Welcome to Guitar World’s weekly gear round-up, your one-stop-shop for keeping up to date with what’s been happening in the big wide world of guitar gear over the past seven days.
From new electric guitars to amp modeler updates, the guitar industry is never short of fresh releases, and it can sometimes be hard to stay in the loop with every new launch.
To make things a little easier, we’ve put together an essential must-read guide that will cover the major releases, the boutique drops, and everything in between.
Below you'll find my personal highlights from the week, along with plenty of honorable mentions for the new gear you might have missed. Agree with my picks? Have a highlight of your own? Let us know in the comments.
LsL Instruments Saticoy 24
This might have been the week in which we saw the future of the S-style. This precious sub-species of electric guitar was put on the endangered list this year following Fender’s global cease-and-desist campaign against brands big and small in a fight to win global copyright protections for the Stratocaster.
LsL Instruments was one of the first companies to have been revealed as receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Fender, and it has now unveiled its first design since the legal brouhaha began. It’s called the Saticoy 24, and this modified 24-fret take on the double-cut paradigm could well be a taste of things to come for the S-style.
The changes are subtle yet dramatic; longer horns, a reshaped pickguard, a flatter top and aggressive contouring on the back of the body and lower cutaway make for a smart refresh.
Look at the woods used. That camphor burl is something (though we’d love to see this in off-white with a natural back). The carved neck heel speaks to a high-performance design. Very nice.
For more: LsL Instruments
MXR/Flanger Doubler
MXR puts the M-126 rack unit into a pedal, and our first thought is Dimebag Darrell who use the unit habitually with Pantera. This was the secret sauce that thickened up Dimebag's, err, chug to give it the musculature required in a single-guitar metal band.
Disciples of the late Cowboy From Hell’s tone should consider this an essential purchase. But then are myriad other uses for the Flanger/Doubler.
All analog, this BBD-driven circuit gives you all kinds of flanger swoosh and swirl, textures that range from full and harmonically rich to hollowed-out and metallic. The control surface is faithful to the original rack unit, with that cool Invert mode for reversing the polarity of the wet signal. It can your modulation, a texture device, a tone-thickener, maybe even a slapback delay too.
And there’s a Mix knob too and a CV expression pedal input and line level switch for handling hot inputs from keyboards synths et cetera.
For more: Jim Dunlop
Martin Joe Bonamassa 00-18 and Retro Road 00-10E
Having collaborated on a $19,999 replica of his “museum-grade” 1941 000-45 in 2024, Joe Bonamassa and Martin have teamed up once again to offer another vintage-inspired doozy – and this time there’s an affordable Road series option too.
The new 00-18 is based on a 1937 pre-War model from Bonamassa’s collection, with this replicating all the detail of the dark “shade-top” finish of the original.
You’ve got mahogany on the back and sides, spruce top, and all the period-correct details, such as the Golden Era scalloped X-bracing, a splash of faux tortoiseshell on the binding, and that Old Style 18 Multi-Stripe. Just stick a lovely mic in front of it and it’s gonna sing on record.
The 00-10E comes strapped with Martin’s E-1 electronics, something that came in handy when Bonamassa was testing these guitars out. He had a gig to play and no acoustic electric guitar to hand. Oh, why not use the Martin?
“The electronics sounded great,” he says. “The first time I tested it, I had this gig in New York with Slash, and we were doing an acoustic opener. I didn't have an acoustic guitar at my house with a pickup, but Martin had just sent over these two. I was like, ‘Oh cool, it's got a pickup’, and I plugged it in. I was like, ‘Great!’”
The Mexican-made 00-10E swaps out mahogany for sapele but it’s still an all-solid build and nails the vintage look too. It’s priced $1,299. The 00-18 is priced $3,999.
For more: Martin
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Beam Splitter V2
This has been quite the week for guitarists looking for a pedal to add beef to their sound and the illusion that they have been double or, in this case, triple-tracked.
OBNE’s Beam Splitter always confused me because the premise sounded a little complicated – or rather the control surface, with all those knobs, looked complicated. But the sounds were something else. And now it has revised them, adding MIDI, presets, expression pedal control and more.
The pedal takes your guitar’s signal and triples it then runs it through three drive/distortion circuits in parallel with one another. You can then apply a delay to one or two or of the drive/distortions, then all kinds of weird effects – “flanging, chorusing or broken vibrato” – can be applied. Turn one guitar into three and then see what happens. We dare you.
For more: Old Blood Noise Endeavors
ALSO LAUNCHED THIS WEEK
New finishes for the Fender American Vintage II series
Considering the vintage guitar market has overheated to the point of inaccessibility for most working musicians, the American Vintage II range is as good as it gets.
These offer vintage-inspired Fender electric guitars and basses that are – to quote the Big F’s Justin Norvell – “a near 1:1 comparison” with their vintage counterparts, which is to say that, if you pick up a ’61 Strat, it has specs that have been reverse-engineered to sound just like that.
Well, as good as it gets just got better this week with more sweet finish options for the range. This was a Telecaster-heavy drop. There’s a Thinline in Candy Apple Red that would stop traffic, but the ’61 Strat in Surf Green and a slab rosewood fingerboard (clay dot inlays, 7.25” radius, Vintage Tall frets…) is a real work of art.
For more: Fender
Floyd Rose Original Laser-Etched Paisley Limited Edition
If ever there was a piece of aftermarket guitar hardware that could wean Brad Paisley off his regular diet of three compensated brass saddles then this would be it.
Here is a genuine chrome USA Series Original vibrato – the gold standard of double-locking vibratos IMHO – with this laser-etching that calls to mind the psychedelic era and obscure Telecaster finishes, and it deserves to be mounted on something audacious.
Nothing less than a flamingo-pink Jackson Soloist or similar. They’re only making 50 of these at $355 a pop. Come on, Brad. You must have a Tele just ripe for routing!
For more: Apple Store
Steadfast Designs Steadfast Stopbar
Okay, so the Floyd Rose is too much like jewelry, all that faff in setting it up, well, here’s an aftermarket hardware option for the Junior-style guitar in your life that promises 75 per cent faster string changes.
It’s comprised of CNC-machined, billet aluminum, available in a variety of finishes, and you load the strings in from the other way first, through the tuning peg, then through the stopbar. Done.
For more: Steadfast Designs
Fender Made in Japan Limited Japan-Inspired Collection Stratocaster
Okay, Japanophiles, set your VPNs to Tokyo, head over to Fender Japan site and take a look at this. We’ve got Hybrid Strats in Kyoto Orange, Matcha Green, Indigo Blue, Katana Silver – and a ninja-approved near-black finish with shuriken inlays.
They are all beautiful, possibly out of reach unless you get on a flight to Tokyo, and are proof once more that Fender Japan is the cutting-edge of Fender design. Quite literally with that Katana Silver model.
For more: Fender
Darkglass KosmOS 1.17 NAM expansion
The open-source NAM A2 tone revolution finds another convert as Darkglass adds Tone3000 integration to the Anagram unit. With more and more leading hardware brands embracing the platform, are we moving to the stage where all units will have NAM A2 support, then compete on hardware user design and proprietary models and effects?
For more: Darkglass Electronics
Sully Guitars ‘71 Trella 24
The Atomic era Googie design idiom is alive and well in luthierie. Is the Trella 24 a radical new take on the set-neck singlecut or the high-performance shred guitar? You decide. But why not both. Ever since seeing Kiki Wong play it with the Smashing Pumpkins at Lollapalooza we want it bad.
For more: Sully Guitars
Manson Guitar Works x Z.Vex Origin of Symmetry Fuzz Factory
To mark three decades of the Fuzz Factory and 25 years since Matt Bellamy used one on Plug in Baby – and thereafter getting Z.Vex to supply the onboard fuzz circuits on his signature guitars – Manson has unveiled these special edition pedals that sure are pretty… And pretty, pretty pricey, too. One’s printed, the other hand-painted.
For more: Manson Guitar Works
