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There might be no such thing as a stupid question, but that doesn’t make asking it any more embarrassing. The world of guitars and gear can be an especially complex space to navigate – with brands, forums and the whole online guitar space seemingly overflowing with people arguing about right and wrong seemingly without end.

• READ MORE: Answered: Technical Guitar Questions You Were Too Afraid To Ask

But in truth, getting the tones you want starts with a basic understanding of your gear and how to use it. So here, we’ll answer some common technical questions about guitar that maybe you’ve always wanted to ask but never felt comfortable doing so. With this knowledge in your back pocket, you should be able to keep your guitar in better working order, and have more fun as a result.

Why Does My Guitar Go Out of Tune So Fast?

This can be from a variety of causes. The most common issue is string stretch, especially if your strings are new. As you play on a new set of strings, they will stretch, and you’ll find yourself having to tune them back to pitch fairly quickly.

Another common issue is friction at the nut or, less commonly, the bridge. The strings do travel through the slots carved into the nut on most guitars, and when you bend the string, it needs to be able to travel through that slot. Sometimes, if the nut slots aren’t properly carved or lubricated, the string can bind in there and result in the strings sticking sharp. Many guitars with vibrato systems have tuning stability issues as well, so you need to ensure that those systems are properly set up and maintained.

Temperature changes can also play a role. Metal expands and contracts with heat, and wood responds to humidity. A guitar that was perfectly in tune in your living room may drift once it’s brought into a cold rehearsal space or a warm stage environment. For touring guitarists, this can be a constant battle.

Why Do My Strings Buzz?

Buzz happens when a vibrating string lightly touches a fret somewhere along its path. Because guitar strings vibrate in an arc rather than a straight line, there has to be enough clearance above the frets to accommodate that movement. If the string sits too low, it will collide with the next fret as it vibrates.

That clearance is controlled by several setup factors working together: neck relief, action height, and nut slot depth. The truss rod adjusts the slight forward curvature of the neck known as relief. Some people think their neck should be dead straight, but without that subtle curve, the strings would sit too close to the frets in the middle of the neck. Action height, controlled at the bridge, determines how far the strings sit above the fretboard overall.

There are a few ways to check for proper relief but what I do is put a capo at the first fret, then I use my finger to fret the string at the twelfth fret, (some people will fret the last fret or on acoustics, where the neck connects to the body) then I use a feeler gauge to check the clearance at the sixth fret. I like to set up the action somewhere between .004” and .008” for electrics and .006” and .010” for acoustics. Some players like a lower action, and some like a higher action, but anything less than .004” and you’re probably going to have fret buzz.

Should I Touch My Amplifier Tubes?

I’ve watched techs handle tubes with white cotton gloves like they’re defusing a bomb – that’s a bit overkill, if you ask me. Yes, tubes are made of glass. Yes, you shouldn’t spike one into the floor like a touchdown celebration. But they’re a lot tougher than they sometimes are presented to be.

I’ve heard people tell me that you can’t touch a tube with your bare hands. The thinking goes that the oil from your skin will create hot spots on the glass and burn the tube out early. There is a grain of truth in this, but it only applies to halogen lightbulbs, which use a quartz envelope that reacts badly to skin oils.

A vacuum tube might look like a lightbulb, but it’s not – they’re made of standard borosilicate glass and so don’t have that problem. In short then, don’t touch your car headlights, but your tubes are absolutely fine!

Where you do want to be careful is the temperature. A tube that’s been running gets hot, and hot glass is more vulnerable to thermal shock than cold glass. But the real reason you shouldn’t touch a tube when it’s hot… is because touching hot glass will burn your fingers!

Does Higher Pickup Output Mean a Better or Heavier Tone?

Pickup output is one of the most misunderstood specifications in the guitar world. It’s often assumed that a higher-output pickup will automatically sound heavier, more aggressive, or better suited for rock and metal. In reality, output only tells you how strong the electrical signal is, not what the pickup actually sounds like.

Higher-output pickups usually achieve that extra signal strength through more wire windings around the coil. But adding windings doesn’t just increase volume. It also changes the pickup’s frequency response. As the coil gets hotter, it tends to lose some high-end clarity and emphasize midrange frequencies. That’s why many vintage-style pickups with relatively low output can sound incredibly articulate and dynamic, while some hotter pickups sound thicker and more compressed.

Magnet type also plays a major role. Ceramic magnets often produce a tighter, more aggressive response, while Alnico magnets tend to sound smoother and more open. Two pickups with similar output levels can therefore sound completely different depending on their design.

Other major factors in a pickup’s tone include pickup design (single coil or humbucker, blade or pole-piece, potting, etc), wire gauge, windings and winding style, the pots you’re using, and the setup of the pickups (height and position) – all of that will have just as much (if not more) of an influence on a pickup’s tone than just the output.

The key point is that output is just one piece of the puzzle. It can hint at how a pickup might behave, but it won’t tell you everything about the tone. The only real way to know how a pickup sounds is to hear it in action.

If you have specific questions, you can send them in anonymously, and we will answer them in future articles. In the words of Red Green, remember, I’m pulling for ya, we’re all in this together.

The post Answered: more technical guitar questions you were too afraid to ask appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The rumour mill can churn out some corkers, but Ritchie Blackmore is determined to set the record straight. On a recent Instagram livestream, the Rainbow and Deep Purple guitarist has debunked a long-standing belief that there’s bad blood between him and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page.

Despite claiming that “most guitarists aren’t nice people” elsewhere in the livestream, Blackmore insists that Page is one of the good guys. “’Jimmy Page’ – very good friend!” he says upon reading a fan’s comment. “Don’t believe what they say. I read the other day that I hated him! I can’t believe they said that!”

• READ MORE: “You don’t want to talk to me, because I’m nobody”: Eddie Van Halen was “too humble” about his guitar abilities, according to Ritchie Blackmore

He goes on to explain that the pair have actually known each other for a very long time. “The first time I met him was 1963, or 1962…” Blackmore says. “I knew he was going places… not only did he have a style, but he had the playing ability. And he just looked right playing the guitar. He was a star in the making, Jimmy Page.”

The guitarist even recalls the last time him and Page saw each other, which would have been at the Rainbow Bar & Grill restaurant in Hollywood. “He said to me, ‘Where did you learn all your runs from?’… It was quite a compliment coming from him.”

Blackmore also notes that he and Page grew up in the same village of Heston in Middlesex, highlighting that they have a lot in common beyond their musical abilities. “I never knew that he was even in the village,” Blackmore reveals. “We were both 15 or 16 at the time… He’s a magical guy. A great guy. Always will be!”

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Looking back, it’s unclear exactly where the rumour might have stemmed from. In a 1975 with International Musician & Recording World magazine, Blackmore seemed to downplay his appreciation of Page’s skills, but his wording isn’t exactly hostile. After singing Jeff Beck’s praises, labelling him his “favourite guitarist”, he casually adds that “I’m not too struck on Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton”[via Classic Rock]… and that’s it.

In 2015, Blackmore also hinted that his feelings towards Page were pretty positive. “I knew he was going to be somebody,” Blackmore explains in the Ritchie Blackmore Story documentary [via Guitar Player]. “Not only was he a good guitar player, he had that star quality. There was something about him he was very poised and confident, but not arrogant.”

“I thought, ‘He’s going to go somewhere that guy, he knows what he’s doing,’” he concluded. “He was way ahead of most guitar players and he knew he was good too. He was very comfortable within himself.”

The post “Jimmy Page is a magical guy… Always will be!”: Ritchie Blackmore sets the record straight on Led Zeppelin ‘feud‘ appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Might a trove of early Black Sabbath demos be about to see the light of day? A number of early recordings – from when Sabbath were called Earth – previously owned by the band’s first manager Jim Simpson, are now in the hands of Sabbath’s original members, and could soon be released. Here’s what’s happened: 

Last year, Jim Simpson – who managed Sabbath from 1968 to 1970, overseeing their name change from Earth, plus the recording of their landmark albums Black Sabbath and Paranoid – announced his plans to release a number of early Sabbath recordings in an album titled Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes via his Big Bear Music record label. 

The announcement came not long before Sabbath were due to play their momentous swansong show, Back to the Beginning.

• READ MORE: Watch Megadeth perform their Ride the Lightning cover for the first time ever
  

The album was set to feature eight songs, including Evenin’, Wee Wee Baby, Free Man and Song For Jim, as well as future Black Sabbath songs Warning and Wicked World, and even a cover of Blue Suede Shoes.

But the release was blocked after Sharon Osbourne – wife of late singer Ozzy Obsourne and his longtime manager – threatened Simpson with legal action in November, saying the band’s members didn’t want those old recordings released.

“You know that, as a band, Black Sabbath don’t take things lying down and you can be assured that if you go ahead with this against the band’s wishes we will take any action we can where their rights are infringed, both here [in the UK] and in America,” she said [via Louder].

But in a new appearance on The Osbournes podcast, she reveals she and the Black Sabbath members concerned have “settled” with Jim Simpson, and hints at what might happen next.

“We settled with Jim Simpson and the band now have their demos back,” she says. “And all four of them own it, which is where it should be. All of that stuff should be theirs. So it all ended well.”

As for whether the recordings will ever see the light of day, Sharon doesn’t shut the idea down: “We’re going to talk about what everybody wants to do with it, and we’ll go from there.”

She continues: “I just think it’s historically important for music lovers of that genre. And then we got [the rights to] the pictures that were taken at that time, too. So that is all so important… I’m just happy that it’s where it should be – with the band, and what they wanna do as a band, what they’re going to do with it. So that’s great.”

When Jim Simpson announced his plans to release the album, he said: “These recordings clearly demonstrate what fine music they produced right from the very beginning. We recorded these tracks at Zella Studio in Birmingham in 1969, but held back from releasing them as their style was evolving so quickly.

“Now, some 57 years later, the recordings assume a greater importance, illustrating how these four young men from Birmingham, barely out of their teens, were excellent musicians and a fine band, fully deserving of all the success that was to come their way.”

The post Black Sabbath have settled a legal dispute with their original manager over the release of early demos – could they soon see the light of day? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Joe Pernice never would have written “It Got Away From Me,” a haunting orchestral-folk ballad from his new album, Sunny, I Was Wrong, if one of the baseball players he coached hadn’t casually tossed out that hooky turn of phrase during a game. By extension, he also never would have collaborated with Jimmy Webb, one of his “all-time songwriting idols,” who plays tasteful piano on the tune. “A kid dropped an infield pop-up,” he tells Premier Guitar. “And as he ran by during the change of innings, I said as a teaching moment, ‘Hey, what happened out there?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know, coach. It just got away from me.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my god.’ I sat down in the dugout and wrote that title in my phone. I was like, ‘That’s a hook I hadn’t known, and there’s a lot of possibility with a line like that.’”

Turns out, you have to be open in order for the gods to gift you a great song—even in such unlikely places. That seems to be a mantra for Pernice, the singer-songwriter best known for his work with the alt-country act Scud Mountain Boys and the long-running indie-pop outfit the Pernice Brothers. He leaves guitars in almost every room of his Toronto home (not the bathroom—yet), picking them up for a meditative strum in case inspiration strikes. He might start a song and whittle away at it for a few years, finally finding the perfect pathway into a melody or lyric. You have to let the song present itself. That seems to be another mantra for Pernice—and that process has never been more apparent than on the gorgeous Sunny, his proper solo debut following a pair of pandemic-era home recordings.

“I go digging,” the Massachusetts native says, breaking down his delicate blend of the literal and abstract. “I’m often trying to learn something about myself, and what I have learned how to do over time is to relax. Before, I’d think, ‘You’re being untrue to this. Blah, blah, blah.’ But if you’re trying to write the most evocative song you can, you have no choice but to try other things. I think I learned that from writing books—you sometimes have to abandon your true story for the better story.”

The way Pernice tells it, an essential part of Sunny’s story is, once again, America’s pastime.

“For years, I coached baseball,” he says. “I had a kid, and I decided I wasn’t going to tour as much. Even though music was always there, for years it wasn’t my main focus. It was being a decent parent and spending time with my kid while he still wanted to spend time with me. When they get to a certain age, they don’t want to spend time with their old man. I get it. He became a freak for baseball and played high-level ball for years, and I got roped into coaching. I think my time away from focusing so hard on music just brought me back to it—I started to get my time back when my son was a certain age, and I think I’d learned a bunch of stuff. I know it sounds clichéd, but I was a different person.”

​Joe Pernice’s Gear

Guitars

• Martin D-15M w/ Fishman Matrix pickup (light strings, detuned one whole step)
• Godin-made La Patrie nylon-string w/ Fishman Matrix pickup (detuned one whole step)
• Early 1970s Gibson Blue Ridge w/ Fishman Matrix pickup (detuned a whole step, guitar is highly modified with a custom bridge, nut, Grover tuners, and re-bracing)
• 1999 stock Fender American Standard Telecaster (medium strings)

Bass

• 1976 Fender Mustang w/ Badass bridge

Amps

• “Older” Fishman Loudbox
• 1998 Fender Deluxe
• Ca. 2000 Ampeg bass amp with a single 15" speaker

Pernice says he became more “chill” as a songwriter, realizing the most ambitious idea isn’t always the best one. So much of his past work, including the Pernice Brothers’ acclaimed 1998 debut, Overcome by Happiness, is defined by clever, classic pop craftsmanship: how the chords and melodies and harmonies unfurl in ways both surprising and instantly satisfying. But with Sunny, I Was Wrong, he wanted to get out of his own head.

“I decided, ‘It doesn’t have to always be so complex,’” he says. “‘You don’t have to always have a middle-eight with a key change. You don’t have to over-produce stuff.’ That opened up a lot of possibilities. I might have been more accepting of songs that were not so complex where, at another point, I might have thought, ‘That’s not original’ or ‘That’s not good.’ I think having been a parent and going through all the shit that involves, good and bad, I was open to being changed. Now I really don’t care. More than ever, I’m just in it for myself.”

Here, with this “solo” branding, he’s also in it by himself—or, at least, largely without the services of the Pernice Brothers (his brother Bob sings on the peaceful title track, and Patrick Berkery plays drums amid the blissful folk-rock sway of “If You Go Back to California”). “Kind of without making a big deal about it, I think my old band is over,” he says. “I can’t really see myself doing a record as Pernice Brothers anymore. I can’t say it will never happen, but I think that’s run its course.”

“I think one of the hardest things to achieve with a record is a sound, a vibe.”

That decision had nothing to do with musicianship. It mostly came down to geography. Since his bandmates are “scattered all over the world,” he says, “it was nearly impossible to get people [together] to record, let alone rehearse a few times to get a sense of the songs.” And with Sunny, Pernice wasn’t interested in remote recording. He wanted the intimate feel of a band playing in real time. “I think one of the hardest things to achieve with a record is a sound, a vibe. There are different ways to get that, but in this situation, I wanted all the people in the same room.”

An opportunity presented itself—once again, in a roundabout way—through family. Pernice’s son, now 20, went to school with the daughter of Barenaked Ladies bassist Jim Creeggan, and the two musicians became friends. “I met Jim not through music but through the school community,” he says. “Jim’s wife has a nonprofit organization and raises money for different causes. Jim has a world-class recording studio, and a few years back he said, ‘My wife is doing a fundraiser. Would you come play a few songs, and I’ll back you up?’” Creeggan suggested they play as a trio, joined by pianist Mike Evin. That lineup sparked something in Pernice: “I always knew Jim was a great player, but that fundraiser put it in the back of my mind. I also knew I was going to use [Mike] because his style spoke to me—it was exactly what I was thinking.”

They all teamed up at Creeggan’s studio, with their core lineup rounded out by drummer Mike Belitsky, best known as a member of Canadian indie-rock band the Sadies. They instantly found a chemistry, reflecting the vast and “vibrant” musical community in Toronto. “I know more musicians here than when I lived in New York City,” Pernice notes. “We started messing around, and it was like, ‘Holy smokes, this sounds really good. We’re getting a thing that I can’t get remotely.’ Before you know it, you’re like, ‘Oh, this is an entirely different project.’”

They achieved exactly what he initially sought: a warm, unfussy, live-ensemble sound with minimal punch-ins. And the actual compositions reflect that energy: melancholy and graceful, full of introspective and imagistic lyrics, dominated sonically by acoustic strumming, adorned with occasional accoutrement like moaning slide guitar (the gentle “I’d Rather Look Away”) and past-sunset pedal-steel. The most notable addition is an airy vocal harmony from Aimee Mann, who adds a touch of elegance to “Deep Into the Dawn.”

“No exaggeration—as soon as I started singing the melody, I started thinking about Aimee Mann,” he says. “I think I have 19 or 20 albums. That single recording is my favorite of any I’ve ever done because it happened exactly as I hoped. I wouldn’t change a thing. To my ear, that one just had it all.”

“I don’t think I used a pick on a single song. It’s all thumb and strummed with my fingers.”

Pernice also has no regrets about the album’s soothing acoustic-guitar sound. “I think it’s just perfect,” he says. “I don’t think I used a pick on a single song. It’s all thumb and strummed with my fingers. We tried to use my nylon-string, but it was just too dark. Jim said, ‘Hey, Ed [Robertson, from Barenaked Ladies] has this no-name, small-body, parlor-size, steel-string acoustic. I’ve used this before. It sounds great. Wanna try it?’ We did, and we were like, ‘Holy shit, it sounds incredible!’ I said to Jim, ‘Will Ed sell this?’ He said, ‘Absolutely not, because I’ve already tried to buy it.’ It’s some ’80s knockoff that just sounds fantastic. I do not exaggerate when I say I couldn’t tell you what brand the guitar is—not only because I’m a luddite, but also because it was nothing of note.”

It’s not that Pernice doesn’t value quality guitars—it’s more that he’s open to any instrument that sounds and feels inspiring, regardless of the brand on the headstock. His collection runs the gamut: a Martin D-15, a Godin nylon-string, and a “weird one-off Gibson” with a Martin top that he got from a friend at a guitar-electronics company. (“It was never meant for human consumption,” he says. “But I’ve consumed it.”)

Another notable piece: a Gibson Blue Ridge with a bolt-on bridge and a fascinating backstory. “In 1978, there was a big blizzard in Massachusetts—it was a state of emergency. There was like four feet of snow. My brother, as a teenager, was hired with his buddies to shovel snow for a week. My late cousin worked in a place called the Record Garage in Cambridge, and they sold guitars, too. He called my brother and said, ‘I have this Gibson that turns out to have been owned by Billy West of Ren & Stimpy fame.’ My brother bought that guitar. I was a bike racer as a teenager and into my early 20s, and at one point I traded a 1987 Cannondale bicycle for the Gibson, and I still have it. I wrote a million songs on that guitar—probably more on that than anything. I learned how to play on that guitar.”

“The lucky thing for me is that picking up a guitar and strumming is a super-attractive event.”

Guitar-wise, nothing much has changed for Pernice in the many years since. He surrounds himself with 6-strings, makes a habit out of strumming around on them, and waits for that a-ha moment. His batting average is clearly excellent, but it’s all about putting in the reps: One ordinary day, he wound up writing five songs, four of which were “keepers” and two of which (“Peace in Our Home,” “Force Feed the Fire”) ultimately made it onto Sunny, I Was Wrong. “The lucky thing for me is that picking up a guitar and strumming is a super-attractive event,” he says. “I don’t have to make myself do it. It’s instant gratification.”

It also leads to surreal moments he still can’t wrap his brain around, like working with Webb on “It Got Away From Me.” After that baseball player planted the initial seed of inspiration, Pernice fleshed out the full song—including a lyrical reference to the Webb-penned 1967 orchestral-pop smash “MacArthur Park.” Pernice sent the track to friend and Webb collaborator Pete Mancini, hoping he’d play it for the maestro himself. He did—and then wound up playing on the piece. “I’m a huge fan,” he says. “He’s like a Beatle to me.”

When he thinks about the journey that song took—from a kid’s casual remark to collaborating with an all-time hero—it makes him realize how strange and beautiful songwriting can be.

“I remember writing that song at my kitchen table,” he says. “I was probably sitting with a cup of coffee in the morning in my underwear. It goes from an idea, to a finished song, to a recording, to having one of your songwriting idols playing on it—and now I’m talking about it to you, a guy I’ve never met. That came from a kid saying something on a baseball field! That kind of stuff always blows my mind: ‘That’s so weird. It came out of nothing.’”

After 4 decades, Megadeth are officially calling it quits – but the thrash metal legends are making sure to honour their roots on the way out. Most notably, frontman Dave Mustaine has buried the hatchet on any lingering hostility with Metallica, even knocking out knocking out a brand new version of Ride The Lightning on Megadeth’s final record.

While fans were already excited to hear Mustaine’s recorded reworking of the 1984 track, Megadeth’s take on Ride The Lightning has just made its live debut. The thrashers knocked it out at their show on Sunday 26 April at the Movistar Arena in Colombia – and, based on a fan recording from the crowd, it went down pretty damn well.

• READ MORE: David Ellefson says Megadeth’s music is the “most timeless” of all the big thrash bands

Mustaine plays the track like it was made for him – which makes sense, considering he was involved in its creation. Despite leaving Metallica in 1983, he was a co-writer on the iconic 1984 track. Due to his role in the track’s creation, Mustaine has explained that the new Megadeth recording feels less like a ‘cover’, as he was equally as involved in its creation.

“I wrote music in that song, it just makes sense,” he told Record Collector back in January when asked why he decided to re-record the track. “It’s not a cover song. It’s a song that I wrote part of, and it just feels different. It doesn’t feel like we’re doing a song by another band.”

Last year, Mustaine also explained that Megadeth’s version of Ride The Lightning comes as his way of ‘honouring’ Metallica as a key step in his musical journey. “It wasn’t really that I wanted to do my version…It was about respect,” he explained to Rolling Stone.

Elsewhere in the interview, he even praised the “fucking powerhouse” of a guitarist that is James Hetfield, adamant that he has “always respected” the frontman. “I wanted to do something to close the circle on my career right now, since it started off with [Mustaine’s band before Metallica] Panic and several of the songs that ended up in the Metallica repertoire, I wanted to do something that I felt would be a good song.”

“Our intentions were pure,” he states. “I didn’t have any reason I was going to say, ‘Oh, hey man, this thing that we’ve had for 40 years where you guys will never tour with me, me doing the song is going to change things.’ That wasn’t it at all. It was more about: This is my life going forward. I want to do things that are respectable… I mean, I hate to say this, because it’s just so fucking arrogant, but the guitar playing in Metallica changed the world.”

For more info on the band’s final world tour, head to Megadeth’s official website.

The post Watch Megadeth perform their Ride the Lightning cover for the first time ever appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$129.99 / £99, fender.com

Here’s a fun challenge – make a few hundred words about a new tuner pedal anything other than excruciatingly dull. I’ll give it my best shot! Perhaps with liberal use of exclamation marks! OK, maybe not. Anyway, despite being a pretty essential part of your setup (surely the most essential pedal you’ll ever buy), tuners risk being pretty bland, especially when your job is normally to find new adjectives for how scrunkly a new fuzz pedal sounds.

• READ MORE: Line 6 Helix Stadium XL review – “bewilderingly ambitious… but it feels like the future”

Pretty much only one tuner recently – the Walrus Canvas Tuner – has managed to create any sort of buzz, because you can put memes on the LCD screen when it’s bypassed. However, while there has not been as much of a furore of excitement about the new Fender Strobo-Sonic Pro, it is still worth talking about.

Fender Strobo-Sonic Pro Tuner: Functionality

Despite Fender making a version of basically everything guitar-related under the sun, the Strobo-Sonic is actually its first dedicated tuner in quite some time, following the PT-100. Unlike the quite basic PT-100, here we’ve got fast and accurate strobe tuning, and quite a sizeable display.

First things first, no, it’s not a screen like that of the Walrus Canvas tuner, and so you cannot upload pictures of your beloved family members or hilarious cat gifs to be shown when the tuner is bypassed. You can’t rotate this screen angle either to position the Strobo-Sonic Pro pedal sideways on your pedalboard if required. A bit of a shame, but lest we forget, some of the Walrus Canvas’ fun-factor came at a relatively higher price – just under $150. What you lose in putting memes on your board, you gain in still having an extra $50 compared to the Strobo-Sonic.

There are two modes you can have the display work in – needle or strobe. Needle is your standard tuner mode found on pedals like the Boss TU series – whereas strobe has a scrolling set of blocks, the speed and direction of which indicate your distance from the target pitch.

The screen itself is bright and readable, and its discrete LED nature means that it’s pretty unambiguous, even at a distance. There’s an auto-dim mode for bright environments, which is fine, although the light sensor for this function does look weirdly like a camera, giving the thing at first glance the look of a blocky, early smartphone.

And speaking of blocky – its otherwise sleek, minimal design is slightly undermined by a stonking great logo, written in a vaguely futuristic italic that seems to have been taken directly from a PlayStation 2 racing game. It’s not the most tasteful thing in the world, sure, but this is why the gods gave us black electrical tape.

There are a few other utility features on board – you can adjust the tuning reference frequency, if you like, and you can turn off the auto-dim feature. You can also change the bypass mode – true-bypass, buffered, or ‘mute’, which is a buffered mode that keeps the pedal always listening, with the footswitch muting your signal. The mute state of the pedal in this and the other modes is shown by a big red “MUTE” indicator on the screen, which is good to see – clear, unambiguous stuff like this does matter in the heat of the moment on stage.

And one final note of practicality before we get to the exciting stuff – the jacks here are top-mounted – all of them, not like the Canvas Tuner’s slightly weird and impractical audio-on-the-top/power-on-the-side approach. So that’s a big plus if space is at a premium on your ‘board, and fortunately, the pedal is wide enough that using pancake jacks is fine too.

So, the actual tuning! In use, the Strobo-Sonic Pro is remarkably fast – I’ve been using the same V1 EHX 2020 Tuner for years, and I was actually blown away by how much quicker the Strobo-Sonic tracked a note’s pitch – it was a much smoother and more responsive experience, and I never overshot the mark because of this. It quickly responded no matter what signal I threw at it – bass and baritone guitar included.

Additionally, due to how the strobe mode works, it is extremely accurate – ±0.01 cent compared to the needle’s (and most other tuners’) ±1 cent – on stage and in most settings this gets you to such fine detail it won’t make too much of a practical difference, however it’s a really handy thing if you want to set intonation, or want things to sound dead-on in the studio.

Fender Strobo-Sonic Pro Tuner: Should I buy one?

Let’s be honest – a £45 second-hand TU-2 from 2004 with half the paint scraped off will do 90% of the job of any other tuner. However, I find the Strobo-Sonic Pro to be a very effective and efficient piece of kit, and for speedy and accurate strobe tuning, it’s a relatively affordable thing that definitely feels worth the extra money over a cheaper unit. Yes, it could look sexier, but ultimately, it’s a tuner pedal, it’s not here to be sexy – it’s here to tune, and it tunes really damn well.

Fender Strobo-Sonic Pro Tuner alternatives

For a more premium experience, you can always check out Peterson’s Strobostomp HD and Mini line, pretty much the de facto high-end tuner pedals. If you’re desperate for something a bit more ‘aesthetic,’ then, yes, the Walrus Canvas Tuner ($/£148.99) will do you well, and you can put memes on it. If you’re not fussed about the last 10% of performance or the memes, and want to save a little cash, you can’t really go wrong with Boss’ TU-3 ($109.99/£99) – pretty much the industry standard, and good enough for countless professional pedalboards. Try the Waza version if true-bypass is a must. The TU-3 can also be used to power some other low current draw other effects by daisy-chaining, as can the TC Electronics PolyTune 3 ($63.90/£59.99), which represents great value. It has switchable true bypass or analog buffer as standard too.

The post Fender Strobo-Sonic Pro Tuner review: fast and accurate strobe tuning for a great price appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.



Guitarist, composer and Berklee professor Lyle Brewer joins us this week.

We talk about his journey as a professional guitarist and educator, how he ended up teaching at Berklee (and what the students are listening to), his influences (from Pat Metheny to Andy Shauf), his love for nylon-string guitars, workshopping new music on the internet, and so much more.

Brewer has a ton of insights on composing, songwriting, the future of AI and music, and more.

https://lylebrewermusic.net

Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal print magazine here.

The post Podcast 548: Lyle Brewer first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

On today’s Fretboard Journal Podcast, we talk to guitarist (and frequent Fretboard Journal contributor) Ryan Richter, who just wrapped up playing two of the most talked-about sets at Coachella backing Dijon.

We discuss the prep that went into Dijon’s Coachella performances, the gear he used, and more.

Give a listen to Ryan’s solo albums here: https://ryanrichter.bandcamp.com

Join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and podcast tapings with some of our favorite artists: https://fretboardsummit.org

The festival takes place August 20-22, 2026.

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation. (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout) and Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar. 

The post Podcast 547: Ryan Richter on Playing Coachella with Dijon first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

With well over 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Radiohead remain one of the most listened-to rock bands on the planet. And at nearly 3 billion streams on that one platform alone, Creep still stands as the group’s most enduring hit.

And in a new interview with Uncut, guitarist Ed O’Brien reflects on the song’s impact, saying were it not for its success, the band might have been out of the game entirely afterwards.

• READ MORE: Billy Strings details “extreme pain and crazy ketamine trips” after horror skateboarding injury leads to tour rescheduling

Asked about the moment in his career when he felt Radiohead had created something completely artistically new, he replies: “I think The Bends, really.

“You could feel the influences on the sleeve of Pablo Honey, but The Bends was pretty diverse. If you think about the way that that album bookends, it starts with Planet Telex and ends with Street Spirit. Two quite different songs – the power and the sonic playfulness of one, and then the emotion of the other.”

He continues: “We knew there were flaws with the first album, and it was propped up massively by Creep.

“If Creep hadn’t been as big as it was, there’s a very good chance we may never have made another record, because the record company would have dropped us.”

Despite its lasting success as Radiohead’s biggest track, the band famously dislike it, and only very rarely play it during live shows. 

Frontman Thom Yorke has, in the past, unaffectionately called the track “Crap”, and according to the Guardian, answered a Montreal crowd’s request for them to play the song with “Fuck off”. He has also previously called lovers of the track “anally retarded”.

As the story goes, guitarist Jonny Greenwood even injected some grating crunchy guitar blasts at the start of the chorus as an act of sabotage to ruin the song during the recording of My Iron Lung, but they were later kept by the producer.

The post “If Creep hadn’t been as big as it was, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t have made another record”: Ed O’Brien on the impact of Radiohead’s biggest hit appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Bluegrass maestro Billy Strings has detailed a horror skateboarding injury which has forced him to reschedule a series of upcoming shows.

In a new post on Instagram, the guitarist reveals he attempted a trick backstage following a show on Saturday night (18 April), and ended up breaking his leg.

“Well, can’t say y’all didn’t warn me about screwing around on my skateboard!” he writes. “Saturday night I walked off stage right before the encore – I was all zazzed up from a really fun show. 

• READ MORE: “You don’t want to talk to me, because I’m nobody”: Eddie Van Halen was “too humble” about his guitar abilities, according to Ritchie Blackmore
  

“I grabbed my board and tried to do a trick I’ve done a million times (back 180) and landed awkwardly and broke my leg. I heard it snap over the screaming crowd! Sounded like a damn 2×4.”

The 33-year-old guitarist – whose real name is William Lee Apostol – goes on to detail the “interesting couple days” he’s experienced following the incident.

“Complete with the most extreme pain and crazy ketamine trips and operations stuff, but the staff here at UVA (hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia) rules,” he says. “They screwed me all back together. They are absolute angels on earth.”

Apostol explains that despite his best intentions to continue with his planned tour dates, doctors and family members have convinced him to reschedule in order to let the injury heal.

“I had every intention of carrying on with the tour and Dave Grohling it,” he continues, referring to the time Dave Grohl performed a number of shows atop a Game of Thrones-style guitar-themed throne after breaking his leg. “He even texted me and offered me the throne!

“I really don’t want to let anybody down, but after some long talks with this doctors, my friends, band and colleagues, my wife etc, I should probably let this thing heal. I don’t believe that I could give you guys the show you deserve coming right out of this surgery, and these first few days are really important as far as keeping this thing elevated and letting it heal.

“Plus I’m all messed up on pain killers and stuff. It’s a dumb ass mistake and it’s all my fault… I feel like such an idiot. But what are ya gonna do , ya know? At least I didn’t hit my head or break my wrist or something.”

Billy Strings’ 22 April date in Charlottesville was rescheduled to 4 August, while three shows in Fishers, Indiana on 24, 25 and 26 April have been rescheduled to 6, 7 and 8 August, respectively. All tickets will be honoured at the new dates.

View this post on Instagram

View a full list of Billy Strings upcoming tour dates via his official website.

The post Billy Strings details “extreme pain and crazy ketamine trips” after horror skateboarding injury leads to tour rescheduling appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Eddie Van Halen was one of greatest guitar players to ever live, but surprisingly, he wasn’t always overly confident about his chops.

In a recent interview, Deep Purple legend Ritchie Blackmore recalls his interactions with the late guitar icon, recalling his “humble” and somewhat socially reserved nature.

“[He was] very humble, almost too humble,” Blackmore says [via Guitar Player]. “He would often come backstage at our shows and go, ‘You don’t want to talk to me, because I’m nobody,’ and I could never understand why he would say that. He always used to underestimate himself. He basically reinvented the guitar with his hammer-on technique.”

• READ MORE: David Lee Roth sold his publishing catalogue last year and says he’s feeling “rich”

Blackmore goes on to explain how Eddie was “too sensitive” and turned to drinking to be social, adding that his sensitivity was why he found it difficult to relate to some of his guitar legend predecessors.

“Unfortunately for Eddie, he was too sensitive,” Blackmore continues. “And of course the business brought him down. He started drinking because he needed to drink to socialise. He was very sensitive, and I can relate to that.”

Of course, Eddie Van Halen wasn’t the only late guitar legend with a strong sense of humility; Randy Rhoads – often perhaps unfairly touted as EVH’s rival – was also known to be immensely humble despite his genre-defining guitar skills under Ozzy Osbourne.

“He was almost like Eddie Van Halen; very similar attitude, very humble, which I always appreciate when I talk to people,” Blackmore says. “There’s no reason to be conceited about music.”

Despite his humility, though, there’s no denying that Eddie Van Halen’s guitar skills changed the landscape of rock music at the time. Last month, Dokken guitarist George Lynch recalled watching Van Halen support UFO at California’s Golden West Ballroom in 1976.

“It was somewhat dramatic, because I don’t know if UFO knew what they were in for,” Lynch said. “And I love UFO – we all love UFO – but they got their ass kicked. I mean, they came up, and I don’t think they were ready for that.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Ritchie Blackmore recently made the bold claim that “most guitarists aren’t nice people”, but named one player who bucked the trend.

The post “You don’t want to talk to me, because I’m nobody”: Eddie Van Halen was “too humble” about his guitar abilities, according to Ritchie Blackmore appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

David Lee Roth has revealed that he sold his music publishing catalogue last year, adding his name to the wave of legacy rock artists monetising their back catalogues in the streaming era.

The former Van Halen frontman shared the news during a backstage interview with the Associated Press at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, where he also joined R&B artist Teddy Swims onstage for a surprise performance of Van Halen’s Jump.

• READ MORE: Why people still pick up guitars in 2026, according to Gina Gleason: “Guitar is one of those magic things that still wields this power”

“I sold my publishing eight months ago,” Roth tells AP, before adding: “Ask me how I feel.”

When prompted, he replies: “[I feel] rich. [Laughs] For the first time in my life I can rub two coins together and create a little interest. No, really.”

The 71-year-old musician is credited with writing the majority of lyrics across Van Halen’s first six albums, and has long claimed authorship of “every word you heard, every syllable, every melody” during his tenure with the band.

His move follows a broader trend in recent years that has seen a growing number of classic rock acts cashing in on their catalogues. Artists including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks and Sting have all sold rights to their songwriting or publishing, while bands such as Pink Floyd and Kiss have also struck major catalogue deals.

The surge has drawn in a range of buyers, from major recording labels like Sony to private equity firms and asset management groups such as Hipgnosis, all betting on the long-term value of song ownership in a streaming-led market.

In 2024, Queen reportedly sold their catalogue to Sony Music in a landmark deal worth around $1.27 billion (£1 billion), underlining just how lucrative music rights have become in today’s industry.

The post David Lee Roth sold his publishing catalogue last year and says he’s feeling “rich” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Gina Gleason has spent enough time around guitars to know the instrument’s appeal isn’t just about sound. According to the Baroness guitarist, the guitar’s enduring pull lies, in part, in the way it “appeals to one’s sense of wanting to figure things out”.

Speaking with Guitar World, Gleason reflects on why, even as listening habits, production tools and the wider music industry continue to evolve, people are still buying guitars, learning riffs, and starting bands.

• READ MORE: “The way my guitar looks with the circles and squares – I was trying to find my own pattern”: How Jerry Cantrell was inspired by Eddie Van Halen to create his own legendary modded guitar

“Guitar is one of those magic things that still wields this power,” she says. “It looks awesome and it seems somewhat effortless, but I can hear that what’s happening is complex. It appeals to one’s sense of wanting to figure things out.”

“The reward is looking cool, having a cool hobby, and being in spaces with likeminded people passionate about the same things as you.”

For Gleason, that sense of identity doesn’t just stop at playing – it extends into the culture of gear collecting as well: “I teach guitar, too; my student Bill tells me that pedals appeal to his collector sensibility – ‘This one’s a different colour!’ Guitars are like cool classic cars: ‘Well, this one is red!”

Addressing the enduring appeal of Telecasters, in particular, Gleason says, “they have such a unique sound. If you have a trained ear and listen to a lot of music, you can probably start to equate different sounds with gear. With the Tele, there’s no question. It cuts through and has a brightness and brilliance.”

“And the players who started using them – the Danny Gattons and Jimmy Bryants – appeal to this sense of virtuosity. The iconic sound is so crisp and clear it gets associated with a high level of playing. There’s nothing to really hide behind. Danny Gatton knows what’s going on!”

As for her recent gear obsession, Gleason says she’s been “really into the [EHX] Big Muff Op Amp pedal for solos and boosts” of late.

“I just got a Big Muff 2; our tech, Jesse Anderson, mods Big Muffs so we use them a lot on tour,” says the guitarist. “I recently got an EVH 5150 EL34, too. I used one for the Tele demos and thought, ‘Man, I need one of these!’”

The post Why people still pick up guitars in 2026, according to Gina Gleason: “Guitar is one of those magic things that still wields this power” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

1970s Los Angeles wasn’t exactly known for moderation. Between the free-flowing booze, drugs, late-night sessions and occasional onstage meltdowns, excess was practically part of the rockstar gig. While plenty of players got swept up in it, for Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, surviving it as a guitarist meant knowing where to draw the line.

Speaking on the latest episode of The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan, the Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers guitarist opens up about life at the epicenter of a notoriously indulgent era – and the mindset that helped him come through it unscathed.

• READ MORE: “We have a moral duty to the players”: Fender CEO Bud Cole on leading with responsibility

“Listen, I partied hard,” Baxter admits. “And especially playing in country bands… So, a tough night at the Jack of Diamonds, you know, a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

He recalls long, chaotic nights onstage, where the music often had to compete with whatever was happening in the room.

“I’m playing [pedal] steel on Talent Night, Thursday night doing Faded Love. Waiting for the two guys to finish killing each other so we can go into Foggy Mountain breakdown.”

“But there was always something in the back of my mind that scared me. Because I didn’t want to lose my ability. I didn’t want to lose my chops,” says Baxter, who’d seen firsthand the toll that lifestyle could take on other players around him.

“I saw people who damaged themselves to the point where they lost something. That was always in the back of my mind.”

Elsewhere in the chat, Baxter recalls a formative encounter with Jimi Hendrix before the latter’s rise to stardom – one that left a lasting impression not just for his playing, but his personality.

“I was at Jimmy’s [Music Shop]. And he just walked in the store. Very nice guy,” he says. “I loved his guitar playing. To me, it was that welcoming thing. It was just a joy about it that I love. And then I got to sit in for one song and of course that blew up into me playing with Jimi Hendrix. But we became friends. We didn’t see each other a lot, but you know, there are people that you see every once in a while and [it’s like you saw them yesterday]. Very special guy.”

“He had no axe to grind and his life certainly wasn’t easy, but I don’t think – he could have been James Brown… And listen, I love James. I played with him. I love the guy, but there was a hardness, a hard edge to James. There was no hard edge to Jimmy at all.”

Watch the full interview below.

The post Jeff “Skunk” Baxter on surviving the excess of the ’70s: “There was always something in the back of my mind that scared me. I didn’t want to lose my chops” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$899/£949, martinguitar.com

There’s something undeniable about a Martin guitar. Like a perfectly worn-in old leather jacket, or a Toyota pickup, they are as dependable as the sunrise. It’s why the guitars made by America’s oldest guitar brand are still regarded by many as the “gold standard” of acoustic guitars. Martin’s rich heritage, unmistakable tone and expert craftsmanship has ensured the brand has stayed at the top of the pile for decades.

• READ MORE: Taylor Gold Label 510e review: “Taylor’s return to the dreadnought is crying out for some big pick energy”

Entry into the Martin owners club can come at varying price points, along with levels of compromise made along the way. A proper, Nazareth-made guitar is always going to be a premium instrument, while an affordable Mexico-made X series means you’re going to have to settle for laminate construction in many cases.

The Road Series has, for three decades now, offered something of an attractive middle ground for many players – these are guitars made in Navojoa, Mexico sure, but with specs and aesthetics that are firmly rooted in the Nazareth values.

For 2026, the Road Series has undergone a line-wide refresh, aiming to bring a mix of both modern guitars and more retro-inspired instruments, with prices aimed squarely at serious intermediate and pro players.

Martin Road Series D-10E Retro Sapele – what is it?

As part of the refresh, the new Road Series range is split into two lines – Retro and Modern. The Modern side of things is where you’ll find cutaways, more contemporary body shapes and unconventional finishes. The Retro side features dreadnoughts and 000s in a variety of vintage-vibed configurations.

Another helpful part of the Road Series refresh is that each model number now relates to its level of trim fanciness – Style 10 is the most basic, Style 12 the middle and style 13 the most luxe.

Knowing all that, you’ll be able to determine that this D-10E Retro Sapele is a humbly adorned dreadnought in the Retro series; a fact that’s further emphasised by its stained all-sapele build that bears a strong resemblance to the all-mahogany Style 17 guitars in the Standard series.

The trade-off here is that you get an all-solid Martin dreadnought for less than $900 bucks, which feels like quite a thing to say here in 2026.

Despite its humble price tag however, it doesn’t scream ‘cheap Martin’ in the way that some of the Mexico-made instruments have to me in the past. There’s nothing flashy here of course, but it’s a functional and understated if you like that sort of thing.

It also has stage potential out of the box, given that it’s packing Martin’s E1 pickup system. In addition to allowing you to plug in with ease, the E1 also features a discrete built-in soundhole tuner. The D-10E also comes with a Martin soft-shell gig bag for wherever you choose to take it too.

Beyond that, there’s not much to be said and that’s by design. The neck, fingerboard and bridge are ‘select hardwood’ (Martin’s catch-all term for mahogany, cedar and a few other woods depending on supply), while the fretboard itself sports understated faux-pearl diamond and square inlays.

Up top you’ll find a set of black-buttoned open-gear tuners, while the only bit of laminate on the guitar is the headplate.

Martin Road Series D-10E Retro Sapele – build quality and playability

The first thing I was struck by when pulling the D-10E from its gig bag was the solidity of the build. I don’t mean that it feels solid in a dead-weight kinda way, but in a reassuring, ‘this could survive a tour with no problems’ sense. It’s all very well put together with no issues in terms of the workmanship inside or out.

Before I got stuck in, a quick tune-up is always advisable, and the built-in tuner in the soundhole is an absolute godsend for that. However, despite looking rather nice, I did find that the tuning machines themselves were a little stiff at first twist – they loosened up a bit with a few jiggles, and are perfectly functional, but it does diminish the premium feel elsewhere somewhat.

The Performing Artist neck profile is on the shallower side compared to other Martin offerings, and sleek with it, working just as well for chord-heavy strumming and delicate finger style work. Despite the retro aesthetic elsewhere, this is a modern neck that is built for endless comfort.

Out of the box, the action on this test model may feel slightly high for some, though players with a heavier left hand might welcome the extra space between string and fretboard – for me I would have preferred something a little more slinky, but this is a big ol’ mahogany (ish) dread at the end of the day. It’s not exactly meant to be shredded.

Martin Road Series D-10E Retro Sapele – sounds

Any playability gripes are forgotten when you strum a chord: the sounds are where the D-10E really earns its keep. The immediacy, power, and authority is just unmistakably Martin. Open chords ring. The low-end is generous, without becoming boomy, providing the perfect foundation for the equally important, sparkling high tones. Dig in on the bass strings and the D-10E puffs out its chest and screams for attention.

Switch gears to fingerstyle playing and the scenario changes beautifully. There’s a surprising level of articulation and balance here, with enough clarity to keep individual notes defined without losing any warmth. It’s a genuinely versatile instrument, not just a dreadnought cannon.

Plugged in, the Martin E1 system provides a streamlined control setup with Volume and a Tone for Bass and Treble response in tandem. It’s not going to change your life in terms of sonic fidelity, but it’s a solid and functional tone that gives a decent approximation of the guitar’s sonic characteristics. The phase switch is a standout inclusion. It’s honestly baffling why it isn’t standard everywhere, given how it improves the quality of life of a performing musician, especially one who regularly plays at high-volumes and has fallen victim to the dreaded acoustic guitar/monitor feedback loop.

Martin Road Series D-10E Retro Sapele – should I buy one?

Let’s not forget that this is an all-solid dreadnought, with excellent build quality and a gig bag for $899… and it says Martin on the headstock. That’s already a compelling combination right now.

Okay, it doesn’t have the levels of refinement or premium feel as one of Martin’s higher end offerings, but it’s closer than some might expect. Martin has genuinely included all the essential ingredients of a great acoustic guitar in one accessibly priced package with the D-10E Retro.

If you are after a dependable, gig-ready acoustic guitar that sounds incredible for the price, this is such an easy recommendation. This isn’t just a relatively affordable entry to the Martin brand… it might actually be all the Martin most players will ever need.

Martin Road Series D-10E Retro Sapele – should I buy one?

It’s hard to talk about Martin guitars without mentioning its former budget brand (now independent) Sigma. The DM-15 (£340) is all-mahogany and a whole lot of guitar for the money with solid mahogany back and sides, but no pickup. If you want a Martin and don’t mind a bit of laminate in there, the mahogany-topped DX1E Mahogany ($649.99 / £649) is a very good option, and if you like your guitars preloved looking, the Martin D Jr E StreetMaster ($849.99 / £799) is another interesting option.

The post Martin Road Series D-10E Retro Sapele review: A stage-ready Martin at a seriously competitive price appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Greta Van Fleet guitarist Jake Kiszka has partnered with Gibson for a limited-edition production run SG modelled after the now-iconic 1961 Les Paul SG that helped shape his sound.

Handcrafted in Nashville and available only in limited numbers, the Jake Kiszka SG Standard honours the soul and captures the essence of Kiszka’s cherished guitar – nicknamed his “Beloved” – with its iconic double-cutaway design, elegant contours and deep-edge bevelling.

Elsewhere, the guitar features a SlimTaper mahogany neck and rosewood fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets and acrylic trapezoid inlays that offer an “ethereal glow” under stage lights.

• READ MORE: “I’ll probably be buried with it!”: Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka on his most beloved and battered guitars

“Exceptional tuning stability” is granted by a Graph Tech nut and Gibson Vintage Deluxe tuners with keystone buttons, while the guitar also sports an ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic bridge with a Stop tailpiece, positioned underneath a Sideways Vibrola cover, which has been locked for enhanced stability and the functionality of a fixed tailpiece.

The guitar’s tonal palette is delivered by a pair of T-Type humbuckers, promising “roaring dynamics, articulate clarity and high-end bite. Each pickup has its own independent volume and tone controls, with Orange Drop capacitors for a wide expressive range and “exceptional tonal consistency”.

Finally, the Jake Kiszka SG Standard is finished in a classic Faded Vintage Cherry gloss nitrocellulose lacquer, and comes in a black hardshell case with Kiszka’s custom doubloon logo, along with a hand-signed Jake Kiszka backplate, and custom leather strap with his metallic coin pendant.

“The ’61, this particular model, has defined me as a player, and I think I’ve defined it in return,” says Kiszka.

Last year, Jake Kiszka joined Guitar.com to take us through his most cherished guitars, and of course, his “Beloved” Les Paul was front and centre in his showcase.

He told us the story of how he first came across the guitar at a Chicago Music Exchange store, calling the moment he plugged it in a moment of “divine intervention”.

“It was like lightning split from the sky – it was really unbelievable,” he said. “It was everything that I had been looking for sonically in a guitar my whole life was right here.”

Gibson and Kiszka and hoping to impart upon you the same experience the GVF guitarist had when he held the guitar in his hands for the first time…

The Jake Kiszka SG Standard is available now, priced at £2,149. For more information, head to Gibson.

The post “It’s defined me as a player, and I think I’ve defined it in return:” Jake Kiszka’s signature Gibson SG Standard has finally arrived appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

With new computer technologies and AI-driven advancements seemingly everywhere you look, I felt it would be fitting to zero in on digital effects in the pedal world—specifically, which ones most of us have embraced, which ones we continue to avoid, and which ones remain haunted by the ghosts of older tech.

Let’s start with digital effects that are pretty well embraced, and definitionally necessary. The first two that come to mind are audio loopers and clean octave pedals. Looper pedals have been around since the turn of the century, most notably the Boss RC-20. Then a big market splash came from TC Electronic with the Ditto and its subsequent models. These units provided powerful tools for musicians—the ability to lay down an idea and instantly play it back was huge. It still is!

These creative boxes run on digital wizardry—and they have to. The biggest stipulation? Don’t degrade or alter the incoming signal. We gear nerds work hard to craft and maintain the tones we love and rely on. Recording and playing back audio samples demands storage and all manner of digital signal processing (DSP), and most of us understand that—so as long as the audio comes out the way it went in, we’re on board.

Let’s hop over to another widely embraced digital effect: the clean octave. Musicians have been enjoying analog octave-up effects since the late ’60s with the Octavia, analog octave-down since the ’70s courtesy of Mu-Tron and MXR, and then Boss in the ’80s. All of these devices inspired great music, but they shared something else in common: analog limitations. Most notably, an inability to track multiple notes or chords of any real complexity—which is what we mean when we talk about “tracking.” On top of that, they were dependent on fuzz, prone to glitchiness, and often had a mind of their own. None of that is a knock—analog octave circuits remain loved, widely used, and held in high esteem. For a lot of players, the limitations are the appeal.

Clean digital octaves, on the other hand, overcome those shortcomings and can produce clean octaves up and down simultaneously, with minimal tracking or latency issues. No fuzz. Minimal glitchiness. Code is king here, and not something everyone can do—or even wants to do. But the few companies that do it, make octave pedals packed with great sounds and capabilities driven by high-powered DSP. Those that enjoy it really enjoy it. How often have you seen a pedalboard with some type of DigiTech Whammy or Electro-Harmonix POG on it?

So what would be something that’s not embraced in the digital realm? The easy answer is gain—from treble boosts all the way to fuzz boxes. There are several aspects to consider when diagnosing why this is. The first may be that we simply don’t require DSP to make any of the classics that are well-known and well-loved. These were originally made with all analog components, and they still are. A lot of companies, both big and small, offer models of these classic circuits. This leads me to my next point. Players often have an affinity for these, and they become a core part of “their sound.” To further that point, there can be a feeling of uniqueness when it comes to building a pedalboard. Let’s say you were to see 10 different pedalboards, and all of them featured something like a Helix for producing reverb, delay, and amp-modeling sounds. Yes, they’re probably set in different configurations, but they’re all the same mass-produced box. And that’s fine! The uniqueness of a board often comes earlier in the chain, by way of, say, a small-batch, NOS-parts-based germanium fuzz pedal made by some artisan in their basement. That’s something that resonates with that particular player and gives that feeling of having something special to contribute to “their sound”

Even if DSP could reproduce the sounds of a vintage germanium fuzz, it still wouldn't have the swag of a handmade, through-hole version. We guitar players are a group of artists with a connection to cool, tactile components, and a romance with the tech of yesteryear. Artists are also drawn to other creatives and the stories they tell. Coding has its own story and achievements worth celebrating, but it’s less tactile and accessible to most. It can be far easier to understand and appreciate the circuit artist who’s measuring hundreds of transistors, tweaking voltages to an uber-specific value, choosing the right capacitor for the job, and screen printing in a dark basement.

For all these reasons, I think there’s a case to be made for why analog gain pedals aren’t going away—even in a world of digital awesomeness.

Edward “Bud” Cole, Fender’s new CEO, has said the brand has a moral duty to its players, and that his leadership style factors in this huge responsibility to take care of the brand and drive it forward.

Cole was appointed as the new leader for Fender in January, with outgoing CEO Andy Mooney retiring after a decade in the role. Cole had served as President of Fender Asia Pacific (APAC) for over 10 years, and oversaw some of the company’s most significant growth initiatives, leading the expansion of the Fender business into 14 countries.

• READ MORE: Slipknot’s Jim Root explains why Fender Telecasters are like sunglasses

Speaking to Music Inc Magazine, Cole says of his new position, “Honestly, it’s beyond words. There’s a weight to it, and I mean that in the best possible way. I’ve been entrusted with something that is genuinely one of the most significant and meaningful brands in the world.

“Fender isn’t just an instrument company. It’s a language, a cultural ecosystem. When someone picks up a Fender guitar, they’re holding 80 years of history – every riff, every record, every performance, every artist who ever found their voice through this instrument.”

He adds, “That responsibility is something I feel every single day. It keeps me sharp. It keeps me humble. Everything we create, everything we say, everything we do has to honour that truth: music matters, guitars matter and players matter. Fender has always been, and will continue to be, at the centre of that story.”

Speaking of the broader family of brands under the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, he goes on to say that his focus is on “leading boldly and making sure Fender is unmistakably Fender today and for generations to come”.

Cole explains, “What’s beautiful about the portfolio is that every brand under the FMIC umbrella has its own distinct identity and sensibility. Its own voice, its own player and its own story. And through the lens of this family of brands, we’re able to give players something truly meaningful: choice.”

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Cole says his leadership style is about leading with heart and fostering a safe environment that encourages Fender’s staff to be committed, highly skilled and highly motivated. He later adds, “When you think about what Fender represents, 80 years of shaping music culture, the No. 1 electric guitar and bass brand in the world, being a servant leader here feels less like a style choice and more like a responsibility.

“We have a moral duty to the players – current and future – who pick up a guitar and use it to express something they can’t say any other way. Music matters. Guitars matter. And it’s both a privilege and an honour to inspire and empower the people around me to honour that.”

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