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Beloved and influential Los Angeles trio Failure – Ken Andrews, Greg Edwards, and Kelli Scott – announce Location Lost, their seventh studio album and fourth since reuniting in 2014 after a 17-year-hiatus, along with a spring North American tour. The LP features nine new tracks that showcase a focused, modern and ever-evolving vision of Failure’s utterly unique sound, led by first single "The Air’s on Fire." Location Lost will arrive April 24th as the first release under Failure Records/Arduous Records/Virgin Music Group.

Pre-save / pre-order Location Lost here: https://ffm.to/locationlost.

Recorded after the completion of the recent Hulu/Disney+ documentary Every Time You Lose Your Mind, Location Lost doesn’t arrive as a victory lap or a nostalgia exercise. Instead, it sounds like a band actively negotiating where — and who — they are now. “It’s very different,” Edwards says plainly of the follow-up to 2021’s Wild Type Droid. “There are sounds and parts that really don’t have any precedence within the Failure world.”

“The Air’s on Fire” embodies this sense of disorienting unfamiliarity. Almost immediately after finishing editing the documentary, Andrews suffered a serious back injury that required surgery. The operation was technically successful; the recovery was not. The single is the album’s most literal confrontation with Andrews’ medical trauma, its oppressive atmospherics and crushing bottom end mirroring his struggle to breathe on his own. “That song is directly about my surgery and waking up,” he explains. “I basically coded. Everything was spinning. I kept saying, ‘Turn the air on. I’m fine—just take me home.’ I was definitely not fine.”

Listen to “The Air’s On Fire” HERE and watch the video for the track, directed by Sean Stout, HERE.

WATCH & SHARE “THE AIR’S ON FIRE” OFFICIAL VIDEO

At the opposite emotional pole is the largely acoustic, straight-up breakup song “The Rising Skyline” featuring Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams, an artist whose longtime public admiration for Failure has unquestionably helped introduce the band to an entirely new generation of listeners. The album also delivers dose after dose of Andrews, Edwards and Scott’s signature creative and instrumental interplay, from the warning bell-like guitar chimes on propulsive opener “Crash Test Delayed,” to the elastic, bass-driven groove of “Halo and Grain” and the grinding, methodical wall of sound on “Solid State,” which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on 1996’s all-time-classic Fantastic Planet. Other songs such as the slow-burning, dream-inspired closer “Moonlight Understands” and the stuttering “Someday Soon” emerged from singular, unrepeatable moments.

Failure will premiere material from Location Lost on their spring headline North American tour, kicking off with an album release show on April 21 at Zebulon in Los Angeles and wrapping in Toronto on May 20th. All Under Heaven is supporting all headline dates starting May 3. Their run of shows also includes festival appearances at Las Vegas’ Sick New World, Chicago’s SPACE ECHO @ Radius and Daytona Beach’s Welcome to Rockville. Tickets go on sale to the public this Friday, February 20th at 10am local time. For tickets links and more information, visit https://www.failureband.com.

Failure’s musical communion has intrigued critics, fans, and peers for more than three decades. Following Comfort and Magnified, the trio created what is largely considered one of the ‘90s most influential and innovative albums, 1996’s Fantastic Planet. The 17-track collection earned rave reviews and onboarded a trove of new fans and also led the band to headline Lollapalooza’s second stage and craft one of the era’s most recognizable videos, “Stuck on You.” After a 17-year hiatus, Failure returned with The Heart Is a Monster in 2015, followed by 2018’s In the Future Your Body Will Be the Furthest Thing from Your Mind and 2021’s Wild Type Droid.

‘LOCATION LOST’ TRACK LISTING

01 - Crash Test Delayed

02 - The Rising Skyline ft. Hayley Williams

03 - Solid State

04 - The Air's on Fire

05 - Halo and Grain

06 - Someday Soon

07 - Location Lost

08 - A Way Down

09 - Moonlight Understands

FAILURE TOUR DATES

Apr 21 Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon (Album Release Show)

Apr 25 Las Vegas - Sick New World Festival

May 02 Chicago, IL - SPACE ECHO @ Radius

May 03 Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop

May 05 Nashville, TN - Basement East

May 06 Atlanta, GA Masquerade - Hell

May 08 Daytona Beach, FL - Welcome To Rockville Festival

May 09 Asheville, NC - Eulogy

May 10 Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle

May 12 New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge

May 13 Cambridge, MA - Sinclair

May 14 Hamden, CT - Space

May 15 Washington, DC - Union Stage

May 16 Harrisburg, PA - Arrow at Archer Music Hall

May 17 Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts

May 19 Detroit, MI - Shelter

May 20 Toronto, ON - Opera House

Upon resurrecting the long-lost Dual Op-Amp Big Muff 2 circuit with Josh Scott of JHS Pedals, Electro-Harmonix recognized that the pedal would be an instant favorite of low-end lovers and went to work “bassifying” the pedal. Enter the low-end optimized Bass Big Muff Pi 2 with features selected for full spectrum fuzz tones of all flavors.

The Bass Big Muff Pi 2 features the original’s pushed mid grunt and classic singing sustain any Big Muff lover would feel at home with. The bass version now includes a clean BLEND knob and Bass Boost for extended tone performance with Bass Guitar or any player looking for extra clarity and low-end. The typical VOL/TONE/SUSTAIN knobs set overall output volume, treble/bass eq balance, and distortion respectively. BLEND sets the overall wet/dry mix to dial in the perfect balance of fuzzy chaos and solid fundaments from your clean tone. The BASS BOOST switch adds even more low-end to your signal for booming bass tone even at higher TONE knob settings.

Additionally, the pedal features a silent true bypass footswitch with Latching/Momentary Action. Click the footswitch for normal latching functionality or press and hold the footswitch of a momentary burst of fuzz.

The Bass Big Muff Pi 2 ships a 9 Volt battery (power supply optional), is available now and has a U.S. Street Price of $122.00.

All has been quiet in the world of The 1975 since their headline Glastonbury set last year, but it seems frontman Matty Healy has been undertaking a series of random side quests.

At the end of their set last summer, the word ‘DOGS’ flashed up on stage. Since then, Healy has suggested that the band are working on not one, but two new records during a Q&A at a college, and that DOGS could be the name of at least one of them.

• READ MORE: Yungblud says “it’s only the people who didn’t reach the mountaintop” who are “gatekeeping” rock music

No further details have yet been revealed, and it looks like Healy has his hands full. In a recent viral video, he was seen gifting a TV to an unsuspecting Uber driver, and in another viral post was photographed jumpstarting someone’s car.

Healy had recently taken over comedian Dax Flame’s Instagram for a week, where he shared a number of skits, including his random TV giveaway. A few weeks prior, a TikTok circulated of Healy helping to jumpstart the stranger’s car after it broke down.

You can see both posts below:

View this post on Instagram

 

View this post on Instagram

At the band’s Glasto set, Healy had a rather cool guitar in-hand: a creation of one of the Fender Custom Shop’s most interesting builders, Levi Perry, who has earned a rep for loading his builds with built-in effects. The Fuzz Brain ’67 Tele Matty used on the revered Pyramid Stage offered just that, with built in fuzz, octave and delay circuits.

Whether or not Healy has put any of his custom builds of vintage guitars down on the new albums to come from The 1975 is not yet clear, but one thing we’re certain of is that it won’t be heavy. In 2024, Healy said, “For me… unless you’re Glassjaw, Converge, Refused, or further than that, heavy is fucking lame… We can do heavy all day long, but we’re not because it wasn’t new. We wanted to be something quite new.”

The post “The king of random side quests”: Matty Healy goes viral for helping jumpstart a stranger’s car – and giving a TV to a perplexed Uber driver appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Should the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame be reserved only for veterans of the rock genre? It’s a stance Gene Simmons holds, and made clear during a recent appearance on the Legends N Leaders podcast. 

“Hip-hop does not belong in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame – nor does opera or symphony orchestras,” he said.

Whether or not the Rock Hall should include artists from a wide range of genres is up for debate – but the fact remains that many non-rock artists, including hip-hop veterans like Public Enemy, Grandmaster Flash and Run-D.M.C., count themselves as inductees.

• READ MORE: “Steve couldn’t utter a word. John stubbed out cigarettes on the back of his hand”: The 1976 gig that “petrified” the Sex Pistols

And in a new interview with TMZ, Public Enemy leader Chuck D refutes the comments of his fellow Rock Hall of Famer Gene Simmons, saying he’s missing the “roll” part of the Hall’s name.

“Everything else other than rock, when rock ‘n’ roll splintered in the ’60s, is the roll,” he explains [via NME]. “Soul music, reggae, hip-hop, which is rap music. Hip-hop is a culture, so it embodies sight, sound, story, and style.”

“But music, the vocal on top of the music, has already been determined. So that’s the roll, that’s flow, that’s the soul in it. Kiss are rock gods, but they don’t have a lot of roll to them.”

Chuck D is thee right person to address Gene Simmons’ tone deaf commentary.

I love how he focuses on the importance of music creation and narratives because it’s not enough to own our stories.

We have to keep telling them too. #BHMpic.twitter.com/qSIqLcxNTZ

— Renee (@PettyLupone) February 13, 2026

Gene Simmons attracted criticism with his initial comments, in which he spoke about hip-hop: “It’s not my music. I don’t come from the ghetto. It doesn’t speak my language.”

In a recent interview with People, the bassist denied that his comments were racially veiled, saying, “I stand by my words,” while adding: “Ghetto is a Jewish term… How could you be, when rock is Black music? It’s just a different Black music than hip-hop, which is also Black music.”

“Rock ‘n’ roll owes everything to Black music,” he concluded, adding: “All the major forms of American music owe their roots to Black music.”

The post “Kiss are rock gods, but they don’t have a lot of roll to them”: Public Enemy leader Chuck D responds to Gene Simmons’ comments that hip-hop doesn’t belong in the Rock Hall appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When a band’s been in the game long enough, chances are they’ve been through a number of lineup changes to keep the wheels turning. And generally, fans will always hold one lineup in higher stead than others.

The ‘golden era’ of an artist’s career, while sometimes reflective of their period of peak commercial success, is often relative, and is different to different fans depending on when they discovered the artist’s music.

• READ MORE: “Steve couldn’t utter a word. John stubbed out cigarettes on the back of his hand”: The 1976 gig that “petrified” the Sex Pistols

Hard rock outfit Whitesnake were a band with a laundry list of previous members, including Steve Vai, Bernie Marsden, Joel Hoekstra, Doug Aldrich and so many more over the course of their on-and-off 40-year career.

And in a new interview with Chaoszine, Dutch guitarist Adrian Vandenberg reflects on the fanbase’s tendency to have favourites in terms of lineups.

Remembering the band’s Restless Heart tour in 1997, he says: “In certain countries, it went great. South America, man, people went nuts. But in many other countries, they only wanted to hear the 1987 album.

“And England… holy shit, England has always been so split up. You got the guys saying, ‘Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden, that’s the real Whitesnake.’ Then the other guys go, ‘No, no, John Sykes is the shit.’

“It’s like Van Halen, you know? ‘Sammy Hagar is better than David Lee Roth.’ ‘No, Roth is the guy.’ I don’t know why people do that. Come on, man, you like the band, or you don’t, you know? So, the same thing was happening on that tour. People were expecting that big pompous 1987 sound in some countries.”

“We had some surreal experiences in weird cities, man,” he also says. “Great memories, and it was different playing with that lineup. We hit Japan, Europe, South America and Russia, which will probably never happen again the way the world is now. At least not in our lifetime – it’s a strange world we live in right now.”

The post Whitesnake guitarist thinks fans should stop comparing different band lineups: “Come on, man, you like the band, or you don’t!” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It’s been four long years since the Red Hot Chili Peppers released 2022’s Unlimited Love – but there might be something new on the horizon. In a new interview with MOJO, bassist Flea hints that the band have been cooking up some new tunes.

While this March will see Flea releasing his solo jazz solo debut, Honora, fans have been wondering what that means for the bassist’s main gig with the Chili Peppers. MOJO addresses the elephant in the room, asking whether there’s any plans for a 13th album. “We’ve been writing music together, recording at [guitarist] John Frusciante’s house, and the music feels great,” Flea reveals.

• READ MORE: How to get better recorded guitar sounds at home with mobile absorbers

As Flea puts it, the process has been a bit longer due to the hunt for “magic” in the studio. “Ultimately, once we start playing, it’s about… just catching a magic groove and doing it good,” he adds.

It’s the same approach he has adopted while recording his upcoming jazz record, and one he feels about music on the whole. While it’s an intuitive process working on his solo project, it can be more difficult in a band, due to there being multiple moving cogs in the machine. “It’s like being in a marriage with four people that’s always moving and changing, all these challenges and all the things that you have to deal with,” he explains.

“Egos are inescapable and my ego is as big and as fragile as anybody’s. But it’s always, no matter what, this intrinsic part of who I am and it’s alive and it’s beautiful and you never know what shape it’s going to take next. I really feel like that right now.”

In the past, Flea has made it clear that he never wants to produce rock for rock’s sake. In fact, in 2016 he told SiriusXM’s Pearl Jam Radio that he considered “rock music [to be] a dead form in a lot of ways”, far from its ‘90s heyday of “exciting” releases.

With that in mind, it makes sense that Flea is exploring other avenues of sound – and why the Red Hot Chili Peppers are determined to take their time making their next record, just to ensure their signature blend of funk, rap and rock feel utterly fresh.

Flea’s Honora solo debut will drop on  27 March, and will feature a slew of exciting artists including Thom Yorke and Nick Cave.

The post “We’ve been writing music together, recording at John’s house – it feels great”: Flea hints at new Red Hot Chili Peppers music on the horizon appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

As the legend goes, Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen were like two ships passing in the night. Despite both earning their stripes on the 1970’s Sunset Strip, the pair of iconic guitarists rarely crossed paths. But that didn’t mean they didn’t know about each other.

With Quiet Riot and Van Halen both on the rise, Randy and Eddie became some of the hottest guitarists on the strip. It was impossible not to compare the two – especially when both bands would often play just doors down from each other. “We became well aware of Van Halen,” Quiet Riot’s original bassist Kelly Garni tells the Booked On Rock Podcast [transcribed by Ultimate Guitar]. “Especially when we’d [perform] at the Starwood… we knew they were playing down the street at Gazzarri’s.”

• READ MORE: How to get better recorded guitar sounds at home with mobile absorbers

Garni notes that Van Halen existed in very different circles, frequenting venues that weren’t exactly Quiet Riot’s “type of a club”. However, their differences didn’t mean there was a rivalry between the pair. “There was no competition,” Garni explains. “Most certainly, there was no competition in Randy’s world. Because Randy didn’t compete.”

“It just wasn’t in Randy to try to compete,” he continues. “He couldn’t! The way his brain was wired… he could not form a thought like ‘Oh, I’m gonna be better than that guy!’”

In fact, rather than a rivalry, there was a fascination; Rhoads was curious to see just what Eddie Van Halen had to offer. “He went down to Gazzarri’s because people were talking about this guy,” Garni recalls. “Randy said, ‘I’ll go see what the deal is’… So he went there, he saw him play, and he went, ‘Yeah, OK, the guy’s good.’”

Apparently Rhoads even got himself backstage to meet his supposed ‘rival’. “Randy was trying to get backstage to meet him, and he did get back there…” the bassist says. “But Eddie was acting kind of crazy and bouncing off of walls in his underwear. And Randy was like, ‘Oh okay… not the best time to meet this guy.’”

So, rather than leaving with a burning sense of rivalry, Rhoads only thought: “‘He was really good, but he looked kind of nutty.’”

The pair went on to perform on just one bill together on 23 April 1977 at California’s Glendale Community College. It’s unknown just how many times the pair crossed paths beyond that… but many musicians have claimed that Rhoads and EVH developed more of a ‘rivalry’ in their later years.

Ozzy Osbourne in particular sensed some competition between the pair. The Black Sabbath legend referenced an archival 1982 Guitar Player clip to prove his point, noting how Eddie claimed “everything [Rhoads] did he learned from me”, and later adding “he was good, but I don’t really think he did anything that I haven’t done”.

“I heard recently that Eddie said he taught Randy all his licks … he never,” Osbourne told Rolling Stone in 2022.

Alongside the strange claim, he also claimed that Rhoads “didn’t have a nice thing to say about Eddie”, either. “Maybe they had a falling out or whatever, but they were rivals,” he said.

The archival Eddie clip was also briefly mentioned in a 2022 documentary, Randy Rhoads: Reflection of a Guitar Icon. One of Rhoads’ friends, Kim McNair, explained: “This was the years of guitar heroes. To a large degree, bands were judged on their guitar player. I think all the guitar players in town kept up on each other.”

The post “Eddie was acting crazy and bouncing off of walls in his underwear. Randy was like, ‘Oh okay… not the best time to meet this guy’”: Quiet Riot’s Kelly Garni says Randy Rhoads didn’t have a rivalry with Eddie Van Halen, rather a “fascination” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Unapologetically brash and loaded with attitude, it’s hard to imagine punk’s standard-bearers could suffer pre-performance nerves. But for all their cocksure anti-establishmentism, The Sex Pistols were prone to pre-gig anxiety like anyone else.

As journalist and photographer John Ingham recalls in a new feature in MOJO magazine, there was one gig in particular that struck fear into the hearts of Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock.

• READ MORE: “Mick and Keith operate in a different financial stratosphere”: The stark financial disparity of the Rolling Stones revealed by Ronnie Wood son’s court case

Cast your imagination back to 9 July, 1976; the Pistols are gearing up for a gig at London’s 2,100-capacity Lyceum Theatre, supporting Supercharge and The Pretty Things. As Ingham recalls, this was the first time they’d played in a “big space”, and nerves were high.

“What was really strange was that it seemed such an amazingly unimportant gig,” Ingham says. “And they were so absolutely petrified before, backstage. Steve couldn’t talk, he couldn’t utter a word, he had the look of death on his face. To them, it was extremely important. It was the first time they’d played in a big space.

“John was really nervous. I found that strange. It hadn’t occurred to me that they wanted to win people over. That was the night that John stubbed out cigarettes on the back of his hand while he was singing. It frightened me.”

But the four-piece ultimately rose to the occasion: “Up until this point, they were getting better at it, but it was still the same kind of noise…” Ingham continues. “Suddenly there was this major step up in musical ability. Glen was phenomenal, the bass playing was tremendous. Paul was right on the beat. In one night, suddenly they were all just there.”

The Sex Pistols are still active, with a number of shows planned for 2026. However, John Lydon is no longer in the fold (Frank Carter now holds frontman duties), and has documented his somewhat fractured relations with his former bandmates in recent years.

“Come on Mr. Carter, you’re not Johnny Rotten, I am,” he told Frank as the band approached their reunion tour last year, previously saying in reference to his former bandmates: “I am the Pistols, and they’re not.”

More recently, guitarist Steve Jones said he has “nothing but love” for Lydon, saying he’ll “never shut the door” on a reunion, but asserting that he didn’t think “John would have the energy like Frank does”.

The post “Steve couldn’t utter a word. John stubbed out cigarettes on the back of his hand”: The 1976 gig that “petrified” the Sex Pistols appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

In Converge’s world, things don’t happen by accident – if they say something, they mean it. So, when vocalist Jacob Bannon ushered in the metalcore pioneers’ new record Love is Not Enough by observing that “realism is missing from a lot of modern music”, you knew they planned on doing something about it. “People, especially young people, crave authenticity,” guitarist Kurt Ballou expounds. “The process of recording metal music has been more akin to data entry than playing instruments for quite a long time now – there’s a whole generation who have been raised with this sort of ‘perfect’ music.”

• READ MORE: How Angel Du$t became the most unconventional band in hardcore

Love is Not Enough is not that. It’s a hulking, febrile thing, alive in all its grit and human imperfections. It is Converge at their most Converge – a band reflecting upon the artistic choices and creative bonds that have underpinned a genre-shaping 35 year run. There are solos on the title track with the head-spinning ferocity of Axe to Fall’s all-timer of an opener Dark Horse, for example, while To Feel Something finds Ballou reinterpreting stabbing, lurching Jane Doe-era carnage from the perspective of someone who’s learned to control the violence at their fingertips. Following on from 2021’s Bloodmoon: I, a collaboration with modern goth icon Chelsea Wolfe, Ben Chisholm, and Cave In’s Stephen Brodsky, it is about uncovering fresh ore in old hills.

“There are songs on Bloodmoon that I barely played guitar on,” Ballou says. “Making Love is Not Enough, that goes back to regular Converge, where we are much more comfortable in our roles. The division of labour is well established in the band and it’s back to being focused on our own stuff. But, also, there’s less space to hide. The guitar ideas are mine, and I’m playing them all. There’s a deliberate lack of collaboration on it. Guitar solos are not my thing, but we’re not having guest musicians here. No one’s playing this solo for me, so I gotta fucking do it. So, you know, I did it.”

Image: Press

Caving In

Recorded at Ballou’s God City facility in Salem, Massachusetts, the album is chiefly a document of a band capable of caving your head in from 10 paces. Bassist Nate Newton and drummer Ben Koller are a rhythm section with an unparalleled track record of unleashing sense-rearranging barrages, while Ballou and Bannon remain a pugilistic pairing pushing each other to scabrous new heights.

If you A-B the studio version of Love is Not Enough’s closer We Were Never The Same against its staging in Converge’s recent Audiotree session, you get a visceral idea of how close they have come to capturing the real thing. “When it comes to recording hardcore and metal my approach is always, ‘What does it feel like to watch this band live?’” Ballou says. “What does that excitement feel like, and can I try to capture that excitement? That’s my goal.”

Ballou is an interesting case study for this stuff, though, because he’s a working producer as well as a gnarly guitar player in a hardcore band. When he’s collaborating on Nails’ latest voyage into the death metal morass or helping Fleshwater assemble molasses-thick shoegaze-pop, his word isn’t law.

In fact, his views on recording music are malleable and driven by the desire to get at what people really want. “In my job, I interact with younger people who are fascinated with analog equipment – they’re taking pictures of their session with point and shoot film cameras,” he continues. “But I don’t want to be a luddite. I don’t want to be too cool for modern techniques.”

“All that technology exists for a reason,” he continues. “Incredible engineering has been done to create amp sims, drum replacements, audio file warping and tuning, and I do use that stuff sometimes when it’s helpful to present the music in the most flattering way. I’m not opposed to it. But I think that one of the things about technology that is important to keep in mind is exercising some restraint.

One of the things about an older style of recording is not so much that tape sounds better than digital, or tube amps sound better than modellers, it’s more that the process of using analog equipment necessitated a certain type of workflow. It didn’t require restraint when you were limited to 24 tracks. That was just what there was, and you had to make it work. Now, you would have to make a choice to limit yourself.”

Tools Of The Trade

That studio-rooted discipline also has interesting parallels with Ballou’s attitude towards his other-other career with God City Instruments (GCI), a boutique outfit producing guitars, basses, pedals and DIY pedal kits – something that grew out of Ballou’s legendary GCI business card, which took the form of an actual PCB (sans components) for his Brutalist Jr circuit.

“My wife does a lot of the order-fulfillment side of that and I QC guitars,” he says. “We’ll get a shipment every three or four months and I’ll spend a few days with them. The company is still pretty small, but it’s manageable. I’m not really trying to grow it – I don’t really want to lose control of it.”

“To double my sales would require more than double of my effort, you know? I think a lot of bands end up in a similar situation,” he adds. “Converge, for example, we have great people that we work with, our fans are awesome, and we can go and play shows just about anywhere in the world. But to play a venue twice the size is more than twice as expensive. We’d be required to have guitar techs and drum techs and lighting techs. The ticket price gets a lot higher and now we’re not doing things on our own terms.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, GCI gear forms the backbone of Ballou’s work on Love is Not Enough. Fitted with their overwound Slug Jammer humbuckers, there are multiple Craftsman models in play, along with a 27.5” scale Deconstructivist baritone that was used to bring the muscle on Distract and Divide, To Feel Something and Amon Amok, a trio of Drop A monsters.

“I’ve also got a really good short-scale Tele with Lindy Fralin pickups,” he notes. “I used that for a bunch of the clean, atmospheric background sounds on Amon Amok. On Force Meets Presence I might have used my First Act Sheena. I can’t remember if I actually did this, or if I just was thinking about doing it, but a lot of that song is rooted on the A string, so to make that clean I might have taken the low E off of the guitar for that whole section.”

Image: Press

Spreading The Load

While working on Bloodmoon: I, Ballou had to find his place within a guitar sound that he viewed as vibe-based more than “dense or athletic”. Here, the opposite is largely true. But his amp selection process remained the same, with five or six rigs primed for work as he chased a tone. “I used to have a whole bunch of amps running at the same time, hoping to capture the best of all worlds,” he says. “But I’ve come to realise over time that it just flattens whatever cool character each one has.”

With the rhythm sounds oscillating between an early Sparrows Sons model, employed with a Boss OS-2 to accent its articulate, wide-ranging gain, and a GCI Onslaught-assisted Dean Costello HMW, most of the leads were tracked with a first generation Bad Cat Black Cat, paired again with an OS-2 or a GCI Crimson Cock.

“That’s like an NPN Rangemaster,” Ballou says. “It’s really the best for matching a guitar to an amp. If your guitar feels too bright or too dark, or not loud enough, or too loud, by turning a few knobs on that thing, you can make it work.”

What pass for cleans in Converge’s world, meanwhile, were captured on a Traynor YRM-1 that Ballou picked up for $99 in the mid-1990s. “I can, honestly, probably record anything with that amp,” he observes. “I also have a few JMP 2204s, but one of them is from a transitional year when it started getting a little more JCM900-ish. I want to say I have a ‘76 and a ‘79. They’ve obviously been maintained differently over the years, but the newer one is tighter and the older one is creamier. I like them both a lot – that was set up as a pedal platform as I needed different sounds. If a song needs a fuzz part or an HM-2 part, that amp can do it all.”

Image: Press

Bright Spark

Zooming out, though, something remarkable about the way Love is Not Enough sounds is the warmth and clarity behind its guitars. As a riffer, Ballou is naturally a grimy, aggressive player, meaning that keeping a sense of nuance alive requires deliberate thought. “I’m always pushing the brightness to try to get more clarity,” he says. “But then sometimes you end up with a very chirpy sound, which is not very metal. The OS-2 quells the chirpiness and also starves the bottom end.”

From both a philosophical and practical perspective, Ballou sees his yard as the mid-range. Returning again to the idea of a division of labour, he is happy to leave the sludge to Newton and the splashy stuff to Koller’s cymbals. He’s not trying to grind you to a pulp, he’s trying to punch you in the solar-plexus. “Listen to the classic Slayer records – they don’t have crushing low end or sizzly high end,” he says. “There are great guitar sounds that have that, but we’ve always thought of Converge more as a hard band than a heavy band.”

Converge’s Love Is Not Enough is out February 13 through Deathwish/Epitaph.

The post Why metalcore pioneers Converge have returned to bring an end to “data entry” modern metal and show a new generation the power of authenticity appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.



Episode 160 of the Truth About Vintage Amps Podcast, where amp tech Skip Simmons fields all of your questions about tube amps.

Thank our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars and Amplified Parts.

Some of the topics discussed this week:

1:09 Fishing and weather report, Tule fog

4:43 Skip’s amp backlog

5:19 A West guitar amp with a Dynaco 454216 transformer, a paper plate breakfast hack

10:45 Our sponsors!

12:56 What’s on Skip’s bench: A 1950 Princeton, a White amplifier, a Tweed Deluxe AND a Vibrolux; Electromuse amps

14:39 The Lonesome Captain’s music video (YouTube link)

17:31 A Webster-Chicago 166-1 with a post phase-inverter tone control

20:36 The Valco/National/Supro single 6V6 with reverb and tremolo

28:06 A Silvertone 1472 with replaced parts; terminal strip grounds

30:55 Two filter cap Princetons (link to TDPRI forum)

32:11 An original Garnet Session Man; modding a Masco ME-27; recommended reading

39:49 The Wood Wire & Volts show; the Benson Babylon (as mentioned on episode 158!)

44:16 Speaker impedance mismatch on a Danelectro amp and its effect on tone, Spanish rice, Goya pasta

50:21 Suggestions for an unused triode in a Geloso G226A amp

54:32 Bill Krinard’s return?; Dr. Z’s new, single-ended PhD amp; Emery Sound amps

57:18 A new speaker for my Traynor YGM-3?; Peavey amps; smoked pork tenderlions

1:03:35 Making a baby Leslie speaker at home and adding caps to filter out EMI/interference (check out more pics on our Patreon)

1:11:00 Getting spray paint off a grill cloth (3M Safest Stripper); fixing a Fender speaker baffle; and a cursed reverb unit

1:16:50 A Cunningham CX322 tube giveaway; Alembic stereo pre-amps, redux

Note: Starting around minute 60, our Zoom connection went bad and Skip can be a little hard to hear. We tried to clean it up as best we could. Sorry!

Want amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.

Want to support the show? Join our Patreon page to get to the front of the advice line, see exclusive pics, the occasional video and more.

Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.

Above and below: Listener Bruce’s West combo, with a Dynaco transformer. 

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 160 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

If you’re hoping to streamline your rig this year then look no further than the Line 6 Helix floorboard processor, now on sale at Guitar Center just in time for Presidents’ Day – saving you $200.

This popular rig command centre launched back in 2015, and went on to compete with the likes of Neural DSP, Kemper, and Fractal. Across the years, the Helix has undergone several updates that have expanded its offerings of amps, cabs, mics, and effects.

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The Helix utilises Line 6’s HX modelling engine, and captures the sonic nuance and dynamic response of vintage and modern gear. Its dual DSP architecture enables vast processing capabilities, while its large colour screen and touch-sensitive switches help to simplify deep editing.

• READ MORE: This guitarist is using a Steam Deck as his entire live rig – and it’s genuinely impressive

The screen gives users a clear view of their signal chain, while the footswitches let you edit blocks on the fly by simply tapping and turning the nearby knob. It also offers four stereo signal paths, four effects loops and a comprehensive I/O layout. Learn more in the video below:

And speaking of amp modellers, Fractal Audio has made the leap to native software with ICONS – a new line of amp-modelling plugins and standalone applications that brings its acclaimed modelling and effects tones directly to DAWs and desktop setups.

Powering ICONS is Fractal Audio’s advanced amp modelling, which recreates analogue circuits at the component level so that “each model sounds, feels, and responds just like the real thing at any setting.”

The Line 6 Helix multi-effects unit is reduced to $1,099.99. Learn more and shop more deals at Guitar Center.

The post Get a Line 6 Helix at $200 off this Presidents’ Day at Guitar Center appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

You might assume the members of the Rolling Stones and their families are all financially set for life given the enduring success of the band’s music. But as revealed in a recent court case concerning Ronnie Wood’s son Jesse, not everyone in the Stones’ world is rolling in it.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Jesse Wood stood before magistrates in West London last month after pleading guilty to an unspecified minor driving offence, revealing he was living on around £1,000 per month with an annual income of £14,000, and was surviving on savings. The 49-year-old guitarist and model asked for leniency, it’s said, after being handed a £957 court bill.

• READ MORE: Yungblud says “it’s only the people who didn’t reach the mountaintop” who are “gatekeeping” rock music

As one of rock music’s all-time commercially successful bands, it’s easy to assume the money would be of no concern to any member of the Rolling Stones and their families.

Ronnie Wood’s net worth is reported to be substantial – somewhere in the region of £150 million as quoted by numerous sources – but it’s important to note that the point at which he joined the Stones was instrumental in shaping his financial position later down the line.

Wood joined the band in 1975, after many of their most royalty-generating hits had already been written. For example, the royalties generated by hits like Satisfaction (1965) flow to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

An anonymous industry source quoted by the Daily Mail explains: “People see stadiums and assume it’s one big pot of money for everyone. It never has been.

“Mick and Keith operate in a different financial stratosphere. Ronnie’s world has always been more complicated, and that has trickled down.”

While Ronnie Wood no doubt earns a considerable wedge for being a Rolling Stone – from touring revenue and songs written since he joined, for example – the source notes that there’s a reason for the disparity in what each Stones member takes home.

“He gets paid handsomely to be a Rolling Stone, but he doesn’t own the jukebox,” they go on.

People often incorrectly assume that a person’s quoted net worth is a liquid pot of cash they have in the bank ready to distribute as needed. But the picture is always more complicated than that. The Daily Mail notes that much of Ronnie Wood’s fortune is tied up in illiquid assets, including a multi-million-pound art collection, as well as property and investments.

“His wealth is structural,” a financial advisor tells the Daily Mail. “It’s in paintings and properties and future tour revenues. That’s not the same as having millions in a bank account to distribute.”

The post “Mick and Keith operate in a different financial stratosphere”: The stark financial disparity of the Rolling Stones revealed by Ronnie Wood’s son’s court case appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

PG Editorial Director Richard Bienstock has interviewed Slash more than a few times throughout the last couple decades. So, we’ve called on him to join us in celebrating the Guns N’ Roses guitarist as we discuss his sound, his riffs, and his look! Tune in to find out about the time the two went guitar shopping and when Slash showed up at Richard’s desk.

If you’re looking to grab a bargain before Presidents’ Day comes to an end, then head over to Sweetwater where you can grab the popular Sabre model from Sterling by Music Man for less than $1,000.

The Sabre model has a long history – it was first launched in 1978 by Music Man, with production ceasing in 1980. It was then revived in 2020, and rated 9/10 by Guitar.com no less. The Sterling version then landed in 2022, offering a slightly more affordable take on the premium Music Man model.

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Saving you $500 and now priced at $999.99, this dent and scratch model from Sweetwater may only have minor cosmetic flaws but all of its key features work just perfectly. It offers a super lightweight nyatoh body topped with a piece of highly figured flame maple veneer, and comes in a Deep Blue Burst finish.

It also offers a roasted maple neck and a rosewood fingerboard with a 12-inch radius, modern “C” shape, and stainless-steel frets. Completing this rock-ready model is a Modern Tremolo and Sterling locking tuners, while tone is driven by a pair of Fishman Fluence Modern pickups that deliver two distinctive humbucker voices courtesy of a push-pull knob.

• READ MORE: Sterling By Music Man Rabea Artist Series Sabre – a solid rock and metal workhorse

Check out the video below to hear the Sabre in-play:

If you’re looking for more Presidents’ Day deals, then check out our guide to all the best finds, as we trawled through the internet to find the best savings so you don’t have to. We found a bunch of huge deals on products from Fender, Gibson, Taylor, Positive Grid and many more treasured brands.

You can shop this deal and more over at Sweetwater.

The post Presidents’ Day bargain: Save a MASSIVE $500 on this Sterling by Music Man Sabre at Sweetwater appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It’s been a big year for Yungblud. Though a hugely successful artist in his own right for years, July saw him perform Changes at Black Sabbath’s massive final show at Villa Park, attracting tens of thousands of new eyes and even earning him his first Grammy for Best Rock Performance.

He’s since cemented himself as a prominent figure in the modern-day rock scene, performing with the likes of Nuno Bettencourt and Aerosmith (in a VMAs performance which attracted considerable criticism, including from The Darkness brothers Justin and Dan Hawkins). 

But Yungblud’s sudden boost in exposure has also led some to accuse him of being an “industry plant”, a claim he vehemently denies. “If I’m an industry plant, I’ve planted the f**king plant myself,” he recently said.

• READ MORE: He brought the house down at Black Sabbath’s farewell gig, and once hilariously defied a no-moshing order at a Japan show. Like it or not, Yungblud is the star rock music needs

 Yungblud – real name Dominic Richard Harrison – says the backlash he’s faced as an artist diving deeper into the rock world is partly a result of “gatekeeping”, and has an opinion on who’s mostly to blame for the elitism.

“When people say to fit in rock, that is the most un-rock ‘n’ roll thing ever,” he told Rolling Stone Australia & New Zealand in a recent interview [via Ultimate Guitar].

“Rock music isn’t supposed to be a gatekept boys club, and it became that. That’s why it’s been suffocated, and boring, and so adherent to the past. We have to allow young people to pioneer something, or at least try and give this thing a heartbeat.”

The artist says many who might be inspired to try and start a band or make a career in rock music are dissuaded from doing so because of the alleged gatekeeping that goes on.

“It just sucks, because you just know that a 17-year-old in a room who was loving sounding like Queen, my biggest fear is that they get deterred from pursuing a career in it by some old bit of cunt on the internet,” he continues. “And I’m here to go, if you’re young, play rock, fuck it. Don’t listen to them. There’s a new generation of ideas.”

Yungblud says it’s not rock music’s most venerated names putting walls up around the genre, though.

“When you actually meet the legends like Steven [Tyler], Ozzy [Osbourne], Billy Corgan, they fucking want it. It’s only the people who didn’t necessarily reach the mountaintop [who are] gatekeeping the genre,” he goes on. “So, if you’re young, and if you want to start a band, do it with everything you’ve got.”

Despite his critics, Yungblud has many famous voices from the legacy rock world on his side, including Ted Nugent, who recently branded him the “real McCoy”.

In other news, it was recently revealed that Yungblud only got the gig to play Changes at Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning show 48 hours before the event.

“48 hours before, he wasn’t gonna be the singer of that song,” said event director and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello. 

“Things were changing… I landed at Heathrow Airport and I got a call, like, ‘That’s not happening.’ So I’m, like, ‘Okay, let’s figure it out.’ And it turned out to be one of the highlights.”

The post Yungblud says “it’s only the people who didn’t reach the mountaintop” who are “gatekeeping” rock music appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The PRS Silver Sky – and the more affordable SE Silver Sky, in particular – are two of the most commercially successful electric guitar launches in recent memory, with the SE version topping Reverb’s best-selling electric guitars list two years in a row in 2022 and 2023.

But naturally, when a guitar becomes so ubiquitous, critics become louder. And much of that criticism has been levelled by those not a fan of the most expensive core Silver Sky’s smaller 7.25” fretboard radius.

• READ MORE: I spent my afternoon sifting through Presidents’ Day guitar deals so you don’t have to

It’s very much a debate on the minutiae of guitar building, but the argument basically goes that a larger fretboard radius and flatter fingerboard makes it easier to play solos as a less curved surface allows for a more consistent and low action across all six strings. It’s also argued that a smaller radius and more curved fretboard can sometimes lead to bent notes choking out while going over the hump of the ‘board.

But PRS main man Paul Reed Smith thinks these concerns are unfounded, as he explains in a recent interview on the Zak Kuhn Show.

“When I was a kid, nobody said you can’t play solos on a Tele or Strat. That’s new internet lore,” he says [via Ultimate Guitar].

“And so when we made the prototypes for John Mayer, we tried every single radius, every scale length, every position, every body shape. We tried everything. And he goes, ‘I want it to be the same as the guitars I’m used to. I don’t want to look down when I play.’ So we made it 7.25” and everybody, everybody pushed back. ‘Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea, you can’t play solos on a 7.25” radius.

Smith says despite the noisy opposition to the Silver Sky’s smaller fretboard radius, he thought it was “a bunch of hooey”.

While acknowledging that notes can sometimes choke out on bends on a fretboard with a smaller radius, Smith continues: “That I understood, but the idea that you couldn’t play solos on something that people have been playing solos on forever, just seemed Looney Tunes to me.

“What hurts me when people attack, it’s they’re so adamant that they know what they’re talking about. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don’t…

“I’m sorry. One of the solos in [ZZ Top’s] La Grange is on a Strat, from what I can hear – sounded good to me. [Dire Straits’] Sultans of Swing, don’t even get me started. Machine Gun [Jimi Hendrix] is ridiculous.”

Last year, John Mayer himself downplayed the importance of fretboard radius on a guitar’s playability, even saying the height one sets their strap is more important.

“I just looked at the guitars I loved the most, and they were 7.25 inches” he said, speaking about the Silver Sky’s 7.25”-radius fingerboard. “That was my measuring stick. Now that I know the math behind it, I still don’t think about it. The difference between 7.25” and 9.5” is less significant than your strap being an inch higher or lower. I’ll fight anybody on that.”

The post “It just seemed Looney Tunes to me”: Paul Reed Smith dismisses the notion that you “can’t play solos” on a 7.25”-radius fretboard appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When you ask a guitarist to think about Taylor, the brand that’s been at the vanguard of acoustic guitars for the last 50 years, chances are they’re imagining the Grand Auditorium. Created by iconoclastic co-founder Bob Taylor in 1994 to be the ultimate all-purpose acoustic guitar, the Grand Auditorium sits between the big-bodied dreadnought and the more compact concert-sized instruments. Its versatility, a shining example of the brand’s determination to do acoustic guitars differently, has made it the most popular and beloved of Taylor’s many innovations since the brand’s humble beginnings in a hippy co-op in San Diego.

That’s probably why Andy Powers, Taylor’s CEO, President and Master Guitar Designer, chose the Grand Auditorium to put his most definitive and impactful stamp on the brand since his promotion to CEO in 2022. Enter the Taylor Next Generation Grand Auditorium – Powers’ reimagination of the brand’s most iconic instrument for its post-founder era.

The Taylor Next Generation Grand Auditorium on the Guitar.com Cover. Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

When you look at the instrument, though, you’d be forgiven for wondering what exactly is new about it.

“Well yeah, exactly!” Powers exclaims, sat cradling a new 814ce in his lap within the airy surrounds of a Californian hotel suite. “This is a guitar that we’ve built for a long time. It’s an iconic model for us. And we deliberately wanted to keep it appointed in the form that we know and love. But what’s so interesting about this instrument is that it represents our best and brightest guitar-making. A lot of very materially significant parts of the guitar design have been upgraded.”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Stick Your Neck Out

Perhaps the most important and impactful change is one that you might never even need – but you’ll be thankful for if you do. The Action Control Neck is a Powers innovation that has been the best part of a decade of trial, error and experimentation, and after a limited debut on Taylor’s Gold Label collection last year, it’s now ready for the limelight.

Traditionally, acoustic guitar necks are glued into the bodies – a perfectly fine way to do it, but one that comes with its own issues. If you don’t like the height of the strings and general playability, your only real option is to take it to a luthier who will have to carefully remove the neck, add some shims to alter the neck’s angle so it’s more to your preference, and then reglue it back. What’s more, as a guitar gets older, the force of years of string tension often gradually pulls the neck forward, raising the action and making the guitar uncomfortable to play. The only solution? A neck reset.

“This instrument represents our best and brightest guitar-making”

“[With] a conventional neck reset, your guitar might be in a luthier shop for a month,” Powers explains. “That’s going to cost some money. It’s like open heart surgery for a guitar.”

Back in 1999 Taylor took its first steps to change this. The NT Neck, as it was known then, utilised cutting edge computer-controlled milling to create a bolt-on neck that had the same tonal transfer as glue, but also gave any tech or luthier the ability to easily remove the neck and reset it.

“We’ve been known for building great playing guitars that are easy to service, easy to adjust,” Powers explains. “But I wanted the adjustability to go even further. The way that we’ve built guitars with our Taylor neck system, that’s a huge improvement. But the Action Control Neck takes that level of adjustability farther than anything.

“You can do an action adjustment literally within seconds and not even have to re-tune the guitar. You simply adjust it to where you want to play, and you’re ready to go.”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

As he talks, Powers pulls out a flexible shaft screwdriver – the sort you can buy on Amazon for the price of a good cup of coffee – to demonstrate. He pops the screwdriver into the soundhole, gives a quick turn, and before our eyes, the action has been visibly lowered, but the guitar is still in perfect tune and intonation all the way up the neck. A job that would take a trained professional hours or even days to complete has been done in less time than it took to write this sentence. It feels a bit like a magic trick.

But why invest so much time in something that isn’t really a problem for Taylor once the guitar is out of the doors of their factory in El Cajon, California? Sustainability is one thing – which Taylor has taken seriously in its guitar-making for decades. If you’ve got a guitar that can be tweaked to a player’s individual taste – or their evolving playing style – in a heartbeat, you’re likely to hold onto that guitar for much longer.

“And you may never need to make those adjustments!” Powers adds. “You might pick the guitar up, it feels great, sounds great, and you’re happy forever. But I know for myself, over time my playing approach changes, or I start wanting to play in a different style. That means I want the guitar set up differently – fine. Just adjust it.”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Grand Gestures

Wanting to meet real musicians where they are is also key to the other significant innovation at the heart of the Next Generation Grand Auditorium. The Taylor Expression system has been ever present in the brand’s guitars for the best part of two decades – the three rounded control knobs on the guitar’s top are about as distinctive a part of Taylor’s visual design language as the pickup itself was in shaping its live sound.

Now all of that is changing: the new Claria system offers not only a more subtle visual proposition, but a different approach to amplifying the sound, too.

“The development started by creating a pickup for big artists on big stages,” Powers explains. “It was the kind of situation where you don’t get to tune the environment to suit the pickup, so we needed to tune the pickup to suit the environment. And so we wanted to create something that was very player-centric, real intuitive and very easy to use.”

“I want the guitar to serve the player well in every way that we can”

While the Claria started with the needs of artists playing stadiums and other big rooms, Powers soon realised that the problems he was trying to solve could present themselves in any setting.

“If you’re playing a club date, when you walk on stage, you may not even get a soundcheck. Sometimes you barely get a line check and you’re off and running! And so you need something that you can dial in quickly that offers a greater selection of useful sounds.”

That user-friendly simplicity is at the heart of the new Claria system – if the Expression system was a scalpel made for carefully crafting perfect studio-quality tones, this is a lot more forgiving. “You’re not doing surgery on your amplified sound,” Powers reflects. “You’re just going, ‘That sounds good. Let’s play!’”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Player Power

There was a time when Taylor guitars were designed for a certain type of player, and had a certain type of sound. Bob Taylor himself enjoys remarking that people often speak both positively and negatively about the sonic qualities of his guitars, using much the same language. It doesn’t bother him, so long as both sides agree that the instruments are well-made.

Powers is cut from a different cloth. His background as a boutique luthier who made guitars to suit each customer’s needs has helped make the ‘Taylor sound’ a much broader church than it was before he joined the company over a decade ago.

“I want the guitar to serve the player well in every way that we can,” he affirms. “The whole idea behind this was that we want to build a great, professional-quality guitar. If you were to pick a guitar because you like the sound of it, I want to make sure that all the other aspects of that instrument support you in your play. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

The proof of his success has been placing prototypes of these Next Generation guitars in the hands of artists – the grin on Powers’ face tells its own story. “You see players respond to these, and you can actually watch fresh inspiration happening,” he enthuses. “It does really feel like it’s a breath of fresh air. I can see the future. I can see where we’re going. I know that players love playing music. That’s what interests us in the first place. So let’s build the guitars to suit them and serve their needs.”

The Taylor Next Generation Grand Auditorium is available now

Words: Josh Gardner
Photography: Rachel Billings

The post How Taylor quietly revolutionised its most iconic design with the Next Generation Grand Auditorium appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The Flange With No Name is reborn

The Grand Ole Opry, George Gruhn of Gruhn Guitars,and Martin Guitar have partnered to create a limited-edition Martin HD-28 Grand Ole Opry 100th Anniversary guitar. Opry member Vince Gill was the first artist to ever play the one-of-a-kind instrument when the guitar was introduced to the public for the first time and played it on the 100th Anniversary Opry show on November 28, 2025.

To purchase the limited edition Martin HD-28 Grand Ole Opry 100th Anniversary guitar click HERE.

The Martin HD-28 Grand Ole Opry 100th Anniversary is a one-of-a-kind instrument handcrafted to honor a century of music, storytelling, and unforgettable moments on country’s most iconic stage. For generations, Martin guitars have been in the hands of countless artists who shaped the sound of country music from the Opry’s hallowed ground—heard by millions and woven into the very history this guitar celebrates. Built on the foundation of Martin’s legendary HD-28, it delivers the bold, balanced Dreadnought tone players have long trusted: powerful bass, clear trebles, and rich overtones shaped by forward-shifted scalloped X-bracing and time-honed craftsmanship.

To mark the Opry’s 100th anniversary on November 28, 2025, Martin’s artisans added exclusive details found only on this guitar. The headplate features a custom inlay of the historic WSM microphone rendered in mother-of-pearl and abalone, a tribute to the broadcast that carried country music nationwide. A matching commemorative inlay theme continues along the ebony fingerboard, celebrating a century of Opry history and the artists and moments that defined the genre from this storied stage.

Handcrafted with a solid spruce top, solid East Indian rosewood back and sides, bold herringbone top trim, and elegant antique white binding, this special HD-28 also features a comfortable Golden Era Modified Low Oval neck that feels effortless in the hands. Together, these elements blend Martin tradition with Opry heritage in a single, remarkable instrument. It’s a playable piece of history made for those who keep the circle unbroken.



 

In what has become an annual tradition, Evan Gluck (NY Guitar Repair) hosted a guitar repair roundtable at the 2025 Fretboard Summit. This year, he brought Ceil Thompson (StewMac); TJ Thompson (Pro Luthier Tools); Mamie Minch (Brooklyn Lutherie); and Mark Stutman (Folkway Music) onstage.

It’s an insightful (and often hilarious) talk about the realities of running a guitar repair business. Very quickly, these five guitar repair experts go deep on customers, the surprise revelations they’ve had in their careers; the tasks (and people) they avoid; and much more.

Give it a listen. It may just make you a better customer the next time your guitar needs to be repaired.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. Register today: https://fretboardsummit.org

Our 58th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it.

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

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The post Podcast 537: The 2025 Fretboard Summit Guitar Repair Panel first appeared on Fretboard Journal.