What is it?

For those of you under the age of 30, Kustom with a “K” is most likely an unfamiliar guitar amp brand to you. But if you need a little history, Kustom was one of the very first “trendy” brands to integrate solid-state technology into its amplifiers and PA systems in the early Seventies. Its signature “Tuck-n-Roll” amplifiers, covered in padded Naugahyde, had an unmistakable look that resembled something between an overstuffed armchair and the "Michelin Man" tire mascot. Even so, these distinctive amps arrived in eye-catching, metallic-sparkle colors and were adopted by many popular artists of the time, from John Fogerty to the Jackson 5, and not too long ago, Sheryl Crow.

Kustom eventually went bankrupt but resurfaced with new ownership during the late 1990s and 2000s, reviving the nostalgic Tuck-n-Roll amp series. While not a barnstorming relaunch, the amps faded away once more but still resonate among those who valued their retro looks and punchy tones.

Now, while it seems the Tuck-n-Roll line is temporarily shelved, Kustom has returned with a new line of amps that look surprisingly… well, basic. Gone is the plushy visual flair that’s been replaced by a line of boxy, vintage-style combos that will undoubtedly appeal to players who don’t want their amplifiers to look like car upholstery. Looks aside, that shouldn’t stop you from further investigating Kustom's brand new and enticingly affordable Carbon Series — the company’s first digital modeling amplifiers, which come in full-featured 25-, 50-, and 100-Watt combos, as well as a 100HD head.

For this review, I spent some time with the Carbon 100 1x12 combo, which, as far as new digital amps go, is a bit of a throwback for its minimalist design. What I mean by that is there’s something satisfying about an amplifier that lacks a touchscreen or a display and operates entirely without the need for a companion Android or iOS app.

All of the Carbon 100's functionality is accessible directly through a straightforward set of physical knobs on the front panel. You’ll find, like me, the Kustom Carbon 100 to be the ultimate plug-and-play solution — a stellar-sounding modeling amp that delivers authentic, tube-inspired tones and a versatile array of effects easily accessed with minimal effort.

Specs

• Price: $429.99 | £335
• Type: Digital combo amp
• Origin: China
• Output: 100W
• Channels: 2
• Speaker: 1 x 12” Kustom Design
• Controls: Ch1 Volume, Ch2 Amp Model select, Gain, Volume, Bass, Mid, Treble, FX select, FX Level, Master Volume. Ch select button, Tap Tempo button, Tap Tempo LED
• Features: 12 onboard digital effects and 12 onboard amp models
• Connectivity: External Speaker Output jack, Footswitch Jack (Channel switch / Effects On/Off), Effects Loop, DI Balanced Out, Ground Lift Switch, Aux In, Headphones Input and USB Audio Interface
• Weight: 27 lbs / 12.3 kgs
• Dimensions: 340 x 510 x 471 mm
• Contact: Kustom

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆

When you think of a 100-watt combo, you might imagine it to be a behemoth of an amp, not so with Kustom’s Carbon 100, which is astonishingly compact and rather boxy. In fact, it’s very much a portable cube of an amplifier, ruggedly handsome and classic-looking with its black tolex covering and vintage silver-and-black woven grille cloth, miniature “Kustom” logo, durable rubber handle, chrome corners, and a grey steel control panel with classic Kustom knobs.

Compared to other black-on-black digital amps with multiple black plastic parts and black panels, there’s a nice contrast here. However, considering the brand’s colorful past, I feel that Kustom missed an opportunity here, where this new series could have been offered in bright custom colors and contrasting-colored grille cloth.

The amplifier also features a semi-open back design with a small oval perforated grill on the rear, which houses a custom-designed 12-inch Kustom speaker. Overall, the amp belies its actual 27 pounds and is surprisingly lightweight and easily transportable.

Usability and features

Usability and features rating: ★★★☆☆

The Carbon 100 is all about good ol’ fashioned knob-twisting of familiar amp controls and nary a LCD screen with exhaustive menus to reckon with. The amp features two distinct channels with a shared 3-band EQ (Bass, Mid and Treble) to bounce between (using either a footswitch or the channel select button), but there is a slight catch: Channel one is a pristine clean channel with a single volume knob that works in tandem with the master volume control, but this channel is divorced from any of the effects and Amp modeling rotary selections found on channel 2.

This separation results in a cleaner character that differs significantly from any of the three modeled clean tones available on channel 2. In essence, channel 1 provides an unadulterated, pure tone, making it an excellent foundation for guitarists who rely heavily on pedalboards.

Most players will immediately vibe in the digital backyard of Channel 2, where the amp thrives in its amp modeling and effects capabilities. Here, you have separate Volume and Gain controls to tailor your sound, and a rotary Amp model knob to select 12 different amp types. This rotary knob breaks up the amp types into four categories — Clean, Drive, Lead, and Hi-Gain — with three differently voiced amp models in each. Keep in mind, there is no indication of what the actual amps are or what kind was modeled, but you can certainly tell by the gain structure and EQ curve that each falls in its appropriate category.

Moving over to the FX rotary knob, it functions similarly to the Amp knob, separating the effects into four categories and options. For example, Multi-Effects has four groupings (Reverb, Delay, and Chorus; Reverb and Chorus; Reverb and Delay 1; Delay and Boost), and Mod FX also includes four options (Chorus; Flanger; Phaser; Tremolo and Reverb). Two choices are offered in Verb (Long and short reverb) and Delay (one repeat and long delay), and if you’re wondering, the delay sounds very much like an analog tape echo, and the tap tempo button and the tap LED help with on-the-spot tweaking.

For better or worse, your only means of adjusting any amount of depth, rate, or output to the effects is with the sole FX Level knob, which is not terrible; you just have to use your ears. The other drawback is once you adjust your personal setting on any effect you’re using — whether it’s a delay time or a warbly chorus — you can't save that sound, and it reverts to the default effects setting once you switch channels. A bit of a bummer.

Finally, the amp’s back panel offers better-than-average connectivity with an external speaker output jack, a footswitch jack (channel toggle and effects on/off), an effects loop, DI balanced out, a ground lift switch, an aux In, headphones input, and a USB audio interface.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★½

Despite my minor grumblings that you can’t save sounds and the inherent limitations of fine-tuning an effect with just a sole FX Level knob, let me reiterate definitively that this is a great-sounding combo with responsive amp modeling and a solid effects selection that complements your tone. In fact, just plugging into channel 2 with each EQ set midway (or noon), and sweeping through each of the 12 modeled amp types, from clean to hi-gain, all sound stellar for this price point.

But let’s say you just need a bold and foundational clean tone devoid of any effects, where you get to hear how your guitar sounds in its purest form, or maybe hear how your pedals respond and react, and I’d point you toward the Carbon 100’s channel 1 as a solid starting point. It’s impressive how loud you can crank this channel to get the cleans to sound firmly pristine without the amp crumbling into breakup. I’ll say it again: it’s a different type of clean sound here on this channel, one that jazz players might gravitate toward because it sounds so warm and full — and hell, jazzbos love digital amps for their consistency, which the Carbon 100 delivers in spades on this channel.

When you turn the amp on, it automatically defaults to channel 2 on the first clean amp model setting with the short reverb from the effects. Right off the bat, it’s a sparkling clean sound with a splashy spring reverb adding some musical depth. So far, nothing to complain about here, and as you rotate your way toward the drive settings and upping the drive using the Gain knob, you’ll run the gamut of classic rock bark and bite, and warmly overdriven textures, no matter what guitar you use.

The Lead section is also quite good and has a slightly mid-focused EQ to its saturation. Once you add the longer delay setting or the multi-effect grouping of delay and reverb, you’ll be one step closer to nailing some cool Lukather-style solo tones.

The Hi-Gain models were the only section that I felt was kinda “mid” (as the kids say), where I found myself sticking with one model that was decent for metal and Dimebag-inspired riffing. I did run the Carbon 100 through various speaker cabinets using the external cab out with great results, allowing the amp to sound fuller and louder, and I’ll be the first to say the onboard Kustom speaker is voiced perfectly in not making this cubed combo sound boxy.

Finally, the onboard effects are good to great in tones and texture, and sound just as you’d imagine as digital representations of chorus, flanger, tremolo, delays and reverbs, but you are limited in scope in how much you can fine-tune and tweak. You’re stuck with, more or less, setting and forgetting the effect type you will use sparingly or all the time.

Verdict

At the end of the day, digital is no longer a dirty word. Even Joe Bonamassa has opted for a digital reproduction amplifier over his vintage Fender tube combo for his live performances, signaling a significant shift in how players regard digital amps. The truth is, digital amplification has evolved substantially since the solid-state era of Kustom’s classic Tuck-n-Roll models.

The Carbon Series, in my opinion, represents a fresh chapter for Kustom, offering a no-nonsense digital amplifier alternative that avoids the overly complex options currently trending and quickly becoming the norm in this space.

Guitar World verdict: The Kustom Carbon 100 stands out as an affordable plug-and-play modeling combo that offers the touch-sensitive responsiveness of a traditional tube amp, making its digital guts easy to forgive. There are a few drawbacks to this simpler approach, but whether you are in a rehearsal space or performing live, this compact combo proves to be an impressively capable performer.

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Gibson President and CEO Cesar Gueikian has announced that he intends to step down from those executive roles.

Gueikian's tenure as the guitar giant's President and CEO will wrap up on July 31, Gibson announced in a press release. From there, he will move to a new role on the company's Board of Directors. Gibson added that he will also continue his work with the company's artists as a “global artist ambassador”.

Gibson's Chief Commercial Officer, Anne Rohosy, will take the position of Interim President and CEO while the company's board searches for a permanent successor.

“For 13 years, Cesar has poured his passion, creativity, and relentless commitment into Gibson,” said Nat Zilkha, Executive Chairman of Gibson’s Board of Directors, in a statement. “On behalf of the Board, we thank Cesar for his transformative leadership and the important role he has played in rebuilding the foundation of the company.

“Cesar came to us ready to step back from the day-to-day operating role and focus his energy where he has always been most passionate – working directly with artists and being close to the music. We are grateful that he will remain part of the Gibson family through his continued service as a Board member, strategic advisor, and artist ambassador.”

In a statement of his own, Gueikian said, “Gibson is part of my DNA. It has been the honor of my life to help lead Gibson and to work alongside the people who bring this company to life every day.

“Gibson is something special – to musicians, to fans, to everyone who has ever picked up a guitar and felt that connection. I am incredibly proud of what we have built together: our team, our culture, our artists, and our global community of artists and fans. I hope to have left a legacy that will be remembered in Gibson's history as a progressive era.

“I have enormous confidence in Anne and in the future of this company, and I look forward to my next chapter as a shareholder, Board member, and artist ambassador. Gibson’s best years are still ahead, and I’m excited to be part of what this company will go on to achieve.”

Gueikian first joined Gibson in 2018, a time when the vaunted company was emerging from bankruptcy and the controversial tenure of former CEO Henry Juszkiewicz.

He began as the company's Chief Merchant Officer, but immediately made an outsize impact, notably plucking Mark Agnesi from his prominent role at the LA vintage guitar mecca Norman's Rare Guitars to serve as the firm's Director of Brand Experience.

In 2021, he was promoted to the position of Brand President, and two years later, upon the stepping aside of James “JC” Curleigh, he got the top job.

As CEO, Gueikian was notably hands-on, working closely with (and even building guitars for) marquee artists, teasing new models himself, and even collaborating on original music with some of the biggest names in the brand's stable.

Speaking about Gueikian's departure from the CEO role, one of those big names, Slash, said, “Cesar played a key role in revamping Gibson over a decade ago. He reintroduced quality, integrity, and passion into the business and strove to preserve the legacy and image of the brand. He reinvigorated the staff and the technicians, and it was really exciting to see.

“Cesar put the guitars first: how they're made, how they look, what makes them great, and kept that as the paramount focus of Gibson. It has been pretty amazing.”

In two decades of music journalism, I have seen surprisingly few rockstar butts. Today, though, standing in the middle of the shining floor of the empty Utilita Arena in Birmingham, UK – gazing at a 40-foot screen temporarily filled with Dominic Harrison’s mooning orbs – I can, somewhat involuntarily, add Yungblud’s ass to that short list.

I’m actually here to speak to Harrison’s guitarist, MD, co-writer and long-time partner in crime, Adam Warrington. I’ve been invited to the soundcheck and asked not to film it, which is not a problem, really, because Yungblud’s milky white rear-end – produced for the entertainment of his band, his FOH guy and me – is going to live rent-free in my head for some time.

Fortunately, the moment is punctuated by Warrington rolling out a gigantic Gibson Slash signature double-neck – which, even at a big gig, is akin to spotting a unicorn in the wild. Then come the pyro tests – great billowing towers of industrial-scale flame, firing with rhythmic precision – barbecuing my face at a 20-yard distance. Lord knows what it’s like playing a few feet from one.

Outside, it’s a carnival atmosphere. Attempting to circumnavigate the 20,000-cap arena 10 minutes earlier, I’d been furtively handed an AAA pass and smuggled through the back gate past a group of fans, who’d yelled, “Are you anything to do with Yungblud?”

“Never heard of him!” replies Yungblud’s tour manager, with convincing probity.

Everywhere you turn, fans are pouring into the city. I know this because they are almost uniformly adorned in Yungblud merch. The pubs are full. The benches. The steps. The pavements. There’s a mob for selfies at the Black Sabbath bridge.

Notably, it’s Harrison’s first date in the city since his appearance at Back to the Beginning, when he performed Changes, and the city has not forgotten. “That was such a crazy day,” Warrington tells Guitar World, and he’s not exaggerating.

While most of the BTTB line-up got some time in the home of metal, savouring the atmosphere, posting pics on the ’gram, Yungblud was subbed in as a last-minute addition to Belgium’s Rock Werchter festival (reportedly because someone in Kings of Leon broke an ankle).

“Then Sam Fender pulled out, and he was headlining,” explains Warrington. “So we went from not playing this festival to headlining [on the same day as Back to the Beginning]! Dom was, like, ‘Cool!’ He did Back to the Beginning, which was obviously a crazy thing – but didn't really get to soak it in, because the minute he came off stage, he jumped in a jet and flew over to Belgium.”

Meanwhile, Warrington, as MD, had been left in Europe, frantically trying to summon a show worthy of the Belgian festival’s 88,000-person main stage audience (about twice that of Back to the Beginning) at a few hours’ notice.

“I phoned brass players and string players and we got the show together,” recalls the guitarist. “Dom flew in and we played a crazy show that we felt was the pinnacle of the day. Then a couple of weeks went by, and the Back to the Beginning thing was just getting bigger and bigger.

“It's been a wild year since that gig happened. It was like task one of that day, but you never really know what's gonna take off. Back to the Beginning projected his career into a whole other stratosphere.”

Yungblud’s hair-raising cover of Changes has since become a staple of the Idols set. “We’ve been paying homage, because that was such a special moment before Ozzy passed,” Warrington says, underscoring: “But he's definitely not trying to be the next Ozzy.”

But it also slots neatly into a collection of material, largely co-written by Warrington, that lovingly splices influences from all over the guitar music map – yes, from Sabbath, but also U2, right through to The Cure, Queen, Bowie and Britpop.

Yungblud (and his gyrating, 40-foot ass) inevitably draws the spotlight, but today is a chance to speak to the man who’s been alongside him every step of the way, “the Sid Vicious to my Johnny Rotten,” as Harrison puts it.

Warrington outplays that comparison. He’s one of a vanishing breed: a guitarist playing arena rock shows, complete with solos, double-necks and real, live amps.

You came up playing with Lewis Capaldi in Scotland. What did you take from that period of your life?

Me and Lewis met in French class in high school – and we hated each other! For the first year we just didn’t really get on. Then we discovered we were both super into music and liked a lot of the same movies, like Walk Hard. We bonded over School of Rock, we bonded over Tenacious D and then we formed a band, but it didn't last very long.

I was like, “So what am I doing?” He went, “Oh, you’re lead guitar. You're the best.” That was the first time anyone had said that to me. I think from then, I was like, “I'm the lead guitarist.” And I still am!

What were your first gigs with Lewis Capaldi like?

My dad used to be a wedding singer and played a lot of pubs. So we’d go along with him and his mate. Then Lewis and I started booking a couple gigs like that, always just the two of us in the pub.

I’d get there and he'd be like: “I've learned a new Ed Sheeran song. I want to play it tonight.” And I’d be like, “I don't know it!” He’d go, “Just jam along!” And that’s literally how I learned to play guitar... I’d have a couple pints on stage and just figure it out.

Someone asked me the other day, “Have you ever been really drunk on stage?” I was like, “Yeah. All the time! It's how I learned to play – being on stage in a non-sober state.”

In 2016, when Lewis released his first song, I’d moved to London, met Dom and started with Yungblud. It was a crossroads at that point – Lewis was like, “What are you going to do? Are you going to play for me or play for Dom?”

Was that a difficult conversation?

No, it was totally chilled. I think his dad was like, “Fuck you!" [laughs] But his band and crew are all his best friends. I think he was a bit gutted that I ‘d taken the journey so far with him and then decided not to go on. But it felt too easy for me – like it was always a given that I was going to play guitar for him.

When I moved to London I thought, “I fancy a bit more of a challenge. I’ll try and make it another way.” I felt like I was riding on his coattails a little bit.

Was it complete luck that you met Dom, aka Yungblud?

I met Lewis’ old manager, Scott, to go to a gig, and before we went we bumped into two people that worked at Dom's management. They were like, “We’re looking for a guitarist.” And Scott was like, “Adam will do it!” We went to the gig and Dom was there, and the guy who’d end up being our drummer [Mikey Rennie] was playing drums on stage.

Dom's talked about the instant connection you had at that moment. But what happened next? When did you first play together?

He said, “Come up to my dad’s guitar shop,” which was Hank’s [on Denmark Street]. He was like, “Just pick any guitar off the wall.” I can't even remember what I picked up. We just jammed a bunch of songs he'd written that ended up being on the first EP – King Charles and Tin Pan Boy.

I was living in a flat that didn’t have any heating. It was just a bedroom, with a bunch of random people in other rooms, and no one ever spoke. It was super-weird. Dom came over and was like, “What the fuck is this place!?” So I basically moved in to his flat, and we just played loads of shows.

What are your memories of those early Yungblud shows?

It just felt normal to me straight away, being back onstage with a band. It was really nice – but we only had four songs. We used to say it was like going into a room, throwing a grenade then walking out. By the time we’d finished they'd be like, “Wait, what?”

The first proper tour, it was only three of us, around all the Propaganda night club venues. There’d be a DJ playing, and they'd be like, ”Ladies and gentlemen, Yungblud!” We'd walk on stage and people would be like, “Who the fuck is this?”

I remember in Birmingham, funnily enough – at the O2 Academy, where Sabbath played their final [full] gigs – we got up on stage, and the second we played the first note, everyone turned around and walked to the bar!

It’s cool that we went from that to selling out the Utilita Arena [in the same city]. It's been a crazy journey, seeing it from the start to where we are now. But then the whole Back To The Beginning thing really turned it up. It’s been mental since then.

Tell me how Idols came together. I heard it was in the Tetley's beer factory?

It was the brewmaster’s house. It's an old building in Leeds that our friend Bob owns; he had a recording studio there, the Black Lodge. Dom had a revelation over New Year's 2021 after watching Love and Mercy, The Beach Boys movie. He was like, “I want to go do that – I want to go have fun!”

He called me and was like, “Do you want to come and write the album?”Before that, it was like, “What do people want from me?” But we went, “Who fucking cares? Let’s just write music that we want to listen to.”

We did it over four years – it was mad because we liked all the songs, but when we [first] showed them to the label, they were like, “Who the fuck is gonna listen to this?” It was our worst fear – “Oh my God, this is why we have to conform!”

So Dom released the third album, and I don't think he necessarily loved it; I certainly didn't. There’s some good songs but he was just like, “I wanted to release Idols.” So we came back, and in the final year we wrote Hello Heaven and Change and a bunch of the other songs.

What did that time look like?

We basically just lived in the studio for a year, and Dom’s dad was bringing along nice guitars every week. I played a ’59 Les Paul on some of the songs. There was an old Beatles-era Casino. There was a ’54 Strat that was kicking about. I actually preferred my Casey Jones Les Paul over the ’59. But I was also scared to touch the ’59 because it’s worth 300 grand!

All the 12-string on the album was an old Burns, but it was so badly intonated that when it came to playing live, I needed something more, I needed the Hog!

What about the tones on the album?

Marshall will hate me for saying this, but 90 percent of all the dirty guitar on the album was a Tiny Terror through a Marshall 4x12, because that's all we had in the studio. There were a couple vintage Plexis and there was a Dumble at one point.

There’s a lot of mythology around Dumbles as well.

I don't think that we got on with it, to be honest! Matty [Schwartz, producer] was an avid user of digital amp models, and I fought with him so much… probably for the first year, he’d be like, “We’ll just use the plugin.” I was like, “We’re not using the fucking plugin!” I fought him that much that he ended up loving this Tiny Terror, just through an SM57.

You’re using tube amps onstage too. That’s quite unusual for a large touring outfit now. Has that always been the case?

Yeah – when the digital era started coming in, everyone was like, “Convenience! Consistency!” I was like, “But that’s not fucking rock and roll!” When Adam’s guitar tech Ben joined, he came from that world. I was like, “I’d rather be inconsistent, and it sound different every night.”

So now we're running four amps at once [a Hiwatt Custom 20, a Hylight, a Marshall Plexi 59 handwired and a Marshall Jubilee]. I think we’ve got it dialled.

What are your main live guitars now?

The Murphy Lab is the main guitar. In America last year we needed another guitar to change. We’d dropped a song down half a step – Hello, Heaven, because it's such a hard song on Dom’s vocals. I went to Gibson and the artist rep gave me that for the tour. I think I played it for one song, and I went, “That's my main guitar. Put that in standard. The other guitar can go in D.”

Casey Jones [another Les Paul] was my main guitar for a while. We bought it on Ben's credit card in the first rehearsal he ever did with me. I stuck a DiMarzio Super Distortion in it, because I felt with the PAF-style pickups, I wasn't getting enough clarity in D standard. Because of the extra gain the Super Distortions sound great.

I imagine some stuff gets damaged on a Yungblud tour. What have been the big breaks?

The Casey Jones had the neck break when I bought it. I remember being in Paris on the first show of the European tour – the first show of that guitar's life – looking under a blue light in soundcheck and seeing the neck, and being like, “Those motherfuckers!”

The two heads are now fake because Dom smashed so many fucking amps onstage. He's gotten so much better over the years as he's matured a bit, but he threw so many guitars at my amps and broke so many Bluesbreakers and Plexi heads that we're just like, “Nah!”

Then, actually – this is bad – but we used to use the Hughes and Kettner Red Box cab sim, and what I didn't realize was that it doesn't take the load. Dom was so loud onstage with his amp, and he wouldn't turn the volume down, so I’d unplug the speaker from his one. He probably blew up every amp he ever played through in America!

Who are the guitarists you’d still love to meet?

Jimmy Page. Tony Iommi would be a huge one, and probably Zakk Wylde. Last year when everyone was like, “Dom’s gonna be the next Ozzy!” I was like, “Well... if Dom’s going to be the next Ozzy, I’m going to be the next fucking Zakk Wylde!” [laughs]

I got really obsessed with Zakk’s playing last year. It’s not the pinch – it’s the aggressive picking. He picks every note; that Al Di Meola kind of thing. My left hand does all the work, usually, and I'm trying to get my right hand to keep up.

Yungblud has inspired a lot of people to play. What’s the most important advice you’d pass on to people picking up the guitar?

Learn things by ear. It’s literally the only reason I’m doing this job right now, because I can’t read music. I can read tab, but it’s just awful, Learn it by ear. You really figure it out then.

Keep trying to find ways and players that keep you interested in it. When I was younger it was always about, “Who's the best guitarist?” But who cares? Be as original as you can and use your inspirations to sound the way you want to sound – that’s all you really need.

I’m way happier since I accepted that I’m not the best guitarist in the world. I’m like, “Who cares? I’m playing arenas. It’s fucking awesome!”

• Check out Yungblud’s upcoming tour dates.

As told to Guitarist by Chris Turpin.

“So we call this ‘The One That Got Away’. And when me and Jake [Kiszka of Greta Van Fleet] were working on the Mirador album, we spent a day hitting up a few guitar shops, including Vintage ‘n’ Rare [in Bath, England] in the morning and ATB [in Melksham, England] later, where they had a killer little 1x12 Park combo. It was like a 50-watt, with reverb, and it was sitting in some dusty corner and I was like, ‘We should plug that in.’ And so we did, and it sounded incredible.

“So I was talking to [the ATB staff] and said, ‘Okay, I think I’m gonna do this. I just need to have a think about what will have to be sold to justify it.’ But Jake just said, ‘Ah, no, it’s okay. I’ll bring it into the family fold – I’ll buy it right on the spot.’

“After that, we went to Vintage ‘n’ Rare, and it was right at the end of the day and we’re hanging out upstairs, and they had this ’61 Les Paul/SG. Jake’s played countless numbers of them, and owns quite a few. So every time he sees one, he’ll play it. And he plugged this one [in] and we both kind of just shut up and went, ‘This is an amazing guitar.’ Just sounded extraordinary, right off the bat. Jake was lost in it for 10 minutes.

“So I picked it up and realized this thing’s really alive. You can tell it had been owned by a player – it’d been worn down and it had a stock tailpiece at some point… someone had been playing this thing. No idea who it was or where it came from – if anyone out there knows… So we left buzzing about it and Jake was like, ‘I’m gonna put an offer in.’

“I could give it a month [to consider it] then come in and make an offer. So the next day, it was in the back of my mind. It’s player grade, so I thought, ‘If I trade this, this, this, and this, I could probably get close.’

“So I spoke to Steve Hove [then manager of Vintage ‘n’ Rare], who’s now at ATB, he said he would be willing to do it. So I went in and got it from underneath Jake and he was genuinely quite pissed off [laughs].

“So yes, we now joke that it’s ‘The One That Got Away’. It’s got real Patent Applied For pickups and it’s a little earlier than Jake’s. We've put them side by side. Jake thinks it sounds like his before he trashed it…”

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

Gear damaged during flights is an unfortunate reality for touring bands. However, gear damaged during pre-flight checks, well, that’s another story altogether.

According to the Boston-based blues band GA-20 – comprised of guitarist Matthew Stubbs, lead vocalist/guitarist Cody Nilsen, and drummer Josh Kiggans – one of their high-end guitar cases got damaged thanks to a particularly enthusiastic TSA agent at San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport in California.

“Big shout out to this fine TSA @tsaamerica agent at San Luis Obispo airport who insisted that taking everything out of my @monocreators guitar case and swabbing it wasn’t enough,” the band writes on social media, accompanied by an actual video of the ordeal.

“He then spent 20 minutes ripping out all of the padding/stuffing from the case and of course he was unable to put it back together. To top it off we all have TSA Pre check & this agent refused to run the case through xray until he ripped all the padding out of the case. The gig bag is trash now. ($380 case) Good news they gave me a business card and said if I have a complaint feel free to email.”

Safe to say, a multitude of musicians pitched in with similar experiences. Guthrie Trapp noted, “This is f*cking insanity!! Worst ‘case’ of this I’ve ever seen,” while singer/songwriter Bones Owens commented, “I had two guitars destroyed by baggage handlers on a flight earlier this year.. different situation, with a similar disrespect for musicians’ livelihood while traveling by air.

“There seems to be a lack of common sense, a lack of consequences, and mostly a lack of care. Sorry to see this happen to your gear, but thanks for sharing it here. It’s the best thing we can do to spread awareness and hopefully illicit [sic] some change.”

As for TSA itself, its policy states that, “Musical instruments must undergo screening when transported as carry-on or in checked baggage. Musical instruments transported as carry-on require a physical inspection at the security checkpoint. Inform the TSA officer if your instrument requires special care and handling. You may pack brass instruments in your checked or carry-on baggage.”

In more recent news, a clip posted to TikTok – with more than four million views – has sparked outrage after footage of a baggage handler carelessly throwing guitars on the ground went viral.

“It happens all day,” Tom Morello says, speaking about the number of requests he gets from artists looking for him to sprinkle his secret guitar sauce on new pieces of music. “I do a lot of it, too,” he says. “I’ve donated guitar solos to younger bands. They’re fans of Rage Against the Machine or Audioslave, and they want me on their songs.”

He admits he can’t accept every request that comes across his desk. “Hey, I’ve got a lot going on,” he says with a laugh. “These days, I’m driving my kids to a lot of high school baseball games.”

Recently, the guitarist received an offer he couldn’t refuse when noted video game composer Masayoshi Soken reached out and asked if he’d consider contributing a song for the latest update of Final Fantasy XIV.

Morello admitted that he wasn’t much of a gamer, but he understood the significance of the Final Fantasy franchise, and he was delighted at the prospect of working with Soken.

There was just one problem, however; Morello would have to turn in a ready-to-go track within 36 hours. Fortunately, the guitarist was already working on some new music with producer Tyler Smyth, so the prospect of banging out a banger wasn’t out of the question.

“I said to Tyler, ‘I’ve got a hot riff, and you’ve got some beats. Maybe we can do this,’” he says. The producer then rang up his friend Caleb Shomo, singer with the metalcore band Beartooth, and asked, “Do you want to make a song with Tom Morello right now?”

In no time at all – 48 hours, to be exact – the collaboration yielded the monster jam Everything Burns, a feral blend of rap-metal and electronica that features, one might expect, one hell of a gargantuan riff.

When you’re noodling, do you have some sort of litmus test that makes you go, “That combination of notes does the job”?

It’s not overthought. Sometime around maybe 1991 [or] ’92, I began to be able to write music that I loved, and was able to tap into some of the essence of the Tony Iommi and Jimmy Page-ness of it all. From that time, these big-ass riffs have kind of been low-hanging fruit. It’s like, “Stick to the dots, try a little syncopation and don’t be afraid to be equal parts funky and heavy.”

Is it deceptively easy? One wrong note could make all the difference between a classic riff and one that’s just “eh.”

Oh, sure. Some of the longer riffs through my history, like Testify or Down Rodeo, where there was sort of a more simple version of the riff, I said, “Well, if it’s going to happen four times in a row, perhaps it’s a journey that stays true to coming back to the one, but then adds some extra heavy metal flavor along the way.”

So in the case of Everything Burns, you already had the riff.

It was around in a rudimentary way, and it was sort of looking for a home. I have a lot of riffs hanging around, and this was one that Tyler and I had been tinkering with. When this opportunity came up, I was like, “Okay, hold on one second. Let’s see if Beartooth wants to jump on.”

At what point did you realize that the combination of you, Tyler and Caleb was working?

It was maybe two hours after Tyler reached out to Caleb. Caleb dropped everything to do this. He’s a great singer, and he’s also a producer himself. He’s got a studio. He wrote and produced the vocals to it, came back in about two hours with a first draft, and I was like, “Holy shit, that’s a jam!”

I did notice the lack of a solo. Is that something you wrestled with?

I wouldn’t say “wrestle.” There was, however, a version of it that had sort of a more expansive middle section. At the end of the day when we were mixing, it felt like it didn’t add to the power of the song. It felt more like I was just sticking a solo in.

When I was A/B-ing in my car, I liked the version that, while it doesn’t have a guitar solo, it’s about as guitar-y as anything I’ve ever done. There’s no lack of guitar on this song.

As for solos, there will be plenty more to come, let me tell you. I’m in the midst of working on what will be my first solo rock album. I made some Americana albums and some EDM-influenced records, but I want to make a record that is going to be an unapologetically Tom Morello solo rock record.

Any idea when we might see that?

In this day and age, what is an album? We’ve released three singles from this album over the course of the year and a half. There’s a lot of intense work ahead. I hope I’ve got maybe three or four songs in the can and another sort of five or six in the hamper. I’ve got a lot of touring coming up this summer. I’d love to try to get it out before then.

And you’ve been touring with your son.

That’s something I’m most excited about, continuing the collaboration with my son, Roman, who has become quite a technical guitarist. He’s been a collaborative partner on a couple of songs, and that will continue. [Laughs] One of my favorite parts about working with Roman is that if we have disagreements, I’m able to send him to his room.

You can’t do that with everyone.

No, I can’t. [Laughs]

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

Joe Satriani may be filling Eddie Van Halen’s shoes during the Best Of All Worlds tour with Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, and Jason Bonham; however, he’s recently revealed that David Lee Roth tried to recruit him for a Van Halen cover band when the sorely missed guitarist was still very much alive and active.

“I remember in the mid-’90s, around ’95 or ’96, David Lee Roth called me and he wanted to put together a band to do Van Halen songs,” Satriani tells Thinking About Guitar in a new interview. “He went on and on about how we were the only guys who could really do it right.

“He had all these crazy plans, and I said, ‘But Dave, Ed’s still alive. He’s still making amazing records. He’s still on tour. What guitar player would ever try to imitate him while he’s still working?’ I said, ‘It makes no sense.’ And of course, I said, ‘Look, I’m not the guy.’”

Ultimately, Roth’s project didn’t transpire, and Satriani could breathe a sigh of relief. Following Van Halen’s death in 2020, though, the Surfing with the Alien virtuoso was once again approached for an Eddie Van Halen tribute.

“When he and Alex [Van Halen] called me after Ed had passed away, it made a little bit more sense, even though I tried to convince them I was not the person who could do it justice. I told them I had tried to avoid playing like Ed for so long that now I really couldn’t.”

He even tried to pitch a couple of other names for the job. “I called and said, ‘Really, are you sure you don’t want to call Nuno [Bettencourt] or Steve [Vai] , or someone obviously more well-suited to sound like Ed? Someone who has demonstrated playing this stuff live?’ But they were adamant that I was the only guy who was going to do it justice.”

Fast forward to 2024, and Satriani found himself joining Hagar on his Best Of All Worlds tour, which heavily celebrated his era with the legendary band.

When asked by Guitarist what it takes to tackle EVH’s parts live, he replied, “It’s all in the fingers; that really is true. We’ve heard Eddie play acoustic guitar, and it’s freakishly just as good as electric. I don’t know how he did that. I’ve seen players online get close, but there’s that magic thing that Eddie had, which was his personality and his heart. No one comes close to that.”

Elsewhere in the Guitarist interview, Satriani revealed the gear he uses to play Van Halen’s parts – and the level of dedication and practice required to nail them.

Over the past few years, I've noticed a trend with the Amazon Prime Day sales. More and more big manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon. What started as a way to grab cheap accessories and off-brand products has now become a place where even legendary companies like Boss are getting in on the action.

There are absolutely loads of Boss' compact stompboxes on sale at the moment, so if you've got a gap on your pedalboard to fill, then now's a great time to take advantage of some serious savings. Whether you need an overdrive pedal, some delay effects, a new tuner, or even some utility pedals, there's pretty much something for everyone on offer here.

Here's every single one of the 14 Boss stompboxes currently on sale for Prime Day:

After its shock closure last year, G&L guitars have returned to the market through Musical Instrument Reclamation Corp. (MIRC).

The Leo Fender-founded guitar makers, of whom Jerry Cantrell is their biggest endorsee, quietly met their fate last year. Soon after, Fender moved to purchase the Leo Fender trademark in order to prevent it being used elsewhere, but sadly did not take on the full G&L operation.

As one ex-employee told Guitar World, the firm’s dissolution left many questions unanswered. But when a firm pulls the shutters on its production, existing stock has to go somewhere, and that’s where MIRC comes in.

As Herin, IL store, the Zombie Guitar Company explains in a new YouTube video, “they bought everything that G&L had. Everything that is a guitar, and everything that could be a guitar.”

That includes finished pieces, as well as finished and unfinished bodies, necks, and parts, which are now shipping out from MIRC’s Franklin, TN, facility.

Having secured the entirety of G&L’s stock, MIRC has began contacting retailers, with the Zombie Guitar Company gleefully snapping up a score of electric guitars, including a maple neck Tribute Series Legacy, ASAT T-type, and an SB-2 bass.

So, while it is most definitely not a comeback – the firm really is disappearing quietly into the night – there is now a fleeting final chance for players to get their hands on the final G&L models ever made.

“G&L is back for a short time,” the store says. “They [MIRC] have a warehouse full of them.”

MIRC usually works with independent retailers to provide quality used guitars to their stores. So, don’t expect these to pop up in the big stores (though we’ve spotted a few G&L Deluxe models at Guitar Center still) – more likely, the stock will be exclusive to independent stores and used dealers.

It’s a muted end to the legacy of a brand that has powered Alice in Chains’ music from practically day one, and also counted David Gilmour, Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt, and Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard as its biggest supporters.

Cantrell says he “fell in love” with G&Ls the moment he picked one up, with his riff-slinging career with Alice in Chains fueled by his trusty “Blue Dress” G&L Rampage, which briefly went missing in 2024.

Angine de Poitrine have been on everyone’s lips since that polka-dot and microtone-heavy live session dropped on Seattleite radio station KEXP’s official YouTube channel. Since then, the Canadian duo’s lives have changed completely, as they’ve brought their unique brand of “mantra-rock Dada Pythago-Cubist” orchestral sounds to, well, the masses.

One of the most distinctive calling cards is guitarist Khn’s microtonal double-neck guitar/bass, built by luthier Raphaël Le Breton. Eastwood even created its own version in the form of the limited-edition Microtonal Doubleneck 4/6 Electric Guitar/Bass, which allegedly came together after Le Breton approached the company about creating a tribute to the original model.

Now, it seems like Khn himself is wielding a new version of the polka-dotted double-neck that led to Angine de Poitrine’s fame. During some of their latest shows, eagle-eyed fans noticed another version – this time by renowned (Canadian through-and-through) brand Godin Guitars.

According to reports by Guitar Bomb, the band’s viral success and subsequent world tours meant that Khn needed a solid backup. However, Le Breton was tied up with other work, so Quebec’s own Godin Guitars came through and built a custom double-neck for the guitarist.

Specs for the new-and-improved backup build include custom fretwork, with the upper neck featuring a standard 6-string electric guitar configuration, and a lower neck that functions as your typical 4-string bass.

Both fretboards are subsequently fretted to split the traditional 12-tone octave into 24 quarter tones, making them microtonal-ready.

Another key feature of this new build is its weight. Godin crafted this model to maximize ergonomics, chambering, and weight distribution – reducing the load on Khn.

Other tweaks include relocating the two dedicated output jacks to the bottom edge, with the guitar and bass necks split into separate signals routed to a Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 and a Hartke HA2500 amp stack, respectively.

The band’s polka-dot aesthetic is further enhanced with matching black-and-white graphics. Finally, the original build’s “69” dice knobs have been swapped for custom “3” dice controls.

Judging by the response on Reddit, it’s safe to say that Angine de Poitrine fans and math-rock aficionados have gone crazy over this guitar – all begging the question: could the band be teasing an official signature model?

In more recent news, GuitarWorld.com’s editor-in-chief recently witnessed the dynamic duo live – and hailed Khn as the greatest polka-dot guitar hero since Randy Rhoads and Buddy Guy.

There’s no greater indicator of the rise of digital amp modeling than the most die-hard tube amp lovers being drawn to the dark side, and now John Mayer’s digital tone journey has taken the next step: he’s using his plugins in the studio.

His signature plugin from Neural DSP dropped in December, with a Dumble amp and a faithful recreation of his Klon Centaur, an indispensable mainstay of his rig, standout features as it went on to bag a 4.5* review from us.

Mayer’s backing it so much that he’s using it in the studio alongside his more tangible go-to gear.

“If I were in a pinch, I would always use this plugin, and I have already on records,” he says in a new video for Neural DSP. “I’m just not going to tell you which ones they are, and I don’t think you’ll know.”

For a guitarist who has always championed air pushing, and who went to extreme lengths to blast his tube amps at the Las Vegas Sphere, which has famously strict noise restrictions, it’s a shrewd move. As he says, the plugin isn’t replacing anything, but it’s proven worthy enough for a spot in his arsenal.

“That is not meant to replace an amp,” he confirms. “I’m always going to play tube amps. It’s meant to give you more options. It’s meant to bring the experience of owning a tube amplifier and owning this gear into your home, no matter who you are.”

Indeed, owning a Vibroverb alone is going to cost a few grand, and that’s without factoring in the Dumble, Klon, and everything else within the €169 (around $190, plus tax) plugin. Digitalized gear has been bringing high-end tones to the masses for decades, and this continues the tradition.

“It’s meant to democratize the gear,” Mayer believes.

And he’s become a sucker for its reliability too. No more “dying delay pedals” because you forgot to unplug them during a break, and the 9V had the life sucked out of it; no more temperamental amps.

“I’ve looked forward to the year I would be able to simply have one cable, a laptop, and two speakers, and have that be the rig,” he notes. “It’s an authentic emulation of amps, but it’s already chained in [to your DAW] and has all the flexibility. It’s what I use at home.”

Mayer has been teasing a new T-style guitar on the road recently and is on the star-studded guest list for Buddy Guy’s 90th birthday party in October. It’ll be quite the party.

Fresh off the announcement of his Marshall endorsement, Jared James Nichols is taking it back to his roots – and by that, we mean the very reason he decided to ditch the pick and play fingerstyle exclusively, in a journey that took him from rural Wisconsin to world stages.

“I remember the first guitar I picked up, I picked it up, and I wanted to play it like a lefty. The first real guitar I got, though, the guy at the store was ‘Dude, flip the guitar, you're holding it wrong,” he says in his new Gibson documentary, The Long Road: A Jared James Nichols Documentary.

“He was like, ‘If you want to be a real guitar player and play really good guitars, you got to play righty. They don't really make great left-handed guitars.’”

Nichols was 15 at the time, and while he quickly got used to his newly purchased right-handed guitar, one thing that felt unnatural to him was playing it with a pick.

“It was fucking me up,” he says matter-of-factly, “and I needed to feel the strings under my fingers. I started to play without a pick, and I distinctly remember people telling me, ‘Man, it's never gonna work, you're never gonna be a great guitar player without a pick.’”

Discovering “guys like Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler and Derek Trucks,” was the epiphany that he needed to stick to his own unique brand of fingerstyle playing.

“I was like, ‘Well, they do it,’ and then I just started to kind of do it my own way. No one taught me how to do it. I just said I don’t care. I’m just gonna try and see what happens. And what ended up happening was, I started to develop my own sound and technique with it, and I’m so happy now that I did.”

In one of his Guitar World columns, Nichols broke down his one-of-a-kind fingerstyle technique and waxed lyrical about the players who inspired him.

“Fingerpicking felt like the most natural approach. I use my thumb for downstrokes and my first three fingers for upstrokes,” he wrote.

“There was one player in particular who inspired me the most in regard to playing fingerstyle, and that was blues legend Hubert Sumlin, who was known most notably for his work with Howlin’ Wolf.

“When I heard Hubert play, it changed the way I approached the guitar. Then I heard Albert King, Derek Trucks, and Mark Knopfler, all fingerpickers. All these players demonstrated the incredible range of sounds available when fingerpicking.”

You might have heard of a little event called Amazon Prime Day that’s happening right now. In a surprise twist, it’s bringing better deals than I’ve seen in years. Hey, maybe they finally listened to us complaining about the lack of quality guitar deals in the past...

Anyway, Amazon is a genuinely decent place to shop this week, particularly if you’re after budget pedals, a new guitar cable, useful tools or accessories, and we’re covering all the latest and greatest in our Prime Day guitar deals live blog. If you’re looking to stock up on essentials or upgrade your gear, Amazon has a lot to shout about.

But that’s not the only place to catch a sweet deal on a new piece of gear this week. I’ve hunted down all the alternative Prime Day sales you can shop today, particularly if you’re in the market for a new electric guitar, amp or modeler. We used to call these 'anti-Amazon deals', but we’re playing nice this year and there’s something for every player and budget across the web this week.

🇬🇧 In the UK?

I’ve been saying it for years, the Prime Day sale is the best place for guitarists to stock up on accessories, and this year is no different. While your feed is no doubt flooded with Prime Day guitar deals, I’ve been covering these sales for years now, so I know what’s genuinely a great deal and what looks good because the RRP has been inflated. So I’m here to help you get the best value for your money when it comes to Prime Day 2026.

There are loads of great accessory deals floating around at the moment, and many of them are so cheap that it’s an absolute no-brainer to pick them up. Whether you want playing tools like guitar slides and capos, essentials like strings, or extras like straps and guitar tools, the Prime Day sale is the place to pick them up.

Here’s 14 of my favorite deals on guitar accessories you can grab right now, all with some tasty discounts:

Shop all the Prime Day guitar deals

• Amazon: All Prime Day guitar deals
• Guitars: Save on beginner guitars
• Amps & pedals: Save big on fresh tones
• Accessories: Strings, slides, straps, and more

More retailer sales

• 🇺🇸 Best US sales
• B&H Photo: Money off pro audio
• Guitar Center: Early 4th of July sale
• Guitar Tricks: 1 month for $1
• IK Multimedia: 50% off software coupon
• Musician's Friend: Up to 60% off gear
• Native Instruments: Up to 30% software savings
• Positive Grid: Spark Summer Sale
• Plugin Boutique: 100s of plugin discounts
• Reverb: B-stock deals
• Sweetwater: Big savings on guitar gear
• Universal Audio: Paradise Guitar studio $99
• Waves: Plugins for just $34.99

• 🇬🇧 Best UK sales
• Thomann: Shop the huge Thomann Music Days sale
• Gear 4 Music: Big clearance savings
• GuitarTricks: Half-price annual plan
• Plugin Boutique: Huge software savings
• Waves: Sale on studio staples

Jeff Beck was playing in the Yardbirds when Jimi Hendrix first came to London and sent shockwaves through the British blues scene. His impact was so big that it left Beck wondering if he should hang up his Les Paul for good.

He survived the scare, ultimately releasing 1975’s faultless Blow by Blow – a watershed moment for instrumental guitar music. But when his solo band collapsed, and the shred scene rose to prominence, Beck, once again, began to doubt himself.

“The last nine years were rough for music,” he told Chris Gill in an interview for Japan’s Player magazine (available via Guitar World), in 1999.

At that time, a decade had passed between his three-piece band album Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop record and his seventh LP, Who Else!, with only session work and covers albums bridging the gap.

“It has been jumping around all over the place, like a fox,” he explained. “I could never tell where anything was going to go. I was also really depressed about not being able to keep the original three-piece band together: me, Tony Hymas [keys], and Terry Bozzio [drums].”

However, Beck also revealed that the guitar arms race of the late-’80s had gotten to him.

“I got really disillusioned with my playing,” he explained. “I knew that there were these other guitarists coming up around the block, and they could really play.

“[It was] not a threat. It was just telling me that it was time to move on. I wasn’t going to let that happen. But they did shove me aside for a while. I just thought that I should be an observer rather than a participant.”

In the end, Beck weathered the storm and forged a successful – and surprise – tandem with Jennifer Batten on the techno-infused Who Else!, before going on to release four more albums of original music before his passing in 2023.

His insecurities never went away entirely, but it’s a useful lesson for us mortal guitarists to realize that, no matter your stature, every player experiences doubts.

Or at least, every player except for Yngwie Malmsteen.

• For more in-depth insight on Jeff Beck’s lifelong evolution as a guitarist, check out the forthcoming biography, Blow By Blow - The Jeff Beck Story (on sale July 14), which features a wealth of original interviews from Guitar World veterans Chris Gill and Brad Tolinski.

Kiss had a rotating roster of lead guitarists over the decades – but one player in particular may very well have comfortably taken the crown for the shortest stint with the band.

Lauded L.A. studio musician and founding member and lead guitarist of the ’80s rock band Mr. Mister, Steve Farris, had the enviable, or – depending on who you ask, the unenviable – opportunity to join Kiss, at least for a few odd weeks.

Back when rumors were swirling that Ace Frehley was on the way out, Farris was well plugged into the Los Angeles music scene and, at the time, was playing with a couple of members of the country-rock band Poco.

“We started doing original shit and rehearsing down in Playa del Rey… or playing a gig at the Blue Lagune Saloon in Marina del Rey when that was still around, and [we were] playing original shit, [we had] a set,” Farris tells Vertex Effects.

However, the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself after one of those sets…

“Some tall guy comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, Ace Frehley is leaving Kiss. Would you be interested in auditioning for them? And I’m like, ‘Well, I eat peanut butter and jelly every day, and my Volkswagen Rabbit doesn’t start unless I push it off the clutch. Yeah, I would do that.’

“He writes down on a napkin – that's what you did those days – he goes, ‘Call this number; she’s handling all the auditions.’”

Farris frantically put together an audition tape with the help of his friend – record producer and Carpenters lead guitarist Tony Peluso – consisting of “demos I played with, songs I’d written while I was living in the Midwest, recorded in Chicago, instrumentals, things I sat in… just anything I could find that I showed I could play guitar well.”

Farris immediately drove down to an office on Sunset Boulevard, where he found the person who was handling Kiss’ auditions. “I gave her the tape, and she went and played it while I was there, which is kind of weird. So I sat there listening to the tape while she was listening to it.”

He drove off and didn’t think much of it until two weeks later, when he got an unexpected phone call.

“‘Is this Steve Farris?’ ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘This is Paul Stanley from Kiss.’ He said, ‘Gene and I listened to the tape last night. We really liked it. We're down at the Record Plant, cutting a record, and we just have guys come play on the records, kind of an audition. Want to come down? Come down tomorrow at 2[pm].’”

Valley Arts Strat, Goodrich pedal, and CE-1 Chorus in hand, Farris made his way to New York’s famed Record Plant studios. What he witnessed next is forever imprinted in his memory.

“There's four studios there. I’d been in there where somebody had some free time in the middle of the night, but I [had] never been in there to see anything real. They go to Studio D, and that's where Kiss was… sliding glass doors… You look through there, you see these tall guys with black hair, but at that time [1982] you’ve never seen them without makeup.”

After waiting for three hours, and even spotting a certain Bob Kulick – Bruce Kulick’s brother – being ushered out, Farris was finally summoned.

“Paul goes, ‘Hey, I got a Marshall out there, just plug into this.’ I got the engineer sitting here, Gene’s standing up, Paul’s on the other side, looking at me. He goes, ‘We need an eight-bar solo, it's in D or G – I can’t remember – We’ll scroll up the bridge, and I’ll count you in.’”

This turned out to be the title track of 1982’s Creatures of the Night – and, spoiler alert, his solo even made it onto the final record.

In fact, Stanley and Simmons were so impressed that they called it there and then.

“They go, ‘You dye your hair black?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ ‘So you wear high heels.’ I said, ‘I’ll give it a try,’ and they go, ‘Don’t do a fucking thing, man. We got the guy.’”

“I was the guy,” Farris asserts. “Played two solos. So the next week, I go in and play a little more with them.”

Farris thought it was a done deal until around a month later, when he was asked to sing – a request which was less than ideal considering he didn’t see himself as a singer.

“I realized at one moment, ‘Well, I’m gonna take a stab at this… but if I don't sing, I don’t get the gig.’ So I have the dubious distinction of having played Honky Tonk Women with Kiss, with me singing lead vocal. I wish I had that tape.”

Alas, Farris’ strong suit wasn’t singing, and unfortunately, two or three weeks later, he got the dreaded call.

“Paul calls me and goes, ‘We don’t think you're the right guy for the band. We love your playing. We want to hire you to keep you in session.’”

While Farris ended up playing on a couple of other tracks as a hired gun, the job went to Vinnie Vincent, who stayed with the band until mid-1984.

And, speaking of guitarists who nearly joined Kiss, Punky Meadows, best known as the guitarist for glam-rock outfit Angel, recently discussed the time he accidentally turned the band down.

You can never have enough guitar cables, right? That’s both an excellent piece of received wisdom, regarding preparation for future pedalboards and amp rigs, and also a prophetically-true statement about the inevitable existence of faulty leads in your current crop.

Keeping on top of your guitar cables and patch leads is never fun, but needs must – and what better time to meet those needs than “deals o’clock”? Amongst a plethora of Prime Day guitar deals, I’ve pulled out five of the best lead and patch cable kits, from Fender to MXR and beyond, and all with massive savings.

More options on sale

• Cheapest cable: New Bee braided 10ft, was $8.99, now $7.64
• Best value: Amazon Basics patch cables (6-pack), was $15.74, now $12.55
• Longest cable: GLS Tweed 20ft, was $21.99, now $17.99

More places to shop

Shop all the Prime Day guitar deals at Amazon

• Amazon: All Prime Day guitar deals
• Guitars: Save on beginner guitars
• Amps & pedals: Save big on fresh tones
• Accessories: Strings, slides, straps, and more

• 🇺🇸 Best non-Amazon sales (US)
• B&H Photo: Money off pro audio
• Guitar Center: Early 4th of July sale
• Guitar Tricks: 1 month for $1
• IK Multimedia: 50% off software coupon
• Musician's Friend: Up to 60% off gear
• Native Instruments: Up to 30% software savings
• Positive Grid: Spark Summer Sale
• Plugin Boutique: 100s of plugin discounts
• Reverb: B-stock deals
• Sweetwater: Big savings on guitar gear
• Universal Audio: Paradise Guitar studio $99
• Waves: Plugins for just $34.99

• 🇬🇧 Best non-Amazon sales (UK)
• Thomann: Shop the huge Thomann Music Days sale
• Gear 4 Music: Big clearance savings
• GuitarTricks: Half-price annual plan
• Plugin Boutique: Huge software savings
• Waves: Sale on studio staples

If you’re searching for a feature-packed multi-effects unit that won’t break the bank, the Mooer GE150 is a deal you can’t ignore. Over the past few years, Mooer has undergone a dramatic transformation, evolving from a brand best known for its affordable micro pedals (often inspired by classic designs) to a genuine force in the world of guitar effects. With flagship releases like the GE300 amp modeler/multi-effects, Mooer has proven it can compete with the big guns. Now, with the GE150 Pro, the company brings its innovative spirit and commitment to value into a compact, affordable package perfect for players at any level – and right now, there’s 35% off at Amazon, making this pedal only $129.

What sets the GE150 apart? For starters, it delivers an astonishing range of tones and features at a price point comfortably below $200. Built on Mooer’s acclaimed MNRS modeling technology, the GE150 comes loaded with 55 amp models derived from the brand’s best-selling Micro Preamp series. That means you get access to a huge library of authentic amp sounds, from sparkling cleans to high-gain heaviness, all at your fingertips.

• Keep up-to-date with our Prime Day guitar deals live blog
• Shop all the best Prime Day guitar deals at Amazon

But the value doesn’t stop there. The GE150 packs in a massive 151 effects, covering everything from lush reverbs and delays to wild modulation and dynamic processors. Want even more sonic flexibility? The unit boasts 26 high-quality cabinet simulations and supports MNRS sample files for both the amp and cab modules (GNR and GIR formats). The AMP module offers 20 slots for loading your own sample files, while the CAB module also provides 20 slots for user customization, making the GE150 one of the most versatile pedals in its class.

For those who want instant inspiration, the GE150 includes 200 factory preset tones, so you can plug in and play right out of the box. Whether you’re a bedroom noodler, a gigging musician, or someone looking for a powerful recording tool, the GE150 offers pro-level sounds and features without the pro-level price tag.

In short, the Mooer GE150 is a must-see deal for any guitarist who wants maximum value, versatility, and tone-shaping power. With its impressive feature set and wallet-friendly price, it’s no wonder the GE150 is making waves in the world of guitar effects.

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When it comes to dialing in guitar tones, I’ll be the first to admit I’m a straight shooter. I like straightforward saturated rock tones, minimal fuss, and as few pedals as possible. I’ve rarely been tempted by massive ambiance or shimmer reverb pedals. But after spending time with the Hotone NC-200 Verbera, I have to admit, my thoughts on do-it-all reverb units have been turned upside down - and better yet, it has 20% off this Prime Day!

This is a dual-engine stomp, loaded up with both real-space impulse response (IR) convolution reverbs and Hotone’s own stellar algorithmic sounds. That means you get everything from lush concert halls and subtle plates to wild, otherworldly textures perfect for atmospheric playing. If you’ve ever found yourself paralyzed by too many options or confused by complicated menus, you’ll be relieved to know that the NC-200 makes it all refreshingly simple. Every knob is clearly marked, and the colorful LED rings let you know exactly what you’re adjusting at a glance.

Even with its deep list of features, the NC-200 is one of the most intuitive pedals I’ve ever used. I braced myself for a labyrinth of submenus and cryptic buttons, but instead, I found a layout that made sense from the get-go. Whether you’re at home, in the studio, or on stage, you can get to any sound you want in seconds, with no manual diving required. That’s a rarity in the world of modern effects.

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The NC-200 comes loaded with a staggering 100 presets, and impressively, almost all of them are entirely gig-ready. There are, of course, a few settings that didn’t quite hit the mark for me (the spring reverbs aren’t quite as convincing as the rest), but the ambient, hall, and space options are genuinely inspiring.

Of course, no piece of gear is perfect, and the NC-200 does have a minor quirk. Weirdly, the MIDI jacks are in a rather odd spot. I can’t imagine a scenario where their placement wouldn’t be a bit awkward, either in a pedalboard setup or in the studio. They’re a little too easy to bump or accidentally disconnect. Still, that’s a small nitpick in an otherwise stellar package.

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by the idea of modern reverb pedals, or just wanted a unit that can go from classic to experimental without a learning curve, the Hotone NC-200 Verbera is an easy recommendation. And right now, it’s an even easier decision, as you can save 20% at Amazon, bringing the price down to just $239.99. That’s a killer deal for a pedal this loaded with features and inspiring tones.

Curious to hear more? Check out my full Hotone NC-200 Verbera review and see the pedal in action in the Guitar World demo video linked below. If you’re ready to rethink what a reverb pedal can do, this one might just change your mind, too.

Guitar World takes a closer look at what the Hotone Verbera can do

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Portuguese firm ADDAC System just guitar-ified its Eurorack modular synth, turning it into a pedal steel-inspired “open canvas” for creativity.

The ADDAC System Four String Series is a mad idea made real: a rack of synth modules with four pluckable strings designed around “the concept of physical strings as a creative medium.”

It boasts a unique pickup design which incorporates a quadraphonic configuration, while doing away with a fretboard, “allowing for the installation and use of other modules beneath the strings” instead

It too has a specially designed headstock that accommodates string gauges up to .055, or even thicker if players choose to customize it, and it gets locking tuners for good measure.

There are two sets of dedicated plectrums for each string, which can be controlled by buttons, triggers, or via MIDI. Different plectrum modules unfurl different dynamics, and there are three-way switches for choosing the available modes for each string.

In the up position, triggers and MIDI inputs are disabled; in the middle, it’s in Pluck mode, which activates all inputs, and in the down position, all inputs are active.

Calibration mode allows the pick angle to be adjusted in two-degree increments. Each string also gets its own dedicated Volume control.

As for the quadraphonic pickup, it’s actually four independent pickups with their own pre-amplifier, Volume control, and output jack, and, as with a traditional pickup, its height can be adjusted via side screws.

For those who like a more old-school pickup, there’s a humbucker option too, which offers Tone and Volume controls, a Low/High gain switch for some tasty saturation, and a preamp to bring the volume up to synth level.

Another (very fun-looking) module is the Ebow Slider, which glides back and forth beneath the strings, and is also height adjustable, while a Rotary Exciter module has a 7000 RPM brushless motor, and Small Resonators are said to be “extremely effective at adding harmonics to non-wounded strings.”

The firm is calling it “a new kind of modular string instrument,” and it’s easy to see why. It looks like a veritable toy chest of tactile soundscaping tools, and a very unique approach to marrying synths with lap steel and dulcimer designs.

Parts can be ordered separately or together, starting from 1100€ (approx. $1,250) for the humbucker system.

Visit ADDAC System for more.

Last week, stoner rock die-hards choked on their bongs when they learned that drone-metal icon Matt Pike had been replaced in legends of the genre, Sleep. Bubba Dupree, himself a hero of avant-garde metal in ’80s thrash trailblazers Void, is filling his shoes.

Yet Sleep aren’t the first major-league band Dupree has found himself involved with. In the late ’90s, he was on the verge of being drafted into Seattle grunge greats Soundgarden, as revealed in guitarist Kim Thayil’s new memoir, A Screaming Life.

In the fall of 1996, Soundgarden was on the verge of collapse.

The final album from their original tenure, Down on the Upside, showcased an increasingly fragmented songwriting approach. Thayil and bassist Ben Shepherd were creatively checking out. And the guitarist was growing frustrated with management interference in their touring lineups, which included artists he didn’t feel were a good fit, among them Pond, Rocket From the Crypt and a newly punk-oriented Moby.

The one unlikely saving grace was Moby’s guitar player for their European run: Bubba Dupree, who Thayil grew close with during the tour.

Meanwhile, frontman Chris Cornell could see the unhappiness in the ranks – and he was desperate to do something about it.

“Once again, Chris wanted to save Soundgarden,” Thayil recounts. “We were all moody, introspective, and contemplative people, more likely to brood than act, but Chris didn’t want the band to implode due to inaction on everyone’s part. We all knew there was unhappiness, but it wasn’t being addressed in a meaningful way.”

Cornell’s solution was to hire Dupree as another guitarist, in the hope that fresh blood would re-engage the rest of the band – even going so far as to suggest Dupree take over his own rhythm duties.

“Bubba would solve a couple of problems: it would free Chris from playing guitar and satisfy Ben and me,” Thayil reasons.

“While most of Soundgarden’s early and some later material only required one guitar, some songs needed two parts. Having Bubba play the second guitar would allow Chris to focus on vocals and improve everyone’s performance. It would elevate the vocals, guitar, and possibly reignite Ben and me creatively.”

Initially, Thayil and Shepherd were excited about the idea – it would bring, as Thayil puts it, “another talented, cool-­looking brown guy who could take over Chris’s parts and bring fresh ideas”.

Ultimately, however, the group were conflicted by their own admiration for the new recruit.

“He needed his own band, where his creativity wouldn’t compete with four other songwriters. He shouldn’t be a backup guitarist playing our old material, just like he didn’t need to be part of Moby’s punk project. His songs deserved their own voice.

“We all wanted Soundgarden to move forward, but we weren’t sure this was the solution to our problems. I appreciated Chris’s effort to reengage us, even if it ultimately didn’t work.”

Just a few months after the lineup change was discussed, Soundgarden would play their final show on February 9, 1997 in Honolulu, Hawaii. It would be 13 years before they played together again.

Outside of Soundgarden Chris Cornell got his wish to delegate guitar duties: to Tom Morello in Audioslave, and to Alain Johannes, or Pete Thorn and Yogi Lonich in his solo bands. But we never did get the chance to hear what a Bubba Dupree collaboration would sound like..

I keep seeing Fender in the headlines. Has a new Stratocaster come out or something?

Well, kinda. According to Fender, thousands of new Stratocasters are coming out every year. Trouble is, they’re being made by other manufacturers.

Ah, this is that cease-and-desist thing. What’s going on?

Earlier this year, Fender mailed out a stack of letters to guitar-builders across the US.

Oh, that’s nice. Why shouldn’t luthiers be penfriends?

The letters were, let’s say, strongly worded. They reportedly ordered those firms to halt production of any guitar that “infringes our client’s copyright in the Stratocaster body shape”.

Which is?

There’s 20-odd design points that make a Strat, but the defining feature is probably the asymmetrical double cutaway and headstock silhouette. Y’know, it’s the quintessential ‘guitar’ shape that your five-year-old nephew doodles on his school exercise book.

Is Fender coming after him too?

Not yet. But multiple builders have confirmed receipt of Fender’s cease-and-desist letter, from giants like PRS to boutique operations including LsL Instruments.

How about B.C. Rich?

No, probably not them.

Hasn’t the Strat been around since 1954? That’s some sluggish legal action.

Well, this isn’t the first time Fender has got litigious. Most recently, they tried to trademark the Strat, Tele and Precision shapes back in 2009. It didn’t work.

So what’s changed?

Back in March, Fender won a case in Germany against a Chinese builder. The US brand says the new copyright decision gives them “enforceable rights” over the Strat shape, at least in the EU. But the MI sector is fighting back: the world’s largest retailer, Thomann, just became the first firm to take legal action against Fender.

So the sue-er has become the sue-ee?

We don’t think those are actual words, but fine.

What are guitar designers supposed to do now?

Admittedly, it’s a head-scratcher. There’s a finite number of forms a guitar can take to work alongside our fundamental human physiology. It can’t exactly be a star shape.

Tell that to Björn from ABBA.

He only played that once, though. It probably pokes you in the armpit.

I play a doublecut. Do I have to hand it in at the police station, like an XL Bully?

Calm down. Fender says “two-horned or double-cutaway” guitars aren’t necessarily targets. And while there was briefly talk of a S-type bonfire, CEO Edward ‘Bud’ Cole now insists existing inventory won’t be destroyed.

How has the guitar blogosphere reacted?

With stoic reflection and measured cool-headedness.

No, seriously.

Fine. With froth-mouthed, bug-eyed, teeth-gnashing hot takes worthy of a Witchfinder General. Some pundits reckon it’s a long-overdue slapdown to a black market crawling with copycat chancers who never had an original idea in their lives. The rest are painting Fender as a bully-boy Godzilla sweeping mom ’n’ pop operations off the map with its big scaly tail.

Does Fender have a point?

Well, that’s debatable. What is the fundamental essence of an electric guitar?

Why are you suddenly talking like Carlos Santana?

We just mean: is a guitar defined by its physical dimensions, or by something more intangible like sound or vibe? Is a Ferrari a copy of a Porsche because both have four wheels and a hedge-fund manager at the wheel?

Are you expecting an answer to that?

No, just something to ponder. We’ll leave the decision to the unfortunate judge who has to sort out this train-wreck when it goes to court...

The Amazon Prime Day sale isn’t really the place to pick up a new guitar or amplifier (unless you’re a beginner), but it is a great place to pick up essentials for maintaining your instrument. As a regularly gigging guitar player, I frequently have to work on my own instruments, as the rough and tumble of consistent playing means things get knocked out of place or naturally need a tune-up over time.

I’ve been doing this for about twenty years now, and over that time, I’ve accumulated a bunch of essential tools that I keep in a carry case that stays in my gig bag. It comes with me to every show, recording session, and rehearsal to ensure I’m always ready should the need arise to adjust. Since we’re in the midst of the Prime Day guitar deals, it’s a great time for you to get your guitar tool kit up and running.

Setting up your own guitar is a skill I think every guitarist should learn. I spent five years in retail, and I was shocked at how many people came in just to get their guitar strings changed! You know your guitar best, so unless you’ve got a major issue, I think you should set up your own instrument to get it playing exactly how you want.

Here are 8 essential guitar tools I can’t do without, plus a bonus 9th for those who are just getting started with setting up their guitars.

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Don Felder is used to pain when it comes to music. I mean, the guy was in the Eagles, a band that epitomized the idea of seemingly seeking pleasure through agony. He took that to a new level when he was carted off the stage in February 2025 due to a pretty serious case of dehydration.

“My phone has never blown up so much in my life as it did when I had that little thing,” Felder says with a laugh.

That laugh is key, as it shows that at 78 – and now incredibly well-hydrated – Felder isn’t about to curb his touring career. “I’m going to rock until I drop,” he says. “But I didn’t think I’d be dropping in the middle of Tequila Sunrise! I thought I’d be dropping during Life in the Fast Lane, and they’d just drag me off the stage.”

Happily, there will be many more stages to drag Felder from. He has a slate of shows planned in 2026 and released a new record – The Vault 1975-2025: Fifty Years of Music – last year. There is, however, a bit of a gray area when it comes to the word “new,” as some, though not all, of the tracks from The Vault are, well, vintage.

For example, Felder wrote Move On, which features some tasty slide work, as an offering to Don Henley and Glenn Frey when he joined the Eagles. Henley and Frey didn’t dig Move On, but Felder did – especially when he recently rediscovered the original 1973 demo in a storage cabinet. He loved his slide work on the track, the roots of which date to an evening spent with Gregg and Duane Allman.

“We became friends,” Felder says. “One night, Duane was sitting on the floor playing slide. I said, ‘You’ve got to show me how to do that.’ He showed me the open tuning and how to pull down the fifth, slide up to the third and have a flat seventh on it. You know, the basics.”

After that lesson, as evidenced by Move On, Felder made the technique his own. “I’ve never tried to copy or emulate Duane,” he says. “He was so far ahead of me. I just felt like, ‘Now that I know how to get around on the instrument, I’ve got to learn to sound like me.’ I can’t sound like him; no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do that. But I stole as much as I could from him, watching him play in the old days.”

The Vault is actually a perfect marriage of old and new – a middle ground, if you will. And that’s just the right fit for Felder, who’s sometimes overlooked when it comes to ’70s guitar titans. Not that he cares.

“I never did it for the money, the fame or the legacy,” he says. “I did it because I was fascinated with music. I love to play and write. I love to go to the studio when it’s dark, turn it on and have no idea what I’m gonna do. I pick up a guitar, see what comes out and put it on record.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I retired; I’d be bored to death! It’s fun to have something to be excited about, and I always hope somebody else will be excited, too.”

You recently released The Vault 1975-2025: Fifty Years of Music. What’s the story with that?

I moved out of Malibu in 2000 after going through five major fires – and all the mudslides and road closures – and moved into town. I had a little studio I dismantled and put into storage, and all my tapes and demos were in storage, too. I hadn’t seen that storage locker for 20-something years, so it was time to go through it.

There were boxes of cassettes, CDs and DAT machines that recorded half-inch four-track, half-inch 24-track, 16-track and all the stuff I’d been working on since 1974 and 1975 as demos. I said, “I don’t even know what this stuff is!”

One of the demos you mentioned is Move On.

I’d just been invited to join the Eagles, and [ex-Eagles guitarist] Bernie Leadon told me, “If you want to write songs in this band, just worry about song structure – don’t write lyrics or melodies. Give those ideas to Don and Glenn, and they’ll write lyrics if they like the track.”

So one of the very first things I did was, with a four-track, I recorded myself playing on a cardboard box for the drum track, and then I played bass and slide. It was a very basic, raw demo of the idea. I hadn’t heard it for 50 years.

What did you think when you heard it again?

I went, “I remember that slide part! I loved that slide part.” When I submitted it to Don and Glenn, they went, “I like the slide, but there’s really not much of a song there,” so that’s what I heard, the slide part. I said, “I like that track. I’m gonna finish this.” I finished it, reproduced it, re-recorded the slide part, did the lyrics and harmonies and brought new life to an old idea.

Steve Lukather plays on Digital World. What’s it like working with him?

When he comes over – and he’s played on just about every solo album I’ve made except for the first one, Airborne [1983] – we spend the first 45 minutes to an hour just laughing, telling stories and having a great time before we plug in and tune up. It takes 30 minutes for us to walk through an idea, trade solos and create harmonies. I enjoy working with Steve. He’s brilliant, and a lot of fun to hang out with.

You re-recorded 1981’s Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride). How’d you approach It?

When I hear the original recording, it sounds technically dated. It was all analog, and just the echo chambers; it doesn’t sound up to the level of technology today. I decided I’d re-record it in today’s technology, which sounds 100 times better. If you were to play the old two-track version of the stereo version and compare it to today, there’s a massive difference.

You’ve been at it for a long time, which probably means you’ve got gear you’ve had for just as long. It would be easy to fall back on all of that, but you’re leaning into what’s new. Why?

I use vintage microphones, and I have a rack of classic outboard gear I use to record. I just think the process of recording at 96 kHz with high-resolution, quality analog gear on the front end is a wonderful combination.

I use some great new guitars and amps, and I’ve got six or seven amps that Alexander Dumble re-did for me. I’ve got Bogners and tons of different amps and guitars. It’s easy to go in and multi-track. I was looking at something yesterday; I think it’s I Like the Things You Do. There might be 30 guitar tracks on that.

What’s the reason behind that?

Some of them are doubles; some are split left or right. Some are effects I use. There’s just a lot of different ideas and approaches to making a track. Instead of just playing a thing top to bottom with the same rhythm guitar, that, to me, is old school. I was trying to explore, taking old ideas musically and making them sound modern with new techniques and approaches.

Do you still fall back on your guitars from your Eagles days?

I have close to 300 guitars. They’ve all been photographed and given a name. They’re separated by manufacturer; everything by Gibson is in one rack, everything from Fender is another. If I want to pick up my ’57 Strat from the locker, I can open up my spreadsheet, walk into the vault, pull the guitar off the shelf and bring it back – or have somebody go get it.

Of those 300 guitars, which is the most important?

My ’59 Les Paul. I played that on just about every Eagles record that I recorded with a Les Paul. I’ve recorded with it a lot for my albums, and I used it on a couple of tracks on this record, too. I used it on I Like the Things You Do and Free at Last. It feels like home.

Do you see yourself working with Gibson on more signature gear?

No, not right now. I’ve dealt with Gibson since I started playing music, and they released the Don Felder Hotel California copy of my ’59 Les Paul and the white Hotel California [EDS-1275] double-neck guitars, probably 10 or 12 years ago. They sold out immediately.

I don’t know that I’ll do many more endorsements. I really respect the fact that Gibson did it, and was honored that they asked me to do it. I work very closely with them; their Custom Shop makes things for me that are spectacular.

You talked about rocking until you drop – and you’re still writing songs.

I write all the time – almost every day. I write, scribble down a little something while listening to something on TV. I’ll hear an orchestra and go, “That was a beautiful change, back that up…” I’ll grab an acoustic and figure out what chord progression this orchestra was playing, put it on my phone, record it and collect bits and pieces.

When I’m on the road, it’s hard to write music; I can write lyrics, but not necessarily music. So when I come back home, I’m in the studio writing, recording, producing and coming up with ideas. Not all of them will become finished products, but you never know what’s going to come out until you step into it.

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

Even if he had achieved nothing else as an amp builder, Lyndon Laney’s legend status was cast in stone on 13 February 1970.

That was the day that Black Sabbath released their self-titled debut album, driven by a tone so heavy, crushing and malevolent that it seemed to capture the doomy clank of Birmingham’s sheet-metal factories (an industry that had already cost Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi two of his fingertips).

Of course, that call-to-arms for heavy metal couldn’t have happened without Iommi’s vision and riffs. Equally, there’s a case it wouldn’t have landed so hard without the guitarist’s custom Laney LA 100 BL: among the first of many fabled amplifiers created by the Midlands-based company following its formation in 1967.

“You used to be in there night and day, dedicated to it,” reflected Iommi in a recent head-to-head interview with his great friend Laney, who died in April at the age of 77. “I’m not going to use anything else and, without you, we wouldn’t be here.”

In fact, Laney achieved plenty more, both before and after his association with Sabbath. Born in 1948, by the mid-’60s he was playing bass with The Band of Joy – familiar to Led Zeppelin scholars as the proving ground for vocalist Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham.

But it was the art of valve-amp tone that held the greatest fascination, and so Laney began working on early designs in his father’s garage, fine-tuning the punch and character of his circuitry to stand out in a market already dominated by Vox, Marshall and Fender.

What seemed like a huge gamble – “Two days before I was due to go to university to study electronic engineering,” Laney recalled, “I decided to carry on for a couple of years making amplifiers, see how it went” – soon paid off. One of the young engineer’s first commissions was building the PA for Zeppelin’s first US tour of 1968, while word-of-mouth saw his powerful, affordable amps proliferate on home turf.

The quality of Laney’s tone was such that it even drew Iommi away from his original Marshall backline, the Sabbath man settling on six 4x12 cabinets fed by four 100-watt heads. Perhaps there was also an element of Black Country solidarity.

“I switched to Laney because they started up around the same time as us and they’re a Birmingham company,” the guitarist told MusicRadar. “To be honest, they offered to give us all this gear when nobody else did. What do you say to that? ‘Okay!’ So I used them.”

It was typical of a canny operator who went on to prove both his innovative spirit and head for business. With Laney’s finger on the pulse, 1973’s KLIPP amp range was the first of its kind to feature a boost channel, while the early ’80s saw the firm develop the AOR series whose extra stage of pre-gain was a favourite among the Sunset Strip set.

In the ’90s, the British builder scored again with the VC range of retro-styled Class A valve combos, while developing hybrid amplification with the Tube Fusion series. By that decade’s end, Laney counted Joe Satriani, Nuno Bettencourt, Frank Gambale and more among its A-list endorsers (today the roster includes Billy Corgan, Vernon Reid and Guthrie Govan).

Post-millennium, Laney added the Class D bass amps to its remit, later joined by further guitar-sector successes including the Lionheart, Ironheart and A acoustic ranges. Moving with the times, 2015’s T-USB-equipped L5-Studio interfaced directly with DAW, before the Bluetooth-compatible MINI series shrank signature Laney tones into an ultra-compact, desktop-ready, battery-powered chassis.

Most recently, the brand diversified again with its Black Country Customs pedal range, while the Laney Sound System series tapped into the lucrative Bluetooth speaker market, snapped up by many non-musicians for partying, not playing.

None of these career milestones, it seemed, went to Laney’s head, with the founder remaining a warm, hands-on presence on the MI scene while passing more responsibilities to his talented son, James (who took control of the company several years ago).

His loss is profound but his legacy undeniable – and while Iommi declared himself “devastated” in a farewell post, during their shared interview, Laney had nothing but happy memories of his life less ordinary: “We’ve had some fun along the way…”

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

In light of Mötley Crüe’s infamous penchant for bad behavior, you’d think trying to get a coherent performance out of them in the studio would be like trying to train a pack of hyenas as valet attendants.

It’s easy to picture the band members anointing the walls of Hollywood’s Cherokee Studios with liquor, spray paint, lighter fluid and various unsavory emissions as their hapless producer begs them to pick up their instruments and give Looks That Kill a run-through.

The Shout at the Devil liner notes do little to dispel that notion: “This album was recorded on Foster’s Lager, Budweiser, Bombay Gin, lots of Jack Daniels, Kahlua and brandy, quackers and krell [the band members’ nickname for their favorite illegal nasal decongestant] and wild women!”

Jonathan Little, owner of the L.A.-based audio gear company Little Labs, had a front-row seat to the bedlam while working as a tech during the Shout sessions.

“I saw all the well-known Mötley Crüe debauchery,” he says. “There would be chicks getting champagne bottles inserted in their private parts, [and] for most of one night, I sat in a little back room with Nikki Sixx and [Doors keyboardist] Ray Manzarek doing blow.”

He adds that even engineer Geoff Workman “always had a big Coca-Cola glass full of ice and Jack Daniels. He’d go through a bottle of Jack each night.”

However, Shout at the Devil producer Tom Werman says the Crüe’s antics didn’t impede recording progress.

“There was a lot of partying in the studio, but it was really softcore,” he says. “They didn’t get near the heroin thing, which they did later, but not in the studio, really. Alcohol and party-favor drugs – that was normal in probably the majority of recording sessions in L.A. in the ’80s, but we got it done. They wanted good music, and they wanted to be successful, so they took the partying only so far.”

Werman adds that working with Crüe guitarist Mick Mars was the best part of the recording experience, largely because Mars came into the studio with his guitar parts worked out in advance.

“The only thing I really contributed to Mick’s playing was fills. He would have the basic guitar lines down, but he wouldn’t have any fills between verses or between a verse and a chorus, so I would suggest stuff to him, and he would be very cooperative.”

The late Geoff Workman’s experience with Mars was less pleasant, according to Little. “Geoff was getting frustrated with Mick[’s performances]. He claimed to me that he would take the tapes to [Toto keyboardist] David Paich’s place, which was called Hog Manor, and overdub his own guitar tracks [in place of Mars’]. Not even the band knew about it.”

Leaving aside the question of whose playing made it onto the record, the rhythm guitar track on Looks That Kill consists of a single performance split to two separate tracks. One track was close-mic’d with a Neumann U 87 and panned left. The other, recorded with a microphone in the back of the room, was panned hard right.

“I was a rhythm guitar player, so that was really the basis of my whole approach to making records; put a good rhythm guitar [track] down, double it and spread it left and right,” Werman says. “That was the cushion on which the whole song sat.”

As the first thing mainstream audiences heard from the Crüe, the Looks That Kill riff was the battering ram the band used to smash their way into popular music’s hall of victors. It played a crucial part in transforming Mötley from underground sensation to the unchallenged trash sultans of the heavy metal world. In the process, it helped set the template for the commercial metal sound that ruled the 1980s.

Werman acknowledges the powerful impact Looks That Kill and Shout at the Devil had on music. “[Mötley Crüe] were as new and influential as Guns N’ Roses was when they came along. It established a new bar for metal achievement and attitude.”

Looks That Kill – Axology

GUITAR: 1972 Gibson Les Paul Standard or Gibson Les Paul Custom with T-Top pickups

AMP: Marshall JCM800 or late-’60s/early-’70s Super Lead plexis with master volume mod and extra gain stage (Volume 1: 7, Volume 2: 8, Presence: 3, Bass: 8, Middle: 4.5, Treble: 4.5, Master Volume: 9 o’clock), Marshall cabinets loaded with Celestion V30 or G12M Greenback speakers

STRINGS: Ernie Ball Light Gauge

TUNING: D standard

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

Let's face it, cheap pedals can be hit and miss. For every diamond in the rough, there are 8 or 9 that should probably be destined for landfill. With the launch of the Amazon Prime Day sale today, there's myriad budget stompboxes available with serious money off, but which should you get?

Before Prime Day guitar deals even started, the Guitar World team bought 8 of the most talked about cheap pedals on Amazon to put them to the test and find out what they're really good for. We've used them with real tube amps, with a modeling amp, and through an audio interface with guitar plugins to see how they hold up.

Tonally, there's some really great stuff here, especially if you're willing to tweak. You can absolutely use them to record and rehearse. Where they typically fall short of more expensive models, however, is the build quality, which is fine for using on a home pedalboard, but I'd stop short of playing them live.

For the money, it's hard to knock these pedals, especially if you're just building a budget second home 'board or you want to try some iconic pedal circuits out without committing to spending hundreds of dollars. Of the 8 pedals we tested, 7 have seen discounts, so here's what we thought of each one. We've also ranked them in order of preference.

Shop the full Prime Day sale

• Amazon: All Prime Day guitar deals
• Guitars: Save on beginner guitars
• Amps & pedals: Save big on fresh tones
• Accessories: Strings, slides, straps, and more

More retailer sales

• 🇺🇸 Best US sales
• B&H Photo: Money off pro audio
• Guitar Center: Early 4th of July sale
• Guitar Tricks: 1 month for $1
• IK Multimedia: 50% off software coupon
• Musician's Friend: Up to 60% off gear
• Native Instruments: Up to 30% software savings
• Plugin Boutique: 100s of plugin discounts
• Reverb: B-stock deals
• Sweetwater: Big savings on guitar gear
• Universal Audio: Paradise Guitar studio $99
• Waves: Plugins for just $34.99

• 🇬🇧 Best UK sales
• Thomann: Shop the huge Thomann Music Days sale
• Gear 4 Music: Big clearance savings
• GuitarTricks: Half-price annual plan
• Plugin Boutique: Huge software savings
• Waves: Sale on studio staples

What is it?

With so many options, it can be hard to choose an overdrive pedal. For the most part, it comes down to two things - the job you want the pedal to do, and personal preference. The original Little Green Wonder from Finnish brand Mad Professor is an example of a more interesting choice, with its different take on controlling tone courtesy of its unique ‘Body' control.

Since the initial release around 20 years ago, the original version has been discontinued, with that ‘Body' control being replaced by the more ubiquitous Treble and Bass controls on the second iteration, named The Green Wonder.

Now, Mad Professor is bringing the original layout back, including its bougie handwired nature. With it in front of me for review, I am looking forward to seeing what this different take on an EQ control can do.

Specs

• Launch price: $378 | £286 | €330
• Type: Overdrive pedal
• Made: Finland
• Controls: Volume, Gain, Body
• Features: Unique ‘Body’ control EQ, handwired
• Connectivity: ¼” in and out
• Bypass: True
• Power: 9V centre negative, 4mA
• Dimensions: 2.7”x5.3”x2.5”/70x135x65mm
• Weight: 0.9lbs/415g
• Contact: Mad Professor

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

Being a hand-wired pedal, we are paying a hand-wired price, and the Little Green Wonder, with its metal chassis, boasts the near-indestructible feel we can expect when spending this sort of money.

It’s an impression that continues with the knobs and footswitch pushing back in a way that makes them feel premium and reassuring in use, and a bright power LED settled in a metal bevel completes the feeling of industrial strength.

The artwork here is more intricate than the less expensive factory version, and in my opinion, the art deco approach just looks better and, yes, more premium as a result.

Usability and features

Usability and features rating: ★★★★½

With only three controls and without no screens or menus to worry about, there is no need for a manual here.

A ¼” in and out is as you would expect, and the standard 9V power input that will suit any pedalboard power supply. It can take up to 18V, but Mad Professor recommends we stick to the noted 9V for best results. Still, it’s handy to have this range to avoid any accidents with mixing up voltages.

To state the obvious, the Volume control makes things louder, and the Gain control adds more drive. Less obvious is the Body control. Fully left adds more bass and low mids with a slight treble boost, and fully right reduces bass with more mid focus.

We’ll get into the minutiae of the sounds later, but the result is a control that is, oddly, darkest in the middle and different types of bright at the extremes. In other words, not your usual tone control, or the low-end control that most people would associate with the term.

Whilst this might take a beat or two to figure out, it is still a simple pedal that requires only minimal brain power to get the head around and dial in on the fly.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

Now, as a drive pedal with green in its name and finish, most are going to, fairly, assume that the Little Green Wonder is a take on a Tube Screamer.

The gain range is similar, as it goes from light breakup to a relatively driven overdrive. But the increased headroom and Body Control are where things differ quite drastically from a classic TS-type pedal.

With the Body control set straight up the middle, the tone has a TS-style mid hump, but without the smooth feel of a Screamer. This is my least favorite setting, as it sounds a little lacking in high-end life to me.

Turn left, and some high-end gets added back in while the bass response is retained, resulting in a pleasing, relatively full-range type of drive, quite far removed from the TS thing, and perfect for edge of breakup tones or classic rock rhythms when the Gain is pushed.

Turn right, and some more high mid is added (at a higher mid-frequency than a screamer), and the low end is slightly reduced, which means a cutting type of drive that will get you heard in the mix whilst still being pleasant to listen to on its own.

This setting is well-suited to pushing another drive pedal or driven amp into saturation, helped along by a huge amount of output available on the Volume control.

This all ends up in a unique-sounding drive pedal that can work well as a standalone crunchy rhythm or driven lead, or as a boost for a driven amp and other pedals. It is not transparent like a Bluesbreaker, for example, but has a mid hump that is not as forward as a TS-type pedal. A pretty great middle ground.

Verdict

The result of all this is versatility. It can do Tube Screamery things, but the highlights are within the Little Green Wonder’s ability to provide a range of boost and overdrive tones, creating a drive pedal that will fit most pedalboards or guitars. A handy little device.

Guitar World verdict: Ignore the connotations of its green color and title. This is an impressive drive/boost pedal with the unique Body control being the crux of its versatility. It can provide a relatively full-range drive, or a mid-humped lead as a boost or a standalone pedal. Something that could find a home in many a setup.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Mike Hermans

Mad Professor

PRS is teaming up with Jon Jourdan – the touring guitarist of Wolfgang Van Halen’s Mammoth – on a single-pickup, single-control guitar, modeled after Jourdan’s main touring instrument.

While PRS has launched a few single-pickup models over the years – most notably the LP Junior-style PRS SE One, which developed a cult following – these are much rarer releases for the brand. In fact, Jourdan’s signature is a limited run, as just 200 guitars are up for grabs.

Featuring an all-mahogany guitar with a single PRS Metal pickup in the treble position, Jordan had the volume control moved to the tone pot's traditional location, as he typically plays with the volume wide open. This tweak ensures he won't accidentally hit it when going all out on stage.

When asked why he opted for scaled-back specs, Jourdan says, “At the end of the day, my guitar is a tool. I want it to do exactly what I need it to, so we took out all the ‘extra’ stuff I don’t need. This guitar sounds huge and is incredibly fun to play.

“There’s something about taking out any unnecessary wiring and removing the neck pickup so its magnets aren’t pulling on the strings that makes it feel alive. I can’t imagine anyone playing this guitar having a bad time.”

Other specs include a 22-fret Pattern Regular mahogany neck, ebony fretboard, and PRS adjustable stoptail bridge.

PRS’ quintessential bird inlays have been eliminated – as well as any other inlays, for that matter. However, the guitar does feature green Luminlay side dots so players can easily mark fret positions.

Priced at $4,200 (SE version, please!), there are two attractive finishes to choose from, Gunmetal Metallic and Platinum Metallic – which Mammoth fans can expect to see first-hand at the band’s ongoing The End Tour shows.

Head to PRS Guitars to find out more.

You never really know when you’re going to get your break. Dead Pioneers’ early single, Bad Indian, created a momentum they hadn’t anticipated. Things only accelerated when they mailed a copy of their music to Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament.

“I was 38 when we went on tour with them,” says guitarist Josh Rivera. “A long time ago I’d kind of given up on the dream of something like that happening. Pearl Jam asking us to come out and play was kind of the ultimate confirmation that maybe we were doing something right.”

That validation can be heard all over their forthcoming album Wagon Burner – while the Dead Pioneers’ politically charged identity remains intact, the record dramatically expands their sonic palette, pushing their sound and identity far beyond straightforward hardcore punk into something heavier, more atmospheric, and surprisingly dynamic.

“We got heavier and dirtier on this record than we ever have before,” Rivera says. “But we also cleaned it up and explored a lot more atmosphere.”

That evolution largely came from the chemistry of the band as a whole; their collaborative approach became central to the record’s identity.

Unlike many punk bands where guitar roles stay rigidly separated, guitarists Rivera and Abe Brennan approached Wagon Burner as a communal creative process where riffs constantly evolved in the room.

“This is the most collaborative band I’ve ever played in,” Brennan says. “Someone brings in a riff, and pretty soon everybody’s adding to it. Suddenly, you’ve got this Frankenstein song – but it works. I’ve always believed punk should evolve. If you’re just recreating the same thing over and over again, eventually it stops feeling honest.”

That attitude pushed the band to explore unfamiliar territory. Songs like Nazi Teeth lean into massive octane-drenched riffs and near-metallic aggression, while tracks like Never Alone incorporate cleaner layers, chorus textures, and the sort of melodic space that was only hinted at in prior releases.

“We explored using all sorts of pedals on this record,” Rivera says. “I probably brought 20 or 30 into the studio. There were always a dozen different things at my feet.”

Sessions took place at The Blasting Room studio in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he had the luxury of recording close to home instead of flying into sessions with limited gear. That freedom allowed him to constantly swap gear and textures. “On the last record I was mostly using whatever the studio had. This time, if I wanted a different guitar or a weird pedal for one section, I could just go grab it.”

They relied extensively on the EarthQuaker Devices Gary Overdrive, while also using the Chase Bliss Generation Loss Mk. II for degraded chorus textures and warped ambience. “Anytime I needed something a little warbly or weird, I was reaching for the Generation Loss,” Rivera says.

He leaned heavily on his Ryan “Fluff” Bruce signature Music Man StingRay alongside several PRS guitars. Meanwhile, Brennan tracked much of the record using his Gibson SG. “I love the way the SG reacts,” he says. “Anything weird or chaotic just feels right on that guitar.”

Brennan’s pedal choices played a huge role in the record’s heavier moments as well. He frequently used the EHX POG throughout the hard-charging Nazi Teeth, helping create some of the thickest guitar tones the band have recorded thus far.

“Once Abe kicked on the POG for some of those single-note riffs, everything just got massive,” Rivera says. “It stopped sounding like a normal punk guitar and started sounding almost mechanical and overwhelming – in the best way possible.”

Even fuzz tones carried deeper meaning. Dead Pioneers have repeatedly pointed to Indigenous-owned pedal company NativeAudio as a defining part of their sound, particularly the Frybread Fuzz and War Party pedals.

Their willingness to experiment mirrors their larger mission: originally born from singer/songwriter Gregg Deal’s spoken word performance project The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy, the band have always approached punk through a political lens rooted in Indigenous liberation, class consciousness, and anti-capitalism.

“You can’t talk about Indigenous rights without talking about capitalism and the way it’s affected our communities,” Deal explains. “You cannot talk about Indigenous liberation without talking about class war.”

That urgency drives the emotional core of Wagon Burner. Deal adds: “If Never Alone is saying music can bring people together, the rest of the record is explaining why you need that community in the first place.

“We have more in common with each other than we do with any billionaire dickhead. That’s the whole point. We’re trying to bring people along with us.”

• Wagon Burner is releaed on June 26, and it’s available for pre-order now.

As the ultimate gear aficionado, Joe Bonamassa and tube amps go hand in hand – with his legion of Dumble amps, 1950s Fender tweeds, vintage Marshalls, boutique builds and even Gary Moore’s Soldano gracing the halls of Nerdville West and East.

And while Bonamassa is largely analog through and through, the blues maestro may very well be changing his tune, or, at least, warming up to the possibility of incorporating more digital gear in his roster, as he was recently spotted brandishing a Fender Tone Master amp on tour.

Bonamassa even went as far as sharing a photo of his signature Fender ’59 High Powered Twin alongside a tweed-covered Fender Tone Master Twin – part of the Fender range that aims to bring its classic amps into the digital realm.

So what spurred this change? “I’ve got to be honest with you and admit when I’m wrong,” Bonamassa tells MusicRadar.

“I still have my other tube amps behind me. It’s just that the high-powered Twin is now a Tone Master. When I first plugged into it, I realised this shit’s good. I wanted to dislike it, I really wanted to dislike it! But I couldn’t.

“My production manager, my sound tech, even my other guitar player Josh Smith – they were all telling me it sounds better and feels right. And I was like, ‘I know!’”

While Bonamassa admits defeat, he does mention that there’s one thing that convinced him that going digital still fits his ethos. Turns out, it’s a deal breaker…

“I think the trick at this point is to be physically pushing out sound,” he says. “You have to be moving air. By having the right speakers, the Tone Master works. It’s not like I’m plugging into a direct box, which I could, but I don’t think that would sound good.

“That’s where a lot of this digital modeling stuff can start sounding a little generic. With a lot of the things out there, you’re not moving air, and the dynamic range is limited. For me, moving air is essential, just like playing loud,” he concludes.

At nearly 90 years old, Buddy Guy is still carrying the torch for the blues and remains a guiding force for current and future generations of blues players.

Fresh off his cameo in Ryan Coogler's highly lauded film Sinners, Guy’s legacy is continuing to be celebrated, as Blackbird Presents and Live Nation are teaming up to organize Buddy’s Got the Blues: A 90th Birthday Concert Celebration.

The event, taking place on October 1 at the iconic Radio City Music Hall in New York City, is set to be a one-night-only event with collaborations, performances, and heartfelt tributes from artists influenced by Guy’s work.

The all-star lineup includes a veritable list of legends and blues virtuosos: Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Susan Tedeschi & Derek Trucks, Jon Batiste, Aloe Blacc, Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr., Shemekia Copeland, Robert Cray, Samantha Fish, Eric Gales, Billy F Gibbons, Ivan Neville, Robert Randolph, Bobby Rush, Isaiah Sharkey, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jimmie Vaughan, Ally Venable, Willie Weeks, and Kim Wilson.

More artists and special guests are set to be announced soon, and the man himself, Buddy Guy, will (of course) also perform, proving that he's still got the blues.

Current Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan serves as the musical director.

Speaking about the event, Guy says, “Can't wait to celebrate 90 years of living, loving, and playing the blues with all my friends. We’ll make it a night not just for me, but for the folks who taught us, the friends we’ve played with, and the ones coming up behind us.”

In a recent interview with Guitar Player, the blues icon has explained why he’s not giving up touring just yet, as he prepares to hit the road on July 15, starting at Massey Hall in Toronto.

“I thought about retiring twice,” he says. “But, y’know, I thought about all those great blues players who are no longer with us – B.B. King. Lightnin’ Hopkins, all those guys – and they used to tell me, ‘You need to keep playing and keep representing the blues,’ ’cause they don’t play it on radio or anything anymore.

“So I said to myself, ‘Well, Buddy, you better hang on a little longer. My health ain’t doing too bad, so I’m still doing what I’ve always done. Every time I get onstage, just try to play the best I can.”

Tickets go on sale to the general public on June 26 at 10 AM ET. Head to Buddy 90 to find out more.

Guy is set for a very busy rest of the year, having also been announced for this year's edition of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival.

Dave Burrluck, Guitarist magazine’s renowned Gear Editor and our colleague and friend, passed away last week following a short illness. Dave was known throughout the industry as a game-changing journalist who set the standard for in-depth gear reviews.

Dave’s knowledge and approach to reviewing – acquired over four decades of experience writing and reviewing instruments, gigging, attending trade shows, and visiting factories – was, frankly, unrivaled, and we will sorely miss his friendship and insight.

He began reviewing music-making gear in the 1980s for International Musician and Recording World, before launching The Guitar Magazine in 1991. He joined Guitar World’s UK sister publication Guitarist around the turn of the millennium as Reviews Editor and held the position throughout a period of massive upheaval in both publishing, and music-making and gear design.

He fiercely championed quality builds wherever he saw them, and consistently offered a rare platform for small and innovative guitar builders, particularly those in the UK.

Here, Guitarist editor Jamie Dickson, his closest colleague, explains just what made Dave such a force for good in his role and the wider industry.

“Dave had something so many guitar reviewers lack – a rigorous, luthier's eye for the measurable, verifiable qualities of an instrument. He kept a cool head about the hype that surrounds so many guitar launches, reserving judgment until he'd had the instrument on his workbench, calipers and gauges ready to hand.

“A thorough workshop survey of each guitar he reviewed was typically followed by using it at gigs, too. Dave judged guitars based on how successful they were as tools for working musicians, and he remained a busy, gigging musician right up to the end of his life, so he knew what he was talking about in this area as well.

“He wasn't unmoved by perfectly inlaid abalone or a beautifully figured maple top – but he was just as fulsome in his praise for a £400 guitar that was perfectly executed for the price as he was for a £4,000 boutique dream machine – yet he also understood the difference between those two guitars and what buyers should expect of them, too.

“Dave was a walking library of guitar industry contacts and backstories, and he usually knew all of the prior variants of any given mainstream guitar by heart. Guitar makers respected and appreciated the experience, knowledge and objectivity he brought to his reviews – for they knew that when Dave found fault with a guitar, he wasn’t being partisan or blinkered by his own personal tastes. He was simply reporting what he found, giving verifiable evidence for his judgment.

“He knew when a guitar looked and sounded cool – but that wouldn't be enough to get it off the hook if it didn't stay in tune or the fit and finish was sloppy. The reverse of that coin was that when Dave saw fit to grant a Gold Award to a guitar, makers knew they’d really nailed it. Such was the respect commanded by Dave’s reviews that a good one could put a fledgling guitar company on the map – for he opened doors just as often as he guarded gates.

“As a friend and a man he was just as reliable as his reviews. If you had trouble in your life, Dave had warm but practical words of advice and support to offer. They really helped because you knew what he was saying was genuine.

“For every feather he ruffled with his frankness, there was a person who felt steadied and reassured about a tough situation – in the guitar industry or in private life – because Dave had been kind enough to support them.

“He was good fun, too – after a grueling trawl round the expanse of the NAMM show halls, you always learned something you didn’t know about how the guitar industry really functioned when you sat down to chat with Dave over a meal or a pint.

“Sometimes gruff but always genuine, he was a one-off – a custom build, one might say, from an inspired but idiosyncratic maker. So many people benefited from his knowledge, and the warmth and affection he was held in can, sadly, be read in the dozens upon dozens of big names who have paid tribute to him since his passing – nor were their comments merely standard condolences.

“One commented that his death was a 'gut punch' and it's hard to disagree. Like Keith Richards, whom Dave admired, we always thought he’d go on forever – an institution of the guitar scene in his way but mainly a much-loved, trusted friend and mentor to maker and reader alike.”

Fender’s California series was, at one point, a semi-experimental oddity in the brand’s pre-millennium run; in the intervening years, though, it’s been rehabilitated, revitalised and re-cultivated into a well-loved range of incredibly accessible, incredible-playing beginner and intermediate acoustics. The California Debut series brings those instincts to some tantalising low-budget price points – and with its Redondo acoustics and electro-acoustics.

And now, for Prime Day, Amazon has seen fit to drop the price on two standout Debut models to even more tantalizing prices – including this stealthy black number down to only $104.99.

• Shop more of the best beginner acoustic guitars
• Keep up-to-date with our Prime Day guitar deals live blog

The California Debut series is the cheapest steel-stringed range in Fender’s acoustic-guitar roster, with a variety of models in different shapes and sizes. The California Debut Redondo guitars are dreadnought acoustics, with an exceedingly comfortable and fast-playing C-shaped, walnut-fingerboarded neck; the body is lighter than most, but its spruce top assists in some powerful sound that leaps far above the $139.99 list price. For Prime Day, though, it’s 25% off at $104.99 – strikingly cheap for the value on display.

The California Debut Redondo CE series takes that same effective formula for underpriced comfort and playability, this time with a single-cutaway for more comfortable access to the higher extremities of the fingerboard – and also with electronics, in the form of an under-saddle piezo pickup feeds into a battery-powered Fender FE-A2 preamp module. The module itself sports separate volume and tone controls and a built-in tuner, which feed a jack output – all this for just $126.99 on Prime Day.

These discounted Fender acoustic guitars are already a steal, but if you’re in the market for accoutrement then Prime Day still has you covered. After all, if you’re buying a new Fender acoustic, you’ll probably want a gig bag to carry it around in, and maybe a clip-on tuner too, whether to rehearsals or your next show… And why not trust Fender with those, too?

Shop more Prime Day deals

• All the best places to shop at Amazon
• Amazon: All Prime Day guitar deals
• Guitars: Save on beginner guitars
• Pedals: Cheap multi-effects
• Amps: Money off smart amps
• Strings: Stock up on essentials
• Accessories: Capos, slides, straps, and more

• Today's best non-Amazon sales
• B&H Photo: Money off pro audio
• Guitar Center: Save up to 30% on acoustics
• Guitar Tricks: 1 month for $1
• IK Multimedia: 50% off software
• Musician's Friend: Up to 40% off electrics
• Native Instruments: Up to 30% software savings
• Plugin Boutique: 100s of plugin discounts
• Reverb: B-stock deals
• Sweetwater: Big savings on guitar gear
• Universal Audio: Paradise Guitar studio $99
• Waves: Plugins for just $34.99

Some guitars are more novelty than instrument – with just-because-they-could add-ons and features that most of us don’t really chime with. And then there are some guitars that really, honestly put the ‘novel’ in novelty. Donner’s Hush X Live is one such guitar. And right now, the guitar series we rated 4.5 stars, has a hearty 16% off for Prime Day.

The Hush X Live takes the travel electric niche and runs with it, making for a full-featured headless instrument that’s ideal for quiet practice, loud practice, on-the-go practice, impromptu performance and everything between. It’s the guitar you never knew you needed, surprisingly good for its price – particularly with this temporarily low price.

Want the most up-to-date information? Keep track with our Prime Day guitar deals live blog.

The Hush X Live is a continuation of form for Donner; we loved its prior iteration, the Donner Hush X, for its comfort, sound and playability, to the point that we gave it 4.5 out of 5. Here, with the Hush X Live, there’s straight-up more to love.

The Hush X Live adds an on-board 5W amp, replete with five different amp/cab sims and a variety of clever digital effects, including delays, reverbs and even a noise gate. A noise gate! Control parameters are all accessed via handy knobs where you’d usually expect a pickguard to be – the whole techy shebang being couched comfortably in a detachable lower body module. There’s I/O for days too, including headphone and monitor outputs and even a Bluetooth input for receiving backing tracks.

The actual guitar bit of this whole arrangement, though, is arguably more impressive. It’s a headless through-neck design, comprising seven strips of Okoume and a 22-fret HPL (or roasted maple) fingerboard. The body houses two of Donner’s own Alnico V pickups, a single coil for the neck and a hot humbucker for bridge. There’s a straight jack output from the body, too, if you want to use the Hush X Live without its optional techy gubbins.

The guitar, by itself, is an extremely inviting prospect. It’s an entry-level travel electric with the specs and sound of something far less portable; with the attachable amp, there’s some clever tech that would make rehearsal and backstage practice a cinch. All of this, for $66 less on Prime Day. And it comes with so much box candy too, including a clip-on tuner, a strap and a purpose-designed bag for all that travellin’ you’ll be doing with it.

Shop more Prime Day deals

• Amazon: All Prime Day guitar deals
• Guitars: Save on beginner guitars
• Pedals: Cheap multi-effects
• Amps: Money off smart amps
• Strings: Stock up on essentials
• Accessories: Capos, slides, straps, and more

It's day 3 of the Prime Day guitar deals in 2026, and I'm here to bring you all the latest and greatest savings from the Amazon Prime Day sale, and beyond. Whether you're picking up a guitar or amp, some cheap pedals, or just stocking up on some fresh strings, there's a massive selection of discounts available. We're keeping track of everything as it happens, updating this page live, so you know where to be if you don't want to miss out.

To help you navigate the literal thousands of amazing discounts, the Guitar World team and I have created this live hub that’ll be updated around the clock with the best Prime Day guitar deals, plus my own advice, shopping tips, and personal purchases. We've been covering the Prime Day sales for years, so you can trust us to keep you in the loop on the best savings.

Below you’ll find links to all the current sales, along with handpicked deals from our dedicated team here at Guitar World.

If you're not such a fan of Amazon, fear not; there are rival sales popping up everywhere, including an early-access 4th of July sale at Guitar Center.

So, whether you're guitar hunting, scouring for new pedals, or hoping to score a discounted amp, keep checking back here regularly for the hottest deals from all over the internet.

Quick links

All the best places to shop at Amazon

• Amazon: All Prime Day guitar deals
• Guitars: Save on beginner guitars
• Pedals: Cheap multi-effects
• Amps: Money off smart amps
• Strings: Stock up on essentials
• Accessories: Capos, slides, straps, and more

Today's best non-Amazon sales

• Guitar Center: Early-access 4th July sale
• Sweetwater: Big savings on guitar gear
• Musician's Friend: Up to 60% 4th July sale
• Universal Audio: Huge up to 80% off half year sale
• IK Multimedia: 50% off software coupon
• Positive Grid: Giant Spark summer sale
• Fender: Up to $200 off Tone Master
• Guitar Tricks: 1 month for $1
• B&H Photo: Money off pro audio
• Plugin Boutique: 100s of plugin discounts
• Reverb: B-stock deals
• Waves: Plugins for just $34.99

• 🇬🇧 Best UK sales
• Thomann: Huge Music Days sale, up to 60% off
• GuitarTricks: Half-price annual plan
• Plugin Boutique: Huge software savings
• Waves: Sale on studio staples

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🔴 Live updates

Hey folks, welcome to Guitar World’s Prime Day guitar deals live hub!

I’m Daryl, and for the next few days, I’m here to help you cut through the noise and separate the good from the bad. I'll be bringing you only the best offers on guitars, amps, pedals, accessories, that I think are genuinely worth your time.

I've been a Deals Writer here at Guitar World since 2021, so I've seen my fair share of sales in that time. I spend my days hunting down the best guitar deals, keeping our 200+ buyer’s guides up to date, and putting the newest gear through its paces. Before working at Guitar World, I was a music store manager, so I've been in and around gear my entire working life.

To kick things off, here's the first deal I spotted, ideal for newbie players.

Looking for the ultimate travel companion? Well, this Donner’s Hush X Live may be the guitar for you - and right now, the guitar series we rated 4.5 stars has a hearty 16% off for Prime Day.

I actually have one of these at home right now for review, and I must say, it's a fun little axe. The Hush X Live takes the travel-electric niche and runs with it, making for a full-featured headless instrument that’s ideal for quiet or loud practice, on-the-go practice, impromptu performance, and everything in between. It’s the guitar you never knew you needed.

The original Positive Grid Spark 40 has got to be one of the most impactful guitar amps ever made. Before Spark, the phrases desktop amp and smart amp weren’t really in the average guitarist's lexicon, and I’d certainly never called any of my guitar amps clever before.

All this means the Positive Grid Spark 2 had a hell of a reputation to live up to. Trying to follow a practice amp that spawned a hundred imitators is a pretty tough ask, even for a company as inventive as PG. But thankfully, they pulled it off!

In our glowing Positive Grid Spark 2 review, we said, "The most popular desktop amp in the world just got even better. Delivering on the much-requested looper functionality and adding some clever AI features, Positive Grid’s Spark 2 is without a doubt the best practice amp I’ve ever played."

Right now, the model has 20% off, bringing the price down from $349 to only $279.

Okay, so 4 packs of Ernie Ball guitar strings for just $19.99 may not be the most headline-grabbing deal out there this Prime Day, but in my opinion, it’s definitely the most useful. Considering they normally cost $26.99 for a 4-pack, you’re getting 26% off, which is pretty great value in my opinion.

I used to use D'Addario strings on all my guitars, but recently I switched back to Ernie Ball, and I've been loving the Regular Slinkies on my Gibson Les Paul.

I always try to stock up on strings around sales events, even if I don't need them right now, so I always have a stash ready for when the dreaded restring time rolls around!

Let’s be honest, when you think Fender, you probably picture legendary electric guitars shredding on stage, not acoustic campfire jams. But here’s the thing: I think Fender’s acoustic flattops are often overlooked, especially the super-affordable California Debut series.

And now you can try one without breaking the bank. Amazon has slashed prices on not one, but two of the coolest California Debut models - starting at only $104.99!

The California Debut series is the cheapest steel-stringed range in Fender’s acoustic-guitar roster, with a variety of models in different shapes and sizes. The California Debut Redondo guitars are dreadnought acoustics with an exceedingly comfortable, fast-playing C-shaped neck with a walnut fingerboard; the body is lighter than most, but its spruce top delivers a powerful sound that leaps far above the $139.99 list price. For Prime Day, though, it’s 25% off at $104.99 – strikingly cheap for the value on display.

Well, here it is: the absolute worst thing I’ve spotted so far in the Amazon Prime Day sale - a rhinestone-covered mic handle sleeve. Yes, you read that right. Wait, what did you think it was? Get your mind out of the gutter. We’re talking about bedazzled microphone fashion accessories, not… whatever you were picturing.

Now, here’s the thing about shopping for music gear on Amazon: the range is wild. On one end, you’ve got genuinely great deals on stuff that real musicians would actually want. On the other end are products so baffling that you wonder who greenlit them, who manufactures them by the thousands, and, most importantly, who on earth is actually buying them.

Case in point: this slip cover, apparently designed to “perfectly fit” a range of Shure mics (BETA58A, SM58LC, PGA48LC, BETA 58A, PGA58, SM58S), plus models from Audio-Technica and Samson, because, of course, it does.

Honestly, at $7.49, it’s still about $7.48 too much. If you buy this, you absolutely deserve to be parted with your cash. But hey, at least your mic will be the sparkliest thing on stage.

If you know me, you know I’m a huge fan of the Gibson J-45. It’s been my go-to acoustic for years, my wife surprised me with a Standard J-45 for my 30th birthday, and honestly, I haven’t looked back since! I can’t imagine playing anything else.

Today, I’m geeking out over the Studio version. The J-45 Studio Walnut brings all that signature warmth and feel, but with a twist: solid walnut back and sides (instead of the usual mahogany), a walnut fingerboard, and a full nitro lacquer finish.

It’s beautifully built and much more affordable than the Standard, as Guitar Center currently has it for $599.75 off. If you’ve ever dreamed of owning a J-45, this is your chance!

When I reviewed this guitar for our sister site, MusicRadar, I said, "It's hard to imagine a musical scenario where the SE Studio Standard wouldn't shine. Whether you're shredding solos, grooving with a wedding band, or strumming your heart out, this guitar will more than keep up, and thankfully, it has the stunning playability to match its gorgeous tones."

And I really meant it. I'm not the biggest PRS fan, I'll be honest, but this model really spoke to me. I loved the way it played. I like the understated look compared to the flashy quilt-top models the brand is more known for, and most importantly, I fell in love with how it sounded!

Right now, you can pick one up for only $599 at Musician's Friend!

On the hunt for budget guitar pedals? Well, I just found some surprisingly decent stomps on Amazon, and a couple are cheaper than lunch. I actually had all four delivered to my door for a real-world test. Shockingly, they didn’t suck! Sure, the footswitches feel a bit flimsy on the Joyo models, but at this price, who’s complaining? The tones are legit, and isn’t that what counts?

So if you're looking to build a decent budget board, it's worth starting with these!

Okay, one last post from me before I log off for the evening - don't worry, though, I'll be back on in the morning with more Prime Day goodies!

When Gibson introduced the Theodore, it caused quite a stir in the guitar community. Some players were immediately smitten with its tulip-like design, while others were left scratching their heads at its bold new style. At first, I wasn't quite won over by the guitar's looks, but once I got my hands on it, everything changed. In person, the shape just made more sense, and, to my delight, this guitar is not only incredibly playable but also delivers the classic Gibson tones we all adore.

I even bought the review model I was sent, and have recorded countless songs with it. If you've never played one, I highly recommend trying it! You can score an impressive $200 off at Sweetwater right now.

Hey everyone, I’m back! Did you miss me?

Prime Day rolls on, it’s day 2, and the deals just keep coming. First up, there’s a sweet 18% off the Boss IR-2 Amp at Roland’s official Amazon store.

If you caught our 4.5-star review, you’ll know we loved it: “The IR-2 might just be the most practical possible addition to your gear setup. The fact that it has so many uses and is a go-anywhere pedal that will run from battery power makes it a versatile problem solver that could be the perfect choice to sling into a spare gigbag pocket or have on your pedalboard ready to be brought into action when the need arises.”

The Boss IR-2 basically takes the amp and speaker emulation magic from the twin-footswitch IR-200 and squeezes it into a super-compact pedal. These days, plenty of players are happy to skip the amp altogether; digital gear is just that good and that convenient. If you’re after practical, nothing beats the IR-2 for sheer functionality in such a tiny package. Boss really crammed a ton of features into this little guy.

Sticking with Boss for a sec, I just spotted a seriously hefty $167 off the GM-800, and wow, this thing is a beast.

Boss is already famous for their killer synth pedals, and the GM-800 totally lives up to the hype. It’s rocking the new Serial GK digital interface and the same ZEN-Core Synthesis System you’ll find in Roland’s top keyboards and synths.

The GM-800 is organized into Scenes, so you can mix and match from 1200 tones, 70 rhythm sounds, and 90 classic Boss effects. In any given Scene, you get to layer up to four tones and one rhythm, plus you can tweak a ton of settings right from the controls below the screen.

Heads up, you do need a special Serial GK pickup to run the GM-800, but thankfully, it’s super easy to install, with a compact connector that won’t clutter up your guitar.

If you’ve ever been curious about diving into the wild world of synth tones, now’s the perfect time to take the plunge with a deal like this.

Yeah, I know cables aren’t as exciting as guitars, amps, or pedals. But to be honest, they’re a crucial part of your setup, and costs can add up fast when you’re building out a bigger board. Luckily, I’ve found a wallet-friendly fix.

Amazon’s Basics guitar patch cables are perfect for budget-minded players or anyone looking to clean up their pedalboard without spending a fortune. You get a six-pack of right-angle patch cables for just $12.55, that's just over $2 a cable!

They’re flexible, sturdy, and ideal for squeezing pedals close together to save space. The connectors feel solid, and they’re built to survive being stepped on during those frantic pedal dances at gigs. If you’re picking up any of the bargain pedals we’ve spotted on sale, these no-nonsense patch cables are the perfect match. Simple, dependable, and a seriously good deal for anyone wanting to get the most bang for their buck.

Alright, so I’ve always been a Gibson guy. I know, I know, cue the eye rolls. But lately, I’ve been falling headfirst down the Gretsch rabbit hole. It all kicked off when I made an impulsive purchase of a G6636T Players Edition Falcon. There’s just something about that signature Gretsch sound. To me, it’s bright, chimey, totally addictive. I can’t get enough of it.

Now, I’ve been hunting for deals on the Players Edition range, but no luck so far. What I have found, though, is a cheeky 10% off the Gretsch G5422TG Electromatic. And let me tell you, this thing is an absolute stunner!

The G5422TG has a laminated maple body with all those vintage Gretsch vibes. It’s also rocking some clever new trestle block bracing, which basically means less feedback and more of that tasty, punchy attack, and the FT-5E Filter’Tron pickups are absolute magic for clarity and note definition.

The neck is the classic “C” profile that just feels right in your hands, topped with a 12"-radius laurel fingerboard for easy playability. Rounding out the specs are a master volume with treble bleed (so your tone stays crisp when you roll back the volume), individual pickup controls, vintage-style tuning machines, and a Bigsby B60 vibrato tailpiece.

Honestly, if you’re looking for a guitar that turns heads and sounds as good as it looks, the G5422TG is well worth a look, especially with that discount floating around!

Are those monster amp stacks finally relics of the past? For home practice, honestly, I reckon the answer is a big, loud YES. These days, it’s all about the pint-sized, feature-packed mini amps, and the latest trying to steal the spotlight from the likes of Positive Grid is the Hotone Pulze Mini.

This little legend takes everything we loved about the original Hotone Pulze and squeezes it into a desktop amp so compact it’ll disappear into your gig bag without a fuss.

In my full review for MusicRadar, I said, “The Hotone Pulze Mini is a delightful little powerhouse that deserves consideration for a spot in your gig bag. With its impressive array of tones and stellar build quality, it’s worth the price. While the app isn’t the best tonally, the Hotone Pulze Mini delivers on a few key fronts. Sure, it has a few quirks, especially in high-gain settings, which may leave metal aficionados craving a bit more depth. But let's be honest, the clean and medium-gain sound is where it truly flexes its sonic muscles.”

The number of tones on offer with the Hotone Pulze Mini is truly staggering. There are 52 amp models, 48 cab sims, over 100 effects, and 20 user IR slots. That’s a ridiculous amount of sonic options for a little combo you can fit in one hand.

Right now, you can save 20% at Amazon, meaning this unit is now under $100!

When it comes to guitar tones, I like to keep things simple. Give me bold, in-your-face rock tones, minimal effects, and loads of saturation. So, as you can probably guess, I’m not usually the dreamy-reverb type. But then the Hotone NC-200 landed in my hands, and, well, everything changed. I found this dual-engine reverb to be genuinely inspiring, and it had me rethinking my current approach to stompboxes.

Packed with both real spaces, thanks to IR convolution, and some seriously clever algorithmic reverbs, this pedal pretty much covers every reverb vibe you could ever want. And while the sounds are definitely top-shelf, it was the ease of use that truly won me over. I’ve never met a pedal with this many features that was also simple to use. With so much packed inside, I braced myself for a headache, but nope, every knob is clearly labeled, and those colorful LED rings keep you in the loop so you always know what you’re tweaking.

So, I’d say if the idea of jumping into the world of modern reverb pedals freaks you out a little, give the Hotone NC-200 a shot. I haven’t found another pedal that’s this packed with sounds and features and this intuitive.

Right now, you can save 20% at Amazon, meaning this unit is now only $239.99

You can read my full thoughts in my in-depth Hotone NC-200 Verbera review, and hear the pedal in action in the Guitar World video below.

Positive Grid is well known for its amp modeling software and guitar amps, with an impressive catalog of innovative products that make practicing and recording the guitar fun and easy. The Spark amp changed the face of practice amps with its intelligent features and unbeatable price, and the Spark Mini has been my go-to practice amp since it launched.

Even though the original Positive Grid Spark isn't exactly massive, this shrunken-down version is a considerable downsizing, and it sits perfectly on my desk in my home office. Due to its more petite frame, the control layout of the Spark Mini has been simplified with only Preset, Guitar, and Music knobs remaining on the physical amp. All the extra features found on the original - such as the much-loved Auto Chords function and Video Capture mode - are accessible via the accompanying mobile app.

You can grab one now on Amazon with 25% off, taking the price down to only $186

I take great pride in setting up my guitar, and over the years I've built up a collection of tools that are essential for making sure I can maintain my collection. As I'm regularly gigging in a punk band, my guitars get put through some serious abuse, so I need to make sure that they're in the best condition possible.

Allen wrenches are one of my most used tools, and these Craftsman Allen Wrenches are superb value for money, at over 50% off in the sale. It's got both metric and imperial sizes too, so you can adjust guitars from any region in the world.

Pick up these rock-solid Craftsman Allen Wrenches for just $16.07

I just said this to my buddy who's looking at buying a new Harley Benton: "The correct number of guitars to own is n+1, where n is the current number of guitars owned."

And with that in mind, this Squier Debut Telecaster is absolutely stupendous value in the Prime Day sale, available for a measly $114. I know a couple of guitarists who've bought these to use as modding guitars, letting them hone their soldering and upgrade skills without feeling like they're damaging a super expensive instrument.

Upgrade the pickups, add some locking tuners, completely redo the electrics, or even paint it a totally different color! At this price, you can afford to make a few mistakes with it, and you'll learn a hell of a lot in the process.

Grab this ultra-budget Squier with 23% off in the Prime Day sale

Multi-effects have come a very long way since I bought my Zoom 606 way back in the early noughties.

This Mooer GE150 Pro is available for a paltry $129 in the Prime Day sale, and that gives you 55 different amp sims, 26 cabinets, and 151 different FX. It certainly beats what was available when I was coming up in the world of guitar!

If you're looking for a practice rig for home use, or you know a burgeoning guitar player who could benefit from some top-quality effects, amps, and some awesome practice tools like a looper, this is a steal at the current price.

Amazon tells me they've sold over 200 of these in the past month alone, which says plenty about the quality on offer here.

Get the Mooer GE150 multi-effects pedal with a huge 35% off in the Prime Day sale

Accessories, accessories, accessories, it's where the Prime Day sales really shine in my opinion.

There are some great deals on guitar cables at the moment, with cables from Fender, GLS Audio, MXR, Donner, and plenty available with discounts on Amazon at the moment. I tested 11 different cables for our best guitar cables guide, and one of those was the GLS Audio Tweed.

Since that testing, I've found it to be very durable, using it as part of my live setup where I use the 4 cable method with my pedalboard and tube amp. I like the multiple cable wraps that come with it, which help keep it nice and tidy, and the fact that, as with all braided cables, if you wrap it properly a few times, it returns to its original shape really easily.

The 20-foot version is perfect for gigging, and it's currently got a massive 20% discount in the Prime Day sale.

Isn't it weird how your guitar picks can just disappear at random? Sometimes I've dropped them on the floor only for them to be completely lost to the ether.

Stocking up on guitar picks then is a must for any guitarist, and the Prime Day sale is one of the best times to buy in bulk. There are a couple of deals that are proving super popular with the Guitar World readership, both on big packs of Jim Dunlop picks

I already covered these deals in our early Prime Day content, but they are still available at the moment. There are savings on other gauges, too, if you prefer something thicker or thinner.

• Get 12 Jim Dunlop Max Grip .60mm picks for just $5.76, that's $0.48 per pick!
• Get 36 Jim Dunlop Tortex .73mm picks for just $12.99, that's $0.36 per pick!

As a regularly gigging player, I go through strings like nobody's business, so Prime Day is one of my favorite times to stock up my supplies.

I've been using Ernie Ball Slinkys for as long as I can remember, and right now you can get this four-pack of electric guitar strings for just $19.99, which works out at $4.99 a pack. A single pack typically retails around the $8-9 mark, so this is a deal that every guitarist can benefit from.

• Get four packs of Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys for just $4.99 each
• You can also get the same deal on the Super Slinkys, if you prefer a lighter gauge

Have you ever tried your hand at soldering?

It's honestly way easier than you think, and a great skill to have as a guitar player. I learned during a music production course, and it blew me away with both how easy it is to do and how strong the resulting connection is. Since then, I've done a few output jacks and installed some new pickups without a hitch, and I honestly can't believe I didn't try it out for so long.

There's an all-encompassing soldering kit currently available in the Prime Day sales, which gives you everything you need for soldering. It's got solder, handy additional arms for holding wires in place, and multiple tips so you can handle different jobs.

Get the Yihua 60-Watt Soldering Iron for just $37.99 in the Prime Day sale

Righto, that's me logging off for the evening. The Guitar World gear nerds and I will be back tomorrow, bringing you day 3 of the Prime Day sales, and all the best deals available from Amazon and beyond.

For now, I will leave you with my guitar accessories roundup, which features 14 of the best deals on guitar essentials from the Prime Day sale.

Until next time, deal hunters!

Welcome back to day 3 of the Prime Day guitar deals. It's Matt here to lead you into another deluge of discounts, whether you're after a brand new guitar or you just want to bulk up on essentials like strings and picks.

Before Prime Day landed this year, the Guitar World team and I personally bought a bunch of cheap pedals to see what they were really made of, and honestly, I was surprised at how good some of these stompboxes actually are.

One that stood out to me was the Donner Yellow Fall, which gave me a surprisingly lush and warm tone despite not being a true analog delay. It's down to a meagre $30.39 in the Prime Day sale, and it's absolutely tiny, so it won't take up much 'board space either.

Get the Donner Yellow Fall delay pedal here with a sweet 24% price cut

The Positive Grid Spark Mini is my favorite practice amp of all time.

I've got one sitting on my desk as I type this, and I still use it all the time despite having owned it for a good three years. It's small enough to be unobtrusive, yet absolutely loud enough to annoy my partner with my tasteful guitar playing, and has enough amps and effects that I can play pretty much any genre I like.

Right now, it's discounted for the Prime Day sale, and if you're looking for a desktop or practice amp, I think it's still the best all-rounder.

Now you can get it for just $186 in the Prime Day sales

Check out our Positive Grid Spark Mini review for more info

And here's a sound demo by our own guitar maestro, Pete Emery, if you need any more convincing!

There's not a huge number of genuinely great electric guitar deals for Prime Day, but this is definitely one of them.

We reviewed the Squier Affinity Series Stratocaster FMT HSS a few years back, giving it four and a half stars out of five. It's a stunning-looking guitar, plays great, is plenty versatile thanks to the HSS pickup config, and best of all, it's discounted for Prime Day.

The price has actually gone up since we first covered this, from $340.30 to $394.99, and it seems to be pretty popular at the moment, so if you're after a great value guitar, now might be a great time to pick this up.

Get this gorgeous Squier Stratocaster FMT HSS with 10% off at Amazon

There are still loads of great deals on guitar strings at the moment, and these Elixir Nanowebs last much longer than regular strings.

Although they're more expensive on the face of it compared to a non-coated variant, you go longer before changing strings, so I reckon it works out about even. If you're concerned about the feel of coated strings, then this is a great way to try a set out without spending loads.

Grab these Elixir electric guitar strings for just $11.99 in the Prime Day sale

Buying and building a pedalboard can be pretty expensive, and that's before you even get to the pedals!

I've built a fair few in my time, from mini 'boards for home use to the megalithic pedalboard I use for gigging. This Donner Pedalboard deal, then, is great if you don't want the faff of buying all the individual elements you need.

It includes a built-in pedalboard power supply with seven 9V outputs, a 12 V, an 18V, and even a USB Type-A port. It comes with a carry case, hook & loop, and even some cable ties, saving you money and time building your next (or first) 'board.

Grab this awesome all-in-one Donner pedalboard for just $72.19

Just had some grub, and now I'm back with a deal on one of my all-time favorite pairs of headphones.

The Audio-Technica ATH-M50x has reached that hallowed status where they're now so popular that it's cool to hate on them. Don't believe the naysayers, though; they're still very much a brilliant pair of headphones, especially for silent practice with your guitar.

I tested 15 pairs of studio headphones for our best guitar amp headphones guide, using the absolutely crazy bit of kit that is the Neumann KU 100 dummy head (pictured above). The M50xs were one of my top picks thanks to their sturdy build, comfortable padding, and super flexible ear cups. Right now, you can get them with a more than decent 20% discount in the Prime Day sale.

Save a hefty $32 on the brilliant Audio-Technica ATH-M50x studio headphones

Okay, so it's not strictly guitar-related, but I couldn't look past this deal when it popped up.

The Otamatone looks like some kind of wacky digital saxophone, but it's actually a synthesizer. You press down on the stem to create a sound, and moving up and down lets you slide the pitch around. You can even add vibrato to the notes, much like you would do with a guitar.

I played one at a friend's house, and it's deceptively difficult to make it sound good. Think of the stem like a single guitar string, but there are no frets to guide your way. I play it every time I go round there, and it's a good laugh trying to replicate famous guitar riffs or motifs on it.

Get this all-black Otamatone with a cool 15% discount in the Prime Day sale

Below, I've linked Moshibass's cursed or genius (depending on how you look at it) cover of Evanescence's 'Bring Me To Life', for an amazing example of what you can do with this bonkers instrument.

Right, back to the proper stuff!

This has got to be the absolute cheapest way to get a guitar with the 'Fender' name on the headstock, right?

They might be the most popular at the moment, but as far as beginner acoustic guitars go, this Fender California Debut Redondo at just $97.99 is as good value as it gets. As you might expect, it's a laminated spruce top and basswood back and sides, and the dreadnought body size ensures it's got a very full voice.

Get the Fender California Debut Redondo for less than $100 with this incredible Prime Day deal

Recording yourself playing guitar is one of the best ways you can improve your playing.

I regularly record in a pro studio, and I've tested loads of our audio interfaces for our best guitar audio interface guide. Not only is recording yourself a great creative outlet, but it also massively improves your timing and is great for training your ear. So, adding an audio interface to your rig is a surefire way to get better at the instrument.

For first-timers, this PreSonus AudioBox 96 is a great option. Simple to use, doesn't take up much room, and cheap as chips in the Prime Day sale. Whether you just want to noodle along to practice your leads or write and record your full instrumental magnum opus, I'd highly recommend adding regular recording to your playing regimen.

Get this PreSonus AudioBox 96 audio interface for just $74.99

Accessories are still proving ultra-popular for Prime Day!

These Fender Professional Series Cables are excellent quality, and I know, because I've been using two of them as the dedicated effects loop send and returns going between my pedalboard and my tube amp. They've been part of my rig for a good five years now, and I've never had an issue despite hastily stuffing them in the back of the amp cabinet after every set.

This 10ft straight-to-straight cable is available with a massive 30% reduction, well worth picking up if you need some fresh, good-quality cables.

Get the Fender Professional Series 10-foot cable for just $13.99 in the Prime Day sale

If there isn't already a metal band called Aztec Death Whistle, then I'm taking it!

I've just been scrolling through the musical instruments section of the Prime Day sale to see if there's anything new that's popped up, when this Original Aztec Death Whistle caught my eye. It's exactly the sort of thing I could hear going on an extreme metal record.

Instead of terrifying your partner/neighbors/small children with your guitar tone, now you can make sure everyone gives you a wide berth thanks to the haunting tones of this Death Whistle, capable of hitting volumes up to 125dB!

Get it here for just $27.74 thanks to a 43% reduction in the Prime Day sale

And here's a video of a guy using a death whistle so you can hear what it sounds like. Chilling!

That's me signing off for the day.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Prime Day sale, but I'm not taking my foot off the gas just yet. I'll be around all day to bring you the very best savings on guitar gear of all kinds.

Until then, I'll leave you with my favorite article of the day, this roundup of 14 Boss stompboxes all discounted for Prime Day. I love Boss pedals, and with this many reductions, there's pretty much guaranteed to be one or two that take your fancy.

Remember, other pedals come and go, but Boss pedals last a lifetime!

Metallica’s Load came after a period of intense reflection for the metal icons.

Following years of heavy touring between 1991 and 1993, all members broke off to explore influences outside heavy metal and the music realm, with the dynamic guitar duo of James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett taking a deep dive into hunting (for Hetfield) – and film, jazz, and Asian arts (for Hammett).

When they returned to the band, they took a fresh approach to the instrument. Hammett, who had only handled lead guitar on record up to this point, would now join Hetfield on rhythm duties across the album that would define this new phase of Metallica.

Yet Hammett's transition to rhythm guitarist was never planned. It came about quite naturally.

“It was never really something that we spoke about,” Hammett told Guitar World's Tom Beaujour in a 1996 interview. “The first mention of it came while we were recording the drum tracks.

“When we do that, we all play the songs together in a single room, but the only thing that goes onto the multi-track is the drums – everything else just gets taped. Some of the songs were sounding so good on those tapes that James was like, ‘Well, maybe Kirk should play on the final version of some of these.’”

“Later on, on a day when James happened to be away on a hunting trip, I was laying down a couple of solos, and when I finished the lead on one of the tunes our producer, Bob Rock, said, ‘Okay, tune up, and we'll do the rhythm for this song now.’ I was like, ‘What?’”

As Hetfield adds, “By the time I came back, Kirk had put down rhythm tracks on four songs.”

Hammett specifically went out of his way to come up with a second guitar part that would complement Hetfield’s, and not, as he put it, “ape it”.

“Not that the riffs weren't interesting,” he clarified. “The riffs are the riffs – they're the most important part of the song. Our parts have a really good sense of interplay. And you can actually separate the two guitars and tell who's playing what. James is on the left side, and I'm on the right.”

Was it ever a point of contention that Hammett didn't get to play rhythm guitar up until that point?

“Not really,” he replied. “In fact, on this album we argued more about the solos than anything else. But we're always arguing about something, so it was just par for the course.

“I often have a pretty specific idea of what the solo to a particular song should sound like, so it throws me for a loop when Kirk comes in with something else,” Hetfield added. “But then everyone sits down, we talk it out and work out a middle ground that everyone can be happy with.”

While the album proved controversial among Metallica fans for straying from the band's thrash metal roots – complete with a revamped, leather-jacket-clad look and (gasp) short hair – it was nevertheless a commercial success, topping the charts in more than 15 countries.

“I’ve never been very confident, to be honest with you, as a player,” Alex Lifeson told Guitar World in 2025. “I’ve always felt like I had to work hard, and maybe I didn’t appreciate that I have a natural talent for playing guitar.”

Anyone who’s heard his work as one-third of the prog-rock institution Rush – from those crashing, Pete Townshend-like chords to his dramatic, shimmering arpeggios – knows he’s being charmingly modest. That, or maybe he just needs to re-examine his own songs.

But that’s where we come in. To celebrate his 2026 reunion tour with bassist Geddy Lee – which follows the 2015 R40 run, their final outing with late drummer-lyricist Neil Peart – let’s take a closer look at 20 of Lifeson’s finest studio guitar moments.

1. Working Man (from 1974’s Rush)

Rush were still in their embryonic Led Zep-worship mode in 1974, but they did scrape together one genuine classic for their self-titled debut – an overdriven riff monster with power chords, bluesy shredding and a nimble, octave-ascending riff halfway through that feels worthy of spawning its own song.

2. Fly by Night (from 1975’s Fly by Night)

Fly by Night, the bruising title track from Rush’s second LP, opens with a flurry of guitar moves that wound up becoming Lifeson signatures.

The triumphant D major, the resounding sus chord, the beautifully tense and chromatic arpeggio – there are so many little moments, just in the first 10 seconds, that can make any Rush fan smile and nod with recognition.

Guitar-wise, it’s all building to a killer post-chorus solo, stacked with bluesy bent notes and pinched harmonics.

3. The Necromancer (from 1975’s Caress of Steel)

In a 2018 Guitar World feature, now-former Gwar guitarist Pustulus Maximus broke down his love for The Necromancer, a nearly 13-minute psych-prog fantasy behemoth from Rush’s third LP. “The beginning sounds very much like Pink Floyd, but Lifeson’s solo in the rock part has an amazing groove and feel,” he said, describing the epic’s ebb and flow.

This one’s definitely unique in the band’s catalog – from that stoner-ific intro section, with reversed guitars and chorus-y guitars rising like weed-smoke plumes, to the sheer ferocity of the solo and the clean-tone jangle that follows. The Necromancer is (understandably) a divisive Rush song, but no-one can doubt its merits as a well-rounded guitar showcase.

4. 2112 (from 1976’s 2112)

It almost feels unfair to cite 2112 as a song, given that it sprawls out over seven sections and nearly 21 minutes – occupying the entire first side of Rush’s titular breakout LP. But Lifeson really swings for the fences throughout this grand conceptual work: nailing those enormous delayed chords in Overture, bathing his arpeggios in cinematic chorus throughout Oracle: The Dream, adopting an almost punk-like energy during the climactic attack of Grand Finale.

One of his most genius moments actually involves the technically weakest playing; at the beginning of Discovery, his out-of-tune plonking approximates our protagonist stumbling upon a guitar (“What can this strange device be?” Lee sings) and figuring it out in real time.

5. Closer to the Heart (from 1977’s A Farewell to Kings) 

Despite being heralded as an elite of heavy prog guitar, Lifeson has a real knack for gentle, pastoral playing.

As he explained to GW, the band workshopped their earliest material using acoustics and a cassette recorder – then bringing in the amplification and energy later on.

Closer to the Heart shows the best of both worlds, as Lifeson builds from chiming 12-string to, eventually, anthemic harmonized solos.

6. Xanadu (from A Farewell to Kings) 

The mighty Xanadu expertly illustrates how Rush did so much with so few pairs of hands: Lifeson and Lee tag-team the driving main riff with maximum creativity, tackling the descending lines in unison or veering apart for added color. The standout guitar section happens immediately, with Lifeson adding ambient volume swells over Peart’s drifting chimes.

7. La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence) (from 1978’s Hemispheres)

The winking subtitle points to the band’s underrated sense of humor – and on this hypnotic instrumental, Rush use Lifeson’s ever-vivid real-life dreams as a launching pad for some of their wildest genre flips and tightest ensemble playing.

Across nearly 10 minutes, the trio explore everything from psychedelia to hard rock to jazz-fusion, with Lifeson the obvious star of this dreamscape. His solo swells during A Lerxst in Wonderland might be the most evocative playing in his catalog.

8. Jacob’s Ladder (from 1980’s Permanent Waves)

After a bright, strident opening march, Rush chase the storm clouds into one of their heaviest-ever riffs. Lifeson is at the top of his game here, layering his guitar theme into octaves for even more impact. Rush were rarely more intense than they were on Jacob’s Ladder.

9. Freewill (from Permanent Waves)

Despite all the recorded evidence to the contrary, Lifeson and Lee are mere mortals. When they started jamming again after a long hiatus following the R40 tour, the guitarist told Ultimate Classic Rock that they sounded like a “really, really bad Rush tribute band.”

The toughest nut to crack was reportedly the surging fan-favorite Freewill, which features one of the most frenetic guitar solos he ever tracked. “There’s a lot of notes,” he said. “The solo is crazy.”

10. YYZ (from 1981’s Moving Pictures)

It’s the most fittingly proggy sidebar in Rush history; the band’s first Grammy nomination came with YYZ, a track built around a rhythmic Easter egg nodding to Morse Code for a Toronto airport. Just perfect.

The song’s main riff is already ace enough, showing just how much mileage you can get out of two notes if you put your mind to it. But the piece becomes a classic when Lifeson stretches out – the solo at the midway point is deliciously disorienting, peaking with a virtuosic run of finger-tapping.

11. Limelight (from Moving Pictures) 

Limelight is up there with the most poignant Rush tracks, channeling Peart’s fame-induced isolation into four minutes of sleek (if still proggy) radio-rock bliss.

Lifeson’s dreamy arpeggios and chunky chords are already enough – it’s just a bonus that he churned out a god-tier, whammy-filled solo on his Hentor Sportscaster, a Strat outfitted with a Gibson humbucker and a Floyd Rose tremolo.

“It was the perfect selection to create the soulful, elastic and unstable character for the solo of that song,” he told Guitar World.

12. The Analog Kid (from 1982’s Signals)

“Signals was a weird record for me,” Lifeson told Guitar World in 2025, noting that their heavier use of keyboards created “more of a fight for space with the guitar.”

But that argument shouldn’t apply to The Analog Kid, which saves most of its synth presence for some booming pads on the chorus. Elsewhere, Lifeson takes charge – including on the solo, which features a nifty harmonizer-type effect.

13. Digital Man (from Signals)

Upon first listen, Digital Man sounds more suited to a list of Geddy Lee’s finest moments, given his wildly melodic and grooving bass line. You might even look first to Peart, who adds some tastefully placed tom-tom fills and fierce hi-hat work.

But Lifeson also deserves marquee mention, anchoring the track with his stabbing, Police-like chords and a woozy solo with a touch of David Gilmour in its bluesy bends.

14. Kid Gloves (from 1984’s Grace Under Pressure) 

Is this Lifeson’s ultimate guitar solo? The tremolo-bar madness, the blue-sky harmonics, the brushes with ska and rockabilly – all packed into one blistering run that somehow feels both composed and improvised.

15. Hand Over Fist (from 1989’s Presto)

Why did Rush never play Hand Over Fist live? Why did they refrain from releasing it as a single? No great answer. This punchy rocker is a highlight from the sadly overlooked Presto, with Lifeson leading the charge.

He does a bit of everything – that trebly funk-rock intro, the busy bluesy groove, the squealing pinched-harmonic leads, a less-is-more solo with some majestically sustained notes.

16. Leave That Thing Alone (from 1993’s Counterparts)

As the ’80s wore on, Lee’s keyboards grew to be a little controversial, both within and outside the band. After a series of more atmospheric, synth-heavy LPs, Counterparts arrived like a welcome punch of heaviness, offering more of an overall sonic balance – and much-needed presence to Lifeson’s riffs. Leave That Thing Alone is a perfect example, highlighted by his skyrocketing, psychedelic solo.

17. Test for Echo (from 1996’s Test for Echo) 

Lifeson was so enthused about his guitar tone on Test for Echo – a roiling, textured wave of acoustic and electric – that he gave Guitar World a thorough, multi-paragraph breakdown. He used a Les Paul Custom and a Godin Acousticaster, tuned down to D standard, through a variety of heads and cabinets.

But the most important element here is the vibrancy of his riff writing, which suggests that perhaps Rush had been soaking in Tool’s recent work.

18. Earthshine (from 2002’s Vapor Trails)

Lifeson once again sounds like he’s channeling Tool and other modern prog-metal throughout Vapor Trails, often exploring ultra-dark guitar tones via modern-sounding production.

Of course, the album’s sound was, to put it mildly, polarizing, and Rush released a remixed edition in 2013. Earthshine might be the album’s sonic and songwriting peak, with a choppy riff pogoing off Lee’s high, yearning vocal.

19. Bravest Face (from 2007’s Snakes & Arrows) 

When you’ve been a rock band for three decades – especially one with a sizable fan base – it’s hard finding new pathways to explore. It’s admirable, then, just how different Rush sound on Bravest Face. Here, Lifeson often zigs when you expect him to zag, moving from a grungy atmosphere into a raw acoustic riff and a solo with a strangely laid-back, bluesy vibe.

20. Carnies (from 2012’s Clockwork Angels)

Carnies is easily one of Lifeson’s simplest guitar riffs – but it also might be his heaviest, built on some borderline-metal harmonics that carry the entire song.

But he also manages to work in some experimental flourishes, including a kaleidoscopic tremolo effect that lends itself well to the subject matter. “

“It’s almost like a carousel,” he told Guitar World upon the album’s release. “Ged and I were like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s so cool!’ It really sounds like you’re on this horsey going up and down.”

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

In crafting the primary riffs for Spiritbox songs, I’ll often combine aggressively strummed, atonal power chords with fast single-note phrases and some hammer-ons and pull-offs. A good example of this approach is heard in Angel Eyes, from our 2023 EP The Fear of Fear.

I play this song on a seven-string guitar in the tuning I use most often, which is drop-A transposed down a minor 3rd, commonly referred to as “drop F#” (low to high: F#, C#, F#, B, E, G#, C#).

Angel Eyes is an unapologetically heavy track that’s pretty simple, in terms of the fret hand. It’s more of a pick-hand exercise, in terms of the rhythmic precision required to give the riffs the right amount of intensity.

Figure 1 shows the verse riff, which combines eighth- and 16th-note rhythms. In bars 1-3, I play palm-muted two-note chords on the bottom two strings, with the 6th string open and the 7th string fretted at the 1st fret. These two notes form a b5 interval (Bb and E), which has an atonal sound.

In bar 4, on beats 3 and 4, I perform a series of hammer-ons and slides on the 7th and 5th strings that roll into bar 5. I follow this with a pair of strummed natural harmonics (N.H.) on the top three strings, located a point a little ways past the 3rd fret, as indicated by 3.2.

I use a moderate amount of palm-muting here, so that the strings aren’t too choked. I like the notes to sustain a bit, which goes hand in hand with how much force I’m using while striking the strings. My suggestion is to pick really hard and dig in with the pick hand.

Figure 2 focuses on the quick hammer-on/slide phrase from bar 4 of Figure 1. I fret the notes on the 7th string with my index finger and the notes on the 5th string with my middle finger. To make the riff “pop,” I palm-mute the 7th string while allowing the notes on the 5th string to ring.

Figure 3 illustrates the chorus riff. In bars 1-4, after initially sounding the open low A note, I play Bb octave shapes on the 7th and 5th strings, followed by Bb octaves on the 6th and 4th strings, sliding up to the 6th fret on the 6th string each time. In bar 4, the phrase ends with a gradual whole-step bend at the 5th fret on the 6th string.

In bars 5-8, I drop the phrase down a half-step, sounding an A octave on the 7th and 5th strings, followed by additional A notes higher up the fretboard, including a fast slide up to the 12th fret of the 7th string.

The first seven bars then repeat, and in bar 9 of the example, I close out the phrase with alternating two-note b5 power chords on the bottom two strings, before restating the first two bars of the verse riff.

There’s a lot of string-skipping here. Strive to jump between the strings with economy of movement. The goal is to make the octaves sound as clear and seamless as possible. Try to keep your pick hand moving quickly and decisively throughout the figure.

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

What is it?

Strymon made its name on the back of its formidable skills in digital guitar effects design, reverb pedals the likes of which we had never seen nor heard before, great, multi-modal delay pedals like the TimeLine that come packed with all kinds of sounds.

Its DSP architecture puts studio-quality sounds on your pedalboard – sounds ranging from the quotidian essentials to the avant-garde. There is MIDI connectivity, presets, functions out of the wazoo.

The Canoga is not that. It’s something completely different; an analog fuzz pedal inspired by a vintage Fuzz Face. Just two knobs and the truth, ma’am. And it wasn’t even designed to be launched as an actual project.

That’s the thing about stompbox designers like Strymon CEO and analog engineer Gregg Stock; they just like making stuff. The Canoga was initially a fuzz box that was made to complement the UltraViolet Vintage Vibe, something suitably Jimi Hendrix to get the most out of this digital Uni-Vibe inspired modulation for the demo videos. They even made a rudimentary, unbranded enclosure for it. And it sat around gathering dust.

In the interim, Strymon underwent a revolution of sorts. It went analog, unveiling the Series A in December 2025 with the launch of the Fairfax Class A Output Stage Drive. It was a taste of things to come. Strymon, as it turned out, had a heart that beats for all things old-school and analog, too, such as the Garnet Amplifiers Herzog device that inspired the Fairfax, and the Arbiter Fuzz Face that inspired the Canoga.

This two-knob silicon fuzz does not reinvent the wheel-shaped original. But, says Strymon, it might just prove to be more than the some of its parts. The Canoga is a simple pedal but it is designed to perform both as a fuzz, and a drive-come-distortion when you roll the volume back on your electric guitar.

Specs

• Launch price: $199 | £199 | €263
• Type: Fuzz pedal
• Controls: Drive, Level
• Features: Silicon analogue fuzz circuit, internal jumpers for switchable power-up state (bypassed or engaged)
• Connectivity: 1/4" input/output, DC centre-negative power input
• Bypass: True
• Power: 9V DC (min. 50mA)
• Dimensions: 4.53” (D) x 2.83” (W) x 2.33” (H)
• Weight: 270gm
• Contact: Strymon

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

Like the Fairfax, the Canoga arrives in an unfussy boxy but compact enclosure that will appeal to players who baulk at any pedal that requires consultation with the manual. It has a silent soft-touch footswitch, a pair of amp-style knobs for Drive and Level that sit on a raised black plastic panel.

As with all the pedals that come out of Strymon’s US facility, the build is impeccable. There is no battery power here. Feed it 9V DC from your pedalboard power supply and it’s good to go. All of your connections on the top of the pedal. It’s a simple affair but you can unscrew the base plate to change how the pedal powers up.

By default, it will power up in bypass mode, but there are a pair of internal jumpers that allow you to set it to power up as engaged, which may be useful depending if you have this in a rack setup. The orange LED lets you know when it’s on.

The Canoga has the feel of one of those super-rugged pedals you throw on your 'board, tape it down, and never have to worry about it again. There's no buffer. Stick it on the front end of your signal chain and have at at it.

Usability and features

Usability and features rating: ★★★★☆

Sure, the switchable power-up modes speaks to the stereotypical Strymon user – those of the multi-level pedalboards, loop switches, electric toothbrushes and Soundbrenner wearables... Y'know, the tech-literate and ready to mingle. But the Canoga is a time machine pedal. It is Woodstock ’69, not Coachella 2026, and there is something to be said for that.

It’s not about presenting players with all mod cons. We can have too many features. There is none of the post-modern fuzz accoutrements here, no selectable modes, no blend knob or bias control. There isn’t even a tone control. It is old school.

Adjust the Drive and Level, and use the volume control on your guitar to roll off the gain. The Canoga’s simplicity, its presentation of a vintage Fuzz Face in the hear and now, is what we’re here for.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★★

This is one of those occasions where the instinct to dime a fuzz pedal’s controls and work back makes sense. Strymon has designed this to be one of those fuzzboxes you set up on the floor but control with your guitar’s volume knob – or indeed with how hard you hit the strings.

Unity gain was a little surprising. With my ‘50s Telecaster into a clean tube amp, it came around two o’clock on the Level control but there is a whopping amount of output gain beyond that. The Canoga can hit your amp hard.

But just like a shot of tequila as your first drink of the night can be a bit much, the Canoga is best introduced when you’ve already got a little bit of breakup on the amp – that’s where it sounds the sweetest. And it really does sound sweet, teasing out that harmonic content, adding a bit of sparkle and bloom to your chords, giving single notes the juice they need to hang in the air a bit more.

Strymon is as good as its word here; the Canoga cleans up beautifully. Starting from our all-guns-blazing position of both dials maxed out, there’s all the bestial woof you could want – especially when switching to a Jackson loaded with a Bare Knuckle Holy Diver humbucker, but notably also with both Tele pickups engaged in series, whereupon it came good for all those hairy Kyuss-style stoner tones.

Rolling back the volume brings us to almost clean but with the Canoga just heating everything up. This is where your Hendrix-style triads might take flight. Who needs a blend control when a pedal sounds this good?

Sadly, I didn’t have a Uni-Vibe to hand, but the disorientating throb from the CE-1 vibrato mode on my Boss Waza Craft CE-2 Chorus pedal was surely lysergic enough to give some acid casualties a mean flashback to Monterey; burning Stratocasters, all that mojo. Just add some tape echo and you might open up a new dimension (or set off the smoke alarm). Hmm, maybe it was just as well there was no Uni-Vibe.

Stick it on your ‘board and you’ll surely open up pathways to all kinds of sounds. There is the countrified scratch of its low-gain drive-stortion voicing. There is chewy Gary Moore blues-rock.

Just as the original fuzz pedals were deployed for quasi-horn tones, you can dime this, noodle on the upper registers on the neck pickup and the guitar transcends its anatomy as a stringed instrument.

Which is all to say that the Canoga is a great-sounding vintage-voiced fuzz, and that can be a much more versatile pedal than you might think, especially if you are comfortable working your volume pot during a show.

Verdict

Fuzz pedal design has moved on since Hendrix et al tread the boards, for good and for ill.

There will be some players who, quite reasonably, might baulk at paying 200 bucks for a Fuzz Face clone in 2026. Some of them might want a more modern voicing. Others might simple want more stuff going on. These days, we are used to options. There will be those who want more control over their tone on the pedal. Again, not unreasonably.

But the Canoga makes no promises on that score. It invites you to turn it up and search for the sweet spots via your instrument, or your amp, and how the Canoga interacts with that and other pedals further down the signal chain.

From the full-bore fuzz, to those in between tones that could pass for console grit or dirt from some unbranded vintage drive pedal you found at a pawnshop, the sounds are stellar.

And the simplicity lets you concentrate on doing the playing instead of worrying how the pedal is setup. Sometimes you realise that’s what you've been looking for – what you have needed – all along.

Guitar World verdict: Who would have thought in 2016 that the best Fuzz Face-inspired pedal of 2026 so far would have come from Strymon? But the digital powerhouse has proved it has the appetite for adventures in analog, with the Canoga presenting as an old-school fuzz that can be equally effective as an all-purposes dirt pedal.

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• “This is a powerhouse of a stompbox that manages to keep things simple while offering endless inspiration”: Strymon EC-1 Single Head dTape Echo pedal review

As Converge’s in-house gear nerd and owner of God City Studios, Kurt Ballou knows his gear. As such, he never settles for second best, and he’s adopted digital gear into his live rig for one main reason.

Converge have had a busy 2026, having released two studio albums in just four months. While appearing on Chris Garza’s podcast recently, Ballou has underscored why amp modelers have usurped tube amps for touring.

“I kind of love it when people show up expecting me to have JMPs, V4s and other vintage stuff, or boutique amps,” he explains. “I played Bad Cat for a long time. I still play the cabinets. I love that company.”

Yet, when Ballou looks down on tour these days, he doesn’t see a Marshall amp footswitch; he sees Line 6’s Helix Stadium floor modeler. He isn’t letting his reputation precede him.

“There’s something about disappointing the gear heads with using this modeler, “ he chuckles. “I don’t necessarily want to disappoint them, but I think this thing sounds sick. It lets me focus on the song.”

He admits that having “all the gear in the world” is an appealing prospect. But as someone who owns a lot of gear and understands the rigors and the nuances of touring, he sees things from a different angle.

“How many times have you gone to see a band and watched them set up their full stacks and massive pedalboards, and then they just suck?” he asks. “Or everything is breaking all the time, and it’s detracting from the show?

“Let’s just get to the songs, because that’s the thing that I really care about. This lets me do that.”

The Helix Stadium, which also boasts some powerful, gig-minded features, is an ideal one-stop shop.

Recording in the studio, though, is an altogether different matter. Speaking to Guitar World as Converge released their first album of 2026, Love is Not Enough, in February, Ballou noted he saw analog sounds making a comeback.

“People want real experiences,” said Ballou. “Young people ask about recording on tape way more than older people. There’s definitely a backlash to this era of digitally perfect music, and I appreciate it.”

Still, the value of modelers in the modern age is now being embraced by the most ardent amp supporters, with Joe Bonamassa a high profile recent convert to the digital amp world.

Kirk Hammett certainly didn’t benefit from the luck of the Irish over the weekend as he slipped and fell into the audience while playing in Dublin.

Metallica’s wah pedal enthusiast laughed off the incident as the band, touring with Gojira, Pantera and Knocked Loose in tow, headlined the 40,000-capacity Aviva Stadium on Friday, June 19.

He’d just launched into Seek & Destroy, from the band's 1983 debut album, Kill ‘Em All, with the roar from the crowd still audible as he failed to keep his footing and went tumbling in the gap between the band’s massive center stage and the front row of a surprised and slightly amused crowd.

Thankfully, Hammett and his Ouija Board ESP came away from the incident unscathed, with the band closing the show with Master of Puppets.

On the whole, Metallica’s latest trip to Ireland wasn’t a banana skin, with the band playing a snippet of Thin Lizzy’s Black Rose during a jam between Hammett and Trujillo. The pair visited the Phil Lynott statue the following day.

Trujillo assumed vocal duties for the spot as they paid homage to Irish rock icons, with Greeny the obvious guitar for the job. The Irish Examiner, though, called it “ropey at best,” which likely hurt Hammett more than the fall.

Metallica will next play shows in Glasgow, Scotland; Cardiff, Wales; and London, England, as they move across the British Isles before returning to the US for their Sphere residency in October.

Extreme’s breakthrough single wasn’t supposed to be the one – at least, not according to their record label. In fact, the band fought A&M Records to release 1991's More Than Words, complete with its iconic black-and-white music video.

Nuno Bettencourt even went as far as to quit the band at one point over his frustration that the label didn’t believe in the song simply because it was an acoustic track.

“Our label at the time [A&M Records] didn't want to release More Than Words as a single because there was nothing on the radio like that at the time,” he told Billboard in 2016. “The label said, ‘Who's going to play it?’ Everybody was doing big power ballads at the time, and this was more like an Everly Brothers or Beatles track. But we fought for it.’”

Fast-forward to 2026, and in the midst of Extreme supporting Def Leppard on tour for the first time, Bettencourt reflects on the song that changed everything… and the Leppard song he wishes he’d written.

“Oh my god. It’s kind of upsetting to think about,” he tells Classic Rock. “When we came out, bands like Def Leppard and Guns N’ Roses might have their ballads, but they always broke with a rock song.

“Extreme was not like that. We had More Than Words, which was a blessing and a curse. But absolutely, we’ll take it. Without that song, I might be working at Burger King right now. With Def Leppard, it was rocker after rocker, all with great lyrics, melodies, and vocals.”

In last year’s interview with Guitar World, Bettencourt admitted that, for most of their career, Extreme were almost considered a one-hit wonder, especially when it came to the mainstream.

“We were the band that had More Than Words. We were the band that had a guitar player, but there was always something that was a little disconnected. We never had proper respect.

He continued, “A lot of people are saying that it wasn’t until Six [the band’s 2023 release] that – as a band – we’re finally being respected as a rock band with a guitar player who legitimately had a great album.”

And, in case you're looking for your next favorite guitarist, Bettencourt recently named the up-and-coming player who has blown his mind.

Wolfgang Van Halen has said his appearance at the Taylor Hawkins tribute show was “like closing a book” as he honored his late father before marching down his own path in the industry. But he knew that, had he failed that day, his career might have gone down in flames.

The son of Eddie Van Halen was flanked by Dave Grohl on bass, frontman Justin Hawkins, and session drummer Josh Freese at Wembley Stadium in 2022. Armed with his semi-hollow EVH signature guitar, Wolfgang led the band through three Van Halen classics, On Fire, Hot For Teacher and Panama, and though his tapping work and music videos with Mammoth have since nodded to his father’s glittering legacy, he’s steered clear of most things Van Halen since.

The consensus was that he nailed the set, but he knew he might not have recovered had he not brought his A-game.

“It was my way of being able to not only honor Taylor, but honor my dad by playing some of his material, and keep out of the mess,” he tells Andy Guitar (via Blabbermouth). “So it was definitely a do-or-die thing for me.”

“I was losing it that day,” he adds. “’Cause to me, it was, ‘If I don’t do this right, if I don’t serve this justice, then my life will be over.’”

As Andy Guitar says, the performance did little to expose those fears, but it was a big moment in his life and career, as he had only debuted Mammoth the previous summer, having played bass in Van Halen’s final chapter before that. The band has allowed him to move away from the shadow of his ultra-successful family and into his own light, but only because he “ended up playing it pretty all right.”

“I still made mistakes,” he confesses, “but it was all live and in the heat of the moment. Having Dave, Justin, and Josh there to support me, and being able to play with three idols of mine while doing such an emotional and difficult thing for me, was really special. I don’t think I could’ve done it without them. That was a day of catharsis, for sure.”

Wolfgang has previously admitted he harbored doubts about whether he could actually pull off playing Van Halen in front of such a staggeringly big audience – and one multiplied manyfold by the show’s livestream. Truth is, he made it look easy.

Mammoth released their third album, The End, last year as the band continues to rise through the ranks.

Amazon Prime Day may kick off tomorrow, but the deals are already in full swing, and guitarists have a rare opportunity to score a real bargain. It’s no secret that we love Squier guitars here at Guitar World, with the Squier Affinity Stratocaster FMT HSS topping many of our budget-friendly buyer’s guides over the years.

That’s why we were excited to see that the gorgeous Sienna Sunburst version is down to only $340.30 over at Amazon. Now, while the online retail giant has stated the discount is a pretty hefty 23%, it is available at Guitar Center for $399, so while it's not as much of a jump as advertised, it is still the cheapest we can find the model, so it's still a good deal.

Want the most up-to-date information? Keep track with our Prime Day guitar deals live blog.

Here’s why you don’t want to miss your chance to grab this standout guitar

The Squier Affinity series has long been a favorite for budget-conscious musicians, and for good reason. As we highlighted in our review, “Squier has knocked it out of the park yet again by offering a sleek, attractive, well-playing Stratocaster that can cover a whole plethora of different tones.” This isn’t just another beginner electric guitar; it’s one that can take a player from their first chords well into intermediate territory.

What sets this Affinity Stratocaster apart is its premium look and feel at an accessible price. The Sienna Sunburst finish, originally introduced by Fender in the late '70s, looks far more expensive than it is, especially paired with the flame maple top and maple fingerboard. As we noted, “Altogether this guitar’s aesthetics shine well above its reasonable price tag, and if you’re a beginner with a penchant for looks, it will be right up your street.”

But it’s not just about looks. The Strat’s CBS-style headstock and robust split shaft tuning pegs deliver tuning stability rarely matched in this price range. Add in versatile pickup configurations, and you’ve got a guitar ready for almost any style, from rock and blues to funk and beyond.

With the current 23% Amazon Prime Day discount, there has never been a better time to buy. Whether you’re just starting your musical journey or looking for a reliable backup, the Affinity Stratocaster FMT HSS is a deal you shouldn’t let slip away.

Now, that's just a small selection of what's available - there’s so much more waiting for you in this epic sale. We encourage you to visit the Amazon site and discover what's on offer for yourself. Amazon Prime Day 2026 runs for four days, starting on Tuesday, 23 June and concluding on Friday, 26 June. Can't see anything you like? Well, be sure to check out our Prime Day guitar deals hub for the latest offerings from Amazon and beyond.

Shop the full Amazon sale

• Amazon: All early Prime Day guitar deals
• Guitars: Save on beginner guitars
• Pedals: Cheap multi-effects
• Amps: Money off smart amps
• Strings: Stock up on essentials
• Accessories: Capos, slides, straps, and more

Shop the best non-Amazon sales

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• B&H Photo: Money off pro audio
• Guitar Center: Save up to 30% on acoustics
• Guitar Tricks: 1 month for $1
• IK Multimedia: 50% off software
• Musician's Friend: Up to 40% off electrics
• Native Instruments: Up to 30% software savings
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In 2026 the guitar industry has never felt so saturated. Gear fatigue is real. For many observers the market is a merry-go round of familiar body shapes and styles, capable of inducing a dizzying deja vu. Fresh faces are few and far between.

At least, that’s the thinking at Guitar Center, whose CEO is on a mission to bring something fresh to the market with a new in-house instrument brand. But he’s not going about it the orthodox way – he’s asking players to help him design a guitar from the ground up.

Last month, Gabe Dalporto made headlines when he announced his Guitar Labs initiative. The idea is simple: a bunch of like-minded guitar fans gather on an online forum and debate what constitutes the perfect guitar.

Pickups, hardware, tonewoods, electronics, layouts, body shapes, contours – no stone is to be left unturned. Common frustrations, shared shortcomings, annoying imperfections of other models will all be taken into consideration.

The aim is to pool cutting-edge insight from fans and players alike to produce something innovative and completely different – something that will push guitar design forward.

Which is, of course, much easier said than done. The execution will be a monumental task. Established brands have long struggled to do what Guitar Center is trying to do. But Dalporto isn’t fazed. He has full faith his team will deliver.

“A large portion of the industry continues to chase replicas of ‘50s and ‘60s engineering,” he tells Guitar World. “Leo Fender built the first Telecaster 70 years ago, and since then we’ve put a man on the Moon, invented the smart phone, created AI and launched self-driving cars.

“We all love vintage instruments, but we also can’t be tethered to the mindset that the 1950s was the pinnacle of guitar technology.”

Guitar Center, of course, isn’t the first retailer to launch an in-house brand. Thomann has Harley Benton; Andertons has K-Line; Gear4music has SubZero. Heck, this isn’t even Guitar Center’s first rodeo – that mantle goes to Mitchell.

But this time is different. Dalporto has lofty ambitions for his as-yet-unnamed project, which could very well define his legacy with the retail institution in years to come.

“Many retailers offer house brands because, when you cut out layers of the supply chain with all their overheads and corporate bureaucracies, you can offer a higher quality product at a lower price.

“Unfortunately, most retailers simply make copycat products and charge a little less. That’s completely uninteresting to me. I told our team the last thing the world needs is another Les Paul or Telecaster clone.

“I gave them a challenge: if we’re going to launch a new guitar brand, it’s got to be demonstrably better than anything out there. We need to bring actual innovation to the table – ‘Go make the best sub-$1000 guitar that the world has seen, that isn’t a clone of something that already exists.’”

Perhaps the biggest talking point surrounding the project is the way in which the digital floor has been opened for input. The Guitar Labs Reddit page is very clear in its caveat that any idea proffered to the company will belong to the company.

“By submitting your Idea, you assign, transfer, give and relinquish to Guitar Center all right, title and interest in and to the Idea or any material based upon or derived therefrom for no consideration,” the legalese-riddled statement reads. “Guitar Center may use and exploit, without any payment or attribution obligation of any kind, any Idea you provide to Guitar Center.”

In other words, if you help design the thing, don’t expect to be compensated for it when it starts making a profit further down the line. That all belongs to Guitar Center.

Safe to say the response was mixed, if slightly more skewed towards skeptical. “Why would we give you our ideas for free?” fans would argue. For Dalporto it isn’t so black and white. “Literally millions of musicians come through our doors every year,” he says of the decision to include players in the design process.

“And if there are two things we know about musicians, it’s that they’re creative and they’re opinionated. Why not engage directly with them right out in the open, let them tell us the things that tick them off about their current instruments, the things they wish their instrument did – then build them exactly what they want?”

Dalporto is keen to shrug off the skepticism. “First off, I would say, ‘Please, if you don’t want to contribute to this product, then don’t,’” he states. “Nobody is forcing anyone to contribute. We transparently posted that anything they contribute is voluntary, and we may actually listen to them and use their suggestions.

“Beyond that, would you rather we didn’t listen to customers? That we just hide in our offices and listen to some corporate shirts pontificate on pickup choices and make uninformed decisions in the pursuit of mediocrity? I think that’s a lousy way to build an instrument.”

On the flipside, some are embracing the opportunity to be involved in the process, and have readily offered up their insight to help put the brand together. “We’ve gotten enormously valuable feedback from a variety of sources,” Dalporto reports. “The conversations on IG and Reddit are very active; there’s been great learnings there.”

And fans aren’t the only ones to have been involved in the process. Dalporto reveals that a handful of heavyweight consultants have also been brought into the R&D process. “We’ve engaged with some legendary musicians and product designers for feedback and design recommendations,” he teases.

“We’re actively building prototypes and testing frequently with small groups of musicians. Our engineers are conducting an enormous number of experiments, from measuring body stiffness to string friction and tension during tuning, and mapping the pickup response profiles of iconic instruments.”

There’s no date set for when the guitar will make its debut to the world – but it might be closer than you think. Dalporto says he and his team are making good progress.

“I’d say we’re about 90 percent there in terms of identifying the everyday friction points players deal with and just learned to live with,” he confirms. “Things that slow them down, limit them, or don’t quite match how they play today. The problems worth solving.

“We’re maybe 50 percent there in our solutioning and engineering. We have ideas and points of view on the specifications, but we haven’t locked any of them yet.”

No matter what some may think of Guitar Labs, Dalporto clearly has grand designs for the brand. This is not a ‘one-and-done’ scenario – it could very well be the start of something bigger.

“Another thing retailers mess up with house brands is they build some product, slap a generic name on it, throw it on the shelves, and then… nothing,” he observes.

“I think that’s wrong. If we’re going to build a product line, let’s have it be a real, honest-to-God brand. Talk to a ton of musicians and find an unmet need. Define what you stand for. Design the products to those standards. Test prototypes with customers.

“Get it in front of expert reviewers for their honest take. Develop a multi-year pipeline of product innovation and line extensions. Market it.”

Ultimately, says Dalporto, he wants products that not just move the guitar into the future, but will stand the test of time. As the CEO concludes: “This is a brand that we hope will be around 100 years from now.”

• Visit Gabe Dalporto’s Instagram channel to keep up to date with the Guitar Labs progress.

Metallica's third proper bass player after Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted deserves all of our praise. First, he's been in the world's biggest metal band since 2003, making him their longest-serving bassist.

Second, he's an absolute monster bass player, powering through funk, rock and metal styles with ease and panache. Third, he produced a documentary, Jaco, in 2012, telling the tragic story of Jaco Pastorius. Finally, he bought Jaco's famous ‘Bass Of Doom’ and restored it to the Pastorius family.

Robert Trujillo's story is one that began not long before the arrival of Metallica's self-titled 1991 album – in the very same city, in fact – when he joined skate-thrash mob Suicidal Tendencies near the end of the '80s.

In 1996, came an even bigger break – and quite possibly the ultimate dream for anyone who grew up listening to Black Sabbath. While Suicidal Tendencies certainly brought him success, joining Ozzy Osbourne's band was the move that enabled him to perform at the top level.

All of these influences and experiences brought Trujillo to the moment famously documented on Metallica's Some Kind Of Monster film, where he auditioned for the band, annihilated the competition and was given a cool million-dollar advance as a “welcome to the family.”

“One thing about being in Metallica is I've always felt challenged,” Trujillo told Bass Player. “It's a lot easier now than it used to be: when I first joined Metallica, I was kinda struggling! I had to learn over 20 years of catalog, plus the 12 songs from St. Anger which had never really been performed as a unit.

“Then there was that magnitude of press and everything else that goes with being in Metallica. I was juggling all of it.”

In this clip from the Beneath the Bassline documentary, Trujillo spoke about his 2003 audition to replace bassist Jason Newsted, as captured in the 2004 band documentary Some Kind of Monster.

“It was a two-day audition, but the first day was more fly-on-the-wall,” says Trujillo. “Bob Rock had already recorded bass guitar and he was also producing St Anger, so I’m just there at the studio watching guitar tracks go down.

“The evening rolls around and Lars says, ‘Hey, let’s go get a drink.’ I could hold my own with a few beers, but we end up drinking until 5 in the morning. I wake up with the worst hangover of my life, and now I’ve got to play with Metallica.”

“James is sober. He’s gone through rehab. So I decided I would connect with my bass tech and decide what bass I was going to use, and what amp.

“What I was really trying to do was get away from Hetfield because I didn’t want him to smell the alcohol on me. Lars was probably just testing me to see how much I could handle, but I just felt like a loser.”

Bassists Pepper Keenan, Jeordie White, Scott Reeder, Eric Avery, Danny Lohner and Chris Wyse – among others – also tried out for the role, but after three months of auditions, Trujillo was officially declared the new bassist.

Instead of squandering his advance on a blur of decadence, as – let's face it – many of us would be tempted to do, Trujillo chose to lock himself in a room, armed to the teeth with nothing but Metallica tablature books. He was the new guy, and in his eyes, he had everything to prove.

“Everyone else had the music figured out because they wrote or recorded it, but the new guy needs to do his homework. Any time a band has an archive, it's almost guaranteed that at some point they're going to play an obscure song. The fans are going to call for it, so once I was caught up, it felt easier to adapt.”

The world’s largest music retailer, Thomann, is suing Fender in an extraordinary escalation over the guitar company’s recent wave of cease-and-desists.

Thomann, whose in-house guitar brand Harley Benton was hit by a cease-and-desist of its own, has become the first firm to take Fender to court in the ongoing Stratocaster copyright dispute.

“After careful consideration, we have decided to take legal action,” a statement on the Thomann blog reads. “We have done so because we are convinced that the questions raised here go far beyond a mere legal dispute and affect the future of diversity, innovation and competition in our industry.”

Thomann claims it is acting on behalf of other prominent brands and smaller manufacturers, and specifically names “custom shop brands and innovators”, including Tyler, Tom Anderson, Suhr, LsL, Maybach, Pensa, FGN, and PRS as firms that it believes are now at risk due to the current legal action.

The retailer was founded in 1954, the same year as Fender launched the Stratocaster, and it has carried the brand for over 70 years. Many of its staff play Fender guitars. Accordingly, it says Fender’s action against longstanding business partners has “surprised and disappointed us”.

“We used to be a small music store ourselves and know exactly where we have come from,” says Thomann CEO Hans Thomann.

“Diversity, fairness and respectfully dealing with each other have always been part of our philosophy. Many of those affected do not have the financial and legal means to conduct such a legal dispute. We therefore see it as our responsibility to have this matter clarified in court not only for our own company, but for all parties involved.”

In its legal action, Thomann will be pursuing similar arguments to industry lawyer Ronald Bienstock: namely that the Stratocaster is not a copyrightable ‘work of art’ as the court of Dusseldorf has ruled. Rather, its design and subsequent success is down to ergonomics, which is what has led to the proliferation of variations in its wake.

Thomann concludes its statement with a direct appeal to Fender on behalf of the industry at large.

“The history of the Stratocaster has not been written by one company alone. It has been shaped by musicians, luthiers, developers and manufacturers around the world. Its importance for the music world also arises from the sheer number of people who built on it and developed new ideas from it.

“We see this diversity as one of the great strengths of our industry.

“That is why we will continue to pursue the legal path we have chosen. Not only for our own company, but also for the many manufacturers, dealers and guitar makers who have shaped our industry for decades and continue to shape it.

“We urge Fender to stop issuing cease and desist demands against manufacturers, distributors and dealers and to return to a fair, cooperative partnership.

“Because we are convinced of this: The future of the guitar world depends on diversity, innovation and the freedom to create.”

Thomann and Fender have been contacted for comment.

Fender’s recent legal movements stem from a default ruling issued by the Regional Court of Dusseldorf in March, which granted “enforceable rights against any guitars using the Stratocaster body shape” in the EU.

In May, it issued cease-and-desist letters to various firms it believed to be producing Strat “copies”, among them family-owned LsL Instruments and PRS Guitars.

Although Fender has since sought to frame its actions as “working directly with companies to find practical paths forward”, they have been met with backlash from the guitar community, with several prominent YouTubers criticizing and even cutting ties with the company.

The Smiths guitar icon Johnny Marr has teamed up with auction house Christie’s to sell nearly 100 items from his personal gear collection, with the bulk made up of guitars and amplifiers from across his career.

Over a five-decade career working with everyone from the Smiths to Pearl Jam, Billie Eilish and Hans Zimmer, his collection has understandably gotten bloated.

Each guitar, he says, “has helped me evolve as a musician, bringing new songs, new sounds and techniques,” but now he’s going through the “bittersweet” of letting them go so that they can write their next chapters.

Highlights include his Smiths-era 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo (estimate: £60,000-80,000, approx. $79,000-£105,000). It was bought a year after its construction, after the band signed their first record deal, and it was a key feature of their 1984 self-titled debut album, including on This Charming Man. It also moonlighted on Oasis’ Supersonic single cover, after Marr loaned the guitar to Noel Gallagher during the Definitely Maybe recording sessions.

But it’s his 1960 Cherry Red Gibson ES-355, which could sell for as much as £150,000 (approx. $198,000), that appears to be the most valuable ahead of the auction. Sire Records founder Seymour Stein bought the guitar for Marr as a sweetener for signing to the label for US releases (reportedly a request Marr made after hearing Stein had once done the same for Brian Jones).

It featured on Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now and also appeared on Top of the Pops and The Tube during the band’s heyday; it’s believed this is the guitar that got Noel Gallagher hooked on ES-355s.

The Roger Giffin Korina ‘Telecaster’, built circa 1984 and expected to go for up to £30,000 (approx. $39,000), was an engagement gift from Marr’s now-wife, and was made by British luthier and one-time head of the Gibson Custom Shop, Roger Giffin. Giffin’s also built instruments used by Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, and Pete Townshend. The Telecaster featured on Top of the Pops (for Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now in 1984) and a year later on the Old Grey Whistle Test (The Headmaster Ritual and Nowhere Fast).

Elsewhere, the Martin D-28 (up to £50,000, approx. $66,000) used to record There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Well I Wonder and Cemetery Gates, the Cherry Red 1984 Gibson Les Paul Standard (up to £120,000, approx. $159,000) is another notable six-string up for grabs. The latter can be heard on The Headmaster Ritual and featured at the Smiths’ final ever show in 1986, before being used alongside the Cribs and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

The auction comes after the 2023 publication of his book, Marr’s Guitars, which spun the individual tales of many of these new auction items. It’s made him realize they need to move on.

“The book turned out to be a cathartic experience, and when it was time for these beautiful instruments to go back into storage, I couldn’t imagine them being put away and left unplayed,” he says.

“It’s bittersweet to be parting with these guitars, but I want them to go to new homes and new people who will love them as much as I have. I hope they bring as much joy, inspiration, and fun – and new songs – as they have given me.”

Marr will donate 100% of the hammer price of 10 lots from the auction to the British charities, The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and The National Autistic Society.

Select highlights from the auction will be displayed in New York from 25 June to 1 July, before being displayed at Christie’s London HQ, ahead of the 9 to 16 September auction.

Visit Christie’s for more.

Yamaha is a bit of an anomaly compared to all the other gear brands you’ll read about in Guitar World. The company’s history stretches all the way back to 1887, when reed organ manufacturer Nippon Gakki Co. was established by Torakusu Yamaha.

At the turn of the century, they were responsible for the very first pianos made in Japan. By the mid-’50s they were at the cutting edge of motorcycle design, which led to their expansion into a number of motor-related industries, including boats, generators and robots.

The Guitar Research Division was founded in the mid-’60s by Yamaha’s president at the time, Genichi Kawakami, who told his team to create something that could rival the finest instruments in the world.

All these years later, their guitars have been seen in the hands of many a musical legend, from folk heroes like Paul Simon and John Denver and classic rockers like Brian May and Randy Bachman all the way through to alternative greats such as Billy Corgan and Chino Moreno.

The company’s most famous designs include FG series acoustic guitars, the Carlos Santana co-designed SG-2000, RGX Superstrats, ultra-versatile Pacificas, and the newer Revstar models seen in the hands of modern trailblazers Chris Buck and Matteo Mancuso.

In celebration of their 60th anniversary in the business, we tracked down Electric Guitar Product Manager Yusuke Ota and Acoustic Guitar Product Manager Shingo Ekuni for an exclusive look into the company’s evolution.

What can you tell us about the very first Yamaha guitars?

Shingo Ekuni: The first Yamaha guitar was the FG-180 acoustic, which was designed in 1965 and released the following year. Our president was very ambitious and wanted to make the best guitar possible. We were already known for making high-quality pianos and orchestral instruments. The new guitars had to live up to that benchmark – built well enough to last forever. That was how it all got started.

Yusuke Ota: The first electric models came the same year, originally called the S201 and S302, though we changed the names to SG-2 and SG-3. We’ve changed the strategies and names behind our guitar lines a few times; in this case it was because Yamaha was planning to launch a semi-acoustic range like the Gibson ES-335 and wanted to call it the SA series.

The plan was to match the model name with the models, and the meaning behind SG was “solid guitar.” Back then, the ideas were a bit more fluid, so they were happy to change things around.

Even that early on, there was a focus on making guitars of all kinds, rather than sticking to one core design or sound.

Ota: That’s one of Yamaha’s greatest strengths. We have a wide range of styles, sounds and affordability. Things like the Pacifica became well-respected for being one of the best entry-level beginner’s guitars, but we have a lot of high-end instruments for professional artists. It’s a wide operation that caters to players of all skill levels and budgets, which can only be a good thing.

The SG-1000 and SG-2000 were introduced in the mid-’70s. Their names were soon cast into legend as “the Les Paul killer,” ending up in the hands of Al Di Meola and Phil Manzanera.

Ota: Early on, our development team didn’t really define what SG stood for very clearly. We actually call many different body shapes the SG, because it stands for solid guitar. In 1974, we made a very iconic model with the symmetrical body shape of the SG-1000, which officially arrived in 1976 along with the SG-2000, designed in collaboration with Carlos Santana.

He gave us a lot of feedback, which we utilized to make the best-sounding guitar of its kind. Our goal during that era was to produce “Made in Japan” models that could be used by professional guitarists. The construction was a set neck with a maple top and mahogany back, almost like a Les Paul but made in a Japanese factory with all the benefits of artisan Japanese craftsmanship.

We also gave the guitar some unique tonal features, like the bi-sound system, which worked like a coil split with push/pull tone pots. We wanted to provide single-coil sounds even though the guitar had two humbuckers.

What have been the best-selling acoustic models over the years?

Ekuni: It would probably be the FG series, because every dealer will stock them and a lot of people end up having those models as their first guitars. Some people even carry on using those entry-level guitars on a professional level. We’ve seen players with vintage FG-180 acoustics, the first model we ever made, on stage or in the studio. We also started making folk-style acoustics, which is what American folk artists like Paul Simon wanted.

The singer/songwriter players came back in the ’90s after all the metal generation kids in the ’80s, so the FG models had a revival. Gradually the lineup has expanded. In 2010, we did the vintage reissues called the FG Red Label, as well as the FG9 and FS9.

These were high-end guitars that looked back to our earliest models. We are proud to see vintage FGs still being used by professional artists, as well as the newer reissues. Today’s artists are more picky when it comes to sound, so it means a lot when someone like David Ryan Harris from John Mayer’s band is using the FS9.

In the 1970s, the quality of the Japanese guitars famously created a wave of fear and controversy for some U.S. brands. Now these “lawsuit era” models are highly collectable.

Ota: For sure. Many of the guitars made in Japan back then were copying Fender and Gibson. The currency exchange rate at the time made it hard for people to buy American guitars – it was super expensive. So the local manufacturers made their own versions to sell to the Japanese market.

The difference with Yamaha is that we were trying to make original guitars rather than copies. We wanted to invent a Yamaha-ness, if that makes sense, by adding unique features or coming up with quirky body shapes.

Then there was the age of the Superstrat, starting with the now-discontinued RGX series in the mid-’80s and then the Pacificas of the following decade.

Ota: In 1985, hard rock and heavy metal was very trendy. We wanted to make a guitar for that market, with a pointy body shape, a thin and compact neck profile plus high-output pickups even with the HSS configuration. It was like a guitar for the younger generation who were pursuing more of a technical playing style.

That was definitely us going into the Superstrat world. In 1990, we launched the Pacifica series by getting the Japanese and American teams to collaborate and make a guitar for all the session players in L.A.

That was a big thing around that time, so we wanted to create something that was ultra versatile and able to cover just about any kind of sound and genre. Another consideration was the price point, we wanted affordable versions of these guitars, as well as mid-tier and higher-end ones.

Which players would you say are most connected to the Yamaha brand and encapsulate the sound?

Ota: Of course there are a lot of legendary players who have used Yamaha guitars, but of the classic players, Carlos Santana is one of the biggest names we’ve been associated with. He really loved the SG series in the 1970s. We made that great guitar together that really influenced the market.

The SG-2000 had this really fat sound that was rich in the mid-frequencies, almost like a vocal. That’s why his guitar lines would sound like he was singing, with all that long sustain. It was such a thick tone even without any distortion or overdrive. It would always cut through thanks to the neck-thru construction, tonewoods and our pickup design.

In the ’70s, players were after a more powerful sound with a little bit more output but without sacrificing that very musical tone. After that, Carlos went on to PRS, but he was mainly using Yamaha electrics before that and helped make the SG series very iconic. As for contemporary players, we have to mention Chris Buck and Matteo Mancuso who are both using our Revstar series.

In terms of contemporary players, you couldn’t have asked for better endorsees. Both of them were born with this one-in-a-million kind of magic touch.

Ota: Exactly. I think they are two of the greatest guitar talents of this era. Chris is a very dynamic player who uses his right hand to create this very unique feel and tone. On the other hand, Matteo is super-technical and has a very clear tone.

They are such different players, but both of them want something similar – lots of dynamics and transparency. I think the Revstar is one of our most iconic models right now. I’m proud to see those two players using our guitars and look forward to seeing them both become even more popular.

Other famous names connected to Yamaha over the years include Billy Corgan, Wes Borland, Steve Lukather, Mike Stern and Rodrigo Y Gabriela. It’s been quite a mix, when you think about it.

Ekuni: We’ve always loved catering to many styles. Billy Corgan has been using the LJ16 as well as the FGX5 from the Red Label series. I’ve spoken to him directly about what he wants and expects from his acoustic guitars. What he mentioned was that our pickups are perfect for him to express himself. I think it’s partly because our development team is so big – we are making professional mixers, pianos and all kinds of equipment.

We pull from the same resources, which means we have more technology than other brands. Billy’s playing style is quite wide; he might go from very soft fingerpicking to hard strums with a pick. He needs a pickup that can do both, and most pickups that are good for one aren’t particularly good at the other. We made our pickups to handle every kind of playing style. Billy has told me that’s why he chooses Yamaha.

What are your current bestsellers?

Ota: The Revstar is doing really well right now. I think that’s because it’s so different to what other major brands like Gibson and Fender are putting out.

Again, it helps that Chris and Matteo are using them. The Revstar allows the player to really create the tone from their fingers, which a lot of electric guitars don’t always do. It’s all about what they hear in their head and translating that through the wood and the pickups.

What can we expect next from the gang at Yamaha?

Ota: The Revstar is our key series right now, so we’re looking to expand the lineup. For 60 years, Yamaha has been designing guitars with musicians at the center. That won’t change, but players are changing. Styles and expectations aren’t what they used to be.

We’d like to keep evolving and offer the instruments our customers need. People will always expect great guitars from Yamaha, and we want to make sure we deliver.

Ekuni: Compared to other brands, we’re quite unique. I’m working from Japan while Yusuke is in the U.S. We have teams across the world in Europe and other Asian regions correlating with each other, feeding back what our customers and artists are saying. We use this information to carry on developing better and more unique guitars. It was the mission statement for when Yamaha Guitars first launched and still is today.

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