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Paul Gilbert has become the latest high-profile guitar player to signal a shift away from tubes and towards digital amplifiers.

The shred maestro recently took to Instagram to share a photo of his current rig, which finds a Fender Tone Master Twin Reverb digital modelling combo amp front and centre, alongside his decked out stage-ready pedalboard.

• READ MORE: Answered: more technical guitar questions you were too afraid to ask

In the post, Gilbert explains that the Tone Master Twin Reverb we see in the shot is just one of two: one serves as a monitoring amp while he’s on stage, while the other sits behind him to “rock the house”. “Classic tone that gets my pedals across loud, clear and full of WROC,” he writes, in reference to his latest album.

The rig marks a notable shift in gear choices for the guitarist as of late. As Guitar World notes, his new album was recorded using tube amps: a ‘90s Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb run through a Randall Isolation Cabinet, plus a Victoria Club Deluxe as a volume boost during solos.

Of course, we in the guitar community love to put guitarists into one of two camps: tube or digital. But the reality is nothing’s stopping a guitarist from employing both, harnessing the responsiveness of more traditional tube amps while also leaning on the reliability and consistency of a digital model.

That said, most guitarists do, gun to the head, have a preference. And therefore Gilbert’s post does beg the question, is he beginning to lean more towards the digital side of the equation?

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For the pedalboard nerds amongst you, we’re sure you’ve been able to identify a number of units on the virtuoso’s ‘board. We spot an MXR Stereo Chorus, Jam Pedals RetroVibe and a JHS Moonshine V2 overdrive. What else can you see?

The digital vs analogue debate continues to rage in the guitar community, with no signs of a clear winner being found anytime soon. Earlier this year, Lenny Kravitz asserted that digital gear doesn’t sound as good as their vintage counterparts, saying: “It ain’t the same, man.”

But many of the industry’s biggest players have begun to see the benefits of digital amplification.

Last year, Metallica guitar tech Chad Zaemisch reflected on the band’s decision to veer away from heavy physical amps towards digital amp modellers for their live shows, and how it has led to improvements to their stage design and, therefore, fan experience.

“Everybody’s all about content these days, and not a lot of people want to watch a band stand in front of their amp line with nothing else going on,” he said. “Now we can use large video screens. It opens up a lot more opportunities to do different things.”

The post Digital amps have a new convert in Paul Gilbert… appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.



For episode 113 of Luthier on Luthier, I’m joined by guitarist and educator Sean McGowan.

We focus on his recent Archtop Foundation recording project, featuring 20 tracks across nine exceptional Blue series archtop guitars, and dig into his detailed approach to capturing their unique voices in the studio. Sean also shares highlights from his musical journey, his work as an educator at the University of Colorado in Denver, and the realities of making a living as a modern musician.

Link: https://seanmcgowanguitar.com/

Luthier on Luthier is hosted by Michael Bashkin of Bashkin Guitars and brought to you by the Fretboard Journal. This episode is sponsored by the Looth Group, Dream Guitars and StewMac.

Michael Bashkin’s Hub of Acoustics 2026 US Academy: https://hubofacoustics.com/en/#Colorado_Academy

Want to support Luthier on Luthier? Join our Patreon to get access to exclusive photos and content from Michael and his builds.

The post Luthier on Luthier: Sean McGowan first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Issue 59 of the Fretboard Journal is an instrument lover’s dream. Legends, some fresh faces, historic guitars, interviews with songwriting heroes, and even a philosophy lesson.

Here are some highlights found in this issue’s 128 keepsake pages.

Nearly every guitar fanatic has thought about building their own instrument. The Fretboard Journal‘s Mike Buchman flies to Colorado to make his dream come true under the watchful eye of luthier Robbie O’Brien. He documents the process…and the finished product.

The word troubadour is tossed around far too often these days, but what else can we call songwriter Jesse Welles? Musician Bob Minner talks to Welles about small-town living, small-bodied guitars, and the power of social media to spread a song far and wide.

Tube amps don’t have to look like old Fenders. Case in point: Vancouver, British Columbia’s Gary Economy, who creatively repurposes old radios and telecommunication relics to house his guitar amplifier builds. Writer Brian Lynch pays a visit to Economy’s studio to hear all about his latest upcycling adventures.

Frequent contributor and The Luthier’s Tool Box author Jamie Etherington talks to Welsh primitive guitarist Gwenifer Raymond. How does a young guitarist from a small village in the UK become enamored in the music of John Fahey? Etherington finds out…and so much more…while acclaimed guitar photographer Eleanor Jane takes the pics.

Ella Feingold has taken the record industry (and Instagram) by storm. The guitarist, who has performed with Charlie Hunter, Bruno Mars, Silk Sonic, and Erykah Badu – has a knack for rhythm guitar and demystifying the playing of Jeff Buckley, Prince and others like no one else. It’s no wonder that everyone from Johnny Marr to Bill Frisell now follows her. David Von Bader talks to Ella about her background, her mentors, playing funk authentically, and more.

Can the right guitar calm the nerves? Writer Noah Lekas delves into the zen of music as a discovery journey and what Krishnamurti calls a “conclusion mindset” through the lens of guitar. Art by Donald Groscost.

Michael Watts accompanies guitar wizard Alan Gogoll into Hansa Studios, the famed recording studio where Bowie, U2, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and Depeche Mode all re-invented themselves.

Jeff Tweedy is in the midst of a creative streak like few others. Fretboard Journal publisher Jason Verlinde talks to the Wilco frontman about Twilight Override, his triple-solo album; the joys of working with your kids; and his ever-growing guitar collection.

Remember Ann Brashares 2001 book, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? Twenty-five years later, musician Daniel Marcus Clark writes about an archtop guitar that – like those jeans – seems to fit just about everybody. The instrument, a 1942 D’Angelico New Yorker, was originally built for a jazz hero, but ended up in the hands of Leo Kottke. Clark documents its history and its many travels.

To celebrate our 59th issue, we take a peek at the mystique of the 1959 sunburst Les Paul with help from the experts from Emerald City Guitars. ECG’s Trevor Boone and Tyler Geske have seen and authenticated dozens of these coveted instruments. What do they look for when they pop open a Lifton case? You may just be surprised…

Want this issue? Subscribe today and we’ll send it to you.

The post What’s Inside: Fretboard Journal 59 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

John Mayer has reflected on his 2003 track Daughters, saying he wrote it from a “selfish” place, and questioning whether he had the authority at the time to convey the message he intended to.

During a recent appearance at HISTORYTalks – a live speaker series in which prominent figures give public talks – the guitar legend recounted his inspiration behind the track, which featured on his 2003 album, Heavier Things.

• READ MORE: Slipknot x Gucci: the wildest crossover of the year so far?

The song itself sees Mayer giving fathers advice on how to raise their daughters, and more specifically how raising them right affects how they’re able to experience love in a healthy way. Mayer was 25 when the album was released, and currently has no children.

“What was a 24-year-old boy doing, telling fathers,” Mayer said during the event before breaking into laughter [via People].

Beyond the surface of what the song was about, Mayer revealed he had something of a personal agenda while writing it, explaining he was unable to be with a woman he loved.

“I was thinking in very circuitous and clever ways that it was really about me, a young guy, so selfishly upset that he couldn’t be with the woman he loved, because he thought that her father must have had something to do with it,” he continued.

“When you’re young… that’s young logic, and it plays really well in songs. It just does. ‘Come over. I know [we’re] horrible for each other, come over,’ [type of] young.”

He added that “older logic” doesn’t necessarily make for great songs: “Had a tough day, coped with it.’ It’s a tough song to write. ‘Had a rough morning, took a look at the bright side, got a good phone call later, reminded myself, ‘What was I doing worrying?’ It’s not a chorus!”

Listen to Daughters below:

Elsewhere, John Mayer recently reflected on his nerves before performing with Dead & Company for the first time. Explaining how he was desperate to prove himself to the band’s fans and to late Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir – who died earlier this year – he said: “I couldn’t help overplaying in some of those first few tours. You just do. 

“Even if I knew not to overplay, I’m still going to overplay. It’s going to be wordy. I have to adjust my way into the 10-ring on the target.”

The post “What was a 24-year-old boy doing telling fathers?” John Mayer admits one of his biggest hits was “very selfish” and written with “young logic” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

In one of the more left-field crossovers of the year so far, Gucci has used Slipknot’s debut album opener (sic) in its latest – rather bizarre – advert.

The dark, moody ad sees a number of models waking up in a motel room under spotlights, and features a rather strange turn as two models sit in an old American car with the top down, floating around unpredictably under a full moon, soundtracked by Slipknot’s landmark track (sic). No, you didn’t just hallucinate that sentence.

• READ MORE: Answered: more technical guitar questions you were too afraid to ask

The “short film” also features two other songs perhaps more in keeping with the Italian luxury fashion brand: Mina’s Un bacio è troppo poco and Charles Aznavour’s Hier encore.

The clip serves as a promotional video for the brand’s upcoming Generation Gucci collection. Check it out below:

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While never released as a single, (sic) opens Slipknot’s ground-shifting self-titled debut album, which arrived to change the metal landscape in 1999. With its rapid tempo and crushing drop B guitar riffs, the track has become a fan favourite, and according to Setlist.fm [via Louder], it’s the third most-played song in their catalogue at live shows.

Elsewhere in Slipknot World, guitarist Jim Root recently explained to Fender his love of the Telecaster. A flagbearer for Fender in the world of metal – in which players often reach for more conventionally ‘metal-friendly’ brands like Jackson, Charvel, or ESP, for example – Slipknot’s #4 has a number of signature Fender models under his name, including a Stratocaster, Telecaster and Jazzmaster.

“That’s kind of the whole metal, punk rock, rock and roll attitude,” he said. “It’s anti, and going against the grain. And if somebody tells you to do something, you’re gonna do the opposite.

“Everybody thought I should be coming out with some pointy metal guitar that’s got 12 points or whatever. No, how about we just do a classic slab iconic guitar? Guitars, in my opinion, are like sunglasses. The classics never go out of style. They’ll always be there. People will make their version of it, but there’s only one Fender Telecaster.”

The post Slipknot x Gucci: the wildest crossover of the year so far? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Fender has partnered with Brian Fallon – frontman of longstanding New Jersey rockers The Gaslight Anthem – on a new signature custom Telecaster.

A faithful recreation of the ‘59 Telecaster Fallon toured and recorded with during the early days of the band, the new Limited Edition Brian Fallon ‘59 Telecaster Custom is said to reflect the “sheer versatility of his playing style”, delivering the “perfect tonal balance between raw, powerful resonance and sweet, delicate chime”.

Staying true to Fallon’s original instrument, the guitar’s spec sheet includes a double-bound two-piece alder body finished in a sleek Journeyman Relic black lacquer, paired with a ‘60s-style Oval “C” maple neck and flat-laminated dark AAA 9.5”-radius rosewood fingerboard.

• READ MORE: Fender’s Vintera III Series has landed, with “a targeted focus on iconic moments in Fender history”

Tones come by way of Righteous Sound “Fourth Man” pickups with Dual Stack HS Tele wiring, with the bridge pickup delivering a “mid-range snarl” and the split-coil neck pickup offering up warm, clear note definition”.

Further specs include 21 vintage frets, a three-way selector switch, a ‘63 Telecaster bridge with RSD brass saddles, vintage-style tuning machines, and a bone nut.

“Brian’s honest and raw songwriting places him in an incredible group of influential voices from the last few decades,” says Chase Paul, Director of Product Development at the Fender Custom Shop.

“Working together with him on recreating every detail of his favourite Tele, we’re able to give his fans hands-on access to a guitar that helps drive him night in and night out.”

“There’s only the switches, and the volume and the tone, and that’s really all you got so you better figure it out,” adds Brian Fallon.

“It’s about taking what you can do and making the best of that, and I think this is the guitar for that. If you need a hammer, that’s a hammer, and everyone needs a hammer. You cannot build a house without it.”

“Growing up idolising both Bruce Springsteen and Joe Strummer, Brian’s love for this ‘working man’s’ instrument was undeniable,” Fender adds. “In his mind, a Telecaster matches his style – it not only represents his heroes but symbolises the same no-nonsense approach to songwriting and performing he admires.”

The Limited Edition Brian Fallon ‘59 Telecaster Custom is available now, priced at £6,199 / $6,825. Learn more at Fender.

The post “It’s a hammer, and everyone needs a hammer”: Brian Fallon unveils no-nonsense “working man’s” signature ‘59 Telecaster appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Neural DSP has released Darkglass Ultimate, a revamped plugin that brings its iconic Darkglass sound into a complete, studio-ready bass rig.

Available as a free update for existing Darkglass Ultra users, Ultimate builds on the original Ultra by combining Darkglass’ defining tones with a full signal chain and creative tools, allowing you to move from an initial bass idea to a finished track all in one place.

• READ MORE: “The only way this thing goes out is if I’m 100% satisfied”: What Cory Wong told Neural DSP when offered his own signature Archetype plugin

At the heart of Darkglass Ultimate are the same two circuits that helped define the original plugin: the B7K Ultra and Vintage Ultra. The B7K Ultra delivers a tight, aggressive drive with controlled low end and clear articulation, while the Vintage Ultra introduces a warmer, rounder character inspired by classic tube-style amplification. Together, they cover a wide tonal range that’s consistent and immediately usable in a mix.

With this release, Darkglass Ultra evolves into a creative platform for bass – extending beyond preamp modelling into a signal chain designed for modern bass workflows.

For starters, Darkglass Ultimate adds a full pre- and post-effects chain, including compressor, fuzz, auto-wah, and octaver up front, plus chorus and delay for after the amp section. There’s also a 9-band graphic EQ built specifically for shaping bass frequencies, plus cab simulations based on DG210C and DG810ES cabinets with adjustable microphone positioning for more detailed tone shaping.

In addition, Neural has bundled in a handy set of tools aimed at day-to-day playing and writing, including transpose, tuner, metronome, and a selection of production-ready presets designed to get ideas moving quickly.

This extends the Darkglass sound beyond the B7K Ultra and Vintage Ultra into an all-in-one bass toolkit, combining its defining tones with the tools needed to shape, refine, and bring sounds to completion.

“With Darkglass Ultimate, we’re expanding the Darkglass sound into something more comprehensive,” says François Barrillon, Lead Product Manager for Plugins at Neural DSP. “For many players, that sound has been a reliable starting point – something they shape around and build on. This release brings more of that process into the same place, so you can experiment, refine, and carry a sound further without stepping outside of it – while preserving the clarity, power, and character that define Darkglass.”

Neural CEO Douglas Castro adds, “We’ve taken the core Darkglass tones and expanded them into a more complete setup, bringing more of the signal chain within a single environment and making the process of shaping and developing a sound more fluid – so players can spend less time managing their tone and more time creating with it.”

For existing Darkglass Ultra users, the upgrade to Darkglass Ultimate is free. A 14-day free trial is also available if you’re looking to test the plugin before purchasing.

The launch also ties into Neural DSP’s annual Birthday Sale, running through 6 May, which offers 50% off all Neural DSP plugins – including Darkglass Ultimate – and 30% off selected products like Archetype: John Mayer X.

In the meantime, Neural DSP will host a giveaway featuring both software and hardware prizes, with winners drawn on multiple dates throughout the campaign.

More details are available at Neural DSP.

The post Neural DSP expands its Darkglass bass plugin into a full creative rig with Darkglass Ultimate appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Dave Grohl has been reflecting on Nirvana’s legacy and the difficult period following Kurt Cobain’s death, explaining why even returning to the band’s most iconic songs once felt completely off-limits.

Speaking with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Grohl says that the aftermath of Nirvana wasn’t just about grief or moving on – it reshaped his entire relationship with music for a while.

“I think that we all wound up in places that felt… I don’t want to say comfortable, but safe,” says Grohl [via Guitar World]. “When I went into the studio and recorded that stuff by myself, I felt safe there. And I can’t speak for [bassist] Krist [Novoselic], but I think at that time it was like we were just trying to get our feet back on the ground. For me, that’s something that I thought, ‘Okay, well, music is the thing that’s going to rescue me.’”

• READ MORE: “I’d go back to my mother’s house and sleep in my childhood bed and feel like life is still real”: Dave Grohl on coping with Nirvana’s sudden mainstream success

But even as he found his way back into recording with the Foo Fighters, revisiting Nirvana’s old catalogue still proved difficult.

“It’s such a weird thing to feel afraid to play songs,” Grohl explains. “And for a long time it’s like I was even afraid just to sit down at a drum set and play the opening riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit. It just seemed sort of forbidden.”

“And so the few times that Krist and Pat [Smear] and I have gotten together to do it, it’s a trip,” he continues. “It’s like a time warp. It’s like a time capsule. The noise that the three of us make together, you don’t really get that noise anywhere else.”

“When you’re in the room and it happens, the way that Krist strums his bass lines, the bass that he uses, the equipment he uses, his sense of feel and time, it’s like all of those things combined with Pat like with that crazy Germs/Pat Smear guitar thing. And then some loud-ass drums, when it happens, you’re just like, ‘oh fuck, I remember this. Shit, I haven’t heard this in 35 years’. It’s a really beautiful sound and a beautiful feeling.”

Elsewhere in the chat, Grohl also looks back at Nirvana’s earliest days, including a meeting with record label executives before Nevermind was released. Sitting in a high-rise office across from a major label exec, Grohl remembers Cobain being asked what the band wanted.

“Kurt says, ‘We want to be the biggest band in the world,’” he recalls. “And I think we all laughed. I don’t know if he was kidding. Still to this day I think about it.”

While the prospect sounded impossible at the time, Grohl notes there was always something clear about Cobain’s writing.

“The songs that he wrote, I think he wrote them to be heard,” he says. “I think that most songwriters when they write songs, you want them to be heard or you want them to be felt or you want – not necessarily validation – but you want someone to feel what you feel just as a listener wants to feel what the artist feels.”

“I don’t know what the exact intention was,” he adds, “but I do know that Kurt was one of the greatest songwriters of all time. And it was inevitable that his songs would be recognised as some of the greatest songs of all time.”

Meanwhile, Foo Fighters’ latest album Your Favorite Toy is now out. Listen to the title track below.

The post Dave Grohl says playing Nirvana songs felt “forbidden” after Kurt Cobain’s death: “For a long time I was afraid to play the opening riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Even for a player who’s tackled the catalogues of Frank Zappa, Alcatrazz, and Eddie Van Halen, some guitar parts remain as demanding and impossible as they come. Just ask Steve Vai.

Speaking in a recent interview with Rock Antenne, the virtuoso opens up about the unexpected challenge of learning Robert Fripp’s intricate guitar work for BEAT, the supergroup celebrating King Crimson’s 1980s material. While Vai initially thought he had it covered, reality soon hit as he started physically working through the parts.

• READ MORE: Steve Vai struggled to play Brian May’s Red Special guitar due to its strange neck: “I just remember thinking, ‘I can’t play this thing’”

“I had to make sure I could play this stuff,” Vai explains [via Ultimate Guitar]. “So I listened to it, and I felt ‘Yeah, OK. I can get this.’”

That confidence was backed up by a detailed “music transcription book” covering every note of the era’s three albums – a “godsend”, as Vai put it.

“But once I started putting my fingers to the actual parts, I realised that they’re booby-trapped,” he says. “They’re Robert Fripp parts. And he has a unique technique that he developed his entire life, through vision and discipline. And I have a totally different technique.”

“I just felt that probably about 80% of the stuff was easily under my fingers the way he did it, and then probably 15% I got the same notes but I changed the way he did it, because our techniques were too alien to each other.”

“But there was a small percentage of stuff that was just ruthless and just so out of my ballpark at my age,” Vai adds. “And there was Frame by Frame, y’know there’s that one riff [sings fast melody]. It goes at breakneck speed, it’s impossible to pick, and it goes on forever. I couldn’t do that consistently every night. So, I changed it a bit, but that’s the only one.”

Thankfully, Vai didn’t have to second-guess those adjustments for long. As he’s previously shared, Robert Fripp himself had given him the green light to put his own spin on the parts.

“Fripp said, ‘If I were sitting in the audience, I wouldn’t want to see you doing my kind of solo. I wanna see Steve Vai go crazy!’ So, that’s what I do,” he told Vintage Guitar.

Meanwhile, BEAT – featuring former Crimson members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin alongside Tool drummer Danny Carey and Vai himself – will kick off their European tour this summer.

View the full list of dates on the band’s official website.

The post “They’re booby-trapped!” Steve Vai recalls the difficulty he faced learning Robert Fripp’s guitar parts for BEAT appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

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.