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U2 Announces The Greatest Show on Earth World Tour 2027
Live Nation has today announced that U2 is set to hit the road again with Carnaval De Luz presents: The Greatest Show On Earth, a world tour that will see Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. return to select stadiums in 2027 and beyond.
The Greatest Show On Earth World Tour—in support of the band’s forthcoming 16th studio album, Carnaval De Luz—will kick off in Mexico City on February 23rd, 2027 with support from Beck, with shows also announced for São Paulo and Buenos Aires, the only three Latin American cities the tour will visit next year. Additional 2027 dates for Europe and North America are set to be announced in the coming weeks, with plans for the band’s all-important return home to Ireland in the works.
The tour announcement comes with the release of a new track titled “The Greatest Show On Earth.” Co-written by U2 and Brian Eno, it is the third single to be taken from Carnaval De Luz. A story of lovers fighting to keep faith in each other—and faith itself. The video is directed by Anton Corbijn and was shot in the Californian desert; it satirizes the band as a religious cult where women do all the heavy lifting. Watch HERE. Listen HERE .
CARNAVAL DE LUZ PRESENTS: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
WORLD TOUR - 2027 DATES (with support from Beck)
- February 23 MEXICO CITY, Mexico - Estadio GNP Seguros
- February 26 MEXICO CITY, Mexico - Estadio GNP Seguros
- March 10 SÃO PAULO, Brazil - Estádio MorumBIS
- March 12 SÃO PAULO, Brazil - Estádio MorumBIS
- March 23 BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Estadio River Plate
- March 25 BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Estadio River Plate
Acknowledged as one of the best live acts in the world, U2 has always—since their earliest days, including the industry-defining ZOO TV Tour which broke the mold in 1991—consistently pushed the boundaries of live performance, with ground-breaking stage shows that embrace the latest in technology and innovation, most recently with one of the band’s most ambitious creative projects to date, a sold-out run of 40 history-making, future-defining shows at Sphere, Las Vegas. Carnaval De Luz presents: The Greatest Show On Earth World Tour marks U2’s return to a stadium setting for a performance spectacle embracing human connection and intimacy at a grand scale, with a set list drawn from across the band’s entire catalogue; the band’s first stadium dates since wrapping the acclaimed The Joshua Tree Tour at Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium on December 15th, 2019, the final stop on a tour which saw U2 play to almost 3 million fans around the world.
U2 recently celebrated the band’s 50th anniversary on Friday September 25th with a very special surprise performance on Dublin’s Grafton Street for the town they hold dear. Watch HERE.
Tickets for the Carnaval De Luz presents: The Greatest Show On Earth World Tour will first be available via U2.com Subscriber Presale commencing on Monday October 19th, 2026 at 10am local time. Remaining tickets will be available starting Thursday, October 22nd at 10am local time at U2.com.
Carnaval De Luz presents: The Greatest Show On Earth World Tour is produced by Live Nation Global Touring.
“Our generation of metal was more genuine”: Dave Mustaine on why youngsters take solace in old school metal
In the age of bands like Greta Van Fleet, modern listeners are yearning to experience the magic of yesteryear’s rock and roll. Even Dave Mustaine has noticed plenty of youngsters in the crowd at Megadeth’s final tour, keep to soak up some old school metal. And, if you ask the legendary thrash frontman, there’s a reason why: music nowadays has become less “genuine”.
In a new interview with Chris Jericho, Mustaine hints that the industry took a turn when the lines between genres began to become too blurry. In particular, Mustaine seems to take a jab at nu-metal. “Our generation of metal… I think that the music was more genuine,” he says. “I think that there came a time – not saying that any of these bands were responsible for it – but around the Linkin Park era… bands were doing metal with keyboards and stuff like that.”
He notes that Linkin Park’s influence on the charts is comparable to how Billboard Top 200 changing how they calculated their sales figures in the ’90s “ruined the charts”.
Mustaine has made his stance on nu-metal very clear in the past. Speaking to LifeMinute last year, he blasted 2000s nu-metallers, simply believing that they relied on keyboards and rapping as a way of disguising a lack of skill. As he puts it, they “didn’t do any solos” because they “couldn’t do any solos”.
“Thank God that genre went away – people started to learn how to do solos!” he added.
He also hinted at how he didn’t feel the acts were ‘genuine’. To him, the high reliance on tech and production was essentially cheating: “When people do things for their own art, that’s great, but when you start seeing these manufactured records that band members didn’t play on, that’s fraud!”
Nu-metal acts at the time certainly felt the sting of Mustaine’s distain. In 2011, ExploreMusic interviewed Korn frontman Jonathan Davis about opening for Megadeth on tour – and Davis clearly felt Mustaine’s cold shoulder. “It was hard touring with Megadeth because at that time Dave Mustaine was really mean and just had attitude,” Jonathan recalled [via Blabbermouth]. “It was scary being on there… I respected him and everything, but I kind of got my feelings hurt, because he was mean at times.”
However, Mustaine is by no means closed minded. While he likes to keep his metal more pure, he does reveal that his sound is a product of many different sounds. In particular, he tells Jericho about his love of German electro-synth innovators, Kraftwerk.
“Listening to that kind of music gave me a lot of ‘tangled creation’ in my head when it comes down to music,” Mustaine says. “Instead of making everything 4/4 – you know, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, an outro – I don’t think like that.”
His eclectic palette has served him well over the years, even slipping into some of his work with Metallica. While remembering bassist Cliff Burton, who passed away 40 years ago in a fatal tour bus crash in 1986, Mustaine recalls how Burton essentially brainwashed him into putting Sweet Home Alabama into Metallica’s 1983 track, The Four Horseman.
“Cliff was a very, very, very sweet man… there was only one thing that I couldn’t stand about him,” Mustaine says. “It was how much he listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd… one day, we got to rehearsal, and we’d been listening to that song, Sweet Home Alabama, over and over and over… Lars goes, ‘We need a slow part for The Four Horseman Man’, and I said, ‘Oh, really? Okay. And I picked up my guitar and I [basically played Sweet Home Alabama].”
For more info on Megadeth’s ongoing final world tour, head to Megadeth’s official website.
The post “Our generation of metal was more genuine”: Dave Mustaine on why youngsters take solace in old school metal appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Welsh Musician/Composer Isaac Holmes On His The Road To Success!
By: Rick Landers
Isaac Holmes at Future Makers 2024 6-11-24
Our interview today with Welsh artist, Isaac Holmes, presents his personal path learning his craft from a very early age to today. And for Isaac, like many, he’s driven by a passion for music and a need to dig in to the discipline of learning from his guitar idols, then raising his game to create his own stylish original compositions.
Success with music has many definitions and there are roads to success that may be intrinsic, like the moments of joy one gets nailing down a musical phrase on an instrument or vocally, while others are more aligned with the steps that lead to commercial success.
And through a certain amount of serendipity, Holmes, was discovered by many after he loaded his music on-line, that earned him a solid following of over 30,000 fans. And as good fortune would come his way, his talent was appreciated and promoted by Robert M. Knight, a legendary rock photographer and one of the founders of a project called, Brotherhood Of The Guitar, that seeks out impressive young musicians and helps mentor and nurture young artists.
The Brotherhood has an excellent track record discovering young prodigies around the world, as well as helping them make connections with some of the top musicians in the world. So, given a combination of hard work, natural talent and deserved “lucky breaks,” Knight’s project has proven to employ a solid formula for selecting a new generation of phenomenal artists, one being Isaac Holmes.
With the support of Brotherhood and others, Isaac’s musical talent and artistry were recognized and helped launch opportunities for him to perform at impressive venues, that we discuss in his interview. His work includes opening for Eagles guitarist, Don Felder, as well as joining with L.A. guitarist, Jensen Gering, on the Next Gen stage, along with Isaac receiving praise from such guitar masters as: Steve Lukather (TOTO), Jennifer Batten (Michael Jackson) and the great jazz-fusion icon, John McLaughlin.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Holmes is definitely making a name for himself, as he writes and composes his catchy originals, puts in the concentrated hours of work necessary to be prepared for opportunities that have come his way, and future opportunities that are certain land on his doorstep.
Guitar International will continue to work with Brotherhood Of The Guitar to support a new generation of guitarists, to highlight their exceptional talents, as well as continue adding legendary and other deserving musicians to its pages that are world-class, offer up interesting takes on music – we’ll be featuring a guitarist who records his music accompanied with Orca whales soon! – and show promise in treating us to a spectrum of musicians who will inform, entertain and inspire our readers. And, we are honored to introduce and present Mr. Isaac Holmes to our valued GI readers.
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Rick Landers: Tell us about yourself, where you’re from and if you live elsewhere a bit about growing up with a passion for music…guitar, the experiences you’ve had performing in places from open mics to some of the more popular/known venues/gigs; your latest accomplishments and your idea of success now and if it has changed since you began your music journey.
Isaac Holmes: My name is Isaac Holmes. I’m a 20-year-old Welsh musician, artist and producer. I make music that blends atmospheric and progressive elements with modern songwriting. I started playing guitar at age six, and by age twelve I began performing in small venues and teaching myself to record at home.
My passion for music really came so intrinsically, so much so that I don’t ever remember ‘getting into it’.
There was always the classic story of music being played around the house, and although neither of my parents is a musician, my grandmother on my mother’s side was an excellent pianist, and my Grandad on my father’s side is a great bluegrass player.
Since then, I released my debut EP, My Former Lover and the Longing for Home, in 2025 and have performed its material at venues and festivals around the world, including the Royal Albert Hall and Crossroads Guitar Festival. I’m currently working on my debut album, planned for release in autumn 2027, along with a series of shows.
Starting out, my idea of success was always about being able to make the music I want to make, when I want to make it. So, in so many ways I already consider myself successful because I get to do what I love every day and make a living from it, which I always try to take the time to recognise.
That said, I’m a very ambitious person and have many specific goals I haven’t yet reached, so I never want to rest on my laurels, as they say.
Isaac Holmes – photo credit: Evan Spray
Rick: I’ve found that although there are a lot of very talented young musicians today that more times than most, those who pull to the front of the pack are not only passionate about their music, but have had champions on the way who have helped nurture their careers, sometimes financially, but often by helping them make pivotal connections in the music industry and artist communities. Please, tell us about how you became a talent with The Brotherhood of the Guitar, as well as what led up to it as you developed your skills.
Isaac Holmes: Yeah, it seems like so many amazing young people are making music right now, and I’m totally in awe of a lot of them. It’s true that people who have had more privileged upbringings and more money to spend on nurturing a talent often do get ahead, particularly in this industry, but what I think is one of the amazing things about today’s technology is the means of social media acting as a way to balance the playing field for everyone, not only in knowledge, but also in visibility.
When I first started, I had no connections to the music industry at all, but through posting on social media, it opened the doors for anyone to watch me play, and that brought about some really influential opportunities, like becoming a part of photographer Robert Knight’s Brotherhood of Guitar and ultimately building my relationship with Ernie Ball.
Before any of that, though, I have to credit the amazing guitar teachers I had growing up, who all at some point took the time to share their insights on the instrument. Despite the wealth of knowledge online, I still think it’s important to have the right musical encouragement growing up, and I hope one day I can pass down whatever knowledge and experience I have to other people, because it can be really hard out there, man.
Rick: How did you progress with respect to the types of places or venues you’ve played and what have been some of the most memorable highlights you’ve experienced, including Crossroads and I believe at Royal Albert Hall while working through challenges and building an audience or fan base?
Isaac Holmes: Playing the Royal Albert Hall and the Crossroads Guitar Festival have most certainly been the highlights of my live career so far. Playing the Royal Albert Hall was a genuine dream come true; it wasn’t until I stood there on stage that I was really taken aback by the sheer amount of history and talent that had graced the room. It was also at that exact moment, just before soundcheck, that someone kindly reminded me that David Gilmour had been performing in the same spot just a week earlier.
Ultimately, I’ve been very fortunate to have had these opportunities presented to me at such a young age, and I’m super grateful to everyone who gave me the chance and trusted me. I’d like to think that perhaps what people saw in me that led to these opportunities was a combination of experience and artistry.
I’ve been gigging since the age of 12, which meant I had plenty of time to learn how to perform for an audience during my younger years, and I’m super thankful for that.
From there, it’s been about honing my skills both live and in the studio, and building an artistic vision where both worlds can work in tandem.
In my opinion, having that artistic vision and understanding the relationship between those two worlds is one of the best things to develop if you want to stand out. It can certainly be really tough, though and take a long time to figure out.
Earlier this year, I was trying to figure out how to present the songs from my last EP and what I wanted to convey as a live artist. It was really challenging.
One thing I had to remind myself was to let go of the idea of trying to recreate the recording and instead reimagine the arrangements in ways I perhaps didn’t get to explore when recording them. Especially nowadays with streaming and the ease of listening to every record ever, I don’t think people want to hear my attempt at recreating the record when they can listen to it in the car on the way to the show.
I wanted the audience to hear these songs in a new light with spontaneity, improvisation and a lot of room for everything to go wrong. That’s something I’ve always loved and appreciated about the jazz world. Having room to express yourself freely in that very moment, and having that be entirely indicative of what mood you’re in that particular night. I love that the audience can hear and feel that; to me, that’s a lot of the point of live music.
As for the new album, well, I think that’s going to be just as much, if not more, of a nightmare to figure out!
Isaac Holmes at the Crossroads Guitar Festival
Rick: You were recently invited to see guitar builder, Paul Reed Smith, being inducted into Rockwalk, as well as worked the Martin Guitar opening party before Crossroads. What were those experiences like and how did your performance work out with Jensen Gering? Play together or did you perform your own sets?
Isaac Holmes: Yeah, when I got the call asking me to open for the induction of Paul Reed Smith at Crossroads Guitar Festival, with John Mayer doing the honours, I was immediately both flattered and terrified. PRS is a brand I’ve recently been building a relationship with, and of course John Mayer is John Mayer, so the pressure was certainly on. Of course, I made sure to prepare months before the event and ultimately had a great time, and people seemed to really enjoy the set.
That whole weekend was so much fun and full of so many great moments, from playing on stage with Jensen Gering to stumbling my way through Pat Metheny tunes with Pedro Martins backstage. I got to meet so many great people, and I’m super grateful I got to be a part of the Crossroads Guitar Festival for a second time. I think they’re doing something really special.
Rick: I see that you had musicians that you follow early on and I expect influenced your playing style, who were some that impacted you and in what ways? And, have you had opportunities to meet them or even perform with them?
Isaac Holmes: Man, it’s always such a struggle to narrow down the players I’ve been inspired by because so many come to mind.
When I first started playing, I idolised all the classic guys like Slash and Mark Knopfler mostly because of their unmistakable sound and style. As I got older, I started getting into all kinds of players like Pat Metheny, Guthrie Govan, and George Benson, to name a few. Of course, players like Jeff Beck, Mateus Asato and Derek Trucks are a masterclass in tone and touch that I’ve listened to a lot.
It’s hard to include all the musicians who have inspired me, and there have certainly been a few full-circle moments with players I loved growing up, some of whom I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know. Players like Steve Lukather, Mark Lettieri and John McLaughlin are all guys who have been ‘pinch me’ moments when hearing compliments from them.
Rick: What guitars did you start out with and have you found that you’re not only into the same guitars as those you followed, and they work for you or have you explored other guitars and other gear more as tools of the trade to, say meet your sonic interests, maybe as your taste in music may have changed? And, what gear are you using now?
Isaac Holmes: I played all sorts growing up. I remember my first electric guitar was an ESP LTD, which I loved because that’s what Metallica used.
Since then, I’ve played Ernie Ball Music Man guitars almost exclusively, and they’ve been my go-to guitars for just about everything. For my last EP, everything electric you hear is one of my Ernie Ball guitars. They’re just so diverse and easy to play, and they’re great to record with because of their amazing tuning stability.
I’ve also been using a bunch of new (to me) gear recently, either stuff that I’ve found second-hand or had the pleasure of receiving from companies. I found this cheap ‘tape’ delay pedal for £10 on eBay, and it’s totally chaotic and unpredictable, so I’ve been using it a bunch on the new album.
I’ve also been using a piece of gear called a Submarine Pickup, which is essentially a pickup that sticks onto the guitar and lets you send each individual string to a separate output. The sonic possibilities are endless with that thing, so that’s been a lot of fun to experiment with.
Of course, like many others, I’ve joined the Quad Cortex club and started using that for all my live shows, which has been unsurprisingly incredible.
I’ve been using pretty much all Neural DSP plugins on my records, so knowing I’m able to get the exact tones live even as a starting point is so useful. It’s also let me do a whole bunch of ambient textures and complex routing that just wouldn’t be possible without travelling with a snooker-sized pedalboard.
Guitar-wise, I started using Taylor acoustics in 2025, specifically the 814ce, which has just blown any other acoustic I’ve ever used out of the water. It records so incredibly well and feels so great to play, almost like playing an electric.
Also, this year, a fan very generously gifted me a custom-modded Stratocaster which they redesigned themselves. They bought a guitar they found online, painted it, replaced the pickguard, and swapped out the switches, so that’s been so incredibly cool to have as part of my collection now.
Isaac Holmes – photo credit: Evan Spray
Rick: When you started out were you into home recording, using things like Garageband, Pro Tools, and others or were you able to get into a professional studio to begin to launch your career? Tell us about the path you took and to what degree do you now get involved with the production and engineering side of recording and production?
Isaac Holmes: Yeah, that’s a great question that I’m super keen to talk about. Everything I’ve ever released has been recorded at my home studios in Wales. I record, engineer, produce, and mix everything you hear of mine; I love doing it.
Doing everything on your own, though, of course, comes with challenges, the most obvious being a huge learning curve at the beginning that requires a lot of time and dedication. From the age of twelve, I began obsessing over recordings, the sound of my favourite albums, recreating drum sounds; it was an obsession that honestly still hasn’t gone away. I’d spend all day covering a song using the same miking techniques and effects, trying to match the original recordings.
I suppose I’ve found that learning to record and produce is a lot like learning an instrument: you learn to mimic the people you love, then find your own style and sound through the effort of wanting to sound like them. Of course, I still have a lot to learn in the art of recording, and I find that each project that comes around, whether it’s for me or someone else, opens up a whole world of techniques and ideas I hadn’t ever thought about before.
I don’t think I’ll ever make a record completely in a commercial studio. In this day and age, I find a lot of pristine, high-end studio recordings to sound quite mundane and often lack personality, mostly because it’s just so easy to achieve a pitch-perfect, larger-than-life sound now.
I love when you can hear the chaos of a home studio come through on a recording: the untreated room, the high noise floor; it all adds personality, which matters more than ever in today’s AI-riddled world. For my first EP, I really wanted to capture the sound of my childhood home and its surroundings. You can frequently hear trains passing by from the railway track across from where I live, birds singing, kids playing, some of which were me from when I was a kid. That was the whole point of the record: to make something that was the sound of my childhood.
Isaac Holmes – photo credit: Robert M. Knight
For the new album, I’ve gone with a similar approach, only less considered and much more untamed. I’m really letting loose on the production, cranking and crushing drum room mics with minimal gating, using real amps that feedback wildly, recording acoustic guitars in big stone hallways; all stuff that’s super fun and creates a defined vibe within seconds. I find that to be far more exciting than achieving a similar, less unique result with a bunch of plug-ins. Plus, the idea of committing to that sound before you mix is super fun and helps me get stuff done a lot quicker.
That’s not to say I haven’t been trying to perfect the hell out of the record, though; I’ve been working on it since April of 2025. I already have a few ideas for the album after this one I’m currently working on to really indulge in the idea of recording a group of musicians live in the room and utilise the idea of instant live reactivity and kinetic energy with one another; that feels like something that is missing in a lot of commercial records today and something that I, too, haven’t fully explored yet.
Rick: What are you playing and do you have a dream guitar that you’d like, vintage or new, acoustics and electrics?
Isaac Holmes: I’ve never been much of a gear fanatic when it comes to the technical aspects. Most of the time, I don’t know what pickups are in my guitars or even what wood they’re made from. I’m never really looking for new guitars to use as much as I’m looking for new pedals or studio equipment. That said, at some point I’d love to build a signature model tailored to my exact style and overall needs. I’m always thinking, “If I could combine this part of this guitar with this part of that guitar, then that would solve all my needs.” I have a lot of ideas for the kind of things I’d like when that time comes.
Isaac Holmes studio – photo credit: Evan Spray
Rick: You’re a multi-instrumentalist? What else do you play and what other instruments lie ahead for you to get into? Any international cross-cultural instruments or primarily what we tend to find in the States?
Isaac Holmes: Yeah, for the past year or so I’ve been taking a deep dive into instruments that are less familiar to me in order to create a new sonic palette and identity for this album. I’ve found myself playing numerous organs, violins, badly, and super wacky synths that I have little to no idea how to use. It’s been great fun and has really opened the door to what’s helped shape the album’s sound.
Sonically, the album’s theme has kind of accidentally turned into this fusion of really old and new-sounding instruments. I bought a Hammond organ made in 1964, a tape machine from the 1970s, and a really old reed organ. Contrasting them with super modern-sounding drums and almost futuristic-sounding guitars has been really interesting and definitely on theme with the album’s underlying concept. I think I definitely need to improve my violin technique though; a lot of pitch correction has been used to make it sound somewhat usable!
Rick: I understand that your release, “In Time” had one reviewer cry. What were your thoughts when you saw that?
Isaac Holmes: Haha yeah, that honestly had quite a profound effect on me. It’s one thing to read all the lovely comments and messages from people saying how much that song in particular has affected and helped them in their lives, but seeing someone react to it in real time in such a way was very surreal.
After watching it, I started thinking about all the times I never see someone deeply affected by my work, or pull the EP out of its vinyl sleeve and fully immerse themselves in the music I’ve created. It’s probably best I don’t think about it all too much, though; I’d freak out and never finish my album.
I really am very proud of that song, more so than any other I’ve made. It took me over two years to write and record, mostly out of fear, overthinking, and going back and forth on sections. In the end I just said f*ck it, it’s going to be seven minutes long and I’m not going to compromise the structure, whoever gets it, gets it. It’s ended up being my most successful song to date, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was the song where I let my full vision loose and was unapologetically myself.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Rick: Have you been able to snag any endorsee deals with any top guitar or other gear name brands? How do those kinds of deals get traction from the beginning to actually signing a deal?
Isaac Holmes: Haha, I’ve been very lucky to have built various relationships with guitar and gear companies over the years. Most, if not all, have come from social media with people enjoying my videos, either wanting me to try a piece of gear out or generally wanting to support me with the idea that I’ll add their piece of gear into my everyday repertoire. I’ve never gone out of my way to seek these things out; that’s not where the signal is, but these relationships have been so helpful in making the music I want to make, and I’m so grateful for them.
Rick: Do you find you prefer being a solo artist or have you found being part of a band more to your liking? And if you do both, what are the best parts of both and the challenges?
Isaac Holmes: I love being a solo artist. I also loved being in a band when I was younger; I still think the things I learned from being in a band are why I’m here with a career today. I think it’s important to pursue both at some point in one’s career. Being a solo artist, I find I miss the camaraderie of an ‘us against the world’ mentality, but I’ve always been introverted, especially creatively, so I find being able to make records on my own the best. I also love the independence and responsibility it brings to build a whole world and vision to life as a solo artist.
Of course though, those things are exactly why it can be so challenging on your own. You have to hold yourself accountable when something doesn’t go right or when you can’t make something work, and that can be some of the lowest and loneliest times. Fortunately for me, I’m very lucky to have people around me, both in and outside the industry, who understand these things and can help me push forward in those times.
Rick: And what about other cultural music, like the guitar styles of musicians from Mali, India, Japan; something completely foreign to you that you might initially find a bit strange, but intrigue you? I recall George Harrison and Shawn Phillips getting into Indian music and studied the sitar; any interest in exploring those different realms of music or considering fusing Western music with unusual instruments from around the world?
Isaac Holmes: Yeah, it’s definitely something I’ve thought a lot about. As I approach the final stages of making this album, I’m already thinking about where to go next and how I can do things differently compared to the last two records. Being inspired by different musical cultures is definitely something that can open up a whole world of new possibilities. I suppose, though, I’ve always thought that in order to create something that doesn’t sound pastiche or derivative, you really have to study deeply and take the time to go beyond the sound itself and understand the lifestyle and overall habitus around a musical culture. That’s not something I’ve taken the time to do yet, but it’s absolutely something I’m keen to try.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Rick: Do you have a band; Who are you performing with now and what do you or they bring to the music you all perform?
Isaac Holmes: I’ve been doing a lot of solo shows recently, which have been super fun and challenging. Getting the arrangements and songs to come across the way I wanted, with the obvious limitations of being the only person on stage, was a puzzle that honestly took me all year to figure out. Getting the Quad Cortex was a big part of making that happen; it allowed me to loop, freeze, and switch between drastically different sounds in an instant.
Right now, I’ve been gearing up to do some shows as a duo with my dear friend and drummer, Sol Bryant, who has played on a lot of my songs. I’ll be on vocals and guitar, and he’ll be playing keys and a bunch of other synth-related stuff. The approach has been to take what I’ve been doing for the solo shows and expand on them, so we’re incorporating more textural elements, rhythmic loops, and other cool stuff to enhance the songs.
Early on, I opted for a no-playback policy, so no parts are pre-recorded apart from a couple of drum loops and samples. This was mainly because I wanted to freely improvise and extend sections each night without being bound to a click or set structure. It also makes for a more exciting show; you never know when something is going to crash or go off the rails! We both really have to pull our weight to make the show work by focusing on timing with one another, as well as switching sounds spontaneously and seamlessly; it’s hard, man.
I’m very grateful to Sol for letting me drag him into this unworldly vision of playing these songs, and I have to give credit to him for being so open to pushing the boundaries of what’s humanly possible with four limbs!
Rick: Creative types, I’ve found, are curious explorers seeking out new interests, so a few guitarists I’ve spoken with are into other arts or interests beyond music, like painting (Joni Mitchell) or hot rods (Jeff Beck, Danny Gatton, Leland Sklar). What about you or are you strictly a music focused guy?
Isaac Holmes at Forest Close – photo credit: Evan Spray
Isaac Holmes: I wish I had a better answer. I’m music through and through. It’s the only way I can make as much music as I want to make and get to where I want to be. That’s not to take away from the importance of a good work-life balance. I love spending time with my family and friends, but even that’s enough for me to want to get back and hide in the studio. Who knows, maybe I’ll pick up crochet by album three to keep myself sane.
Rick: A few very passionate musicians I know started out almost or actually possessed with their love of music, one friend practiced guitar ten hours a day while at university and he’s now a full-time musician, married, has a child…Have you found you’re one of the possessed and, if so, how has that affected other areas of your life, like your social life or other more mundane responsibilities?
Isaac Holmes: That’s a good question. I’d say there are two parts to this answer. I live and breathe music every day of my life. There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not working on something, so much so that I don’t even think about it as ‘music’ anymore; it’s just my everyday routine.
That said, I have never stuck to a set amount of practice every day for any length of time; I wish I could. I’ve always followed my curiosity on the instrument and gone down as far as I can go in that realm of exploration, even sometimes to absurd levels. Still, once that curiosity fades, or starts to form into something compositional, I shift all my focused energy onto that, and I don’t treat a practice routine the way someone might treat going to the gym.
So I suppose no, I’m not obsessed in the technical regard; however, I am absolutely obsessed with the creation of music in every way possible from performing, writing, recording, you name it and if playing for ten hours a day is what feels like it will take me somewhere creatively, then I’m all for it. To be honest, I find that the best way to truly internalise something, whether it be a scale, mode or just a general concept, is to compose or immediately make use of it in some form; otherwise, I just forget it.
In terms of how my obsession with music affects the other aspects of my life, it can certainly be hard. Having something that is both a job and a passion can be difficult to navigate, and it can be especially hard for other people to understand sometimes. I think there have definitely been times in my life when I’ve sacrificed time with friends and family and not pursued relationships to the best of my ability to follow this passion. I can also be pretty forgetful when I’m super engrossed in a project for hours, often forgetting to eat, go outside, or get enough sleep.
Even though I’d like to think I’m quite an organised person, I can also be pretty physically disorganised when I’m working. I feel like that’s all part of being a younger musician. You go wild with as little responsibility as you can get away with, and as you grow older you learn to compromise and find a balance that lets you accommodate more things in life, such as a family. My best friend, who helps me with visuals and album art, will often come into the studio and see the absolute abomination of loose cables, microphones, and pedals all over the floor and say, “I can tell you’ve been productive this week”.
Rick: What current, I’ll call them products, have you released, such as new songs, albums/EPs, that you’re especially proud of and have you now started new projects that you can tell our readers about?
Isaac Holmes: I am so proud of my EP, My Former Lover and the Longing for Home. It really was a record that I poured everything into. It took me over two years from start to finish, which a lot of people would say is absurd. I think it turned out great, and I’m so proud to have a record that represents my youth and everything that was part of my younger years. I didn’t know what to expect when I released it; I thought it was good, but I wasn’t sure people would get it or if it was something that made more sense inside the vacuum of creating it. It takes a lot of progressive elements from artists like Pink Floyd and Steven Wilson, but recontextualises them into today’s modern songwriting and production, which I wasn’t sure people would take to.
Nonetheless, I’m so grateful so many people have connected with it in such a way. It has given me a lot of confidence to follow my instincts even when it seems no one else is going there musically right now (at least no one my age).
As for the new album, I don’t want to say too much, but I will say that it certainly sounds like the next evolution of my work as an artist. It’s faster, it’s slower, it’s deeper, it’s wackier. It also has a stronger concept, which I think works really well chronologically with the last EP. It’s also, again, very personal to me and reflects where I’m at in life right now. Overall, I’ve really tried to stretch every corner of my musical identity with the record, and I think people are really going to love it (I hope!)
Click here to view the embedded video.
Rick: What about what many call “giving back”? Do you ever play to support a good cause that you believe in and want to support or do you have any in mind that align with your altruism?
Isaac Holmes: Absolutely. I’ve played and organised many charity gigs, many of which have involved raising money for cancer charities. That’s very important to me and always will be. Of course, Crossroads Centre Antigua is another charity I’ve had the privilege of playing for and supporting, and I think they are doing really monumental, crucial work. I’d really love to raise money for charities that help children in need, whether that’s because of illness, disability, or poverty. Like many, I have a deep urge to help children; they deserve the world.
Rick: If you were asked today, like I’m doing now, to give someone an elevator speech about where you are in life at this point and where you want to be in five, ten years what would you say?
Isaac Holmes: That’s a great question. I’d say right now I’m at the point in my life where I finally feel like all the work I’ve put in over the past few years is starting to pay off. I feel so lucky to be in the position I am in right now, and I’m very grateful for both the internal and external supporters in my life. In ten years’ time, I hope to be playing my music around the world for people who want to join me on this evocative, progressive exploration and continue to evolve my sound further. This music is for people who want to connect with their deepest emotions and indulge in a body of work that, hopefully, they can see themselves in and use to process the world around them.
Gibson Introduces Four Original Collection Acoustics with Baggs HiFi DNA Pickup System
Gibson has announced four additions to its Original Collection of acoustic guitars, each equipped with the new Gibson-exclusive, custom-voiced Baggs HiFi DNA pickup system.
The J-45 Original, J-45 60s Original Fixed Bridge, Southern Jumbo 40s Original, and Country Western 60s Original are handcrafted at the Gibson Acoustic Craftory in Bozeman, Montana, with premium tonewoods, and period-inspired appointments.
At the heart of the collection is the Gibson-exclusive Baggs HiFi DNA pickup system. Custom-voiced specifically for Gibson acoustic guitars, the active system uses two lightweight sensors mounted to the internal bridge plate, with each sensor paired with its own preamp. The result is a rich, natural amplified sound that captures the warmth, dynamic range, and subtle details of the guitar without affecting its unplugged voice.
The system offers feedback resistance and gain-before-feedback comparable to an under-saddle pickup, making it equally suited to recording sessions, intimate performances, and large stages. Discrete soundhole-mounted volume and tone controls provide convenient access to essential adjustments while remaining virtually hidden from the audience.
All four models share the traditional construction methods that have helped Gibson acoustic guitars earn the trust of generations of musicians. Each instrument features a solid Sitka spruce top, a dovetail neck joint secured with hot hide glue, a rosewood fretboard and bridge, and performance-oriented components, including a bone nut and bone saddle. Together, these elements promote resonance, tonal transfer, dependable performance, and a responsive feel that connects the player directly to the instrument.
Known as “The Workhorse,” the J-45 has earned a reputation as one of the most trusted and widely recorded acoustic guitars ever made. The new J-45 Original returns to the model’s Jumbo roots with distinctive 30s Jumbo-inspired appointments while preserving the iconic round-shoulder dreadnought body and the classic combination of mahogany back and sides with a solid Sitka spruce top.
The J-45 Original features a mahogany neck with a fast, comfortable SlimTaper profile and a rosewood fretboard with 20 standard frets and mother-of-pearl dot inlays. A mother-of-pearl Gibson script logo, nickel-plated Grover open-back tuners, and a bone nut complete the headstock. A rectangular, closed-slot, flat-top rosewood bridge, TUSQ bridge pins, and a firestripe pickguard reinforce the guitar’s vintage-inspired character. Offered in Autumn Burst and Vintage Sunburst gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finishes, the J-45 Original includes a Gibson hardshell case.
The J-45 60s Original Fixed Bridge carries the Workhorse legacy forward with distinctive 60s-era styling and a fixed belly-up bridge designed for tuning stability, dependable performance, and reduced long-term upkeep. Its round-shoulder dreadnought body is constructed with mahogany back and sides and a solid Sitka spruce top, delivering the warm, woody, and balanced voice that has defined the J-45 since its introduction in 1942.
A 24.75-inch-scale mahogany neck with a comfortable Round profile joins the body using a dovetail joint and hot hide glue. The rosewood fretboard features 20 standard frets and mother-of-pearl dot inlays. Grover strap tuners with white buttons, a gold Gibson logo decal, a bone nut and saddle, and TUSQ bridge pins complete the instrument’s performance-oriented appointments.
The J-45 60s Original Fixed Bridge is available in Vintage Sunburst with a tortoise pickguard and Vintage Cherry Sunburst with a white pickguard. Both finishes are applied in gloss nitrocellulose lacquer, and each guitar includes a Gibson hardshell case.
First introduced in 1942 as part of Gibson’s celebrated wartime banner model lineup, the Southern Jumbo became the company’s flagship round-shoulder flat-top. The Southern Jumbo 40s Original honors that heritage while incorporating carefully considered modern refinements and the Gibson-exclusive Baggs HiFi DNA pickup system.
The Southern Jumbo 40s Original pairs solid rosewood back and sides with a solid Sitka spruce top, producing deep lows, sparkling highs, expansive projection, and a touch-sensitive response. Multi-ply binding on the top and back gives the guitar an elevated visual presentation that complements its rich tonal character.
Its mahogany neck features a comfortable SlimTaper profile designed for effortless chord work and fluid flatpicking. The rosewood fretboard is fitted with 20 standard frets and mother-of-pearl split parallelogram inlays. Nickel-plated Grover open-back tuners, a bone nut, and a vintage-inspired gold Gibson script logo decal complete the headstock. A closed-slot, belly-down rosewood bridge features two mother-of-pearl dot inlays, a bone saddle, and TUSQ bridge pins, while a tortoise-colored teardrop pickguard completes the classic aesthetic. The Southern Jumbo 40s Original is offered in a Vintage Sunburst gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish and includes a Gibson hardshell case.
Returning to the core Gibson Acoustic lineup in response to player demand, the Country Western 60s Original revives one of the most celebrated versions of this historic design. Its mahogany back and sides and solid Sitka spruce top produce a rich, lively, and exceptionally balanced voice across the bass, midrange, and treble frequencies.
That versatility allows the Country Western 60s Original to move naturally between country rhythm work, rock ’n’ roll single-note leads, intricate fingerstyle passages, songwriting sessions, studio recording, and live performance. The guitar is designed to respond to a wide variety of techniques while retaining the warmth and character associated with a classic Gibson acoustic.
The 24.75-inch-scale mahogany neck features a comfortable Round profile and joins the body with a compound dovetail joint secured using hot hide glue. Its rosewood fretboard has a 12-inch radius, 20 standard frets, and mother-of-pearl split parallelogram inlays. Sealed-back Gotoh tuning machines with white buttons, a bone nut, and a mother-of-pearl Gibson logo and crown provide refined styling and dependable performance.
At the body, a rosewood belly-up bridge is fitted with a bone saddle and TUSQ bridge pins. A tortoise-colored pickguard without graphics provides a clean, classic finishing detail. The Country Western 60s Original is available in Natural and Vintage Sunburst gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finishes and includes a Gibson hardshell case.
Street prices for each of the models:
Gibson J-45 60s Original with HiFi DNA, Fixed Bridge, available in Vintage Sunburst or Vintage Cherry Sunburst finish: $3,199
Gibson J-45 Original with HiFi DNA, available in Vintage Sunburst or Autumn Burst: $3,299
Gibson Country Western 60s Original with HiFi DNA, in Antique Natural finish: $3,999
Gibson Southern Jumbo 40s Original with HiFi DNA, in Vintage Sunburst finish: $3,999
For more information visit Gibson.com.
Original Collection
Gibson has announced four additions to its Original Collection of acoustic guitars, each equipped with the new Gibson-exclusive, custom-voiced Baggs HiFi DNA pickup system.
Richard Thompson’s Endless Guitar Journey
“I didn’t want to be another imitator of Chicago blues,” Richard Thompson tells PG of his early guitar development. “When I was growing up in London, by about 1963, there were a lot of very good guitar players around, like Peter Green, Jeff Beck, and everyone else who seemed to have had a run in the Yardbirds. They’d never been to Chicago, or even out of England, probably. But they could do Buddy Guy and Magic Sam.”
Nearly 60 years into his career, Thompson has a new album—his touring schedule and writing regimen indicate an artist still in motion. He’s unwilling to rest on any laurels, but it isn’t as though he hasn’t received them. Back in 2012, Nashville’s Americana Music Association issued him a lifetime achievement award and invited him to play in the city’s fabled Ryman Auditorium. Remember, he’s an Englishman. But if anyone from the other side of the pond deserves an Americana award, it’s Richard Thompson.
“I was kind of surprised when my manager said, ‘Oh, they want to give you an award,’” he remembers. “And I thought it’s a little strange because I’m not a country artist, but I think ‘Americana’ is a broader term that covers everyone from Booker T. Jones to r&b. It’s a roots thing. And Scottish and Irish music is a massive influence on country music, the Celtic influence that goes along with the African influence. All that kind of blends into country and rock ‘n’ roll. So I suppose I must be kind of rootsy.”
Richard Thompson is one of our best living guitarists—there’s certainly no denying his virtuoso wizardry on the instrument. Like Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Django Reinhardt, and Jerry Garcia, Thompson’s phrasing is recognizable from the very first note. His attack is precise and angular. His powerfully articulated pull-offs and bends seem to leap from his fingertips at right angles, like shards of glass from a broken mirror. This staccato style works perfectly in punk and math rock, too. So many guitar players, from Tom Verlaine and Mary Timony to James Walbourne and Carrie Brownstein, owe Thompson a serious debt.
It’s not only Thompson’s soloing that informs his greatness. He also has perhaps the most stable hands in the business; his arpeggios flow like a steady, fast-moving river, steeped in current. For proof, see any live acoustic version of his classic tune “1952 Vincent Black Lightning“ and remember it’s only one guitar doing all that. Whether he’s playing solo or out on the road with a full band, watching Thompson perform always brings pleasant surprises. Just when you think he’s pulled every rabbit from his hat, year after year he finds new ways to delightfully evince another coin from behind your ear.
Richard Thompson Gear:
Guitars and other string instruments:
1966 Martin 000-18
Lowden Signature acoustic
Lowden F32
Lowden classical
Lowden S series
Lowden electric
1959 Fender Stratocaster (with ‘55 neck)
1966 Fender Stratocaster
Fender Strat, black/silver (parts)
Fender Stratocaster, white (newish)
Fender American Professional Classic Stratocaster (with Rio Grande pickups)
Fender Telecaster (parts) (2)
Fender Telecaster 12-string (parts)
Gibson SG, black
1920 Gibson mandolin
Amps:
1966 Fender Deluxe
1956 Fender Deluxe
Various Fender Vibrolux, Champs, and more
Divided By 13
Headstrong 1x12 (2)
Effects (acoustic):
Ridge Farm 2-channel tube pre amp
TC Electronic delay
TC Electronic rotary
Effects (electric):
Fulltone OCD
TC Electronic delay
TC Electronic octave
TC Electronic Shaker
Boss tuner
Strings and picks:
Elixir electric strings (.009-.042)
Elixir acoustic strings, bronze (.012-.053)
Custom-made picks, “Les Paul” shape
In late summer, this founding member of seminal English folk rock band Fairport Convention Zooms in from his London home while preparing for a run of music festivals that have become something of an annual tradition. He’ll play events like FolkEast in Suffolk and the Bromyard Folk Festival before autumn settles over England. He pans his camera around the house to show where he’s sitting—Thompson splits his time between the UK and a place in New Jersey. His living room, draped in soft yellow tones and furnished with traditional pieces, looks more like the pad of a London accountant than the legendary music troubadour he is. There’s no obvious trace on the walls or shelves of his long career in rock ‘n’ roll.
And yet, he was there. Fairport Convention has been described as England’s answer to the Byrds. If the latter took folk songs from American musicians like Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and reformed them into Billboard chart toppers like “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Fairport Convention, drawing on Irish, Scottish, and English folk, made similar moves at the same time in Swinging London, releasing groundbreaking albums like Liege & Lief and Unhalfbricking. Ground zero, then, was the legendary Marquee Club, where bands like the Who and the Rolling Stones took early steps toward superstardom and where Fairport Convention also played.
“Jimi Hendrix got up and played with us a few times. He played whatever we were playing.”
There were other clubs, too: “I remember at a place called the Speakeasy—it was on Margaret Street in London—Jimi Hendrix got up and played with us a few times,” Thompson recalls. “He played whatever we were playing. I remember one night he sat in on ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ and one night we did Paul Butterfield’s ‘East-West’ together.”
In that moment—London in the ‘60s—did Thompson feel something significant was happening? Did he and his cohort recognize they were living in what would later be considered a landmark time in rock history? “I think we thought this wasn’t some creative high spot, that whatever was happening would keep happening in different forms,” he explains. “I think we looked back on the ‘50s as being the revolution. But the ‘60s were more revolutionary, really. Of course, there were new, better recording techniques. But if you just look at the music, we’re still in the shadow of it, I think. If you only take the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan, those three artists alone still have such an influence over music. People are still wearing Led Zeppelin t-shirts, for heaven’s sake. Back then, we sort of thought, ‘Oh, it’s just the Who. It’s just the Yardbirds. It’s just Jimi Hendrix.’ It’s only really recently that I look back and realize how special it all really was.”
Thompson shares more about how he developed his own playing style in those days: “I wanted to sound unique. I thought that if I could develop something that has an element of where I come from, if it sounds a bit Scottish, a bit English, then that could be a singular thing. And I looked for distinctive sounds on the guitar, too. When I got a Stratocaster in ‘68 or whenever it was, I found the out-of-phase position on it and thought, well, this is great. It’s got that kind of hollow sound. ‘I’m sure no one’s done this before,’ I said to myself. I thought I had invented a lot of things that I later found out were totally untrue! But for me, it was kind of a fresh sound.”
There may be no other artist who so deftly bridges the old country with the new world. PG readers, for example, may understand the differences between the sounds of Muscle Shoals, Memphis, and Bakersfield, but some may plead ignorance about the analogous sonic regions of the United Kingdom. When asked, Thompson breaks down what makes a song sound like it’s from the UK versus the States. “It’s a balancing act, really,” he explains. “I like to think that I’m grounded in English, Irish, and Scottish folk music, and that everything comes from that. When you add rock ‘n’ roll to that, you see what you get. And that is what we’ve been doing since Fairport Convention began around 1968; I’m still playing around in that field because it’s a very unploughed field, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t have many rivals lurking in that particular piece of acreage. So, for me, there’s a lot to explore. And it uses sounds from both sides of the Atlantic, including accordions and fiddles.
“In terms of modality,” he continues, “the Scottish and Irish scales are very predominant. I use two Scottish pentatonic scales, which overlap into American Appalachia, so you don’t necessarily hear something alien immediately. And the Mixolydian mode is a very common mode in British folk music. And you have that in American music as well. These are kind of signposts, and as long as I sound like me, I’m happy.”
When asked about his practical approach to the guitar, his answer adds up to a Richard Thompson master class: “Obviously, if I’m on a plane all day or something, I can’t play. But otherwise, I do play nearly every day. I think in music there’s a limitless number of things to discover. You can get kind of bogged down looking at your own instrument and just see familiar patterns—you look at your fingers, and they’re going to the same places. For me, inspiration comes from listening to other instruments. Sometimes I’ll listen to John Coltrane, or a sitar player maybe. I think that’s the way to be inspired. I’ll start to think, ‘How do I fit that onto a guitar? Something that’s very easy on another instrument, how do I do that on the guitar, where it’s much more difficult?
“Another thing is vocal accompaniment,” Thompson continues. “When I’m playing guitar, I’m nearly always playing it in a song, and every song presents different possibilities, so a song can suggest things. If I’m playing acoustic, it’s a big thing to make enough sound—to keep enough strings ringing. Do I need to go into another tuning to make it sound better? Can I take a solo that keeps the spirit of the song going, without it sounding like something’s dropped out? And if I’m playing electric with a band, I think, ‘How do I keep the spirit of the song going if I play a solo?’ How do I keep the lyric’s message going and the narrative moving?’ So every song presents different problems that you have to overcome. Sometimes you have to think of a new kind of fingering to play a song in a certain key, and you think, ‘This is tough; I’ve never done this before. I’m going to have to stretch myself. I’m going to have to really practice this particular sequence or this particular fingering, particular shape, or else the song is going to lose something.’ There’s all these things happening to push you forward, and I think you really have to always be a student of music, because there’s always stuff to learn. And if I think I know everything, I’ll go and listen to Stravinsky or something!”
“I thought that if I could develop something that has an element of where I come from, if it sounds a bit Scottish, a bit English, then that could be a singular thing.”
His new LP, Hippies, Thugs and Heroes, lives up to his career-long quest to stretch himself. Whether you’ve been listening to him for decades or you’re brand new to his music, this record is quintessential Richard Thompson. In songs like “The Big Smoke” and “Unsung Hero,” he moves effortlessly between folk-rock and sounds grounded in country and blues from Texas and Tennessee. Thompson generally likes the darker shades of life. Lyrically, he is known for his exploration of disappeared love, of the vagaries of relationships gone wrong. On this new record, for instance, “Make Believe You Don’t Know Me” joins classic Thompson heartache numbers like “Shoot Out the Lights,” “I Misunderstood,” and “When the Spell Is Broken.”
Thompson is known to use a Strat as his main axe. For years, he could be seen wielding a red “partscaster” built for him by guitar tech Bobby Eichorn. That instrument is no longer part of his arsenal. Instead, he’s playing a black partscaster Strat with a silver pickguard. “I also have a ‘60 white Stratocaster,” he says, “and I use a couple of three-pickup Telecasters—I like even my Teles to have three pickups. Those are all my stage guitars, mostly Strats. But I have a Gibson SG that I sometimes use in the studio, and an old Gibson jazz guitar, too. I have others here in London that I don’t use on tour anymore, but they come into the studio too, including my 1966 Stratocaster. I don’t have tons of instruments, but I suppose I have far too many. I like to think they’re not being neglected. If I’ve got a guitar I haven’t played for five years, I’m inclined to give it to somebody else, friends or family.”
These days, he puts his electrics through Divided By 13 amplifiers. “I tend to stick with one amp,” he says. “The Divided By 13 amps are built in Long Beach, California, and the one I use is a two-speaker cabinet with two mismatched Celestion speakers. It’s got two circuits: a Vox circuit and a Fender circuit. You can choose one or the other, or you can blend the two of them, which is kind of the best of all possible worlds.”
When I ask Thompson about his long-held Martin 000-18, the one pictured on the cover of his first solo album, Henry the Human Fly, he reaches just off camera and suddenly pulls it into frame. “Here it is!” he exclaims. “It’s a 1966, but I found it in New York in 1971 when I was on tour with [original Fairport Convention member] Iain Matthews. There’s a place, it’s still there, in Greenwich Village called the Music Inn, and I got it there for 200 bucks. About a year later, I also bought a 1920 Gibson mandolin there for 100 bucks. Those were the days, as they say! Anyway, the Martin 000-18 has been severely battered over the years. I used it a lot on tour throughout the ‘80s. One night in Germany, I left the stage for the interval and put it down next to a spotlight on the floor. When I came back, it had nearly melted into pieces. It was frying on the floor. Terrifying, really. Now I just keep it around the house.”
Thompson will turn 78 on his next birthday, but there’s no sense of him slowing down. In the country-folk song “Bad Liver/Broken Heart,” Canadian artist Scott Nolan writes from the point of view of a Thompson-like troubadour and croons, “In this line of work no one retires.” I ask him if he ever thinks of hanging it up, and he doesn’t hesitate in his response: “At the end of a long tour, I might not pick up a guitar for a few days, but then the pleasure of it gets me. I like to feel I’m in shape to play, so it’s good to keep up exercises, and there are no limits to where you can go musically. I’m always noodling with song ideas as well. As a performer, I would seriously miss that wonderful transaction with the audience—so I’ll stick at it as long as I can.”
Jackson’s new Legends Series celebrates the influence of Randy Rhoads, Marty Friedman, Scott Ian and David Ellefson on the brand’s legacy
Few guitar brands are as synonymous with heavy metal music as Jackson. Through the years, some of the genre’s top players have chosen Jackson guitars as their weapons of choice, and the brand has just honoured some of the most iconic with its new Legends Series.
Four metal players are honoured with the new Legends Series: Megadeth alumni David Ellefson and Marty Friedman, plus late Ozzy Osbourne sidekick Randy Rhoads and Anthrax veteran Scott Ian.
Each of the four guitars in the lineup are inspired by classic instruments built originally for these four players. “Jackson has translated these highly personal instruments into signature models built for today’s players – preserving the details that made each original distinct while making those ideas accessible beyond the artists who inspired them,” the brand says.
The Legends Series starts with a recreation of Randy Rhoads’ white and gold Concorde V, which he built with Grover Jackson in 1980. The guitar – dubbed the CD1 – features an alder body, Seymour Duncan JB/’59 pickups, a compound-radius 12”-16” fingerboard, and a vintage-correct six-saddle tremolo with a whammy bar.
“The Rhoads family is so pleased to see this new Randy Rhoads CD1 model from Jackson,” says Kathy Rhoads D’Argenzio, Randy Rhoads’ sister. “Randy’s historic legacy has remained in the spotlight for over 40 years. There is no doubt Randy would be so honoured to know the impact he has had on Jackson Guitars and on the world of rock and metal guitar.”
Credit: Jackson
Next up is the Marty Friedman KE-1 – a recreation of his late-’90s Jackson Kelly signature model which he used extensively across some of Megadeth’s biggest albums, including Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction. This one features an alder body with a three-piece maple neck, singular Seymour Duncan JB pickup, plus a Kahler 7330 fixed bridge for rock-solid tuning stability.
Credit: Jackson
“My KE-1 represents living the dream to me,“ says Marty Friedman. “When I had the opportunity to create my own signature guitar, I went all out with Jackson to build the ultimate heavy metal guitar. No expense was spared, from the pickup and bridge to every detail and dimension. After thousands of concerts and countless recordings, the KE-1 remains a huge part of my journey and an iconic instrument that people associate with me.”
Next is the Scott Ian Rhoads RR22, which sports bolt “Not” body graphics which were central to Anthrax’s ‘80s era, plus a neck-through construction and a top-mount Floyd Rose 1000 Series tremolo.
“My Not Rhoads was such an important part of my journey,” Ian says. “I discovered my tone with it. It’s been used on every Anthrax record – it was the main guitar on those first five albums in the ‘80s. It’s the guitar that kind of made my life. I love that people connect with it.”
Credit: Jackson
And finally, Jackson has recreated its first-ever five-string bass, which was built for the former Megadeth bassist in 1990. It features an alder body with a three-piece through-body quartersawn maple neck, EMG 40DC and CS pickups, a three-band EQ, a Jackson HiMass 5-string bridge, and Open-Gear Hipshot tuners.
“My Jackson Concert basses have always been the sleek, high-octane version of what I consider to be a great bass,” Ellefson says. “Their slightly smaller body and fast action made them perfect for my aggressive playing style. My original 1987 Concert Bass gave me the freedom to fully develop my playing without limitations from the instrument. Jackson basses have become an integral part of who I am and the music I’m known for.”
Credit: Jackson
On the Legends Series as a whole, Jackson VP of Product Jon Romanowski adds: “Randy, Scott, David and Marty didn’t just play Jackson instruments – they helped define what Jackson became and pushed heavy music forward in the process.
“You can hear and see their influence in heavy music today, across generations of artists and increasingly across genres. Making these instruments available to players isn’t simply about recreating the past; it’s about putting them into the hands of the players who will take that influence somewhere new.”
Pricing for each of the four new Legends Series models is as follows:
- Randy Rhoads CD1 – $2,499
- Marty Friedman KE-1 – $2,299
- Scott Ian Rhoads RR22 – $2,199
- David Ellefson CB V Concert Bass – $2,499
Learn more about the Legends Series at Jackson.
The post Jackson’s new Legends Series celebrates the influence of Randy Rhoads, Marty Friedman, Scott Ian and David Ellefson on the brand’s legacy appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
So you’re buying a second-hand guitar: these are the things you need to know
You’ve probably noticed that the very process of existing is getting more expensive every week it seems. As the fundamentals of life become more and more of a drain on all our resources, we often cut back on luxuries and look for savings on our hobbies to relieve some of the pressure. Guitarists are not immune to this.
But life without fun is hardly life at all, and there are ways in which we can still enjoy our favourite hobby (and the pull of GAS) in ways that still save us some cash. The most obvious way here is buying second-hand gear. While certain vintage guitars come with huge premiums, most used gear can be had with significant savings over buying new from a store or online retailer.
As long as you don’t mind a little wear and tear, you can easily find top-tier instruments with a lot of life left in them for a great price. But just how much life is left in your new-old guitar? And what should you look for when shopping, buying and even valuing your own guitar to sell?
Setups and playability
The setup of a used guitar is often a real problem, though easily fixed. Used or vintage guitars are often being sold because they’re underutilised or rarely played, sometimes relegated to the back of a closet, hopefully in a case or bag. Even guitars left safely perched on racks can slowly degenerate and affect the overall playability.
Things like high action, bad intonation, rusty strings and buzzy frets aren’t always a red flag, and can be easily remedied if you know what you’re looking for. When checking out the action of a guitar, a consistently high action along the fretboard is usually a sign of a bridge that is simply raised too high, an easy fix! Depending on your guitar’s design, there’s usually two screws at the bridge that can raise or lower the high and low side of the strings independently.
The Acoustic Questions
For an acoustic guitar, the action issue is a trickier one to fix. A flat-top’s bridge is often glued to the belly of the guitar, and string tension can slowly lift this over years, usually decades, of tension.
This will often create a bubble on the guitar’s belly, or the bridge itself can lift. Both of these will create high action, so a quick check can help you make a safe purchase. Neither of these are a total deal breaker, but definitely require big fixes, so tread lightly.
If the action is inconsistently high across the board, it can be for a few different reasons. Most likely the truss rod is improperly adjusted, or has been left untouched for a long time. This will be most obvious around the middle of the fretboard (by distance, not frets), usually the 8th or 9th fret.
This will result in either the strings being the furthest distance at this point if the neck is too bowed, or the closest point if the neck is adjusted with too much convex. Both of these are easily remedied as long as the truss rod is functioning correctly, so a quick adjustment with an allen key to check its effect on the neck’s straightness helps. A quarter turn should be enough to confirm the truss rod itself is working as expected!
Neck Warping
What’s difficult or impossible to remedy is a warped neck, meaning it’s more bowed on one side than the other. This can be easily checked by staring down the fretboard towards the bridge from the headstock, as imperfections will be much more obvious from this angle. You’ll easily be able to see how warped or bowed the neck is. Generally, a warped neck can’t be fixed without a lot of work, though if the price is right, a whole new neck could still yield a great deal!
Hardware Failures
All this talk of adjustments, fixes and setup is reliant on the hardware itself. Used instruments are often well used, as such have rusty components, screws, scratchy pots, seized threads or other damage from sweat, dirt and grime. Screws that secure things like input jacks, scratchplates and pickup selectors are easily replaceable and don’t have any great effect on the guitar’s playability.
Tuning machines, tremolo bridges, nuts and rusty electronics, however, greatly affect both sound and function of a guitar, so a little check can go a long way. Ensure tuning machines are secure, turn evenly, smoothly and are generally free of rust, especially where wound strings make contact with the machine head. Equally important is the guitar’s nut, as this area often chips when made of bone, plastic or other materials, and while it is an easy fix by a professional, it’s still a cost that’ll have to be factored in.
Tremolo systems like a Floyd Rose or Ibanez’s Edge Trem operate on a knife’s edge that pivots on two bolts that bold the bridge in place— this sharp edge wears over time, causing the bridge to skid on the bolts and wrangles the whole thing out of tune. Both tremolo and hard tail bridges take a beating, and tiny screws and threads often fill with sweat and rust. They can be taken apart and cleaned out, but making sure all the parts move smoothly is essential for setting up the guitar for the best playability.
Pots And Jacks
Another issue that is common with older guitars won’t reveal itself until you’ve plugged it in – namely issues with the pots of the input jacks.
Scratchy pots (where there’s an audible sound when you’re adjusting the pot) or inconsistent jack connections are, thankfully, easily fixable or replaceable without too much investment. A little soldering know-how will have you switching out or upgrading parts if need be, which brings me to my next point.
Customisations and modifications
Pre-owned guitars are often modified or customised to the owner’s needs, so when buying an electric guitar, a quick look around the control cavity can be a good idea. Modifications might have been DIY, and while signal might be passing from A to B, a rat’s nest of cables, solder and switches might be hiding beneath it all. While the guitar passing signal at all can be a good sign, it can require an overhaul if you want to return the guitar to factory specs!
All in all, a little know-how can help you safely and confidently get a great deal on a used guitar. Many problems arise from a lack of use, guitars and basses requiring regular servicing as the wood expands and wears, and as components wear in and wear out over time.
There’s absolutely some red flags like warped necks, rat’s nests of electronics and more, besides obvious problems like breaks, cracks and chips. However, even problem areas that need total replacement can still come in on budget, as long as you know what you’re signing up for. There’s a world of unique, inspiring and totally affordable instruments out there, so happy hunting!
The post So you’re buying a second-hand guitar: these are the things you need to know appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Excerpt: Christopher Guest in Fretboard Journal 60
If you think of Christopher Guest as merely Nigel Tufnel (or Corky St. Clair), you’d miss the point.
Beyond Spinal Tap, Guest has been obsessed with fretted instruments since his teenage years. Over the decades, he amassed a world-class collection of instruments, including vintage Martins and Gibsons, and a Monteleone mandolin. And he still plays them all… regularly.
We sat down with this comedy legend and Fretboard Journal reader for an exclusive interview in our 60th issue, where he recounts how he once saved his Martin dreadnought from John Belushi’s destruction (not quite Animal House level intention, but still…) and walks us through some of his favorite instruments. Below are some excerpts. Order the issue here.
Folk Roots
“Pete Seeger was the music teacher at the school I went to. Dylan lived around the corner. I’m younger, but I went to all those folk clubs and played in those clubs where you could just walk in and play. I played at Washington Square, which was two blocks from my house. I listened to all kinds of music. I listened to Woody Guthrie, I listened to bluegrass music and I listened to jazz. And then I went to a school [The Stockbridge School] where I heard a rumor that Arlo Guthrie, who had not played any music publicly yet, went to. I thought, That’s Woody’s son. I should probably try to go to that school, because I think there’s a connection.”
Road Trips
“I’d heard Lightnin’ Hopkins live and B.B. King live in roughly ’67. I rode on a bicycle in 1963 with some friends, 200 miles, to the Newport Folk Festival. There were five or six of us. It’s insane when I think about that now. From Vermont, we rode on bicycles to Newport!”
The Perils of the Folksmen Opening for Spinal Tap
“We opened for ourselves several times. At the Greek Theatre, my wife took our son, who was about six. He had these airplane earphones on because [Tap] was so loud. [The Folksmen] opened, and I have this bald [wig] thing on with these little tufts of hair, and I’m playing banjo, mandolin and guitar. He turned to her and said, ‘When are the old guys getting off and the loud guys coming out?’ He had no idea.
“It was really fascinating to open for ourselves. We did it in England; we did it at Carnegie Hall and a couple of other times. You could sense, because people didn’t know who it was, ‘Get the F out of here!’”
A Love for Old Martins
“All the Tap songs were written on this ’46 [Martin D-28]. Someone had put a stencil on it here [points to the top].”
“It said ‘Rhythm Kings.’ After about 20 years, it just sort of faded away. You can’t see it. And I thought that was funny when I bought it.”
“It has the original label from Matt Umanov and his original store, which was on Bedford. I wrote the songs for the original Lampoon records on this and then a show we did called Lemmings, which ran for a year. And there was one song in the show where all the actors who played instruments switched instruments. I started playing this [Martin]. Then I gave it to John Belushi, who was playing the bass. I then had the bass.”
“John fell off the stage holding this. He did not injure the guitar, but I said, ‘We’re not going to be using this again.’ That was in 1973.”
Stomp Boxes
“With pedals, it’s a bit of a jerk-off, but it’s also interesting to me. The Chase Bliss people sent me this pedal, which is a Reverse Mode C pedal…an amazing pedal. They make great stuff, and they’re kind of insane. They’re dedicated, crazy people, really crazy, but in a legitimate, interesting way.
“The new one that just came out, which I won’t get, sounds quite remarkable…that delay [Big Time]. When I had the [pedal board] for [Spinal Tap II] built for me, about a third of those were my pedals on that huge thing in the movie. There are probably 30 pedals. I don’t know what they are. I was going to extend it so that it was 100 feet.
“I have a little board at home, a pedal board that I use, and I switch out some things. I appreciate what goes into that. I don’t understand the taking it apart thing. But I do hear what they’re doing, and there are some talented people doing that. I think good players use them, and then good players don’t use them.”
Read the entire interview in our 60th print edition, out now. Photographs by Isaac Jang.
The post Excerpt: Christopher Guest in Fretboard Journal 60 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.
Rig Rundown: Geese
PG’s Chris Kies dropped in on Geese’s pre-tour rehearsals at Rock Nashville, where the band was building out its largest stage production to date ahead of a run that opens at the Ryman. Guitarist Emily Green and bassist Dominic DiGesu walked through rigs that have gotten smaller as the band has gotten bigger. Have a look at some quick highlights below, and tune into the new Rig Rundown for all the details.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Love at First Reverend
Emily went into Rudy’s Music in Soho to buy a Fender and left with this instead, after someone working there put it in her hands. Eight years on, she calls it her favorite guitar and expects it always will be. The stock humbucker wasn’t hot enough, so she swapped in a Railhammer—in her words, it yells. The floating bridge is part of the appeal; she pushes and pulls it constantly.
Four Hundred More Dollars
She bought this one by accident, too. Emily walked into Retrofret in New York for a ’70s Guyatone, played this Silvertone, and got genuinely upset, because she liked it more… and it cost $400 more. She’s used it at every show since.
Emily’s Pedalboard
Emily’s on the vertical version of the ZVEX Fuzz Factory now; the painted horizontal one started squealing in a way she didn’t like. There’s also a Boss BD-2 Blues Driver, a Crowther Audio Prunes & Custard, a Boss DD-5 Digital Delay, a Source Audio True Spring reverb, a Walrus Audio Fundamental Series Delay, and a Strymon Fairfax. Her board has shrunk over the years; she says if she could just plug into the amp she probably would.
Color Over Canvas
Emily found this Music Man 112 RD in Asheville after playing a friend’s larger version of the same amp. She’s been through a lot of Fender Deluxes, which she calls good blank canvases for pedals, but wanted something with more color of its own. A second Music Man sits behind it as a backup that’s never been needed—she keeps it around because the corduroy covering looks cool.
Custom Shop Lefty
Dominic’s Jazz bass is the first instrument he bought with his own money, ordered from the Fender Custom Shop in 2022 because the left-handed selection everywhere else was thin. He spec’ed the natural finish himself, and it’s fitted with a rosewood neck and Ernie Ball cobalt flatwounds.
Loud and Proud
The second Jazz bass was a gift. Dominic keeps roundwounds on this one and reaches for it on the louder material, like “100 Horses,” “Bow Down,” and “Long Island City Here I Come.” He plays mostly with his fingers and says the pick is for tone rather than dynamics.
Dom’s Pedalboard
Dominic keeps things deliberately minimal, after years of a Boss multi-effects unit that eventually broke. After a TC Electronic Polytune 3 tuner, a Tech 21 SansAmp sits first in the chain and splits off the DI so front-of-house gets a clean signal while the mic picks up everything else; the crew taped the knobs down so the settings can’t move. A Boss SY-1 handles the rising synth part in “2122.” A Highwind Amplification Direwolf Overdrive is there for when a song needs an extra kick.
Tube Upgrade
Dominic moved up from a Fender Rumble to this Super Bassman within the last few months. The distortion in it is clear enough that he’s been using it in place of the fuzz, and like Emily he values having a sound that’s easy to build on.
Josh Scott to Sell Hundreds of Pedals from His Personal and JHS Collections on Reverb
Reverb, the largest online marketplace for buying and selling music gear, today announced that Josh Scott will sell a portion of his personal and company music gear collections on Reverb. The first-ever “Josh Scott Collection” Official Reverb Shop will launch on Wednesday, October 21, featuring JHS prototype pedals, one-of-one builds, vintage JHS swag, and the amps, pedals, guitars, and vintage keys that Scott has collected and used over the years.
First-of-its-kind Reverb shop will feature JHS prototypes, one-of-a-kind builds, rare pedals, vintage merch, and “one of the craziest items in JHS history”
“I’m about to sell a crap ton of really cool stuff that I need to sell because it’s all just crashing down on me and ruining my life. It’s a truckload of things, literally. A freight truck arrived and took pallets of gear for this Reverb shop,” said Scott, who founded JHS Pedals and hosts the popular JHS Show. “I’ve played and tested every single piece of gear in this shop, and it’s all ready to be passed on to the next player. That’s why it's all going on Reverb.”
While Scott was an early adopter of Reverb, selling JHS B-Stock and limited-edition items on the marketplace as early as 2013, this is the first single sale of his personal gear of this size. A pedal lover’s paradise, his Reverb shop will feature nearly 400 pedals, including first-run and prototype JHS pedals, as well as guitars, amps, and a huge range of vintage JHS merchandise. “This is an opportunity to get your hands on some extremely rare pedals and other gear,” said Scott.
Among the items that will be available in Scott’s Reverb shop is the “ever-elusive, non-existent” gray JHS Colour Box enclosure. “This is one of the ones from that NAMM Show where everyone first saw them and then for 10 years they told me they hated the white enclosure because I had already shown them the possibility of a gray enclosure,” said Scott. “This is one of the craziest items in JHS history and somebody’s going to own it.”
The “Josh Scott Collection” Official Reverb Shop will also include:
- A Silvertone 1484 Twin Twelve amp that was the model for the JHS Pedals Twin Twelve and several Boss JB-2s signed by Scott.
- A Klon Centaur Silver Horsie, a pre-lawsuit Behringer Centaur, and a Behringer Vintage Distortion pedal.
- Several highly collectible, one-of-one custom-wrapped and hand-painted JHS pedals. “They’re rare. They’re so rare, they’ve never existed,” said Scott.
- A rare 1990s Sovtek MIG amp head, Barcus-Berry preamps, and dozens of guitar amps, including a Satellite amp and several that come with ATA road cases stenciled with JHS. “They are memorabilia and great amps,” said Scott.
- The Tube Screamer, Phase 90, Metal Zone, Klon Centaur, and other pedal costumes featured in Pedals: The Musical and Pedals on Ice.
- Ten guitars and several keys, including a Wurlitzer, a Rhodes, and a Yamaha organ.
- A huge range of vintage JHS shirts, jackets, and other pedal brand collectibles, as well as props from the JHS Show.
While many of the items available in The “Josh Scott Collection” Official Reverb Shop are rare and collectible, players won’t need a collector’s budget to snag an item from the shop. Most pedals in the shop will range from $60 to $600, with more than half of the items listed for $500 or less.
Scott joins a long list of artists who’ve partnered with Reverb to get their gear into the hands of musicians, and he says that’s part of his motivation for the sale. “My one goal with this Reverb shop, beyond selling the gear, is to one-up every band that has ever sold on Reverb. Spoon, I’m looking at you. Modest Mouse, Seal, you, too. Green Day, I’m going to annihilate your shop,” Scott joked.
To sign up to be notified when Scott’s Reverb shop is live, visit www.reverb.com/JoshScott. At that link, you’ll also have the opportunity to enter to win one of two bundles from Scott’s collection. To enter, list an item on Reverb before November 23.
“Josh Scott Collection” Official Reverb Shop
Reverb, the largest online marketplace for buying and selling music gear, today announced that Josh Scott will sell a portion of his personal and company music gear collections on Reverb. The first-ever “Josh Scott Collection” Official Reverb Shop will launch on Wednesday, October 21, featuring JHS prototype pedals, one-of-one builds, vintage JHS swag, and the amps, pedals, guitars, and vintage keys that Scott has collected and used over the years.
“Bill, you can’t stab a ghost!” Black Sabbath’s run-in with the paranormal – and how a haunting helped end Tony Iommi’s writer’s block
In 1973, Black Sabbath, creatively spent and fresh from a failed writing stint in Los Angeles, returned to the UK and rented Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean to write their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. After four albums in as many years, Tony Iommi had hit a wall. By his own account: “It just went dead.” The castle was supposed to fix that. And it didn’t hurt that it came with its own ghost.
One night, Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne were talking along a corridor when a figure came towards them and ducked left into an armoury room. Startled, they rushed in after him but there was no way out of the room and nobody inside. When they sheepishly told the owners, they replied: “Oh yeah, that’s the castle ghost. Don’t worry about him,” Iommi recalls in an interview with Uncut.
Bill Ward, however, wasn’t taking any chances. “Why’ve you got that?” Iommi asked when he found a dagger in Ward’s bedroom. “Bill, you can’t stab a ghost!”
Whatever the ghost did, the effect was immediate. Iommi came up with the riff to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and in his words, “the rest came fairly shortly afterwards”. Geezer Butler likened hearing it for the first time to seeing his first child born, and it marked the end of the band’s drought.
Not bad for a band who went to a castle to get away from it all and found paranormal inspiration instead…
In other Iommi news, the guitarist’s first solo album in 21 years, From the Dark is out on October 23 via BMG. The follow-up to 2005’s “Fused” features Norwegian vocalist Jørn Lande, Merciful Fate bassist Becky Baldwin and former Robbie Williams drummer Karl Brazil, with Iommi co-producing alongside longtime collaborator Mike Exeter.
The album’s lead single World Alone, delivers the kind of high-gain riffs and thunderous rhythm section you’d expect from the Black Sabbath legend, while other tracks promise more sinister territory.
The record will also feature Queen guitarist Brian May on Death Wake, while a deluxe edition will include expanded versions of Iomi’s recent solo releases Scent of Dark and Deified.
From the Dark is available to pre-order now.
The post “Bill, you can’t stab a ghost!” Black Sabbath’s run-in with the paranormal – and how a haunting helped end Tony Iommi’s writer’s block appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Jackson Honors Metal Icons with Legends Signature Series
Jackson is paying tribute to Randy Rhoads, Scott Ian, David Ellefson and Marty Friedman with a limited-edition collection of guitar models.
The Legends Signature series honors four players who helped define heavy metal, with new models faithfully recreated from the iconic guitars originally built for each artist:
- Limited Edition Legend Series Randy Rhoads CD1
- Limited Edition Legend Series Signature David Ellefson CB V Concert Bass
- Limited Edition Legend Series Signature Marty Friedman Kelly KE-1
- Legend Series Limited Edition Signature Scott Ian Rhoads RR22
Limited Edition Legend Series Signature David Ellefson CB V Concert Bass:
- Alder body and Three-Piece Through-Body Quartersawn Maple Neck with Graphite Reinforcement Rods – The stable, reinforced maple neck lets David dig in hard without losing tuning, while the alder body keeps his bass lines clear through a heavy mix.
- EMG 40DC and CS Pickups with 3-Band EQ – The pickups provide a noise-free signal that cuts through distorted guitars while 3-band EQ lets David shape his riffs on the fly without losing volume.
- Jackson HiMass 5-String Bridge – For David’s fast and percussive bass drive, this bridge adds extra mass which boosts sustain and tightens low end.
- Open-Gear Hipshot Tuners – The precise tuning adjustments and strong stability let David’s five string stay locked in through aggressive playing and touring.
Street Price: $2,499.99
“My Jackson Concert basses have always been the sleek, high-octane version of what I consider to be a great bass,” said David Ellefson. “Their slightly smaller body and fast action made them perfect for my aggressive playing style. My original 1987 Concert bass gave me the freedom to fully develop my playing without limitations from the instrument. Jackson basses have become an integral part of who I am and the music I’m known for.”
Limited Edition Legend Series Signature Marty Friedman Kelly KE-1:
- Alder Body with Three-Piece Maple Neck-Through Construction – For Marty’s fast and technical leads, the body and construction provide balanced tone, stability and excellent sustain.
- Seymour Duncan JB Pickup – Ideal for Marty’s precise, melodic shred style, this pickup delivers a tight, articulate punch with enough output to drive lead tones clearly.
- Kahler 7330 Fixed Bridge – Marty’s aggressive picking and bends stay locked due to this bridge’s rock-solid tuning stability.
MSRP: $2,299.99
“The KE-1 represents living the dream to me,” said Marty Friedman. “When I had the opportunity to create my own signature guitar, I went all out with Jackson to build the ultimate heavy metal guitar. No expense was spared, from the pickup and bridge to every detail and dimension. After thousands of concerts and countless recordings, the KE-1 remains a huge part of my journey and an iconic instrument that people associate with me.”
Limited Edition Legend Series Randy Rhoads CD1:
- Alder Body bound Ebony Fingerboard with 22 Jumbo Frets and 12"-16" Compound Radius – Suited to Rhoad’s expressive bends and effortless soloing, the body and ebony fingerboard provide balanced tone while the compound radius keeps chords comfortable near the nut while flattening out.
- Seymour Duncan® JB/'59 Humbuckers – For clean arpeggios to aggressive high-gain riffing, a hallmark of Randy’s playing, the JB (bridge) delivers punchy high output drive for leads, while the '59 (neck) offers warmer, vintage-voiced cleans.
- A Vintage-Accurate Six Saddle Tremolo – Classic to Rhoad’s dive-bombs, this tremolo allows expressive pitch bends and vibrato while maintaining reliable tuning.
Street Price: $2,499.99
“The Rhoads family is so pleased to see this new Randy Rhoads CD1 model from Jackson,” said Kathy Rhoads D’Argenzio, Randy Rhoads’ sister. “Randy’s historic legacy has remained in the spotlight for over 40 years. There is no doubt Randy would be so honored to know the impact he has had on Jackson Guitars and on the world of rock and metal guitar.”
Legend Series Limited Edition Signature Scott Ian Rhoads RR22:
- The Bold "Not" Body Graphics – This design was central to the band’s 1980s recording and touring era image.
- Neck-Through Construction – For Scott Ian’s aggressive, fast rhythm playing, this construction maximizes sustain and resonance transfer since the neck and body are one continuous piece, giving heavy riffs and power chords a tight, sustained punch. Plus, the graphite reinforcement keeps the neck rock-stable.
- Top-Mount Floyd Rose 1000 Tremolo – Critical for Anthrax’s high-intensity live sets, this tremolo locks the strings at both the nut and bridge, so even with hard strumming, dive bombs or pitch dips, the guitar snaps right back in tune.
Street price: $2,199.99
“My Not Rhoads was such an important part of my journey,” said Scott Ian. “I discovered my tone with it. It’s been used on every Anthrax record — it was the main guitar on those first five albums in the ’80s. It’s the guitar that kind of made my life. I love that people connect with it.”
For over 45 years, Jackson has crafted instruments that have helped shaped the sound of heavy metal. The Legend Series connects that history to what’s happening now, putting defining instruments from Jackson’s past into the hands of musicians shaping what comes next.
“Randy, Scott, David and Marty didn’t just play Jackson instruments — they helped define what Jackson became and pushed heavy music forward in the process,” said Jon Romanowski, VP of Product, Jackson. “You can hear and see their influence in heavy music today, across generations of artists and increasingly across genres. Making these instruments available to players isn’t simply about recreating the past; it’s about putting them into the hands of the players who will take that influence somewhere new.”
For more information visit www.jacksonguitars.com.
Jackson is paying tribute to Randy Rhoads, Scott Ian, David Ellefson and Marty Friedman with a limited-edition collection of guitar models.
Recording Dojo: Old Racks, New Tricks
There’s been a subtle yet welcome return to one of my favorite corners of recording technology: the rack effects of the late ‘70s through the late ‘90s. Units made by Yamaha, T.C. Electronic, Lexicon, and Eventide, which were all once everywhere, spent far too many years relegated to the spandex audio detention hall and largely forgotten about. Now these vintage boxes are finding their way back into studios (they certainly are in mine). And for good reason.
They’re dripping with personality, charm, and built-in limitations. They are gloriously grainy. Wobbly and unpredictable. Some have tiny displays and menus that feel like programming your grandmother’s VCR in 1991—you have to read the manual. But those limitations are often insignificant to the character, charm, timbre, and bang for your buck!
Add to this the fact that most modern guitarists, without thinking of it this way, already own an entire external-effects system: the pedalboard. Half a dozen pedals can easily cover compression, fuzz, and overdrive, as well as modulation effects (chorus, phaser, etc.) and time effects like delays and reverbs. So there’s never been a better time to learn how to use your gear as a hardware insert inside your DAW. Tighten up your belts, the Dojo is now open.
The Basic Signal Path
For conventional rack gear—compressors, EQs, reverbs, multi-effects processors, or devices with external audio inputs—the routing is straightforward:
DAW track → interface line output → rack gear → interface line input → DAW
Mono hardware requires one output and one input. Stereo hardware requires a pair. And many are mono in, stereo out (especially true for multi-effects processors designed to be used by guitar players back in the day).
Planning on using your pedalboard as a hardware insert? You’ll need to add a step in between that will take your signal from line level down to instrument level before hitting your pedalboard, and then bring it back up to line level before you come back into your DAW (See my Dojo article about this, “What You Should Know About Using Guitar Pedals With Other Instruments,” from September, 2022). Use a simple re-amp box to accomplish this. A typical pedal loop becomes:
DAW → interface line output → re-amp box input → pedalboard → re-amp box output → interface input → DAW
Some modern pedals can accept line level directly, but check the manufacturer’s specifications rather than making assumptions.
“Most modern guitarists, without thinking of it this way, already own an entire external-effects system: the pedalboard.”
Setting Up a Hardware Insert
So how do we do this? For starters, you have to physically connect inputs and outputs of the hardware to your interface.
1. Choose unused interface I/O
Pick a line level mono channel or stereo pair that isn’t feeding your monitors, headphones, or another device.
2. Connect the send
Run the selected interface output to the rack unit’s input. For pedals, go from the interface output into the re-amp box first, then to the pedalboard.
3. Connect the return
Connect the hardware output to an available interface input. With pedals, take the output and return through the re-amp box, and finally back into your interface.
4. Establish levels
Rack equipment expects line level. Pedals generally don’t. Start conservatively and make sure neither the hardware input nor your interface return is clipping.
5. Create the hardware insert in the DAW
Tell the software which physical output is the send and which physical input is the return. This varies by DAW, so be sure to read the manual to find the easiest way to do this.
6. Follow the signal
Press play and verify signal at the interface output, the external device, and, finally, the interface input. If the hardware meters are moving but you hear no return, stop troubleshooting the send—the problem is downstream.
7. Compensate for latency
The trip out of the interface and back takes time. All three DAWs below provide a way to compensate for it.
Pro Tools, Logic, and LUNA
In Pro Tools, open Setup > I/O > Insert. Name the hardware insert path. Pro Tools organizes hardware inserts around defined physical I/O mappings, so the Insert page needs to agree with your actual interface connections. Once configured, that path appears in the track’s insert menu. Setup > I/O > H/W Insert Delay handles additional round-trip compensation. The input and output channel numbers must match!
In Logic Pro, choose Utility > I/O on the channel. Logic lets you select the hardware Output and Input directly inside the I/O utility, so send and return can be different channel numbers. Its Latency Detection/Ping function measures the round trip and applies compensation.
In LUNA Pro, choose an insert slot, open Hardware Inserts, and select New Hardware Insert. Like Logic, LUNA lets you select the outgoing Output and returning Input independently. Press Calc to measure the round-trip latency and save the completed configuration as a preset if you use that hardware regularly.
Once that routing is established, the rack in the corner—and the pedalboard at your feet—becomes a much bigger part of the studio. Until next time, namaste.
Why the BOSS EX-4 could transform your pedalboard
Ad feature with BOSS
If you’re a guitar player, chances are you’ve spent more time than is entirely healthy thinking about your pedalboard, and specifically the endless game of Tetris involved in getting all the sounds you need onto the board you have.
A great way to get around this sort of issue is to use a compact multi-effects unit to expand the versatility of your board – adding a huge variety of sounds on tap without needing to have a board that looks like something that would be suitable for sending astronauts to Mars.
BOSS’s new EX-4 Effects Expander is an interesting new take on the formula – and it’s one that could transform your entire rig in a variety of ways. Let’s take a look at three different ways you could incorporate it into your pedalboard.
Building the ultimate fly rig
Most compact multi-effects pedals are effectively one-shot units – with a large number of sounds on tap, but limited to just one effect at a time. The EX-4 rips that whole rulebook by not only offering 120 premium BOSS effects in its library, but the ability to run up to four separate effects at once.
The benefits here are pretty obvious. While you can of course use the EX-4 to just provide one effect at a time should that be what you need, the ability to build out multiple mini-signal chains in one pedal means that it has the potential to replace not just one or two pedals on your board, but a whole host of them.
This is a game-changer for those who want to travel light for shows – especially touring musicians and those who do a lot of varied gigs. If you’re flying or using any kind of public transport to get to your gig, you’ll know that you want to keep things as streamlined as possible – but a limited load-out doesn’t mean you have to bring limited sounds.
By making the EX-4 the focal point of a small travel board, you have access to a broad palette of pro-ready sounds, and paired with your amp sim or IR pedal of choice, it enables you to have everything you want at your feet with minimal hassle.
The heart of a hybrid powerhouse
Scaling down your rig is all well and good of course, but what about going the other way? Yngwie Malmsteen didn’t teach us that “more is more” in order to watch us all streamline our guitar rigs down to the smallest possible option.
Thankfully, the EX-4 has everything that the most maximalist effects fan could want to make it the powerhouse behind a serious set-up. For starters, the EX-4 not only has 128 factory presets, but also the flexibility of 128 user-generated presets. That means that you don’t have to worry about scrolling through and swapping out sounds and settings between songs – you can simply program everything you need in beforehand, and then cycle through presets as you need them.
But what if you want a pedal to be the beating heart of a hybrid rig that pairs a classic no-messing tube amplifier with a switching system like BOSS’s own impressive ES-8 unit? Well, the EX–4 comes ready to add a broad palette of modulation, delay, reverb, filter, pitch, and speciality effects to this set-up, straight out of the box.
For one, thanks to a pair of space-saving TRS jacks, the EX-4 is fully MIDI controllable, meaning that you can hook it up to your switcher and be able to control everything you need without any need for tap-dancing.
What’s more, the EX-4’s stereo inputs and outputs also double as an effects loop, meaning that you can further enhance and expand your sonic options by adding a favourite dirt pedal or other go-to effect in the pedal’s loop, and then take advantage of the internal routing options to ensure that it sits exactly where you want it in the chain.
As if that wasn’t enough, the pedal’s two footswitches can be programmed for sophisticated custom operation – allowing you to switch or adjust individual parameters on the fly. Want to kick in that momentary effect or kick things up a gear for a solo? The EX-4 has you covered.
Expanding your sounds without expanding your board
If you’re an effects obsessive, you’ll know well the pain of having to try and squeeze all the sounds you might want into a limited footprint – invariably there are some sounds you’d love to have at hand for the rare occasion you need them, but you can’t justify the real estate to keep them on your board.
The EX-4 can solve all your pedal-picking headaches by offering a huge number of useful effects – including some really esoteric ones like the Slow Gear or Slicer – in a compact package that also includes loads of quality more common effects like delay, modulation and reverb.
The EX-4’s ability to run up to four effects at once means that most of the time it can sit on your pedalboard as a great-sounding option for everyday use, but with the flexibility to add those more occasional sounds into the mix as and when you need them.
If you’re a guitarist that loves finding new textures, the ability to explore these new sonic landscapes, safe in the knowledge that you won’t have to re-wire your pedalboard to make it work in a live environment, is priceless.
What’s more, the impressive level of internal and external routing options removes many of the compromises that pedalboard-based multi-effects can often necessitate. For starters, the stereo input and output jacks double as an effects loop, meaning that you can use it to build a reorderable signal chain with any external pedals you choose. The exp out also means that you can hook it up to an external footswitch or expression pedal and further add flexibility to your on-the-fly switching options.
The pedal itself also features a variety of useful utility features on board to enhance this further, including foot volume, two noise suppressors, send/return, and divider/mixer. And you aren’t limited to running the effects on the EX-4 in one direction either – with advanced series, parallel, and wet/dry options within the virtual chain itself, you can create complex effects configurations that maximise your tonal versatility.
Avoiding option paralysis
A common drawback with mutli-effects units is that they have so many sounds on tap, and so many parameters to edit, it can be quite overwhelming knowing how to get a great sound out of each effect.
Thankfully, BOSS has taken the pain out of all this with the new Gear Suite function – tap this dedicated button while you’re selecting an effect, and you’ll be presented with a bunch of presets for each different effect type, and once you’ve found the sound you love, you can even save user presets for each effect and then use them across your global presets.
It all adds up to a pedal that takes away much of the pain of using a compact multi-effects unit, while expanding your tonal options to elevate it beyond a simple occasional pedal. Whatever your needs, the EX-4 adds a new dimension to your board.
Find out more about the EX-4 Effects Expander at boss.info
The post Why the BOSS EX-4 could transform your pedalboard appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Review: The Breedlove Roots Concert RTC-MMe Is a Mahogany Lover’s Delight in a Concert-Sized Package
“You killed it!”: Diamond Rowe just played Enter Sandman at an NFL game – and Metallica have given their seal of approval
![Diamond Rowe [main], and James Hetfield [inset]](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Diamond-Rowe-James-Hetfield-hero@2000x1500.jpg)
There must be something wholesome in the air today, because dreams are coming true left, right and centre. America’s Got Talent winner Nene Royal isn’t the only one living the dream, after she took to the stage alongside Avenged Sevenfold in Singapore to play two of the band’s biggest hits.
Diamond Rowe – guitarist of Georgia heavy metallers Tetrarch – is also living the dream, after taking to the field at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta to cheer on the Falcons for Sunday Night Football with a crushing rendition of Metallica’s Enter Sandman.
Donning a Falcons jersey, joined by mascot Freddie Falcon and wielding her Jackson Signature Pro Series Monarkh, Rowe brought the noise and lit up the ground with one of the most iconic heavy metal riffs of all time, before the Falcons’ game against the Baltimore Ravens.
The guitarist has since posted footage of her electrifying performance on her socials, which you can now watch below in all its glory…
It marks a full-circle moment for Diamond Rowe, who is quick to call Metallica “the band that made me fall in love with heavy music and inspired me to pick up a guitar in the first place”.
“WE DID IT,” she writes. “We brought heavy music to NFL Sunday Night Football.”
What an awesome experience. I’ve dedicated my entire life to this instrument. Countless hours practicing, years of grinding, taking risks, making sacrifices, and chasing a dream that many (most I can still call by name) told us was impossible. But we continue to shatter those glass ceilings and moments like this remind me exactly why I’ve never once thought about quitting.”
She continues: “To have the opportunity to pay homage to who I consider the greatest band of all time, in a STADIUM felt extremely fitting and was an absolute honour.”
“I couldn’t be more proud to represent heavy music on a stage like this, in front of 70,000 strong. If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout this journey, it’s that you should always bet on yourself.”
A HUGE thank you to the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons for trusting me to bring some noise to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. And to everyone behind the scenes who helped bring this moment to life, I appreciate you more than you know. Thanks Josh [Fore, Tetrarch rhythm guitarist and vocalist] for holding down the wah for me behind the goal post…”
“We can officially check the NFL off the bucket list y’all! Now somebody tell the boys in Metallica!”
Well, it looks like someone did, indeed, tell the boys in Metallica about her performance, as the band have since commented on her Instagram post, writing: “Awesome stuff, Diamond. You absolutely killed it!” We’d imagine Diamond Rowe is freaking out right about now…
We were lucky enough to host Diamond Rowe at Guitar.com HQ last October for an episode of My Guitars & Me, where she explained why tone knobs on guitars are unnecessary.
The post “You killed it!”: Diamond Rowe just played Enter Sandman at an NFL game – and Metallica have given their seal of approval appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
WATCH: AGT winner Nene Royal joins Avenged Sevenfold onstage in Singapore to perform Bat Country and Unholy Confessions
![Avenged Sevenfold lead guitarist Synyster Gates [main], America's Got Talent winner Nene Royal [inset]](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/A7X-Nene-Royal-hero-2@2000x1500.jpg)
Remember when we said America’s Got Talent winner Nene Royal would be joining Avenged Sevenfold onstage in Singapore?
Following a whirlwind rise to fame on the show, which saw her steal the nation’s hearts with her takes on rock and metal classics including Muse’s Hysteria, The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army and Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun, and even joining Linkin Park themselves for a rendition of The Emptiness Machine.
Yep, at just 16 years old, the Phuket, Thailand guitar prodigy has experienced staggering success, and it seems she’s still very much on an upward trajectory…
Last night at Singapore’s Indoor Stadium, Nene Royal took to the stage in front of thousands of rabid A7X fans to perform a five-track set of classic covers, including Hysteria and Black Hole Sun – staples of her repertoire following AGT – as well as Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name, System of a Down’s I-E-A-I-A-I-O, and finally Zombie by The Cranberries.
But her experience didn’t end there, as she also joined Avenged Sevenfold themselves later in the night to perform two tracks alongside the band: Bat Country and Unholy Confessions. You can check out footage of the wholesome performance below:
The rest of Avenged Sevenfold’s set was chock full of classics from their discography, opening with Nightmare, Game Over, Afterlife and The Stage, before hitting Shepherd of Fire and Buried Alive, throwing in fan favourite Gunslinger, and closing with Halloween-adjacent epic A Little Piece of Heaven.
Late last month, Nene Royal – real name Rattikarn Amloy – spoke to Metal Hammer about how she landed the opportunity to open for Avenged in the first place.
“The managers in Singapore text me: ‘Oh, I hear you wanna play with Avenged Sevenfold?’” she recalled.
“I was like, ‘Yeah!’ They said, ‘Well, Avenged Sevenfold want you to support them.’ They asked for me, ‘Do you wanna do it?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah!’”
She was, of course, excited at the opportunity, but as you would be, also a little apprehensive…
“It’s my first time playing support to Avenged Sevenfold, so I was like, ‘I’m scared!’” she said. “And I’m going to play in front of how many? 40,000!”
Avenged Sevenfold’s tour continues, as they head to Oceania to perform four dates in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Auckland, NZ, alongside Coheed & Cambria and Aussie metallers Thornhill.
Check their website for dates and tickets.
The post WATCH: AGT winner Nene Royal joins Avenged Sevenfold onstage in Singapore to perform Bat Country and Unholy Confessions appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Beetronics Seabee Lite review – the kooky chorus pedal gets simpler, cheaper… and better
$249/£219, beetronicsfx.com
There are two reasons for me to dislike the Beetronics Seabee Lite. The first is that it’s a product of compromise, a cut-price version of an existing model with a bunch of features stripped out. The second is that I’m not a big fan of chorus pedals in the first place.
Luckily, there’s one very strong reason for me not to dislike the Seabee Lite at all: how it sounds. Because this unit is packing a whole range of usable modulation effects, and some of them are nothing short of gorgeous.
What is it?
The standard Seabee, an analogue bucket-brigade stereo chorus with digital control and presets, came out back in 2023. I gave it an 8/10 rating because it did make a bunch of wonderfully nice noises, but that’s not to say I truly liked the thing: it was clunky and overly complicated, and some of its more extreme effects had all the musicality of two foxes mating in a concrete mixer.
The Seabee Lite is less clunky and less complicated. But what has actually been lost in the name of simplicity? Not a lot, to be honest. The biggest difference is that the pitch-shifting ‘harmochorus’ effect has been left out – and I for one am not very upset about that – but you still get multiple modes, 16 preset slots (eight factory, eight to fill up yourself), an expression pedal input and two footswitches with bonus functions. And it still looks awesome.
Image: Adam Gasson
Build quality and usability
This California-built stomper certainly doesn’t feel any less robust than the full-fat Seabee, with a similar wedge-shaped enclosure and non-popping soft footswitches. In use, it’s still a lot more fiddly than the average chorus pedal – but you can at least get started quickly. Ignore the feedback control, the two three-way toggles and the tap-tempo footswitch, and you’ve got a straightforward two-knob job with switchable chorus and vibrato modes.
You’ll soon want to dig deeper, though. Dialling up the feedback will add resonance to the modulation, flipping the tone switch left or right will filter the ‘wet’ part of the signal, and selecting one of the non-chorus modes – ‘flangee’ or ‘wobblee’ – will dramatically change the character of the effect, turning it into a flanger or a… wobbler?
Image: Adam Gasson
Put all that together and you can see why Beetronics felt the need to keep the preset functionality. This is accessed by tapping both footswitches together, then hitting right or left to scroll up or down through the 16 slots, indicated by four colour-coded LEDs. The only snag here is that there’s no way to switch back into live mode instantly – you just have to scroll to the end of the line then tap once more, ie: up from slot 16 or down from slot 1. Bit of a pain, that.
Sounds
Did I say I wasn’t a big fan of chorus pedals? Dang, I must be getting old – because I love this one. The Seabee Lite in classic mode is a thing of lusciousness, adding depth and fluid movement to a dry sound in timeless style – in either mono or stereo. So that’s the basics ticked off right there, with the bonus of virtually hiss-free performance (which is not something you can say about all choruses).
Flipping to ‘wobblee’ mode brings a gently glitchy element of random shifting that reminds me of the Chase Bliss Generation Loss MkII; this can be fun, but ‘flangee’ is better, keeping the fundamentals of that liquid chorus sound and adding a gently metallic swirl. And remember, this is new – the other Seabee doesn’t even have a flanger mode.
It also doesn’t have the Lite model’s band-pass and high-pass filter options – although these are a minor enhancement rather than a transformative one, letting you adjust the tonality of the modulation without affecting the dry signal. The high-pass in particular is nice to have if you’re worried about your low end getting too throbby.
Image: Adam Gasson
There is pure pitch vibrato available if you turn the feedback down and flip the right-hand toggle, and here the tone switch becomes much more powerful – because there is no dry signal, so everything is filtered. Keep things tasteful by going easy on the depth, and this is another rich vein of sweet tones to explore.
Now, a long time ago I mentioned that the footswitches had bonus functions – and they’re worth a look. Hold down the left switch and the modulation speed will quickly rev up to something like maximum, then slow back down once you let go; the right switch does the same thing with the depth. It’s not quite Leslie-style ramping, but it works nicely and could be useful for the occasional cheeky wibble-blast.
Another thing I mentioned earlier is that this pedal sounds luscious in stereo… but there’s a caveat to that. The factory default setup has dry signal on one side and wet on the other, and this can sound weird with anything beyond low-level chorus effects. If you are using a stereo rig you might want to dive into the global settings and change it to wet plus wet with phase inversion, creating a more natural stereo picture. The process is explained in the little manual booklet.
Should I buy one?
The last thing I expected this to be was my new favourite chorus pedal, but here we are. The Seabee Lite is a gem, building on a beautiful fundamental voice with a host of extra options that have all been expertly judged to add genuine value.
The fact that it costs considerably less than the regular Seabee, and adds only worthwhile new features while dumping all the stuff that didn’t really hit the mark, just makes it even harder to resist. If you’re after more than just a chorus pedal, without going full-on into multi-effects, this has to be on your list – probably at the top.
Alternatives
A couple of more conventional multi-modulation offerings are the Kernom Elipse (€369/£369/$299) and Wampler Terraform ($299/£279). Then, of course, there’s the non-Lite version of the Beetronics Seabee ($349/£329)… or you could treat yourself to the fully analogue purity of the Asheville Music Tools ACV-1 ($397/£399) or Hamstead Redwing (£429/$599).
The post Beetronics Seabee Lite review – the kooky chorus pedal gets simpler, cheaper… and better appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Electro-Harmonix Releases The Wailer Wah Pro
Jade Electric Introduces the Blackboard Overdrive
Jade Electric Pedals has launched the Blackboard Overdrive, a hand-built guitar pedal with an original soft-clipping circuit that’s designed to be highly responsive to playing dynamics and volume knob adjustments.
The Blackboard combines overdrive with a clean blend and separate bass and treble controls, allowing players to add grit while retaining clean-signal definition and shaping the sound for their guitar and amplifier.
Developed by guitarist and Jade Electric founder Danny Ousley, the Blackboard is especially suited to country music playing styles—reflecting the company’s Bakersfield roots and practical approach to gear for the stage and studio.
The pedal takes its name from the iconic Bakersfield honky tonk The Blackboard Café. Although the club closed its doors years ago, the Blackboard is still revered as the stomping ground of legends such as Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Red Simpson.
See the demo video below:
Key Blackboard features include:
- Clean blend—adds clean signal alongside the overdrive for added clarity and note definition
- Two-band EQ—separate bass and treble controls for shaping low and high frequencies
- Top-mounted jacks—pedalboard-friendly positioning
- True bypass switching
- 9-volt DC via external power supply only—no battery compartment
- Hand-built in Bakersfield, California
Jade Electric’s Blackboard Overdrive is priced at $175 USD and is available directly from jadeelectricpedals.com.
Blackboard Overdrive
Jade Electric Pedals has launched the Blackboard Overdrive, a hand-built guitar pedal with an original soft-clipping circuit that’s designed to be highly responsive to playing dynamics and volume knob adjustments.
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