Music is the universal language
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” - Luke 2:14
Guitar.com
Fender’s Black Friday sale is now live – with up to 30% off Performer, Professional models plus entry-level Squiers
If you’re in the market for a new guitar, there’s no better time of year than Black Friday. And right now, Fender is hosting a huge sale on its online store, with up to 30% off a range of electric and acoustic guitars.
[deals ids=”2IbhDWYIu247npdzBy2vyS”]
Fender’s product lineup caters to pretty much every skill level and budget, and the company’s Black Friday sale is no different.
If you’re an entry level player looking for either your first guitar or another axe to add to the collection, there are a number of heavily discounted Squier models available. Take the Squier Sonic Mustang HH, for example – this double-humbucker electric is priced at just $161 down from $230.
Or there’s a number of guitars available from the Squier’s Paranormal Series, which essentially takes classic Fender designs and infuses them with a number of out-there appointments.
- READ MORE: Black Friday Guitar Deals 2025: find the best deals and biggest savings with the help of our experts
For example, you can grab the Soapbar single-coil-equipped Strat-O-Sonic for just $379 down from $472, the Custom Nashville Stratocaster – also at $379 down from $472 – and even the 12-string Jazzmaster XII at $362 down from $517.
Moving up the scale there’s a selection of American Performer electric guitars at the mid-price ~$1,000 mark, while if you’ve got a little more budget to play with but are still keen to grab a bargain, there’s top-shelf American Professional II Stratocasters, Telecasters and Jazzmasters all with hundreds knocked off their price tags.
The Fender Black Friday Sale is live over the weekend, but there’s no guarantee what you want won’t sell out. So if you like something you see, take advantage of these low prices right now…
Browse the full range of deals at Fender.
You can also check out more places to save below:
| UK/EU Deals | US Deals |
| Thomann Save up to 70% | Reverb Up to 80% off |
| Reverb UK Up to 80% off | zZounds Black Friday savings |
| Positive Grid Up to 50% off | Sweetwater Up to 80% off |
| Gear4Music Black Friday deals | Positive Grid Up to 50% off |
| PMT Up to 70% off | Guitar Center Save up to 50% |
| Amazon UK Big savings | Amazon Black Friday deals |
| Guitar Tricks 20% off monthly sub | Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial |
| Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial | Guitar Tricks 20% off annual sub |
| Ultimate Ears EU Shop savings | Music & Arts 20% savings |
The post Fender’s Black Friday sale is now live – with up to 30% off Performer, Professional models plus entry-level Squiers appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
It’s my favourite thing Walrus Audio has ever made – and you can save big on it this Black Friday
What do you think of sonically when you think of Walrus Audio? Maybe the subtle wobble of the Julia, the considered amp emulation of the ACS1 or the textural pads of the Slo. The Silt, however, drives a truck through any expectations of boutique subtlety, and starts ripping a guitar-burning octave-fuzzed solo, standing windswept on the flaming wreckage, and it’s on sale right now for Black Friday at Sweetwater. Check out the deal:
[deals ids=”1cAegPitQcNLx8cWdQIOOv”]
- READ MORE: Black Friday Guitar Deals 2025: find the best deals and biggest savings with the help of our experts
When I got my hands on a Silt on release it blew both me and my amp away – this thing is gnarly, and definitely the heaviest, ugliest (in a good way) Walrus release I’ve ever played. At its core it’s a tube-driven fuzz, with an optional octave mode that adds an analogue upper-harmonic to the sound. This makes it awesome for anything from Black Keys-esqsue garage rock to downtuned drone doom.
And while tube-driven pedals don’t inherently add some magical element back into your sound, the Silt makes good use of the technology for a responsive playing feel and a uniquely saturated distortion character.
The stock Silt isn’t the cheapest pedal normally, but right now that saving of $60 makes it a total steal – check out the deal above, or more places to save below.
| UK/EU Deals | US Deals |
| Thomann Save up to 70% | Reverb Up to 80% off |
| Reverb UK Up to 80% off | zZounds Black Friday savings |
| Positive Grid Up to 50% off | Sweetwater Up to 80% off |
| Gear4Music Black Friday deals | Positive Grid Up to 50% off |
| PMT Up to 70% off | Guitar Center Save up to 50% |
| Amazon UK Big savings | Amazon Black Friday deals |
| Guitar Tricks 20% off monthly sub | Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial |
| Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial | Guitar Tricks 20% off annual sub |
| Ultimate Ears EU Shop savings | Music & Arts 20% savings |
The post It’s my favourite thing Walrus Audio has ever made – and you can save big on it this Black Friday appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“I have the best job in the world”: A wholesome start to your Friday – listen to James Hetfield speak about how much he loves his life
After nearly 45 years, you’d imagine a rockstar might have grown tired of a life on the road. James Hetfield, however, is still pinching himself; when he’s performing in front of his fans, the Metallica frontman is certain that he’s got the “best job in the world”.
In a wholesome conversation with CBS Sunday Morning, Papa Het reflects on just how special the Metallica Family is to him. In his words, just locking eyes with a fan is enough to remind him all of his struggles up until now have been worth it. “It’s so easy… just looking into one set of eyes, that’s all it takes for me…” he says. “I’ll see the passion in them, and I’m full.”
- READ MORE: Black Friday Guitar Deals 2025: find the best deals and biggest savings with the help of our experts
The most important element of Metallica, for Hetfield, is how it also brings people together. “I get to see 3 generations of people hugging each other,” he smiles. “The last thing I would have wanted to do is go to a gig with my dad or my grandpa! But I see that happening out there.”
“There are little kids down in the front, old people down the front, people in wheelchairs down the front… it’s a mix match of backgrounds, stories, and people,” he adds. “We gather a lot of misfits around this planet, and we make a family out of them. We create some energy that helps us get through life.”
While Hetfield notes that he has “struggled hard” to “be in a band and make music”, it’s all paid off because his ‘job’ hardly feels like a typical 9-5. “I got the best job in the world – if you even want to call it a job!” he jokes. “I found my passion early on in life. I’m super grateful for that, and that I had parents that were supportive around that.”
The Metallica frontman has put the work in to help others who might be ‘struggling’, too. He references the band’s All Within My Hands project, a foundation formed in 2017 that raises funds to fight hunger, educate workforces and support critical local services. “With our foundation, hopefully we’re a little bit of a helping hand [for others to] get out of struggle,” he explains.
However, no matter what struggles you might be facing in your personal life, if you’re at a gig and lock eyes with Hetfield, you’re keeping the Metallica machine going strong. “[When I see the fans] my heart fills right up and I’m ready to just keep going and kicking ass, y’know?” the frontman says. “I am so blessed, I have the best seat in the house.”
The post “I have the best job in the world”: A wholesome start to your Friday – listen to James Hetfield speak about how much he loves his life appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
My PRS SE Silver Sky is the last Strat-style guitar I’ll ever need – and you can get one at nearly $200 off for Black Friday
The PRS SE Silver Sky is one of the world’s most popular electric guitars; it was the best-selling guitar on Reverb for two years in a row in 2022 and 2023, and we even scored it a coveted 9/10 in our review following its launch.
And as a proud owner of one myself, I fully understand the hype. Since getting mine a couple of years ago, it’s often the first I grab off the guitar rack, owing to both its effortless playability and top-tier tonal palette.
[deals ids=”7m4dStqQ8FcRymIG4mEP1I”]
And at Sweetwater this Black Friday, you can pick up your own SE Silver Sky at $170 off, meaning you pay just $679 as opposed to the usual $849.
The SE Silver Sky is essentially PRS’s budget-friendly take on John Mayer’s wildly popular signature model, which elevates the classic triple-single-coil solidbody guitar design loved by millions for decades in the Stratocaster.
Sure you could go for a Strat, but after the SE Silver Sky literally beat Stratocasters two years in a row in electric guitar best-sellers, perhaps the market is onto something…
- READ MORE: Black Friday Guitar Deals 2025: find the best deals and biggest savings with the help of our experts
The SE Silver Sky is loaded with a trio of 635JM “S” single-coil pickups for a broad palette of vintage-inspired tones, ranging from full, warm sounds with the neck pickup and crisp, twangy cleans in the bridge position, with a middle pickup there to bridge the gap.
Honestly, on numerous occasions I’ve sat down to play for 20 minutes and found myself two hours later still experimenting with the vast range of tonal options at my disposal. And you don’t need an expensive tube amp to get the best out of the SE Silver Sky, either; my practice amp is a Blackstar ID:CORE V4 – meaning the entire rig is sub-$1,000 – and I’m almost addicted to the sound (not to be dramatic).
Elsewhere, you’ve got an 8.5-inch-radius fingerboard – a slight deviation from the core model’s vintage-inspired 7.25-inch radius for a more modern and natural feel across the length of the guitar’s 22-fret board. There’s also a two-point tremolo system for those subtle pitch deviations that’ll bring your best Mayer-style licks and chord progressions to life.
There’s a number of colour options to choose from, too, including the Sweetwater-exclusive Platinum Spark, so you’ll find the perfect SE Silver Sky for your style.
Unfortunately there’s not an unlimited number of SE Silver Skys in stock, and we expect this to be one of Black Friday 2025’s hottest deals, so don’t hesitate. Whether you’re expanding your own collection or shopping for the guitar player in your life ahead of Christmas (trust me when I say you’ll be the hero), take advantage of this deal while it lasts.
Get yours at Sweetwater.
You can also check out more places to save below:
| UK/EU Deals | US Deals |
| Thomann Save up to 70% | Reverb Up to 80% off |
| Reverb UK Up to 80% off | zZounds Black Friday savings |
| Positive Grid Up to 50% off | Sweetwater Up to 80% off |
| Gear4Music Black Friday deals | Positive Grid Up to 50% off |
| PMT Up to 70% off | Guitar Center Save up to 50% |
| Amazon UK Big savings | Amazon Black Friday deals |
| Guitar Tricks 20% off monthly sub | Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial |
| Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial | Guitar Tricks 20% off annual sub |
| Ultimate Ears EU Shop savings | Music & Arts 20% savings |
The post My PRS SE Silver Sky is the last Strat-style guitar I’ll ever need – and you can get one at nearly $200 off for Black Friday appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Boss XS-100 Poly Shifter review – even better than the squeal thing?
$349.99/£299, boss.info
It is possible to talk about the Boss XS-100 Poly Shifter without mentioning the ‘W’ word… but the elephant in the room would be so big it’d probably shatter the floorboards and fall into the cellar. Because this is Boss making a direct play for the market currently occupied almost exclusively by DigiTech and its Whammy range of foot-controlled pitch shifters.
Well, you don’t have to be the first to be the best, and Boss reckons its new offering – along with the compact XS-1 – has enough “groundbreaking technology” to make a real difference. So has the world’s most famous guitar pedal manufacturer found a new product category to dominate?
Image: Adam Gasson
Boss XS-100 – what is it?
Let’s pretend for a moment that we live in a universe where the Whammy doesn’t exist. Pretty dull universe, isn’t it? But Boss is here to liven things up with a polyphonic shifter that’s split into two parts: a treadle-operated pitch bender for Floyd Rose-style downward swoops and impossible upward screeches; and a footswitch-operated transposer for doomy down-tuning and ‘virtual capo’ effects.
Now, in the real universe we have the Whammy DT, which does pretty much the same thing. But as well as being slimmer and a whole lot more classy-looking, the XS-100 raises the stakes with a preposterously wide shifting range of eight octaves – four up and four down. And it does this using new algorithms that should, in theory, make it sound more natural and free of glitchy digital artefacts than anything that has come before.
As with the Whammy DT, there’s also a ‘detune’ setting for chorus sounds. But the Boss’s LCD screen allows for all sorts of deeper editing possibilities: you can tweak the response curve of the pedal, slow down its reaction for more gentle sweeps, blend in any amount of dry signal, and even store up to 30 user presets.
The pedal can be set to come on automatically with a firm toe-press, like a wah, and the back panel opens up the options further with MIDI in/out ports, an input for an assignable expression pedal, and a dry-through output for sending the untreated signal to a second amp. It all sounds very promising – so let’s get a shift on.
Image: Adam Gasson
Boss XS-100 – is it easy to use?
It’s a pedal with a screen, and that might already have you scrambling for the factory presets… but actually, the basic operation of the XS-100 is so simple that you can get on fine without them. That screen is titchy but it tells you all you need to know: the top half shows the shift interval for the pedal, the bottom half the one for the switch. Press the encoder knob to flip between the two, and turn it to change the value.
There are also two buttons for getting into the aforementioned deeper editing – and that’s where the limitations of the screen size really show. Boss has clearly struggled to get all the necessary information across with such a meagre allowance of pixels, and navigating this part of the XS-100 is no fun at all; but at least it’s responsive, applying changes as soon as you twist the encoder.
The ergonomics of the two bypass footswitches are interesting: they’re quite close together and vertically aligned, but the one for engaging the pedal is raised up by about 2cm. The result is that each one is easy to stomp on without snagging the other, but hitting both together to go in and out of presets mode can be a challenge unless you’ve got three legs.
Image: Adam Gasson
Boss XS-100 – what does it sound like?
Let’s go straight in with the most extreme test possible: setting the pedal to four octaves up and the footswitch to four octaves down, engaging them both together for a net-zero shift and seeing if what comes out still sounds like a guitar. And… it does! All that processing does inevitably add a small latency delay – which you’ll really notice if the attack of the strings is audible in the room – but it’s workable, and the body of the sound itself is impressively un-mangled.
Flip to something a little more useful in the real world – let’s say an octave up for ‘whammying’ and four semitones down for instant shifting – and the results are even better. The action of the treadle feels totally natural and it’ll sweep gleefully up and down with no distracting artefacts. The switch is just as good, enabling seamless transpositions in either direction.
Yes, chords do sound ever so slightly processed, and there’s always a sliver of latency that you can feel rather than hear, but all that becomes negligible once you run the XS-100 through some heavy distortion – which is surely how most people will use this unit. You might also detect a hint of background weirdness when it’s tracking big string bends, but I suspect that won’t detract from the good stuff for most people. It’ll even do a good ‘receding ambulance’ impression if you set the switch to three semitones down and tap it on and off while gradually pulling up on the treadle.
Is it worth delving into the screen menus to play with settings? Undoubtedly – if only to try the ‘detune’ effect, which feels a bit incongruous amid all these pitch leaps but is great for pure 80s chorus tones. You can tweak this by altering the wet/dry balance, which is also where you’ll open up harmony effects. These track extremely well… and with an up-octave sitting fairly low in the mix, you can even pretend (just about) that your BC Rich Warlock is a Rickenbacker 12-string.
Image: Adam Gasson
Boss XS-100 – should I buy it?
On paper, this thing has three advantages over any Whammy: more octaves, more options and more audio purity. The first one, while admittedly cool, is more about oneupmanship than adding anything genuinely useful – there simply is no use case for a four-octave shift, unless you want to confuse dogs. The second is more substantial, but it’s offset by the fact that these options are so fiddly to access.
So it largely comes down to the XS-100’s ability to change pitch without audible latency and without digital scratchiness. It’s not perfect on either count, but it does feel like a step forward from anything I’ve used before.
Boss XS-100 alternatives
The XS-100’s closest rival in terms of functionality is the DigiTech Whammy DT ($449/£249), but see also the DigiTech MonoNeon Whammy ($329/£269) with its three-octave shifting range. Or just buy an Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork ($198/£169) and plug in an expression pedal.
The post Boss XS-100 Poly Shifter review – even better than the squeal thing? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Black Friday’s in full swing, and this is the best acoustic deal I’ve seen all week
Across the whole event of Black Friday, there are some deals that just knock you flat on your back, and this is definitely one of those. At Thomann right now you can save well over a grand on one of the most interesting acoustics that’s ever graced our review bench.
At Thomann right now, the 514ce Urban Ironbark from Taylor Guitars is discounted down from £3,555 to £2,068 – a saving of almost £1,500, which is no small chunk of change, even for such an ultra-premium acoustic.
But what is Urban Ironbark? Well, the first part of the name refers to how it’s sustainably harvested – while the second part of the name refers to the wood’s dense bark that has a bit of a “melted metal” look to it. The wood, a member of the Eucalyptus family, is a very dense hardwood that sinks in water – and fittingly enough, the guitar’s bright, loud voice fits a bit of a harder playstyle. If that sounds up your street, check out the deal below:
[deals ids=”4oopfu9koU9QZllIlmznwN”]
Check out more deals here, and some more places to save below:
| UK/EU Deals | US Deals |
| Thomann Save up to 70% | Reverb Up to 80% off |
| Reverb UK Up to 80% off | zZounds Black Friday savings |
| Positive Grid Up to 50% off | Sweetwater Up to 80% off |
| Gear4Music Black Friday deals | Positive Grid Up to 50% off |
| PMT Up to 70% off | Guitar Center Save up to 50% |
| Amazon UK Big savings | Amazon Black Friday deals |
| Guitar Tricks 20% off monthly sub | Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial |
| Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial | Guitar Tricks 20% off annual sub |
| Ultimate Ears EU Shop savings | Music & Arts 20% savings |
The post Black Friday’s in full swing, and this is the best acoustic deal I’ve seen all week appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“Nobody wants to play those f**king Randy Rhoads solos!”: Nuno Bettencourt jokes that Wolfgang Van Halen was “smart” to drop out of Black Sabbath’s farewell concert
Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts led to Wolfgang Van Halen having to pull out of Black Sabbath’s historic farewell gig back in July. However, Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt thinks Wolfgang dodged a bullet, because the setlist was packed with some absolutely brutal guitar solos.
While the evening was branded as a Black Sabbath gig, the show ultimately honoured Ozzy Osbourne’s impact on heavy metal. As a result, that meant plenty of The Prince of Darkness’ solo tracks were on the setlist – and that meant tackling Randy Rhoads’ and Jake E. Lee’s intimidating solos.
“I got a call [saying] Wolfgang Van Halen just dropped out…” he explains on Steve and Rik’s POTcast. “I said ‘yeah, he’s dropping out because he’s smart! Nobody wants to play those fucking Randy Rhoads or Jake E. Lee solos!’”
It’s a pressure Bettencourt wouldn’t wish on anyone. “Nobody wants to fucking do it because if you go down in flames on that stage with Ozzy there and all your peers watching, your career is over!” he says.
While Bettencourt was originally only asked to perform two songs, he was happy to step up and cover for Wolfgang, taking on three more tracks. However, eventually, he was asked to do even more. “I ended up playing 12 fucking songs,” he explains, almost in disbelief.
Rather than crumbling under the pressure, Bettencourt committed himself to nailing every single track. “Instead of [just] learning them, I was like, ‘well, I’ve got to fucking own this shit!’” he says.
“I just wanted to respect the songs [and] fucking go all in…” he later adds. “I was in here for weeks for fucking like four or five hours a day standing up, performing the fuckers.”
Bettencourt’s commitment didn’t go unnoticed. In fact, Rick Beato rang him up after the show to congratulate him on a stand-out performance. “Rick Beato called me up [and] he goes, ‘everybody was raving about your performance!’” Bettencourt recalls.
“Then he goes, ‘one thing I noticed is that you didn’t just learn the stuff – you performed it. That’s what stuck out for you more than everybody else.’”
Despite rejecting an offer to join The Prince of Darkness’ band in the 1990s, Bettencourt’s 12-song run proved that the rejection wasn’t a reflection of his feelings towards the metal legend. In fact, it was proof of just how much he respected Ozzy and his work.
In an interview with Page Six on the red carpet at the VMAs, Bettencourt recalled his final exchange with Ozzy: “The last words we said to each other when we took the big group photo, I grabbed his hand, saying, ‘Thank you for everything, and thank you, Ozzy, for what you mean to me.’”
“Ozzy pulls me in by the hand, and he goes, ‘You were the only guitar player who said no to me.’ But he laughed! He goes, ‘I love you and thank you for being here.’”
The post “Nobody wants to play those f**king Randy Rhoads solos!”: Nuno Bettencourt jokes that Wolfgang Van Halen was “smart” to drop out of Black Sabbath’s farewell concert appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
This pedal lets you avoid the Fulltone baggage – and is on sale for Black Friday!
Say what you want about Warm Audio’s approach to pedal, er, ‘recreation,’ in the case of the ODD Box, it’s an interesting way to get a classic drive sound while steering clear of the drama – and, for Black Friday, is an even more affordable alternative.
When we reviewed the ODD Box we found that it pretty much nailed the sound of a v1.7 OCD in both US and UK modes. We said: “The OCD became a legend thanks to its ability to replicate that most enduring of guitar lingo cliches, the ‘cranked amp tone’ in pedal format, and if you want various flavours of cooking amp-like overdrive at your feet, the ODD doesn’t disappoint.”
When the ODD Box was originally released, the guitar world had maybe assumed Fulltone as an enterprise had ended, after a rather inauspicious 2020. But in 2024, in partnership with Jackson Audio, the brand relocated to Nashville and resumed operation. Although with the return of Fulltone came the return of the controversy. In December last year the official Fulltone account – one seemingly run personally by founder Mike Fuller – got the brand into hot water. If you like the sound of the pedal, but don’t really like the sound of that, the ODD Box remains an interesting workaround.
At zZounds right now, the ODD Box is discounted down to just $99 – check out the deal below.
[deals ids=”33wBwGEVcUAKjitVRanFv3″]
Check out more deals here, and some more places to save below:
| UK/EU Deals | US Deals |
| Thomann Save up to 70% | Reverb Up to 80% off |
| Reverb UK Up to 80% off | zZounds Black Friday savings |
| Positive Grid Up to 50% off | Sweetwater Up to 80% off |
| Gear4Music Black Friday deals | Positive Grid Up to 50% off |
| PMT Up to 70% off | Guitar Center Save up to 50% |
| Amazon UK Big savings | Amazon Black Friday deals |
| Guitar Tricks 20% off monthly sub | Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial |
| Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial | Guitar Tricks 20% off annual sub |
| Ultimate Ears EU Shop savings | Music & Arts 20% savings |
The post This pedal lets you avoid the Fulltone baggage – and is on sale for Black Friday! appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
It’s the distortion pedal I think everyone needs – and it’s on sale right now
It’s no secret that I love the Pro Co RAT. It’s the foundational sound of so much of the music I love, and the foundational circuit of what I think are two of the best boutique distortions out there – the EQD x Sunn O))) Life Pedal and the Black Mass 1312. But I’d always recommend everyone starts off with the affordable, reliable original – and right now, it’s at a great price at Sweetwater.
Amongst all of the big-ticket Black Friday deals with hundreds to be saved on guitars worth thousands, it’s important to remember that the event can be a great chance to grab some more affordable essentials at great prices. And honestly, I would call the Pro Co RAT an essential step in the journey of any guitarist who’s interested in analogue distortion boxes at all.
But while the RAT is perhaps more versatile than people give it credit for, I think it excels best when pushed into a cranked tube amp, with your guitar tuned down to at least C standard. Some of the best guitar tones ever recorded have been the humble RAT into Sunns and Oranges.
Right now, the RAT is discounted by over $30 over at Sweetwater – check out the deal below.
[deals ids=”7sHi36V97XaoDU72hhOmoA”]
Check out more deals here, and some more places to save below:
| UK/EU Deals | US Deals |
| Thomann Save up to 70% | Reverb Up to 80% off |
| Reverb UK Up to 80% off | zZounds Black Friday savings |
| Positive Grid Up to 50% off | Sweetwater Up to 80% off |
| Gear4Music Black Friday deals | Positive Grid Up to 50% off |
| PMT Up to 70% off | Guitar Center Save up to 50% |
| Amazon UK Big savings | Amazon Black Friday deals |
| Guitar Tricks 20% off monthly sub | Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial |
| Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial | Guitar Tricks 20% off annual sub |
| Ultimate Ears EU Shop savings | Music & Arts 20% savings |
The post It’s the distortion pedal I think everyone needs – and it’s on sale right now appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Arch Enemy frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz has stepped down – but she’s already dropped her debut solo single, and it’s certainly guitar-heavy
A year after the departure of guitarist Jeff Loomis, Arch Enemy is parting ways with frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz.
White-Gluz has fronted the Swedish metal unit since 2014, taking over the reins from previous vocalist Angela Gossow. For nearly 12 years she’s carved out her own sound as Arch Enemy’s vocalist, but now she’s decided it’s time to move on.
But she won’t be joining another band; White-Gluz instead plans to pursue a solo career. “I can’t wait to share what I have been working on with you all,” she announces in an Instagram post. “Stay tuned for big news in 2026. See you very soon.”
And when she says ‘soon’, she meant it – her debut solo single as ALISSA has already dropped. The Room Where She Died showcases a softer, dreamier tone from the ex-Arch Enemy wailer, balanced out by her signature gutturals.
Speaking on the track, White-Gluz explains: “The Room Where She Died is a song that feels truly satisfying to me; like I get to express myself in so many ways that have been dormant for years.”
She also teases that there’s a full solo album on the way, which is set to be even more “diverse” and dig into other sounds that have laid “dormant” for quite some time.
However, she’s not forgotten her past. The video sees her honouring her Arch Enemy roots, using guitarist Michael Amott’s Tyrant signature axe throughout.
While White-Gluz’s nod to Amott shows there’s no bad blood, Arch Enemy have also released a statement waving off their ex-vocalist. “We’re thankful for the time and music that we’ve shared and wish her all the best,” the band writes on Instagram.
The statement also seems to confirm that Arch Enemy will continue without White-Gluz. “Wherever there is an end, there is also a beginning,” the post teases. “See you in 2026.”
Some fans have been conspiring that the Swedish metallers may reunite with the band’s very first vocalist, Johan Liiva, due to Liiva’s continued support of the band throughout the years. Liiva fronted the band at from 1995 until 2000, working on three of the band’s records (1996’s Black Earth, 1998’s Stigmata and 1999’s Burning Bridges), and it seems people would be happy for him to return.
One fan in particular actually asked the ex-vocalist whether he’d be rejoining the band on Facebook, but it looks like a firm no.
“No, I am not,” he answered in a comment. “I am just as surprised as all of you. I think Alissa was perfect for AE. The mystery goes on…”
The post Arch Enemy frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz has stepped down – but she’s already dropped her debut solo single, and it’s certainly guitar-heavy appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
This affordable Martin was the best budget acoustic I’ve played this year, and you can save $200 in Sweetwater’s Black Friday sale
Budget acoustic guitars have come an awful long way in recent years, and one of the things I’m always struck by when reviewing new entry-level acoustics is how much bang you get for your buck these days in terms of looks, materials and sounds.
- MORE BLACK FRIDAY DEALS: The Ultimate Guitarist’s Holiday Gift Guide – brought to you by Sweetwater
I’ve reviewed a bunch of affordable acoustics over the last year or so, but a real standout for me has been the Martin 000 Jr Sapele. Martin’s affordable Mexico-made guitars aren’t the cheapest out there, but the Junior series really hits the sweet spot in terms of affordability and quality.
For starters, it’s an all-solid wood instrument. Solid wood guitars tend to age a lot better than laminate ones, as the wood dries out naturally over time, making it sound and feel better. It’s a big part of why I said in my review that the 000 Jr could be a guitar for life.
I loved it so much that it’s become a daily desk guitar for me in the few months I’ve had it, and I’ve really bonded with the guitar. So much so that I was pretty disappointed this week when Martin sent over the returns label for me to send it back – but it turns out Black Friday might have saved me.
I thought the 000 Jr Sapele was a steal at full-price, but Sweetwater have a killer deal on the guitar for Black Friday that takes an incredible $200 off the base price of the guitar, making it just $549.
Now, this is the previous generation 000 Jr Sapele, which means that it has a slightly shorter scale length than the guitar I reviewed, but on the flipside the Special version on sale here has a lovely hand-rubbed finish, and comes with an impressive Fishman Presys VT pickup system, and a premium TUSQ nut.
What’s more, if you’re a new guitar player who wants everything you need out of the gate – or if you’re buying it for someone else and want to give them everything they need – Sweetwater are also offering a package deal where you get a free stand, strap, Martin capo, Martin clip-on tuner… for the same price.
It’s one of the very best Black Friday deals on a guitar that could take you from your bedroom to the stage and beyond – and you really don’t want to miss it.
[deals ids=”4qElzpVSLSpL6WLANWtUPF”]
[deals ids=”7BStNIhQZz4WCE1mX9wHZ9″]
The post This affordable Martin was the best budget acoustic I’ve played this year, and you can save $200 in Sweetwater’s Black Friday sale appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
The history of Tech 21 and the SansAmp: how a hobbyist engineer changed guitar pedals forever
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, guitar players were faced with an uncomfortable dilemma. Digital and solid-state guitar technology was moving forward apace, but gigging players were still stuck between the inherent hassle of traditional valve amps, and somewhat sterile and uninspiring sound offered by newfangled digital options.
The popularity of Tom Schulz’s Rockman and the family of amps it spawned had proved a huge step forward in sounding good without needing to blow your head off, but the Rockman’s sound was still rather niche and didn’t really cater to the needs of players as the 80s turned into the 90s.
Guitarist Andrew Barta was very much aware of this – as a guitarist himself, he knew firsthand how fed up guitarists and bassists were with lugging around cumbersome and often temperamental amps all the time.
“In the 80s, tube amps ruled – and with good reason,” he explains. “But it’s time consuming to find their sweet spot, and they’re expensive to maintain.”
Even as solutions to making amps sound good at lower volumes emerged – such as H&K’s Red Box or Groove Tubes’ speaker emulators – they still required the presence of an amplifier to work, which didn’t exactly remove any real hassle from load ins at gigs or in the studio.
“It was also about the frustration factor of spending the majority of time – and money – in the studio getting the right sound and then having little time left over to actually record,” Barta reflects.
Frustrated then, he decided to take it upon himself to solve that problem: “It was a situation of necessity being the mother of invention,” he reflects. “I made it a personal mission to find a way to replicate the tones of tube amps and not have to deal with the headaches”.
The 1981 SansAmp Classic. Image: Press
From Hobby to Revolution
Crucially, aside from being a guitarist himself, Barta was also an electronics engineer. During his off-hours from working in music stores performing modifications, customizations, and repairs he used his formal electronics education and hands-on experience to begin designing something revolutionary.
Rather than the cumbersome and temperamental nature of a tube amp, or some lifeless digital recreation, Barta’s vision was to create an all-analogue guitar pedal circuit that could emulate the natural sound, behavior, and response of tube amplifiers.
Barta pitched his idea to some of the big hitters in the guitar pedal industry, but got shut down pretty quickly. “It was all negative!” he reflects. “They couldn’t get past their own tube amp snobbery to see the potential.”
Barta believed in the idea, and so did other guitarists and friends who tried his invention. At the urging of his friend Dale Krevens, Barta decided to set up a company to build and sell the product himself.
“I had no intention of becoming a manufacturer,” Barta admits.”But it was a blessing in disguise.”
Krevens’ advice would pay off – he’d go on to become the VP of the company that Barta would found. Tech 21 had arrived.
The SansAmp Classic 20th Anniversary. Image: Press
Sans Speakers, Plenty of Amp
Barta named his new product, succinctly and appropriately, the SansAmp – and it more than lived up to expectations. This was a rugged and reliable unit that recreated much of the tone, character and response of a tube amp, but it could fit onto a pedalboard, or even slot into the pocket of a gigbag.
Nowadays in this world of Helixes, Quad Cortexes, Milkman Amps and endless floor-based analogue and digital amp pedals, that might not seem like a big deal – but in the early 90s it was positively revolutionary.
Foreigner’s Mick Jones was an early adopter and evangelized its tone and efficiency through word-of-mouth. Eventually retail giant Sam Ash agreed to sell one on consignment, despite their perception that it was “just another distortion box” and were soon convinced of the potential of something that was far more than that.
Bulk manufacturing of the SansAmp began out of a back office in New York City. Tech 21 soon relocated to a facility in midtown Manhattan with double the space to accommodate the company’s growth and an expanding product line.
In truth, it wasn’t just the convenience factor that makes the SansAmp so appealing. The reason it remains a popular and beloved pedal to this day is because while it was trying to emulate the sound of amplifiers, it has a sound all of its own – one that many players still love and rely on over 30 years later.
Testing Classics in the 1990s. Image: Press
Analogue Spirit
Nowadays players gravitate to the idea of the SansAmp because of its analogue nature, but Barta reveals that it wasn’t any kind of purist streak that led him down that path – he simply found that digital technology was not mature enough to do the job at that time.
“Latency and resolution were major issues,” he explains. “Eight-bit converters weren’t suitable for quality sound processing and couldn’t deliver the warmth and responsiveness of analogue.”
The original SansAmp (now known as the Classic) offers a three way switch that models the sound of Marshall, Mesa/Boogie and Fender-style preamps, but the real magic lies in the eight DIP switches in the character section.
Long before Chase Bliss opened up a world of tweakability by adding banks of DIP switches to the outside of their pedals, Barta was using the small bank on the SansAmp to let you tweak things like midrange boost, brightness and even speaker micing simulation. It added a level of on the fly customisability that made the SansAmp even more versatile and useful for gigging and recording guitarists.
Interestingly, the DIP switches weren’t actually meant to be a part of the final product. Barta included them in the prototype, and after he settled on the settings, his intention was to remove them. However, Mick Jones advised him to keep them, as he felt they made the circuit even more unique – the rest is history!
Bassist Doug Wimbish on an ad for the SansAmp in 1991. Image: Press
Tube Tone Sans Tubes
Exactly how the SansAmp does what it does is a well kept trade secret. But it nails the sound, feel, and dynamics of a tube amp from preamp to power section. Onboard speaker simulation is crafted to replicate the even response of multiple microphones on a cabinet.
This eliminates the uneven frequency response of using only a single microphone. External impulse responses can be inserted after the pedal, which opens up tone options significantly.
The SansAmp product line has expanded quite a bit over the years to include the GT2 with simplified controls, rackmount and bass guitar versions, and the Character series, each model dedicated to emulating specific amps.
Tech 21 even incorporated the technology into a similarly influential tour-friendly multi-effects unit. The FlyRig series features options for electric and acoustic guitar, bass, and signature models – they’re still all analog.
As the SansAmp has become part of a much more crowded marketplace of pedal-based amp solutions – especially since the explosion of digital emulation since the turn of the Millennium – the focus has been on emphasising the unique sonic character of the SansAmp.
In no way has this been more exemplified than when Tech 21 partnered with Bomb Factory to create the PSA-1 plugin, bringing the sound of the SansAmp into the box. The plugin soon became so popular it was even bundled with Pro Tools.
The first SansAmp ad in 1991. Image: Press
Blueprint for the future
When the SansAmp first released in 1989 it showed the world how guitar technology was changing and revolutionised what direct recording could be for guitars. Even today, Barta feels analogue topology offers a response to playing articulation and dynamics that modern digital amp emulators haven’t completely nailed yet.
Three and a half decades later, it’s what keeps the SansAmp relevant to this day, and continues to drive Barta to evolve the product – he simply wants to keep making things he’d like to use.
“Pride and ethics,” Barta explains of his guiding principles. “It’s more important and rewarding for me to design what I believe in versus compromising just to make a profit. There’s no personal joy in being a copycat.”
Find out more at tech21nyc.com
The post The history of Tech 21 and the SansAmp: how a hobbyist engineer changed guitar pedals forever appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
One of our favourite Klones is only $99 this Black Friday – almost 50% off!
There are a lot of pedals that take sonic inspiration from the original Klon, because not everyone has the price of a used Nissan Micra to drop on an overdrive pedal. But not all of them go so far as to recreate the unique enclosure – Warm Audio’s Centavo does, though, and for Black Friday the pedal is an absolute steal right now.
The Centavo comes with its own take on the classic graphic and enclosure, while also adding a ‘mod’ switch to change up the bass response – a feature rarely seen on Klones. And while the big enclosure is, well, big, its touch-responsive tones – from the grit of its full-gain mode to its clear clean boost – may make that pedalboard real estate worth it.
The ‘real deal’, as they say, is pretty hard to come by – rarely on sale new, and used it can easily climb to a five-figure sum. Despite this, we got the chance to shoot the Centavo against a real example when we reviewed it, and the results were good. We said at the time: “does the Centavo sound like a real deal Klon for less than a 20th of the price of a used original? The short answer: yes.”
With Black Friday in full swing, zZounds has discounted the Centavo all the way down to $99 – a miniscule fraction of what you could pay for this sound and look. Check the deal out below:
[deals ids=”1zRxPZ9jInyBSc8Sav7Itm”]
Looking to avoid the Klone Wars? Check out more deals here, and some more places to save below:
| UK/EU Deals | US Deals |
| Thomann Save up to 70% | Reverb Up to 80% off |
| Reverb UK Up to 80% off | zZounds Black Friday savings |
| Positive Grid Up to 50% off | Sweetwater Up to 80% off |
| Gear4Music Black Friday deals | Positive Grid Up to 50% off |
| PMT Up to 70% off | Guitar Center Save up to 50% |
| Amazon UK Big savings | Amazon Black Friday deals |
| Guitar Tricks 20% off monthly sub | Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial |
| Tim Pierce Masterclass Free trial | Guitar Tricks 20% off annual sub |
| Ultimate Ears EU Shop savings | Music & Arts 20% savings |
The post One of our favourite Klones is only $99 this Black Friday – almost 50% off! appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“There are just so many problems with the electric guitar”: Robben Ford explains why the guitar is the “most difficult instrument to play”
Though by many metrics the most popular instrument in the world, the guitar is one which takes many years to master. Robben Ford would even go as far as to say it’s the “most difficult instrument to play”.
The 73-year-old blues ace has had quite the storied career and certainly knows his way around the fretboard, but as he acknowledges in a new interview with Guitar World [via Ultimate Guitar], the guitar isn’t the easiest instrument to play.
- READ MORE: Black Friday Guitar Deals 2025: find the best deals and biggest savings with the help of our experts
Learning the guitar is a journey with no real end, and as Ford explains, he’s been focusing on his picking technique as of late.
“It’s something I never really worked on, which is why over the last couple of years I’ve started working on that more than anything else,” he says.
“I sort of decided on an approach and ran with it a long time ago. The guitar is a really hard instrument, the most difficult instrument to play. Trumpet players might argue with me, but the thing about the guitar is that you can play the same note in four different positions.”
He goes on: “And because the guitar is tuned in fourths, except between the G and the B string, there’s already a really different thing happening right there. So your picking techniques all have to be worked out.
“Sonically, electric guitars are a bitch. There are all kinds of difficulties with being too loud – and shitty amplifiers. There are just so many problems with the electric guitar.”
While Ford is certainly right that his assertion that the guitar is the hardest instrument to play will likely draw some debate from other instrumentalists, it’s an interesting perspective, and one which many guitarists might resonate with.
“I feel good about my background and the choices I made because of my love for the blues,” Ford continues. “It’s just a fantastic grounding for learning the guitar and chords. I wanted to learn chords and understand harmony, so that’s really been a good foundation. But the picking and fingering? I just didn’t focus enough on it.”
The post “There are just so many problems with the electric guitar”: Robben Ford explains why the guitar is the “most difficult instrument to play” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Former Gamechanger Audio staff start their own company – meet its first product the Monk Echo, a unique reverb and delay pedal
Mentha Works – a new music gear brand from Latvia formed by former Gamechanger Audio staff – has unveiled its first product, the Monk Echo.
A unique reverb and delay pedal, the Monk Echo is inspired by the human voice, and is designed to sound like “a choir of monks echoing through stone walls”.
After helping build and shape Gamechanger Audio, musicians and sound designers Toms Lazdovskis and Matiss Tazans are now designing their own line of expressive instruments for pedalboard and desktop use. The brand’s core team consists of talent with experience at companies such as Neural DSP, Darkglass, and Marshall.
Drawing inspiration from Baltic choral traditions and mythical acoustic architecture, Monk Echo processes the reverb and delay signal through morphing formant filters tuned to human vocal resonances.
Users can select the vowel that the pedal “sings”, glide continuously between vowel shapes, or enable automatic vowel expression that responds to playing dynamics. You can even switch between voice characters, with a choice of male, female, or children’s choir timbres.
As the pedal is designed to “sing with you” and is not based on static algorithms, it reacts to your performance. Its sound shaping tools let you blend between the reverb and delay, experiment with delay time and feedback, and even play around with Reverb Pitch Grains that offer granular pitch “shimmer and motion”.
It has a Macro Control system so you can link multiple parameters to a single control source, which can be operated via the dedicated knob, an expression pedal, or the built-in footswitch. To provide visual feedback, every parameter movement is also displayed on an 8×8 Dot Display.
Hear it in-play in the video below:
Monk Echo is priced at $380/€380 for a limited time. You can find out more and view full specifications over at Mentha Works.
The post Former Gamechanger Audio staff start their own company – meet its first product the Monk Echo, a unique reverb and delay pedal appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“I remember absolutely nothing about it”: Abbey Road engineer shares mystery surrounding Eric Clapton’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps solo
Record producer and engineer Ken Scott says that barely any studio personnel who worked on The Beatles’ famous White Album can remember the experience of Eric Clapton recording the solo for While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
Scott has worked with the likes of Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and the Jeff Beck Group across his career, and was one of five main engineers for the Fab Four. Though Clapton’s famed uncredited work on the track has gone on to be seen as an important part of Beatles history, it seems those who worked with the band at the time can’t remember much about how it came together.
In an interview with Rick Beato, Scott says he even tried hypnotherapy to try and revive his memory. In part, he feels his recollection of that time may be hazy as it was another day in the office at that time. Little did he know back then how significant it would go on to be.
“I remember absolutely nothing about it,” Scott says [via Guitar World]. “But I’m not the only one. When I was writing my book [Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust], [I was] asked the question, ‘What was it like Eric coming and playing on that? How did they react?’ and all of that, and I’ve just had to answer, ‘I can’t remember.’”
He adds, “I went to John Smith, who was my assistant engineer, my button pusher at that point [who said], ‘I don’t remember anything about it.’ I went to Chris Thomas, George Martin’s assistant, who was producing at that point because George was on holiday, and [he said], ‘I don’t remember anything about it.’
“The one thing I vaguely remember – Chris and I have talked about it – is Eric saying that the only way he’d play on it is if he sounded like The Beatles, as opposed to Eric Clapton.”
To achieve Clapton’s wishes, Scott says they used ADT on his guitar: “ADT is either artificial double tracking or automatic double tracking, whichever you choose to use. It stemmed from John [Lennon] not wanting to sing the song twice.
“He went to Ken Townsend, who was one of the amp room guys, and said, ‘Is there a way you can come up with something so that I don’t have to sing it twice?’ Ken went away, and as brilliant as he was, he came back and said, ‘I may have got it.’”
You can watch the full interview below:
The post “I remember absolutely nothing about it”: Abbey Road engineer shares mystery surrounding Eric Clapton’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps solo appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Kirk Hammett’s CEO4 SG – created by Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian and played at Black Sabbath’s last show – sells for over $76,000 at auction
The mystery silver Gibson SG that Metallica’s Kirk Hammett played at the final Black Sabbath show back in the summer has sold for a whopping $76,800 at auction.
The model had fans in a frenzy following the Back To The Beginning reunion concert in Birmingham last July, and was later identified as the SG CEO#4 – a one-of-one model built by Gibson’s CEO, Cesar Gueikian. Its estimated sale price was originally predicted to be a far smaller sum in comparison, at $6,000.
The guitar hosts custom appointments and was played by Hammett during Metallica’s cover of Sabbath’s Hole In The Sky. The guitar has a 24.75-inch scale length mahogany neck, a bound 22 fret ebony fretboard, and a mahogany body with a multi-ply bound flame maple top finished in Ghost Burst. It was even sold with Gueikian’s Back To The Beginning backstage pass included, signed by the CEO himself.
The guitar was signed by Hammett following the show, and was listed for sale via Julien’s Auctions as part of its annual Played, Worn & Torn auction, which featured over 800 guitars and rare pieces of music memorabilia. The unique SG formed part of a collection of Gibson goodies in support of its Gibson Gives charity, consisting of 15 lots.
Gueikian’s previous CEO builds include the a CEO#1 Les Paul, a CEO#2 Explorer model – built for Jason Momoa’s son – and the CEO#3, a Gibson Victory. Another CEO model which was also included in the auction was the Flying V Custom CEO#8, which sold for $12,800. Gueikian played this one himself on stage at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville with rock band Maná for the song Clavado En Un Bar.
Outside of the Gibson Gives lots, a number of other guitars played by Hammett featured in the auction. In total, 150 models from Hammett were put on sale. Among the CEO#4, the highest grossing Hammett-played models were the 1985 Gibson Custom Shop Michael Schenker Flying V, which sold for a huge $160,000, a 1996 ESP Wavecaster ($89,600) with a clear body and very cool glowing goo inside, and his Mamma Said 1990s ESP Custom Shop M2 ($32,000).
You can check out all of the sale results from Played, Worn & Torn via Julien’s Auctions.
The post Kirk Hammett’s CEO4 SG – created by Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian and played at Black Sabbath’s last show – sells for over $76,000 at auction appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Old Blood Noise Endeavours Bathing review: a weird and wonderful ‘liminal’ delay
£299 / $299, oldbloodnoise.com
By this point, digital signal processing is a world of basically infinite possibilities – we’ve reached the guitar equivalent of when old tech journalists would sit atop piles of phone books to demonstrate the data storage capacities of a 32mb floppy. Multi-effects units, big-box delays and reverbs let you create virtual signal chains that would otherwise require a whole warehouse’s worth of analogue guitar pedals.
But as enticing as those endless options can be, they can also be creative poison. One brand that’s been particularly good at balancing the genuine power that digital allows with a healthy dollop of much-needed limitation is Old Blood Noise Endeavours – always pretty forward looking, its latest release promises to be a new kind of effect – a ‘liminal’ delay. Here I’d normally use the phrase “let’s dive in”, and while I am trying to vary that up, this pedal is ultimately called the Bathing, so… let’s dive in.
Image: Press
Old Blood Noise Endeavours Bathing – what is it?
Depending on what corners of the internet you’ve frequented over the last few years, you may have a very different relationship to the word liminal. In modern parlance it often refers to an aesthetic trend that’s concerned mostly with abandoned hotel pools, snowed-over petrol stations and those little plastic chairs you used to get at McDonald’s. Whereas the Bathing’s take on the concept is a little more true to the more general, magical sense of in-betweenness that ‘liminal’ has historically evoked.
Its artwork isn’t a grainy digital photograph of a playpen, but is instead a gorgeous illustration that to me evokes the clean lines and abandoned fantasy visuals of something like Hyper Light Drifter.
So how does that translate sonically? What is the Bathing ‘between’? Technically, it’s between a delay, a phaser and a reverb. Its signal path consists of a digital delay that gets modulated in several complex ways by a resonant LFO in the feedback loop. The LFO control is pretty in-depth, and there’s a good deal of stereo functionality and some extra pitch-modulation if you need things to get even more wobbly.
Image: Press
Old Blood Noise Endeavours Bathing – build quality and usability
The Bathing is housed in Old Blood’s newest enclosure format – it’s a slightly sloped bent-steel enclosure with an interesting sort of overhang on the front side. It’s a pretty nice layout – it’s wide, but by no means a “big box reverb” kind of size. The important thing is that the bypass and tap-tempo switches have enough room to be hit individually. The layout also lets the pedal art really shine, leaving a big space in the centre for the illustration – OBNE’s aesthetics have, of course, always been a strong point, and this is a truly gorgeous addition to any pedalboard.
That’s not to say it’s a perfect layout – while most of the build is present and correct, with nicely knurled knobs, the controls for the dry/wet mixes and the depth of the chorus are PCB-mount mini pots – the ones that are a little fiddly and much less of a joy to turn. The LFO wave selector is also quite frustrating to use, as it has a continuous action as you rotate it, despite the fact it selects from a set number of discrete settings. A selector switch would, for me, be a better choice here to give clearer feedback on which LFO you have selected.
The I/O layout is also worth calling attention to. It is a stereo pedal, and it can work fully mono, fully stereo or in MISO – mono in, stereo out. The stereo connections are accessed via TRS, which saves a little space on the back panel and allows for all of the I/O (expression jack and MIDI included) to be in one place. Nice in some ways, but it does mean the stereo-inclined will have to find some slightly more idiosyncratic patch connectors. The ins and outs are also relatively close together – not insanely so, but it does make it harder to use pancake-style connectors with the pedal.
Image: Press
Old Blood Noise Endeavours Bathing – sounds
When you pitch a pedal as a unique, new type of effect, it’s always a pretty bold claim. However, my expectations as to what the Bathing would sound like were well and truly drowned after a few minutes of use – because these few minutes of use quickly spiralled into a few hours of noodling before I noticed where the time was going. Which is to say, the Bathing is indeed pretty unique and intriguing.
Thanks to how the feedbacking modulation works, your notes are fairly quickly filtered again and again into very modulated echoes. Depending on the position of the filter knob, you can wash your repeats out into underwater bassiness or sharpen them into walkie-talkie crackle – or leave it in the middle for a slightly more neutral sound.
The function of the LFO is interesting. When the delay time is short, the resultant effect on the repeats is pretty much in the world of phase/flange. Things can get pretty resonant, making me thankful for that filter knob on the more extreme settings. The LFO also has a huge frequency range – you can literally stop it dead at position zero, and it goes all the way up to audio-frequency, ring-mod levels on max. The wave shapes are also very impactful, ranging from a standard sine to disorienting sawtooths. There are even envelope-activated ramps, although I find these a little unwieldy.
When you set the delay time longer, the LFO starts to pull your repeated signal apart, leading to cascading, marble-down-a-metal-staircase sounds. Delay repeats phase totally outwards from themselves, orbiting the main delay time with clattering extra repeats. You can adjust the intensity of this aspect of the sound with both the depth and the stages control – the depth adjusting how far out they go, the stages adjusting how many there are.
Individual dry and wet controls are very much appreciated here – due to just how weird and abstract the effect is, it’s both cool to isolate it for some total echoey strangeness, and mix it in more subtly if I don’t want it to totally overtake my playing. Relatedly, the added dimension control creates a warbling vibrato in mono mode (one side is left un-vibratoed in stereo for a chorus effect) that helps the wet signal sit “around” your dry signal. The Bathing does excel at providing a wash of weirdness behind some spacious playing, but with the settings cranked to their extremes and you’ve got sounds that barely resemble a guitar at all.
Image: Press
Old Blood Noise Endeavours Bathing – should I buy one?
So back to liminality. With pedals like this, there does seem to be two extremes of approach – either total lo-fi signal crush that makes your delay repeats sound like they’re coming back via an emergency telephone line, or the kind of total expansiveness that stretches single notes out into entire Brian Eno albums. The Bathing, appropriately enough, is between those two approaches – there is a degree of expansiveness going on, but you’d be hard pressed to call it lush or particularly ‘ambient’ in a traditional sense. It’s too sharp a sound for wide droning pads. However, its ear-catching character is still not totally summed up by just “lo-fi delay” either.
In all, idiosyncratic effects like this don’t come with simple “definitely buy it” recommendations. Will it fill a basic slot in your ‘board if you just want some echo? Not really, but that’s obviously not a mark against it. The best pedals in this genre transcend traditional use-cases as well as traditional sounds – and so if you’re the kind of player that wants to take a trip down to the weird, moving waters of the Bathing, you’ve hopefully already been persuaded if it’s for you or not.
Old Blood Noise Endeavours Bathing – alternatives
While there’s not a glut of other liminal delays out there to recommend, there are plenty of effects that take a similar approach to weirding the digital delay format. There’s the sort-of-delay, sort-of-looper Chase Bliss Habit ($339), the more aggressively strange Death By Audio Echo Dream 2 ($280 / £269), and EarthQuaker’s revived Disaster Transport Sr, which I actually found myself reminded of a lot with the Bathing thanks to the wobbly multi-delay sounds.
The post Old Blood Noise Endeavours Bathing review: a weird and wonderful ‘liminal’ delay appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“It’s not about having a guy jumping around on stage… It’s about playing the fuck out of your instruments”: Wolfgang Van Halen on what really matters onstage
What really matters when you watch a band live? Is it the stage antics, the pyrotechnics, or the sweat and skill of musicianship? For Wolfgang Van Halen, the answer is simple: it’s all about “playing the fuck out of your instruments”.
In a recent chat with Classic Rock, the Mammoth frontman lays out his philosophy for life on the road, arguing that the thrill of a live show comes not from over-the-top theatrics or “jumping around on stage”, but from simply playing a killer set.
- READ MORE: “I had to keep dad in check whenever he made a mistake”: Wolfgang Van Halen on his role in Van Halen
“At the end of the day that’s what matters to me more than anything,” says Wolfgang. “It’not about having a guy jumping around on stage and saying [adopts boorish rock star boom] ‘Are you fucking ready!’ It’s about playing the fuck out of your instruments.”
“Bands like Tool and Meshuggah, they will stand right there and they will destroy. That’s what I aspire to be.”
As Wolfgang explains, Mammoth’s live show is a tightly knit operation. The band rehearses for roughly two weeks ahead of a tour, using soundchecks to polish their performance while keeping it feeling alive and spontaneous. And while Van Halen leads the band, he maintains a hands-off approach.
Asked if he’s a demanding boss, Wolfgang replies: “No, not at all. I don’t think I’ve ever actually said: ‘Hey, you’re playing that wrong.’ I think it’s important that they feel themselves in the material.”
Beyond the stage though, Wolfgang’s responsibilities carry a heavier weight. The 34-year-old musician, who recorded Mammoth’s third album, The End, in Eddie Van Halen’s legendary 5150 studio, says protecting the space is now a lifelong duty.
“I live in my childhood home now, so the studio’s right there,” he tells Classic Rock. “Yeah, I feel very protective over 5150. It’s what I need to watch and protect, for the rest of my life now.”
The post “It’s not about having a guy jumping around on stage… It’s about playing the fuck out of your instruments”: Wolfgang Van Halen on what really matters onstage appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“Suddenly, all these football players were picking up guitars. It’s not my thing anymore”: Justin Hawkins recalls being “furious” about how Nirvana shook the guitar scene overnight
Nirvana’s rise may have inspired a generation of guitarists, but for The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins, the grunge explosion brought unexpected competition that nearly derailed his dreams of a professional music career.
Speaking to Rick Beato in a recent interview, Hawkins reflects on the seismic impact of Nirvana and grunge on young guitarists in the UK.
“Nirvana was massive. Nirvana was so big when I was like, 13 or 14. I was starting to play guitar, and it was my thing,” he says [via Ultimate Guitar]. “And I was like, ‘Okay, so this is what separates me from [the other kids].’ That’s my sigma, not taking part in the hierarchy. That’s my identity. I’m a fucking guitar player. Everyone else can do their thing, as there was [the guitar] completely defining me.”
But what started as a defining identity soon became a source of frustration.
“I was also into sports. I played football for local teams and other activities, but I didn’t really fit into the football scene. I was a music guy, and then, suddenly, all these other football players were picking up guitars and playing Nirvana-type stuff, and [played] in bands. And I was like, ‘It’s not my thing anymore,’” Hawkins explains.
The guitarist admits that he felt “kind of furious” about how Nirvana and the grunge movement affected his corner of the guitar world. While he loved aspects of grunge and industrial music, Hawkins felt increasingly distanced from the mainstream guitar scene as it became dominated by younger players and nu-metal influences in the late ’90s.
“The guitar scene was definitely dominated by that kind of stuff,” he says. “But at that point in my life, I was kind of like, done. I thought I was too old, because there’d been some bands that came through sort of mid to late ‘90s that were way younger than even I was at that time, and they’re all good looking and doing guitar music.”
“And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to concentrate on doing music for adverts and television programs and things like that, and my band will be my hobby. And that’s fine.’ I was happy with that.”
The post “Suddenly, all these football players were picking up guitars. It’s not my thing anymore”: Justin Hawkins recalls being “furious” about how Nirvana shook the guitar scene overnight appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.