Norse Guitar Feeds

$399/£369, sourceaudio.com

Let’s just get this out of the way up top: I’m typically not a fan of pedals that combine both delay and reverb. Sure, there are exceptions – the most famous being some of the many variants of the Roland RE-201 Space Echo – but the exception is not the rule.

• READ MORE: Walrus Audio Qi Etherealizer review – chorus, delay, reverb and glitchy ambient soundscapes all in one pedal

Many companies have attempted this approach with varying degrees of success, and more often than not in my experience, the trade-offs outweigh the savings in cost and real estate.

That said, I am a huge fan of lush, ambient sounds and expansive textures. Pedals like the Walrus Audio Slö or the Chase Bliss MOOD have long been staples in my ambient arsenal. Despite my general reservations about the concept then, Source Audio’s latest hybrid offering – the Encounter – certainly piqued my interest.

Part of this is because Source’s previous attempt to fuse delay and reverb – the superlative Collider – was an ambient guitarist’s dream. Can it be two in a row?

Source Audio Encounter – what is it?

Ostensibly the Encounter is a very similar experience to the Collider – it has the same basic format of two footswitchable sides for reverb and delay, and a centralised rotary that selects which delay and reverb algorithm you’re currently using.

While the Collider was a fusion of the usual suspects of delay and reverb however, the Encounter is exclusively dealing in the most ambient and weird sounds you can find – there’s no room, spring, tape or the like here.

Instead you’ll find the likes of Hypersphere, Kaleidoscope, Trem Verb and Noise Tape – quite what those actually mean, well – you’ll need to take a look at the manual. The delay and reverb sections can be combined or run independently of the other, and the dry signal is routed around the signal processor for applications that demand unaffected tones via parallel routing. There’s also a 100 per cent wet/dry control for those effect-loop junkies.

Other highlights include onboard expression compatibility with depth and direction control, as well as complete MIDI functionality via 5-pin MIDI DIN input and thru jacks. The pedal offers eight onboard presets, with access to a total of 128 presets via MIDI.

If you want to unlock even more tweakability however, you can pair the pedal with Source Audio’s Neuro 3 smartphone app. This enables deep effect editing, MIDI control, interchangeable algorithms, preset sharing, and a wealth of other features – many of which are crucial for anyone looking to truly harness the full potential of this pedal.

Source Audio Encounter – usability and sounds

So, enough of the Star Trek technobabble – how does this thing actually sound? And is it too atmospheric for the normie who just wants a really good time-based pedal? To answer that hypothetical question, I grabbed a Jazzmaster and plugged it straight into a Vox AC15 to put it through its paces.

Before exploring the fusion food element of this particular meal, I decided to test each side on its own. I found the results to be both immediate and delightfully head-scratching.

For instance, one of my favorite delays – the Kaleidoscope – proved to be distinct from any kind of echo I’ve encountered before, but quite hard to describe. The best way I can think of is to imagine that your repeats have been chopped up and then sent down a giant helter skelter. It sounds strange, I know, but it’s immensely rewarding and enjoyable in practice.

Another standout delay is the expertly crafted Noise Tape, which is based on the tape delay section of the aforementioned Space Echo. I found this Space Echo emulation to be both dynamic and nearly identical to my actual 1984 RE-201. With a bit of modulation dialed in, I found myself channeling my inner Kid A almost by default – I would wager it’s the sound that the majority of us would use most frequently.

If the delays are fun and weird, the reverbs take things to a whole new level. The Hypersphere algorithm, for example, might be the closest we’ll ever get to hearing what the natural reverb of the universe sounds like. A wonderfully blooming effect that expands in all directions at once.

As you’d expect from an atmospheric pedal, there’s a fair helping of varied shimmer algorithms. These don’t necessarily reinvent the shimmer formula, but they’re tonally distinct enough to satisfy either the hardcore Sigur Rós enthusiast or those simply looking to add a slightly pitched, angelic voice to their Sunday service.

The Encounter’s greatest strength truly reveals itself when you combine delay and reverb to create richly atmospheric, creatively inspiring textures that ebb and flow between luscious sound pads and almost sequence-like lo-fi patterns.

One of my favorite pairings is the Drum Delay coupled with the Lo-Fi Reverb. This combination is perhaps the best starting point for ambient newcomers: you still get a touch of that ambient warble, but the drum delay remains straightforward enough to be usable in virtually any musical context.

When it comes to editing and saving presets, Source Audio has taken a refreshingly straightforward approach, offering both onboard editing and deep control via the Neuro 3 app. I found Neuro 3 to be especially intuitive in its design – the GUI is visually pleasing, easy to navigate, and thoughtfully laid out. In a world of overly-complicated app-based solutions, it’s nice to use something that doesn’t require a doctorate to get to grips with.

Source Audio Encounter – usability and sounds

So, did the Encounter change my mind about dual delay/reverb pedals? Certainly in this case, absolutely. It’s a pedal that builds upon the original concept of the Collider and takes it in a far more adventurous, sonically lush direction.

While there’s usually some sort of compromise in these sorts of pedals, by making it squarely focused on creating ambient textures does negate that impressively – as an all-in-one ambient unit, it might be the only one most of us ever need.

The flipside of this is that it’s certainly not cheap – at very nearly $400 you can definitely ask yourself whether that money would be better spent on two independent pedals, especially if your needs aren’t as esoteric as what’s on offer here.

But for its intended soundscape-y, textural audience, it’s one of the most sonically adventurous pedals you can get – and that’s well worth the price of entry.

While I initially had my apprehensions, Source Audio more than delivered, creating a pedal that could very well be the only ambient unit most players will ever need.

At $400, it’s certainly a significant ask for those simply looking for a straightforward delay/reverb combo. However, for the audience the Encounter is clearly aimed at, it stands as one of the most sonically adventurous pedals I’ve ever played – and that alone more than justifies the asking price.

Like this? Try these

• Del-Verb Ambience Companion by Universal Audio
• Qi Etherealizer by Walrus Audio
• M309 Joshua Ambient Echo by MXR

The post Source Audio Encounter review: “one of the most sonically adventurous pedals I’ve ever played” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.



On this week’s podcast, UK-based author and guitar fanatic John Stubbings returns to tell us all about his new book, ‘The Guitar Detective.’ The follow-up to his monumental ‘The Devil Is In It’ publishing project, ‘The Guitar Detective’ is a “non-fiction novel” based around a riveting guitar mystery.

We discuss the format John chose for this book, his inspiration for the story, and so much more.

Order ‘The Guitar Detective’ here: https://orpharionpress.com/

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

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

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

Stringjoy Strings: https://stringjoy.com

The post Podcast 531: Author John Stubbings first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

The constant drumbeat of AI reporting, of which this column is ironically a part, vacillates between heaven and hell, utopia and dystopia, and everything in between. For those guitarists and songwriters who choose to ignore this important subject, I recommend watching Rick Beato’s YouTube video titled “I'm Sorry...This New Artist Completely Sucks” for a quick overview on where things stand in this last quarter of 2025. While the current state-of-the-art capabilities are advancing at an incredible pace, I can’t help but look backwards for clues as to how instructive or destructive this whole thing might be. The question at hand is not only whether this technology will bury us in crap music, but what it means to be a musician or a songwriter.

The most knee-jerk fear is that AI music will eliminate the need for musicians and instruments—or, for that matter, recording studios as we know them. Naysayers point to the growing percentage of computer generated music now flooding streaming platforms and predict that this content will eventually drown out practicing musicians. It’s already hard enough to get your music noticed, and even harder to generate a living wage by monetizing your output. This isn’t a new trend for bands, who have seen recording sales drop. At the same time, streaming income is so low that live gigs and merch are their biggest sources of revenue. The worry is that AI supercharges this slide into bankruptcy by creating a flooded zone of music that propagates at a magnitude beyond what “real” musicians can offer. In this scenario, a rising tide doesn’t float all boats.

Alongside my romantic relationship with the past, I have long embraced technology in a lot of areas of my life and work. I don’t see that CNC woodworking equipment can’t exist peacefully right beside my chisels and gouges. I enjoy my FLAC files as much as my vinyl. A digital device allows me to program bass and drums accompaniments on the fly to play along with. Guitarists that I admire for their creativity and sound routinely employ emulation electronics to provide an enormous palette of vintage and modern tones. Their music doesn’t suffer for bypassing the tweed Harvard and properly placed ribbon mic. So, in a way, I see the AI music tools as progeny to my first fuzz pedal, or digital recording software.

“What if music became so easy to make—and so ubiquitous—that most people lost interest in creating it?”

Still, this new frontier feels different. No knowledge of music or poetic word-craft is in order. Barely a reason to express human emotion or thought need be involved—only prompts. If musicians alone had access to this new software for making music, we might not fear the reaper. The difference now is that the democratization of creation is the Trojan horse in our musical Troy.

So what are the next steps? Despite the fact that huge crowds are content to pay money to be bombarded with sound generated by a DJ with a laptop, live gigs are still a viable outlet for musicians. Although it’s hard to break even, let alone profit, on ticket sales for small- and medium-sized gigs, the connection to a fanbase along with merch sales is still essential. It will be some time before AI generated “artists” can routinely be holograms on a concert stage, but I see this as a possibility. If you think that audience acceptance of this is fantasy, read up on the current rise of AI romantic relationships—weird stuff.

The thought occurred that maybe a reset is in order, and this is the cycle at work. What if music became so easy to make—and so ubiquitous—that most people lost interest in creating it? If you can’t make money or become famous due to the sheer enormity of competing content, what would be the incentive? Would people dabbling with AI music move on to the next influencer fad and leave the playing field barren? Could we return to a place where only those of us who have to play music are left? Or are we doomed to be engulfed in a kind of algorithmic elevator music dressed up as the next big thing?

My hope is that musicians who are compelled to create art will survive because it’s in their blood, and real music will triumph in the end. The visceral feeling of a guitar vibrating against your body will endure. Maybe this is all wishful thinking from an irrelevant geezer guitarist, but at least we can dream—which is the whole point, isn’t it?

Legendary Grateful Dead founding member and guitarist Bob Weir has died, his family has announced. He was 78, and had been undergoing treatment for cancer since last year.

In a statement posted to Instagram, Weir’s family paid tribute to the hugely influential musician, stating: “It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir. He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”

Weir co-founded the Grateful Dead in 1965 alongside fellow guitarist Jerry Garcia. The Dead would become a hugely influential and enduring musical force that transcended the San Francisco counterculture they grew out of. They would go on to become the greatest jam band of them all, with a songbook of timeless classics and an army of devoted fans – Deadheads – that continued to grow and diversify with each passing generation.

The Grateful Dead were a remarkable anachronism in American music. They had just one Top 40 hit in their entire career (1987’s Touch of Grey). But were one of the most popular and enduring touring acts in the country, emphasising the remarkable power of the Dead’s live experience and the unique community it fostered.

The Grateful Dead proper ended with the untimely passing of Jerry Garcia in 1995, but Weir and other surviving members of the band continued to tour and keep the music alive – first as The Other Ones and then, from 2010, teaming up with John Mayer to form Dead & Co.

Dead & Co would bring the magic of the Greatful Dead’s music to a whole new generation, leading to sold-out tours until 2022, a remarkable Las Vegas Sphere residency in 2024 and finally, a three-day hometown run at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in July 2025 that marked 60 years of The Dead, and would be an unplanned but fitting coda to Weir’s incredible legacy.

Unsurprisingly given the huge impact he had on American music, the guitar world united from all corners to pay tribute to Weir as news of his passing broke.

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“He was always ready to ‘Kick up a fuss’,” wrote bluegrass phenom Billy Strings on Instagram. “He always had boundless time and knowledge to share with everyone and was truly one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. The world is a better place because of him. I’m extremely grateful to have crossed paths with him in this life.”

“This guy was such a hero,” wrote Heart’s Nancy Wilson. “The world is a sadder place without him in it. He spread a lifetime of magic around and always had that twinkle of good nature in his eyes. His good vibrations will never end. He gave such a gift to us all.”

Phish’s Trey Anastasio paid heartfelt tribute to Weir in a lengthy post on Instagram, but was keen to highlight his modesty and self-depracating sense of humour: “Bobby was completely allergic to compliments in the most endearing way. I’d say, ‘Man, that guitar riff you were doing on that song sounded really killer’ and he’d respond, ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll fuck it up next time.’ I loved that about him.”

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Don Was, who played with Weir in the Wolf Bros highlighted the power Weir as a live musician, “Night after night, he taught us how to approach music with fearlessness and unbridled soul – pushing us beyond what we thought was musically possible,” he wrote. “Every show was a transcendent adventure into the unknown. Every note he played and every word he sang was designed to bring comfort and joy to our audiences.”

Maggie Rogers was another paying tribute to Weir’s embracing of young musicians: “This man showed me so much kindness so early in my career,” she wrote. “And welcomed me into a spirit of making music that has everything to do with community and connection and soul, and always with a twinkling of perfect mischief at the edges.”

Joe Satriani simply and poignantly posted, “It was an honour to know you and share the stage with you.”

Weir’s passing follows on from the death of bassist Phil Lesh in 2024, and leaves drummer Bill Kreutzmann as the only surviving founding member of the band. Regardless, Weir’s family believes that it was his dream and wish that the band’s music carried on long after him.

“There is no final curtain here, not really,” wrote the family’s statement on Instagram. “Only the sense of someone setting off again. He often spoke of a three-hundred-year legacy, determined to ensure the songbook would endure long after him. May that dream live on through future generations of Dead Heads. And so we send him off the way he sent so many of us on our way: with a farewell that isn’t an ending, but a blessing. A reward for a life worth livin’.”

The post Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir dies aged 78 – the guitar world reacts to the passing of a legend appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Bob Weir, the guitarist and singer who co-founded the Grateful Dead and spent more than half a century carrying forward the band's improvisational spirit, died Saturday after battling cancer and underlying lung issues. He was 78.

Weir's family confirmed his death in a statement posted to social media, revealing that he had been diagnosed with cancer in July and began treatment just weeks before Dead & Company performed three nights at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park—shows that marked 60 years since the Grateful Dead's formation and became Weir's final performances.

"He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could," the statement read. "Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues."

Born in San Francisco in 1947, Weir crossed paths with banjo player Jerry Garcia as a teenager at Dana Morgan's Music Store, an encounter that led to the formation of the Grateful Dead. For three decades, his rhythm guitar work and songwriting helped define the band's sound and improvisational approach. After Garcia's death in 1995, Weir kept the Dead's legacy alive through groups including the Other Ones, Furthur, and Dead & Company, the latter featuring guitarist John Mayer.

Weir remained an evolving artist to the end. When I spoke with him last year just prior to Dead & Company's second Sphere residency, he described himself as perpetually changing. "I always do that," he said. "I wake up in the morning and I'm kind of different. You take all those mornings that I woke up kind of different and you add 'em together, and after a while, you start amounting to a different guy."

For the same story, Mayer, reflecting on a decade of performing alongside Weir, spoke of the profound impact of his musical approach. "The thing I've learned from Bob is to let it breathe," he said. "And that's changed my playing a lot."

"Bobby's final months reflected the same spirit that defined his life," his family wrote on social media. "Those [Golden Gate Park] performances, emotional, soulful, and full of light, were not farewells, but gifts. Another act of resilience."

In this lesson, Shawn Persinger shows us how to understand the essential elements of chords and use them to build riffs.

Expanding their line of powerful Pico-sized pedals, Electro-Harmonix has released the Pico Intelligent Harmony Machine. Like its full-sized counterpart, the Pico IHM follows your single note melodies to create multi-voiced diatonic harmonies. Set the pedal to any key to produce rich 2- and 3-part harmonies with ease.

Housed in the space-saving EHX Pico chassis, the Pico Intelligent Harmony Machine brings harmony to any pedalboard and boasts a simple control layout. The KEY knob and # button set the harmonic key while the INTERVAL knob selects from 10 different harmony interval modes. DUAL mode adds a second voice to the harmony producing lush 3-part harmonies. MIX and VOL knobs adjust wet/dry blend and overall output volume respectively. Just like all Electro-Harmonix pitch shifters and harmony machines, the Pico IHM features lightning-fast tracking that stays tight even with the speediest of licks.

The Pico Intelligent Harmony Machine ships with standard EHX 9V power supply and is available now with a U.S. Street Price of $149.00.

By all accounts, Treaty Oak Revival is doing a lot of things right. Over the past five years, the Odessa, Texas-based “rock band with a country accent” has issued two self-released, Gold-certified albums (2021’s No Vacancy and 2023’s Have a Nice Day), a host of Gold and Platinum singles, racked up over 1.4 billion global streams, and have played both the Grand Ole Opry and Lollapalooza.

Last October, the band made its first trip outside the United States on their four-stop “Treaty Oak Revival Takes Australia” headline run of dates Down Under. But what lead guitarist Jeremiah Vanley wants to talk about isn’t how the group sold out Melbourne’s 5,000-seat Hordern Pavilion; instead, he’s psyched about the time they played for 30 people in a Sydney bar.

“It was this girl’s birthday, and as it turned out, everybody in the place was a big fan of ours,” Jeremiah says. “They had a drum set and a sound system, so we just said, ‘Okay, we’ll get our guitars and play.’ It turned into our first pop-up show, and it was great. More and more we’re playing big places, but I still love a good club feel.”

Before he set foot on any kind of stage, Jeremiah was perfectly happy jamming with his buddies—bassist Andrew Carey and drummer Cody Holloway—in the back room of an Odessa vacuum cleaner repair shop. They called themselves Free Spirit, and on Tuesday and Wednesday nights they’d get together to drink Fireball Whisky and cut loose on classic rock covers. Eventually, they were joined on guitar by Jeremiah’s nephew Lance, who had just graduated from music school and was looking for something to do.

“They had about 10 cover tunes together,” Lance recalls. “It was kind of a crazy jam band—they did everything from ‘Free Bird’ to Fleetwood Mac to Van Halen. Jeremiah can shred on that stuff. It’s funny, ’cause the two of us never played together that much while I was growing up, but it felt really natural when we played in the vacuum shop.”

Jeremiah Vanley’s Gear

Guitars

• Gibson Les Paul Standard
• EVH Wolfgang USA

Amp

• Neural DSP Quad Cortex (Brit Plexi 50 model)

Effects

• Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer
• MXR EVH Phase 90
• Morley Bad Horsie Wah

Strings, Picks and Cables

• D’Addario NYXL or Ernie Ball (.010–.050)
• Dunlop Flow 1.5 mm picks
• “Whatever cables we have”

The two Vanleys couldn’t be more different. While Lance started playing guitar at age nine and studied music theory in college, Jeremiah, older by 10 years, didn’t pick up the guitar until he was 18—and never took so much as one lesson. Lance grew up listening to rock, jazz, hip-hop and R&B; he calls John Mayer one of his biggest influences. “I love his rhythm playing and the way he builds songs,” he says.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, cites Metallica, Pantera, and Van Halen as his prime inspirations. “I still listen to Eddie Van Halen and have my mind blown,” he says. “It’s like, ‘How did he come up with all that amazing stuff?’” Interestingly, it’s self-taught Jeremiah who shoulders lead guitar duties in the band, while Lance is content to play in-the-pocket rhythm. “Jeremiah’s a shredder—he can just rip all night long,” Lance says. “I don’t mind playing rhythm guitar. A good band needs a solid rhythm guy. It’s really important.”

“More and more we're playing big places, but I still love a good club feel.”—Jeremiah Vanley

Shortly after Lance joined Free Spirit, singer Sam Canty came by the vacuum shop, and that’s when things got serious. “Sam had a cool stage presence about him, and he could sing really well, but we were like, ‘Wow, he’s pretty country,’” Jeremiah says. “We did some covers with him, and then he pulled out his original tunes. He played ‘Boomtown,’ and we were knocked out. We looked at each other and said, ‘We could do something with this.’ So we became more of a Texas country-rock band.”

Originally, both Vanleys played Telecasters through Fender amps, but that changed when Canty suggested that the band—rechristened Treaty Oak Revival in honor of the Treaty Oak in Austin—should forge a heavier sound. Jeremiah required no arm twisting. “I already had a Les Paul, so I went out and bought a Marshall amp,” he says. “Once I plugged that in, we got a grungier rock sound.”

“It made a huge difference,” Lance says. “With Jeremiah on the Les Paul, everything started to fall into place.”

​Lance Vanley’s Gear

Guitar

• Reverend Stacey Dee Signature
• Reverend Charger Jr.

Amp

• Morgan AC20 Kemper Profile

Effects

• “All of my effects are in the Kemper”

Strings, Picks and Cables

• D’Addario NYXL (.011–.049)
• Dunlop Tortex 0.71 mm picks
• “We have a mix of cables—D’Addario and potentially Ernie Ball.”

The group started playing live, and their sound got tougher still—walls of bone-rattling power chords and flame-broiled riffs that provided turbulent canvases for Canty’s richly detailed narratives. The combination of revamped post-grunge and red-dirt Americana worked like a charm on TOR’s first two albums; songs like “Missed Call” and “See You in Court” went down like musical comfort food. Fifty-somethings could revel in rip-roaring ’90s nostalgia, while their kids could claim the band as their own without embarrassment.

Treaty Oak Revival’s newest album, West Texas Degenerate, is their grittiest, grungiest effort yet—at times, Canty’s twangy vocals are the only country element to be heard. The mean-spirited “Shit Heel” packs the guitar wallop of Everything Zen-era Bush, and the bruising title track could have fit alongside Pearl Jam, STP, or Everclear on any 1995 alternative radio playlist. The tone and style shift on “Bad State of Mind”—it’s a decidedly modern country affair, but even here its gloomy main riff owes more to the Pacific Northwest than, say, Music Row. “I came up with that opening bit,” Lance says. “I tend to be more of the riff guy. If there’s something that continues throughout a track, that’s usually me.”

“Jeremiah’s a shredder—he can just rip all night long. I don't mind playing rhythm guitar. A good band needs a solid rhythm guy.”—Lance Vanley

Jeremiah, meanwhile, snarls and snorts throughout the record. He’s like a “greatest hits” of classic rock, metal, and alt-rock licks and solos—there’s a pinch of Zakk here, a touch of VH there, a smidgen of Joe Walsh over there, and a sprinkle of Mike McCready for good measure—but he’s incorporated it all into his playing in an authentic and personal manner. Onstage, he’s a great showman (there’s a theatrical flair to his playing that would be absurd were he not so damn confident), and when he lets loose with a bracing, arena-ready solo on “Port A,” he’s letting you in on the excitement he feels.

“There’s a lot of improv going on in my solos, and it can take me anywhere from three to 15 takes to get something down, depending on how difficult it is,” Jeremiah says. “We go through the takes and pick out parts that sound good. It can’t be just some melodic, weird thing—it’s got to fit the song. I think everything we’ve done collectively fits well on this record. It’s worth listening to more than once.”

January 9, 2026 Heading in to the New Year I have had duets on my mind. Part of this is due to our recent lesson on Snap A Little Owl by John Renbourn and Stefan Grossman, That had me revisiting other duets of theirs and an old one of my own. This Update opened with […]

The post Totally Guitars Weekly Update January 9, 2026 appeared first on On The Beat with Totally Guitars.

Collision Devices has introduced a new line of pedals designed to be fun, tiny and useful while also being accessible: the Snack Series Fuzz, Pitcher and Delay are the first three effects in the new collection.

Snack Series is connected to the Collision Devices’ story which started with the Black Hole Symmetry first. This story of a space travel kept going with the following devices like Nocturnal, TARS DLX and Crushturnal. Now, Snack Series pedals are seen as little snacks people can take from their pockets when doing space travels. Each one has been designed with a specific purpose, Snack Fuzz as an energy boost. Snack Delay to reduce the effect of time while travelling, and Snack Pitcher to get through huge space distances.

Each Snack Series pedal has the following features:

• A new original enclosure designed to fit any pedalboard (130mm x 50mm x 60mm)
• Three presets to make it easy to save and load your preferences
• Expression pedal you can assign to any control
• A “magic” knob introducing some variations and glitches in the audio effects

The Snack Fuzz comes with these three presets :

• SOFT (analog style distortion)
• MID (dephased parallel fuzz)
• HARD (bit fuzzer)
• The Snack Delay comes with these three presets :
• TAPE (tape modulated delay)
• CRUSH (digital delay with bit crusher)
• GLITCH (glitched delay with pitch shifted feedback)

The Snack Pitcher comes with these three presets :

• OCT (octave pitch shifter)
• SHIFT (pitch drifter)
• ARP (pitch sequencer)

Each of the three Collision Devices Snack Series pedals carries a $190 street price and all three are available at collisiondevices.com.

Cort Guitars announces the release of the KX600 Infinite, a new addition to its acclaimed KX Series of modern electric guitars. Built for players who demand exceptional sustain, modern tone, and uncompromising performance, the KX600 Infinite combines advanced tonewood construction with premium components to deliver a boutique feel in a production instrument. Available now worldwide through authorized Cort dealers and online retailers, the KX600 Infinite is designed for the stage, the studio, and beyond.

The KX600 Infinite features neck-thru-body construction for superior sustain and tone, with a basswood body that provides a balanced foundation and a smooth, resonant midrange response. Its 5-piece roasted maple and walnut neck ensures enhanced stability and resonance, while the roasted maple improves both feel and durability. The neck’s sculpted profile and 25.5” (648mm) scale length provide a fast, comfortable playing experience. The guitar is equipped with stainless steel jumbo frets on a precisely radiused fingerboard for effortless technical playability and long-lasting performance. Added refinements include Graph Tech® Black TUSQ nut (43mm width) for improved sustain and harmonic richness, and two striking finishes, Orange Crush Satin (OCS) and Black Satin (BKS), offering players a choice between bold and understated aesthetics.

For electronics, the KX600 Infinite is armed with a set of Fishman® Fluence Modern pickups, delivering innovative tonal versatility with clarity and punch suited for today’s players. The control layout is simple yet powerful, featuring a single volume knob with push-pull functionality and a 3-way selector switch, allowing seamless access to a wide tonal palette for both rhythm and lead work.

Hardware appointments include Cort Locking Tuners for quick, precise, and stable tuning, and a Cort Hardtail bridge that also enhances sustain and tuning reliability. Combined with the durable stainless-steel frets and the Graph Tech® nut, the KX600 Infinite is engineered for precision under demanding live and studio conditions.

The new KX600 Infinite is the next evolution of the KX Series — a perfect balance of sustain, power, and precision.

For full specifications and availability, visit www.cortguitars.com.

Or visit us at NAMM in Booth #6810

Street Price: $1399.99 USD

PRS has shared a video to Instagram that suggests something related to the late and great Ted McCarty will land this month.

Although no details have yet been confirmed, it sure looks like either a new product or possibly a documentary exploring the life and legacy of McCarty will be landing on 22 January – just in time for this year’s NAMM event.

• READ MORE: “One of the main goals with these parts is to not subtract from the beautiful sound the strings are trying to make”: Paul Reed Smith explains how hardware impacts guitar tone

The video recaps how the original McCarty model first released in 1994 was unveiled at the NAMM show, and features footage of McCarty discussing how the guitar came to be: “One day, Paul met me at the trade show in New York. We talked about guitars and he said, ‘how about if we make a Ted McCarty guitar?’

“I said, ‘well, perhaps it would be fine. And I would be very thrilled and honoured to have one of your guitars with my name on it, but who’s gonna buy it? Because I’m not a musician, I don’t go around and play guitars.’ Paul said that he didn’t think I knew quite the reputation that I had,” McCarty concludes in the footage.

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Ted McCarty was a pioneer of the electric guitar and the musical instrument industry. He was president of Gibson during its “golden age”, and became a longtime friend and mentor to Paul Reed Smith of PRS.

In the late 1980s, Paul Reed Smith asked McCarty to consult with him on guitar design and production techniques, and in 1994, PRS released the first McCarty guitar. Over the years since, the brand has launched a number of McCarty models across its brand.

More recently, PRS launched a 40th Anniversary McCarty SC56 Limited Edition model in summer 2025 – a single-cutaway model that was both “a tribute to tradition and a modern performer’s dream” – limited to just 400 pieces worldwide. It also launched McCarty III pickups last year: vintage-inspired humbuckers that bring a vocal clarity to their full, warm tone.

Whatever it might be, PRS says the Ted McCarty news will land on 22 January. You can view its full product line up over at PRS Guitars in the meantime.

The post Is PRS teasing another McCarty model for this year’s NAMM Show? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When people say things like, “They don’t make ’em like that anymore,” I think of two production runs that began in 1974: the Volvo 200 series, which lasted until 1993, and the Roland Space Echo, which saw its final unit manufactured in 1990.

One afternoon 15 years ago, I packed up my VW Golf and was on my way to record a trio gig somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles. I pulled up behind a Volvo station wagon and Nels Cline got out. He opened the giant semi-rectangular trunk and took out his amp, guitar, and pedals. I was visibly amazed at the space inside. “The Swedish pickup truck!” Nels proclaimed as he slammed the metal door shut and we loaded in for the afternoon.

A while later, I bought my own 1989 Volvo 245 wagon (the four-door sedan model was the 240). One benefit of a 19-year production run was that you could drive to a local pick-a-part and take whatever you needed from a junker unit, and it just worked. Need a new rear-tail-lamp assembly? Ten dollars and a screwdriver will solve that problem. Missing the plastic cover over the emergency brake between the front seats? There are plenty out there to choose from. My old mechanic Russell (who also worked on Josh Freese’s Volvo 240) told me that he loved working on them because after 20 years, parts were still easy to find and he could easily move around inside the engine compartment.

One summer workday, my Isuzu box truck broke down and I loaded more than a dozen produce orders into the back of my 245 wagon. I left the South Bay and drove into the Valley. I finished the route, and by the time I was heading down Ventura Boulevard toward the freeway, there was smoke coming from under the hood. I jumped on the 405 South and kept an eye on my hovering temperature gauge. After a Sorcerer-like two hours in the slow lane, I was back home. The Swedish pickup never overheated or died on me. A day later, Russell told me there was a quarter-sized hole in the engine compartment, and then he repaired it.

“There are few sounds that could not be improved by adding a little tape echo, chorus, and/or spring reverb.”

Similarly, a Space Echo might not work perfectly, but it will still get the job done. Worn-out tape? Unscrew the top plate and replace it yourself. Echoes not self-oscillating? Try adjusting the trim pots. No high end on the echo? Get some 90% isopropyl alcohol and Q-tips on those tape heads! Broken spring reverb? Open it up and throw a new tank in there. Plenty of room to move around.

Like the Volvo 200 series, the Roland Space Echo came in a few simple variations: the classic three-head RE-201; the stripped-down RE-101 and 150, which omitted the spring reverb, EQ, and a tape head; the RE-301, which added a chorus circuit; and, finally, the RE-501/SRE-555. I have owned all of them, and the one I’ve used the most is my beloved SRE-555 rackmount unit.

I’ll tell you why:

I am one of those people who thinks there are few sounds that could not be improved by adding a little tape echo, chorus, and/or spring reverb. Once, when recording electric guitar overdubs on singer-songwriter Eamon Fogarty’s song “Utopia In Blue,” I set up a mic on the amp and a mic in the lobby of the studio, and I sent that distant microphone into the Chorus Echo. The result was a beautiful triangulation: the immediate amp guitar panned just off center, the distant mic panned left, and the tape echo’d distant mic panned hard right. For every strum, I was rewarded with three distinct sounds. For my purposes, the balanced XLR ins and outs of the 501 and 555 facilitate ease of use. I always have them operating at line level on an auxiliary send from a mixer or console, and it’s always “Aux 1.”

Sometimes a tool is so well made that even the routine feels inspired. The Volvo 245 wagon was outfitted with an optional rear-facing third row seat. I can’t tell you how fun it is to take a road trip with kids who are looking into the eyes of the driver behind you. Likewise, the Roland Chorus Echo invites you to experiment with combinations of sound. During a session for Cherry Glazerr’s cover of Leonard Cohen's “I’m Your Man,” I solo’d the drums and used the repeat rate to sync the Chorus Echo to the song’s tempo. Then, I took the echo off the drums and put it on Clem [frontwoman Clementine Creevy]’s electric guitar. She loved the sound and it transformed the guitar part. I printed the echo and went back to use a short slap on her lead vocal, which you can hear in the final mix (if you can find it).In this digital age, I will be the first to admit, “If it sounds good, it is good.” That said, there are a few pieces of analog outboard gear that I find irreplaceable. My Volvo 245 has long since retired from the road, and yet, the Roland Chorus Echo SRE-555 carries on.

We travel to the southwest Chicago suburbs to visit Best-Tronics to see how they design, build, and assure premium quality for their pedalboards, pro audio racks, input splitters, cables, big-rig setups, and all things tone. Join along as John Bohlinger gets the full breakdown of everything they do at BTPA.

[Editor’s note: I’m fortunate enough to get many guitars across my desk to review, but as a metal player, few impressed me last year quite like the Sterling By Music Man Kaizen 6. The quirky, prog-metal geared offset impressed me so much, in fact, that I gave it 9/10 in my review, and even included it in our roundup of the best new guitar gear of 2025. But is the all-new prog-focused Ibanez Alpha Series set to take its crown? It certainly looks a strong contender, and I’ll pass you on to my colleague, Rachel, to tell you all about the radically innovative new series… – Sam, News Editor]

Ibanez has launched a new lineup of prog-rock-ready electric guitars, the Alpha Series, offering seven or eight strings and contemporary body styles.

The Alpha series is described by Ibanez as being “forged for the modern, cutting-edge guitar player”. It says they “boast an array of truly unique and contemporary features”, including an ergonomically designed body silhouette and contours, and claims that the series “won’t just change how you approach playing; it will open completely new horizons for your music.”

• READ MORE: Extending the range – the essential guide to seven-string guitars

The aesthetics of the Alpha models appear to be Ibanez’s answer to modern shred culture booming online, with progressive rock and metal causing new trends and desires to emerge among guitarists. The Alpha models were developed with both 7- and 8-string multi-scale configurations in mind, tailored to technically advanced players who may want to play around with tuning and expressive playing techniques.

Both the seven-string A527 and eight-string A528 offer a three-dimensional structure designed through “extensive analysis of ergonomics and playing posture”. Each also has a three-screw neck joint design — utilising two screws mounted within an oval-shaped stainless-steel plate, and one additional screw driven directly from the body into the neck – for better joint strength and improved access to the high frets.

The guitars are fitted with Fishman Fluence Modern humbuckers, accompanied by a Fishman Fluency Voicing switch. Three finishes are on offer: Iron Pewter, Nebula Shift and Coral Mirage. Check out the videos below for more:

The features implemented in these guitars certainly echo that of Abasi Concepts and other modern brands including Kiesel and Strandberg. Tosin Abasi of prog outfit Animals As Leaders founded Abasi Concepts in 2017, with a focus on ergonomic design. Abasi had also worked with Ibanez on a prototype signature the year prior, and more recently teamed up with Ernie Ball Music Man on the Kaizen in 2022.

The seven-string Ibanez Alpha model has an estimated price of $1,899, while the eight-string comes in around $1,999. Find out more about the range via Ibanez. 

The post The Sterling Kaizen was my favourite guitar of 2025 – but it looks like the new Ibanez Alpha Series is coming for the crown appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Peavey Electronics® is always thinking about the customer and this time, they’ve made touring life a whole lot easier with their new MegaBass 410 and 115 speaker cabinets. With reduced weight, more durable construction, and pop-out casters included, these new cabinets are compatible with any bass head and deliver bass the way it is supposed to be…felt. Not stale through a digital modeler or direct to the board.

The long standing miniMEGA™ series of bass amplifiers from Peavey® have always been a staple of bass rigs worldwide for a number of years. These new cabinets are an extension of that design philosophy and bring new building techniques for a more convenient experience. Four heavy-duty 10” neodymium woofers deliver that nice tight, bottom end at a nominal impedance of 8 ohms and a power handling of 1200 watts program and 2400 watts peak. A 1” diaphragm compression driver, horn-loaded tweeter with adjustable level control delivers full range bass performance.

The MegaBass 115 houses a 15” BW speaker and includes a 1” diaphragm compression driver, horn-loaded tweeter with adjustable level control to allow the cabinet to be used as a standalone unit or in combination with the MegaBass 410. To deliver the gut punching low end, the MegaBass 115 also runs at a nominal impedance of 8 ohms and a power handling of 1200 watts program and 2400 watts peak.

The ultra-light weight ported cabinet design uses a reinforced plywood construction to keep weight down and long-lasting performance up. Black vinyl covering, heavy-duty steel hardware, and an eye-catching power coated metal grille will keep these cabinets performing night after night for years on the road. And with recessed, spring-loaded handles and pop-out casters included, load-in and load-out is a breeze. Two twist-lock combo inputs ensure solid signal performance every time.

For more information booth 210A at NAMM, or online at www.Peavey.com

Street Price:

MegaBass 410 $999.99 USD

MegaBass 115 $799.99 USD

Running two effects of the same kind concurrently can yield amazing results. Stacked fuzzes or RATs? I’m in heaven. Other effects work less reliably well in pairs. Two reverbs, for instance, can sound killer but can turn an otherwise carefully crafted signal to smog. Twin phasers, in my experience, can be counted among the effects that are delicious together. It takes just two simple one-knob phasers to get very weird. Build two phasers into one, though, and add a few extra tone shaping controls, and the weird gets weirder fast.

Keeley’s new U.S.-made, digital Oaxa twin phaser can feel nearly as simple and straight ahead as two Small Stones running side by side, and honors the elegance and ease of that solution in many ways. There’s just three knobs—for rate, feedback, and depth. A small 3-position toggle switches between 10-stage phase, 4-stage phase, and a Uni-Vibe-style mode. Two footswitches select between the individual phaser or a combination of the two. If you want to keep things simple, you can dive in no further than that and have a great time. But Oaxa bears many secrets for deeper diggers.

Working the Waves

The phase effect is fun to use intuitively. And adding it in and out can be low stakes. Feeling that a riff sounds lifeless? Add a phaser and twist the rate. Maybe it’ll be exactly what a song needs. Maybe it will sit like rotten mayonnaise. But it won’t have taken much effort to try, and you’ll probably have fun along the way. The Oaxa is deeply satisfying in this manner.

The brilliant, big rate knob can be adjusted with precision using just a toe (provided you have the right shoes). And while the depth and feedback controls might be an affront to Phase 90 and Small Stone users, Oaxa’s controls open up useful phase possibilities without leaving you feeling doomed to get lost in the weeds. The depth control, for instance, has so much range it can render the phaser all but subliminal—making it a killer always-on sweetener that can be nudged in and out of prominence via the depth knob. Those just-barely-there depth settings can also be subtly re-shaped by the similarly rangey feedback control, which acts like a filter, adding wah-like focus at mild depth. At more intense depths, the feedback adds appreciably more vowelly “wow” tonalities that give Oaxa more than a hint of a Mu-Tron’s beautiful vintage essence. This variation—and interactivity—among depth and feedback colors alone makes Oaxa a great production, arrangement, and guitar layering tool, particularly in spacious arrangements.

Multiplied by Two ... and More

When both phasers are on, Oaxa’s jewel lamp flashes blue and red, and the visual suggestion of a party is apt. There are deep and crazy sounds here that can take you deep into the wee hours. But not all combinations are magic. Certain pairings of modulation rate and harmonic peaks can obscure details that might make a single phase voice pleasing. But the option to run the two phasers in parallel or series enables more or less detailed versions of a compound phaser voice, respectively. And just-right phase-rate relationships combined with contrasting voices, depth, and feedback can yield fantastic results. Fast-throbbing U-Vibe style modulations combined with slow, deep 4-stage phases are extra dimensional—as are just about any two high-contrast rates. Nailing these combinations and hearing them via stereo—the other great force multiplier on Oaxa—can pull you deeper still into the pedal’s capacities.

The Verdict

Do you remember what I said at the top about the Oaxa being simple? It’s true. It’s just that Oaxa’s elegant design also has a lot in store for troublemakers willing to dig a bit. And if the stereo and dual-phase settings aren’t trouble enough, you can use the footswitches and knobs to introduce compression or extra filtering, or reconfigure the toggle to include 2- and 6-stage phaser voices. I’d venture that using the most basic functions will make the $199 price well worth it over time. But you’ll likely celebrate the day you stumble across one of Oaxa’s more complex finds. I suspect such days will be many in number, too.

The news hasn’t been all that rosy so far in 2026, but we assure you, there’s plenty of really heartwarming things still going on.

Like British amp brand Victory sending a custom braille amp to blind guitarist and skateboarder Anthony Ferraro, who captured the moment it arrived on his doorstep in what’s sure to be one of the most wholesome clips of the year. And we’re just nine days in…

• READ MORE: “What could have been”: Andertons and Chicago Music Exchange team up with Fender on exclusive Lavender Haze-finished guitars and basses

In the video – posted to his Instagram page, which boasts nearly 430,000 followers at the time of writing – Ferraro can be seen bursting through the door holding a massive Victory-branded box exclaiming: “I’m blind, what’s in this box?!”

“Dude, it’s an amp!” he yells, taking the white-finished combo amp out of its box to reveal its custom braille labels under each of the control knobs and on the routing information board on the back. “Are you kidding me? I’m gonna cry!”

A special braille note addressed to Ferraro also came in the box, which reads: “Dear, Anthony… We heard you wanted to try a Victory amp. So we set ourselves a challenge and came up with this unique design just for you.”

“I think this is the first amp in the world to ever do this,” Ferraro says. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to ask a friend, ‘Hey, what’s this control?’ This is the most amazing amp I’ve ever touched and I can’t wait to play this.”

Barely able to contain his excitement, Ferraro takes his shiny new amp to his jam room, plugging it into his PRS SE Silver Sky electric guitar and impressively kitted out pedalboard, where he showcases his enviable chops with a series of bluesy lead lines.

View this post on Instagram

“[This is] quite truly one of the greatest things I have [ever] been given,” he writes in the post’s caption. “To say I cried when I opened it wouldn’t be a lie. I’ve been blind my whole life and music was one of the only things that made it feel like I wasn’t blind… until I felt my gear or had to ask someone to help me adjust a knob or tune my guitar.

“When I felt the braille on this amp my whole world changed instantly. I was free to do it on my own for the first time ever. Advocating for braille has become one of my biggest passions in life. As actual companies begin to take initiatives in accessibility it makes me think maybe it’s working… I can’t believe this is real. Someone pinch me.”

In a highly liked comment (61,157 likes at the time of writing) under the video, Victory responds to Ferraro’s heartwarming video: “It means the world to us seeing you connect with your amp like this, Anthony. Thank you for letting us be part of your journey.” Ferraro replies: “You actually changed my life. I don’t even know how to say thank you enough.”

It’s moments like these that make us proud to be part of the guitar community. Fair play, Victory. Fair play.

The post Victory sends blind guitarist custom braille amp in the most wholesome moment of 2026 so far appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Innovation in the guitar world certainly happens, but it’s often in small increments – updates to single components as opposed to radical new guitar designs altogether. Big changes do happen, mind; just look at the MIDI-enabled self-playing Circle Guitar which we recently called “the most revolutionary new guitar in half a century”.

There’s perhaps an argument to say that the electric guitar – at its core – is a pretty great technology, and that the infrequency of massively radical new designs is more a reflection that guitarists are just happy where things are.

• READ MORE: Fender Vintera II Road Worn 60s Stratocaster review – “this guitar is like spending time with an old friend”

Outgoing Fender CEO Andy Mooney certainly has some insights, and in a new conversation with Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto on his Inside the Noise podcast, speaks on the current demands of guitar players, and how things are different when it comes to amp innovation.

“Artists, generally, in the electric side, have been reluctant to really accept innovation,” Mooney says. “I mean, one of the guitars in my collection was a collaboration we did with Roland, which I thought was a very interesting guitar, but it didn’t attract an audience.

“I say to people that, you know, the Stratocaster hasn’t really changed since 1954. The only thing that’s changed is the neck, the frets, the pickups, the tremolo arm, and the paint application. And every one of those things, even the height of the frets, all are a reflection of what current artists are really demanding.”

He goes on: “On the amplifier side, it’s completely the opposite. Generally speaking, the player is now very receptive to digitisation. I know when I started using either digital foot pedals or digital amps, the quality just wasn’t there, and they developed a bad reputation. Now, when you listen to what’s capable with a digital amp and a digital signal chain, it’s actually amazing.”

In 2026, artists – particularly touring artists – are keener than ever to strip back their physical rigs to cut costs, and simply reduce the effort it requires to lug around a heavy, complex rig around on the road. 

Many of the worlds’ top rock and metal artists have made the switch to digital amp modellers for live shows. Metallica guitar tech Chad Zaemisch even attributes the band’s improved live shows with their decision to do so. And in 2024, after saying he’d “never” use amp modellers, Slipknot’s Jim Root revealed he had been using a Neural DSP Quad Cortex live.

Mooney recognises this shift in player demand, too, adding: “In Eddie Van Halen’s day, he would have carted around 18 4x12s or nine heads. Now, people are moving towards a silent stage. Def Leppard are moving towards an entirely silent stage.”

Prior to his post at Fender, Andy Mooney worked at Disney as Chairman of Consumer Products. There, he gained invaluable insights from Steve Jobs, who was CEO of Pixar. 

“We were a bit late coming to the party [with digital amp modellers],” he goes on. “But one of the things I learned from the conversations with Steve was that it’s okay to be second as long as you’re better.

“So when we looked at the Tone Master Pro again… Steve, one of the things he really did with his products was the user interface had to be so elegant that you didn’t need an owner’s manual, that you could take it straight out of the box, [and you] didn’t need an MIT degree to figure it out. So that’s what we tried to do with the Tone Master Pro, everything is intuitive.”

It was revealed this week that Andy Mooney is to step down from his position as CEO of Fender next month, with the company’s current President of its Asia-Pacific operations Edward “Bud” Cole to step into the role.

“Leading Fender has been a highlight of my career,” says Mooney. “I’m deeply grateful for the creativity and commitment of the Fender teams around the world and proud of what we’ve accomplished. I’m excited to pass the baton on to Bud and confident that under his leadership, Fender will continue to inspire players for generations to come.”

During his time as President of Fender Asia Pacific, Edward “Bud” Cole has overseen the expansion of Fender into 14 countries across the region including mainland China and Korea, established full regional commercial and operational capabilities, and played a pivotal role in numerous Made-in-Japan launches.

The post “The Stratocaster hasn’t really changed since 1954”: Outgoing Fender CEO Andy Mooney says electric guitarists have “generally been reluctant to really accept innovation” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.