General Interest

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when a guitarist goes all-in on vintage gear, just look at Joe Bonamassa. The blues legend and self-professed vintage connoisseur’s home gear museum, Nerdville West, reportedly holds over 1,000 items – including no less than 600 guitars.

However, even a collector of Bonamassa’s caliber admits there’s a limit. During a recent chat on the No Cover Charge podcast, the musician reveals he’s finally hitting the brakes on new acquisitions, as there’s only so much gear a person can meaningfully explore.

• READ MORE: “You all can stop asking me if I am buying it now!”: Joe Bonamassa weighs in on the sale of Norman’s Rare Guitars

“As far as acquiring stuff, I’ve really slowed down, because there’s a saturation point,” he explains. “I’d like to get to the stuff that I own, and discover the sounds that I can get out of those pieces, before it just starts piling up and piling up and piling up.”

The guitarist says last year’s Los Angeles wildfires helped put his obsession into perspective. Clearing out his collection in the wake of the fires reminded him just how overwhelming hundreds of instruments can be.

“You never want to go into a situation, I’ve done this when I cleared out this place after the fires, where you’re pulling out cases and have no recollection of when, where, or how you acquired it. And it’s probably starting to get to that point,” says Bonamassa.

“Obviously, you can’t evacuate everything. So, you have to prioritise. And I thought about it for years. I said, ‘Well, if we gotta go, here’s what’s going.’ This being one of them, you know – Mr Skinner [Bonamassa’s ‘Skinnerburst’ Les Paul] has to come along.”

Elsewhere in the chat, Bonamassa also reveals his tactical approach to collecting rare gear.

“What I do is, I never telegraph anything. You won’t know I’m interested until I’d be like, ‘I’ll take it,’ or, ‘I’ll cut you a check.’”

The guitarist says he tends to acquire gear in batches, securing spares and matching pairs of key amps and instruments: “Like, you notice there’s two [Marshall] JTM45s. There’s three in here, and one in Nashville. So, I’m usually ‘a pair and a spare,’ And you look at the back wall, there’s a bunch of Blackface Fender amps, and Selmers behind you, and [Fender] Tweeds and everything.”

The post “You don’t want to have no recollection of when, where or how you acquired it”: Why Joe Bonamassa is hitting the brakes on his vintage gear collection appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Walking away from a band you’ve called home for years is never easy, as former All That Remains guitarist Jason Richardson knows well.

In a recent chat with Guitar World, Richardson – who joined the metal band in 2018 after the tragic passing of founding guitarist Oli Herbert – says his departure last July was driven not by personal conflicts but rather, frustrations over management and the handling of the band’s 2025 album, Antifragile.

• READ MORE: Dave Mustaine claims Megadeth would have been less successful if not for the motivating factor of Metallica “trying to hold me back”

When asked whether leaving was a “difficult” decision, he admits [via Blabbermouth], “Kind of, but not, simultaneously. I don’t wanna get into the weeds of it publicly, but I’m still cool with all of the guys in the band. It was mostly just a business thing. And things just were not executed like they were promised to be, from management and the people tasked with putting the record out.”

“I’m glad the record exists, but the fact that it’s already been out almost a year and there hasn’t been one show. So it’s, like, there’s just a lot of things on the business side in the back end that I was not happy with at all.”

The guitarist is quick to stress that it wasn’t about personal relationships.

“It has nothing to do with anyone’s personality or anyone in the band at all,” he says. “It just wasn’t, in my opinion – like, I could be doing other things than trying to make that work when it so clearly was not going to – from my perspective, at least.”

Despite the frustrations, Richardson looks back on the album fondly: “I still love the guys. I love the record. I loved working with [producer] Josh Wilbur, the guy who did the album. He’s phenomenal. And that’s probably one of the best things about that record, for me at least, is now I have a great relationship with him, and we’re gonna keep working together. But I am happy all those songs are real, so there’s that at least.”

Following Richardson’s exit, former Unearth and As I Lay Dying guitarist Ken Susi has officially stepped in as his replacement, opening a new chapter in the band’s story.

The post Jason Richardson on leaving All That Remains: “There’s just a lot of things on the business side that I was not happy with at all” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Every guitarist has that one guitar they can’t live without, and for Joe Perry, it’s the “Burned Strat”. From small club gigs to MTV stages, the Fender/Warmoth hybrid has been a constant in Perry’s musical journey – an instrument so personal he calls it his “desert island guitar,” and one he can “pretty much do anything” on.

Speaking to Guitar World, Perry reflects on the axe’s origins, describing it as a “work in progress” even after decades of tweaks and shows.

“The inspiration for putting it together was when I left the band, I put most of my Aerosmith guitars aside and basically put this guitar together out of Warmoth parts,” Perry explains. “I was going back to playing clubs and theaters, just cruising the country in a van with a band and playing. In a way, that guitar fit in with my philosophy of leaving the Aerosmith thing to the side and playing this one guitar that I’d put together.”

• READ MORE: The time Joe Perry snapped the headstock of one of his favourite guitars: “Steven wanted to throw it into the audience – I had to wrestle him for it!”

“You can tell it was played a lot because I did a lot of shows back then, and there’s just a sound and a feel to it,” he adds. “It had a left-handed neck and body, and it was my go-to guitar for those three years. When it was time to start going back on the road with Aerosmith, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll pull that one out’ because it symbolised so much of me; it had a sound and felt really comfortable.”

By the early 2000s, Perry and his tech built the current Burned Strat to preserve the original.

“I didn’t want to take a chance on the original guitar being lost, so somewhere around 2001, me and my tech put another one together with the same philosophy – just bits and pieces, you know?”

As for what makes the Burned Strat so unique, Perry explains, “It’s the same guitar as far as the Fender body and Warmoth neck. It’s kind of a relic; I’ve changed the pickups, the vibrato bar and the bridge. I carved off more of the body to make it comfortable, and I even put it in the freezer overnight and then took a blowtorch to it so the finish would crackle, which gave it a jump-start to the way it would look over the years.”

He’s also upgraded the tremolo with a Vega-Trem bridge and even used a Dremel on it – “just to make it a little more of this or that,” says the guitarist. “So I can divebomb on it and use it as another musical tool – but I also can get the classic vibrato sound.”

Recent pickup swaps to a pair of Seymour Duncan P-Rails have expanded the guitar’s tonal palette as well.

“Each one has a P90 and a Strat-style pickup in it; those two sit in a humbucker slot. We went from three pickups to two, but with those pickups, there are really four positions, and you can switch them with the microswitches we added. I can have the pickups separate or together, and the toggle lets me pick which one I want and when. I can pretty much do anything on that guitar.”

Perry recently put the Burned Strat through its paces at the MTV Video Music Awards with Steven Tyler and Yungblud, as well as on Aerosmith’s latest collab EP, One More Time.

“Everything you hear I did with that guitar and just a few foot pedals,” he says, noting that its hybrid string setup and fat frets let him bend notes comfortably – even with arthritis starting to kick in.

“At this point, it is and will continue to be my ‘desert island guitar,’ but you never know,” Perry laughs.

The post Inside the heavily modded – and blowtorched – Fender/Warmoth hybrid Joe Perry calls his “desert island guitar” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

What does it feel like to get your hands on one of the most famous guitars in rock history? For Myles Kennedy, it’s something he still struggles to put into words.

Reflecting on the time he was able to hold Eddie Van Halen’s iconic Frankenstein axe, the Alter Bridge frontman admits the moment caught him off guard.

“We weren’t tracking with Frankenstein. Have I held Frankenstein? Yes,” Kennedy tells Guitar World. “Was it a total, Excalibur-level experience? I don’t even know how to articulate that, but I got emotional – that was a pretty special moment.”

• READ MORE: Channel your inner Eddie Van Halen with this new reverb plugin inspired by the sound of the Sunset Strip

Even though Frankenstein didn’t feature on Alter Bridge’s latest record, Van Halen’s legacy was still close at hand when the band tracked the album at the legendary 5150 Studios in Los Angeles.

“As far as amps and whatnot, there was a 50-watt 5150 III that we used when we were doing pre-production, so I plugged into that,” Kennedy explains. “I had it set up because I couldn’t fly out my Diezels. I fell in love with that amp, and it became a big part of the sound. I ended up marrying it with the [Diezel] VH4 when I was actually tracking.”

That EVH head didn’t just win over Kennedy. Fellow Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti was equally impressed when he paired it with his own signature PRS amp.

“I thought [the 5150 III] sounded so good, especially mixed with what I was using, which was my signature PRS head,” says Tremonti. “I loved it so much that I got one; they were nice enough to give me one, and I took it on the last tour we did. So now it’s a part of my sound.”

“It’s given me a new appreciation for 50-watt heads. As long as I’ve been playing guitar, and as long as I’ve collected amplifiers, I don’t think I’ve ever owned a 50-watt head – maybe a single 1×12 combo that was 50 watts. I never appreciated how aggressive a 50-watt head is. When you pair it with 100-watt heads, it’s got a certain character – a bite that cuts through the mix. But it’s not harsh.”

Elsewhere, Kennedy also opens up about what it meant to be invited into 5150 by Wolfgang Van Halen himself – and the responsibility that came with it.

“Wolf was incredibly kind enough to bring that offer up with our manager,” says the musician. “We were like, ‘Really?’ We knew the history of all the incredible music that had been made there. Just the fact that he trusted us enough to come in and not totally ruin the legacy really meant a lot. When we all showed up, we were very cognisant of that, and we wanted to honour the situation.”

Alter Bridge’s new album is now out. Listen below:

The post “Was it a total, Excalibur-level experience? I don’t even know how to articulate that”: Myles Kennedy on holding Eddie Van Halen’s Frankenstein guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$149.99, digitech.com

It has now been a few years since JHS’ Josh Scott gave the invisible hand of the free pedal market a little push, and accidentally kickstarted a craze for the original DigiTech Bad Monkey. Reverb listings for the pedal soared to stratospherically silly prices, and the presence of true magic within it was hotly debated. There were those who claimed that the Bad Monkey was a better Klon than some Klons. There were also those who claimed that all of these comparisons were proof that most overdrive pedals can be set to sound pretty similar.

• READ MORE: Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini review: “this is the most universal Quad Cortex yet”

Regardless, talk of a reissue was inevitable, one that might fit into the lineup of a newly-reinvigorated DOD/DigiTech – and here we are. First things first, this is a DOD reissue of a DigiTech pedal, presumably because it’s an analogue stompbox, and Cor-Tek (parent company of both) now wants to keep things consistently and sensibly divided – DOD dedicated to the analogue, DigiTech the digital. It’s also, as we’ll explore, more than a straight ‘reissue’ – we could have gotten a simple four-control remake of the original circuit, updated to modern spec with a better buffer and a less dated enclosure. That’s all here, but there’s a lot more to unpeel, including a totally unique barrel control that can blend together three discrete variants of the circuit.

Build and layout

The Badder Monkey is packed into the standard DOD single-stompbox format, used for everything from the Overdrive 250 to the Carcosa. It’s a really sturdy platform, with a solid build and a cool little reversible backplate if you want pre-attached velcro. The only real negative for some might be the side-mounted jacks, but overall it’s still a well-executed version of the standard single-stomp.

The Badder Monkey does look uniquely great. The barrel draws the eye, of course, but the UV print on the enclosure is also brilliantly glossy and very three-dimensional – I have to give a nod to the design execution on the titular Monkey bending the bars of an otherwise abstract control outline, labels included.

Even discounting the barrel, the full control scheme is pretty whacky – for good or for ill. If you thought the Supermassive Black Fuzz’s control scheme was ‘theme over function’, it shows Boss-like restraint compared to the Badder Monkey. Here Bananas and Curiosity are gain and volume, while Mood is a concentric EQ control – Screech and Grunt for treble and bass, respectively.

I can see the logic on the EQ side, but Bananas and Curiosity do seem totally arbitrary – you’ve just got to remember that gain’s on the left and volume’s on the right. These knob names are unusually whimsical for DOD – even its other strongly-themed pedals such as the Carcosa or Chthonic still have knobs called things like “output” and “high cut” rather than “Eldritchness” or “Cyclopeanity”. But it’s only a slight knock against the pedal, really – it’s clearly having a lot of fun with the whole vibe, and so themed control names were perhaps inevitable.

In Use

I first stay a little more conventional, and begin my testing with only the original Bad Monkey in the mix. This circuit is, as you may or may not already be aware, essentially a Tube Screamer-derived thing with the addition of a two-band active EQ. By itself, it is very easy to see why this gained status as a hidden gem from the early 2000s – that original slightly clunky enclosure was indeed hiding a fantastic overdrive sound.

Thanks to the two-band EQ it is as full or as sharp as you need it to be, and still allows the core sound to provide the all-important midrange presence. Like any good TS-inspired thing it can bring a clean amp to life as well as it can clear up gainy chugs. More extreme EQ settings behave as you’d expect – feel free to remove all the bass and pretend your guitar’s coming through an Amazon Basics walkie-talkie, or remove all of the treble and pretend you’re playing it underwater.

The real beauty, though, lies in the pedal’s versatility within the context of a full sound. You can target problem areas of both fizz and mud far more effectively than you could with a single tone control. These are all of the things that made the original so ripe for a modern revival, and so in terms of a straight-ahead reissue, DOD has absolutely done the job. But of course, like those well-meaning activists at the beginning of 28 Days Later, it is now time we open the cage and let the Badder Monkey run truly rampant.

Barrel of fun

Did you know that the phrase “more fun than a barrel of monkeys” dates all the way back to the 1800s? The phrase, along with a few other interesting things, has led to a sort of vague general association between monkeys and barrels within the collective unconscious. Imagine, if you will, a whimsical pirate ship. There’s obviously a monkey there, who has likely poked his head out of a barrel, one full of either gunpowder, gold doubloons or bananas. And before you write in, Donkey Kong’s love of throwing barrels at plumbers doesn’t count as part of this association, as he’s an ape, not a monkey, and as such will not be mentioned again in this review.

The Barrel/Monkey continuum also brought us that children’s toy with loads of plastic monkeys in it, a copy of which is actually included as case candy with the Badder Monkey. It has also spawned the new 360-degree barrel control, a patent-pending continuously-rotational potentiometer that is employed to blend between three variants of the circuit: Behaved, Bad and Badder. Behaved is a smoother, more tonally subdued variant of the pedal, while Badder is a more chaotic and aggressive version – Bad is simply the original circuit.

With all the talk about how a lot of overdrive circuits can sound nearly identical, here the trio of circuits do all have a very distinct flavour. Behaved is indeed very subdued – there’s a noticeable roll-off to any barking high-end, and there’s a fair bit less gain. Badder, however, lives up to its name with a far more aggressive approach to both the distortion and the midrange hump.

The fact that the barrel is a three-way continuous blend control means you can choose your preferred blend of any two of the three circuits on offer – which is, for an analogue pedal, a completely wild thing to be able to do, and has to be commended from a pure engineering standpoint. But it does also offer real tonal flexibility: the three voices, while all ultimately being variants of a very green-flavoured overdrive, are all disparate enough to make the in-between positions worthwhile – for instance, blending both Behaved and Badder gives you a very smooth overdrive sound with a subtle undertow of snarl somewhere beneath the surface – it’s a very effective thing.

If you want to throw all subtle blending to the wind, however, just use the middle toggle switch to select ‘troop’ mode, which engages all three circuits in parallel – the resulting sound is extremely full-fat – it may not perform quite the same with the exacting tone-shaping precision as a single or a blended sound, but it is a hell of a lot of fun.

This switch can also set the blend to be out of phase, which leads to a rather weird but nonetheless engaging sound – it makes the effect far more of a character overdrive for adding an ear-catching texture to solos, more so than pure utility. It’s a strange experience, sweeping through the middle positions in the inverted mode, leading to a sort of infinitely variable clash of the different characteristics of the circuits.

Should I buy the Badder Monkey?

It’s hard to overstate just how much joy the Badder Monkey brings me – DOD didn’t have to do any of this. It didn’t need to be a whacky, three-mode reissue with a totally unique blend control and the option for nasal out-of-phase sounds and an included copy of Monkeys In A Barrel. This could have been an easy win – but DOD took the stranger, far more creative path. The initial furor around the DigiTech pedal strayed a little close to the sun of discourse, and risked just being frustrating and draining as people bemoaned the hype and the hipsterishness of it all – this is the perfect inversion of any of the phenomenon’s negativity into something far more joyful.

All that has been discussed above is interesting enough, tonally and experientially, that you might assume it’s relegated to some exclusive boutique overdrive that’ll require a remortgage or two. And given the price silliness from the first spike in demand plus the barrel, DOD could have also probably gotten away with charging something like £200 for this thing. But the Badder Monkey is instead pretty damn reasonably priced at £129 – that’s not much over the going rate for a new official TS9, and about £100 less than the JHS Bonsai, another multi-circuit Tube Screamer-inspired pedal, albeit with a very different approach.

The Badder Monkey is also one of the few fun Tube Screamer-derived things out there – the circuit has such a reputation as a utilitarian tone-scalpel that it tends to evaporate any whimsy in its vicinity. The Badder Monkey, on the other hand, is more fun than a… well, you know the phrase.

Badder Monkey alternatives

The world of Tube Screamer-derived things is fairly massive, with everything from ultra-affordable clones to more in-depth boutique variants out there. Listing them all here would balloon the wordcount of this review to that of the Silmarillion, and so I shall mention but two. If you fancy something a little more budget and prosaic, there is always the Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini ($79.99 / £49.99), a far cheaper single-mode version of the green overdrive sound. For another well-regarded refined boutique take on the thing that won’t break the bank, consider the EarthQuaker Devices Plumes ($119 / £124.99) – a straightforward take on the pedal with three clipping modes.

The post DOD Badder Monkey review: much-memed pedal gets a bananas reissue appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

As pedal builders, we often field questions about effects, but many players endlessly chase tone without grasping that the guitar-pedal-amp ecosystem is an inseparable whole. The initial signal from your guitar is the primary architect of your tone’s gain structure and frequency response. It’s the “first domino.” Every subsequent device in your chain—every capacitor in that boutique pedal and every line of code in your modeler—is just reacting to the ghost that your pickups sent into the wire.

The relationship between pickups and pedals is highly dynamic—an interaction between impedance and signal level. Consider one of the most popular pedals: the Ibanez Tube Screamer. In the hands of a metalhead with an active-pickup guitar and a high-gain amp, it functions as a reliable booster, yielding an aggressive metal sound. Conversely, in the hands of a bluesman with a Strat and single-coils plugged into a Fender amp, the Tube Screamer becomes the heart of a very SRV-esque blues tone. The same pedal, yet its response and character drastically change depending on the input signal.

The most extreme example is the fuzz pedal. (Personally, we focus on building fuzzes and other unique pedals.) In my experience, fuzz is the most idiosyncratic and signal-responsive pedal, affected not only by the pickup but also by whether the signal passes through a buffer or not. Empirically, my hypothesis is: Fuzz generally struggles to produce a clear, usable sound with high-gain or active pickups.

Technically, this happens because traditional fuzz circuits (especially those using germanium transistors) have low input impedance and severely limited headroom. High-gain pickups send a signal that is simply too “hot,” causing excessive and uncontrolled clipping at the fuzz pedal’s input. This results in a muddy, indistinct sound (or what’s often called “splattering”). Low-gain pickups, on the other hand (like single-coils, P-90s, or PAF-style humbuckers), provide a quieter initial signal, preserving the fuzz circuit’s headroom and allowing it to produce rich, dynamic textures.

The Ampless Rig: A New Challenge

So, what about the current era of all-direct or ampless rigs? Let me share an empirical experience. I’m a huge fan of the sound of a Les Paul plugged into a tube amp. However, the reality is I’m an amateur player who can’t afford a crew to haul that heavy gear to a gig. Whether I like it or not, I had to embrace the modern ecosystem. I started experimenting with a direct system using analog/digital amp and cab simulators.

The results were surprising: My Les Paul with high-gain pickups sounded terrible—dirty and muddy—in this direct setup. Then, I tried a guitar with low-gain pickups, and it worked!

This success wasn’t because the low-gain pickup was magically better, but because it unintentionally fixed a fundamental technical issue: gain staging.

1.Digital Input Clipping: High-gain pickups produce a much higher output voltage. When this hot signal enters the input of a digital multi-effect or direct box, which has headroom limitations on its digital preamp or analog-to-digital converter (ADC), the signal undergoes digital clipping even before the amp simulation begins. This is what leads to a “broken” and indistinct sound.

2. Optimal DSP Headroom: Low-gain pickups naturally send a lower initial signal, providing much better headroom for the digital signal processing (DSP) to optimally handle distortion, modulation, and EQ.

In the modeling era, the biggest challenge is strict gain staging. Different manufacturers—Boss, Line 6, Fractal, Valeton, Nux, Hotone—implement very different analog front ends and output drivers, so results vary. Ultimately, we just have to stick to the golden rule: If it sounds good, it is good!

The bottom line is that when we talk about stompboxes, pedals, multi-effects, or modeling—none of them can stand alone. The sound of an Ibanez Tube Screamer will remain a mystery until you plug it into a guitar and an amp.

If you want to “tweak” your pedal or multi-effect, you must also tweak your guitar’s pickups. Perhaps the problem isn’t the pedal’s algorithm or the modeling itself, but your gain staging is ruined because your pickup is too hot, making the signal too large to be ideally interpreted and processed mathematically by the multi-effect you are using.

And all of this can change with time and need. For me, when gigging with a tube amp, I like using a Seymour Duncan El Diablo in the bridge position (to aggressively push the tube preamp). When using a direct or modeling setup, I prefer a Seymour Duncan Jazz Model in the bridge position (because the cleaner, low-output signal provides better headroom for the digital processor).

Think of your pickup as the lens on a high-end camera. You can have the most powerful image processor in the world—the flashiest DSP or the most expensive boutique pedal—but if the lens is blurry or letting in too much light, the final “picture” will always be a distorted mess.

Adding to the company’s line of boutique effects, Lucky Dog Guitars has introduced the Chicken Nugget compressor, capable of delivering old school guitar compression made famous by country players throughout the decades, but with modern updates. The Chicken Nugget combines classic dynamic compressor sound and feel with an added sparkly clean tone in a separate, parallel channel. The two channels are completely independent and have their own dedicated volume knobs for maximum flexibility as you blend them together. Both channels offer plenty of output above unity gain, so both can be used as volume boosters.

The Chicken Nugget’s eye-grabbing graphics are augmented by a large retro-style jewel pilot light (in a “fried chicken” color) and playful descriptions for the control set. The compression channel offers three knobs and a two-position toggle switch for tone shaping. The “Cluck” knob controls the amount of compression; “Crow” varies the compression release time; and “Comp” adjusts the output volume level of the compressor channel.

The compression channel’s two-position toggle adds EQ flexibility: its “Greasy” and “Crispy” settings can tailor the effect to your guitar’s pickups. Use the “Greasy” setting with bright single coils for classic compression twang. Use the “Crispy” low-cut setting for tightening up a humbucker by eliminating muddy low-end frequencies.

The pedal’s clean channel offers two control knobs. “Gain” adds body and juice to your clean signal, while “Volume” controls the clear, uncolored signal parallel that can be added to the compressed signal.

Other features include:

• Soft switch controlled mechanical true bypass – if the pedal loses power it immediately goes into true bypass so you don’t lose your signal
• 9-volt operation using standard external power source – no battery compartment
• Retro-cool graphics and “chicken head” knobs, color coded for ease of use: cream for the compression channel and red for the clean channel

The Lucky Dog Chicken Nugget carries a $189 street price and is available through luckydogguitars.com

On-Stage, a leading supplier of music instruments and accessories and brand of The Music People, has released the GSWB5000 Guitar Stand Workbench, a guitar-maintenance solution that safely supports an instrument while making it easier for the user to perform tasks ranging from simple string changes to intricate repairs. Its adjustable height and tilt allow the user to dial in the best angle for working on various projects.

Compact and portable, this versatile tool conserves floor space and can be set up anywhere work needs to be done on an instrument. The guitar-holder assembly provides four tilt options, letting the user choose the best angle for working on setups, pickup swaps, potentiometer and switch replacements, nut filing, or hardware upgrades. Plus, when it’s not being used as a workbench, this versatile accessory can be configured for use as a traditional guitar stand.

- YouTube

The headstock and body yokes adjust to fit a wide range of instruments including electric, acoustic, and bass guitars. Bumpers and nonslip padding protect the guitar’s finish from scratches and increase instrument stability. The height of the stand can also be set to optimize viewing and comfort while work is carried out. To ensure ideal weight distribution and balance, the guitar-holder assembly can slide so that the heaviest part of the guitar is positioned over the base.

All of these adjustments are quickly and easily achieved through the use of twist-and-pull knobs that require minimal turning and securely lock settings in place. And rotating leveling feet make it possible to compensate for uneven flooring.

The On-Stage GSWB5000 Guitar Stand Workbench carries a $99.95 street price. For more information visit On-Stage.com.

Looks can be deceiving. But there is something extra playful about the graphical subterfuge Monger Pedals employs to conceal the ferocity of their latest stomp, The Little Guy. Behind the Beatrix Potter/Timmy Willie-styled enclosure art depicting a wee country mouse and creeping vines, there lurks a beastly mash-up of op-amp fuzz and operational transducer amp (OTA)-based phaser. But The Little Guy’s roar is not just ferocious, it's also unconventional—making the most of the unusual phaser section to twist staple psychedelic sounds into many altogether weirder things.

Monger of the Mangled

Op-amp fuzz can take many shapes in the hands of a clever builder, but most players would consider the op-amp Big Muff and the Pro Co RAT as the archetypes of the effect. Of the two, The Little Guy aligns most closely with the Big Muff. I don’t have an op-amp Big Muff in my pedal collection, but the Little Guy (like a real op-amp Big Muff) has a sonic signature much like a raspier 4-silicon transistor Big Muff. Of the Big Muff types I used for comparison, a ram’s head-type sounded most similar to the Little Guy’s fuzz, and the two share a capacity for sizzly, buzzsaw-like tones that define the op-amp Big Muff. That said, the tone control in the Little Guy’s fuzz has enough range that I could dial in sounds nearly equivalent to those from a Sovtek Big Muff, which tends to be rounder and more bass-rich than an op-amp Big Muff.

Certainly, the Little Guy’s fuzz section is versatile. I may not be in the majority in this sentiment, but my favorite among the fuzzy, distorted sounds I coaxed from the circuit were those I derived when fingerpicking (using the flesh of my thumb, rather than nail or pick) and working with low-gain, treble-attenuated fuzz settings. This application is more consistent with Monger’s description of the fuzz as “lo-fi”—often evoking Steve Malkmus, Sonic Youth, and Graham Coxon in their hazier states. Yet it’s a combination that’s surprisingly sensitive to touch dynamics and yields more high-mid range detail and a much more oxygenated tone environment than you would expect. Just switching between neck and bridge pickups can reveal whole worlds of color with this approach. The Little Guy’s fuzz rips at the other end of its operational spectrum, too, and it rarely sounds lo-fi here. Settings in the latter third of the pedal’s gain and tone control range are searing but still massive in a way that suits Fender single-coils and PAF humbuckers alike.

Vexing Vortices

If the Little Guy’s fuzz section is agreeable and intuitive, the phase section is a tougher nut to crack. Familiar sounds in the fashion of a Phase 90 or Small Stone (the latter of which shares an OTA as foundation for its architecture) lurk among the interactions between the five controls, but tend to be more subtle. In fact, for all the phaser’s weirdo capabilities, in much of its range it generates super-subtle modulations. This isn’t a bad thing, especially if you like phase as a constant, backgrounded presence. The Little Guy excels at producing this mellow phase texture in a way that a Phase 90 or Small Stone cannot.

But there are many other low-key modulation colors here. You can dial in super-slow (and I mean slow) modulation rates, and then emphasize peaks in those lazy cycles by using feedback from the regen control and narrowing the frequency range with the range control. The LFOs width control is excellent for subtly backgrounding modulations so you don't mask tone nuances from elsewhere in your chain. That capability is enhanced by the effect send and return, which lets you situate pedals between the fuzz and phase effect.

"For all of this phaser’s weirdo capabilities, in much of its range it generates super-subtle modulations."

The Little Guy’s weirder phase voices are refreshingly unique. The pedal is able to generate a variety of rich, vowel-y, “wow”-type pulses more reminiscent of a vintage Mu-Tron or Ludwig Phase II. It’s also capable of fresh takes on lively auto-wah and filter sounds, and slow, sweeping versions of these tones can take on a sort of parked-wah-on-nitrous-oxide personality that I don’t encounter every day.

The Verdict

Monger’s The Little Guy sells for just less than $225. That’s a great price for almost any pedal that combines two wide-ranging effects. But it strikes me as an especially good deal when you consider the very high build quality, clear sense of craft, and thoughtful design execution. The Little Guy won’t be a great value for every player. Rather than aping canonical phase sounds, it inhabits many very idiosyncratic corners of the fuzz/phase tone realm. And if you just want a Big Muff and Phase 90, there are simpler, less-expensive, and less space intensive solutions. Consequently, you should consider my enthusiastic tone and value ratings on a sliding scale relative to your needs.

But if you’re on the hunt for variations on the fuzz/phase theme that can set a track apart and inspire new directions, Monger’s Little Guy is brimming with them—particularly if you’re willing to probe the sometimes complex and idiosyncratic interactions between its controls.

Canadian boutique builder Deslongchamps Guitars has unveiled their latest electric guitar model: The Puffin.

The Puffin pays homage to the SG guitar and the Firebird, blending classic designs with modern sensibilities, aesthetics and playability. Built with premium materials and craftmanship, the Puffin model is lightweight and the shape makes it agile and comfortable.

The Puffin can be built in two configurations: an okoume body with a flamed maple top all of it bound in white, quartersawn flamed maple neck coupled with a dark rosewood fretboard; or an ash body coupled with a torrefied maple neck and fretboard for even lighter weight and feel.

Players can choose among a variety of different Fralin pickup configurations, including PAF-style humbuckers, P90s, singlecoil Thunderbird pickups and more.

Specs:

• Okoume or Ash body
• Maple neck
• Maple of rosewood fretboard
• 24.75” or 25.5” scale length
• Tune-o-matic and stop bar bridge or Descendant bridge and tremolo combo
• Gotoh tuners
• Includes a hard case

The Puffin carries a $3500 street price. For more information visit www.deslongchampsguitars.com.



For Episode 111, I’m joined by highly respected guitar builder Raymond Kraut.

Ray shares why he’s embraced unconventional sound ports while staying true to his traditional tone, how his porting designs have evolved over time, and what he’s learned through real-world testing.

We also dive into Ray’s Derrio Wood Company, which sources and supplies desert ironwood and other unique tonewoods. Ray talks about what makes desert ironwood so special, its tonal character, and why it’s becoming an exciting alternative for guitar builders.

Links
https://www.derriowoodco.com/

The post Luthier on Luthier: Raymond Kraut first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Acclaimed vintage guitar repairperson Mark Stutman (Folkway Music) joins the Fretboard Journal Podcast once again.

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

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).

Stringjoy Strings: https://stringjoy.com

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

Mike & Mike’s Substack: https://mmguitarbar.substack.com

The post Podcast 539: Mark Stutman (Folkway Music) Returns first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

The Lamb of God shred king sits down to discuss making LoG's 10th album Into Oblivion, designing his new signature Gibson Les Paul, writing his memoir Desolation, and he offers three hot takes on guitar culture.

Cory Wong has given an insight into his perfectionism when creating his signature Archetype plugin with Neural DSP.

Archetype: Cory Wong X packs the jazz-funk virtuoso and Vulfpeck guitarist’s gear into a plugin, and remains a highlight of Neural’s ever-expanding Archetype lineup.

And as Wong tells MusicTech in a new exclusive interview, he insisted the plugin was perfect – good enough for him to use himself regularly – before being released into the market.

• READ MORE: Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini review: “This is the most universal Quad Cortex yet”

“I was like, ‘The only way this thing goes out is if I am 100% satisfied, and if you are 100% satisfied,” Wong remembers telling Neural DSP. 

“They sent me version one, and it was pretty good. And we made revisions. By version five, I was still like, not yet. It is great, but I don’t plug into it right now and think, ‘I have to use this for everything’. So we got to, like, version nine!”

Wong also tells MusicTech how his signature Archetype plugin forms an integral part of his signal chain when it comes to recording.

“Most of the time, I use the Archetype: Cory Wong X plugin that I helped create with Neural DSP,” he says. “There’s basically an emulation of an SSL console and a Neve console; there are characteristics of both hidden in there. But then there are also very clean amps in there.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the guitarist – though known for his formidable playing chops – explains how he prefers to focus on the arrangement of a song rather than fretboard fireworks when composing and recording.

“There’s a long history of the guitar being this thing where we’re showboating our technical facility,” Wong says. “Or just constantly shredding guitar. And there’s a time and place for that – I like a lot of that music. But that’s not really what I want to do, and that’s not really what I feel is the most compelling part of my artistry.

“Sure, there are times where it’s like, ‘Let’s give them the fireworks! I’m going to get out there and shred.’ But I like the sound of other instruments. I like the arrangement,” he says.

Check out Archetype: Cory Wong X at Neural DSP. Read the full interview at MusicTech.

The post “The only way this thing goes out is if I’m 100% satisfied”: What Cory Wong told Neural DSP when offered his own signature Archetype plugin appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Bandmates and close musical collaborators for decades, Rush’s Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee have come to know each other like brothers – and understand what helps when tensions rise.

Rush made headlines towards the end of last year when they announced plans to head out on tour again after years of speculation as to whether they ever would. As expected, the demand for tickets after the initial announcement was so high that Lifeson and Lee – with touring drummer Anika Nilles – added 17 more dates to the trek.

And in a new interview with The Guardian, bassist Lee and guitarist Lifeson reflect on their enduring friendship, and the extent to which they know each other so well.

• READ MORE: Dave Mustaine claims Megadeth would have been less successful if not for the motivating factor of Metallica “trying to hold me back”

They note the difference in how they both handle feelings: “He’s really emotional,” Lee says of Lifeson, to which Lifeson readily agrees: “I am… too emotional.”

Lee continues: “He can go from zero to 100 at a seemingly innocent remark. ‘Al, calm down. That’s not what we’re talking about.’

“He can really explode. A real Serbian. The only thing that calms him down is to go eat a pig somewhere. And I’m probably too controlling for him… and too rational.”

But despite their somewhat opposing approaches to handling emotions, Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee have been metaphorically attached at the hip for decades. They note how it often happens that they are only interested in each other at larger gatherings, remembering one time in particular: “They had planned this wonderful dinner party, and we just alienated them,” Lee says. “That happens a lot!” replies Lifeson.

Elsewhere in the interview, Geddy Lee remembers late Rush drummer Neil Peart, who died in 2020.

“He was a mentor to me in many ways,” he says. “He was a very stimulating person to be around.”

Tickets for Rush’s Fifty Something reunion tour are available now via the band’s official website.

The post “The only thing that calms him down is to go eat a pig somewhere”: Rush’s Geddy Lee explains the secret of his enduring relationship with “emotional” Alex Lifeson appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

While peacefully coexisting in 2026, the relationship between Metallica and Dave Mustaine’s Megadeth has been rocky over the years, to say the least.

Dave Mustaine was Metallica’s lead guitarist from 1982 to 1983, writing riffs that would later appear on debut album Kill ‘Em All – and even followup Ride the Lightning – before being ousted from the band for alcoholism, drug misuse and aggressive behaviour towards his band members.

And as he’s asserted over the years, it was the fallout with Metallica which heavily influenced his drive to succeed with Megadeth.

• READ MORE: Is 2026 finally Iron Maiden’s year to enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Mustaine has reflected on his relationship with Metallica a lot in the past few months, after it emerged that a cover of Ride the Lightning – the title track from Metallica’s sophomore album – was set to appear on Megadeth’s self-titled final album.

And now, in a new interview with the LA Times, the guitarist and frontman reflects again on the motivating effect of the fallout and subsequent hostility.

“Think of it,” he says. “Where would I be right now if I didn’t have one of the biggest bands in the world spending their time trying to hold me back? They don’t do it anymore, but most of the time when they did, it just made me shake my head.

“And it wasn’t just Metallica, it was everybody. For a long time, it very much was me against the world. It was like, okay, if you’re not with me, you’re against me.”

On Megadeth’s Ride the Lightning cover, Mustaine continues: “There may not be a chance to ever say hello to James [Hetfield, Metallica guitarist] or Lars [Ulrich, Metallica drummer] again. I knew some people would have a hard time with me doing the song, but that’s okay because I wanted to pay tribute and show my respect.

“If they like it, fine. If they don’t like it, fine. If they listen to it, fine. If they don’t, fine.”

Megadeth are currently on tour in support of their landmark swansong record, Megadeth. See the band’s official website for dates and tickets.

The post Dave Mustaine claims Megadeth would have been less successful if not for the motivating factor of Metallica “trying to hold me back” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

If you ever memorised every riff on Guitar Hero, air-guitared in your bedroom like a rock god, or desperately tried to hit that perfect streak on your plastic axe, Stage Tour is about to teleport you straight back to your glory days.

RedOctane – the studio behind the first Guitar Hero – has returned with a brand-new “rhythm-action” game designed to capture all the chaos, joy, and pure fun of the plastic-instrument era.

• READ MORE: “It had to be shiny and sparkling”: Inside Björn Ulvaeus’s wacky Eurovision 1974 star guitar

Built by the original devs who brought five-fret note highways to life, Stage Tour promises a mix of nostalgia and modern gaming flair: full-band setups, flexible inputs, and live-service features that keep the game evolving.

“Stage Tour is our love letter to rhythm gaming,” says RedOctane boss Simon Ebejer. “We want Stage Tour to feel familiar and authentic, but also fresh… With new instruments and deep charting systems, we’re raising the bar on what we believe a rhythm game can be, while also catering to those wishing to simply enjoy a casual experience and have a good time.”

Stage Tour supports guitar, bass, drums, vocals – as well as keyboard, mouse, and standard controllers. And yes, there’s a brand-new Kramer-inspired guitar controller, alongside a drum kit and wired or wireless mics, for the full plastic-instrument rhythm gaming experience. There will also be Gibson-branded in-game guitars, a nod to the original Guitar Hero series.

View this post on Instagram

Unlike the old rhythm games that relied on fixed tracklists and DLC, Stage Tour is being designed as a live, evolving platform. The studio plans regular in-game events, seasonal content drops, and track charts that adapt not just to difficulty you pick but to the controller you’re using.

“Real moments. Real themes. Real updates,” says RedOctane. “We want to evolve the game alongside the fans who support it. Improve it. Expand it. Keep it alive.”

The studio also teases that players can “expect some absolute banging tunes” – because let’s be honest, what’s a rhythm game without killer tracks and riffs to shred along to?

Closed alpha testing is scheduled for late spring or early summer 2026, ahead of the planned fall release on PC and consoles.

More information is available at Stagetour.

The post Guitar Hero creators return with Stage Tour, a new rhythm game built for your inner ’90s rock god appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Having spent over five decades on stage, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry has seen just about everything a rock ‘n’ roll career can throw at him. But few moments have been as simultaneously horrifying and hilarious as the time one of his favourite guitars went airborne… and came down in pieces.

Speaking to Guitar World, Perry looks back on that chaotic night and the instrument at the centre of it: his black 1956 Gibson Junior double-cutaway with pearl inlays.

• READ MORE: Why Reverb’s big data can help tell interesting stories about the guitar market

“I’m pretty sure it’s a ‘56,” says the guitarist. “It’s one of those Juniors that started off with cherry stain, but it wasn’t a burst – it was just a cherry stain. It’s got one P90. I actually had two of them in the mid-Seventies, like the ones Johnny Thunders and Leslie West played. They’re killer guitars. It’s just volume, tone and a P90, and it screams. I was lucky enough to get two of them.”

That luck would soon be tested.

“We were doing a show at a festival and I threw this thing up in the air at the end of a song,” Perry recalls. “This was before wireless, so it went to the end of the patch cord and came down on the neck – and the headstock snapped off. I remember thinking as it was going up in the air, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it. That looks so cool.’ And then, on the way down, I was thinking, ‘Holy shit, what did I do?’ [Laughs]”

Things got even more chaotic when frontman Steven Tyler tried to toss the broken instrument into the audience.

“After it came down and was broken, Steven grabbed it and wanted to throw it out into the audience, so I had to wrestle him for it,” Perry laughs. “I knew we could fix it, you know? I got it back and gave the pieces to my guy, and the show went on.”

Elsewhere in the chat, Perry highlights some of his other favourites from his legendary collection of over 600 guitars. One standout is a custom Gibson BB King Lucille, designed in honour of his wife, Billie Paulette Montgomery.

“I got that in the ‘90s,” Perry explains. “The main reason for that guitar is that I love history, and I was looking back and fascinated by what they call ‘nose art’. Pilots would have artwork on the nose of their planes in World Wars I and II, and it would be pictures of their favourite movie starlet or their wife, and they’d name the plane after them. I thought, ‘Why not do that with my guitar?’”

The artwork, which features Billie’s face on the lower bout, was painted by Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer’s drum tech John Douglas. Perry remembers her reaction: “She had no idea this was going on! Billie just stood there for a second, and they came out with this guitar case and said, ‘Close your eyes.’ We opened it up, and she turned beet red.”

“Long story short, she wouldn’t come out when I’d put the guitar on; she’d kind of leave the side of the stage because she was so embarrassed about it. She’s not somebody who looks for the spotlight, but she got used to it,” says Perry.

The post The time Joe Perry snapped the headstock of one of his favourite guitars: “Steven wanted to throw it into the audience – I had to wrestle him for it!” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Haim made history in 2021 when they became the first all-female rock band to earn a Grammy nod for Album of the Year. Now, with a nomination in the Best Rock Album category, the trio once again find themselves representing women in a space that hasn’t always made room for them.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Danielle Haim of Haim reflects on what this recognition means for the band – and for women in guitar music altogether.

“We’re so honoured to be nominated in the rock category,” says the guitarist. “Growing up, my favourite artists were women. When I think about Stevie Nicks, the Pretenders, Heart, the Go-Go’s, the Bangles – all these incredible women who were in rock bands – those are the artists I looked up to. All we want is to inspire women to pick up guitars and drums.”

• READ MORE: Is 2026 finally Iron Maiden’s year to enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

For Danielle, the nomination is proof that sticking to their instincts has paid off.

“As far as being recognised, we were so honoured to be nominated for Best Rock Album,” she continues. “Part of the reason I love what we do is that people have had a hard time putting us in a box; maybe there was confusion about what box we fit into. But what’s amazing is, over the last few years, we’ve just kind of kept doing what we’ve always done – and to be recognised in this way is really, really special.”

That refusal to be boxed-in has been central to Haim’s appeal – a band equally at home with sun-soaked pop hooks and classic rock crunch. As lead guitarist, Danielle has been a key driver of that sound.

Asked about her “go-to” instrument, she says: “I started on a Gibson Melody Maker that my dad bought me, and when it came time to graduate to my next guitar, I picked the SG because it was so light. It turned into my favorite guitar, so I continued with it for a long time.”

More recently, though, her sound has been shaped by a different six-string.

“And then Rostam [Batmanglij, ex-Vampire Weekend and one of Haim’s collaborators] bought a really nice Strat from the Fifties, and it’s the most fun guitar to play. So we used that a lot on the last two albums [Women in Music Pt. III and I Quit], and I melded into more of a Strat player.”

The post “All we want is to inspire women to pick up guitars”: Haim on their recent Grammys nomination appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.