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We’ve come across plenty of hot takes on guitar over the years, from debates on tonewood to theoretical knowledge, we’ve seen it all. But vintage guitar expert George Gruhn has now thrown his hat into the ring, and believes guitar shapes don’t make much difference to their sound at all.

In a debate on the Life With Strings Attached podcast, Gruhn says that body shape “doesn’t amount to squat”. However, it does seem that his definition of shape considers purely the body silhouette, rather than the thickness of the model or any neck specifications.

• READ MORE: Electro Harmonix still wants to harvest the magnetosphere’s energy – this time for AI

“Changing body shapes doesn’t amount to squat… changing body shapes on a solid body guitar doesn’t amount to much,” Gruhn says. He is then quizzed by host Jamie Gale, who asks him if a Telecaster with humbuckers would sound like a Les Paul with humbuckers.

“No it wont, because the structure of the guitar is different enough that the vibration pattern of the strings is not the same,” Gruhn replies. At this point, Gale is still completely baffled.

“So an SG sounds like an Explorer?” asks Gale.

“No they don’t because an SG is thinner,” Gruhn says, before expanding on his meaning of shape. “The Explorer has a neck joint that’s rock-solid stable, the SG does not. The Explorer has a much thicker body than an SG and it [has] different wood. The shape is not the important part, you could make the Explorer in a different shape and it would still sound about the same,” he suggests.

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The pair have to agree to disagree, with Gruhn hilariously adding: “I can’t help it if you’re wrong!”

You can check out the full podcast below, which is split into two parts:

Gruhn launched his own guitar line back in 2023 with a model named the Versitar. He described his creation as “the only guitar on the market today that you can essentially look at from 100 feet away at a glance and know immediately which brand of acoustic guitar it is”.

George Gruhn established Gruhn Guitars in 1970. You can find out more about him and the business via the official Gruhn Guitars website.

The post The shape of a guitar “doesn’t amount to squat” in terms of sound according to legendary vintage expert George Gruhn appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“The title definitely makes a statement,” says Alex Skolnick, referring to Prove You’re Not a Robot, the latest release by his jazz-rock ensemble, the Alex Skolnick Trio. “On the one hand, it’s a phrase we’ve all encountered online, and I think, ‘Why should I have to prove I’m not a robot, especially when a robot is posing the question?’

“On the other hand, there’s a musical statement,” he continues. “There’s been a decline in many types of music, most of it in the pop world where a lot of it has become more robotic. They’ve conducted tests and have found that people can’t tell the difference between actual artists and AI-generated music, but that doesn’t happen with jazz. When you get a quality group of dedicated musicians, their work can’t be replicated.”

You’d need one exceptionally crafty robot to replicate Alex Skolnick. On one side, there’s his blistering thrash-metal persona, honed over nearly four decades with Bay Area legends Testament. On the other, there’s his sharp, high-energy jazz improvisation with the Alex Skolnick Trio. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that all of it actually comes from the same person.

​Alex Skolnick’s Gear

Guitars

• Gibson ES-347
• Allparts Stratocaster
• Roger Sadowsky SS-16 archtop
• ESP Alex Skolnick
• ESP LTD Alex Skolnick AS-1

Amps

• Tyler Amp Works (“the one modeled after the Fender Princeton”)
• 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb (“also part of my tax write-off”)

Effects

• Electro-Harmonix POG2 octave generator
• JAM Rattler distortion
• Crazy Tube Circuits Splash reverb
• MXR Phase 90

Strings, Picks and Cables

• D’Addario flat wounds, NYXL, XS
• Dunlop picks
• D’Addario cables

“I’ve heard it compared to how an actor changes roles, and I get that,” he says. “When I warm up for a show with the trio, I work on my Grant Green and my Wes Montgomery. But when I’m getting ready to play with Testament, I click on the distortion and go for some Van Halen or [Allan] Holdsworth. The actor is the same, but the script is different.”

Continuing with the analogy, he says, “Instead of changing costumes, I’m changing gear. I wouldn’t play screaming metal on a ’76 Gibson L-5 archtop, just as I wouldn’t try to play jazz through an Orange Rockerverb cranked on the overdrive channel. So the person’s the same, but the tools are different. The bottom line is, it all feels very natural to me.”

From the start, the AST specialized in wildly inventive, improv-heavy covers of hard rock and metal tunes. Over the years, the band has had their way with “Detroit Rock City,” “Dream On,” “War Pigs,” “No One Like You,” Goodbye to Romance,” “Highway Star” and “Tom Sawyer,” among others. Not every tune lends itself to interpretation, however. As Skolnick points out, “Whenever you’re playing a song that’s essentially a vehicle for improvisation, it has to have a strong, identifiable melody—that’s key. Even when we take things really outside, the foundation of the song is the melody. The Kiss songs we’ve done—great melodies. Same with ‘Dream On.’ I would put the Scorpions at the top of the list. Every song of theirs has a melody you could play on a saxophone.”

“When I warm up for a show with the trio, I work on my Grant Green and my Wes Montgomery. But when I’m getting ready to play with Testament, I click on the distortion and go for some Van Halen.”

Thus far, all efforts to transpose AC/DC to free-form jazz have proved elusive. “They’ve got great riffs and grooves, but they’re not big on strong vocal melodies,” he says. “Trying to do one of our arrangements with AC/DC would be like covering James Brown. Incredible music and awesome grooves, but it’s not about the melody.”

Lately, Skolnick and company (drummer Matt Zebroski and bassist Nathan Peck) have placed more emphasis on original material, but they haven’t bagged the covers entirely: Prove You’re Not a Robot includes “Armondo’s Mood,” a cheeky mashup of Chick Corea’s “Armando’s Rhumba” and Steve Howe’s “Mood for a Day” that beautifully showcases Skolnick’s breezy, delicate touch and dulcet tones. There’s also a hypnotic take on Tom Petty’s classic “Breakdown” that sees the guitarist skipping and pirouetting across the fretboard over multiple time signatures. “That one came about the day Tom Petty died,” Skolnick explains. “I went on stage and said, ‘We just lost Tom Petty,’ and we started playing the vamp. When we decided to record it, I knew that I didn’t want to just copy the original, so we made it slower and did odd-time sections. In a lot of ways, it’s inspired by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond.”

Among the album’s original tunes, “Polish Goodbye” is a snarky and sassy modern-age lounge affair that offers sticksman Zebroski considerable room to stretch out and flex his chops, while “Asking for a Friend” is a shimmering (and at times, aching) ballad built on Skolnick’s spare, contemplative melodies. The effervescent “Guiding Ethos” ranks as one of the guitarist’s most memorable compositions, and his playing—in particular, an extended steel-string acoustic solo—rises to meet the quality of his writing.

“I actually wrote that song on the piano,” he reveals. “That was my first instrument, but I had a teacher who wasn’t very inspiring, and so I got into the guitar. Lately, I’ve revisited playing the piano a bit—I’ve gotten into some good jams—and I came up with the parts that became ‘Guiding Ethos.’ I transferred it to guitar and thought it sounded nice, particularly this section that’s so bright and shiny. It offered me a lot of spots to go places and have cool key changes.”

“Instead of changing costumes, I’m changing gear.”

The song, he continues, “was meant for steel-string acoustic, particularly the solo. I knew I wanted the sound to really pop, and as it turned out, right before we did the album, I had needed a tax write-off, so I allowed myself to buy a guitar that I might normally have considered an extravagance.”

The guitar in question is a 1935 Gibson L-00 acoustic that Skolnick found while poking around at RetroFret Vintage Guitars in Brooklyn. “They had over a dozen guitars from the ’30s and ’40s, and I went around and played them all,” he says. “Some were easy to play, some were hard to play. They all sounded good, but some sounded great. The L-00 sounded great and was easy to play. It’s a parlor guitar, but it blows a lot of my other guitars out of the water. The people at the studio where we recorded were like, ‘That is one of the best guitars we’ve ever heard. It sounds like it has a microphone on it.’”

Perhaps more importantly, the guitarist’s accountant also weighed in with his assessment. “He said, ‘Well done,’” Skolnick says with a laugh. “All in all, it was worth the money.”

Five months have passed since the final Black Sabbath gig, and it’s still being talked about by those who took part – including Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale, who likened her time on stage to an “out of body experience”.

The Back To The Beginning concert took place on 5 July, and featured a huge line up of rock and metal’s greatest acts. It raised millions for charity, and marked the final time that Sabbath played together, with Ozzy Osbourne sadly passing away just weeks later.

• READ MORE: “You see that shape and it’s undeniable. It’s like, ‘This isn’t going to be country or pop’”: Lzzy Hale on her love of the Explorer

Halestorm got to perform Osbourne’s Perry Mason, and Lzzy also got to perform The Ultimate Sin alongside a supergroup of stars including Nuno Bettencourt and Jake E. Lee.

In an interview with …, she looks back on the day fondly and recalls how the entire city of Birmingham was “in celebration”: “Backstage everybody is just hanging out. Even Axl [Rose]. Probably at any other show he’d be carted back and forth and we’d never see the guy. But we’re sat next to each other, and it’s funny, because there’s all these photographers, and he says to me: ‘Girl, you come with a lot of cameras!’ And I’m like: ‘I don’t think they’re here for me, man!’”

She adds, “I think Sharon [Osbourne] said it best – it was like rock ‘n’ roll summer camp. I’m talking to Steven Tyler, and he’s like, ‘You’re from Pennsylvania. I’m good with accents.’ Then he starts telling me this story about when the Aerosmith guys were in Doylestown in the seventies and they got pulled over for having weed in the car.

“But it’s intense back there too. Everybody is nervous. Even the Metallica guys. Like: ‘We want to do good by these dudes.’ And everybody’s really emotional because we know it’s the last time. So we go out there and play, and after we walk off we’re like: ‘That was just a blur. Did we black out? Did we pass the audition?’ Then I went back out to sing The Ultimate Sin, and it’s an out-of-body experience to be up there with legends like Nuno Bettencourt and Jake E Lee.”

Bettencourt himself also recently looked back on the mighty day of metal, and shared just how immense the pressure was: “If you go down in flames on that stage with Ozzy there and all your peers watching, your career is over!” he said during an episode of Steve and Rik’s POTcast.

“I ended up playing 12 fucking songs,” he continued. “I just wanted to respect the songs [and] fucking go all in… I was in here for weeks for fucking like four or five hours a day standing up, performing the fuckers.”

The post “It’s an out-of-body experience to be up there with legends like Nuno Bettencourt and Jake E. Lee”: Lzzy Hale on Black Sabbath’s final show appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

As a session musician extraordinaire Steve Lukather knows a lot of stars across the world of guitar, and he’s recently been looking back at his treasured friendship with Eddie Van Halen.

The Toto guitarist was introduced to Van Halen’s music in his late teens, and he later became good buds with Eddie. The pair would share gear, and worked together a number of times. Eddie even played on Lukather’s debut self-titled solo album back in 1989, namely on the track Twist The Knife.

• READ MORE: “To this day, I smirk when I hear the words”: Steve Lukather admits he thinks the lyrics to Toto’s biggest hit are “silly”

In an interview with Forbes, Lukather says that people originally dismissed Eddie as a one-trick pony due to his tapping technique. Of course, across his mighty career he certainly proved them wrong. But Lukather saw his magic all along.

“He was a dear friend of mine, man. Music was initially the bond between us, but once we got to know each other it became more,” he says. “All I can say is that Ed changed the world. He was a little rough around the edges, but so am I, probably why we hit it off so well. I miss him terribly. Half of these guys are gone…

“As for guitar, Ed changed the way we approached it, did something nobody else had done, created a new sound, a new energy, not to mention the tapping thing. He blew up the whole rock and roll scene. Everybody got slapped in the face real hard when they realised there was a new kid in town.”

He continues, “People mistook him for a parlour trick because he did the tapping thing. He actually stumbled upon it by accident. It had been around for a while. He was in a trio, and filling up the sound is hard. Think Cream [with Eric Clapton]. Ed’s rhythm-playing and solos were like one fluid movement. I don’t think he ever played the same thing twice, and that used to drive the guys in the band crazy [laughs].”

To Lukather, he still remains as “an improvisational genius” in his memory: “Sometimes we become our own worst enemies. Ed’s left behind a lot of genius, and probably a lot of undiscovered gems as well.”

The post “Everybody got slapped in the face real hard”: Steve Lukather recalls the impact Eddie Van Halen had on the guitar scene, and why people dismissed him as a “parlour trick” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Just caught MGK on tour and now you’re inspired to get into guitar? Well, we’ve found a great deal on one of his signature acosutics with Schecter that has some pretty cool details.

MGK is currently on tour in support of his seventh album, Lost Americana, and though this album era marks a changeup in aesthetics for the pop punk artist, he’s previously been synonymous for pairing licks of pink with darker hues across his album artwork and the guitars he’s played – just as this bargain acoustic shows.

[deals ids=”5BGn9Kxhs5xsIAkdNqgtg5″]

With guitarist Sophie Lloyd also accompanying MGK on his tour, it’s no wonder that those in attendance may pick up the itch to play guitar. This Satin Black signature acoustic model has a mahogany body paired with a solid Sitka spruce top, joined by dovetail construction for a resonant and punchy tone.

Its mahogany neck offers a fast Thin “C” profile and has a 25.5” (648mm) scale length. A smooth rosewood fretboard features a 16” (406mm) radius across its 20 standard acoustic frets, and for amplification it uses the official Fishman Sonicore Piezo pickup system, driven by a preamp module with controls for volume, tuner switch, bass, treble, and a phase switch.

• READ MORE: “Did you guys make a mistake?”: MGK admits he’s baffled as to why Bob Dylan is a fan of his

The devil is quite literally in the detail with this guitar, as it features a pink devil horn decal situated around its sound hole, pink double XX inlays, and a headstock also donning a devil horn shape. Its aesthetic certainly honours MGK’s 2020 album, Tickets To My Downfall, which marked his departure from rap to guitar-driven music.

It also has high-quality Grover diecast tuners and a rosewood bridge with a bone saddle, and as it’s sold via Reverb, this one is a used model and has some slight scratching on the body, though it otherwise in excellent condition. It’s priced at $447.20, down $118.50 from its original listing.

Shop this deal and more over at Reverb. You can also find out where MGK is playing next on his Lost Americana tour.

The post This devilishly cool Schecter MGK acoustic is heavily discounted at Reverb appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$399/£399, polyeffects.com

The Poly Effects Trails is for people who want something different – like, really different. Well, why put up with the plinky-plunk of a silly old electric guitar when you can have swirling bells, unearthly voices, or something that sounds like a terrible accident in a sewage tunnel?

• READ MORE: Buyer’s guide to the best compact multi-effects: sound-shifting units from Neural DSP, BOSS & Line 6

This peculiar little box is the latest pedal from the Australian company behind the fabulous Ample digital amp simulator. It can be beautiful, scary, and often both at the same time. But it can’t be ordinary.

Image: Richard Purvis

Poly Effects Trails – what is it?

Oof, can’t we start with an easier question? Because I still don’t really know what the Trails is – maybe nobody does. But I can say it’s not a modulation pedal, or a lo-fi delay, or a glitchy microlooper… though its skill set does include, in one form or another, all of those things.

At its heart is a set of seven effect categories, selected by the touch buttons with cute pictures along the top. They’re all very different, and each one comes with eight editable factory presets. So that’s your starting point… now all you need to know is how to actually work this thing.

Image: Richard Purvis

Poly Effects Trails – is it easy to use?

It’s quite understandable to be sent into a panic by the fact that the Trails doesn’t even look like an effects pedal. But honestly, it’s fine. Take some deep breaths, stroke your imaginary cat three times, then focus on the four columns of LEDs across the middle (A to D) and pretend they’re knobs – because, effectively, they are. This is Poly’s signature touch interface, where dragging a finger up and down is the equivalent of knob-twiddling, and the LEDs – colour-coded for different effect types – indicate the current position.

Yes, it’s odd and takes some getting used to – particularly as it can be hard to see the LED that’s underneath your fingertip – but it’s a smart system, and there’s a colourful manual in the box that makes everything clear, including what those four ‘knobs’ do in each mode.

Beyond that, there’s a second footswitch for infinite sustain, the option of true stereo output using a Y-cable, and MIDI for changing presets remotely.

Poly Effects Trails – what does it sound like?

I think the best way to tackle this – describing the indescribable – is to go through the seven modes and try to give a flavour of what each one is doing.

Meadows is up first: a sitar-like effect that creates blooming sympathetic resonances with an element of randomised movement. You can change the structure and density of the virtual sympathetic strings, as well as the wet/dry blend and resonant pitch. It’s supremely musical, it can sound stupendous in stereo, and it’s a hell of a start.

Haven has similar qualities in terms of resonance but goes in a more bell-like direction – making it even prettier if anything – and then we take a sharp left turn into Prairie, an interesting mix of delay and vinyl-style filtering, complete with (optional) pops and crackles. After that comes Outback, and this mode is surely inspired by the didgeridoo, creating vocal-like filter shifts that can sound like a talk box at high speeds or a uniquely grainy phaser when slowed down.

Tundra is a pitch-shifting delay that gets gloriously glitchy if you freeze it with the sustain switch then start messing with the time and pitch controls; Badlands is described as “a very brutal distortion” but is really something much more strange and vicious than that suggests; and we finish with Coast, arguably the most conventional effect on offer here – a granular texture generator with control over the blend, grain size, wave shape and density. This is another one that demands to be heard in stereo.

A couple of minor issues need mentioning – I found the sustain switching to be noisy in some modes (but not in others), and the touch buttons sometimes needed tapping more than once to respond – but of course it’s the sounds that matter most, and they are consistently awesome.

Image: Richard Purvis

Poly Effects Trails – should I buy it?

Each one of these effects is a playground for unorthodox soundscaping; the fact that you’re getting seven of them in the same compact box makes the Trails a hell of a secret weapon. The only question – given that it’s not a cheap pedal – is whether you’re intrepid enough to take on this gnarly sonic wilderness.

Poly Effects Trails alternatives

There aren’t really any alternatives – that’s the point. But other pedals that mess with the ambient soundscape formula include the Hologram Chroma Console ($399/£486), Death By Audio + EarthQuaker Devices Time Shadows II ($199/£199) and Red Panda Raster 2 ($329/£275).

The post Poly Effects Trails review – probably the world’s most inspiring multi-effects pedal appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

I’ve always been the kind of player who avoided going direct to the mixing board or FOH whenever I could. But lately, the stage reality has forced me to make peace with the direct setup. Seeing a real guitar amp onstage now feels like stumbling across a rare oasis. I often end up borrowing a friend’s Boss IR-200 just to blend in with this new stage normal. Not because it’s the ultimate box, but because it’s what I can get my hands on. If all I could find was a cheap Sonicake IR loader, I’d still take it—anything to save the gig.

Then my five-year-old son started learning guitar and asked for a stompbox. I first thought of getting him a multi-fx—cheap, practical, a good way to explore sounds. But he had one condition: everything had to be blue. Finding a blue multi-fx was harder than I expected—Boss ME units are rare, the Zoom MS series wasn’t “blue enough”—so I got him a DigiTech Screamin’ Blues. Affordable, with a cab-sim out that might come in handy for me, too. I tried it, and to my surprise, I loved its raw, simple tone.

Part of me wanted to get him something digital signal processing (DSP)-based for consistency and versatility, but I found myself overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. It felt like buying a mystery box. And that made me realize—this personal dilemma is just a microcosm of a bigger trend. Digital technology is reshaping not only how we play and hear but also how we define guitar tone.

We are living in the golden age of digital emulation. Amps, pedals, mixers, even speakers—nearly everything that was once purely analog has been distilled into algorithms. As with every revolution, mass adoption comes with pushback. The “amp sims vs. real amps” question still rages on, a never-ending debate.

But strip away the nostalgia of glowing tubes and “the warmth of the amp,” and one fact stands out: DSP leaps forward year after year. We’re now in the age of AI and machine learning.

Flashback to 2011 when the Kemper Profiler dropped like a bomb on the guitar universe, offering the first device that could capture the “DNA” of an amp and recreate it so convincingly that most players couldn’t tell the difference. With IR loading built in, players could now carry studio-grade tone straight to the stage.

Of course, such tech came at a price, and not everyone could afford a Kemper. Slowly, alternatives emerged: IR loader pedals like the Two Notes Torpedo Cab, multi-fx units like the Line 6 Helix and Boss GT-1000, and even software plugins that approached hardware-level realism for a fraction of the cost.

“Are we heading toward an oversaturated market, maybe even a bubble burst?”

This perfectly illustrates Moore’s Law: as technology advances, production costs drop. What once required a computer-killing amount of processing power can now fit inside a compact pedal. Today, a stompbox can run hundreds of high-res IRs with sub-2 ms latency. DSP devaluation has made pro-level tone available to everyone: flagship rigs like the Neural DSP Quad Cortex, Fractal Axe-Fx, and Fender Tone Master Pro; mid-tier units like the Line 6 Helix, Boss GX-100, Boss IR-200, Headrush MX5, and IK TONEX; and budget-friendly gear from Mooer, NUX, Valeton, Joyo—even open-source IR loaders. What used to be reserved for high-end studios, pro musicians, or crazy rich hobbyists is now in the hands of bedroom players with nothing more than a laptop or smartphone.

Impulse responses became the cornerstone of cab simulation, allowing us to “photograph” the sonic fingerprint of a cab, mic, and room, then swap between them at will—Marshall 4x12 to Fender 2x12, studio ribbon mic to SM57, even legendary room captures—all just a file change away.

If profiling is like a still photograph, capture is like a moving picture. Capture technology, as seen in the Quad Cortex and TONEX, uses machine learning to model non-linear behaviors like sag, clipping, and dynamic response, producing results almost indistinguishable from the real gear. Many touring pros are now comfortable leaving their amps at home and going direct with digital rigs and IEMs—something that would’ve been unthinkable 15 years ago.

And yet, despite how good this tech has become, purists still argue that amps and cabs have a soul that can’t be cloned. They talk about speaker interaction, power-amp sag, and the physical push of air. The other camp counters that consistency, portability, and reliability outweigh the romance of hauling heavy tube amps.

This paradox fascinates me. Sometimes I wonder if all these breakthroughs are just ways to solve logistics and efficiency problems. Why do so many of our algorithms seem stuck in a loop of chasing “perfect emulation?” Because in the end, emulation is still just imitation. I find myself longing for innovation that pushes us forward—toward creativity that truly inspires. I think back to the first time I tried the EHX Freeze and Superego pedals —not amp simulators at all, but they gave me a true “eureka” moment.

And so I keep coming back to a phrase that feels both inevitable and frightening: saturation point. Every year brings dozens of new products, but the differences between them get smaller and smaller. Are we heading toward an oversaturated market, maybe even a bubble burst? Perhaps now is the perfect moment for the industry to step away from the arms race of “better emulation” and offer something beyond—an oasis of new ideas that encourage players to create, explore, and be inspired to make music.

Hybrid picking is a technique used by many players that combines regular flatpicking with fingerpicking. It’s not all arpeggio and patterns though. Caitlin Caggiano guides us through a lesson using this picking technique for chords, melodic lines, and lead lines, and she shows us how the Beatles, Heart, and others have applied hybrid picking to create classic parts. In this video, you’ll learn what hybrid picking is, why we use it, how to implement good technique, and how to practice and apply the technique in your playing.

In the modern guitar lexicon, few names scream “new frontier” like Tosin Abasi. As the creative engine of Animals as Leaders, he’s helped reframe the electric guitar’s vocabulary. But unlike Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, or Steve Vai before him, he’s done it not on six strings—or even seven—but on eight. So maybe it’s only fitting that he’s now CEO of Abasi Concepts, the only “guitar solutions” company that can deliver the instruments he needs for his otherworldly technique.

Abasi’s not doing it alone. Abasi Concepts co-founder and COO Ivan Chopik has deep roots in the guitar industry. Along with his background in manufacturing and supply-chain development, he is the founder and editor-in-chief of Guitar Messenger. This experience brings a rare duality to the brand: a guitarist with deep genre fluency combined with a business-operations mind focused on precision.

Through our conversation, it became clear that their partnership runs on an unspoken principle: innovation born from problem solving. Rather than chasing trends, Abasi Concepts begins with questions like, “What keeps extended-range guitars from feeling effortless? How should ergonomics evolve as the register expands? Where does resonance get lost between wood, hardware, and finish?”

Their answers don’t arrive as marketing slogans—they take shape in the lines, contours, and design choices that put a guitarist’s hands first, while giving their eyes something just as striking.

Far from the typical hype of “the future of guitars,” these two talented players treat design like composition: eliminate noise, enhance articulation, and let ideas breathe. If there’s a better way to do something, find it, refine it, or create it.

PG sat down with Abasi and Chopik to explore how they translate that ethos into instruments, and why their brand of innovation stands apart as the genuine article.

Tosin, your partnership with Ibanez led the charge for 8-string guitars. And then, as everybody was expecting the next Ibanez Abasi signature model, you launched Abasi Concepts. What inspired you to go into the guitar business?

Tosin Abasi: I had a close to a 10-year relationship with Ibanez, but there were a lot of realities of dealing with such a large company that started to make the process feel less than ideal for us. It got to the point where I felt I could take it and bring it to life on my own.

And I did negotiate ownership of that original body design, so the Larada [model] started life as an Ibanez.

So to avoid the red tape at Ibanez, you thought, “I know what will be easier. I’ll start a company.”

Abasi: [laughs] A part of what informed that was my experience of making custom 8-string guitars. I liked the whole luthier experience of having a bespoke handmade instrument. It was attractive to make a made-in-the-USA, smaller-scale instrument; something closer to a Suhr or something of that caliber.

It was also a perfect storm of living in Southern California. There are a lot of guitar builders here, so what seems like a pie in the sky idea, if you’re in Southern California, all of that infrastructure is there.

Ivan, how did you connect with Tosin to create Abasi Concepts?

Ivan Chopik: Our first meeting was actually through my interview with Tosin for Guitar Messenger in 2010. Later, myself and one other guy started the metal ensemble at Berklee [College of Music]. We had a small budget to bring in visiting artists, and I was like, “Man, we have to bring Tosin in here.” He came to Berklee, did a performance there, and we stayed in touch.

Abasi: I knew Ivan could wear many hats. Ivan has this capacity in the business sense, but he’s also a great guitar player. So when it comes to making decisions, we’re not a business that doesn’t understand the culture of guitar playing. We both play, and we’re both very passionate.

“I think a lot of 8-string guitars attempt to scale up a 6-string into an 8-string. I wanted to treat the 8-string as its own consideration.”—Tosin Abasi

You launched Abasi Concepts with the Larada, a guitar design that definitely makes a statement. What informs your designs, and why do you think players are so willing to embrace them?

Abasi: I think the search began as more of trying to answer a problem. I think a lot of 8-string guitars attempt to scale up a 6-string into an 8-string. But I felt that a ground-up approach made more sense. I wanted to treat the 8-string as its own consideration. So there was a solution-oriented approach.

Chopik: It was exciting to rethink a lot of those things as its own instrument, rather than an extended version of something that already exists.

Still, both the Larada and your ēmi model are more than exercises in function over form. What made you lean into such a bold design instead of something more traditional?

Abasi: We wanted to offer an aspirational instrument. I feel like every player has a poster on their wall of a guitar they’d pull the trigger on if they ever made enough money. But, as a metal guitarist playing an extended-range guitar, there wasn’t the same prestige to many of the options.

We also wanted to communicate, aesthetically, that we are forward-thinking. The music I make, I’m very concerned with new musical horizons. So we wanted an instrument that encapsulated all of these concepts.

Chopik: I think it’s also important to notice that all the ergonomics and design choices, while modern, are all from the player’s perspective. All the different curves, all the cutouts; there’s an aesthetic choice, but there’s also a functional one. That’s where there’s a connection between the design and the player’s perspective.

Two guitar players can come at the same thing from very different perspectives. How do you two balance that?

Chopik: I toured with progressive metal bands for some years. And I was hugely inspired and influenced by Animals As Leaders and Periphery when they came out. So there’s definitely a lot of overlap in the things that we like. But, over the years, I came full circle to one of my first loves, which is blues.

So we do come at it from different angles, and there are different iterations of gear that serve what we’re doing. But [the guitars are] a good example of something that extends beyond the realm of what one set of musicians might expect.

Abasi: I think it’s great. As idiosyncratic and distinct as my playing style is, we are trying to offer a guitar that works for other styles as well.

Like, Ivan’s an interesting player. He can do the progressive metal thing, but he can also … I call it “Dad Hands,” where he’s like, “Does the guitar have fight in it?” [laughs]

That’s how we achieve this balance where the guitar does excel at very modern and distinct styles of music, but also doesn’t fail to deliver classic and established tones.

“All the ergonomics and design choices, while modern, are all from the player’s perspective.”—Ivan Chopik

Currently, you offer versions of two body styles. And customers have to be signed up for your newsletter to be notified of availability. Why follow such a limited-release model?

Chopik: We base a lot of releases around streamlining the manufacturing process. Having greater consistency for our team helps them stay very connected and gives us better visibility into [quality control].

The customer is more informed than ever, and they have more choices than ever. They’re looking for every last detail, and they’re informed about specs. We have to answer to that, and we’re very specific with it. So, ultimately, the consistency comes from our standards, the design itself, and how we want to see it executed.

Abasi: It’s relatively boutique and lean. We want to consider every product we release. We want it to be meaningful, and the Larada was the starting point.

We know what we think the guitar needs to be, and there are so many variables that come together to make a guitar that feels that special. It could be as minute as the number of coats sprayed on the body at a facility, which affects the guitar’s resonance. This is the level of granularity we’re getting down to.

You’ve also released the Pathos Distortion and Micro Aggressor compressor pedals. Why branch out from guitars?

Abasi: Abasi Concepts was always meant to be an umbrella encompassing more than just guitar design. We’re interested in solutions across the board. And part of the fun of having the company is that we get to manifest the things we wish existed.

With the Pathos pedal, Brian [Wampler] had existing circuitry, and we got together and tweaked it to taste. Ivan and I both personally use this pedal, and it does a really good job of achieving an amp-like feel in pedal form.

Compression isn’t even on the radar for a lot of guitar players, and then the ones that exist don’t always feel great on the guitar. So the Micro Aggressor has an almost amp-type bloom and response, similar to cranking a tube amp and having the power section start to work a bit. It’s another thing where I think we’re solving something.

“Part of the fun of having the company is that we get to manifest the things we wish existed.”—Tosin Abasi

Tosin, you’re playing tube amps these days, but you guys also collaborated with Neural DSP on the Abasi: Archetype plugin suite. Are there plans to broaden the line into amplifiers and additional plugins?

Abasi: We’d love to have an offering in each of those spaces. Software is a territory that we have not really stepped into yet, but it is clearly of such utility that it would make sense. But Ivan and I are both big fans of tube amplifiers. There’s no substitute for playing an amp in a room. So the amp thing has been a conversation.

What about the instruments themselves? What kinds of designs can Abasi Concepts fans look forward to?

Abasi: We’ve been dabbling in nylon-string instruments, since I have some tracks that use that sound. We also want to offer instruments at a lower price point. It’s hard to make these things in the United States to the caliber we’re trying to make them, but we’re sensitive to the fact that there are players who don’t have enough to buy the Masterbuilt stuff.

Chopik: That’s where our Legion Series comes in. The idea was to give players the chance to experience the same design language and feel that defines what we do, but at a more approachable price point. Both lines come from the same DNA, but the Legion models are bolt-on, with a thin U-profile neck that’s flatter and faster. The materials also play a big role. For instance, wenge necks are unique to the Legion line.

We’re also looking at a semihollow take on the Larada. In the same spirit, it’s looking to solve issues with traditional design.

You’ve definitely carved out your own lane, but there’s been a noticeable rise in artists and influencers starting their own gear companies. Why do you think that’s happening?

Abasi: It’s an extension of the fact that artists have direct relationships with their fans and manufacturers. Before, that connection was filtered through record labels and publications. We’re in a paradigm now where you have direct access to turning those ideas into reality.

Also, artists are reclaiming their brand value. They can hold the keys and deliver instruments that represent their vision directly. I actually think we will see more of it.

Chopik: It’s interesting to see this formula growing and expanding, and the gap between artist and product narrowing. It’s a lot of work. And had we known the journey that we would be on, a lot of it would have seemed unreasonable. But we held it together because we had such a strong belief that it was going to work.

“Unreasonable” is an interesting word choice. From Animals as Leaders’ first album to the Larada’s body style, you guys have practically cornered the market on unreasonable.

Chopik: [laughs] Yeah, for sure. I mean, look, we built this thing from the ground up, and funded it ourselves. And you know, we learned lessons along the way. It’s definitely been a journey.

An all-analog flange and chorus with a lot of character.

Way back in the 2010s, before starting Mr. Black as his pedal-building outlet, when Jack DeVille was releasing effects under his own name, he created the Mod Zero. This multi-modulation unit covered flanging, chorus, rotary effects, and vibrato, and, with a limited run of 250 units, gained a reputation and is long sold out.

Although Mr. Black’s Mod.One is not that pedal, this all-original unit designed by DeVille follows a similar mission, and its reverential name is surely no accident. The Mod.One is a 100-percent-analog modulator that spans chorus, flange, and high-band flange with a unique control set designed for flexibility, sonic excitement, options and a lot of character.

Controls for the Curious

If you come to the Mod.One a little fuzzy on the differences between chorus and flange, here’s a brief explanation: Chorus is created using a slower set of delay times on a secondary, parallel signal. Flange uses shorter delay times, and high-band flange the shortest. On the Mod.One, a pair of knobs—one for lower limit and one for upper limit—allow users to set that range of delay times. The lower limit knob has a max delay of 31 mS and a minimum delay of 1.9 ms. The upper limit knob ranges from 1.9 ms to .5 ms. Within those ranges, you’ll find the difference between chorus and flanging, and the position of the two knobs, rather than a switch, determines which effect you’re using. Ultimately, I’m a firm believer that we should use our ears and not get hung up on definitions when listening to an effect. The Mod.One is a great example. Determining exact delay times and whether you’re chorusing or flanging is inexact but ultimately it doesn’t matter. What matters is what sounds good.

The lower limit/upper limit controls might frustrate purists that want to toggle between a clearly defined chorus and flange tone. But Mod.One’s controls, and its central premise, are all about sound sculpting and opening up creative options. And options abound: LFO speed, for example, reaches up to 20 seconds long when using the tap-tempo switch. Six waveform options also widen the sonic lane.

Let’s Get Exponential

The Mod.One is powerful in a literal sense. The active volume control provides plenty of juice, and is capable of really pushing whatever comes next in your chain. That lends a gooey vibe to everything that passes through the pedal. Whether you use that power to drive your amp or not, the combo of gain and all-analog circuitry give the Mod.One a warm, thick voice. This is not just another metallic-sounding flange device.

I found myself stomping on the Mod.One to add space and texture to rhythms, riffs, and leads that cover a lot of range. Sometimes, I was looking for subtlety—Andy Summers on “Walking on the Moon,” for example. For that, I kept the enhance knob, which determines the intensity of the effect, toward lower settings, and kept the speed on the slowest part of its range, which generates molasses-like movement. For more obvious results, I nudged the speed and enhance knobs. There’s a lot of play in each control, so it doesn’t take much to get things moving in a different direction. The enhance control can even self-oscillate at the top of its range, where more extreme sounds live.

Each of these controls interacts differently with alternate waveform settings, making the possibilities exponential. If there’s one complaint I have about the Mod.One—and I do think it’s just one—it’s that it’s hard to tell which waveform is selected. When experimenting by ear, that’s not the worst thing, but when searching for specific settings, it can be hard to tell if the single LED lights up in a sine, triangle, or other pattern. Eventually I got better at telling the difference, but I didn’t always nail it.

To get some ’70s pseudo-cosmiche tones for a recording project, I rocked the triangle, sine, and hypertriangle waveforms at varying levels of excess. And all three were useful for thickening up high-fretted chordage rather than just the crystalline kind of flange I tend to associate with Prince. I found true excess with the step wave selected and the enhance cranked to its fullest, and there are many experimental sounds to be heard in these wilder places. With so many variables at play, I know there is a lot to be discovered still, which makes the Mod.One compelling.

The Verdict

The Mod.One is a powerful flange and chorus with a strong, recognizable character and wide range. It’s not a do-it-all kind of modulator meant to compete with digital units. But this all-analog device can deliver texture to your sound at dosages that are easily controlled. The unique sculpting possibilities make it exciting and refreshing, and in my time with the pedal, I was impressed with how much I hadn’t yet discovered. It strikes a difficult balance between a quick learning curve and the kind of depth that’ll keep it in heavy rotation for a long time to come. It simply sounds excellent, too.

Way back in the 2010s, before starting Mr. Black as his pedal-building outlet, when Jack DeVille was releasing effects under his own name, he created the Mod Zero. This multi-modulation unit covered flanging, chorus, rotary effects, and vibrato, and, with a limited run of 250 units, gained a reputation and is long sold out.

Although Mr. Black’s Mod.One is not that pedal, this all-original unit designed by DeVille follows a similar mission, and its reverential name is surely no accident. The Mod.One is a 100-percent-analog modulator that spans chorus, flange, and high-band flange with a unique control set designed for flexibility, sonic excitement, options and a lot of character.

Controls for the Curious

If you come to the Mod.One a little fuzzy on the differences between chorus and flange, here’s a brief explanation: Chorus is created using a slower set of delay times on a secondary, parallel signal. Flange uses shorter delay times, and high-band flange the shortest. On the Mod.One, a pair of knobs—one for lower limit and one for upper limit—allow users to set that range of delay times. The lower limit knob has a max delay of 31 mS and a minimum delay of 1.9 ms. The upper limit knob ranges from 1.9 ms to .5 ms. Within those ranges, you’ll find the difference between chorus and flanging, and the position of the two knobs, rather than a switch, determines which effect you’re using. Ultimately, I’m a firm believer that we should use our ears and not get hung up on definitions when listening to an effect. The Mod.One is a great example. Determining exact delay times and whether you’re chorusing or flanging is inexact but ultimately it doesn’t matter. What matters is what sounds good.

The lower limit/upper limit controls might frustrate purists that want to toggle between a clearly defined chorus and flange tone. But Mod.One’s controls, and its central premise, are all about sound sculpting and opening up creative options. And options abound: LFO speed, for example, reaches up to 20 seconds long when using the tap-tempo switch. Six waveform options also widen the sonic lane.

Let’s Get Exponential

The Mod.One is powerful in a literal sense. The active volume control provides plenty of juice, and is capable of really pushing whatever comes next in your chain. That lends a gooey vibe to everything that passes through the pedal. Whether you use that power to drive your amp or not, the combo of gain and all-analog circuitry give the Mod.One a warm, thick voice. This is not just another metallic-sounding flange device.

I found myself stomping on the Mod.One to add space and texture to rhythms, riffs, and leads that cover a lot of range. Sometimes, I was looking for subtlety—Andy Summers on “Walking on the Moon,” for example. For that, I kept the enhance knob, which determines the intensity of the effect, toward lower settings, and kept the speed on the slowest part of its range, which generates molasses-like movement. For more obvious results, I nudged the speed and enhance knobs. There’s a lot of play in each control, so it doesn’t take much to get things moving in a different direction. The enhance control can even self-oscillate at the top of its range, where more extreme sounds live.

Each of these controls interacts differently with alternate waveform settings, making the possibilities exponential. If there’s one complaint I have about the Mod.One—and I do think it’s just one—it’s that it’s hard to tell which waveform is selected. When experimenting by ear, that’s not the worst thing, but when searching for specific settings, it can be hard to tell if the single LED lights up in a sine, triangle, or other pattern. Eventually I got better at telling the difference, but I didn’t always nail it.

To get some ’70s pseudo-cosmiche tones for a recording project, I rocked the triangle, sine, and hypertriangle waveforms at varying levels of excess. And all three were useful for thickening up high-fretted chordage rather than just the crystalline kind of flange I tend to associate with Prince. I found true excess with the step wave selected and the enhance cranked to its fullest, and there are many experimental sounds to be heard in these wilder places. With so many variables at play, I know there is a lot to be discovered still, which makes the Mod.One compelling.

The Verdict

The Mod.One is a powerful flange and chorus with a strong, recognizable character and wide range. It’s not a do-it-all kind of modulator meant to compete with digital units. But this all-analog device can deliver texture to your sound at dosages that are easily controlled. The unique sculpting possibilities make it exciting and refreshing, and in my time with the pedal, I was impressed with how much I hadn’t yet discovered. It strikes a difficult balance between a quick learning curve and the kind of depth that’ll keep it in heavy rotation for a long time to come. It simply sounds excellent, too.

There’s a fairly popular reality-television show that focuses on a pawn shop in Las Vegas where, in the opening credits, the proprietor says, “You never know what is gonna come through that door.” I imagine that to be true of most pawn shops, and I also know it to be true at guitar shops. In fact, it’s been true of every one I’ve ever worked in, especially applicable at my store, Relic Music. Maybe it’s because of the left-of-center stuff we typically specialize in; maybe it’s our geographic location; maybe it’s our reputation. But folks never seem to shy away from bringing us things we’ve never seen before (and often, never even knew existed). Like so many others, this particular story began with a phone call, and it ended with one of the most peculiar instruments I’ve ever had the chance to check out.

It’s not uncommon for people in this industry to get called to sites to look at collections, and that was the case with this call. The gentleman on the phone was vetting several shops to find the right fit to help sell his friend’s guitar collection. After calling several, he found us to be that fit. So I got in my car, drove up the Garden State Parkway to Rockland County, New York, and examined a collection that was truly remarkable. Beautiful and rare Parker, Klein, Teuffel, Spalt, and Linda Manzer pieces were some of the stars of the show.

But what stood out to me most about this collection was that out of 75 incredible guitars, he had just one Fender and one Gibson. Most people with a collection that large would have a much more sizable percentage of each brand given their dominance in the marketplace; but not this collector. And when that Gibson case caught my eye, sizable was the exact word that came to mind.

Sometime in the early 1990s, Gibson Custom Shop manager and master luthier Roger Giffin received a request from a client asking him to build something very special. It wasn’t David Gilmour, it wasn’t Eric Clapton, and it wasn’t Jimmy Page. It wasn’t a special, historic Les Paul, or a lavish L-5, or even an SG. It was an 18-string Explorer-style harp guitar. Yes—you read that correctly.

When I opened the case, it took my brain a while to process it. At first, I thought, “Despite the Gibson logo on the headstock, this is the craziest Frankenstein-mod-job in history.” But then I remembered the case was clearly Gibson, and given the selected nature of the rest of the collection, it was probably something legitimate and very special. Research was needed. Calls had to be made. And above all else, I was dying to set this monstrosity up in an open tuning, plug it into a vintage Hiwatt stack with a bunch of pedals, run a bow across the strings, and bask in its potential magnificence. (Sadly, I never got to do this, and I will probably regret it forever.) I made sure to put it in the car first—not because it was beyond wild, but because I had to make sure it fit. I got the guitar back to the shop and we started to dig in.

It was made of all mahogany, finished in what appeared to be a slightly naturally aged wine red. It had a beautiful Brazilian rosewood fretboard detailed with two aged-pearl stripe inlays, an enormous Seymour Duncan pickup—which was in reality three Duncans wound together—an adjustable mute, custom tailpiece that artistically matched the rest of the guitar, and single volume and tone knobs with pots from 1968. It also had a 5-ply black pickguard, gold hardware, a special cutout on the neck’s bass side (for what I assume to be easier carry), and, finally, an absolutely huge headstock adorned with one of the coolest “stingers” of all time.

Once everything checked out, my brain immediately shifted into “who would dig this?” territory. After all, we all have things on our lists that we hope to see whenever we enter guitar shops, and if these shops are doing things the right way, they remember someone saying something like, “If any one-off ‘Harp-splorers’ come in, please call me.” Aside from the usual cast of characters you might imagine wanting something like this, I knew where this piece had to end up. After calling our friends, and taking a road trip from New Jersey to Nashville, this guitar ended up back home at Gibson.

Is this guitar for everyone? I think the answer is obvious, but pieces like this keep what we do fun and interesting. Do we love finding pre-CBS Fenders, pre-war Martins, and ’50s/’60s Les Pauls & SGs? You bet. But still being surprised by the crazy, seldom-seen guitars that are out there, waiting to be re-discovered is a reason to get up in the morning.

December 5, 2025 Sorry I missed everybody last week, Thanksgiving lasted a few days at TG Central. This week I figured it was time for a bit of a dive into music theory. I have done parts of this before but I have a way of learning triads that might help some of you out […]

The post Totally Guitars Weekly Update December 5, 2025 appeared first on On The Beat with Totally Guitars.

You might know Tim Shaw, but you've heard his work. He's a lifelong guitar nut that's shaped the sound of your heroes. He's learned from Bill Lawrence, resuscitated the vintage-spec PAF for Gibson, and currently has developed dozens of new and updated pickups for Fender, including the popular Shawbucker and revived the heralded CuNiFe Wide Range humbuckers. But that's just the start of his story, enjoy the hour-long chat host by John Bohlinger. Sponsored by StewMac: https://stewmac.sjv.io/APO2ED

You might know Tim Shaw, but you've heard his work. He's a lifelong guitar nut that's shaped the sound of your heroes. He's learned from Bill Lawrence, resuscitated the vintage-spec PAF for Gibson, and currently has developed dozens of new and updated pickups for Fender, including the popular Shawbucker and revived the heralded CuNiFe Wide Range humbuckers. But that's just the start of his story, enjoy the hour-long chat host by John Bohlinger. Sponsored by StewMac: https://stewmac.sjv.io/APO2ED

Reader: Andrew Waugh

Hometown: Stockton-on-Tees, England
Guitar: Ebenezer

I'm always impressed by the luthier skills and/or expense invested in other reader's guitars. This guitar, however, is the complete opposite. I call it “Ebenezer” after a certain Dickens character who would have been delighted by how little I spent on it.

Intrigued by the design’s simplicity and the idea that the tone is purer without the extra magnetic pull of a neck pickup, I’ve wanted to try a Fender Esquire-type instrument for a long time. Near where I live in the U.K. I found a Telecaster copy on a local forum for a ridiculously low £15. It turned out to be almost as-new and played pretty well. Sure, it’s in-your-face yellow; butterscotch blonde would have been nice, but beggars can’t be choosers! I ordered an Esquire-type pickguard, compensated brass saddles, and a budget-line alnico bridge pickup to replace the ceramic one the guitar came with. Total: £43. You can’t do Esquire-type wiring with an inexpensive sealed 3-terminal selector switch, so I had to fork out £7 for a blade-type switch.

“Ebenezer’s Esquire-style wiring gives me loads of sustain and upper harmonics to work with.”

With the whole thing now costing a wallet-wrenching £65, I only had to choose which wiring scheme to adopt. It might have been interesting to go authentically Leo Fender and use his original wiring, but I just couldn’t see myself ever employing the “imitation bass” neck-position setting, so, I went for the Eldred mod, further modified by Premier Guitar’s very own Dirk Wacker. In this scheme, the forward position introduces a series capacitor that scoops the output and the tone knob is bypassed. In the middle position the volume and tone are engaged. And in the bridge position the guitar runs full bore, with the tone control removed from circuit. There was a little head-scratching involved with mapping the wiring onto a control plate that reverses position of the tone and volume controls (which I prefer on T-style guitars). I also tried a little experimentation with cap values.

Ebenezer’s Esquire-style wiring gives me loads of sustain and upper harmonics to work with. In the middle position the tone knob shapes three very distinct and useful tones. And I just have to select the bridge position to bring out a fill or a lead line. All other aspects of tone are down to my fingers, which is part of the challenge that attracted me in the first place.

One problem I didn’t anticipate came to light when I tried playing Ebenezer in church. The rented building we use has a hearing-aid loop installed, and with only one pickup there’s no way to cancel out the squealing interference. I swapped Ebenezer for a black Telecaster and I told my pastor I couldn’t use the yellow guitar in church. He replied in all seriousness that he had no idea the color made such a difference.

I’m under no illusions here. Things are cheap for a reason, and you usually get what you pay for. If I were a serious gigging musician, Ebenezer might be dead in a couple of years. But I’m not, and Ebenezer lives (for now). I hope its existence proves that a fun guitar project doesn’t always have to be expensive or require fine woodworking skills.

Cyber Week – is it really a thing? Well, if reality is a construct, then who can really say one way or another? Either way, the construct that retailers have joined up and told us is “Cyber Week”  is coming to an end, and with it will go the month-long Black Friday sales event that went with it.

• READ MORE: The best electric guitars for all styles and budgets

All of which is to say, if you’ve got an itch to grab yourself a guitar-shaped bargain, you really are running out of time to grab something before you turn around on Monday and discover that everything is full price – for a few weeks at least.

Thankfully, there are still some Cyber Monday and Black Friday deal hangovers kicking around at guitar retailers across the planet, and they’re offering some pretty tasty savings for the tardiest types. Given that the post-Black Friday period is often a wasteland for decent savings, I’ve actually been pretty impressed with what I’ve found on offer here – you might be too…

Save $74 on the Fender Player II Stratocaster

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Look, Black Friday’s over, the killer deals of earlier in the week have gone with them, but this is a pretty decent saving on what is already a very competitively priced instrument.

I was seriously impressed with the Player II Strat when I reviewed it last year, and nothing has changed with each new Player II I’ve encountered since – they sound great, look great, the rolled fingerboard edges are a revelation, and I think it looks killer in this Birch Green finish at Zzounds.

Save $200 on the Martin 000-Jr Sapele

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I know I said Black Friday was over, but one of the most impressive deals of the whole gosh-darn weekend is still going strong. I was so impressed with this $200 saving on the Martin 000-Jr Sapele that I wrote about it at the time, and I stand by it.

When I reviewed the new 000-Jr Sapele last month I was blown away, and not only can you save 200 buckeroonies on the guitar on its own, but if you wanted to get everything you needed to start out – including capo, tuner, stand and strap – that’s available as a pack for the exact same price. Mad stuff.

[deals ids=”7BStNIhQZz4WCE1mX9wHZ9″]

Save £160 on the Sterling Jason Richardson

[deals ids=”7rDji9PciU6h079o8DVyIz”]

For shoppers in the UK and Europe, things are a lot less rosy on the deal front – Thomann’s Cyber Weekend deal window slammed shut on Tuesday and with it went most of the really killer savings.

If you poke around on Thomann’s site like I did however, there are some interesting savings still to be had, especially if you’re of the seven-string persuasion. This Jason Richardson signature model is a B-stock example, but that 18% saving is not to be sniffed at.

Save $1,000 on the Heritage Custom Shop Factory Special H-535

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Our writers have been seriously impressed with the quality, sound and playability of the Heritage Custom Shop stuff we’ve reviewed in the last few years – especially their interpretations of the ES-style instrument.

This stunning faded Pelham Blue Factory Special option is an absolutely beautiful guitar with an insanely impressive discount – 20%! – that’s a hangover at Sweetwater from their Black Friday deals. There’s probably only one of these in stock, so you’d better act fast if you’re tempted.

Save $150 Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Les Paul Standard ’60s

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Finally we have what might be the best saving of the lot still kicking around. Zzounds actually has most of its Black Friday deals rolling which is impressive, and there’s a killer saving to be had on what was already a very well priced guitar.

The Inspired By Gibson Epiphone stuff has transformed what we expect a budget Gibson Brands guitar to be, and this lovely Ebony version gives you everything you’d want for under $550 – that is a stone cold steal.

Don’t forget you can find out about all the best guitars, amps and effects with our expert buyer’s guides.

The post Guitar.com Deals Of The Week: the last Cyber Week guitar deals still available, including saving $200 on Martin and $150 on Epiphone appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Whenever I’m asked a question about learning, it’s almost always followed by an inquiry as to how long that thing might take to learn. Ultimately, the student wants to know exactly how much they should practice, and when they should expect to see results.

We’ve talked about expectations versus reality before in this column, so I won’t go into too much detail about how I perceive my practice time. But in short, I try to have no expectations and instead enjoy the process of doing the work until the skill comes to me naturally.

But the question still stands: How much should we practice? Would you feel good if I said an hour a day will fix everything you’re having trouble with? Would you be shocked if I said 20 minutes a day beats almost all other practice plans? Would you take a photo of this column and share it on social media, telling everyone that I’m a lunatic because I said I used to practice 8–12 hours a day when I was younger?

The truth is, those three approaches all work. At least, they have all worked for me. I have been through periods of my life where one hour a day felt fantastic, because I was touring and recording so much that I really just needed maintenance and small chunks of time to make tiny adjustments to my playing. When I became a father, 20 minutes felt almost impossible to maintain because I was delirious from lack of sleep and couldn’t concentrate on my granola at breakfast, nevermind in-depth explorations of new musical ideas for hours on end. And when I was in my teens, and literally every aspect of the bass and of music was new to me, 10 hours a day felt like it was never going to be enough to get to where I wanted to be.

The older I get, however, the more my approach has shifted to be in line with some of the non-musical things in my life. At 46 years old, for instance, I’m very aware of how I want to live the last decades of my life. I want to live happy, mobile, pain- and injury-free, and have a sharp and active mind that lets me be present with my family and friends. That requires consistency in nutrition and training now, to help mitigate the less-than-optimal circumstances you often associate with old age: falls, brittle bones, disease, and disability in general.

“When I became a father, 20 minutes felt almost impossible to maintain because I was delirious from lack of sleep and couldn’t concentrate on my granola at breakfast, nevermind in-depth explorations of new musical ideas for hours on end.”

Much like the balanced nutrient intake and resistance and cardiovascular training required to build and maintain lean muscle mass, flexibility, and stability for a high quality of life in my later years, I’m finding some parallels in my musical pursuits. Whereas the goal in my teenage years was to be able to attain the dizzying technical prowess of my heroes, that doesn’t last and doesn’t mean as much later in life—especially when you simply don’t have the physical ability to play that way anymore.

I’m moving more towards strengthening a rock-solid foundation of musical language that allows me to express myself far more effectively than some flashy solo on a gig no one is going to remember. It allows me to write more creatively, record more often, and create a body of work with some meaning to it, far beyond the pyrotechnics of technique that we see plastered all over the internet these days.

And this is where we come to exactly what that takes—the answer to the age-old question of how long we should practice each day.

The answer is to set yourself a goal that you’re actually going to stick to. Much like cutting down on sugar in your diet or alcohol consumption: Can you cut both of those things out cold turkey, or do you need something more realistic that you’ll actually stick to? Six days of eating clean and a cheat day on the weekend? There are obviously dozens of ways to approach any aspect of lifestyle or music practice goals, but keep asking yourself what is realistic for you, what will you stick to, and you will be on your way to a far happier time with your instrument right away.

I find that once the pressure is off, and I’m not constantly telling myself I suck because I didn’t hit the six-hour mark in the practice room, my playing blooms in places I was least expecting it. Although the practice journal, recording yourself and listening back, and planning what you need to work on are important, I always try to not think about yesterday or worry about tomorrow. I can only work on what’s right here in front of me today, and that simplifies and improves the trajectory of my playing.

Steve Vai has revisited the origin story of his long partnership with Ibanez – and the years before it, when no guitar maker, including Ibanez themselves, could build a six-string that met his needs.

Speaking on the Metal Sticks podcast with Iron Maiden’s Nicko McBrain, Vai explains how iconic guitar templates like the Stratocaster and Les Paul felt “very limiting” to him even as a teenager in the ‘70s.

• READ MORE: “We’re kinda frozen at 14 years old”: Steve Vai explains why he and Joe Satriani are still so enthusiastic about playing guitar

“I was a teenager in the ‘70s, and I loved Strats and Les Pauls, but there was something about them that was very limiting,” says the guitarist. “I loved Strats because they had a whammy bar, but they weren’t – I know I’ll get in trouble for this – but they weren’t heavy metal instruments to me. The single coil pickups never really seemed to deliver the rock tone that I wanted. So, Les Pauls were great, they had the rock tone, but they didn’t have a whammy bar, and I didn’t like the way they sat.”

Working with Frank Zappa later on and watching the late legend treat guitars as modifiable machines also changed his perspective on the instrument.

“Once I started working for Zappa, I noticed that he was very irreverent about guitars,” says Vai. “He would drill into them. He would put different pickups. He had a Jimi Hendrix Strat that Jimmy burned, and the first thing he did was rip the pickups out, and put all these electronics in. So, I realised then that you don’t have to be limited.”

Inspired, Vai headed to a small guitar shop and began sketching out what will eventually evolve into the JEM.

“It was really just an innocent kind of desires, like, ‘Can you make me a guitar? I want 24 frets, which was different for Strat-style guitars at that time; nobody had them. And I wanted the cutaway so my hand could fit. I could never understand why these guitars, like Strats and Les Pauls, have these little cutaways and you can’t get to the high frets.”

He continues, “And then I wanted the pickup configuration a particular way that was actually unique at the time. And the whammy bar, I wanted to be able to pull way, way, way up. And no guitars could do that. So, I just took a look at the tailpiece, and I realised, well, it’s not going up because this wood is in the way. So I banged out the wood. And next thing you know, that was the beginning of real floating tremolos.”

As for Ibanez, Vai reveals that the relationship didn’t begin with him pitching the company; if anything, it was the opposite.

“At the time, I was touring with Dave [Lee Roth], and I needed quality instruments,” he says. “I only had four of these made, and all the guitar companies at the time, were obviously interested in having you play their guitars. And I said, ‘Well, I play this one. Whoever makes me the best one, that’s who I’ll work with.’”

“And nobody delivered even remotely close to what I wanted. Not even Ibanez, until finally, I said, ‘No, this is what I want, make this,’ and they made that guitar, and that became the JEM, and Ibanez were the only ones that could really pull it off, and they did it beautifully. And we’ve had this amazing relationship for close to 40 years.”

The post “Whoever makes me the best one, that’s who I’ll work with”: Steve Vai says no guitar company delivered anything “remotely close” to what he wanted at first – “not even Ibanez” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Rock may not be dying just yet, but Jake Kiszka believes that rock as a genre isn’t pushing itself nearly hard enough.

In a new interview with MetalTalk, the Greta Van Fleet guitarist – who’s lately been busy with his side project Mirador, formed alongside Chris Turpin (formerly of Ida Mae) and drummer Marky Lennon – discusses the band’s self-titled debut album and shares why looking further backward may be the key to pushing rock music forward.

• READ MORE: Mirador guitarist was worried Greta Van Fleet would think he was “defiling” Jake Kiszka by starting a band with him

Beyond the blues, Mirador’s music, Kiszka explains, is steeped in folklore and ancient narrative traditions. The trio found themselves drawn to old ballads and myths, using those stories as a foundation while ‘re-adapting’ them for their songs.

For Kiszka, that mix of tradition and reinvention isn’t just central to Mirador – it’s something he believes rock music at large could benefit from.

“There’s so much tunnel vision in contemporary rock records,” he says. “Some of the philosophy in what rock ‘n’ roll could or should be for our generation. We were contemplating the future of rock ‘n’ roll, but what we did was the complete opposite: looking back, perhaps even further back, through the threads of influence that were the lineage of rock ‘n’ roll’s invention.”

“We went back into the blues and folk, but also further into Native American music, African tribal music, Sufi music of India, Eastern European music, and Nordic, Celtic, and Hungarian folk music,” Kiszka adds.

That spirit of exploration has continued on the road, where Mirador’s songs have morphed and reshaped themselves almost nightly.

“The amount of evolution these songs have taken is crazy,” says Kiszka. “The majority of the record was written on two acoustic guitars in an old Victorian house in East Nashville.”

“We played versions of the songs before recording them, then recorded them, and they changed again. Then we constructed the headlining set, and they changed for the fourth time – and then they change every night. It’s a shape-shifting thing as we go along.”

The post Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka thinks that modern rock bands aren’t experimental enough: “There’s so much tunnel vision in contemporary rock records” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.