bit more familiar.

“I will be using physical heads and cabinets on the tour – but at home I have this thing that’s now 30 years old called a Zoom,” Gilmour explained to Guitar World.

“It’s a tiny little gray box, and I use that most of the time when I’m working on the early version of songs. Because I know how to work it – it’s got lots of good sounds and I know how to adjust them.”

Below is a full list of the gear David Gilmour used to record Luck and Strange. You can thank Phil Taylor, who has been Gilmour’s guitar tech since 1974, not to mention Pink Floyd’s warehouse and studios manager.

Taylor also oversaw Fender’s 2008 introduction of the David Gilmour Signature Strat and is the author of The Black Strat: A History of David Gilmour’s Black Fender Stratocaster (2008).

Guitars, lap steels, and ukes

• 2008 Fender DG6 NOS Black Cat Strat
• 1958 Gretsch Duo Jet 
• 1956 Gibson Les Paul 
• 1961 Gibson ES-335
• 1930s Rickenbacker A-22 “frying pan” lap steel  
• 1930s Martin ukulele

• 1945 Martin D-18
• 2021 Martin DG D-35
• 2021 Martin DG D-35 12-string      
• 2019 Cordoba C10 Crossover 
• 1978 Zemaitis 3/4 acoustic 
• 1977 Ovation 1619-4 “high-strung”

Amps

• Hiwatt Custom 50 SA212
• Alessandro Redbone Special
• Fender Bandmaster
• Fender Tweed Twin
• Yamaha RA-200
• Lazy J 20

Effects

• Origin Effects Cali76 compressor
• Effectrode compressor
• Demeter Compulator compressor
• BK Butler Tube Driver
• Electro-Harmonix Big Muff
• Free the Tone Future Factory FY-1 (phase modulation delay)

• Binson Echorec 2 (echo/reverb)
• Dawner Prince Boonar (echo/delay)
• Source Audio EQ2
• Boss CE-2 Chorus
• Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress (flanger/chorus)
• Zoom 9030 (guitar multi-effects processor)

Luck & Strange is out now via Legacy. You can read all about the making of the album in Guitar World's interview with David Gilmour.

“I honestly haven't used the [Electro-Harmonix] Big Muff [fuzz pedal] since 1993. For anybody interested, the Big Muff takes square waves and makes the guitar almost sound like a synth. If you want to get that sound without a fuzz, use equipment that gets that square-wave sound, but with more clarity.

“But on 95 percent of what you hear on the [Smashing Pumpkins'} new album [Aghori Mhori Mei], there are no pedals. I only get the pedals out if I need a special effect for a part or if I’m going to play a lead. Then I open the vault and pull stuff out. There are so many manufacturers now. If you want a Klon [overdrive], there’s 800 Klon pedals, you know?

“I don’t use that many pedals anymore, but I use them live to recapture some of the stuff on the records. For octave stuff, I’m using the Behringer Octave Divider, which is based on the old Mu-Tron Octave Divider. I have one of the originals; I stole it from my father, and they’re worth like $1,000 now. [Laughs]

“I’m using a tape flanger, the Catalinbread Zero Point. It does that temporary zero flange, which is unique because you have to step on it to engage the flange. When you step off it, the flange reverses. And I just put an MXR Phase 90 back in my rig; of course, people from Siamese Dream times would recognize the sort of semi-flangy sound we would use on the leads for the Cherub Rock solo.”

“Next is my favorite lead pedal, the Warmdrive by Warm Audio. If you’re [in] a high-gain situation, not every pedal works because it fights against the square waves. You need a certain type of pedal that works with the fuzz of the amp, and the signature Carstens Amplification [Grace] amps I use are super high-gain.

“Because I’m so crazy and hate running my sound through my pedals if I’m playing rhythm, I use this D.Loop pedal by Lehle. It’s the lowest signal degradation out of all the bypass pedals I’ve tried. It’s a bit of a hassle because I have two loops, so I need to decide what my pedal settings are before the song starts.”

“Then, when I go to play whatever part needs the pedal on, I just pop the loop in. My signal will run through the lead sound, and I pop it back out. But for most of the show, when I’m playing rhythm, it’s as close to going straight into the amp as I can get.

“EarthQuaker Devices just put out a pedal called Time Shadows [experimental delay]. I don’t know what the hell it does, but it makes unique sounds that I’ve never heard out of a pedal.

“I also use a Strymon Brigadier [delay], and there’s a guy I’ve been working with out of Greece, the maker of Minotaur Sonic Terrors. He’s probably my favorite pedal maker, and he gave me a pedal – I don’t know if it’s commercially available – but it’s like an old-school fuzz. It’s called the Horned Sage.”

If I had to choose only one pedal for a full show...

“Something just to solo with. Right now, I’d pick that Warm Audio Warmdrive.
I just love it; it’s fantastic.”

• Aghori Mhori Mei is out now via Martha's Music.

Getting to jam with Tony Iommi would be a mind-blowing experience at any age, let alone at 13, but that was Alfie Glass’ introduction into the world of rock ’n’ roll. With an Epiphone ES-339 in hand, he was a standout on Sky Arts’ Guitar Star, which saw him championed by the godfather of heavy metal and record at Abbey Road.

“It was nuts,” he reflects. Yet he isn’t the type to revel in the moment. “It made me realise that I needed a band, and that being a flashy guitar player isn’t everything. People are more interested in a show and you don’t need to be the best guitar player in the world to do that.”

Torus, his resultant band, channels his love for Kyuss and early QOTSA, with Josh Homme’s “weird guitar playing” and groove-orientated songwriting proving a major influence.

“I got really obsessed with fuzz when I got into stoner rock,” Glass admits, “I’d never heard a sound like it before.”

Despite that, though, he says “everything in my life seems to go back to AC/DC. I grew up worshipping Let There Be Rock. I saved up for an Epiphone SG, I think subconsciously because of Angus Young, and the band definitely has the AC/DC formula – everything’s in the right place, and that’s why it feels good. We go for a bold, no-bullshit rock sound.”

Glass tunes his SG to C standard and plugs into a Vox AC30: “It’s valve amps all the way for me.” A Fulltone OCD, stolen from his dad – Solstice guitarist, Andy Glass – and Green Russian Big Muff fuzz add some grit.

Glass favours a Vox wah pedal as a lowpass filter for intros, while an EHX Freeze, Belcat Chorus and T-Rex Quint octaver round out a simple setup that embodies the no-nonsense spirit of the band.

“We want to write songs with proper grooves that stay in your brain,” he concludes, “and I think we’ve achieved that.” They have. Torus’ self-titled debut LP is a meaty stew of hairy stoner riffs and beats so solid you could build skyscrapers on them. It comes after a fractious few years – but going through some hardship made Torus even tighter.

“We’re a lot stronger because of it,” says Alfie. “Now the band is everything I’ve always wanted it to be. We’re only just getting started.”

• Torus is out now via MNRK UK.

JHS Pedals has lifted the curtain on the Flight Delay – a no-nonsense delay pedal that takes pride in delivering three delay effects from the comfort of an easy-to-use stompbox.

The Flight Delay has been positioned as a stompbox that provides “everything you need in a delay and nothing you don’t”, taking a trio of hugely popular delay effects and making them impressively accessible through a simple form factor.

In unveiling the Flight Delay, JHS has taken the opportunity to highlight the pedal’s usability. In a market full of complex stompboxes that offer third-party app control compatibility, menu deep-diving and more – which can sometimes get in the way of actually using the pedal – this unit instead opts for a traditional layout that offers no barriers to entry.

Indeed, you’d need only glance at contemporary delay pedals produced by the likes of Boss and Strymon to understand JHS’ point.

By comparison, the Flight Delay is a throwback to frills-free delays of yesteryears. It has three toggles, six control knobs and two footswitches to conjure up its own array of delay tones.

The central toggle switches between Analog, Reverse and Digital effects modes, which are inspired by the EHX Memory Man, Boss DD-5 and Line 6 DL4 ‘Reverse Mode’. These are controlled via Mix, Repeats and a clever EQ control, as well as a Time parameter that works alongside a three-way subdivision toggle.

Mod Rate and Mod Depth knobs, meanwhile, are in charge of the onboard modulation effects, of which there are two: chorus and vibrato. These can be engaged, or turned off entirely, using the third and final toggle switch.

Other appointments include a tap tempo footswitch that sits next to the bypass control, and a Trails Bypass mode that allows the delay trails to continue repeating after the pedal is bypassed.

Standard I/Os, and an expression/tap jack for controlling the delay time or tap tempo with external pedals, can be found in the top of the Flight Delay.

“It’s based on vintage delays that I’ve always loved,” says JHS founder Josh Scott. “It’s the culmination of me making delay pedals for 10 years, and wanting to make myself the perfect delay.

“There are amazing digital delays that do so many things, from MIDI, to screens, menu diving, all kinds of stuff. But when it comes to playing an actual gig, that’s not something I’m going to gravitate towards and I believe that many of you are the same way.

“The goal of the Flight Delay is to give you all that you want and all that you need with easy access to sounds almost immediately.”

The Flight Delay is available now – in White and Blue colorways – for $249.

Visit JHS Pedals to find out more.

In a recent interview with Guitar World, Scott discussed how he managed to build his pedal empire... by recommending his competitors.

Last year’s Lizard Queen pedal – a collaboration between Electro-Harmonix and Josh Scott of JHS Pedals – was sort of a mashed-up combo of old DIY circuits with its own unique character.

As the pedal caught on with adventurous bass players, EHX decided to further enhance the effect for low end specialists, and the result is the new Lizard King Octave Distortion.

Delivering massive tones that obliterate, like Godzilla bouncing the bullet train to oblivion, the Lizard King is certain to please the most aggressive, distortion-loving bassists. However, guitarists are equally well served by its truly distinctive tones that hit many ideal sweet spots.

Whereas most octave-up fuzz effects for guitarists sound like squealing mosquitoes in a bottle, the Lizard King produces a gut-punching effect that is the guitar equivalent of the mighty roar of Toho and Legendary’s King of the Monsters.

Although the Lizard King shares a few features with the Lizard Queen, it’s more of a reboot than a sequel, featuring an updated circuit optimized for bass guitar and a wider selection of controls for tweaking a bigger palette of sounds with greater precision.

In addition to Volume and Octave knobs – the latter now dialing in more intense octave up effects when adjusted clockwise past 12 o’clock or providing deeper growl when twisted counterclockwise – the pedal also has a Blend knob for adjusting the mix between dry and effected signals.

There there’s a Tone knob that provides full frequency response at maximum and rolls off high frequencies as it’s turned down, and a Sun/Shadow micro toggle switch that boosts the fuzz effect’s mids while scooping mids from the dry signal in the Sun setting while providing an unadulterated, tight fuzz effect in the Shadow setting.

The Lizard King is a bass fuzz enthusiast’s dream come true, delivering beefy, organic-sounding octave fuzz effects that are like a modernized Maestro Bass Brassmaster with a technicolor/surround-sound upgrade.

I find it equally tantalizing with guitar, especially if you’re looking for octave-up fuzz effects with more voluptuous body and sweeter upper register overtones without the usual strident, piercing qualities.

The fuzz/octave effects sound great when cranked through an amp dialed to a clean setting, but they also admirably hold their ground as you crank up the gain and distortion, producing delightfully gnarly tones with an expanded bass and treble range while maintaining excellent definition and clarity. Best of all, it sounds completely unlike any other fuzz and/or octave effect out there.

Specs

• PRICE: $129 / £119
• TYPE: Bass octave fuzz
• CONTROLS: Volume, Octave, Blend, Tone, Sun/Shadow voice switch
• BYPASS: True bypass
• POWER: 9V DC or battery (included), current draw 8mA
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

The preceding quote is the introduction to Charles Dickens’ immortal classic A Tale of Two Cities, set in Paris and London around the time of the French Revolution, but it’s also a pretty damn accurate description of the state of the guitar industry during the ’70s.

That decade is commonly disparaged as a depressing era when the industry’s leading manufacturers produced some of their worst guitar models, which is not entirely untrue, but it also was an auspicious period when exciting new guitar companies emerged and amp and effect technology rapidly advanced.

The decline of America’s biggest guitar companies during the ’70s was essentially a hangover from the over-ambitious reaction to the Beatlemania-inspired guitar boom of the ’60s. Hoping to cash in on the phenomenon, major corporations purchased America’s biggest guitar companies, with CBS buying Fender, Norlin purchasing Gibson and Baldwin taking over Gretsch.

Although the electric guitar remained massively popular during the ’70s, sales dropped rather steeply from the staggering heights of the ’60s peak. In typical corporate fashion, management typically believed that the accounting department’s cost-cutting measures were a more effective means of maximizing profits than investments in better materials, tools and craftsmanship, and quality took a hit as a result.

That isn’t to say that the instruments Fender, Gibson, Gretsch and others were making during the ’70s were actually bad. Many players who own ’70s guitars from these companies can attest that the majority are decent, playable instruments.

The problem was that distinctly superior instruments from the Fifties and ’60s preceded them by only a few years, so the quality drop-off was much more dramatic and noticeable in comparison. The much higher cost of a new instrument during the ’70s (even when adjusted for inflation) further increased musicians’ frustrations.

The silver lining of the backlash to corporate mass-produced ’70s guitars is that it opened up and nurtured numerous other avenues that offered players compelling alternatives to the status quo. Smaller independent companies emerged that proved that you still could make a guitar like they used to and even improve it.

Japanese manufacturers progressed rapidly from building quirky oddball guitars during the ’60s to producing affordable copies of classic guitars that were surprisingly good during the early and mid ’70s and developing their own original models built with passion and pride in the late ’70s.

The vintage-guitar market rapidly blossomed as guitarists became more knowledgeable and discerning, and replacement pickup, body, neck and parts manufacturers offered convenient and affordable means for players to upgrade their instrument or even build one themselves.

For the most part, the only products that experienced dramatic drops in quality were guitars. Electronic gear like amps and effects improved in general, and most innovations in these areas were developed with players’ wants and needs predominantly in mind.

Rapid advancements in integrated circuit technology led to inexpensive, compact effects like flangers and analog delays, and amp designers finally accepted overdrive and distortion as qualities to embrace rather than eradicate.

Thanks to the abundance of guitar-dominated music that prevailed during the ’70s, gear from that era continues to hold a special place in the hearts of guitarists today. Here is a look at some of the finest examples along with a few admittedly flawed specimens that still manage to charm us after all these years.

Guitars

Major-Manufacturer Beauties and Blunders

Gibson’s age-old motto was “Only a Gibson is good enough,” but during the ’70s that seemed to change to, “It’s good enough, ship it anyway.” The downsides of the corporate takeover of the industry’s leading guitar companies during the ’60s went into full effect during the ’70s as shareholders and cost-cutting took precedence over players and quality.

Some factors were beyond the companies’ control, like the scarcity of Brazilian rosewood after Brazil ceased export of the tone wood in 1967, which caused the price to increase and supply to dwindle, making less-costly Indian rosewood a new standard tone wood.

But the big companies also tended not to leave well enough alone, making many design and construction changes that were often unnecessary, puzzling and unwelcome – features like multi-layered or patchwork multi-piece bodies that seemed to be as much glue as wood, overall weights that tipped the scales at 10 lbs. or more, low-quality or non-optimal electronics, cheap cast hardware, inferior tuners that slipped, heavily applied polyester finishes and so on.

Many bolt-on-neck Fenders suffered from haphazardly cut neck pockets with gaps that were large enough to easily slide a heavy gauge pick into. Gibson guitars often had useful features that guitarists generally didn’t want or understand, like neck volutes, the TP-6 stop tailpiece with fine tuners and the oversized “harmonica” bridge, which weren’t actually bad but were just different.

At the same time, a sort of if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em mentality inspired Fender to offer guitars with humbuckers and Gibson to start producing instruments with bolt-on necks and 25 ½-inch scale lengths.

Meanwhile, Gretsch decided to completely change the design of every guitar they made, which ranged from the decent (the 7594 and 7593 White Falcons, the 7670 Country Gentleman) to the hideous (the Roc Jet, TK300 and Committee, which actually seemed to be designed by a committee).

But like the winner of an ugly-dog contest, many of these models have found loving homes today. Some designs, like the Gibson RD Artist and Fender Lead series, were ahead of their time or simply too different from the classics to make an impression on players with staunchly conservative tastes.

Although luminaries like Ted McCarty and Leo Fender had left Gibson and Fender, respectively, before the ’70s, talented, visionary inventors were still employed by these companies, like electronics whiz Bob Moog at Gibson and legendary pickup designer Seth Lover at Fender.

Rise of the Vintage Guitar Market

In collector vernacular, a vintage item is usually something that is at least 20 years old. The irony of the vintage guitar market is that when it started to gain momentum in the early ’70s, the most highly coveted electric guitar models from the Fifties were barely in their mid-teens and technically were “used” guitars.

But thanks to high-profile dealers like GTR and Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Norman’s Rare Guitars in Los Angeles and Mandolin Brothers, Matt Umanov Guitars and We Buy Guitars in New York, as well as a growing number of smaller dealers across the United States, the word “vintage” that they used to market classic instruments resonated with guitarists (although does anybody today refer to instruments from the ’90s as vintage?).

Numerous factors influenced a growing demand for vintage guitars during the ’70s, but the main driving force was the comparative decline in quality of new instruments as described above.

Ian Hunter’s entertaining and illuminating book Diary of a Rock’n’Roll Star also helped spark the vintage guitar fire during the early ’70s through his accounts of roaming pawn shops across the U.S. in search of classic American guitars and oddities while on tour with Mott the Hoople.

Rick Nielsen played a similar outsize role in stimulating vintage hoarding lust during the late ’70s, appearing on stage with Cheap Trick with row upon row of dazzling vintage and custom guitars on stands perched in front of his amp stacks.

In fact, vintage guitars were a common sight for concert goers during the ’70s. Jimmy Page, Billy Gibbons, Joe Walsh, Joe Perry, Gary Rossington, Ronnie Montrose, Charlie Daniels and Gary Richrath were just a few of the main players who fanned the fire for flame-top 1958-60 Gibson Les Paul Standards.

Peter Frampton’s triple-humbucker 1954 Les Paul Custom, Neil Young’s “Old Black” and Jeff Beck’s “Oxblood” Les Pauls may have been heavily modified, but they inspired lust for black Gibsons. Clapton with his trusty Fifties “Brownie” and “Blackie” Strats and Rory Gallagher with his battered rosewood neck 1961 Strat helped make “pre-CBS” a household word with guitarists.

Although 1958-60 sunburst Les Paul Standards soared to prices starting at $2,000 and up during the ’70s, most classic Fender, Gibson and Gretsch guitars from the ’50s and ’60s, including Les Paul Specials and Juniors, SGs, non-reverse Firebirds, Strats, Teles, Jazzmasters, Jaguars, Duo-Jets and 6120s, cost about the same or even less than a comparable brand-new guitar.

Custom Competition

The less-than-stellar reputations of factory guitars from major manufacturers during the ’70s opened up an opportunity for a new breed of custom guitar builders who could provide a higher standard of quality for customers willing to spend a little more for an instrument.

B.C. Rich, Dean and Hamer were the most prominent and successful small companies that emerged during this time to fill that void. All three companies shared high standards of craftsmanship and attention to detail while also offering bold, aggressive designs that appealed to hard rock players.

Located in the greater Chicago area only a few hours drive from Gibson’s factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Hamer and Dean both built guitars that were essentially copies of Gibson’s Explorer (Hamer Standard/Dean Z) and Flying V (Hamer Vector/Dean V) models but using higher-quality materials.

Hamer also made the Sunburst model, which essentially was a double cutaway Les Paul with a flat top, while Dean also produced the ML and Cadillac, which were like a hybrid of an Explorer and a V or an Explorer and a Les Paul, respectively.

B.C. Rich offered original designs such as the Eagle, Mockingbird and Bich with features like neck-thru-body construction, built-in preamps and advanced switching options.

All three companies built instruments for an impressive roster of high-profile artists, and the exposure and ensuing demand helped them expand their offerings to include less expensive production models by the late ’70s.

Japanese Imports

A growing influx of affordable electric guitars built in Japan arrived in the United States where they were promptly welcomed by players looking for alternative instruments. Manufacturers like FujiGen Gakki, Matsumoku and Tokai Gakki gained a foothold by offering models that were copies of vintage and current Fender, Gibson and other popular American guitar models, sold under various brand names like Aria, Ibanez and Tokai.

The irony was that some of these companies like Matsumoku were also making budget models for American brands like Epiphone at the same time, which were not as highly regarded as their copy models.

Ibanez was the biggest success story of this development. The quality of Ibanez-brand copies increased each year as their craftsmen meticulously studied every fine detail of vintage examples. Fujigen’s Les Paul copies quickly progressed from clunky bolt-on neck designs to set-in necks with long tenons like Gibson made during the ’50s.

Ibanez’s mid-’70s “korina” trio (actually made from Japanese Sen and finished with yellow hue that resembled korina) of Destroyer (Explorer), Rocket Roll Sr. (Flying V) and Future (their rendition of the mythical Moderne) looked cool, played well and sounded great, and – best of all – cost about the same as Gibson’s homely entry-level models.

These Japanese copies had gotten so good that the American companies pushed back by filing copyright infringement lawsuits, but Ibanez in particular was already one step ahead of them and was transitioning to their own original models by then. Ibanez’s Artist, Iceman and Musician models produced during the late ’70s were quite impressive thanks to all the knowhow they absorbed from studying the classics.

Acoustic Avenues

Although the C.F. Martin guitar company did not get snapped up by corporate ownership like most other large guitar companies during this era, they also experienced similar lapses in quality control during the ’70s.

More than any other company, Martin suffered the most when Brazil stopped exporting Brazilian rosewood in 1967 and they were forced to transition to Indian rosewood by 1969 when their supply ran out. However, the change to Indian rosewood was less of a problem than the increasingly heavy-handed building processes that Martin was using at the time.

Martin’s management determined that they were losing too much money from warranty claims, so they began building guitars with thicker braces and tops, heavier, more durable finishes and clunky necks.

The guitars were so overbuilt that you could probably use them as baseball bats without damaging them, but the sound quality was adversely affected. Just like with the electric guitar market, this led to increased interest in vintage Martins as well as an influx of low-cost Japanese copies.

Takamine made a huge splash with low-priced copies of Martin’s D-18 and D-28 dreadnoughts, and Alvarez-Yairi made higher-end copies for players who didn’t mind spending a little more. Yamaha also increased its market share significantly during this time thanks to aggressive distribution efforts.

It wasn’t all bad news for American-made acoustics though. Guild continued to make good instruments throughout the decade, and their 12-string models from the ’70s in particular are highly regarded.

Ovation introduced its first models during the ’60s, but the brand truly came to prominence during the ’70s as Ovation and their offshoot Adamas brand acoustic-electrics became common fixtures on concert stages.

Parts Is Parts

If you couldn’t afford a custom guitar from Hamer or B.C. Rich and didn’t want a Japanese import, another appealing alternative for guitarists was to build their own instruments using pre-made bodies and necks and upgraded replacement parts that had started appearing on the market.

This approach got a huge boost when Eddie Van Halen burst onto the scene in 1978 playing a black and white striped custom Strat that he cobbled together from scrapped parts and a neck and body that cost him less than $200. Boogie Bodies, Charvel, DiMarzio and Schecter were the leading sources for DIY guitar builders who wanted to make their own custom hot rods or upgrade their factory instruments.

Amps

High-Gain Heroes

Randall Smith’s Mesa Boogie amps featuring a revolutionary cascaded high-gain preamp design forever changed the guitar amp industry. The Mesa Boogie Mark I amp introduced during the early ’70s gave guitarists greatly expanded control of overdrive and saturation over a wide range of volume levels ideal for small venues and recording studios to large concert stages.

The tones of the Mark I were thick, luscious and sweet, providing a vast tonal palette, thanks to its reactive tone controls and optional 5-band graphic EQ and delivering a musical expressiveness that slayed the competition. The Mark II model introduced during the late ’70s was the first production amp to offer channel switching, paving the path for today’s multi-channel high-gain amps.

Master of Volume

By the dawn of the ’70s, Marshall’s 50- and 100-watt heads had become the standard for distorted hard rock guitar tone. The problem was that these amps could only achieve those desirable tones with the volume turned up to excruciating levels.

The introduction of the 100-watt Marshall 2203 and 50-watt Marshall 2204 heads featuring master volume controls provided a very attractive solution to this dilemma.

Although the quality of the distorted tone wasn’t quite the same as that of a fully cranked non-master volume Marshall, it still sounded very good and some players even preferred it. Hard rock got a lot crunchier and grittier during the late ’70s, and these Marshall master volume amps played a big role in that.

Solid-State Survivors

Solid-state amps had a bad reputation during the ’70s mainly due to the failures of early models developed by Fender, Standel and a few other companies during the ’60s. However, amp engineers persevered and by the ’70s a variety of solid-state amps that actually sounded good made their way to the market.

Standouts from this period include Gibson/Norlin’s Lab Series, which Dan Pearce designed with help from synth pioneer Bob Moog (who also developed the active electronics for Gibson’s RD guitars and various Maestro pedals). A Lab Series L5 became B.B. King’s amp of choice from the late ’70s though the end of his career, and a Lab Series was Elliot Easton’s main amp on the Cars’ debut album.

The Roland JC-120 came out in 1975 and still remains in production today. Its crystalline clean tone and hypnotic “stereo” chorus effects set a standard for solid-state tone that no competitor has ever really matched. Another noteworthy solid-state amp from the ’70s is the Acoustic 270, which was used by Frank Zappa and Pete Townshend.

Pignose 7-100

Although walls of stacked amplifiers ruled the concert stage during the ’70s, many guitarists used much smaller amps in the recording studio. One favorite secret weapon during this period was the tiny Pignose 7-100, powered by six AA batteries and delivering five watts of output to its five-inch speaker.

The Pignose can be heard on classic tunes that include Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way and Eric Clapton’s Motherless Children, and Michael Schenker prominently used a Pignose to record crunchy rhythm tracks and brassy, horn-like lead tones on several of UFO’s late-’70s albums.

Effects

Pedal Mania

Some cool stuff was happening during the ’70s in guitar and amp design, but the real action was taking place in the realm of stomp box effects.

Whereas pedal effects during the ’60s were mostly limited to fuzz boxes, treble boosters, wah pedals and the Uni-Vibe, a vast new range of effects became available during the ’70s, including phase shifters, flangers, chorus, analog delay, compression, EQ, envelope filters, octave dividers, ring modulators and more.

Dozens of new companies dedicated to building effects devices were established during this period, which greatly expanded the growth of the musical instrument industry.

Leading companies from this period included Coloursound, DOD, Electro-Harmonix, Foxx, Ibanez, Maestro, Morley, Mu-Tron, MXR, Roland/Boss, Ross, Seamoon-A/DA and Tycobrahe.

There are too many standouts to list completely here, but products of note include distortion boxes like the EHX Big Muff Pi and MXR Distortion +, early flangers (A/DA, MXR and EHX Electric Mistress), the Mu-Tron III envelope filter and mammoth Bi-Phase, the Boss CE-1 and CE-2 Chorus and the first Boss compact pedals (OD-1 Overdrive, PH-1 Phaser and SP-1 Spectrum), the MXR Phase 90 and Dyna Comp, Foxx Tone Machine... too much good stuff.

Talk Ain’t Cheap

Any discussion of guitar effects during the ’70s would be remiss to omit the talk box. The sound of guitarists bleating and barfing through their talk box tubes was heard on countless hits during this era, from Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way in 1973 through Jeff Beck’s She’s a Woman, Frampton Comes Alive!, Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion and Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog in the mid ’70s, full circle to Joe Walsh with the Eagles on Those Shoes in 1979.

Devices like Kustom’s “The Bag,” the Heil Talk Box, Dean Markley Voice Box and Electro-Harmonix Golden Throat made this effect accessible to the masses, but it didn’t really catch on beyond professional stages and studios due to the complex setup and requisite commitment.

Tape Echo

Stand-alone tape echo units were available throughout the ’60s, but the effect really didn’t catch on until the ’70s as the capabilities of units produced then had greatly expanded. The game-changer was the Maestro EP-3 Echoplex, a solid-state unit that offered a sound-on-sound mode that provided cool looping and layering effects, such as the effects created by Brian May on Queen’s Brighton Rock. The EP-3 was relatively road-worthy and reliable, and soon it became a fixture in many performing guitarists’ rigs.

Roland offered worthy competition to the Echoplex with its Space Echo series tape delay units. Many players found the sound quality of the Space Echo delay effects more refined and polished, and Space Echo models with built-in reverb became a de rigueur studio tool for dub producers in Jamaica. The Space Echo can also create trippy psychedelic pitch bend effects when the speed control is manipulated.

EBow

In 1976 Heet Sound introduced the EBow, an unusual hand-held magnetic string driver that produces infinite string vibration (at least until the battery wears down or the user’s wrist goes numb) to mimic bowed strings, horns, woodwinds, synths, elephants, seagulls and angry wives.

In some ways it’s an instrument all unto itself, which explains why Heet Sound never stopped making the things. The EBow is a cheap, fun and creatively inspiring device – something that all guitarists can use more often than not. Buck Dharma used one on (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, and you really can’t get more ’70s than that without a mustache and white satin jumpsuit.

Accessories

Replacement Pickups

One of guitarists’ biggest beefs about guitars made by Fender and Gibson during the ’70s was that the pickups either didn’t have the sonic richness and expressiveness of vintage pickups or the output was too weak.

DiMarzio was one of the first companies to address this concern by offering their vintage-voiced PAF and high-output Super Distortion humbuckers and Fat Strat, SDS-1 and Pre-BS Tele single coils. Seymour Duncan made pickups for Mighty Mite before setting up shop under his own name, and Bill Lawrence made pickups that were used by Joe Perry and Brad Whitford with Aerosmith.

Red Rhodes’ Velvet Hammer pickups also enjoyed a devoted cult following. These pickups offered an inexpensive and effective means for significantly improving a guitar’s tone, something guitarists truly needed during the ’70s.

Strobe Tuners

In this day and age where one can download a chromatic tuner for free as a phone app, it’s hard to imagine how guitarists coped with primitive devices like tuning forks and pitch pipes to tune their instruments. Strobe tuners existed before the ’70s, but they were bulky, expensive tube-driven beasts that weren’t especially convenient for bands playing at Mom’s Beer and Boobs Emporium.

Compact strobe tuners like the Conn StroboTuner ST-11 and Peterson Model 420 (heyyy, maaaan!) may have still been a bit too costly for the average garage band, but they quickly proliferated in recording studios and touring rigs, paving the way for affordable tuners that emerged during the ’80s.

Two years after their sparkling debut album, Los Bitchos are back with more luscious guitar textures and feel-good vibes with its followup, Talkie Talkie.

For guitarist Serra Petale, that meant pushing their funk disco pomp to quirky new dimensions – and never turning her chorus pedal off.

What were your go-to electric guitars for the new album?

“Most of it was on my Italia Maranello Speedster. It’s my number one, but I also used a Lag which has the most fabulous rounded but tinny sound – I just want to eat it! I also used our prouder Oli Barton Wood’s ‘Smokers Tele’. Loads of cigarette smoke has stuck to it from people chain-smoking around it, but it has the most wonderful tone.

“Then we split their signals into a Fender silverface and a Roland, which is my favourite amp in the world. The blend worked really well.”

Was the album’s ’80s aesthetic intentional?

“Many of our influences come from ’80s records. I mean, who doesn’t love Duran Duran’s bass sound, or the way on Simple Minds’ New Gold Dream, the guitars are so far back that they just become a texture? That’s very inspiring to us. But what I really enjoyed was that we had all of this new gear, so we were able to come up with bastardised versions of the ’80s sound.”

What was the standout modern gear, then?

“I used lots of EarthQuaker Devices pedals. They’re incredible vehicles for giving each song their own dimension. In Hi!, there’s a really weird, watery effect on the lead guitar in the first verse, and then a real highlife-type clean in the chorus.

“In another song, Open The Bunny, Wasting My Time, we used The Warden for a really dialled-back tone that still had a presence. It compressed the signal to give it a lift without distorting it. It’s really interesting to see where you can push and take your guitars with pedals. I really welcome that.”

What’s one pedal you can’t live without?

“One thing I won’t waver from is having a chorus effect on my clean tone. I love the underlying sadness that it gives to a guitar tone, even if you’re playing something happy. There are a lot of joyous moments on the record but I think that oscillation gives a really nice mood. It sounds human.

“At the moment I’m using an EHX Small Clone, it’s really simple. I’ve found others to be too complicated for my liking, and I want it to do one thing. The Nano Clone was my first-ever chorus and that was delightful, but it’s lost its chorus-ness now. I think I played it to death!”

And you’re a Hiwatt artist now…

“Yeah! I’ve been using a Hiwatt Custom 50 combo live all year. It’s super-powerful and it holds pedals really well. I was a Fender girl for many years, but the Hiwatt sounds wicked. I don’t need too much gain, but I still want the clean with chorus sound to hold its own. I can’t wait to take it back out on the road – we’re pumped!”

• Talkie Talkie is out now via City Slang.

Limp Bizkit guitarist and all-around gear aficionado Wes Borland has partnered with STL Tones for a new plugin suite, Tonality: Wes Borland.

The plugin pros at STL say the collaboration has successfully captured “the sonic and visual anarchy that Wes has become so renowned for”, serving up three different amps and a virtual pedalboard.

To achieve that, its most advanced hardware modeling algorithms were put to the test to trace the schematics of Borland’s most beloved – read: used and abused – amplifiers, pedals, and cabinets. The result is a careful recreation of Borland’s live rig in an affordable digital format.

The three-amp package digitizes the sonic souls of Borland's Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus, Diezel VH4 and Selmer Zodiac 50 MKII Tremolo.

The two-input channels and three-band EQs on the Roland have seen it become many a player’s preferred clean amp, and this digitized version is said to be just as transparent. Diezel’s “extremely versatile” 100-watt head, meanwhile, satisfies the heavier end of Borland’s tone-chasing thanks to four distinctly voiced preamps, all of which have independent gain, EQ, and master controls.

The amp trio is rounded out by the “chime and saturated breakup tones” of the Selmer Zodiac, which offers a nice middle ground between the transparency and grunt of its stablemates.

Five pedals are on offer here. The Big Wezz is based on Electro-Harmonix’s Big Muff fuzz pedal, the Mini Filter on EHX’s Mini Q-Tron, and the WB7 two-in-one chorus/flanger on the Ibanez CF7.

There are also two delay pedals to get suitably spacey with. The Borland Delay is based on Dunlop’s revered Echoplex tape echo, while a take on Boss’ ever-flexible DD-8 digital delay completes the one-two.

The collection of combo amps, heads, and pedals have been paired with digital repro’s of Borland’s favorite speaker cabinets, which have been measured and scrutinized to provide “the ultimate in realism and accuracy”. For good measure, and to mimic Borland’s artistry, the cabinets have been adorned with some typically weird paintings.

Five different microphones were used in 156 different positions for tireless Impulse Response captures, and they can all be adjusted within the plugin.

Tonality: Wes Borland helps to strengthen and diversify STL Tones' plugin roster. Previously, the brand has worked with producer Will Putney, Josh Middleton, and Andy James, among others.

Of why it has singled out the Limp Bizkit riff-monger for its latest Tonality plugin, STL Tones says: “Borland isn't just a guitarist; he's a living, breathing art piece, redefining what it means to be a rock star.”

The STL Tones Tonality: Wes Borland plugin costs $149, but is currently reduced to $99.

Head to STL Tones to learn more.

Of all the effects that emerged during the great stompbox explosion of the ’70s, flanger pedals were among the most coveted items. And one of the most coveted flanger pedals of this era was the A/DA Flanger, the first product developed by engineer Dave Tarnowski when his company A/DA (Analog/Digital Associates) arose from the ashes of Berkeley, California’s Seamoon Ltd.

Birthed in January 1978, the A/DA Flanger wasn’t the first flanger pedal on the market (although its Tarnowski-designed predecessor the Seamoon Studio Flanger was an early contender) but it certainly was the most advanced and sophisticated flanger pedal of the era.

The A/DA Flanger stood out from competitors like the Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress and MXR Flanger, thanks to additional controls that included a built-in noise gate with Threshold control knob, an Even/Odd Harmonics switch and input for an optional control voltage pedal that could be used to manually adjust the delay time (same function as the pedal’s Manual knob).

In addition to the Manual (delay time) knob, other controls included the standard Range (width), Speed and Enhance (resonance) controls.

The pedal’s sound quality is excellent, and it is capable of producing a much broader range of effects than most competing flangers, including deep, dramatic jet-like flanging, rich and thick chorus and vibrato, brilliant metallic textures, insane laser gun zaps, hypnotic rotating speaker-style sounds and even crazy pitch-bending auto-whammy special effects.

It was also the only flanger pedal available in the ’70s that produced effects that sounded almost identical to true tape flanging.

“When it sweeps up, it sounds like it sweeps to zero time delay,” Tarnowski told me in the mid-’90s. “It actually goes up to infinity, which is what true tape flanging sounds like.”

One reason why the A/DA Flanger was coveted is because it was very expensive, originally selling for a price equivalent to the cost of a decent entry-level guitar.

A/DA made about 50,000 units before the pedal was discontinued in 1981. A/DA produced a limited run of excellent reissues during the ’90s and resumed production in 2009 until recent years when their supply of essential bucket brigade chips ran out. In 2016 A/DA introduced the compact, pedal board-friendly PBF Flanger, which offered the same features as the full-size classic unit.

Pat Travers and Pat Thrall of the Pat Travers Band played a huge role in making the A/DA Flanger famous during the ’70s, using theirs extensively on Heat in the Street and the legendary concert album Live! Go for What You Know.

Adrian Belew had one in his rig during the early ’80s that he used to summon various unorthodox textures and animal noises with King Crimson and on his solo albums.

Paul Gilbert has used an A/DA Flanger since his days with Racer X in the ’80s, and it was the inspiration for his Ibanez Airplane Flanger. Other notable users include Page Hamilton, Jake E. Lee, J Mascis and Juan Alderete and Omar Rodríguez-López with the Mars Volta.

Original A/DA Flanger pedals as well as the reissues and PBF version have soared in price on the used market since the latest versions were discontinued a few years ago. The PastFx 80/A Flanger with an MN3007 bucket brigade chip is one of the closest contenders currently available.

Back in the late ’60s – before the Big Muff – Electro-Harmonix came up with a nifty way to boost guitar signal into a guitar amplifier with its LPB-1 Linear Power Booster, a simple one-knob, battery-powered device.

Now, the company has brought the LPB family right up to date with the much more sophisticated LPB-3, still with the same role of boosting the signal from guitar to amp, but this time with some powerful active EQ to complement the boost.

The pedal gives you the choice of two amounts of maximum boost – a thumping 33dB or less intense 20dB, which does the trick for most instances.

You set the boost by juxtaposition of two knobs – a Boost knob which sets the overall output for the pedal and a Pre-Gain knob which comes before the EQ section and sets the input gain between unity and 20dB.

To adjust the EQ, you get Treble and Bass knobs that cut or boost either side of a central notched detente position plus some parametric control of the midrange via a similar cut/boost knob, and another to set the frequency.

There are two options to set the bandwidth (Q) of the frequencies adjusted, so you can tweak a broad range of frequencies or zero-in on a narrower, peakier area.

Leaving all the cut/boost knobs at their neutral position, you can dial in a potent boost that’s pretty transparent, but you can also set the pedal so you get no boost but can use it purely for tonal tweaking.

While the EQ has the potential to get really extreme, a little goes a long way, like a touch of treble for a sparkly sheen or a midrange scoop to make a mid-forward amp more Fender-like.

The potential, though, for targeted boost with a dialled-in combination of boost and EQ may be the pedal’s greatest asset, with the likes of a decent amount of pre-gain combined with an upper midrange boost delivering some Tube Screamer-style lift-off for solos.

Whether permanently engaged as a tone conditioner or set to change things up when needed, the LPB-3 is a versatile boost pedal that can shape your entire tone.

Specs

• PRICE: $/£129
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Boost and EQ pedal
• FEATURES: Selectable Buffered / True Bypass
• CONTROLS: Boost, Pre-Gain, Bass, Mid Level, Mid Frequency, Treble, Max switch, Q switch, internal bypass mode switch, Bypass footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: standard input, standard output
• POWER: Supplied 9V adaptor 120mA
• DIMENSIONS: 111 (d) x 67 (w) x 50 mm (h)
• CONTACT: Electro-Harmonix

On second album Home In Another Life, American alt-rock quartet Enumclaw are dissecting life through a cornucopia of molten fuzz and squealing feedback, blending elements of dream pop and grunge into their own heady formula.

For singer/guitarist Aramis Johnson and co-guitarist Nathan Cornell, it’s a case of cranking their amps and letting the pedals guide them through the noise, through all kinds of washy modulations and ambient echoes into full-blown chaos.

“I guess the main secret behind those classic grunge sounds is that they were loud,” says Nathan. “You need a high-volume amp that has the room to let something like a Big Muff do its thing without disappearing. Dinosaur Jr. have a tone that felt like it was going off the rails. J Mascis is the king of fuzz! We love that era of music, from Stone Gossard’s rhythms in Pearl Jam to the groove in Kim Thayil’s parts for Soundgarden.”

For the latest recordings, the group’s fuzz pedal of choice was the Electro-Harmonix Op Amp Big Muff PI – a reissue of the legendary stompbox used by Billy Corgan and James Iha on The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1993 masterpiece Siamese Dream.

If you listen to the results, particularly tracks like I’m Scared I’ll End Up All Alone, Spots and Change, you will probably realise that this was no accident. “We’re heavily influenced by the Pumpkins – they’re pretty much Aramis’ favourite band,” continues Nathan.

“We also had a JHS 3 Series Distortion, which is kinda like a modded Rat, a Boss CE-2 for chorus and an Electro-Harmonix Nano Deluxe Memory Man, though our engineer used a real tape delay on a couple of things.

“I’ve actually stopped using Big Muffs live after swapping in a Boss Power Driver. A lot of people don’t seem to like them, but I love mine. It’s like a Big Muff with more midrange to help you cut through at louder volumes.”

Interestingly, the group chose to stick with instruments that were lying around in the studio rather than any guitars belonging to them. Instead of his usual Epiphones, Nathan ended up using a Fano Starcaster-style semi-hollow (“a really cool-sounding guitar with nice Filter’Tron pickups and a vibrato arm on it”) as well as a Telecaster.

And despite the unfamiliarity of it all, both guitarists ended up feeling the latest tones are the best they’ve dialled in to date. “I love how Spots came out,” adds Nathan. “There’s a big difference between the verses and heavy choruses, and we messed with the tape echo to create all this crazy warbly Sonic Youth-type stuff.”

• Home In Another Life is out now via Run For Cover.

Electro-Harmonix has launched the third generation of its POG Polyphonic Octave Generator, the POG3, which brings a wealth of new features to the format.

EHX appears to have put usability at the forefront of the new release, with a new triple-footswitch chassis offering instant access to preset switching, paired with a neat 128x32 graphic OLED display, plus illuminated side pots and buttons.

The trademark POG sliders return here, but a new +5TH voice has been added, alongside the existing -2 OCT, -1 OCT, +5TH, +1 OCT, +2OCT.

In a nod to guitarists and bassists who use the POG to split their signal and mimic an instrument outside their regular range – cough, Royal Blood, cough – there are now three 1/4" outputs onboard (left, right, direct out), plus pan controls to split different octave voices between the stereo outs.

The pedal can also be used for drop tuning via the Warp mode, which allows players to drop or raise their pitch to any note over a two-octave span, while there’s even a freeze mode for soloing over a pad.

Features from EHX’s all-powerful HOG also make an appearance, including a Gliss mode for synthy transitions between chords.

Other additions include control for Input Gain, a Master Volume, a Focus control for +1 OCT and +2 OCT, plus a Multimode Filter with Q and Envelope sweep.

All controls can be saved to any of 100 onboard presets and tweaked via an expression pedal or MIDI (so, yes, you can mimic a Whammy pedal), while a USB-C port allows you to interface with the company’s new EHXport app for preset management and editing.

Launched in 2005, the original POG was one of the very first polyphonic octave pedals ever – ie, it could track more than one note at one time, allowing guitarists to play full chords without the pedal glitching out like rival pitch-shifting pedals of the time.

At the time of its launch, Joe Satriani and Jack White were so inspired by the new box, they raced to become the first to use it on record, with the White Stripes’ Blue Orchid just pipping Satch’s Super Colossal to the post.

The POG3 is perhaps the most premium EHX pedal we’ve yet seen, and could mark a brave new premium future for one of guitar effects’ most storied companies.

Plus, with features cribbed from the HOG, Freeze and Pitch Fork, the POG3 is something of a greatest hits for the firm.

Accordingly, it’s got a serious price tag: $645, including 9V power supply. By our reckoning, that makes it the most expensive pitch-shifter on the market, and one of EHX’s priciest launches ever – but it’s also one of the most versatile.

With that in mind, we can’t help but wonder if some of these features will trickle down to new Micro and Nano POGs in the not-too-distant future…

For now, you can get more information on the POG3 over at EHX.

After securing the sought-after support slot on St. Vincent’s All Born Screaming tour in the UK and Europe earlier this summer, Heartworms’ post-punk powered ascent to prominence appears to be in full swing.

While the name might suggest a collective, Heartworms is in fact the solo project of guitarist, singer, arranger, performer, theremin sorcerer and dramatic onstage death-stare specialist, Jojo Orme.

Raised in a sleepy Cotswolds town where her talent went unrecognized by peers, her unique vision received its first major endorsement in 2022 when she was picked up by Speedy Wunderground, the taste-making label that first introduced us to black midi, Squid and Black Country, New Road.

She recently launched Jacked – an intensely jarring banger of a single – and reports that the writing of her debut album is done and dusted, with sights set on an early 2025 for its release.

Whether it’s tight, driving synths that descend into cacophony, vocals that morph from a whisper into a scream, or a catchy guitar hook that gets downright flirtatious with tonal dissonance, Orme’s creative spirit seems to feed off of putting herself and the listener on edge.

“I don’t know what I’m trying to portray, but I know it’s always going to be uncomfortable and vulnerable,” she says. “I might write a riff, then write another one on top. I don’t think about what I’m doing – I just know that it makes me feel weird.”

The same applies to tone: Orme is a big fan of pedal combinations that include the ProCo RAT for distortion, Boss’s RE-2 Space Echo and the Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Max for its reverse reverb setting. It’s worth giving EP track 24 Hours a listen for the particularly cool “synthy distorted sound” she gets from pairing a Nano Big Muff with one of Dreadbox’s Komorebi BBD Chorus Flanger pedals.

Self-taught and self-motivated, Orme’s experimental approach comes from a mixed bag of influences from Ben Howard to Prince, Mac DeMarco to Interpol and stacks more. It began when, as a 12 year-old, she found herself grounded for an entire year, unable to see friends or access social media.

To stave off the boredom, she borrowed a nylon-string acoustic from her brother and taught herself the ropes. She says her “independent mindset” and a fraught relationship with her mother drove her into the foster care system at 14, before she took up residence at the local YMCA as a 16 year-old.

“It was very constrained and difficult to be myself at home; moving out was the way I could pursue what I wanted,” she explains. “The only downfall about growing up on your own and having to make your own rules is that you don’t really understand how to regulate certain emotions and problems in your life – you’re dealing with them as a child, and trying to be an adult at the same time.”

She channeled that turbulence into music, busking with an electro-acoustic guitar and a mini Vox amp to pay her rent. Her passion for playing grew, but, as one of the only female students on her production and performance course at college, she felt compeled to hide it.

“I was never really openly showing that I wanted to play,” says Orme. “I’d play, but I’d never be like, ‘Look at me! I can play guitar!’ because I was always afraid that guys would be…” she trails off, giving a tell-tale eye roll, before letting out a slight laugh.

“I discovered for the first time what a Gibson Les Paul was at college,” she recalls, by way of example. “There was a guy who used to bring his in, show it off and tell people not to touch it because it was too expensive…”

Fast-forward to 2024 and Orme’s just been presented with a Les Paul Standard by Gibson. To suit her military-goth aesthetic, she’s ditched the cream scratchplate, making it a sleek, all-black affair.

She’s already taken the six-string for a spin in front of a full house at London’s Royal Albert Hall, after being selected to open the show for the “very mysterious” yet “lovely human being” that is Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, aka reigning queen of the alternative guitar world.

They do say that success is the best revenge, don’t they?

• Heartworms kicks off a UK tour including festival appearances on July 11.

Source Audio has dropped the Artifakt – an all-in-one delay, reverb, bitcrusher, and everything-in-between effects pedal that promises to be the only lo-fi stompbox you’ll ever need.

Lo-fi guitar tones have become incredibly popular over the past few years ever since the ‘lo-fi beats boom’ of the late 2010s. Heck, even Eric Clapton is a self-professed fan of lo-fi guitar, having recently singled out experimental indie artist Mk.gee as one of his favorite new players.

As such, many pedal makers are attempting to deliver high-tech solutions to sounding as low-tech as possible. In other words, create pedals that can make your guitar sound hazy, scratchy, wobbly and broken, without actually breaking any of your gear.

Chase Bliss’s Lossy is a prime example, as is EHX’s Mainframe bit-crusher. Now, Source Audio has thrown the Artifakt into the mix.

It’s humble in size and layout, and looks like a number of existing units that cater to low-fidelity effects, but Source Audio stresses the Artifakt is very much “the first pedal of its kind” capable of a suite of appropriate sounds.

Such sounds range from old vinyl replications, tape modulation and saturation, bit crushing, sample rate reduction, dark reverb and echo, filtering, compression, glitch, radio static, primitive echoes and more.

To access all the above, there’s a central dial control that moves between the seven effects types, which can be further fiddled with via Vary, Mod, Mix, Filter and Destruct parameters.

It’s worth noting those effects types are inspired by some particularly popular pieces of kit, including the R-2R ladder filter, a Moog, and classic 8-bit gaming systems.

Two toggle switches to help you dive deeper into the world of lo-fi guitar tones, and some preset buttons that help navigate the 16 available slots, also make the cut.

Elsewhere, the Artifakt has MIDI compatibility that can be used to recall up to 128 presets, and a USB-C port for the Neuro 3.0 effects downloading and editing software, as well as an external expression pedal output.

Other notable appointments include active analog or true bypass, and stereo inputs and outputs.

“We discovered during the creation of Nemesis and Ventris that lo-fi is fun, sounds awesome, and we were really good at it,” explains Source Audio President Roger K. Smith. “So, we’ve spent the last three years developing the ultimate lo-fi experience.

“When we started out, we had no idea that Artifakt would become the most fun pedal we have ever created.”

The Artifakt is available now for $349.

Head over to Source Audio to find out more.

Along with Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana’s Come As You Are is routinely voted one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time – and that makes it essential learning for any guitarist.

Just two frets are required to play the riff, so it’s an ideal song for any players who have just picked up their first beginner electric guitar.

Kurt Cobain’s intro is played in D standard tuning (DGCFAD from low to high), so you’ll need to lower each string by a tone – that’s the same as two frets.

This tuning gives the guitar a darker tone, perfect for the brooding mood of the song – complemented by the use of an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus pedal.

The riff only uses a handful of notes, yet is instantly recognisable – surely the mark of a true classic. These notes outline a two-chord progression, moving from Em at the 2nd fret to D5 in open position, with the root notes appearing on the sixth string.

Remember, this is a single-note line so the chords are implied, rather than played in full. The chords are joined together with an Eb note between them. Eb doesn’t really belong to either chord, so think of it as a momentary ‘passing note’. Use ‘down up’-style alternate picking, moving your hand from the wrist.

To nail the timing, it's worth noting that the first three notes come before beat 1, and the first 2nd fret E note lands on beat 1.

Key facts

• Appears at: 0:00-0:16
• Tempo: 120bpm
• Key/scale: E minor
• Main techniques: Alternate picking / passing notes

When Electro-Harmonix and JHS joined forces for the Lizard Queen fuzz pedal last year – the pedal that Electro-Harmonix could have made in the 1970s, but didn't. And now its hair-raising fuzzy goodness has been remodeled especially for bass guitars.

The new Lizard King marks a rare offering of a bass player-specific octave fuzz pedal, expanding and optimizing the Lizard Queen’s circuit for ground-shaking low-end.

The pedal was inspired by YouTube bass titan Nate Navarro, whose demo of the original Lizard Queen demonstrated the potential of the circuit for low-end fans – although all parties involved maintain this new version works great on guitar, too.

Like the original, the Lizard King is a responsive fixed-gain fuzz pedal, with adjustments made to the bass’ volume affecting the level of fuzz it produces – or as EHX puts it, “A gnarly octave fuzz tone that musically interacts with your dynamics”.

Lower volume naturally equates to a clear-but-fuzzy overdrive, and cranking the volume pushes the gain “over the top”.

The pedal’s Volume and Octave controls do exactly what you'd expect, with the Blend knob dialing the balance between clean and fuzz tones while striving to retain the bass’ innate attack.

The final dial is for Tone, essentially a low-pass filter that rolls off the high-end as per a player’s preference. An additional Sun/Shadow switch is also in place: Sun mode boosts the octave fuzz “with a driving midrange,” with Shadow mode tightening the fuzz tone but leaving the clean untouched.

When in Sun mode, the clean tone, accessed by the Blend knob, has more bass and treble frequencies.

The pedal has true bypass switching and is powered by a standard, pedalboard-friendly 9V supply.

The EHX Lizard Queen was born from a love for the firm’s ‘70s design shared by JHS Pedals’ Josh Scott and graphic artist Daniel Danger.

It offered a musically interactive pedal, responding to player dynamics with a blendable octave sound, with the joys it brought now expanded to keepers of the low-end.

The Lizard King becomes available for public fuzz-sumption in July, and costs a not-too-outrageous $129.

Head to EHX to learn more about this bass fuzz beast.

• My pick of the best octave pedals for bass