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Back in 1966, Jimi Hendrix – arguably the greatest guitarist who has ever lived – plugged into a Marshall Super 100 for the first time. It began his love affair with the legendary British amp maker, with whom he became synonymous during the later years of his career.

Marshall amplifiers powered many of Hendrix’s most iconic performances, including his landmark closing set at Woodstock 1969, and his show at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, when he famously set his Fender Stratocaster on fire.

It’s only right, then, that 60 years after that first spark, Marshall should do something big to celebrate.

• READ MORE: Captured by a drama student who snuck onstage, new rare footage of Jimi Hendrix’s legendary 1969 Woodstock show has surfaced online

In fact, Marshall has been celebrating 60 years since it collided with one of the world’s greatest players for much of 2026 already. In May, the firm unveiled a collection of cosmic-inspired purple-and-black guitar gear, including a 1959 JMH Half Stack based on Jimi’s rig, a reskinned Acton III Bluetooth speaker and a limited-edition Fuzz Face pedal.

Now, the company has expanded its Hendrix 60th Anniversary collection with a new pair of headphones, a Bluetooth speaker, and another amplifier. Each sports the same purple oil-on-water design as previous items in the 60th Anniversary collection.

First up is a new pair of over-ear Major V headphones, boasting a rugged, foldable design, and purple-and-black colour scheme that extends throughout the inner headband and ear cups, and a battery that lets fans “listen to days of Hendrix tracks on a single charge”.

Next is a limited-edition Emberton III Bluetooth speaker, with a silver all-seeing eye motif, purple LEDs, and a silicone sleeve that’s been hand-dipped using a water transfer print, making each piece unique. A full day of listening is offered on a single charge.

Credit: Marshall

But the pièce de résistance of the collection is a stunning new portable JMH Studio amplifier, which reimagines the design of the classic Studio Vintage amp.

Produced at Marshall’s factory in Bletchley, UK, the Hendrix 60th Anniversary JMH Studio is built using quality plywood wrapped in black Tolex, the same black-and-purple psychedelic pattern, a purple LED indicator, silver beading woven throughout and an all-seeing eye badge, which pays homage to Hendrix’s fascination with the “third eye and expanded vision”.

“The story of Jimi and Marshall has always been personal to me because I first heard it from my dad, Al Hendrix,” says Jimi’s sister, Janie Hendrix. “Dad was there and shared those memories with me, so I carry that story only one degree from its source.

“Jimi was always searching for a sound that did not yet exist, pushing beyond what anyone thought an electric guitar could do. Marshall gave him the power and freedom to turn those bold ideas into a sound the world had never heard before. Sixty years later, that connection between Jimi and Marshall still speaks to new generations of musicians who are pushing creative boundaries and searching for their own sound.”

Pricing & availability

The Hendrix 60th Anniversary Major V headphones and Emberton III Bluetooth speaker are available now direct from Marshall, priced at £129.99 and £149.99, respectively. They’ll also be available at selected retailers from 9 September. Meanwhile, the JMH Studio Edition Bundle will be available from 9 September from Marshall.com and selected retailers, priced at £1,749.99.

Learn more at Marshall.

The post Marshall celebrates 60 years since Jimi Hendrix first plugged into a Super 100 with a stunning purple-on-black JMH studio amp appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

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We all know the myth of the ‘endgame guitar’ – it’s rare that one single instrument is the final piece of the puzzle for your rig. But there’s a good chance you’ve got some idea of what your perfect guitar might be, and there’s an equally good chance this perfect guitar isn’t just hanging on the wall of a guitar shop. Maybe it has some wild arrangement of specs and features that you’ve been hunting down for years – maybe it’s a more standard guitar with your own stamp on it. In any case, let’s explore how you can follow in the footsteps of Eddie Van Halen and Tom Morello and assemble that perfect guitar from parts.

Parts unknown

The two most important parts of a part guitar are, of course, the body and the neck. Making sure you’ve got a good match between the two, and the right sort of body for the kind of instrument you want to make, is crucial. There are a lot of options out there, either via the custom body route or official Fender parts – you could even salvage a body or neck from an existing instrument.

The most important thing a body defines is what kind of bridge you work with in the end. Broadly speaking each kind of bridge commonly found on Fender-style instruments presents a different level of challenge when it comes to getting assembly right. The least confounding is the straightforward hardtail setup – this includes Telecaster-style bodies with a full bridge plate, and bodies designed for shorter hardtail bridges, like the Telecaster Deluxe or Hardtail Stratocaster bodies. You can also find custom bodies in all sorts of shapes that accommodate various styles of hardtail bridges.

You then have the Stratocaster-style block vibrato – this requires a bit of finesse, but as long as the body you find has high-quality mounting holes already drilled (or you have a steady drilling hand), it’s not that bad. After this is the offset-style vibrato found on Jazzmasters and Jaguars, which requires a good deal of accuracy to get a well-performing string path, and of course is infamously fiddly even once it is assembled.

The blank neck for the project.

Today I’m working with a Telecaster-style body and a Fender neck, both relic’d. The Tele platform is, as I mentioned, relatively straightforward, but it’s not without its own challenges – regardless, it’s a good place for a beginner to start thanks to the lack of a vibrato with moving parts and extra things to align.

Start with the Finish

The body in question – without any shielding, electronics or hardware.

If it’s your first time assembling a parts guitar, then it’s probably a good idea to get a body and a neck that are already finished. The art of finishing is by no means inaccessible, but it can be a big hurdle for first-timers – there’s a lot that can go wrong, and depending on what kind of finish you opt for, the process itself can require a lot of practice and patience.

Getting pre-finished parts takes that worry out of the equation, but if you are keen to give it a go, StewMac has some excellent in-depth guides and info on the various finishing processes you can apply to get the right look for your guitar – just remember, don’t ever rush it!

Pickup some ideas

What kind of body you choose will define what kind of pickups you can go for – some bodies are more flexible than others, with swimming-pool routes that allow for any and all pickups, while some – like the more traditional Tele-style body we have today – won’t take non-standard pickups without serious modifications.

To help make the decision, it’s good to work backwards from the kinds of sounds that you want your perfect guitar to be capable of – do you want vintage PAFs? Full-throated Wide Range humbucker tones? Spanky single-coils? Thanks to the very wide world of aftermarket pickups, there are options that incorporate a wide range of sounds into all sorts and sizes of pickups. Getting a Tele doesn’t chain you to single-coils, for instance, as there are single-coil-sized humbuckers designed specifically for them.

If you need some inspiration, StewMac has a huge stock of various pickups, ranging from lovingly recreated PAF-style humbuckers to active EMGs, from vintage Tele single-coils to powerful blade pickups. For our purposes today we’re sticking with StewMac’s own vintage-style Tele single-coils.

Shields up

The same body, shielded with copper tape. All of the separate cavities shielding parts have been joined with a wire or a strip of shielding tape.

If you’re keen to cut down on hum, you’ll want to shield the body cavities with conductive tape or paint. When the shielding is connected to ground, it works as a faraday cage, protecting the signal-generating parts of the guitar from external noise.

I opt for conductive tape. The Tele body in particular presents the fun challenge of getting all of the different cavities connected, and for that I use either a strip of tape between the two cavities that are hidden by the pickguard, and a jumper wire to connect these to the control cavity. Similarly the bridge plate is connected to the electronics’ ground via a stripped wire, sandwiched between it and the body.

Check the fit

Of course pickups are often fitted into pickguards, and one thing you quickly learn when assembling a parts guitar is that eventually, something just won’t fit, especially if you’re using a smorgasbord of parts from different brands.

Doing a dry fit is always a good idea, even if your body already has pickguard screw holes. If it doesn’t, it’s good to position the guard with everything installed before marking and drilling, just so you know that it’ll be properly aligned without any components crashing into cavity walls and so on. You may find you need to plug existing pickguard screw holes and re-drill them, or shave off a millimetre of pickguard to let a pickup through – just be careful, go slowly, and remember the age-old adage: measure twice, cut once.

And talking of things fitting – you’ll want to check that your neck is the right kind. If you’re building a Telecaster-style guitar, a traditional Tele pocket is designed for a square heel. Hence a Telecaster-style neck will fit in a Strat-style pocket (with a little gap), whereas a Strat-style neck’s rounded heel means it won’t fit in a Tele-style pocket!

The neck, ready for mounting holes to be drilled. I’m using a cardboard caul to ensure the frets aren’t damaged by the pressing motion, and a concave curved piece of wood to keep the neck itself as vertical as possible.

The neck I’m using today also doesn’t have any mounting holes. And so I get the bridge installed, loosely string up an outer E to ensure alignment, and then clamp it in place, using a cardboard caul. Once I know the neck is aligned properly I mark the positions for the screw holes with the sharp end of a brad-point bit, and unclamp it all so I can drill them straight and true with a press – you’ll want to use a bit that’s the same diameter or very slightly larger than the shank of the neck pocket screw you’re using.

For more on what fit and alignment issues you might run into, check out StewMac’s full guide to assembling a parts guitar here. In fact, little like the measure twice, cut once adage, there’s not really too much reading you can do before embarking on a project like this!

Hardware and electronics

The body and neck we’re using today are relic’d, and so to complete the look of an aged guitar we can grab some aged hardware to match. StewMac has a veritable treasure-trove of ready-aged hardware, including a lovely Gotoh bridge that has a super vibey vintage aesthetic but also compensated saddles to keep things in tune. The Kluson tuners are an easy fit and also come pre-aged, so they don’t stick out like a sore thumb next to the aged Fender logo!

Of course, you may not like the relic vibe, or want to add a bit of modern panache to proceedings – that’s fine too, as of course this is your guitar that you’re making! There are lots of different modern options, each of which is suited for different aesthetic tastes and playstyles.

The guitar’s control plate, all wired up. Here the pickguard screws are yet to be drilled, as I want to ensure the pickguard will key against the completed control plate before I commit to a location for it.

Once everything else is ready, I assemble the guitar’s electronics on the control plate – once it’s all wired up I give it the old screwdriver tap test to check that the switch and controls work. All this involves is plugging in and tapping the pickups with something metal, just to establish that the guitar makes the right signals in different switch positions, and the controls actually function – it’s good to check this before you get everything strung up and ready to go.

All together now

So that’s it all assembled – there are, as with all things guitar, a lot of improvements you can make to a simple parts instrument – once it’s working and making sound, there’ll be a long process of dialling in the action, neck relief, pickup height and so on to get it playing its best. It’s rarely a case of just bolting a body onto a neck and calling it a day, but the process is absolutely not beyond the average enthusiastic guitar-modder! Building a parts guitar is a great way of getting an instrument with your stamp on it, and when playing it you’ll feel even more connected to it knowing it was your handiwork that brought it into being.

For more on assembling parts guitars, check out StewMac’s full guide here.

 

The post The magic of partscasters – build your perfect guitar yourself appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Two Les Paul Customs, three cabinets, 12 pedals, 13 microphones and a bicycle. When Russian Circles opened their U-haul truck outside of a California hotel in 2021, they found that all these things and more had been stolen from them overnight. As if that weren’t calamitous enough, they were about to start the biggest tour of their lives, supporting System of a Down and Korn in stadiums, and were 2,100 miles away from their then-base of Chicago. The only thing that could have been worse was if someone had died.

• READ MORE: Meet the little-known boutique builder who makes the secret weapons behind some of metal’s most brutal guitar tones

“It was an ‘Oh, shit’ moment, obviously,” remembers guitarist Mike Sullivan, talking to me from his home in Los Angeles. “Right away, your brain goes into survival mode. We’re in fucking Bumblefuck, California! Who do we know around here? How do we get their gear? How do we reach out to these people? Despite being on a huge tour at the time, there weren’t many people looking to help us out in that world.”

The instru-metal trio took whatever they could to carry on. Chelsea Wolfe lent Sullivan her Dunable Gnarwahl guitar. Hiwatt, a company they’d never worked with before, let them borrow some amps. They overcame – playing the shows, crowd-sourcing $60,000 (£45,000) and getting some of their stuff back in 2024 – but the incident reinvented Sullivan’s rig. Five years later, Dunable and Hiwatt are his go-to manufacturers.

“I was desperate for anything that sounded like a Les Paul. Anything with humbuckers and a glued neck would have sufficed,” he recalls. “But the Gnarwahl was such a cool-looking instrument, which sounded and felt great, and I was hooked on it. It’s a fun guitar to play. You don’t feel weighed down: it’s so ergonomic for tapping.

“I was blown away by how good the Hiwatt sounded,” he adds. “It took pedals so well. All these pedals that I thought I needed no matter what, I started tossing them out of the pedal chain. Less is more. When your blueprint tone, your foundation, is that fucking good, then you don’t need as much garbage to polish the turd.”

Image: Press

Cutting The Chaff

Hearing Sullivan talk about discarding pedals is like hearing Father Christmas talk about laying off elves. Since he co-founded Russian Circles in 2004, the guitarist’s penchant for pedals has become a cornerstone of the band’s identity. Many of their songs are centred around his loops, which help the three-man lineup, completed by drummer Dave Turncrantz and bassist Brian Cook, build bulletproof walls of noise.

Their approach is so ear-grabbingly loud, and Sullivan’s playing so immediately melodic, that they’ve transcended the insular post-rock scene which ensnares most modern instrumental rockers. As well as Korn and System of a Down, they’ve toured with Tool and Mastodon. Gojira’s Christian Andreu sports their merch onstage, ex-Killswitch Engage singer Howard Jones has touted them in interviews and Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou produced their four latest albums, including their brand-new ninth, aptly titled Nine. The soft-spoken Sullivan almost sounds uncomfortable with the elite company.

“After doing the System of a Down/Korn tour, I’ve never been more proud to be part of the underground,” he says. “Some of the stories are jaw-dropping. I have a lot of good things to say about Korn. System of a Down? Next question.”

Certain fans have talked about Nine as if it’s Russian Circle’s mainstream moment, pointing out the increased synths and electronics on the single Eluvial. But Sullivan only leaned further into his underground proclivities, such as on the punishing Empath and Seventh Seal. After being inspired by metal bands Pantera and At the Gates for 2022’s Gnosis, he went even deeper, turning to cult UK death metal luminaries Bolt Thrower.

“Death metal tremolo picking can be very vocal,” he explains. “It’s very minimal as far as melody. It’s a hummable, simple melody. It’s similar to black metal, where you can hold the chord shape and keep different voice lines interweaving in a cool way. You can rub an open string against a fretted string and create tension, a breathing pulse to the melodies.”

Unconventional Sources

Sullivan’s a metalhead at heart: he has a vinyl copy of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath on the table next to him and a 1981 Dean ML on his wall, in tribute to Dimebag Darrell. To understand the essence of his guitar playing, though, you need to know about obscure math-rockers Don Caballero. Like Russian Circles, they were an instrumental three-piece whose guitarist, Ian Williams, used tapping and loops. Sullivan saw them in Chicago after moving there to study and was floored.

“I came from the world of [punk legends] Fugazi, where many people were like, ‘Pedals? We don’t need pedals! Do it with your fingers!’” he says. “So the first pedal I ever had that I used in a band was a looper, and then a friend showed me, ‘Hey, you ever mess with a delay pedal?’ I’m like, ‘Not really. Let me try it out. Oh, this is fucking awesome! Alright, what does a tremolo pedal do? Oh, reverb’s great! Oh, the volume pedal!’”

He admits that his approach to distortion is pedal-first, “not out of preference, but utility”: “If I had my way, I’d probably draw upon a distorted amp channel and then boost it if need be. But I switch between gain stages so much. I want the decay of delay to bleed through. If I change channels on-amp from clean to dirty, the delay trails will be bumped up to a distorted signal, and I don’t want that. I want the delay to be after distortion, always.”

Seeing What’s Important

By the 2021 robbery, his fixation had become a bit much. “I had a bunch of tone sweeteners, like Klon clones and shit, and EQ sculpting devices that I just didn’t need,” he laughs. “Too many things were taking up space and compromising the tone.”

But Sullivan’s setup has always revolved around the looper. Be it a Les Paul or a Gnarwahl, he uses instruments with humbucker pickups so he’s not stacking layer upon layer of feedback. The Hiwatt amps have plenty of headroom so the loops don’t “collapse”. Unfortunately, other drawbacks can’t be circumvented. Mistimed loops force drummer Turncrantz to adjust or improvise.

“It’s all on me if it fucks up,” the guitarist admits. “It’s more about, do I know how to cheat to get the loop or the phrase sampled? If a loop’s awful, I’ll find a way to bury it and do some work-around.”

While making Nine, Sullivan was in his element. He recorded guitars at Ballou’s own studio God City in Salem, Massachusetts, where he experimented with so many models and bits of gear that he can’t remember what was used where. What he can say for certain is that he wrote some of the album with his favourite guitar, the 1985 Les Paul Custom that was stolen in 2021 then returned to him.

“All Les Pauls are a little bit different, and that one looks like it saw action in the Civil War,” he grins. “It’s falling apart, there are stress cracks everywhere, but it’s the most resonant guitar I’ve ever played. It just shakes for you and you can really feel it respond.”

He also dabbled in a variety of tunings. “I’ve always hovered around DADGAD tunings or that relative setup. The lowest [on this album] is DADGAD but tuned down to A. Other ones are that same shape of DADGAD but in B.”

Get Low

Across Russian Circles’ career, as the guitar influences have grown heavier, the tunings have got lower. Although Sullivan’s always imbued his riffs with a Sabbath-esque sludge, the early albums were much higher, in D or C-sharp. It’s a bit of a pickle for a man who tells me “I don’t like changing guitars during a set”.

“There’s enough changing pedals and settings, so to change guitars and all that takes so much time, and I end up getting gum in my hair or something like that while I’m doing it,” he elaborates. “It’s a fucking trainwreck.”

Then why do you use so many different guitars and tunings in the studio?!

“Oh, I fuck myself over at every opportunity. If you only knew. If there’s a fork in the road, I seem to always take the more difficult route.”

He may self-deprecate, but the more difficult route clearly pays off. You don’t get to support Korn and System of a Down by not knowing what you’re doing. As our conversation turns towards the future, Sullivan tips his hat to Mastodon for gradually getting bigger without compromising their musical vision. Given he’s still attached to his extreme metal and math-rock touchstones, even after getting a taste of stadiums, surely he wants the same thing?

“If it happens, that’d be awesome, and I’d be happy to go that course our own way,” he answers. “But we’re proud to be on an independent label. I’ve had endorsees turn me down because we’re not on late-night talk shows and tell me I’m ‘not pushing the brand hard enough’. We’re not going to be on a late-night talk show, and if we are, I don’t want that to matter if I get an endorsement or not. I’m fortunate that I have the ability to play, I get to play and people care enough to hear our records. That’s a good spot to be in.”

Nine is out on 28 August via Sargent House.

The post “Right away, your brain goes into survival mode” how having all his gear stolen led to Russian Circles’ Mike Sullivan reinventing his approach to guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Back in 2019, Dave Mustaine revealed that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer. In the limbo between his diagnosis and being declared cancer free in January of the following year, plenty of people reached out to the Megadeth frontman offering their support – but the wise words of fellow cancer survivor Bruce Dickinson were what really helped pull him through.

Just like Mustaine, the Iron Maiden frontman was also confronted with a throat cancer scare at the end of 2014. With Dickinson getting the all-clear in 2015, he was keen to share some advice with his heavy metal comrade. “Bruce had some fantastic stuff to say as a cancer survivor,” Mustaine explains to Metal Hammer in a new interview.

“There’s a big difference between someone saying, ‘You’re in my thoughts and prayers’, versus somebody who goes into detail about his treatment and tells you about the outcome,” he adds.

• READ MORE: The time Jimi Hendrix met Paul McCartney at a fancy event, and couldn’t handle it: “Paul McCartney’s walking towards me… What shall I do?”

Considering Dickinson cam out the other side of his diagnosis, it felt like proof that Mustaine could come out the other side too. “I needed hope, and he gave me it,” he says. To keep spirits high, the Iron Maiden icon also encouraged Mustaine to “surround [himself] with good people” and to focus on “spending time with people who are upbeat and positive”.

Mustaine also reflected on Dickinson’s support in an interview with Forbes in 2020. As he puts it, Dickinson was one of the first people he wanted to talk to about his throat cancer experience. “After I was diagnosed, I thought, ‘I want to call Bruce,’” Mustaine said. “It’s not like I have a whole Rolodex of rock friends that sing heavy metal music that have throat cancer… so my choices were limited.”

“I was pretty proud of Bruce after speaking with him,” he added. “Although we’re not super close, I consider him to be someone I look up to… When you’re a frontman in one of the biggest bands in the galaxy, you don’t really have to tolerate the frontman of the other bands very much, but he’s always been super kind to me.”

With Megadeth releasing their final record and currently in the swing of a grand farewell tour, Mustaine is feeling reflective. In fact, he is set to drop a new memoir, In My Darkest Hour, later this year in September.

For news on Megadeth’s final tour, head to the band’s website. Mustaine’s upcoming memoir, In My Darkest Hour, will also drop on 24 September.

The post “There’s a difference between someone saying, ‘You’re in my thoughts and prayers’, versus somebody who goes into detail about his treatment”: The simple advice Bruce Dickinson gave Dave Mustaine as he faced cancer battle appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Nearly 60 years after his death, Jimi Hendrix remains one of the most iconic and influential guitarists to ever live. Over the course of a relatively short career – with his heyday lasting between his breakthrough in 1966 and death in 1970 – Hendrix performed hundreds of shows, notably including his Monterey Pop Festival set, which saw him famously set his Fender Stratocaster ablaze.

Indeed, there are a few Jimi Hendrix shows that make a claim for his most iconic, but perhaps the most legendary of all was his closing set at Woodstock on August 18, 1969. 

The set included some of the guitarist’s biggest hits, including Purple Haze, Voodoo Child and Hear My Train a Comin’, as well as his landmark rendition of US national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner, which later became a defining symbol of the anti-war movement at the time the US was heavily involved in the Vietnam War.

• READ MORE: The time Jimi Hendrix met Paul McCartney at a fancy event, and couldn’t handle it: “Paul McCartney’s walking towards me… What shall I do?”

Though one of the most iconic rock shows in history, good-quality extended footage of Hendrix’s Woodstock set is notoriously hard to find. But one of the best clips of the show yet has just surfaced…

It was captured by 22-year-old drama student Albert Goodman, who successfully snuck onstage shielded by a friend carrying a guitar, according to Guitar World. He managed to set up his camera just 15 feet across the stage where Hendrix was set to perform.

Now, the footage has been uploaded to the official Jimi Hendrix YouTube channel for all to see. In the footage, Hendrix can be seen playing his biggest hits – plus his fiery version of the US national anthem, alongside his newly formed Band of Gypsys. 

The band’s lineup consisted of guitarist Larry Lee, bassist Billy Cox, Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, and percussionists Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez. Check out the footage below:

“Goodman was left alone, assumed to be just one member of the sprawling film crew who had surrounded the stage for the entire event,” reads the video’s description. “Armed with just two previously recorded, open reel videotapes, Goodman settled in behind percussionist Juma Sultan and prepared to document history.”

But that’s not the end of the story. After sneaking onstage to capture the awe-inspiring footage, as luck would have it, Albert Goodman was later given a ride by a driver who was friends with people working at the house Hendrix was renting nearby. One thing led to another, and legend has it Jimi Hendrix himself watched Goodman’s footage and approved.

The post Captured by a drama student who snuck onstage, new rare footage of Jimi Hendrix’s legendary 1969 Woodstock show has surfaced online appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

[Editor’s note: Please note that this deal is only available to US customers. If you’re reading from outside the US, you’ll be shown similar deals.]

If you’ve never owned a semi-hollow before, D’Angelico’s Premier DC makes a pretty compelling case for being your first. It’s versatile, comfortable and built to handle everything from jazz and blues to rock – and right now, it’s priced at just $499.99.

That’s $250 off its usual $749.99 price, making this a particularly tempting way to dip your toes into the world of semi-hollows without blowing your entire guitar budget.

• READ MORE: Save $250 on this killer metal-ready Epiphone Flying V prophecy

Semi-hollows are popular for good reason. You get that unmistakable warmth and resonance, but with the right pickups and some gain, they can also get surprisingly punchy and aggressive. That makes them a handy choice if you want one guitar that can cover a lot of ground.

That’s exactly what D’Angelico is going for with the Premier DC. It’s a double-cutaway semi-hollow with a 16-inch-wide laminated maple body and a solid centre block, giving it plenty of sustain while helping keep unwanted feedback under control when you turn things up.

The tonal flexibility continues with a pair of Seymour Duncan Designed humbuckers, which can cover everything from warm, jazzy cleans to searing distortion. They’re paired with a familiar two-volume, two-tone setup and three-way pickup selector, giving you plenty of control over your sound.

It’s a remarkably comfortable guitar to pick up, too. The Premier DC features a maple neck with a slim C profile, a 24.75-inch scale length and a 14-inch-radius Ovangkol fingerboard with 22 medium vintage nickel silver frets. The set-neck construction and smooth heel transition also make it easier to reach the higher frets.

Visually, it nails that classic D’Angelico vibe without looking over the top. The Sky Blue finish really pops against the Tortoise pickguard, while the pearloid block inlays and ebony knobs give it a clean, premium look up close.

Players also get a chrome Tune-o-Matic bridge, stopbar tailpiece and Grover tuners with Stairstep machine, rounding out a solid hardware package for the price.

At $499.99, the Premier DC is an appealing option if you’ve been curious about semi-hollows but don’t want to spend a fortune on your first one. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to give semi-hollows a try, this could be it.

Learn more at Sweetwater.

The post This D’Angelico could be your first semi-hollow – and it’s now just $500 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Chris Spedding – a legendary session guitarist who has played alongside the likes of Elton John, Paul McCartney, Tom Waits and Roxy Music – has been diagnosed with lymphoma, it has been revealed.

The 82-year-old guitarist has now begun a nine-month process of chemotherapy, which will render him unable to work and tour, so his wife Jody and campaign organiser Eden Cale have set up a GoFundMe to cover his essential living and medical costs during this time.

• READ MORE: Vivian Campbell confirms his cancer is back – but he’s continuing treatments and is “certainly not slowing down”

At the time of writing, nearly £25,000 has been raised of the campaign’s £50,000 goal with 314 donations.

“For over six decades, Chris Spedding has been bringing magic to stages and studios across the world with his inimitable guitar work with Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Elton John, John Cale, Jack Bruce, Tom Waits, Paul McCartney and Robert Gordon,” the GoFundMe reads.

“Chris’s genius as a musician, session guitarist and producer has touched generations of music lovers. But to our family, he’s just been Uncle Chris.”

It continues: “Anyone who knows Chris knows he is a kind, generous soul who would step up for anyone in need. For decades, he has given us unforgettable music. Now, it is our turn to rally around him to show our appreciation of him during this challenging time.”

You can make a donation now at the official GoFundMe page.

The post Session legend Chris Spedding – known for work with Elton John and Paul McCartney – diagnosed with lymphoma appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

[Editor’s note: Please note this deal is only available for readers in the US. If you’re outside the US, you’ll be shown similar deals.]

If you’ve been thinking about adding a modern shred-focused guitar to your collection, Tim Henson’s Ibanez TOD10 is worth a look – especially now that it’s $300 off.

Over at Sweetwater, you can pick up the TOD10 for $1,299, down from the usual $1,599.99. That’s a saving of $300, or almost 20%, on one of Ibanez’s most distinctive signature models.

• READ MORE: These are the best deals at Guitar Center this week

The TOD10 is Henson’s third signature model with Ibanez, following the TOD10N acoustic-electric and his earlier THBB10. Designed for modern technical playing, the guitar features an American basswood body paired with a roasted maple neck and Ibanez’s AZ Oval C profile.

The guitar’s neck is topped with a 24-fret ebony fingerboard and jumbo frets, giving you plenty of room for those higher-register runs. There’s also the distinctive Tree of Death inlay, carried over from the Polyphia guitarist’s TOD10N acoustic-electric signature model.

Soundwise, the TOD10 comes equipped with a pair of Fishman Fluence Tim Henson signature humbuckers. They’re wired to a five-way pickup selector, along with straightforward single volume and tone controls, giving you several pickup combinations without an overly complicated control layout.

The rest of the hardware is just as purpose-built. You get a T1502 two-point synchronised tremolo bridge, Graph Tech TUSQ nut and angled output jack, while Gotoh MG-T locking tuners use a thumb-wheel locking mechanism rather than the adjustable-height H.A.P.M locking tuners found on other AZ models.

And then there’s that Metallic Mauve finish, which adds a nice splash of colour to the otherwise sleek design of the TOD10.

At $1,299, it’s still a serious investment, but knocking $300 off the usual price makes the TOD10 a much easier guitar to consider – especially if you’ve had your eye on Henson’s signature model for a while.

Head over to Sweetwater to get yours today.

The post Right now you can save $300 on one of Ibanez’s best signature models – the seriously sleek Tim Henson TOD10 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$499/£431, warmaudio.com

Today we’re talking about a DI box – wait, where are you going? Come back! It’s interesting, I promise! The Warm Audio Reamper is not your average black box with a couple of transformers in it. It rolls a hell of a lot of functionality into its retro-styled enclosure, being at once a reamper, a variable-impedance DI box with a switchable preamp, a 50-watt load box capable of recording a direct power-amp signal from a tube amplifier, and a studio-ready conversion solution to go between instrument and line signals with ease. So can Warm Audio make a DI box sexy?

• READ MORE: Orange Outlowd ES3 review: is Ed Sheeran’s signature amp the best compact acoustic combo out there?

Image: Press

Build quality

Warm Audio has a (not uncontroversial) history of replicating other makers’ vibey hardware designs. This has, apparently, meant that it’s extremely well-poised to come up with its own in a similarly cool vein – the Reamper looks like something that you might find sitting in the corner of an RBMK control room, quietly monitoring röntgens. Its retro look is bolstered by an abundance of clicky toggle switches, and the pair of unique Bakelite-esque knobs for the line and preamp levels. It’s very pleasing to the eyes and ears – all the jacks and controls are sensibly laid out, and are clearly premium parts, emanating reassuring clicks and clunks upon use.

Another design point that’s good to see: power is delivered by a standard kettle (IEC) lead, ideal for both neatness and replaceability. The quirky design includes a handle on top of the unit, meaning it won’t slot neatly into a rack setup – but it will look extremely at home on the top of a tube head, which is one of the places you’ll want to put it anyway. It is a remarkable thing to have a DI box look anything other than purely utilitarian, and so hats off to Warm for that.

Image: Press

Usability

So, yes, this is ultimately a fancy two-way DI box that costs more than some amplifiers. Some of the price tag manifests in the above-described build quality and aesthetic beauty. The rest of it is evident in its extensive flexibility – the sheer number of actual ins and outs on the unit itself is a little overwhelming, so instead of just listing what every single jack does I’ll take you through a few use-cases that should hopefully demonstrate just how handy this thing is to have about.

First off – the titular reamping. This is done by using the line output to record a performance straight off your guitar’s pickups, with the variable impedance control ensuring the recorded signal stays bright and dynamic. The thru output lets you connect the rest of your rig as normal.

Switch a couple of cables around, and you can then send this dry audio back through amps and effects pedals to record the same performance, but with different tones. This allows you to get unique and layered sounds – but it’s also a good backup thing to have if your chosen tone doesn’t quite sit right in the mix, or anything else goes wrong. In essence – it gets you the flexibility of recording in-the-box, without having to lose the analogue joy of real, physical guitar amps.

Image: Press

In Use

The other thing this configuration allows is sending basically any other audio through pedals and amps, as the Reamper can convert a line-level signal to the instrument-level signal guitar gear is designed around. This opens up some great recording possibilities – during my testing I lose an afternoon running vocals through distortion pedals, and synths through an array of delays and reverbs.

You can also do the inverse, in a way – using the instrument input to connect a guitar to any rack gear that’s expecting a line-level signal, and then either record direct or loop the output back to the line input of the Reamper, and then use the instrument output to continue on to an amplifier. This is, of course, something you can achieve with other gear – but it’s remarkable to see it all done so extensively in just one place.

The Reamper also works with the speaker output of your tube amp. You can connect a speaker or other loadbox to the amp-thru as normal, but if you just connect a tube head, the Reamper provides its own 50-watt load to stop anything going boom. It then routes the raw power-amp signal to its line output, allowing you to load your own IRs/virtual cabinets within your DAW for manipulation at a later date.

This is a very cool thing to see and do – a sort of “re-speaker” box. It is a bit of a shame the internal load for silent recording tops out at 50 watts, though, particularly for the heavier crowd who might want to push the power tubes of a 100-watter without stripping the paint off the walls. It’s also not an attenuator – you can either run through the Reamper and pass the full power onwards to your normal speaker (or other loadbox), or use the 50-watt load for silent recording, using software monitoring to hear your amp through a virtual speaker. You can’t use it to lower the level of the signal that gets passed on to the speaker.

The resultant sound and feel is good, perhaps not quite as freakishly accurate as something like the Ox Box – however in that instance, the Reamper is actually the much more affordable option.

Image: Press

Should I buy one?

So the Reamper makes quick work of basically whatever routing trickery you might throw at it. Firstly and crucially, the sounds are all great, crackle-free and unmarred by any audible conversion losses. The optional preamp gain stage also sounds fantastic, and does a great job of adding a little life to your pure dry tone. Secondly, the actual process of reamping and/or doing any other routing is pleasing and tactile. While you might think the handled amp-top design would be annoying if you wanted to integrate it into a more permanent setup, it actually means that manipulating the Reamper as you re-route the required cables is a lot easier.

To answer the question of should you buy one – the answer is a resounding ‘probably’, unless you already have the pile of gear that the box itself replicates. Even then, having it integrated into this single package is still an undeniable quality of life improvement for home studio work. If you are a guitarist working out of a home studio with real, analogue pedals and amps – it’s more than worth its admittedly high price tag, given just how many things it can do. The dollar amount may be high, but the options-per-dollar make it far more appealing.

Alternatives

This is tricky – there aren’t really any single products that integrate quite as many routing functions as the Reamper. You could get something like the United Studio Technologies Replay Box ($299/£369) if you just wanted reamping, or explore the offerings from Two Notes and Universal Audio if you wanted the amp-loading capabilities – but to truly have an alternative, you’ll need a big pile of individual converters, preamps and loads.

The post Warm Audio Reamper review – the studio DI box to end all studio DI boxes? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell has shared that his cancer has returned and that he is continuing treatment, but he’s staying resilient and “not slowing down”.

Campbell, who has also played for Dio, White Snake and Thin Lizzy, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2013, and reported that he was in remission in June of last year after receiving a donor stem cell transplant.

Unfortunately, Campbell now reports that the transplant “didn’t stick” and that he may have to do another in a few years. In the meantime, he says he is doing as much with his life as possible, including his work with Def Leppard and his Last In Line supergroup.

Asked how he keeps a positive mindset during his health battles, he tells Francisco Sigüenza of El Salvador’s Radio YSKL FM [via Blabbermouth], “Unfortunately, I have met people in my life who, when they’ve gotten a cancer diagnosis, they’ve only focused on that. They think, ‘I can’t do anything. I need to stay in bed…’ I’ve never felt that way. I’ve always felt like I’m gonna continue to live my life as much as possible. In fact, even more so… I also consider myself very fortunate because I caught my cancer early.

“There’s only been one time that I felt it was gonna kill me; in the winter of 2023, I got really scared about what was happening and the pace at which it was happening. And I realised at that point that I had to do a donor transplant. It was my only hope to survive. And that’s what I did. I did that in January of ’25. Unfortunately, it didn’t stick. So the cancer has returned. And I’m continuing treatments to manage it.”

He goes on to add, “In the meantime, I’m certainly not slowing down. I’m doing as much with my life as possible, not just with Def Leppard and with Last In Line. I’m also rally driving, ’cause I always wanted to do that. So I’ve been doing that more and more, ’cause I love cars and I love driving.

“Life is for the living,” he says, “and I encourage everyone to look after their own health. And if you are unfortunate enough to get a cancer diagnosis to overcome the fear. Fear is inevitable when you’re first told those words. But once you get over that, you gotta realise just how to manage it and how to deal with it as best as possible, and just don’t give in.”

Def Leppard are on tour in October/November this year. You can find out more via the band’s official website.

The post Vivian Campbell confirms his cancer is back – but he’s continuing treatments and is “certainly not slowing down” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Halestorm’s powerhouse vocalist and guitarist Lzzy Hale has launched a new signature model with Epiphone – a sparkling Explorer Custom model designed for heavy music with an aesthetic sure to steal the spotlight.

Finished in a Black Diamond Holographic Sparkle exterior, fans may recognise its shiny good looks from her signature Kramer Voyager model from 2023. Epiphone describes it as a “commanding new addition” to her series of Epiphone signature guitars; you may remember her limited-edition Explorer from 2019.

• READ MORE: “If you wanna listen to the studio recording, listen to the studio recording”: Why Halestorm refuse to use backing tracks during live shows

This new guitar has a classic mahogany body and 7-ply top binding, with a single-ply mirror pickguard that reflects and shines under stage lighting in keeping with its sparkling looks. Its mahogany neck is shaped to Epiphone’s SlimTaper 60s C profile, paired with an ebony fretboard, 22 medium jumbo frets, and pearloid block inlays.

At the top of the model, the Explorer “hockey stick” headstock has a raised Epiphone 3D nickel logo, a Graph Tech nut, and Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners. Custom artist details include a black two-ply truss rod cover engraved with Hale’s signature and a black stinger on the rear of the headstock.

Tonally, the guitar is powered by a matched set of Epiphone ProBucker Ignite pickups, with each wired to its own volume control, with a shared master tone control topped by a silver Speed knob for shaping. It’s also got a three-way pickup selector, a LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge and LockTone Stop Bar tailpiece, and you also get a hardshell case included.

Due to its premium features, this is a higher-end Epiphone model that comes in at $999. Find out more about its story below:

Aljon Go, Product Manager at Epiphone, says: “Lzzy has always brought a rare combination of power, precision, and unmistakable style to the stage. The Lzzy Hale Explorer Custom captures that same energy in an instrument that looks unforgettable, plays fast, and delivers the clarity and punch players need to own the moment.”

To find out more, visit the Epiphone website. Lzzy Hale is offering fans on Halestorm’s autumn 2026 North American tour the opportunity to own an autographed Explorer Custom played live on stage through a VIP experience.

The post Lzzy Hale’s dazzling new Epiphone Explorer Custom is “purpose-built for heavy music” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Johnny Marr has shared his thoughts on the bidding estimates for the guitars he’s selling through Christie’s auction house.

Announced in June, the Marr’s Guitars auction will take place on 17 September and features nearly 100 pieces from his personal collection. Though these items are definitely not cheap, Marr believes his collection will sell for a lot less than that of other pivotal players, and hopes the items will go to fans.

Consisting of almost 80 instruments, as well as amps and other bits of gear, price estimates range from £1,000 to £80,000. However, one of the items could potentially go for up to £150,000 – his 1960 Cherry Red Gibson ES-355, which he used to write The Smiths’ Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.

• READ MORE: “Okay, Hans, no need to hurt my feelings!”: Johnny Marr reveals the brutal but helpful expletive-laden advice he once got from Hans Zimmer

Speaking to Guitarist, he explains, “Well, compared with other auctions, the prices don’t look too horrible. The people who follow me might not necessarily be the same people who follow Mark Knopfler or David Gilmour. Two people I’ve got the utmost respect for. My appeal as a guitar player is coming from a different place and a different time. That’s the main reason I put a lot of my Jags in there, precisely because they’re not heritage antiques.

“My hope is that someone who’s got a regular job in Glasgow, who fancies a good guitar but wants one of mine, will be able to afford it. They’re not all tens of thousands,” Marr states.

“In the past, I’ve never regretted selling, like, one of the Playland guitars or something I used on The Messenger. Because I know it’s someone who really cares about [what I’ve done in] my career overall. It’s not just someone who wants to buy the How Soon Is Now guitar and stick it in a glass case. I want a fan to buy these guitars.”

He goes on to add, “It’s not really for me to control if someone wants to hang it up in a collection, but something tells me that isn’t going to be the case. Precisely because I come from a different culture from Jeff Beck and David Gilmour. And not to say that their fans aren’t [guitar fanatics]. But y’know, I’m an indie-rock musician and I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be an indie-rock fan who buys my guitars.”

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It’s fair to say that these prices are still very high for the regular player, but Marr raises a fair point regarding the value of Gilmour’s instruments. The Pink Floyd guitarist’s famous Black Strat holds the title of the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction, nearly tripling the previous record by selling for $14,550,000 including fees.

The guitar was sold as part of the Jim Irsay Collection auction, also via Christie’s. It originally had an estimated price of $2-4,000,000.

Marr has promised to donate 100 percent of the profits from 10 lots of his auction to a pair of charities: The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and The National Autistic Society.

Find out more about the Marr’s Guitars auction via Christie’s auction house.

The post “My hope is that someone with a regular job will be able to afford it. They’re not all tens of thousands”: Johnny Marr on his upcoming Christie’s auction appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

If you happen to be named Sebastian, well it seems you might have Sebastian Bach to thank – or at least that’s what he thinks.

The Twisted Sister singer believes there was a spike in popularity for his name in the late 1980s, but prior to his music career taking off, he recalls never hearing of anyone else with the same name as his. He even says fans have approached him over the years to tell him that their parents named them after him.

• READ MORE: “They play too many notes”: Twisted Sister’s Jay Jay French on the problem with young guitarists

Speaking to Loudwire, he says, “There’s a lot of times people come up to me and say, ‘I was named after you, my parents named me after you.’ ’cause when I was a kid, I was born in 1968, so I was in grade school in 1975/76. Let me tell you something. There was no other kid named Sebastian in the ’70s.

“I would come home almost crying to my mom, ‘Why did you name me this name? Why couldn’t you name me Joe?’ I remember saying that. My mom’s like, ‘Listen, honey, you’re gonna like it [one day].’ When I got to be like 13 getting in bands, then it was a great name!” He shares.

“Back in 1989, some fan said, ‘Sebastian, do you know about this?’ And it was [one of] these polls of popular names for boys and girls. They showed me in ’89 the in the newspaper it had the most popular names and it said Sebastian, but the year before it wasn’t even in the chart! I was the fuckin’ guy, okay? Because ’88, nothing. ’89, Sebastian was one of the top names that people were naming their kids. You’re welcome!”

You can watch the interview below:

Bach joined Twisted Sister in 2023 in place of Dee Snider. Their guitarist, Jay Jay French, has been pretty outspoken in recent years about his thoughts on rock music and its future. In fact, he’d go as far as to say it’s “dead”.

Speaking with Sean P. McKenna on Rimshots With Sean for Barstools & Bandtalk earlier this year, French said: “People say to me, ‘What makes you say rock is dead?’ Well, here’s my take on that. When I was 17 years old back in 1969, all my heroes – Beatles, Stones, Who, Zep, Floyd, Hendrix, Dylan, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane; you name it, you name ‘em all – none of them were older than 27.

“Now think about this for a second. The greatest rock artists in the history of the world, when I was 17, were no older than 10 years [older] than me. Most of them were 25 to 27. Well, I say, name me a 27-year-old rock star right now. And nobody can name one.”

He went on to add, “I’m not saying that there are no rock bands. I’m just saying that the collective psyche that dictates current music trends and sociological impact of music, it’s not showing up in the rock world in terms of mass acceptance.”

The post “I was the f**kin’ guy, okay?”: Sebastian Bach says he was the reason for a spike in popularity of the name ‘Sebastian’ in 1989 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Gretsch has added a new limited-edition Penguin model to its lineup, complete with a head-spinning Light Blue Pearl finish and a String-Thru Bigsby tailpiece.

2026 has been a big year for Gretsch so far, with new metal-ready baritone models landing in May, and limited-edition Emerald Night Falcon and Penguins arriving the month before. And continuing its hot streak, the brand has added a beautiful new Penguin model to its lineup.

• READ MORE: Gretsch G2622TG Streamliner Ltd Ed Center Block Double-Cut with Bigsby review: “There are a million and one songs trapped inside this guitar, impatiently waiting to be unleashed”

Boasting a mahogany body with an arched maple top and vintage chambering, with a striking Light Blue Pearl finish, the G6134T-58 offers a truly eye-catching take on a classic Gretsch design.

Credit: Gretsch

Elsewhere, the guitar sports a mahogany neck with a 12”-radius ebony fingerboard, with 22 medium jumbo frets, mother of pearl Neo Classic thumbnail inlays and Luminlay side dots.

Tones come by way of a pair of TV Jones Ray Butts Ful-Fidelity Filter’Tron pickups, made according to Ray’s personal notes and designs. These pickups are said to produce a tighter bass response and slightly more top end than modern Filter’Tron pickups. “The absence of wax potting results in a more open, three-dimensional sound with truly unique sparkle and exceptional dynamics,” Gretsch says.

Other features include a Space Control bridge with a pinned ebony base and a String-Thru Bigsby B3CP tailpiece, Grover Imperial tuners and chrome hardware.

Credit: Gretsch

The G6134T-58 is priced at $3,799.99, and comes with a G6238XL Gretsch deluxe hardshell case as standard.

Learn more at Gretsch.

The post This new Gretsch Penguin could be the most striking guitar of the year so far appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$2,799/£2,399, gibson.com

The 1980s were an interesting time for the guitar industry. The decade saw a new generation of players who demanded instruments that were quite a departure from the electric guitars that had been front and centre for most of the previous thirty-plus years. That in turn enabled small makers like Kramer, Charvel and Jackson to become the big-time brands they are today.

• READ MORE: Gretsch Electromatic CVT Baritone review – long-scale downtuned heaviness from Gretsch hits the mark

It was a trickier period for the established big guns, however. While Gibson had some guitars that were ready-made for this new, more aggressively styled era – notably the Explorer and Flying V most notably – both the brand and Fender understandably wanted to make some guitars that were designed for this new era.

Unfortunately, none of these new models really caught fire at the time, and you imagine that there was a collective sigh of relief in both Nashville and Corona when the 90s rolled around and MTV was replete with Golden Era guitars once again.

But time has a funny way of changing perceptions. And just like it took wider guitar culture a few decades to really appreciate the V and the Explorer, so it has been with some of the more unloved guitars from the 80s.

Image: Press

While nobody seems to be falling over themselves to demand a Corvus reissue (yet!), the Victory has long had a bit of a cult following. And looking at it with 21st-century eyes, you can see why – like so many underappreciated guitar designs, it was ahead of its time, offering a double-cut solid-body take on the Gibson recipe that has since become a huge part of the modern heavy guitar firmament.

All this meant it was a big deal when the brand relaunched the Victory into the core line back in 2024. Clearly this time around the concept has found a more receptive audience too, as it has been followed up two years later by this brand new version that puts it even more squarely in the wheelhouse of today’s technical guitar players.

What Is It?

Like its hardtail sibling, the Victory Floyd Rose is a solid-body, double-cut electric guitar with a pair of humbucking pickups, and – you guessed it – a Floyd Rose vibrato. Gibson says that the original Victory has been a big hit with its audience, but one of the most common bits of feedback was, “Can you add a Floyd Rose?” Request granted.

Other than that, it’s pretty much identical to the figured top version of the hardtail Victory. That means you get a solid mahogany body with a beautifully figured maple top, finished in either Deep Ocean Burst, Ebony Burst or the eye-catching Iguana Burst.

The neck is also mahogany, with a classic 80s hockey stick headstock. Despite its super-S-type-adjacent origins, there are no bolts here – this is a through-neck, glued-in neck construction, and interestingly the Victory comes with a longer-than-usual 25.5-inch scale length – most Gibson electrics ship with a 24.75-inch scale.

The neck itself has a shred-ready 10-14-inch compound radius, with Gibson’s SlimTaper profile, and you’ll find 24 medium jumbo frets on its mahogany fingerboard. Above the locking Floyd Rose nut are a set of Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners, not that you’ll be needing to mess around with them too much.

In terms of the noise-making stuff, the Victory ships with a pair of zebra-bobbin’d 80s Tribute humbuckers, and these both have coil-splits – pull up on the volume pot to engage the split on your selected pickup, and pull up on the tone to select whether you want the inner or outer coil.

Image: Press

Build quality and playability

Gibson has upped its game considerably in the years since the brand was reborn out of bankruptcy in 2018, and so it’s perhaps no surprise that upon pulling the Victory Floyd Rose out of its (very cool blacked-out) hard case I was very impressed with it from a build and finishing perspective.

Iguana Burst isn’t going to be to everyone’s tastes, but it’s also the sort of colour that doesn’t give any hiding place to overspray or sloppy finishing. And yet every inch of the body, neck and headstock is finished expertly, and there’s a really inviting three-dimensional quality to that figured top that really pulls you in.

Picking the guitar up, I’m immediately impressed by the offset double-cut body – it really hugs the player from an ergonomic perspective, and invites you to explore the full length of its neck. At just under 7lbs, it’s lightweight and balanced, too.

That extra scale length does make this a different kind of ride to a Les Paul – it has a little more resistance when you’re bending, for one – but this is still a very slick player that’s set up low and fast, and encourages you to blaze up and down that neck.

Speaking of the neck, I found the combination SlimTaper profile and compound radius to be slim, but not too slim. A baseball bat this obviously ain’t, but it’s not so skinny that it feels insubstantial either – a nice middle ground.

The Floyd does what a Floyd does – giving you smooth and expressive control of your vibrato while keeping perfect pitch. The less said about restringing it, the better, of course, but that is the rub when it comes to a locking trem.

One slight bone of contention might be the frets. The playability is top notch, and I found the fretwork excellent throughout – there are no dull frets or rough patches to be seen. That said, many more technically minded modern players won’t get out of bed for anything less than stainless steel these days, and jumbo ones at that. It’s not a deal-breaker for me, but others may see it as an opportunity Gibson should be taking, following the move towards stainless steel frets in its Epiphone Futura line.

Image: Press

Sounds

Gibson knows a thing or two about making great dual-humbucker guitars, and even in an unconventional format here, there’s some real Gibson magic to be found in these Alnico V-magneted 80s Tributes.

As befits their name, these are not ultra-high output modern humbuckers that are full-send all the time. There’s a nuance here – obviously these are great-sounding pickups that come ready to play with heavier rock and metal genres, but they’re not so lacking in subtlety that they don’t have character when you roll the volume off.

Ultimately though, these are pickups that are born to be distorted, and so that’s my first port of call. They sound absolutely fantastic as you dial the drive up, delivering warm harmonics and sustain with a depth that I haven’t heard from a new guitar in a while.

It’s hard to imagine too many people picking this guitar up and going for a crystal clean tone, and so it’s not a surprise that its un-gainy tones are perfectly fine, if unlikely to become the bedrock of anyone’s John Mayer tribute.

Equally, while the coil-split modes aren’t going to convince anyone that you’re playing a bona fide SSS or HSS guitar, they will do a solid job – especially in a live situation. Having the flexibility to select the inner-coils sounds is great, as they’ll do a passable out-of-phase sound, further enhancing your sonic options. This is a guitar that can cover a lot of bases without needing too much tweaking.

Image: Press

Should I Buy One?

If you’re a hard rock or metal guitarist who wants to stand out from the crowd, it’s very easy to see why the Victory is proving such a popular option. The heavier end of the spectrum doesn’t lack for weird guitar shapes, but there’s something timeless and refined about the Victory that makes it feel much more palatable. Perhaps the Gibson inlay on the headstock speaks volumes here.

Because you know what you’re getting with a Gibson guitar, and it must be said that even by modern standards, this feels like a very well-built and well-thought-out instrument. It has a level of fit and finish that I would have expected from the Custom Shop a few years back, but at a price that makes it very competitive in the world of US-made hard-rocking guitars.

Okay, it might look a little weird if you trot out with it for an Eagles cover at your next gig, but there’s a lot to be said for a guitar that understands what it is and doesn’t try to be all things to all people. You probably already know if the Victory is for you just by looking at it, and this Floyd Rose version simply puts the icing on the cake of a shredder’s delight.

Image: Press

Alternatives

 

It speaks to the impressive value proposition the Victory offers that to get a similar US-made guitar from a rival brand will cost you a lot more. Closest of all is perhaps the Jackson USA Signature Chris Broderick Soloist 6 ($5,549/£4,779) – which sports a mahogany body with a maple cap, twin DiMarzio humbuckers and a Floyd. When it comes to twin-humbucker mahogany-bodied electric guitars with flame-topped finishes, it would be remiss not to bring PRS into the conversation, though the Core line Custom 24 Floyd model is not cheap at $4,940/£3,999. More in the ballpark of the Victory is Mark Lettieri’s Fiore HH ($2,649/£2,499), though it’s just got a non-locking vibrato. ESP’s E-II Horizon FR ($2,789) is another guitar that dukes it out with the Victory in terms of build, spec and vibe. It’s made in Japan, not the USA, but that’s more a question of geography than guitar-making ability at this level.

The post Gibson Victory Floyd Rose review: “this is a fantastic addition to the Gibson line” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Bluegrass artist Billy Strings still takes guitar lessons to expand his technical horizons and venture out of his genre.

Strings obviously doesn’t need lessons, and his three Grammy Awards can prove it, but he believes working with a tutor helps him to stay curious and inspired, as he starts to “get sick” of hearing himself play.

• READ MORE: Alex Lifeson reveals the Rush song he “really struggled with” learning to play again for the band’s reunion: “My hands are not operating like they once did”

In The Interview podcast with The New York Times, he not only explains further why he takes lessons, but also demonstrates what he’s been learning within them to better his playing.

“Oh, I don’t know. I feel like I just play so many gigs and stuff, I hear myself play so much. I get sick of it, you know? Bluegrass is a lot of using this much of the fretboard,” he says, beginning to play, “I’ll occasionally slide up here, but there’s no money past the fifth fret.

“I’ve just started to try to learn some different styles of music that I never really got into, studying with my guy Rob that I’ve been taking lessons with for the last couple years… Just trying to expand my horizons, I guess.”

Hear what he’s been learning and watch him play below:

Last year, Guitar.com reviewed Billy Strings’s Martin D-X2E Signature model, and awarded it 9/10 for its playability and balanced tonality.

The model was part of a drop of two signatures with Martin, the first of which was launched at NAMM in January 2025 and was a $4,000 D-28 model, released as a love letter to his beloved 1940 D-28. The D-X2E is a more affordable option from Martin’s Remastered X-series.

Billy Strings has a new album, So Much For Goodbyes, landing on 28 August. You can pre-order it now.

The post Billy Strings explains why he’s still getting guitar lessons, despite being a Grammy-winning artist: “I hear myself play so much – I get sick of it” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Amid their Fifty Something reunion tour, Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee of Rush have revealed the hardest song that they had to relearn ahead of the shows.

After kicking off in early June, the tour is still running this August and will continue through to April next year. It sees Anika Nilles take to the drum kit following the death of Neil Peart in 2020, who is continually honoured each night on the tour.

• READ MORE: Alex Lifeson spent years “fighting for guitar rights” after this Rush song: “It’s a strong song, it’s just the mix that I didn’t like”

Speaking to Rolling Stone about their return to the stage together, Lee and Lifeson explain why they decided to bring A Farewell To Kings back into their setlist for the first time since 1979.

“We wanted to be better than we’ve ever been,” begins Lifeson. “Not just be as good as we were, and challenge ourselves with songs that we haven’t played in a long time. All of them were challenging after 11 years anyways, but to bring back A Farewell To Kings, that took a lot of work. Probably the hardest song of all.”

Lee adds, “That was the hardest one because it’s a really mental song. It’s just weird, structurally. Each part is difficult to play in and of itself. And then when you add… like even the beginning, it sounds like a walk in the park, but it’s not.

“You go into the intro, and the intro keeps changing. In the intro and the outro, beats are added, beats are dropped, and you have to remember the order that those happen in. Then you get into the opening riff. That’s a tricky riff for a guitar player to play.”

Lifeson continues, “Yeah, I really struggled with it. I’ve played classical for a long time, but I really struggled with it. My hands are not operating like they once did. I work really hard to get them to that level and it’s been pretty successful so far, I think. But to play that, like Ged said, to play that in a very smooth, delicate way, and that’s the way it is on record, while you still have another guitar draped on your sore neck, it takes a lot of gymnastics to get it all done.”

Watch the full interview below:

To view the full list of Fifty Something tour dates, head over to the official Rush website.

The post Alex Lifeson reveals the Rush song he “really struggled with” learning to play again for the band’s reunion: “My hands are not operating like they once did” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

A cancelled show is frustrating for all involved, so much so that Ghost’s Tobias Forge considered wearing a diaper during a severe case of food poisoning just so he could push through a gig – now that’s dedication.

Not your regular show, the set was one of three shows in Mexico City due to be filmed for the band’s 2 Big To Rig concert film, which lands in cinemas this August. The opening show was inevitably cancelled at the last minute when Forge couldn’t pull through, despite his best efforts.

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In an interview with Metal Hammer, Forge is asked what went down: “We flew into Mexico City five days before, just to get acclimatised to the elevation and jet lag,” he remembers. “Everything was dandy, and then came the show day. I woke up and felt weird. It takes about an hour to go from the hotel to the venue, and throughout that whole trip, I just slept. I thought I was just tired!

“When I came to the venue, I couldn’t stomach anything, everything was just flowing through me, and for every hour that went by I was getting more and more drained. And then, all of a sudden, I started puking violently. Everything, just, ‘Out, out, out!’ Everyone’s getting super-nervous: not only is the show dependent on this, but we also have a film depending on this! Fuck!”

With no other obvious cause for Forge’s sudden onset illness, it was then presumed he had a bad case of food poisoning. He recalls feeling an “incredible sense of defeat” with all that was weighing on the show ahead.

“The film is one thing, but I really don’t like cancelling shows in the first place, and I absolutely hate to cancel when the crowd is already there. I’m horizontal, and I’m like, ‘Can we get a diaper? I’m gonna give it my best!’ But I cannot stand – literally. Even if you get me up onstage, I will not be able to sing.

“Then you just have to do the rational thing: ‘Fuck this, we need to pull the plug.’ The rest of the evening, I was just lying on a stretcher with intravenous liquid going in. And then you have to handle the defeat and hope for people to understand,” he says.

Thankfully, Forge had a good team around him who knew that rest and recovery mattered most. The remaining two shows went ahead as planned as he began to get better.

You can watch the trailer for the film below:

To find out where you can catch 2 Big To Rig, head over to the Ghost website.

The post “I’m horizontal and I’m like, ‘Can we get a diaper?’”: The time Tobias Forge tried to go ahead with a Ghost show despite food poisoning appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Green Day bass player Mike Dirnt has become the latest artist to sell a trove of his used gear on Reverb.

Launching 9 September, the Official Mike Dirnt of Green Day Shop includes bass guitars, amps, clothing and other items of memorabilia used by the bassist both on tour and in the studio throughout his multi-decade career.

A selection of bass guitars headlines the collection, including two American Idiot-era Fender Mike Dirnt Signature Precision Basses – used extensively on tour and personally customised by Dirnt – another Fender bass that was one of the main instruments used on Green Day’s landmark 1997 album Nimrod, and one of Dirnt’s original Gibson Grabber basses, smashed beyond playability by drummer Tré Cool and Dirnt.

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Also up for grabs is one of the first Ampeg SVT-810 cabinets Dirnt bought with his first Green Day paycheck, and used throughout the band’s Dookie tour, one of two Yamaha G100-II amp heads used on some of Green Day’s earliest records and tours, and a selection of tour-used Mesa/Boogie amps and speaker cabs.

“I’ve found some amazing guitars and basses over the years. When you’re on tour for a long time, you’re always looking for cool gear. You’re always thinking about what could be on the next record or what do I need to play tonight or what can I find that sparks inspiration,” says Dirnt.

Credit: Reverb

“Every guitar, every bass, every amp has something different. You pick up a guitar and strum it and you think, there’s songs in this thing and I’m going to extract those songs. Then once you feel like you’ve gotten the songs or the recording out of it, it’s time to let it go and give it to the next person.”

The Official Mike Dirnt of Green Day Shop also includes a haul of clothing worn by Dirnt on tour and in Green Day music videos, including the leather bomber jacket he wore in the video for Wake Me Up When September Ends, and jackets from the 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot and ¡UNO! Tours.

“This is all stuff people have seen me wearing in the past,” Dirnt says. “If somebody wants to buy a pair of the pants and cut it, make bracelets with it, cut a patch off and put it on your jacket… that’s the coolest thing ever. It’s just fabric. Play with it. Have fun with it like I did. From me to you.” Proceeds from the sale of Mike Dirnt’s used clothing will go to charity.

This isn’t the first time Green Day gear has appeared on Reverb. Back in 2023, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong listed nearly 100 items of used gear.

The Official Mike Dirnt of Green Day Shop goes live on 9 September. You can preview the items up for grabs by heading to Reverb.

The post Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt is selling Dookie-, Nimrod- and American Idiot-era gear and clothing on Reverb appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

If you hand most guitar players a fanned fret instrument for the first time, their first reaction is probably to recoil in horror – after all, the way the frets gradually tilt forward on the fretboard as you move up the neck looks like something designed to confuse and confound your tried and tested muscle memory. And yet, more and more guitarists – especially those at the technical end of the spectrum – are using fanned frets. So what gives? Well, the answer is actually quite simple.

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In traditional guitar construction, the frets on the neck run perpendicular to the strings, parallel to each other from nut to heel. A fanned fret guitar is built differently. The frets sit at an angle, splayed out like the ribs of a folding fan, usually with the nut and bridge slanted to match. The proper name for the design is multiscale, and that name explains what is actually going on: each string gets its own scale length.

On a conventional guitar, every string shares one scale length (with slight variation at the bridge, of course). A Les Paul is 24.75 inches from nut to bridge on every string. A Strat is 25.5 inches on every string. On a multiscale instrument, the bass side is longer than the treble side. A common spec on a modern multiscale 6-string is 25.5 inches on the high E stretching to 26.5 or 27 inches on the low E. Strandberg’s standard Boden 6 runs a subtle 25 to 25.5 inches. Dingwall’s 5-string basses go much further, spanning 34 inches on the G string out to a 37-inch low B. Because each string has its own scale length, the frets need to be laid out according to that scale length, so they have to fan.

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Why Scale Length Matters In The First Place

String tension is a function of three things: pitch, string mass, and vibrating length. Tune a string to the same note on a longer scale and the tension goes up. That’s the entire reason fanned frets exist.

Every guitarist who has tuned a 25.5-inch guitar down to drop A has met the problem. The low string turns into a floppy noodle. You can fight it with heavier gauges, but heavy strings on a short scale bring their own trouble: stiff, thumpy attack, sharp fretted notes because the string deflects so much when you press it, and inharmonicity in the overtones that makes low chords sound blurry. Piano builders solved this centuries ago by giving bass strings dramatically more length than treble strings. A concert grand is, in effect, a multiscale instrument.

The obvious fix on guitar is a longer scale, which is why baritones exist. But if you stretch the whole instrument to 27 or 28 inches, you’re trading away the treble side. Bends get stiffer, the plain strings lose some warmth, and the fret spacing in the lower positions gets wide enough to annoy anyone with average hands. One scale length is always a compromise between what the low strings want and what the high strings want.

Fanned frets seek to end that compromise. The wound strings get the length and tension they need for a clear, focused low end. The plain strings stay at a familiar length where bends and vibrato feel normal. That’s the purpose of the design.

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Where The Idea Came From

Fanned frets are, contrary to popular belief, a very old concept. The orpharion, a wire-strung cousin of the cittern built in England in the late 1500s and credited to luthier John Rose, used slanted frets and an angled bridge to give its bass courses extra length. A patent for a fanned fingerboard was filed by E. A. Edgren as far back as 1900.

The modern version belongs to Ralph Novak. Working as a repairman and builder in the 1980s, Novak wanted the sweet, warm treble response of a short scale combined with the piano-like bass of a long scale on one instrument. He filed in 1988 and was awarded U.S. Patent 4,852,450 in 1989, the same year he founded Novax Guitars. Novak trademarked the term Fanned-Fret, which is why big manufacturers say multiscale instead. Charlie Hunter’s 8-string Novax hybrids were the design’s most visible early ambassadors. When the patent expired in 2008, the concept went from boutique curiosity to production reality. Ormsby, Dingwall, Strandberg, Ibanez, ESP, Jackson, Schecter, and Cort all build multiscale instruments now, and the design rode the extended-range metal boom of the 2010s into the mainstream.

Image: Adam Gasson

What It Feels Like

Somewhere in the middle of a multiscale neck sits the neutral fret, the one that remains perpendicular to the strings. Builders typically place it between the 7th and 9th frets, and its location determines how the fan is distributed. Frets below it lean toward the nut on the bass side; frets above it lean toward the bridge.

There is an added ergonomic benefit to fanned frets too. In the first position, the slanted nut end roughly matches the natural angle of a fretting hand reaching for an open chord. High up the neck the angle reverses, which suits the way the wrist rotates as it travels toward the body. Most people adapt to it with relative ease. The genuine trouble spots are big barre chords near the extremes of the fan.

There are real costs to building this way, which is why I’ve done so few of them myself. Fretwork, nut cutting, and pickup makers have to offer slanted or individual-pole designs to track the string angle properly. None of this is exotic anymore, but unless you’re building your own custom pickups, it can limit your options. For many, the benefits outweigh the costs, and that’s why we see so many fan-fretted guitars out there today.

Image: Adam Gasson

Who Actually Needs Fanned Frets

In modern settings, guitarists who play a 7-string, 8-string, or heavily downtuned 6-string are the core audience. This is because the low B, F#, or drop G is where a stretched bass scale earns its keep. Bassists chasing a tight, articulate low B are arguably served best of all, which is why Dingwall owns that conversation. If you play a standard-tuned 6-string, fanned frets solve a problem you do not have. Tension balance and intonation improve slightly, but the payoff is modest. The lower you tune and the more strings you add, the more sense the fan makes.

You’ll also occasionally see very high level acoustic guitar players – the sort who are not playing cowboy chords – using fanned fret instruments because there really is no hiding place for intonation when you’re playing virtuosic acoustic guitar!

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