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Thinking of upgrading your guitar rig, but with the insanely large amount of gear on the market, don’t know where to look? Following the masses is never a bad idea…

Generally, when a particular piece of guitar gear is flying off the shelves, it’s because guitarists are trying it for themselves, having a great experience and recommending others do the same.

So if you’ve got a bit of coin and don’t know where to spend it, online gear marketplace Reverb has just released a list of its best-selling guitar gear of the last month. It is as follows…

Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai

If you’re looking for a delay pedal that’ll get the job done, plus a looper on the side, the Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man w/ Hazarai is just the ticket. Described by EHX as “one of the most creative instruments you will ever own” – a sentiment clearly echoed by the throngs of people who have picked one up for themselves, the Memory Man boasts a looper with 30 seconds of loop time, plus a cornucopia of delay and modulation options for bending your guitar signal to your will and coming up with some of your best tones yet.

Way Huge WHE900 Atreides Analog Weirding Module

Okay, you’ve got your standard distortion, reverb, and delay, but you need a pedal on your ‘board for the real experimental. The Way Huge WHE900 is a synth-inspired guitar pedal that blends fuzz, an envelope filter, sub-octave, and phaser into a single unit. Weird by name, weird by nature – so get ready to make some of your downright strangest sounds yet.

Positive Grid Spark 40

In the world of portable smart practice amps, the Spark 40 makes a strong play for the crown. Boasting 40 watts of room-filling sound, intuitive on-board controls – plus a companion app for browsing and crafting tones – as well as smart features like Smart Jam Live, Auto Chords and a plethora of onboard tone profiles, the Spark 40 might just be the practice amp of your dreams.

Darkglass Electronics Anagram

One for the bass guitarists now: the Darkglass Electronics Anagram is a compact multi-effects processor and amp modeller for bassists, powered by six-core DSP architecture, with a seven-inch high-brightness touchscreen for clear and intuitive control, and able to add up to 24 simultaneous effects blocks for complex signal chains. This one’s perfect for both live, studio and practice environments, so it could be the perfect new heart of your bass rig.

JHS The Fumble

The result of the “biggest mistake in JHS history”, the Fumble was born when the company accidentally put the wrong circuit into a run of 15,000 pedals. The mistake was publicly acknowledged and the remaining units sold through, but it turned out pedalheads actually loved the mistakenly put-together clean circuit. JHS originally sought to recreate the rare A Box Later clean circuit used and loved by John Mayer, but instead accidentally used a Dumble BBC-1 circuit. The Fumble is its faithful reproduction.

The post This is the best-selling guitar gear on Reverb this month appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Ever since 2011, Taylor Guitars’ Bob Taylor has been on a mission of tonewood sustainability. However, while Taylor has been replanting ebony trees in Cameroon for 15 years, he’s now urging the rest of the guitar industry to become more environmentally conscious – because wood isn’t an endless resource.

In an essay originally published in The Washington Post, Taylor insists: “if your business depends on a natural resource, stewardship isn’t optional – it’s part of the job”. With trees taking hundreds of years to grow back, Taylor explains that big guitar manufacturers need to consider how sustainable their business practices are.

• READ MORE: 50 Years Young – how Taylor Guitars became the world’s most innovative guitar brand

As Taylor explains, his company first began giving back to the environment in 2011. “We became co-owners of an ebony mill there, seeing it as an opportunity to take greater responsibility for our wood in a complicated region of the world,” he writes. “Ebony has long been prized for stringed musical instruments, but basic questions about it – how much exists, how it grows, how it reproduces – were surprisingly hard to answer.”

After working with scientists at the Congo Basin Institute, Taylor worked to support a long-term research and reforestation initiative known as the Ebony Project. As he explains, “the work has planted tens of thousands of ebony and fruit trees on community-controlled lands bordering protected forest areas”.

While Taylor sought to discover more about where he was sourcing his ebony from, plenty of other manufacturers remain in the dark. It’s an issue that is seemingly rooted in complacency: “The species [companies once] relied on – spruce, maple, mahogany, rosewood, ebony – [have] been used for generations and [at a certain time] seemed abundant, locally available and affordable.”

“Over five decades, I’ve seen the materials we use become more expensive, like everything else,” he later continues. “I’ve also watched available trees get younger and smaller, and, if you’re not careful, less predictable in quality. But perhaps the biggest change has been the paperwork: There is now an ever-growing list of requirements tied to national laws and international agreements.”

And it’s not simply a case of planting trees for your own usage – trees can take up to 100 years to grow to a sufficient level for crafting instruments. So the focus shouldn’t be on the self, but on the future of the environment.

He also notes that ebony trees are also seeing a decline due to the mass poaching of elephants. As elephants tend to snack on the fruit of the ebony tree, they pass on seeds in their faeces – but, without as many elephants, the ebony tree isn’t getting replanted as much as it used to.

“The future of a material used to make guitars is tied to the fate of a critically endangered animal…” Taylor says. “In 1974, I was a kid from San Diego who wanted to build guitars. I could never have imagined it would one day lead to me supporting elephant dung research in Africa. But you can’t unknow what you know.”

“It’s a reminder that supply chains don’t begin in factories,” he says. “They often begin in ecosystems, which are complex, interdependent and often poorly understood.”

To round off, Taylor ends on a very serious final note, emphasising just how important it is for manufacturers to consider their environmental impact: “The question isn’t whether businesses should help sustain the resources they use – it’s whether they can afford not to.”

The post “Sustainability isn’t someone else’s job”: Bob Taylor on why the guitar industry has a responsibility to take care of the environment appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

This set showcases Emmer’s mix of heart and humor and shines a light on his deft guitar work.

Since the passing of his father Eddie Van Halen in 2020, Wolfgang Van Halen has, on numerous occasions, explained why he doesn’t want to make a career out of playing classic Van Halen songs, and instead carve his own musical path.

He has largely stuck to his guns on that one, to date releasing three albums of original material with his band Mammoth: Mammoth WVH (2021), Mammoth II (2023), and The End (2025), and supporting some of rock’s most revered names live including Metallica, Guns N’ Roses and Foo Fighters.

But despite mostly charting his own musical journey, Wolfgang made an exception back in 2022, when he performed a selection of classic Van Halen tracks during two concerts paying tribute to late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

• READ MORE: Player Fusion: metal-ready takes on classic Fender blueprints – including a Floyd Rose Tele and a Baritone Jaguar

Specifically, the multi-instrumentalist and bandleader played three of Van Halen’s biggest tracks: On Fire, Hot For Teacher and Panama.

Speaking in a recent interview with Andy Guitar at last week’s Download Festival, Wolfgang elaborated on his decision to perform Van Halen songs, saying “it was like closing a book”.

“It was my way of being able to not only honour Taylor, but honour my dad by playing some of his material… And so it was definitely a do-or-die thing for me,” he says [via Blabbermouth].

Wolfgang also recounts the severe anxiety he experienced prior to the show, as the weight of what he was about to do became more and more apparent.

“I was losing it that day,” he says. “‘Cause to me, it was, ‘If I don’t do this right, if I don’t serve this justice, then my life will be over.’ [laughs].

“I ended up playing it pretty all right. I still made mistakes, but it was just all live and in the heat of the moment. But it was really special. Being able to have Dave and Justin and Josh there supporting me, being able to play with three idols of mine supporting such an emotional and difficult thing for me to do was really special, and I don’t think I could’ve done it without them. Yeah, that was a day of catharsis, for sure.”

Since 2022, Wolfgang has remained adamant that he won’t revisit his father’s catalogue during live shows, but he’s taken pleasure in teasing fans who are hungry for him to do so.

Indeed, during a recent show in Cincinnati, he ‘rickrolled’ the crowd by pretending to gear up to play a Van Halen song, only to perform a cover of Rick Astley’s now-memified classic, Never Gonna Give You Up.

The post “If I don’t do this right, my life will be over”: Wolfgang Van Halen on the extreme anxiety he felt performing Van Halen songs during Taylor Hawkins tribute shows appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Editor’s note: Heritage Guitars and Guitar.com are both part of the Caldecott Music Group.

$4,499, heritageguitars.com

The venerable Gibson ES-175 holds a particularly auspicious record in the long and varied history of guitar. Because between its arrival in 1949 and its rude interruption in 2019, Gibson’s supreme Florentine-cutaway jazzbox held the distinction of having the longest uninterrupted production run of any electric guitar – bang on 70 years without a single year going by where you couldn’t buy one.

• READ MORE: Heritage Standard II H-150 review: “It screams, it roars, it purrs”

Despite that remarkable run, it’s all the more perturbing that since 2019, you’ve been unable to buy yourself a production ES-175 from Gibson since then. Dark times.

Interesting trivia that may be, but it does also help explain perhaps why the H-575 – a Florentine-cutaway jazzbox – has become the fourth model to enter Heritage’s US-made Standard II range.

Image: Adam Gasson

Heritage Standard II H-575 – what is it?

The H-575 model, like all Heritage guitars, aims to offer a refined reimagining of a classic Gibson design – one that was created in the old Gibson factory in Kalamazoo Michigan, originally by a team of ex-Gibson employees.

The H-575 has been a regular feature of Heritage’s brand since the company was born of Gibson’s move to Nashville in 1985, and the Standard II is the brand’s recent evolution of its most affordable Kalamazoo-made line. In this specific case, it might also be the only game in town for a player searching for a new instrument to fulfil their big box Jones.

With all this preamble in mind, the sophisticated-looking hollow body before me is a joyful sight. Coming correct with a sharp Florentine cutaway (F# remember?) and an outrageously pleasing sunburst over a flamed maple top, this is a good-looking beast. Let’s take a closer look.

Image: Adam Gasson

Heritage Standard II H-575 – build quality and playability

It may look like a standard jazzbox, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye – with some features that elevate the Heritage 575 from the competition. First off, that maple top is carved.

While some players might argue that by definition a true archtop guitar – such as Heritage’s Eagle classic model – must sport a carved solid spruce top, the fact that this is solid wood and not a bent laminate is welcome news. The maple theme extends to the whole body – the back is also carved – and there is a decent amount of flame on offer throughout.

Continuing the woody theme it is an absolute delight to see a carved, adjustable rosewood bridge instead of yet another tune-o-matic. This should give us a world of warm, detailed tones to explore.

Image: Adam Gasson

The guitar is built around a 24.75” scale length and arrives strung with GHS 11-52 round-wound strings – although I suspect many of these instruments will be living the flatwound life as soon as they get home.

The mahogany neck features a standard C carve and it feels like an old friend. I’ve reviewed a few Heritage guitars in recent years and have come to the conclusion that the brand makes very nice necks indeed, and this is no exception.

The big news from the electronics point of view is the pair of Heritage Custom Shop 225 Standard Archtop humbucking pickups shining happily from their black plastic surrounds. They get a tone and volume control each and there is no coil tapping – in fact the Alnico 2 pickups are completely unpotted in order to capture the full character of this instrument.

The Heritage snakehead headstock is an ongoing source of controversy, but the recent application of a veneer with an inlaid heritage logo makes it less jarring than it has been on other instruments by the brand. In the words of the great Charlie Christian – it’s time to “Wake Up And Pluck”.

Image: Adam Gasson

Heritage Standard II H-575 – sounds

While many guitars come with a single pickup at the neck – á la Herb Ellis – this Heritage is loaded with a brace of humbuckers and it would be rude not to try the bridge for some rockier Steve Howe meets Pat Metheny moments.

This is a very smooth bridge sound – there’s still some bite if you need it but I’m impressed at the creamy transients even with the tone on full. Thumbed octave work and fingerstyle Bossa nova chord voicings have a degree of sheen to them that just doesn’t happen on a neck pickup. Given that jazz players are often the rare few who will actually use their tone controls it is extremely rewarding to hear such a wide variety of textures as we roll the tone off.

As in-between sounds go the H-575 may seem limited at first glance – this is never going to be a funky Strat or Tele voice but what is lost in shimmer is more than compensated for in blend ability, allowing me to really fine-tune my tone. Nice.

As hoped, the neck pickup is a velvet delight – warm and inviting. Expensive chords with names like zip codes come rolling out without losing focus, while shell chords and double stops sound rich and girthsome. Lead lines, either picked or fingerstyle, are immediate and nourishing. Pull out a Jazz III or a Bluechip and you’ll be having a very good time.

This guitar design predates rock and roll and as such gentle gain is as heavy as we’re going to get here. Anyone hoping for the hollowbody roar of Noel Gallagher or Billy Duffy will find that the guitar spirals off into feedback as soon as you start to really hit the filths. Hardly a surprise. There are some grunty blues tones to be had and if you’re a cool kid running a mucky DI then it’s all to play for, but the vast majority of players will know what to expect from one of these woody wonders.

Heritage Standard II H-575 – should I buy one?

Throughout my playing session the H-575 feels lightweight, well balanced and immediate. Despite the resemblance and, well, heritage, this guitar will gently remind you that it is not intended to be an ES-175. The combination of a solid, carved soundboard and unpotted vintage-voiced pickups makes for a much more sensitive instrument – this is good news.

Players looking for this sort of thing will probably be exploring the upper echelons of the Epiphone catalogue for a fully laminated guitar, turning to boutique makers such as Collings for an alternative or rolling the dice on a second-hand purchase. Yes, it’s a significant investment but the Heritage Standard II H-75 represents a hell of a lot of guitar for the money.

I began this review with a question and I will end it in the same way. Are you a guitarist looking for an articulate, woody jazz and blues voice that responds beautifully to your touch. If so, do you also happen to have the thick end of five grand to invest? You do? Great! Have at it!

Heritage Standard II H-575 – alternatives

If you’re looking for a similar vibe but for a much more affordable outlay, the Chinese-made Eastman AR372CE (£1,569/£1,099) is an impressive alternative. If you want something at the higher end of the market, Ibanez’s Japan-made LGB300-VYS Prestige George Benson (£3,599) comes with the jazz great’s seal of approval. Otherwise, if you’re after a Gibson Custom Shop ES-175 Reissue on the used market, or a vintage one for that matter, be prepared to pay above and beyond what the Heritage is going for.

The post Heritage Standard II H-575 review: “a hell of a lot of guitar for the money” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

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A cross-platform guitar rig-building experience

I am pleased to announce the lineup for our 2026 Fretboard Summit.

This year’s Summit is all about discovery: Hearing new artists who should be on your radar, along with the voices you’ve heard on our podcast and in our print pages. It’s also all about fun.

Included for 2026’s lineup: Jessica Dobson/Deep Sea Diver (Solo); Antoine Boyer; Hand Habits; Jake Xerxes Fussell; Michael Daves & Jacob Jolliff; The Volcano Brothers, featuring Steve Dawson, Fats Kaplin, Richard Bennett, Andy Reiss, & Dave Jacques; Shane Parish; Gabe Noel; Corey Congilio and others. 

2026 speakers and instructors include many of the artists mentioned above along with Chris Martin IV (Martin Guitars), Josh Scott (JHS), Fender historian Terry Foster,  TJ Thompson & Greig Hutton, Sofia Wolfson, Gabe Noel, Evan Gluck (New York Guitar Repair), Mark Stutman (Folkway Music), Barry Grzebik (Grez Guitars), yours truly and others. 

Bob Taylor (Taylor Guitars) will be doing a deep dive extended look into sourcing and using woods for guitars and sharing the decades of experience he’s earned navigating CITES laws, ethically sourcing tropical woods and more.

Mark Stutman (Folkway Music) will be creating the ultimate vintage Gibson acoustic petting zoo, letting you all get your hands on 1930s Kel Kroydons and Gibson L models that you rarely see in person.

Our on-site lutherie showcase (one of the biggest in the world) will spread across the two buildings of Old Town School’s campus and feature big brands like Martin, Yamaha, Taylor, Iris, Bourgeois, and Collings; pedal makers (JHS, Browne, Summer School Electronics, Chase Bliss), amp builders (from Henriksen to Two-Rock), and over 50 independent and small-batch builders of acoustics and electrics.

In years past, Collings and other brands unveiled new instruments and prototypes that weren’t even displayed at NAMM. This is your chance to see what may be next year’s coolest gear release.

The fun doesn’t stop there.

There will be a loud room based on our Truth About Vintage Amps Podcast if you want to try your next guitar purchase out on dozens of vintage amplifiers and PA heads. More into acoustics? We have quiet audition rooms just for those.

The Summit Pinewood Derby is returning, where luthiers put all their craft and heart into a tiny Boy Scout-approved block of pine and see who is the fastest.

We’ll have wine tasting thanks to FJ reader and vintner Bill Downie (coming all the way from Australia).

A 5K run just for guitar geeks.

Our annual Science Fair is happening, where all the uber-creative guitarmakers can show off their cutting-edge creations.

We’ll have pedal-making classes thanks to Mark from Summer School Electronics, where you can go home with the ultimate Summit souvenir, a pedal you just soldered and assembled.

Plus live podcast tapings from the FJ and other content creators, gear givaways just for registrants, and lots more.

Register here for our 2026 Summit and don’t forget to tell your friends. This is like a giant family reunion for anyone who loves guitars. All abilities, ages, styles are welcome.

Some FAQ re: the Summit. 

What is the Fretboard Summit?

It’s a hang, a conference, and a music festival rolled into one.

Basically, it’s our take on the ultimate guitar geek weekend, where you can meet the heroes we celebrate on our pages and podcasts (players and builders); see some ridiculously cool concert lineups; try out (and buy) some insanely unique guitars; learn a bunch; and make some new friends.

It’s also one of the only open-to-the-public conventions that features a who’s-who of legendary guitar and gear makers, large and small batch.

Why?

Because we wanted to celebrate the community around the Fretboard Journal. Acoustic and electric. We also wanted you to be able to meet all these great personalities we interview and showcase in our magazine.

You don’t need to be a serious collector, gigging musician, or virtuoso to attend. Just have an open mind and you’ll have a blast.

Should I bring a guitar?

Only if you want! Most of our workshops are guitar-optional. We do have a guitar check-in if you want to safely store your instrument or grab a bite somewhere, but there are also hundreds of instruments to try out so you may enjoy feeling unencumbered without a guitar case.

Is this just for professionals? 

No! While some of our classes are wonderfully geeky, we craft everything to be inclusive and welcoming to players of all levels. This is a festival made for musicians of all stripes. Beyond all the included guitar workshops, there are unlimited opportunities to play, jam with friends, or try out new guitar gear. We have soundproof rooms if you want to rock out (or just try guitars in private).

Space is limited because this is about as interactive as festivals get. We want you to get hands-on time with cool gear.

What is the Old Town School of Folk Music?

A Chicago institution. Founded in 1957 the Old Town School of Folk Music provides a wide range of music, dance, theater, and visual arts courses to people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. It’s a magical 501(c)(3) not-for-profit with an expansive campus featuring two buildings across the street from one another. We take over both facilities and fill them to the brim with sessions, workshops, jam rooms, and demo spaces.

When you picture Chicago, you may think of Wrigley Field or some busy downtown street or that one Wilco cover with the two buildings. The neighborhood that Old Town is in is easily walkable and there are dozens of nearby cafes, shops and restaurants. It’s like the cool neighborhood in your town, but in Chicago.

Who attends the Summit?

An eclectic mix of guitar fanatics (of all abilities), collectors, luthiers, industry members, and working musicians from around the world. Our crowd tends to be more eclectic and diverse than you’d think – young and old, all genders. But we all connect over a love for guitars.

Having said that: We limit Summit all-access passes to just a few hundred. We want everyone who attends to see the concerts, meet their heroes, and have fun without crowds. So if you want to come, it’s best to register soon before it sells out.

Who will I meet?

That’s up to you!

This year’s Summit has some of the most respected names in guitar craft: You can meet the crews behind Martin, Collings, Santa Cruz, Taylor, Lowden, Yamaha, JHS, Bourgeois, JHS, and Chase Bliss. It’s a rare opportunity to talk to lutherie legends like Bob Taylor (Taylor Guitars), Richard Hoover (SCGC) and Martin’s Chris Martin IV under one roof.

You’ll bump into dozens of world-class players and former FJ subjects. We also attract some of the biggest YouTube and podcast influencers around (Rhett Shull will be attending in 2025, along with the Acoustic Shoppe, Josh Scott, Dipped in Tone and others).

Best of all, you’ll meet a bunch of great players who probably aren’t currently on your radar…and fellow collectors.

What does a day look like?

Each day has over 12 hours of programming planned. We don’t expect you to catch it all (that would be crazy), but it’s there for you.

Get to Old Town School on Friday morning (August 20) at around 9 or 10 a.m., get your pass, browse the schedule and decide whether you want to browse guitars at the lutherie showcase or attend a workshop. Proceed however you like.

The Old Town campus has two buildings directly across the street from each other. It’s a little daunting at first, but just consider it a giant guitar funhouse. (Someone from the FJ or OTS will be at the front registration desk to help you if you have any questions.)

I encourage pass holders to take their time and not expect to attend everything. Some of the coolest music moments happen in the lobbies or just by sticking around a sponsor booth for a while.

There’s a lunch break every day, during which attendees and their new friends grab a bite to eat nearby. I like the Indian place about a block away, but there are burgers, dumplings, cafes and more within about 300 yards of the venue. You’ll see lots of Summit badges at neighboring restaurants. Don’t hesitate to introduce yourself. After lunch, there’s a whole new slate of afternoon sessions.

Concerts tend to start after dinner in the two theaters: The historic Maurer Concert Hall (capacity 420) is where our bigger names play, while Szold Hall is where you can catch some of the more adventurous programming. Your three-day pass gets you into everything. You can come and go as you please.

What are the workshops like?

After you’ve made the decision on what class to attend, you just show up. No reservation is needed with your all-access pass. Some classes are intimate affairs, some have 20-50 people. We put the bigger-name workshops in the main theater, but there’s typically room for everyone. You definitely don’t need a guitar to attend these workshops, though an acoustic instrument is nice to have at a few of them (we’ll let you know).

Every year, we have live podcast tapings, advanced master classes, songwriting workshops and more.

If you want to leave a session early, just politely get up and go. There are usually two to three sessions going every hour, so you can try something else.

What styles of music are represented?

Rock, bluegrass, roots music, blues, jazz, folk, singer-songwriters, and all points in between. Basically, the pages of the FJ coming to life.

How expensive is it?

For 2026, we’ve preserved our pricing from last year: Three-day passes are $400.

This includes everything, all-day-long.

Admission to all the evening concerts, all the instructional workshops, opportunities to win some truly cool guitars in our raffles, the ability to buy Summit exclusive gear, networking events, a great swag bag, and surprises.

You also get early and unlimited access to the lutherie showcase featuring over 80 guitarmakers.

Even without the rest of the Summit programming, this is arguably the largest handmade and boutique guitar showcase in North America.

Walkable dining options abound near the venue at every price point. You can stay wherever you like (see below).

Where should I stay?

We get asked this a lot.

Honestly, you can stay wherever you like in Chicago. Probably aim for a hotel or Airbnb that fits your price range somewhere north of downtown Chicago and south of downtown Evanston. If the reviews online look good and it fits your price range, go for it. (Checking your cab fare ahead of time using an online calculator is also a good idea.)

All Summit activities take place at Old Town School, from morning to night. So once you’re there each day, there’s no need to go anywhere else. Hotel Zachary near Wrigley is an Old Town staff favorite, but you really can’t go wrong if the Tripadvisor reviews and room rate meet your standards.

If you’re on a guitar forum or have friends into guitars, post about the Summit and see if you can go in on an Airbnb. There are many in the vicinity of Old Town, but they tend to get reserved quickly.

How do I sign up?

Register today at www.fretboardsummit.org. And holler if you have any questions.

Still trying to picture this event? Check out these totally unsolicited videos posted by some of our past attendees… 

The post Fretboard Summit 2026: Lineup and Details first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Fender has unveiled its new Player Fusion series, comprising heavy-ready takes on classic Fender blueprints, “stripping away everything that doesn’t serve the riff”.

Boasting high-output humbuckers and noiseless single coils just waiting for you to throw at them some aggressive riffs, the Player Fusion series is made up of four models, an HSS Stratocaster, a double-humbucker Telecaster with a Floyd Rose, a Baritone Jaguar and a double-humbucker-loaded Precision Bass.

• READ MORE: “It’s just the market going, ‘Oh, but I want a Strat or a Les Paul’”: Phillip McKnight explains why innovative guitar designs often fail

Player Fusion Telecaster HH Floyd Rose

Credit: Fender

“Built for the riff”, this Player Fusion Telecaster takes the classic Tele silhouette and gives it a full hard-rock overhaul, with a pair of high-output humbuckers and an all-black Floyd Rose bridge. Ever wanted to play divebombs on a Tele? Now you can… There’s also a 12”-radius ebony fingerboard for consistent bends. This one’s available in Black and Aura Metallic.

Price: $1,399.99 / £1,149 / €1,349.

Player Fusion Stratocaster HSS

Credit: Fender

Offering the full tonal palette of an HSS pickup configuration, the Player Fusion Stratocaster comes loaded with a high-output humbucker and two noiseless single coils, and sports a 12”-radius ebony fingerboard and two-point tremolo with black hardware. Available in Black and Olympic Pearl.

Price: $1,149.99 / £1,049 / €1,249.

Player Fusion Jaguar Baritone

Credit: Fender

Offering the classic Jaguar design in a baritone configuration, this guitar features a 27” scale purpose built for drop-tunings, and comes tuned B to B. The classic Jaguar rhythm circuit control gets an upgrade with “Spin-a-Split wiring via Fender roller pots that progressively transform the humbuckers into single coils. There’s also a TBX Tone circuit for additional tone sculpting options. Available in Black and Silverburst.

Price: $1,299.99 / £1,049 / €1,249.

Player Fusion Precision Bass

Credit: Fender

And lastly in the Player Fusion series is a new Precision Bass, sporting a pair of high-output humbuckers that “push deep, tight low end with enough midrange presence to cut through a wall of guitars”. It features a thin Jazz Bass neck profile plus a 12”-radius ebony fingerboard. Available in Black and Halo Metallic.

Price: $1,149 / £1,149 / €1,349.

The Player Fusion series will be available from September 2026. Learn more at Fender.

The post Player Fusion: metal-ready takes on classic Fender blueprints – including a Floyd Rose Tele and a Baritone Jaguar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

LSL Instruments says it has “full confidence” in Ron Bienstock, as it confirms it hired the attorney – who famously won a 2009 trademark case against Fender – as its representation following a widely publicised cease-and-desist campaign from Fender.

Fender sent shockwaves through the guitar industry last month when it sent cease and desist letters to a number of guitar manufacturers ordering them to stop building guitars reminiscent of the Stratocaster, arguably the most iconic guitar design in history.

Strat-style guitars – commonly referred to as ‘S-type’ or ‘S-style’ guitars – are ubiquitous across the guitar market, with large Fender-competing brands like Ibanez, PRS and Yamaha making their own variations, as well as many smaller boutique builders like Suhr and LSL Instruments.

• READ MORE: Fender claims social media has led to “a lot of misunderstandings about the nature and the scope” of their cease and desist blitz… as PRS confirms it was one of the brands affected

But following a default judgement at a court in Germany in March 2026 against Chinese instrument manufacturer Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments – which ruled that the Stratocaster was a “copyrighted work of applied art” in the EU after Yiwu failed to turn up to court – Fender embarked on a campaign against guitar builders closely replicating the Stratocaster design, saying they were infringing on Fender’s copyright.

The case has provoked intense backlash towards Fender from the guitar community, with some high-profile content creators including Rhett Shull, Rick Beato and Tim Pierce publicly condemning the company over the move.

Though the ruling upon which the latest action was based pertained to the copyright of the Stratocaster design, Fender previously lost a trademark dispute in 2009, after it tried and failed to obtain trademarks for the body shapes of the Stratocaster, Telecaster and Precision Bass.

Generally speaking, copyright protects creative works, like music and art, for example, while trademark protects things that identify brands, including business names, logos and slogans.

The 2009 trademark case was won by attorney Ron Bienstock, who represented a consortium of brands campaigning against Fender’s pursuit of the Strat, Tele and P-Bass body shape trademarks.

And it’s been confirmed that Bienstock is once again taking the fight to Fender on behalf of LSL Instruments, one of the first boutique builders that confirmed it had received a cease and desist letter.

Writing that he has “full confidence” in Bienstock’s abilities, LSL Instruments Director Of Business Development Johny Miller says in a statement shared with Guitar.com: “He has a great team and a history of working through cases like this with giant guitar brands.

“He has spent six years of his life in the trenches in a similar situation and the whole guitar world has benefited from his hard work and wisdom. I don’t think there is a person on Earth with more in-depth knowledge of this than Ron.

“We are trusting him and his team with our part in this matter. All the love and support has been truly overwhelming and beautiful. We are not alone. Unity prevails.”

As Fender’s cease-and-desist campaign continues, CEO Edward “Bud” Cole recently responded to backlash at a recent dealer event, saying the company is “not suing anybody”.

“What we’ve done is reach out thoughtfully and [respectfully] to a handful of companies whose guitars come extremely close to replicating the iconic Fender Stratocaster design,” he said.

While it’s true that Fender does not yet seem to be engaged in active litigation over the issue, the numerous cease and desist letters sent to guitar builders contained the threat of litigation if demands were not met.

This is an ongoing story. Stay tuned to Guitar.com for more updates.

The post “The whole guitar world has benefited from his hard work and wisdom”: LSL confirms that its legal fight against Fender is being coordinated by the same attorney who won 2009 trademark case against the brand appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The estate of Dimebag Darrell has launched Dime GuitarZ, a new guitar brand developed in partnership with Dean Zelinsky – the luthier behind many of the late Pantera guitarist’s most recognisable instruments.

The move arrives as long-running legal disputes over Dimebag’s legacy continue to unfold, centred around the ownership and use of his iconic guitar designs.

A 2021 lawsuit filed by In Dime We Trust – the organisation led by Dimebag’s longtime partner and estate trustee Rita Haney – accused Dean Guitars of unlawful use of the guitarist’s Stealth and Razorback body shapes, as well as “unauthorised fraudulent trademark registrations”. A recent court ruling has swung in favour of Dean, though Haney has stated her intention to appeal the decision.

The launch of Dime GuitarZ also comes just days after Dean Guitars’ parent company, Armadillo Enterprises, filed for bankruptcy, making the timing of the new venture particularly notable.

• READ MORE: “If they were Dime’s original riffs and ideas, of course”: Zakk Wylde says he’s open to recording new Pantera music – but only based on Dimebag Darrell’s existing ideas

Positioning itself as the “exclusive home of Official Dimebag Darrell guitars”, the company says its mission is simple: “To build the guitars Dimebag Darrell would be playing today.”

“There seems to be a misconception that Dime had a relationship with the Dean Guitars of today,” the estate said in a statement announcing the launch. “It simply isn’t true. He was killed three weeks after signing the deal.”

Instead, they point to Zelinsky as the key creative partner behind many of Dimebag’s early guitars, including original versions of the ML design and the famously modified ‘Dean From Hell’.

“He had a relationship with Dean Zelinsky,” the statement says. “He went there because DZ brought him there. That was Dime’s only relationship.”

The estate also argues that Zelinsky’s designs were central to Dimebag’s identity as a player.

“Dean Zelinsky built the beloved guitars he played including the Dean From Hell. That is who he wanted building his guitars and he stated that many times throughout his notes. In this case, imitation isn’t flattery, it’s a crime!”

“Dime played Dean Zelinsky’s MLs when he had braces on his teeth and he died with one in his arms,” Haney adds. “Dime’s innovation for tech, his love and trust of DZ’s brilliance, this is what the direction of this company is, to fulfill those wishes.”

Credit: Dime GuitarZ

Alongside the launch, Dime Guitarz has unveiled its flagship model, the Culprit – a design originally conceived by Dimebag before his death and first teased back in March 2025.
The model will be offered in both USA and Standard Series variants, priced between $1,999 to $5,999. Core specs include mahogany bodies with flame maple tops, three-piece maple set necks, ebony fingerboards with a 12-16” compound radius, and Floyd Rose 1000 tremolos.

Other features include Seymour Duncan Dimebucker and ’59 pickups, Grover-style tuners, and a push/push “DimeBooster” circuit delivering a 15dB gain boost. USA models also feature Zelinsky’s patented Z-Glide neck, designed to reduce friction for faster playing.

Visually, the guitars lean heavily into Dimebag’s aesthetic language, with finishes such as Dime Slime and Dimebolt, plus a razor blade inlay at the 12th fret and the signature winged headstock shape.

Zelinsky, who sold Dean Guitars in 1991 and later stepped away from the company entirely in 2008, says the project carries personal significance: “I’ve been fortunate to have a long and incredible career in the guitar business… After everything I’ve accomplished in this industry, helping carry Darrell’s legacy forward may be the most meaningful work I’ve ever done.”

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Learn more at Dimeguitarz.

The post Dimebag Darrell estate launches Dime GuitarZ with luthier Dean Zelinsky as legal battle over guitar designs continues appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Between click tracks, pre-recorded parts, and tightly programmed setlists, the modern rock show can be a remarkably polished affair. Halestorm guitarist Joe Hottinger, however, believes that mistakes are part of what makes rock concerts exciting.

Speaking to Andy Guitar at last weekend’s Download festival, Hottinger weighs in on the use of backing tracks in live music, arguing that concerts should feel like living, breathing performances rather than note-for-note recreations of studio recordings.

• READ MORE: Richie Kotzen says guitarists are playing “more complex” nowadays, but at the expense of “artistic creative value”

“To me, a live show is an interpretation of your record. And it doesn’t need to sound [exactly like the album],” says Hottinger [via Blabbermouth]. “If you wanna listen to the studio recording, listen to the studio recording. To me, rock and roll is supposed to be a little dangerous. Like, are we gonna fuck up tonight? Who knows what the song’s gonna be like? What does it sound like when the four of us are making as much noise as we can?”

While he has no problem with other artists choosing to use backing tracks, the guitarist explains that the approach simply doesn’t suit Halestorm’s way of performing.

“Whatever – if people do their tracks and stuff, I don’t give a fuck,” says Hottinger. “That’s how they choose to run their business, and we just like to have fun. I don’t think it would be fun to have like a ‘clink, clink, clink, clink’ [in my in-ear monitors on stage].”

“How do you tap into the flow when there’s a cowbell banging inside of your head? Things should go wrong. It’s a rock show. There should be fuck-ups every [show]… We fuck up every show. It’s awesome.”

The debate around backing tracks, however, is still a live one in rock. While some artists have embraced them as a practical way to recreate a fuller and more layered sound on stage, others have taken a far harder line.

Bruce Dickinson, for one, has previously made his position on the issue unmistakably clear, saying he would rather “quit” than start using backing tracks live.

“If it’s not real, it’s not Maiden!” Dickinson told Classic Rock. The singer also warned against turning live shows into what he called “Disneyland Maiden” through the use of backing tracks and other live enhancements.

The post “If you wanna listen to the studio recording, listen to the studio recording”: Why Halestorm refuse to use backing tracks during live shows appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland has opened up about the death of bassist Sam Rivers, saying the band are still deeply affected eight months after his passing.

Rivers, who died last October at the age of 48, was one of the founding members of Limp Bizkit, forming the band in 1994 alongside frontman Fred Durst and drummer John Otto. Borland and DJ Lethal joined shortly after in 1996, completing the lineup behind some of nu-metal’s most recognisable hits.

• READ MORE: Jackson’s first ever Wes Borland signature model is here: Behold, the Pro Series Wes Borland King V KV
  

Speaking to Consequence in a recent interview, Borland admits the loss of his bandmate is still difficult to articulate: “[Sam] was like family. I’m gonna try not to cry. It’s just like we lost a piece of our DNA,” he says. “It’s too hard to talk about right now in depth.”

The guitarist adds that Rivers played a critical role in the band’s identity – both musically and personally.

“He can’t ever be replaced. We’re so lucky for Richie [Buxton], who’s playing with us right now. He’s such a great player, and he’s just a wonderful guy, and we’re gonna hold onto him for as long as we can,” says Borland.

“[But] Sam is not a replaceable person. He was the heartbeat. It’s very emotional talking about it. I think that last year when it happened, we were all kind of in shock, and now we’re all grieving.”
Rivers had previously stepped away from Limp Bizkit in 2015 due to health issues later revealed to be liver disease caused by alcohol abuse. He then underwent treatment and received a liver transplant after leaving the band.

“I got liver disease from excessive drinking… I had to leave Limp Bizkit in 2015 because I felt so horrible, and a few months after that I realised I had to change everything because I had really bad liver disease,” Rivers revealed in Jon Wiederhorn’s book Raising Hell (Backstage Tales From The Lives Of Metal Legends). “I quit drinking and did everything the doctors told me. I got treatment for the alcohol and got a liver transplant, which was a perfect match.”

Meanwhile, Limp Bizkit recently made their long-awaited Download Festival headline debut – 23 years after they were first scheduled to play the event. The band are also set to return to the festival circuit with appearances at Louder Than Life and Aftershock, with tickets now on sale for upcoming dates.

The post Wes Borland says Limp Bizkit “lost a piece of our DNA” with Sam Rivers’ death: “He can’t ever be replaced” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Math-rock wizard Yvette Young has teamed up with MixWave on her first signature plugin.

Faithfully modelled on the amps, pedals, and effects behind her signature sound, the MixWave: Yvette Young bundle repackages the Covet guitarist’s entire rig into a single virtual setup.

• READ MORE: Yvette Young’s next signature model will showcase a major change – and she’s “kicking” herself for not getting into it sooner

At its heart of the plugin is a hand-wired British-style combo amp that serves as the foundation of Young’s signature tone. The amp is paired with a matching cabinet section featuring Alnico Blue and Greenback speaker options, alongside an extensive impulse response library captured at MixWave Studios.

Users can further fine-tune their sound with a choice of 15 virtual microphones and adjustable placement options, offering everything from quick preset-based workflows to detailed studio-style tweaking.

The suite also includes nine of Young’s favourite effects, effectively bringing much of her pedalboard into the digital realm. Among them are reverb, analogue-style delay, harmonic tremolo, chorus, overdrive, fuzz, compression and octave effects, alongside a lo-fi modulator designed to capture some of her most dreamy and experimental textures.

Players are free to rearrange the signal chain to suit their workflow, while additional tools include built-in EQ and compression, a transpose feature, a tuner and tone-shaping controls labelled Focus, Contour, and Vibe.

According to Young, the plugin is designed to cater to both newcomers and obsessive tone chasers alike.

“What I love about this plugin is… if you just want to use a basic preset and tweak it a bit and not think about stuff like mic placement or whatever, it’s really great for people just wanting to enter the plug-in world and enter recording and get a great sound immediately,” says Young. “But what also is wonderful is for people who really care about being able to get granular things and tweak mic placement and tweak like EQ and just be really specific about your signal chain.”

“You can customize like crazy,” she adds. “There’s a whole lot to explore, and I’m just at the tip of the iceberg!”

The MixWave: Yvette Young is available now at an introductory price of $99 (U.P. $139). A 14-day free trial is also available.

Learn more at Mixwave.

The post Yvette Young’s first signature plugin with Mixwave puts her dreamy math-rock tones right in your DAW appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When you first learn to play guitar, you learn that you can bend fretted notes using your fingers to create a vibrato effect. At some point, the guitar industry introduced mechanical vibrato systems to aid in creating this effect. So, what’s the point of creating vibrato through mechanical means rather than using the most precious tool at a guitarist’s disposal – the fingers?

• READ MORE: How strings, tension, tuning and intonation really effect your guitar’s tone

Players did not start wanting vibrato systems because their hands were incapable of adding expression. Finger vibrato, string bends, and blues inflection all existed long before anyone bolted a moving tailpiece or bridge onto a guitar. But, as anyone will tell you, a vibrato unit lets you move all the strings at once. That means chords, open strings, drones, and sustained intervals can all shift together in a way your fretting hand cannot really duplicate. But, bridge vibrato was never just a substitute for good fretting-hand technique. It was a different effect.

The basic idea showed up early. Clayton “Doc” Kauffman filed a patent application in 1929 for a device that would produce what the patent called “tremolo effects” (*wrong!) by mechanically changing string tension. What most players call a “tremolo arm” is really a vibrato system. Tremolo is fluctuation in volume. Vibrato is fluctuation in pitch.

Leo Fender helped cement the confusion by calling the Stratocaster’s bridge a “synchronized tremolo” in the 1950s, even though the mechanism changes string tension and therefore pitch. Fender itself now acknowledges the mix-up. The terminology was off, but the purpose was clear: create pitch movement by moving the string anchor point instead of manipulating the strings directly with the fretting hand.

Image: Adam Gasson

It’s About Doing Something More

That is the real beginning of the whole thing. Not “how do we replace finger vibrato?” but “how do we make the guitar do something a hand alone cannot do?” A fretting hand can make one note wobble. It can bend a string upward, maybe grab a double-stop if the setup and your fingers cooperate, and it can fake a little movement inside a chord if you are careful. What it generally cannot do is take a fully voiced chord and move the whole structure sharp and flat in one smooth gesture while keeping the intervals intact. It cannot easily do that while letting open strings ring either. In theory a vibrato system can. Now, there are some issues with a lot of vibrato systems in how they do that but for now, lets just say, that’s the goal.

It gave players a way to treat pitch as a property of the whole instrument, not just one note at a time.

Big Thinking

Bigsby is a good place to stop for a second, because it shows what players were after before the whammy bar became associated with dive-bombs and acrobatics. Paul Bigsby’s design, developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, is generally treated as the first commercially successful vibrato system.

It did not give players some huge pitch range. That was not the point. It was smooth, musical, and particularly good for adding motion to held chords on hollow and semi-hollow instruments. Bigsby’s own history emphasizes that role, and players strongly associated with the unit have tended to use it the same way.

Then came Fender’s approach, which changed the feel of the instrument more dramatically. Leo Fender’s Stratocaster unit, patented in the 1950s, integrated the bridge and vibrato mechanism into one spring-balanced system. That design made the bridge itself part of the performance.

A vibrato system works by balancing string tension against spring tension. When the player moves the arm, that balance is disturbed, and when the arm is released the system is supposed to return to its neutral resting point. In practice, that depends on the strings moving freely across the nut, saddles, and other contact points. Guitar techs work very hard to make sure that vibrato systems are properly lubricated and balanced because if they’re not, it’s going to create issues.

Different systems make different compromises. A Bigsby usually gives you limited range but a particular feel and look that players still love. A vintage Strat-style unit can be expressive and touch-sensitive, but it lives and dies on setup. Fender’s offset vibrato system, used on models like the Jazzmaster, approached the same problem from another angle and developed its own following because the feel is softer and less abrupt than a Strat unit. Then later locking systems, most famously Floyd Rose, attacked the stability problem more aggressively by locking the strings at the nut and bridge so more extreme pitch movement could happen without the guitar going out of tune.

Image: Adam Gasson

Benefits and Compromises

Each vibrato system has its pros and cons. For example, often times with systems like the Floyd Rose, Fender Floating Bridge, and Bigsby, is that all the strings get stretched at different rates because they are all being bent the same amount but each string is under different tension and stretched differently. So using the bridge vibrato, the chord wont be perfectly in tune as you bend.

Ned Steinberger is one of the most brilliant minds in instrument design, and he’s still challenging things we thought we knew about the mechanics of an instrument. He came up with the TransTrem, which later inspired the Washburn Wonderbar and the EverTune Bridge.

But for each system’s pros and cons, people still opt to use them because they are expressive and frankly, a lot of fun to play with. Divebombing a Floyd Rose creates a trainwreck of imperfect sounds, but it’s fun to do, and sometimes it’s the effect that fits best in the music you’re making.

So when you buy a guitar with a vibrato system, what are you really buying? Not convenience. Certainly not simplicity. If simplicity were the goal, fixed bridges would have won the whole argument and ended it decades ago. So, no matter what vibrato system you choose to buy, you’re buying a feature that isn’t perfect, but it is fun to use, and isn’t that the whole point of playing guitar anyway?

The post What’s the point of your guitar’s vibrato system anyway? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Here’s a classic Guitar International interview from Feb 16, 2006.

Roger McGuinn Interview

by Rick Landers

During the mid-60s, the US music scene was overwhelmed with rock groups from England, to the point where the phrase “British invasion” entered the American lexicon. In response, one homegrown U.S. group emerged to fill the airwaves with a new and unique sound that became known as folk rock.

The Byrds.

The Bryds were fronted by Roger McGuinn on vocals and his chimey 12-string Rickenbacker. The group laid down the gauntlet with a string of singles with McGuinn’s signature “jingle jangle” guitar work shining through with strong melodic undercurrents.

Although, Roger was certainly the hub of the group, David Crosby, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman and Michael Clark were equals when their mix of personalities, musical influences and individual talents sparked, igniting hits like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” “So You Wanna Be a Rock ‘n Roll Star,” and “Eight Miles High.” All of the songs are enduring classics that conjure up the phantasmagorical subculture of the Haight-Ashbury and Carnaby Street scenes, where the air was filled with flower power, peace, love, music, incense and other sweet smells of the moment.

Late in their career, the Byrds settled into their Sweethearts of the Rodeo album that would inspire the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers and others into yet another style called Country Rock. The group disbanded in 1973 and Roger moved on to a solo career.

By 1978, Roger, Gene Clark and Chris Hillman got back together and signed a six album deal with Capitol Records and released their first LP McGuinn, Clark & Hillman (Capitol Records — 1979). Unfortunately, the group didn’t capture the magic or success of their previous collaboration and eventually moved on. There were more fitful starts and stops and by the 1980s, Roger’s solo career again made sense.

Born James Joseph McGuinn III in Chicago on July 13, 1942, by the time Roger reached his teens, he was inspired by such songs as “Abilene,” “Well, Well, Well,” and “You Can Tell The World” and their co-writer, folk legend Bob Gibson.

Before forming the Byrds, McGuinn toured with the Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio and backed up the inimitable Bobby Darin as a guitarist and banjo player.

A folk singer at heart, McGuinn has maintained the storytelling tradition of that genre in his songs for his entire career. This coupled with his sense of musical composition and other talents have blessed him with not only a long career, but one where the name Roger McGuinn is well respected and recognized around the world.

In 1991, McGuinn, along with the Byrds, was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. That same year he released his superb Back From Rio CD that included a cast of luminaries like Elvis Costello, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, John Jorgensen and Michael Penn.

Always a traditionalist, McGuinn again journeyed back to his roots in 2002 when he released Treasures From the Folk Den with a series of duets that include Pete Seeger, Odetta, Josh White Jr., Joan Baez, and Judy Collins. This highly acclaimed CD was nominated in 2002 for a Grammy in the Best Traditional Folk Album category.

As an early adopter of new technologies, Roger has gained expertise in the area of home recording and in 2004 issued the DVD Roger McGuinn’s Guide to Home Recording on a Computer. The DVD is an instructional course that takes viewers through editing, fading, and mixing a recording as he lays down songs track by track. At one point, he makes a mistake, then takes the time to show his “students” how to fix it.

McGuinn has two other DVDs available, one that gives instruction on twelve-string guitar (The 12-String Guitar of Roger McGuinn) and another on how to play folk guitar (Roger McGuinn’s Basic Folk Guitar).

This year McGuinn released The Folk Den Project 1995 — 2005, a four CD edition that compiles 100 of his favorite folk tunes. The Folk Den effort started out as a way for Roger to help preserve the folk music tradition of handing down music to the next generation and this new set pulls together the best of the best doing just that.

Modern Guitars (Guitar International) met with Roger before he went on stage at the Melodee Music auditorium in Sterling, Virginia, where he sang and talked to the audience about his career, his interests in music, and some of the guitar techniques he’s employed to get that signature McGuinn sound.

******

Many people claim that you first discovered the 12-string guitar after seeing George Harrison play his Rickenbacker?

Roger McGuinn: The first 12-string guitar I bought was probably around 1957. I was influenced by Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, Bob Gibson and a lot of the folk singers. In the late 50s, I was in Chicago and went to the Old Town School of Folk Music. That’s where I learned about Leadbelly. Leadbelly’s guitar is in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

I went to the south side of Chicago and got what I thought was a Stella, but it had a spruce top. It was a nice sounding guitar. I got a 12-string very early on and it wasn’t my main instrument, but something that was certainly part of my repertoire.

On your Limited Edition CD, you pay tribute to George. Was he a friend?

RM: Yes, we were friends. He was very reserved. A really sweet guy, he loved his music, loved his family. Not much to say. We went to his house in Hyde Park and he was kind enough to show us around. He let me play his Rickenbacker that he played on A Hard Day’s Night. Showed us around his studio and we all went out to dinner. Early on the Byrds went to see A Hard Day’s Night, a kind of reconnaissance trip. And we took notes on what the Beatles were playing and bought instruments like they had. We got a Gretsch Country Gentleman and the Rick.

You recorded “Turn, Turn, Turn” before forming the Byrds?

RM: I was sort of a sideman. I was a studio musician in New York. I did quite a few sessions with Elecktra Records. And around 1963, Judy Collins was doing a session at the time. So, Jac Holzman (Founder, Elektra Records) had me recording on a Judy Collins album and I started playing on that track. I ended up coming up with a lot of ideas and by the end of it she gave me a nice, very generous, credit as Musical Director.

What songwriters have influenced you or you’ve enjoyed over the years?

RM: Songwriters, hmm. Let’s see, I loved Lennon and McCartney, Pete Seeger, love his work. Bob Dylan, loved his songwriting. You mentioned Fred Neil earlier, I like his work too. People like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell.

How did the instantly recognizable Byrds sound come about?

RM: The sound actually was formed in New York before I flew out to California. Well, not the 12-string Rickenbacker part, but the part about mixing folk and rock.

I was working as a songwriter in Bobby Darin’s publishing company in the Brill Building. My job was to listen to the radio and write songs like ones that came over on the radio.

The Beatles came out about that time and I got really jazzed by the Beatles. I loved what they were doing and they were doing a lot of passing chords. Like instead of just going like G, C, D, they’d go G, Bm, Em, C, Am, to D. So, the minor and passing chords I liked and, I thought these are really folk music chord changes. I kind of got it from what they were doing, I guess because they’d been a skiffle band.

I imagined that they were more folk oriented than they really were. I thought they were probably more a folk band that could play bluegrass banjo and mandolin, but they chose to do pop music because it was more commercial.

Turned out not to be the case. But in my imagination this whole thing developed and I started mixing up old folk songs with the Beatles beat and taking them down to Greenwich Village and playing them for the people there. To the point where a guy put out a sign outside that said, “Beatle Imitations.” I was kind of put off by that.

What pulled you to California?

RM: An opportunity came up right after that to fly out to California to play in Doug Weston’s Troubadour. I opened for Roger Miller and Hoyt Axton and took that repertoire out there, the folk music with the Beatles’ beat and the folk purists had kind of a mixed reaction. But that’s not all that were there.

One guy in the audience got it.

Gene Clark came up after the show and said, “I like what you’re doing, let’s write some songs together.” We had the same vision. So that was the nucleus of the Byrds. But the idea of mixing the folk and the rock act came ready-made from New York.

I always got a kick out of it when they called it the California Sound because it really came out of Liverpool and Greenwich Village. [Smiles]

Did Bob Dylan ever say anything about your renditions of his music?

RM: Yeah, in fact he was at our rehearsal hall when we were working up the song “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Not only that song, but we did quite a few of his other songs.

And I remember playing, I think it was “All I Really Want to Do” and he asked, “What was that?” I told him it was one of his songs. And he said, “Ah ha!” He didn’t recognize it. Bobby Neuwirth was there and said, “You can dance to it, that’s pretty cool!”

And they were very supportive of what we were doing with Bob’s music. So, we recorded “Mr. Tamborine Man,” and Albert Grossman tried to stop it. Bob was behind it, but his manager wasn’t. But, it had already gained enough momentum that Columbia couldn’t stop it.

What guitars are on your favorites list?

RM: Well, I guess that early 12 string. The first Martin I bought. I bought it around 1957 with money I earned as a janitor assistant. I bought brand new. I still have that. A five string banjo, a Vega long neck. I traded that for my first Rickenbacker and the first Rick was one of my favorite guitars.

Then, I guess, the Country Gentleman. I liked that a lot. And some of my other Martins. I have a D-12-35. I bought it new in 1967 or 68. I have from around the same time period a Martin D-12-45 which is really pretty. They didn’t make that many of them. I don’t really collect guitars. I like my Rick Signature 12-string model. I like that a lot. I like the Martin Signature 12-sting that Martin made in 1999.

What about the newest Roger McGuinn 7-string by Martin Guitar?

RM: Of course, the HD-7 I’m happy how that came out.

I went to Dick Boak (Director of Artist Relations & Publicity, Martin Guitar Company) and told him we we’re planning a European tour and Air France had broken my D-12-42RM. Dick was able to repair it, but it still had scars and cracks. I didn’t want that to happen again.

I wanted a guitar and thought it would be great if I could get one that had that jingle jangle thing on the G string and be able to bend like a six-string. So, I told Dick about my vision for a composite and he worked out a little design at the tail piece.

We talked about where to put the four strings as opposed to the, you know, three below and four on top. And I wanted D-45 inlays on it and we kept the herringbone. It’s basically a D-28. It’s Indian Rosewood. Brazilian would have kicked the price up. But this one has quite a punch to it! And this is number 7, HD-7. Dick’s idea. So those are the guitars in my life!

Please, tell us about your teaching DVDs.

RM: Okay, Happy Trail approached me I guess about 5 years ago to do one. The first one was a 12-string Rickenbacker oriented DVD where I actually show you how to adjust the tension rods in the neck by taking the plate off and how to change strings. Also, how to change the battery because it has a built in compressor circuit.

The sound we got with the Byrds uses two compressors run into each other. I had the compressor built in to the guitar and it sounds very much like it.

So, I do that and I play a couple of songs and demonstrate how it works. That’s basically the first one.

The second one is a more simplified folky one. I play a couple basic folks songs and break them down. I did that on a six string. I can’t recall all the songs on it. There’s some finger picking on it. Somebody actually complained on Amazon.com saying “This is NOT basic guitar! He’s finger picking and flat picking, so many beats per minute!” [Laughs] It does have that, but it also has some slowed down parts, so you can learn them.

And the third one, probably my favorite, is the DVD on how to record on a computer.

I heard you’re quite the gear head?

RM: I am! That’s my favorite subject because it really levels the playing field for artists these days. You don’t have to sell out to the record company. You don’t have to get a five hundred thousand dollars, or whatever, and pay them back for the rest of your life to record a record.

Now, you can just get a laptop, get some software, put a microphone on it and make a record. You have to know how to do it. It does help if you’ve had 35 or 40 years of experience in the studio. But, it still levels the playing field so artists can record their own stuff.

Your CDs are recorded at home?

RM: Yeah, that’s how we did my latest Limited Edition CD. One track was recorded in a studio in Nashville and the other twelve were recorded on a laptop, a Dell laptop. And that’s why I did it. Specifically for that purpose. To prove a point. To show that you could record an entire CD on a laptop.

When writing songs do you first start with a chord progression?

RM: Yes, basically, like you said, I’ll work out a chord pattern and work out the lyrics over that. Once in a while and really the exception, will be when I have an idea, then I’ll write a poem first and then write a tune to the poem.

Have some new chord patterns sitting around waiting for poems?

FM: Yeah, I do have a couple sitting around. Once I’ve written a song, I sometimes refine them. There’s one on the recording DVD, a poem from Ireland, “May the Road Rise to Meet You.” I think I had just put some on some new strings and I went in the powder room in my house and wondered if anyone had ever made up a tune to go with it. I had to revise the words a bit to make them rhyme.

So, I came up with a tune for that and kind of reworked the words so it would rhyme. And then I showed it to my wife, Carmella, when she came home and the two of us wrote down some verses. She’s been helping me since 1978. It was the exception to the rule though to come up with the chords and make up the melody.

Do you think the folk tradition of passing down songs from person to person has died?

RM: No, I don’t think so. I think with the advent of the Internet it’s still a one-on-one experience. When you’re sitting in front of a computer like my folk tune project, you can listen to it in MP3 and see the lyrics and the chords and story about the song. You can listen to it and learn it right off the DVD. It’s still a one-on-one experience for the person who’s watching it. Because you can reach so many more people now, it’s the oral tradition amplified.

Do you prefer smaller venues?

RM: I love the intimate surrounding. Where it gets to be less enjoyable is when the audience claps and there’s a time delay. So, it has to be a certain number of feet that the sound can travel and still be in the same number of milliseconds, so it will still be acceptable in that meter.

Otherwise, it gets too far away and when they clap there’s a time delay. If it’s like a thousand feet away, then it’s off. It’s off the beat. I like it to stay within the same sonic frame.

What else beside music occupies your time?

RM: Well I love music and it’s what I do for a living. We love traveling. I get to do concerts and travel with my wife, like Charles Kuralt. I have his book and it’s fun reading about his life. And I’m into electronics and computers.

While on stage, how do you weave the old tunes with your newer music?

RM: I do the songs that people want to hear usually at the end of the set. I start out with maybe one, maybe two songs from solos CDs, folks tunes. And then come up with the end of the set with from solo CD and then “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Turn, Turn, Turn” and “Eight miles High.”

Let’s roll through some quick questions of your favorite things.

Book? The Bible.

Beverage? Water

Song? “Turn, Turn, Turn”

Album? If we’re talking about mine, then it’s the Limited Edition. Others? I like Pet Sounds and Meet the Beatles. My overall favorite is probably a Beatles album. Not Sergeant Peppers, maybe Revolver.

Car? I love my Ford van. I love it! Everything you need, a little house!

Guitars? I like my Martin acoustics and Rickenbacker electrics. Various models.

Quote? “To everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn, turn, turn. And a time for every purpose under heaven.”

Guitarist? Andre Segovia. Clapton.

Do you have a special concert moment that you cherish?

RM: When I was at a festival and I started singing “The Ballad of Easy Rider” and Odetta joined me on stage. It choked me up. She liked the song and she’d recorded it. It was a real honor.

Do you have any sage advice for musicians who have just had their first hit?

RM: Well, if they already have a hit song, it’s too late to get your deal together. Try to get all of your publishing in your name from now on, so it’s yours. And watch out for your manager. You can’t trust your manager or business manager to keep on eye on your best interests. You want to trust them, but it’s a luxury you can’t afford.

Tell us about your latest Limited Edition CD.

RM: The latest the one was a response to fans, people on the Internet, e-mails asking me to record another Rickenbacker electric album. My previous two had been acoustic, Treasures from the Photan and Life on Mars. So, I dusted off the old Rickenbacker and did the jingle jangle album. We started it off with the George Harrison tribute “If I Needed Someone,” which was a song we recorded in Nashville.

This is a funny story. When we got to Nashville, I expected to use a 24-track and a board. When we got there we found hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment sitting in a corner and they’re recording with a mouse! And this little computer! I said, “Wait a minute! I can do this at home!”

We recorded the rest at home on a laptop and really just to prove a point. We recorded it in the family room. I did hired musicians and they’d come in and we paid them. It was a real recording session. But it just happened that instead of using the computer in the studio, we recorded it in our house. And studio time was free. It was a much more relaxed atmosphere.

Just how do you get that jingle jangle sound?

RM: The sound is a combination of several things. It’s compressed. I have to credit Ray Gerhard. He’s an engineer at Columbia Records. He came up with the idea because without compression the Rick kind of falls off. It doesn’t sustain a long time. And he compressed that into another, a serial compression.

The other thing is the arpeggio style I play comes more from a 5-string banjo. And then a lot of the folky stuff, like the Travis picking behind the lead break. Underneath it I’m playing (Plays), rolling. So, I’m overdubbing the lead break and doing the rolling underneath it.

I guess that’s the sound. Banjo picking, compression and some other little folk techniques I picked up along the way.

Do you foresee a Byrds reunion concert?

RM: I don’t think so. I’d like to leave it as a good memory. It’s hard to reheat a souffle as Paul (McCartney) said one time. We really couldn’t live up to it. It would be a sentimental thing, people would go, “Nice to see them together!”, but would it be better? I don’t know.

 

While there’s certainly innovation in guitar building, time-honoured designs like the Stratocaster and Les Paul still rule the roost. So much so that Fender and Gibson – the two largest guitar companies in the world – have gone to great – often legal – lengths to ensure they hold onto their market share.

Launched in 1954 and 1952, respectively, the Stratocaster and Les Paul are the two most iconic guitars in history, picked time and time again by many of the world’s top guitar players. And as most of us get into guitar after being inspired by our heroes, is it any wonder that we often start by reaching for a Strat or an LP – or a guitar which closely resembles these designs?

• READ MORE: Fender CEO responds to cease-and-desist backlash, says company is “not suing anybody”

So while it could be argued that the guitar world is just crying out for some real innovation, is the fact we keep going back to Strat- and Les Paul-style guitars a symptom of market demand, as opposed to a lack of innovation on the part of guitar builders?

In a new conversation on Guitar Center’s Inside the Noise podcast, YouTuber, gear demoer and guitar repair expert Phillip McKnight shares his opinion as to why guitar designs that push the boundaries too far often fail to catch steam.

“I have a collection of innovative guitars that died,” he explains. “I have Parker Flys, I have an Ibanez Maxxas – the first guitar Ibanez ever designed as a true guitar, not a copy. Which was a colossal failure for Ibanez. It’s a hollowbody, it’s amazing. It has a great neck. It did everything great, but unfortunately, when they released it, everybody just wanted RGs.”

He goes on: “I like these guitars, because you get to see where somebody’s said, ‘I’m gonna fix this.’ It’s never the guitar’s fault [that they become commercial failures]. It’s just the market going, ‘Oh, but I just want a Strat [or] a Les Paul.”

McKnight is chatting with Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto, who is currently spearheading the company’s initiative to design its own guitar brand from the ground up.

Guitar Center landed itself in hot water when it announced the project, after it called upon its customer base to submit ideas, and some objected to how this would involve sacrificing their rights for limited compensation.

Dalporto later explained why Guitar Center was determined to make a guitar that was “meaningfully better and differentiated”, saying: “The world doesn’t need another Tele or Strat clone – it just doesn’t”.

Now, in the latest Inside the Noise episode, the CEO calls the market “super traditionalist”, and elaborates: “The question remains, ‘How far can you push innovation and still resonate?’ And I think that’s what we’re trying to push ourselves.”

Catch all the latest Inside the Noise podcast episodes at Guitar Center’s YouTube channel. Stay up to date with Phillip McKnight via his .

The post “It’s just the market going, ‘Oh, but I want a Strat or a Les Paul’”: Phillip McKnight explains why innovative guitar designs often fail appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The idea of making your own effects pedals is as enticing as it is intimidating. The world of DIY pedals is in a fantastic place right now – there’s not really been a better time to start making your own effects, with a huge selection of kits out there to try your hand at, and plenty of resources for designing your own circuit. But before you hastily reach for a soldering iron and doom your first attempt to the “to-fix” pile, I’d like to share some tips for making DIY pedals both work and look great, on the first try.

First things first – the kit itself. Today I’m assembling a StewMac Sun Face kit – a Fuzz Face-derived circuit with an added tone control. Pedals based around the Fuzz Face circuit are fantastic for a beginner, as they have a pretty low parts count – but the reward is oodles of fuzzy fun.

I’d also recommend using a kit with a PCB for your first pedal. I started out on stripboard, also known as veroboard. And while buying a bunch of stripboard can afford you some flexibility down the line, it’s also very fiddly to work with and pretty unforgiving if your soldering isn’t pin-neat to start with. How do I know this? Well, the less said about the total car-crash that was my first attempt at a veroboard Meathead fuzz, the better…

What you’ll need

Alongside the kit itself, you’ll need a few other things. First and foremost – a soldering iron (ideally one with a relatively small tip and temperature control), and some solder. You’ll also need some needle-nose pliers (seriously – don’t try and do this with the big chunky kind), a screwdriver with both a philips head for the enclosure screws and a small flathead for the knobs, some flush cutters for component legs, and some wire cutters/strippers. And finally – a multimeter. This is more essential than you’d think – it will save you a lot of time when troubleshooting, and in component identification.

And, while it’s not totally essential, some way of holding the board off your work surface is a game-changer. I like a set of helping hands (just insulated crocodile clips) on a stand, as these can also be good for wire tinning and splicing, and a few other things. You can get something like StewMac’s PCB holder, too, which lets you spin the board around when you’re ready to solder the other side. Whee!

What’s included

Being a kit rather than just a PCB, the StewMac Sun Fuzz comes with a pre-drilled and pre-painted enclosure (doing this yourself is a guide for another day), as well as some wire and the needed off-board components (a power jack, two audio jacks, and a footswitch), potentiometers for the pedal’s controls, and, of course, the board itself – plus all needed resistors, capacitors, transistors and diodes.

Get on board

The Sun Fuzz comes with a handy set of instructions which will tell you where things go – the PCB also has the required component values printed straight on it. First off – resistors. These are components that restrict current flow, and their resistance is measured in ohms, or Ω. You’ll also see KΩ and MΩ, or just K and M, standing for kiloohms (thousands) and megaohms (millions). So, for example, the spot for a resistor on the Sun Fuzz PCB labeled “100k” wants a 100 kiloohm, or 100,000 ohm, resistor. For values below 1,000 ohms you might occasionally see “R” used to make it clear that there’s no missing modifier – if a kit or a schematic indicates a “100R” resistor, it just means 100 ohms.

Resistors show their values via a system of coloured stripes, and the Sun Fuzz instructions include a lookup table to read this value. But this is my guide, and I’m colourblind as hell – and even if you do have full colour vision, it’s easy to be sure by reading the resistors’ value with a multimeter. I do this by holding the component with my thumb so that each leg touches one lead of the meter, and then cycle through the meter’s setting until I get a consistent reading. Multimeters need to be set to an order of magnitude (this lets them read a wide range of values accurately), and so if you try and read a 1M resistor on the 20k setting, you’ll get an error. If the meter reads as very close to zero, try bumping the setting down to a smaller order of magnitude.

Once I’ve figured out the resistor’s value, I bend the component legs to a sharp 90 degrees (as close to the body of the resistor as possible) and pop it in its respective slot, using my helping hands to elevate the PCB so I can get each one nice and flush to the board.

If you’ve looked at the Sun Fuzz’s manual, you might have noticed it doesn’t start with the resistors. So why am I doing so? Well, they’re the smallest components on this board, which brings us to my first trick for a neater look. Once you’ve got all of your resistors in place, find something flat (the back panel of the enclosure is handy for this), and hold it against the board so that it’s keeping the resistors in place. Then, release it from the helping hands or PCB holder and turn the whole thing over. You should now be looking at a forest of unsoldered and untrimmed component legs.

Resistors that are yet to be soldered. Please ignore how messed up the insulation is on that helping hand – it’s been through a lot…

On to soldering. I’m using the Pinecil, an affordable little iron that’s great for jobs like this. Once it’s good and hot (I set it at around 375 degrees C, which I’ve found works great with the particular solder I use), I hold it against the component leg and the PCB pad for a moment, and then go in with my solder – not too much, just enough that it floods into the pad and wicks up the component leg to make something roughly the shape of a Hershey’s Kiss. Then after a second or so I remove the iron and let it cool. You may be tempted to blow on it – do not do this. The ambient air temperature will cool it down fast enough, and, yes, there is the risk of blowing molten metal off the board and onto your laptop/notebook/cat. Ideally we avoid this situation.

Good soldering skills come with practice – this is one of the reasons a low-stakes kit is good – and if you’ve never done it before, you will doubtless mess up a few times. And sometimes, bad solder joints are hard to spot – just look out for cold joints, where the solder is in a little ball that’s lifted from the pad, and try to avoid making too big a ball. Where PCB pads are close, check you haven’t bridged any gaps with solder. The main tip here – ha – is patience.

I go in from the legs that are near the sides (allowing the most clearance for the iron), and once I need a little more room, I trim the soldered component legs with my flush-cutters. Keep an eye on the component legs – wear eye protection if you’re worried about them flying into you, and/or hold onto the legs themselves as you trim to keep them in check. They’re technically waste, but keep a hold of two of them – we’ll need them for later.

As we’ve started with just the resistors, which are all the same size, they’ll all be held against the board, and so once they’re soldered and trimmed, and we flip back over, it’ll look nice and neat. For more complex builds with more components, you can then work up the sizes – do diodes next, then box capacitors and so on. For larger components there’s another trick that we’ll get to in a second.

So, onto capacitors, the components that store charge. In guitar pedals they are most often used for filtering certain frequencies and blocking direct current. The non-polarised variety don’t care which way they go into the PCB, and will often be little droplet-shaped things or boxes – here we’ve got a single box capacitor, so we don’t need to distinguish its value. If you do, capacitors often just have their values written on them (or a value written in a simple numerical code).

Their value is technically measured in farads, but unless you’re plotting a very elaborate murder, you won’t see anything close to a 1 farad capacitor in a guitar pedal. Pedals instead stick to picofarads (pF or p, e.g. 100pF or 100p), nanofarads (nF or n) and microfarads (μF, or μ, occasionally written as uF or u).

So, having identified the box capacitor, I whack it into its slot – but how to keep it neat? Well, here’s where our good friend masking tape comes into play. Grab a small strip and tape the capacitor down. The tape will keep it nice and flush to the board as you follow the same procedure as you did with the resistors – flip, solder, trim.

Our old friend masking tape is being used here to keep some trimpots flush to the board, before I flip and solder.

The rest of the board population goes much the same way. The electrolytic capacitors are the cylindrical ones – they’re polarized, and therefore do care about which direction they go in. They’re luckily pretty foolproof in a lot of ways, as they have their values written right on them, and a set of minus symbols indicating their negative side. The negative lead – the shorter one – goes in the round hole – their positive side goes in the square hole.

The transistors are those little three-legged things that look they came from Mars equipped with heat-rays (they didn’t, though – the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one). They have a collector, base and emitter. The BC108s in the Sun Fuzz have a little tab on the case indicating the emitter, and so it’s easy to match that to the diagram on the PCB.

There’s also a diode for reverse-polarity protection. It has a stripe to match the negative side, which can also be matched against a diagram on the PCB. For the diodes and the transistors, heat can damage them a little easier, so be sure not to hold your iron to their legs for too long. To be extra safe, you can clip a crocodile clip onto the legs as you solder them – this acts as a heatsink, so you don’t dump all of the heat of your soldering iron into the sensitive parts of the actual component.

Finally for the on-board stuff, there are some trim-pots. These are smaller versions of potentiometers, the same components that make up the pedal’s actual knobs. There are two here, of different values – 50k and 5k. But, you’ll notice on the trimpots themselves, the values are 503 and 502. What’s going on here? Well. for codes like these, that last number can be substituted with that many zeroes to find the value in ohms. So for 503, that’s a 50 with three more zeroes – 50,000, or 50k. For 502 it’s 50 with two more zeroes – 5,000, or 5k. Easy!

For these and the other larger components I do the same masking-tape trick to keep things neat – again, you can bend out component legs to keep things in the board, but I like to avoid doing that, as when you flip over, this can lead to things moving about a little bit, giving more of a chaotic and cluttered look to the pedal you’ve spent so much time on. Obviously, a messy circuit that works still works, but it’s nice to be proud of what you’ve made.

Gaining control

For the potentiometers, I defer to the technique described in StewMac’s manual. Sometimes when building a pedal you’ll need to run three wires off to the pot – here, the pots are just right-angle PCB mount ones. If your pedal is symmetrical like this one is, you can put the pots in the top of the enclosure (facing upwards), and then pop the PCB on top, with some insulating tape on the back of any pots that might hit the back of the board. This means that when we solder the pots in place, they’re guaranteed to fit the enclosure we’re using. If the enclosure is asymmetrical, you can do the same thing, just with a few extra steps – you’ll just have to actually screw the pots into their final places, and solder the board inside the enclosure (taking care not to melt any components!) – then, unscrew the pots to continue to work on the board.

Placing the PCB like this can make soldering the pots a lot easier.

Off the board

The next step is to prep your populated board for its new home. The Sun Fuzz has, handily, multiple attachment points for ground, and a power input that’s right where the socket will be – we want to solder some shortish (7cm or so) lengths of wire into these. Right now I’m just focusing on the wires at the top of the PCB – here’s another point where I diverge from the instructions. We’ll come back to the wires for the footswitch.

For each hole, cut the wire to length, and strip a small (1-2mm) length of insulation off both ends. Then – importantly – tin the loose ends of wire. My personal technique is this: first, I give the ends a little twizzle with my thumb and forefinger to consolidate the loose strands. I then place the length of wire in a helping hand, or, if I’m feeling lazy, the upturned empty screw hole of a pedal enclosure. After this I heat the exposed part of wire with my soldering iron (taking care not to melt the insulation), and touch some solder to it – if the wire is hot enough, the solder will wick into the strands.

This may seem excessive when you’re starting out, and yes, it’s a pain, but it’s worth doing – when you thread the wires through PCB pads or the power/audio jacks, it keeps the strands from fraying outwards. This fraying not only looks a bit rough, it can (more crucially) lead the wire to break, or short out against something it shouldn’t.

Once tinned, you can pop the wires into their respective holes (ignoring the LED for now) and solder. What side you solder doesn’t really matter, in my opinion, as long as you have enough length to reach what you need to reach.

How to wire a true-bypass footswitch

Onto the footswich wiring. Now – here I’m going to go rogue again, and ignore the little daughterboard. If you are using it, it’s pretty self-explanatory (wire each thing on the daughterboard to the thing on the PCB) but I want to demonstrate how to wire a footswitch without one. It’s a handy skill to have, especially if you end up repairing any hand-wired pedals that need a new footswitch. Looking down at the footswitch, with the lugs oriented sideways, here’s what’s going on:

A standard footswitch we use for true bypass is a latching 3PDT, or triple-pole double-throw, footswich. What do all of those words mean? Well, latching means what you hopefully think it does – press it once, the switch goes one way. Press it again, it goes the other way. The other mode of operation would be momentary – IE, only switching when your foot is actually on it. Triple-pole means that there are three columns of connectors, and double throw means that each column of connectors has three connectors in it – one central row, and then two rows that are ‘thrown’ to, as you can see above.

There are a few ways to wire a footswitch, but below is my preferred method. Let’s go through how it works, starting with your plain old input signal, which we connect to the central lug on the leftmost column. The input jack is on the right of the pedal, but we’re looking down on an upside down pedal as we wire it, so we’re working left-to-right for now. When the pedal is in bypass, the central row is connected to the bottom row – so, this connects the input signal straight to that little jumper wire that goes past the middle column, and to the lug on the bottom-right of the switch. As the bottom row lugs are connected to their respective middle-row lugs, this will be sending our input signal straight to the rightmost middle lug. Connect this lug straight to the output jack, and hey presto, we have true bypass! We’ve effectively wired the input and the output of the pedal straight to each other using the switch.

When the footswitch is pressed, the middle row is connected in the other direction – to the top row. So, let’s follow the input again. It comes into the middle row and the switch sends it upwards, so we can feed that to the input of the pedal’s actual circuitry. The output of the circuit can then be connected to the top lug on the rightmost side of the switch, which will send the output of the pedal straight to the output jack. Which is, presumably, what you want when you press the footswitch.

So, let’s look at that middle column – and that jumper from pin 1 to pin 6. The central lug is connected to ground, the zero-point for voltage and return point for current in the circuit. The top lug of the middle column is connected to the negative side of the indicator LED. We then connect the positive side of the LED to the 9 volt power supply – with a 2.2k resistor somewhere along the way to limit the current and keep our LED from immediately burning out. This means that when the pedal is on, current has a path to ground through the LED, and hence – light. When the pedal is bypassed, the ground lug is connected in the other direction – current can’t flow through the LED, as the lug it’s connected to is no longer connected to anything.

This is where that jumper comes in. All it does is connect the input of the pedal to ground when it’s bypassed, using the same ground connection as the LED. This isn’t needed for every pedal, but for higher-gain circuits, this just makes sure the input of the pedal isn’t going to oscillate or pick up noise, as this can make its way into the output of the signal, even in bypass. This is due to a fun quirk of physics that means electrical signals are only kinda contained by wires.

Having a good understanding of the signal flow of your switch is very handy – particularly if anything goes wrong with it. Being able to look at a footswitch at a glance and go, “oh, I’ve wired this wrong” could save you hours of troubleshooting the board itself.

Putting the footswitch theory to the test

We can solder the footswitch a little like how we soldered the pots – place the pots through the top of the enclosure again, and then put the switch in its hole upside down. If you’re not using a daughterboard, use your pliers to bend a component leg into the required shape for the bypass jumper, and also feed another leg through pin 1 to pin 6. To get the bypass jumper to stay put, you can feed it through the middle row as well to hold it in place, solder the bottom row, and trim the excess. Once the jumper from pin 1 to 6 is fed through, you can solder its pin 6 connection, but leave the pin 1 connection to be soldered at the same time as the circuit input wire.

It won’t win any awards for looking overly snazzy, but it’s no rat’s nest either.

Speaking of wire – you can then measure out enough wire for each connection (note – some kits label the negative side of the LED simply as “Sw” or “Switch”, so that’s what needs to be wired to pin 4), cut, strip, tin and solder. You can use your needle-nose pliers to make sure you thread wires neatly into their respective footswitch holes. Here you can also solder in wires for the input and output – they’ll need to reach the top of the pedal’s enclosure, plus have a little bit of slack. Thinking about how long each wire needs to be, and then giving it just a little bit more so it’s not taking any strain, is how you avoid the insides of your pedals looking like the bit at the end of Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

Approaching the end

So, we’re nearly there – we’ve got a populated pcb and a hopefully working footswitch. Into its new home it goes – for the LED, there are different approaches that kits take, but here, the best thing to do is attach the bezel to the case, and then insert the LED (in its little jacket) so that it’s oriented correctly – long leg towards the round pad. Then, drop the PCB into its new home and finger-tighten the nuts and washers for the footswitch and the potentiometers. As it goes in, you can tilt it to “catch” the LED leads so they go up through their pads, or you can then use needle-nose pliers to fold them over and then solder them in place.

We also don’t need to add a current-limiting resistor (sometimes abbreviated to CLR) here, as we already have – it’s part of the actual circuit design. Keep in mind, though, if you are wiring your own LED up off-board, you’ll need to put one somewhere in between the switch, LED and power.

So, time for the power and audio jacks. The power jack here is unswitched, and so simply takes the nine-volt power straight from the supply and passes it to two lugs – the short lug for the centre of the barrel jack – used for ground/negative, in the case of 99.99% of pedal power supplies – and the long lug for the positive. Two of the wires from the top of the PCB are labelled + and -, so these need to go to the long and short legs of this power jack. Take care when soldering these to the lugs – it’s easy to accidentally push the iron into the plastic body of the power jack and melt it.

Each audio jack has two connections – sleeve and tip. The tip is for signal, and the sleeve for ground. Here, we’ve got mono open-style jacks, which are nice and simple – a connector each for tip and sleeve. Which one’s which can be seen visually, but if you’re unsure and/or you’ve got a different style of jack, you can check with the continuity mode on your multimeter.

The sleeve of each jack can be wired to the ground connections on the PCB we soldered earlier. Soldering the wires through the tabs here can be a little tricky – take it slow, and remember you can always loosen the jack to get it to a more convenient orientation for soldering. The tip connectors can then be soldered to the respective input/output wires we soldered to the footswitch earlier.

It’s good practice to run the input and output wires close to the walls of the enclosure, along opposite sides – this is another thing that helps reduce noise and oscillations. We’ve soldered the circuit’s ground connections to the sleeve of the audio jacks – and as they’re metal jacks, these are in contact with the enclosure, connecting it to ground as well. Like the shielding in your guitar, this helps reject any electromagnetic interference (EMI) that might come in from the outside. Keeping the inputs and outputs close to the enclosure also helps stop them acting as antennae, and running them on opposite sides helps prevent feedback – don’t be tempted to twist the in and out wires together and run them as a single unit from the jacks to the footswitch. This will just mean you’ll get a load of squealing oscillation, particularly with a high-gain circuit like a fuzz.

So, that should be everything wired up – take some time to do a visual inspection before you tighten all of the jacks. Are any exposed wires touching? Are there any spots on the PCB missing any components? Do the audio jacks let you plug patch cables in without the plugs hitting any wires? Is the power definitely wired the right way around?

Once everything’s tightened up, you might want to do a quick test before you close the enclosure. Just remember two things – firstly, if the pedal is still open and upside down, the input is on the other side than it normally is. I cannot tell you how many times I thought a pedal was dead after I finished building it, only because I tested it with the cables plugged in the wrong way. Also remember – you’ve soldered in a volume control, and it may be set to zero. Check it’s turned up before panicking!

The stickers go on! The disparate ways of applying artwork to pedal enclosures could fill a book – but stickers are nice and simple.

So, hopefully you get a nice fuzzy sound when you press the footswitch, and the LED lights up, and the controls all do what you want. Brilliant! One last thing for the Sun Fuzz – setting the trimpots, which I do a quickly by ear and then close everything up. Screw on the knobs with a small flathead screwdriver, apply the stickers, and, well, you’re finished. You have a fuzz pedal – one you made yourself, that, if you take the right care during assembly, should last a lifetime.

The post Building a DIY pedal kit? Here are some tips for neatness and reliability appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Add flavor to this beloved traditional melody with strums, arpeggios, and cross picking.

As Metallica’s lead guitarist for decades, Kirk Hammett has been behind some of the genre’s greatest riffs and hits. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t classic metal tracks he also wishes he wrote.

Most of today’s metal guitarists can trace one of the tendrils of their inspiration tree back to Randy Rhoads, and Hammett is no different. In fact, he looks up to Ozzy Osbourne’s former sideman so much that he wishes he wrote one Ozzy classic, in particular.

In a VH1 interview recently resurfaced by Far Out Magazine, the Metallica guitarist said: “I know this might sound weird, but you know, I’m really into jazz.

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“I learnt Diary of a Madman sometime last year and was just amazed at all the great jazz voicings that that song has.

“And as I was scratching my head, I thought, ‘This is a brilliant piece of work.’ Randy Rhoads really, really showed a lot more depth, other than, you know, just rock licks and power chords.”

Despite its arguably inaccessible and pop-unfriendly jazz voicings and off-piste chord progressions, Diary of a Madman remains one of the quintessential tracks in Ozzy Osbourne’s catalogue. The title track from the singer’s 1981 effort, it continues to rack up millions of plays across streaming services.

Randy Rhoads remains one of the foremost inspirations for today’s metal players. Despite only playing with Ozzy Osbourne for just shy of three years – ending with his tragic death in a plane crash in 1982 – Rhoads’ impact on metal music was immeasurable, performing on Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981). Rhoads was part of the songwriting team behind the riff of Crazy Train, Ozzy’s most iconic song.

Randy Rhoads was so influential that many suggested there was a rivalry between him and his contemporary at the time, Eddie Van Halen. But W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes recently went on record to dispel that there was ever any animosity.

“The rivalry was between the fans, more,” he said. “The fans of Quiet Riot versus Van Halen fans. That was where the rivalry really was. But between the bands…it wasn’t between Ed and Randy. Ed would never say he hated the guy or disliked him.”

The post “I was just amazed at all the great jazz voicings that song has”: The Ozzy Osbourne classic Kirk Hammett wishes he wrote appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.