General Interest



Do guitars still sell in 2025? Is there a glut of unsold instruments? How have tariffs affected the high-end musical instrument space?

At this year’s Fretboard Summit, we asked a handful of guitar retailers for their unfiltered thoughts on selling instruments in 2025. Included were Rebecca Jasso (Old Town School of Folk Music retail store), Joe Caruso (The Music Emporium), Matt Kappenman (Mass Street Music) and Nathan Schiller (Folkway Music).

Their thoughts on guitar retail may just surprise you, and their insights into how to take care of a customer (and stay profitable during these tumultuous times) were revelatory.

Recorded live at the 2025 Fretboard Summit. We’ll be sharing more talks and panels from the Summit soon. Our next Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026 at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.

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The post Podcast 514: Guitar Retail in 2025 (Fretboard Summit Panel) first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Strymon Engineering has introduced the new PCH Stereo Active Direct Interface, an advanced stereo direct box with a built-in headphone amplifier.

Featuring impressive specs that out-perform DIs anywhere near its price range, PCH also has a unique feature expected to delight pedalboard users: a powerful built-in headphone amp, loud and clean enough to drive even high impedance headphones.

Now you can rest easy knowing that the sound of your pedalboard won’t change even a little when passing through PCH, and the headphone amp means you won’t have to ask anyone how you sound. You’ll know.

PCH makes it easy to monitor or practice while listening to the sound of your entire rig or pedalboard in full stereo. No matter what instrument or style of music you play, if you need to connect unbalanced outputs to a PA, recording interface or flat response speaker system, PCH is the ultimate choice for an absolutely transparent stereo direct interface - and it’s the only one that you can listen to locally via the stereo headphone amp.

Housed in a battle-ready 3mm extruded aluminum chassis, PCH requires 9VDC power, which it converts internally via a custom single-channel Ojai power supply to 24VDC. That extra voltage and high current renders the interface nearly un-clippable, and allows it to achieve a max signal-to-noise ratio of 135db, a hyper-flat frequency response of +/- 0.25db from 10Hz to 80 KHz, and gives the headphone amplifier enough power to cleanly drive even 600 ohm headphones without distortion.

PCH features include:

• Two channel design - use in stereo or dual mono, whichever fits your setup

• Runs on 9VDC - internally converted to 24V to be virtually unclippable

• Stereo headphone amplifier powerful enough to drive high impedance headphones

• Switchable Mic/Line level operation for the XLR outputs

• Defeatable ground lift for the XLR outputs

• Defeatable Sum for the Thru outputs

• Runs off of a modified internal mini Ojai power supply for ultimate performance

• Extremely low THD (Total Harmonic Distortion)

• Bulletproof construction that will stand up to the abuse of the road

“As the music world continues to embrace quiet stage volumes, instrumentalists increasingly turn to amp-less live rigs to achieve good tones at low volumes”, said Sean Halley, Strymon’s Head of Marketing. “Unfortunately this creates problems for players trying to hear their entire pedalboard when they’re anywhere else but onstage. With a PCH at the end of your signal chain, you get a pristine direct interface and a killer built-in headphone amp to make sure that what you’re sending to the PA or recording rig is exactly what you intend to - and it makes silent practicing a joy.”

Gregg Stock, Strymon co-founder and analog circuit guru adds “while we’re more recognized for our DSP effects pedals, they wouldn’t sound the way they do if the analog side wasn’t just as advanced. With PCH we’ve brought that analog expertise to a new market, because it doesn’t matter whose pedals are on your board, you need a bulletproof and pristine-sounding DI to interface with the outside world. PCH isn’t just for guitarists, it’s for anyone with a pedalboard.”

The PCH Active Stereo DI is available now directly from Strymon and from dealers worldwide for $279 US.

Since hitting the scene in 2007, Wampler has consistently made some of the better overdrive and distortion pedals on the market. Interestingly, though, other than 2013’s Levithan fuzz and its brazen sibling, the Fuzztration, which is a fuzz/octave pedal, Wampler’s product line didn’t feature many fuzz pedals. Since then, Brian Wampler has evolved as a pedal builder, and Wampler’s new Cryptid reflects a unique take on what a fuzz can be—employing a newly designed circuit with NPN and PNP transistors, and FETs.

Wampler has described the Cryptid as a “fuzz for those who don’t like fuzz.” And certainly, it’s a versatile pedal that covers much more sonic ground than conventional fuzzes. In addition to delivering variations on familiar classic Fuzz Face, Tone Bender, and Big Muff sounds, the Cryptid can move into light overdrive or even chiming clean territory.

 A Fun House of Fuzz

The Cryptid, despite the implied mystery in its name, is pretty forgiving. You could just set all the knobs at noon and you’d be good to go for any number of fuzz tasks and roles. But this is a fuzz of impressive potential, and every knob and switch—particularly the character knob and the tight and chime switches, and the way they interact—can profoundly reshape the pedal’s performance and feel.

The character knob is a bias control that can shift the mood and responsiveness of the pedal significantly. When the character knob is fully counter-clockwise, the Cryptid is well behaved and focused. As you turn it clockwise, though, things get crazier. Once the character knob is around 2:00 you’ll start to hear sputtering textures that evoke tired, voltage-starved vintage units and more deliberately designed glitch fuzz.

The tight switch lets you regulate how much bass is present in the signal and has a pretty significant impact on the tone. In the down position, it adds in a fair amount of bass. The middle position offers the least bass content and tightens up the sound, which brings out more overdrive-like colors. The up position is the ticket to maximum bass, and even with the fuzz knob set conservatively the Cryptid really is explosive and massive.

The chime switch adds high end. The down position gives a little bit of chime, the middle position is relatively chimeless and has a darker quality, and the up position yields the brightest sounds. The less fuzz you apply to the signal, the more noticeable the chime effect will be. With the fuzz knob all the way counter-clockwise and the chime control switch in the up position, you get delicious, pronounced near-clean tones that fit the bill for Hendrix double stops and Stevie Ray Vaughn blues escapades.

Brian Wampler’s ambitions in putting together the Cryptid—essentially encapsulating the character and tonalities associated with Big Muffs, Tone Benders, and Fuzz Faces, while leaving room for airy, cleaner tones and picking dynamics—were far-reaching. But there is ample evidence that he achieved his aims. Cryptid may not serve many purists searching for classic clone sounds, but it offers the chance to create more original sounds that have all the fire of those classics, and more polite tones to boot.

In guitar circles, Greeny – the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard once owned by Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green and now by Metallica’s Kirk Hammett – is sort of like the One Ring from Lord of the Rings; when players get their hands on it, they’re never quite the same again.

It’s a lesson former Ozzy Osbourne six-string sidekick Jake E. Lee learned the hard way, after Kirk Hammett let him play the guitar backstage at Black Sabbath’s recent farewell show in Birmingham on 5 July.

• READ MORE: “These go to 11!”: Nigel Tufnel’s old Spinal Tap amps are out – because Marshall has designed him an amp that goes to “infinity”

As he recalls in a new interview with Guitar World, Lee explains how Hammett let him play Greeny while rehearsing for his performance at the event, and the experience left an indelible mark.

“I can confirm that it’s a magical piece of wood,” he says. “I didn’t want to put it down – didn’t want to leave it. I’ve missed it ever since! It’s so resonant; it just sings. I almost wish I’d never played it! [laughs] Nah – I’m glad I got to bask in its magic, if for just a while.”

While undoubtedly one of the most fabled electric guitars in existence today, Kirk Hammett is generally pretty generous with whom he lets play the Greeny Les Paul. Earlier this year, he recalled lending the guitar to Jack White, who played it for a few songs onstage.

But while Hammett and Greeny are not tied at the hip, he has acknowledged the lasting effect the guitar has had on him since owning it.

“People say a lot of things have changed about me since I got that guitar,” Hammett said last year. “My playing has changed, my attitude has changed, my tone has changed, my approach has changed. All those things have changed over the last five or six years because of this guitar. I’m really happy about it.”

Elsewhere in the Guitar World interview, Jake E. Lee recalls his performance at Black Sabbath’s monumental final gig, which would also serve as Ozzy Osbourne’s last live appearance before his death.

“I was backstage, and I knew my guitar needed tuning,” he remembers. “And I kept saying, ‘Where’s the rest of the band? Shouldn’t I be out there?’ But they said, ‘No, we’re not ready for you?’ I was like, ‘Okay… can I go out now?’ They said, ‘Okay, you can go.’ Then they led me to stage right, and I said, ‘Shouldn’t I be stage left? I’m playing over there…’ But they said, ‘No, you’ve got to go this way…’

“So I came out, and I hadn’t heard anything, but Nuno [Bettencourt] had the crowd chanting my name. And I walked out and Lzzy [Hale] and Nuno are doing little bows to me. [Laughs] Then Nuno grabbed me and gave me a kiss on the cheek!”

He continues: “The crowd was chanting my name. It was overwhelming. I’m surprised I didn’t trip and fall down! But because of all that, I was a little out of tune – but it was worth it. To have that introduction and reaction was good for my soul. 

“And then, with Shot in the Dark, we rehearsed it a certain way, but I think David got a little excited and jumped ahead. So I didn’t get to do my cool harmony at the beginning, but that’s okay! Did I play my best? Maybe not. Was I in tune? Maybe not. Was it fantastic and amazing? Absolutely.”

The post “I’ve missed it since – I almost wish I’d never played it!”: Jake E. Lee reveals Kirk Hammett let him play Greeny backstage at Black Sabbath’s final show appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

John Bohlinger sits down with Revv Amps’ cofounder Derek Eastveld to trace the company’s journey from basement builds to pedal boom. And while their Generator Series fire-breathing amps and pedals started its ascent finding homes with rockers The Pretty Reckless & A Day to Remember, Eastveld explains that it might be their clean, versatile Dynamis Series gear that's making the Canadian brand a preference for players and producers in Nashville.

Sophie Lloyd has decided to change up her social media content, as the pressure of battling with algorithms has impacted her joy of sharing guitar videos online.

Lloyd has been building up her live presence in the real world across recent years following the release of her 2023 album, Imposter Syndrome. When she last chatted to Guitar.com, she spoke of how she’d always viewed herself as a solo performer, even though she’s well-known for playing alongside MGK.

• READ MORE: Sophie Lloyd: “The sign of a really successful guitarist is when they can play anything and sound like themself”

MGK recruited Lloyd after coming across her online presence, which she has been building since the early 2010s. Her YouTube videos and snappy covers on TikTok and Instagram have been something she has continued alongside both her solo work and her live shows with MGK, but the pressure of making ‘perfect’ content was has become a lot less fulfilling.

“Lately I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed with the pressures of social media,” she writes on Instagram. “With so many amazing creators out there, I’ve been finding it harder and harder to stand out and keep up with the constantly changing algorithm. I kept comparing myself to others, chasing numbers, and honestly, it just stopped being fun.”

She continues, “I think back to when I started posting videos when I was a young girl, I was so excited to pick up a guitar for hours every night learning my favourite songs, and sharing that with whoever would listen, not worrying about views or likes. I want to rediscover that passion and love for guitar and music.”

“Joe Satriani’s Surfing With The Alien was the first instrumental album that really got me into guitar, and the song Satch Boogie was one I tried to learn when I was younger, and could just never get my fingers round it. So the other night, I sat down and started trying to work through it again. I was sat there for hours, really enjoying myself, actually playing guitar for fun like I used to. I want to bring that back into the content I make.”

With that in mind, Lloyd is going to be stripping down her content in favour of posting “real stuff” with “no fancy lighting, no fake eyelashes, no overdubbed audio. Just the room sound, and what I’m actually doing and wanting to work on that day”. She’ll also be doing chatty and fun content, the kind of videos she likes to watch as a viewer, and will still be doing her YouTube shred versions and higher production reels from time to time as well.

You can watch Lloyd’s cover of Satch Boogie below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sophie Lloyd (@sophieguitar_)

Sophie Lloyd is touring with Glenn Hughes this October – find out more via her official website.

The post “I want to be more myself, and get back to the real joy of playing guitar”: Sophie Lloyd to post simpler content due to social media pressures ruining the fun of playing music appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When it comes to rhythm guitar, there are acknowledged masters—artists like Jimmy Nolen, Catfish Collins, Wah Wah Watson, Curtis Mayfield—whose work deserves deep analysis and interpretation. But the discourse on each and every one of these players is sadly thin. That’s because rhythm—especially when it’s funky—is ineffable, and it’s much easier to discuss licks, riffs, melodies, or gear than it is to talk about the give-and-take nuances that make your body want to move when you hear a song. Like Icarus and the sun, if we try to describe a groove too closely we’re setting up our demise. In the attempt to convey those truly human elements of musical performance, we not only fail, but risk rendering ourselves … unfunky.

YouTube

It’s not just words that fall short—musical notation can’t quite capture a groove either. Though it does well at communicating a composer’s intended notes and rhythms, transcribing the intricacies of feel is a task that often overcomplicates something so intrinsic to human nature to the point of illegibility. In learning from the greats of funk, soul, and r&b guitar, we simply have to use our ears as best we can.

“I think we probably share like 60 to 75 percent of our musical DNA. And then the extra stuff that we have adds something to it.” —Charlie Hunter

For some, that only goes so far, so we need visual aides. And that’s how most people—probably—discover Ella Feingold, the Grammy-winning guitarist breaking down the intricacies of those masters of rhythm guitar and many others on Instagram and TikTok, making some of the greatest strides yet in the education—and enjoyment—of funky feel. We’re talking deep, below-the-surface details, like pick attack and note placement—potentially nerd-level stuff that she delivers in a warm, approachable style that makes her videos so engaging and rewatchable. (In fact, if there’s one person I’ve learned the most about guitar from in the last couple of years, it is Ella.)

Feingold’s rhythmic research is backed by a deep resume that spans work as an orchestrator, composer, and producer. As a guitarist, Feingold has been tapped to play alongside an impressive list of leaders that includes Erykah Badu, Silk Sonic, Bootsy Collins, and Jay-Z.

Charlie Hunter is one of many who found Feingold through Instagram. After Hunter—who came up in the ’90s on Blue Note Records, famously wielding a hybrid guitar/bass instrument that set the jazz-funk scene on high alert—scrolled across Feingold’s videos, the two quickly took it to their DMs and established a friendship. Collab talks started soon after. Feingold, who has worked exclusively as a side musician save for a few classical piano pieces, jumped at the opportunity to release a record under her name alongside Hunter, who she lovingly calls “a musical hero.”

The two convened at Pilot Studios in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, with producer Alan Evans—best known as the drummer for Soulive—for a few short days to create Different Strokes for Different Folks, a rhythm symposium of the highest order. It’s a record that’s earnestly old-school by way of a simple approach: capturing a live-off-the-floor two-way conversation between singular instrumentalists. Feingold’s guitar—punchy and percussive but still delicate and detailed—lies on the right side of the stereo field throughout, communing with Hunter’s counterpoint of pulsing bass, which sits near the center, and snare-like guitar chords and knotty riffs on the left. No-frills drums, added by Hunter, pull together the sound, unifying the feel and tying the record to groove masters like Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone—the latter referenced in the album title and its opening track, “There’s Still a Riot Goin’ On.”

“Sly is just my god, my king of dark funk.” —Ella Feingold

Different Strokes for Different Folks is a masterwork of minimal funk: there are no solos, and melodies arise from rhythm itself. It’s an album that draws attention to the finer details of rhythm guitar, and to the communication between rhythmic elements that are often relegated to background duty. Most importantly, it’s an album that will make you feel something.

We got together with Feingold and Hunter to talk rhythm, recording, and the art of musical conversation.

After first meeting on Instagram, what was the catalyst for making the record happen, and how did it come together?

Ella Feingold: I’ve always been a fan of Charlie’s, obviously. Eventually, it led to just talking all the time, about rhythm and all the stuff we love that doesn’t really get discussed a lot. We had a lot in common, and at some point, he’s like, “Yeah, we should make a record together…” which kind of terrified me.

Charlie Hunter: I think we probably share like 60 to 75 percent music DNA. And then the extra stuff that we have adds something to it. I have all this really old knowledge that nobody cares about, like 1920s stuff. And then I always tell people, “You want to know about this one Motown recording from 1968?” Call Ella, because she’s going to know exactly who played on that and exactly every part.

Feingold: We knew we wanted to do a record together. But in terms of the drumming, we had talked about everything from programming an MPC to just having a funk box—a Rhythm King, a Rhythm Ace—to getting drummers. We had talked to Steve Jordan, and Steve was like, “I’m down.” We had talked to Questlove, Questlove was down. And I know this sounds like the douchiest thing in the world to say—because to have musicians like that that are interested in working with us is the grandest honor—Charlie and I, we just wanted the conversation to be between the two of us. We wanted the rhythm to be this mantra that feels good, that moves you to the conversation we’re having, but that’s not the forefront of the conversation.

So it started with us going in, knowing that the rhythm is going to come from him and I, but not exactly sure how. And then with me programming a little bit with the MPC and playing along. Then Charlie replaced everything and killed it on drums. So Charlie’s the drummer on the record. And what I think is cool about that is we wanted it kind of like … when Sly Stone plays drums, and when Stevie Wonder plays drums, or when Lenny Kravitz, whoever, like an artist that plays their own music, does the drum part, it’s going to be exactly what it needs to be and nothing else, with no other filler, no other musicianship, no “look what I can do.” It’s going to be exactly what needs to be there. And that’s exactly what Charlie did.

Hunter: Because I don’t take pride in my drumming, we wanted it to just be as basic as possible.

Ella, there are so many songs you talk about on your social media that I’ve heard a million times, but you’ll show how a part goes and then I’ll hear it so differently. It blows my mind. You have such a good ear for really fine details, and I know a lot of people feel that way.

Feingold: I feel like I get too much credit. A lot of that stuff just comes from what I can’t do—meaning I don’t really solo, I don’t know modes, I don’t really know a lot of scales. There’s so much I don’t know. My ear just goes to the place that makes my ear happy.

I think some of it has come from being on the road in the early 2000s, when there were no stems, no stem-making software, there wasn’t really social media. You had to learn a show from a rehearsal CD or an MP3 and had to pick out guitar parts. You really had to do this kind of deep listening to try and hear stuff.

“If you have a good feel and something to say and a lived experience, you got this.”—Ella Feingold

There are two references to Sly Stone on the album—the title is a lyric from “Everyday People,” and the song “There’s Still a Riot Goin’ On” is a hat-tip to Sly’s 1971 record.

Hunter: That’s Ella’s department. She is a Sly-o-phile.

Feingold: Sly is just my god, my king of dark funk. You obviously have George Clinton and James Brown, but something about Sly, for me, it’s just the greasiest, most raw, tasteful … it’s something that just hits me in the chest. A lot of my musical aesthetic was from Sly and from him playing all the instruments. And then all the music I adore—D’Angelo and J Dilla and some Prince—it all comes from Sly.

If I can get political, I’m a trans woman, and we did that album in February, a month after the inauguration, after Trump was going after trans people, taking away life-saving medicine and hormones and fucking with our passports and all kinds of stuff. And I felt a lot of turmoil. So going into the record, it just felt like there was a riot going on—externally in the world and internally within. And I just wanted some of that to be reflected in the conversation. Not just because I love Sly and the Sly references. Certainly “different strokes for different folks” came out of the lyrics, but it’s cool because “different strokes” can also be referring to Charlie’s stroke and my stroke on the instrument, and there’s also the Muhammad Ali reference—knocking people the fuck out.

Tell me about the guitars you used on the record, and the tunings.

Feingold: I used a Mexican Strat in inverted tuning—it’s E–A–D–G–B–E, but it’s high to low, not low to high, so familiar voicings become distant relatives.

Where did the inverted tuning come from?

Feingold: From my buddy Blake Mills [who learned it from Chris Weisman]. I even have the text message where he said, “I’m about to change your life.” For me, the appeal was it gave me the rhythm sound I wanted in terms of attacking the high strings first. And the tuning felt a little familiar, because it’s related to standard. Although anything above a triad, the overtone series sort of gets put on its head—all the color tones are on the low strings and all the roots and thirds are on the high strings. But it opened up this whole new world of harmony that was like Claus Ogerman harmony—close position stuff you’d hear Nat King Cole or George Shearing play. What I love is it’s sort of similar to Charlie’s whole journey, which he took long before I did, of, “What does this thing want to be?” And then finding a sound with it.

“The first time we played, I was like, ‘This sounds like a gigantic lawnmower guitar that can take buildings down.’” —Charlie Hunter

Hunter: I think there’s also something really special that happens because of Ella’s inverted tuning and the fact that it’s basically in E, while my hybrid tuning is basically an F. Every tune, we each have a different set of open notes and a different overtone series that makes the instruments do this really cool shimmery thing together. The first time we played, I heard that and I was like, “This is dope. This sounds like a gigantic lawnmower guitar that can take buildings down. All right, let’s go do this.”

Charlie, your journey with your instrument has been well documented at this point, but catch us up a little bit.

Hunter: I started on this 8-string guitar, and that was really a bad idea. And I made a bunch of records on it. I just was like, “Hey, Ralph Novak [of Novax Guitars], can you make this? I have an idea. Could be cool.” Never thinking this was going to be my career. Before I knew it, I had a deal with Blue Note. And then I'm like, “My god, I can’t really do this very well. It’s so hard. What am I doing?” It took me years to figure out, “What does this instrument want to do?”

So I hooked up with Hybrid Guitars and I settled on this thing I’m calling the Big 6. What this instrument does best is really more like a drum set, where you have bass and guitar and it’s all about the counterpoint. It has an extra long scale—the lowest string is 31 inches and the highest is 28.

I have it tuned F, Bb, Eb—which are the lower three strings of a bass, up a half-step—which sends me into a hell of transposition, but sounds so much better than E. And the guitar [side] is Bb, Eb, Ab, which is essentially A, D, G up a half-step.

Ella Feingold’s Gear

Guitar

Fender Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster with Fender Custom Shop Fat ’60s pickups and inverted tuning

Amp

1968 Fender Princeton Reverb

Effects

Ensoniq ASR-10 used for envelope filter

Strings and Picks

La Bella inverted tuning custom signature set (.046 E; .032 B; .017 G; .026 D; .016 A; .011 E)

D'Addario Ukulele 3.0 mm

Charlie Hunter's GearGuitarHybrid Guitars Hybrid 6 (aka Big 6)AmpTwo-Rock Studio SignatureAmpeg B-15Acme Audio Motown DIEffectsSurfyBear Compact DeluxeStringsThomastik-Infeld Jazz Flat Wound (bass side)Thomastik-Infeld Pure Nickel Round Wound (guitar side)

What was the biggest revelation that came from working together?

Hunter: For me, it’s just that we have a great time playing together, and I just learned a ton, you know? And if I can take that away from any situation, it’s a win.

Feingold: The gift of working with Charlie is it gave me the confidence to make my own music. Because I’ve spent my entire career helping other people with their music, playing on their records or producing. I’ve never invested in my own music because I always thought you have to make your own, like, Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper’s—you’re going to be working, writing for years. And it was like, we went in there, we had some ideas over a couple of months, and it turned into over an hour of music.

And it just was like, “Wow, I’m overthinking this stuff like crazy.” If you have a good feel and something to say and a lived experience, you got this. That was kind of an unexpected gift. After Charlie and I finished mixing the record, I bought a four-track and I made an EP. I was really inspired by just being around Charlie.

So if you have something to say in the moment, that’s it. That’s the most important thing.

A teaser video for the sequel of Spinal Tap landed earlier this year, showing a Marshall amp that can be cranked right up to “infinity”. Now, the fictional band’s lead guitarist, Nigel Tufnel, has spoken about it for the first time.

The sequel, titled Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, lands on 12 September this year – that’s over 40 years since the original rock ‘n’ roll comedy mockumentary was released. As for the plot of the new film, director Rob Reiner says that the band’s manager has passed away, and that his widow has been left with a contract that states Spinal Tap owe them one more concert.

• READ MORE: Eddie and Alex Van Halen thought This Is Spinal Tap “wasn’t funny” because it was too true to life

Tufnel, played by Christopher Guest, recently did an in-character interview with Guitar World, in which he discussed his gear choices for the Spinal Tap reunion, and that mighty “infinity” master dial. After all, how can you possibly out-do an amp that goes to 11?

It seems this new custom-made head is the solution: “Marshall has made for me an amplifier, the head, and if you look at the dials, it now goes to Infinity. Just think about that for a moment. Think about infinity – oh, my God, that’s literally infinity,” Tufnel says.

Commenting further on his experiments with gear, he adds: “There are lots of pedals that people have done in the last years that are quite extraordinary. Companies that make these pedals, which I use, and I do a little work on them. I take them apart, and I do a little fooling around with wires and stuff like that to get the sound I’d like.

“Lots of times I break them because I don’t really know how to do that work. I haven’t been trained, but it’s interesting to open things up, see all the wires and move them about a bit.”

You can watch the official, full-length trailer for Spinal Tap II below:

To find out more about Spinal Tap II, head over to Sony Pictures.

The post “These go to 11!”: Nigel Tufnel’s old Spinal Tap amps are out – because Marshall has designed him an amp that goes to “infinity” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Last year, we released the MXR Randy Rhoads Distortion+, a pedal that celebrates Randy Rhoads’ revolutionary contribution to rock ’n’ roll guitar playing. The original MXR Distortion+ was a key part of his riveting sound, and our MXR engineers worked directly with sister Kathy Rhoads to ensure that this tribute would be equipped with all the components necessary to accurately recreate that sonic signature. The first run sold out quickly, leaving fans clamoring for another chance at those iconic tones. And now, it’s back.

The Randy Rhoads MXR Special Edition Distortion+ features a clean white finish with pinstripe accents, inspired by the iconic Flying V-style guitar that Randy designed after flying on a famous supersonic airliner while touring with Ozzy Osbourne.

Randy Rhoads MXR Special Edition Distortion+ highlights:

• A tribute to the monumental legacy of Randy Rhoads
• Recreates the raw, overdriven tones heard on his most beloved hits
• Painstakingly spec'd from Randy's own MXR Distortion+
• Designed with the direct involvement of sister Kathy Rhoads
• Custom finish inspired by his supersonic V-inspired guitar
• Includes exclusive collector's booklet

Availability

The Randy Rhoads MXR Special Edition Distortion+ is available now at $189.99 street/$271.41 MSRP from your favorite retailer.

Tony Iommi is about as synonymous with the Gibson SG as any guitar player could be, apart from maybe AC/DC’s Angus Young.

But in his early days as a guitarist, the Black Sabbath man actually set his sights on being a Les Paul player instead, but found that, following his famous accident while working at a sheet metal factory – which saw him lose the tips of his two middle fingers on his fretting hand – the LP proved a little restrictive.

• READ MORE: “Sharon actually sat in on my audition – probably to see if she’d wasted plane tickets!”: Jimi Bell on his Ozzy Osbourne audition – and why he lost out to Zakk Wylde

During a recent Q&A event held at the Gibson Garage in London – where he launched his new signature humbuckers – Iommi explained [via Guitar World]: “I always wanted a Les Paul, but I couldn’t play the Les Paul because of my accident.”

“I couldn’t get up to the top frets, but the SG suited me perfectly,” he said. “The SG for me was comfortable. I liked the shape, the weight, and, eventually, a ton of people started using it. Everybody wanted a Les Paul in the early days; that was always the best.

“As I said, I couldn’t have a Les Paul. I didn’t feel comfortable, [it was] too heavy, and I couldn’t get to the top frets. So the SG has been perfect for me, and that’s why I always stuck with it.”

While Tony Iommi is now synonymous with the Gibson SG, he started out his Black Sabbath career playing a Fender Stratocaster, before it became faulty while recording the band’s self-titled debut album.

He reached for his backup Gibson SG, which has been his preferred guitar for his entire career since.

While the Les Paul is widely considered to be the most iconic Gibson model, guitarists have long touted – and continue to tout – the benefits of an SG.

Recently, Greta Van Fleet man Jake Kiszka explained why his SG is his favourite in his arsenal.

“The thing about an SG that differentiates it from other Gibson guitars is that it’s really microphonic, and you can feel every nuance of the guitar,” he said.

“I really like to play with my body,” he continues, “and even pulling the neck slightly back and moving things and tapping on it. It’s responding in more than just one way. It’s not just the strings and the connection between that and the pickup.”

The post “I couldn’t get up to the top frets, but the SG suited me perfectly”: Why Tony Iommi never became a Les Paul player appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Continuing its popular Rules Of Tone YouTube series, PRS Guitars has released a new video on how the hardware materials on your instrument affect its sound.

Founder Paul Reed Smith – whose knowledge on all things tone has come from years of experimentation and building, from crafting the right necks to taking razor blades to pickups – says that the materials used on your guitar are all “subtractive”, and have an impact on the way its strings ring out.

• READ MORE: “Paul Reed Smith has mastered creating an instrument that behaves”: Carlos Santana on his love of PRS guitars

With that in mind, PRS opts for hardware material that ensures the guitar doesn’t “shut down” its natural harmonic sound. Teaming up with Rob Carhartt, PRS’ Director of New Products Engineering, Reed Smith walks through some examples of the brand’s choice for nut material, bridge material, tuning pegs, and more.

“In a lot of the past videos, I’ve stated that whatever the guitar string touches is God,” begins Reed Smith. “To exaggerate that, if the bridge is made of rubber, the nut is made of rubber, and the tuning peg is made of rubber, the guitar is not going to have the kind of high-end that it would have if these things were made out of metal.

“We’ve done a tremendous amount of research about how each of these [parts] operate on a mechanical engineering basis, but also what [they] sounds like. I can tell you just in these tremolo bridges alone, the amount of time spent on the geometry of the curve of the saddle where the string leaves has gone through three or four iterations, and it makes a difference [to] how much high-end the string has, how it works with the tremolo, and how it gets out of the way so the string can vibrate without sounding like a sitar.”

He continues, “The theory with these parts is that the string is trying to do its job. It’s really, really trying to ring for a really long time. The guitar in general is subtractive. If you make the bridge and the nut and the tuning pegs out of rubber, it’s going to shut that vibration down really fast…

“One of the main goals with these parts is to not subtract from the this beautiful sound the string’s trying to make. If you take a string and put it between two big steel vices and hit it, it rings [beautifully]. It’s got a nice, beautiful musical high-end. It’s full of harmonic content, which I want the guitar to not shut down.”

You can watch the full video below:

PRS celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. You can find out more about the brand and view its product lineup via the PRS Guitars website.

The post “One of the main goals with these parts is to not subtract from the beautiful sound the strings are trying to make”: Paul Reed Smith explains how hardware impacts guitar tone appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It’s the stuff of dreams: you’re playing a cover of a famous song with your bandmates, and a member of the original band digs what you’re doing so much they come and jam with you.

That’s exactly what happened to a band playing System Of A Down’s Cigaro in a bar near where the Armenian-American metal legends were set to perform with Avenged Sevenfold on Sunday (31 August).

• READ MORE: “Sharon actually sat in on my audition – probably to see if she’d wasted plane tickets!”: Jimi Bell on his Ozzy Osbourne audition – and why he lost out to Zakk Wylde

The event was the first of two nights at Chicago’s Soldier Field with a co-headlining bill of System and A7X, and support from Polyphia and Wisp.

As the story supposedly goes, ahead of the first night on Sunday, SOAD guitarist Daron Malakian was walking around the area near Wrigley Field, a few miles from Soldier Field, when he overheard a band in a nearby bar playing Cigaro, from the band’s 2005 album Mesmerize.

He then used his rockstar powers for good, stepped inside and joined the band onstage, no doubt to their heavy disbelief.

Malakian later took to Instagram to share his thoughts about the moment, confirming that “none of this was planned”.

“We had a day off before our show in Chicago and I went out to dinner, and after I decided to go take some pictures around town. We didn’t plan on going to Wrigley Field, but we ended up there.”

He explains that he first heard a cover of Needles (from 2001’s Toxicity) and, at first, thought it was karaoke.

“I decided to walk across the street and go into the bar and found that it was a System Of A Down cover band called Peephole. I walked right to the front of the stage and surprised the band and the audience. This was all so spontaneous. The look on everyone’s faces was priceless.

“To be honest, I was just as surprised as anyone else that this was happening. I joined the band and sang Cigaro, shook their hands, took some pictures with the fans in the audience, and walked out of the place. I can only imagine what a shock it was for everyone there after I left.

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“The odds of this happening were so slim. Probably had a better chance of getting struck by lightning. So many stars had to align for me to end up at the right place and right time.”

Malakian concludes by saying it was “one of the coolest moments I’ve ever had”.

Watch footage of the spontaneous performance below:

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The post “Probably had a better chance of getting struck by lightning”: Watch Daron Malakian join System Of A Down covers band onstage in Chicago – it’s the stuff of dreams appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Neil Young is not a man who does a lot of gear-focused interviews, which makes the secret of his incredible and hugely influential guitar tones something of an enigma in guitar circles. While guitar fans do our best to extrapolate what Young used, we do have the benefit of one forthright source. His longtime guitar tech Larry Cragg has been pretty open about the gear Young has used and his preferences when it comes to tone.

• READ MORE: The Gear Used by Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti

What we don’t really have is any concrete idea of exactly what he was using and when – so we’re left to pull from what Cragg has shared, combing the various interviews, photographic evidence from his studio and live sessions, and a fair bit of hearsay, too.

Harvest is an album that many see as the pinnacle of Young’s long and storied career. And there’s a good case for it – it’s his best-selling album, and gave him his only number one song in the US in the shape of Heart Of Gold.

The album also helped solidify his signature sound. As we know, Young has, at times, been very experimental when it comes to his guitar rig, but for most, when we think of the “Neil Young Sound” we think of Harvest.

The ‘Old Black’ Les Paul

We can’t talk about gear used on a Neil Young album without talking about his main electric guitar, Old Black. Old Black is a heavily modified 1953 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop that Young obtained from his Buffalo Springfield bandmate Jim Messina. However, regarding the recording of Harvest, there is some debate over what pickup was in the bridge position. The most reputable sources, as well as Neil Young himself, claim that the Firebird humbucker was installed in 1973, which would be after the recording of the album. It is widely believed that the pickup in the guitar during the sessions was a DeArmond Dynasonic single-coil (the neck was still a stock Gibson P-90 which had been rehoused in an aluminium cover).

Cragg stated that he installed the DeArmond which was in the guitar for about two years before being replaced by the Firebird humbucker. If the Firebird pickup was installed in 1973, then the pickup in Old Black during the recording of Harvest would have been the DeArmond.

The White Falcon

As the story goes, Young traded his first White Falcon, a 1959 model, to Stephen Stills in exchange for a rare 1960 White Falcon that had stereo outputs (though Cragg often refers to this guitar as a 1970 model). This guitar was unique, so much so that it had its own model name, the 6137 (a regular White Falcon was a 6136). It was made from 1958 to 1981, but in very small numbers.

The guitar actually had different pickups than a standard Filter’Tron; it had what historians call “Project-O-Sonic” pickups which had wiring that separated the three pole pieces on the bass of each pickup from its three pole pieces on the treble side of each pickup. Meaning that one output was for bass and the other for treble. They could be routed to two different amplifiers and panned in a recording mix. It is easy to see why Young wanted this particular White Falcon model as it was so much more versatile in the studio. This guitar was most notably used on the solo for Words (Between the Lines of Age).

Martin D-45

The main acoustic used on Harvest was a Martin D-45. That guitar was used on songs like Old Man. Young bought this guitar in 1969 as a reissue – the D-45 was originally made from 1933 until 1942. Martin wisely started making them again in 1968 and it has been a mainstay of the company’s lineup ever since.

Pre-war D-45s are quite rare and only 91 are said to have been made. Neil Young’s former bandmate Stephen Stills is said to own a 1939 model that he calls ‘Mother Maybelle’. At some point Young had his tech scallop the braces on the inside of the guitar to enhance its tonal response. To amplify the acoustic, Cragg installed two FRAP pickups (Flat Response Audio Pickups) inside the guitar. One is for the top strings, and one is for the bottom strings. In this way, they were better able to tweak the tone of the guitar to their liking.

Amps & Effects

The primary amplifier for his electric guitar work on the album was a 1959 Fender Deluxe Tweed (5E3), especially during the barn sessions at his ranch, where most of the electric tracks were recorded for Harvest. As far as we know, Neil Young is still partial to the Tweed Deluxe.

As for effects, there were very few, which is something that has become somewhat characteristic of his signature sound. There was, however, a 15 IPS (inches per second) tape slap-back on Young’s vocals for a few tracks, which is often confused for a subtle echo or delay. The other “effect” is something we had already alluded to… perhaps just as important as the gear itself was the studio where it was recorded, and Harvest was the first album to utilize a new studio that Young was in the process of building in his barn at his newly acquired thousand-acre ranch in Woodside, California, that he called Broken Arrow.

The barn where the album was recorded allowed Young and his band to play loud, allowing for the room ambience to be captured. The barn, and relatively primitive recording techniques, unlike a proper recording studio, often resulted in bleeding between tracks, which means you can hear the bass in the guitar tracks or drums in the piano tracks, etc. This makes mixing more difficult, but nonetheless was something that Young and his production crew embraced. This concept of using the room and recording techniques, essentially, as an effect, was a brilliantly simple way to record and forge his own sound. The sound was far from perfect, but it was Neil Young.

Neil Young is known as the Grungefather, and the recording techniques used on Harvest, along with the natural tube distortion of a cranked out Deluxe amp, helped to sculpt the tones that many rock musicians still chase today. Harvest remains a favorite among Neil Young fans and the mainstream at large.

The post The guitar gear used by Neil Young on his Harvest album appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

After Cradle of Filth members, husband and wife Marek “Ashok” Šmerda and Zoe Marie Federoff, recently quit the band citing “low pay”, high stress and “years of unprofessional behaviour from people above us”, band leader Dani Filth has offered a response.

Šmerda and Federoff’s resignations came in quick succession last month, with the latter claiming the band’s management were “dishonest” and “manipulative”, also saying they had attempted to withhold advance payments for the band’s new album.

• READ MORE: “Sharon actually sat in on my audition – probably to see if she’d wasted plane tickets!”: Jimi Bell on his Ozzy Osbourne audition – and why he lost out to Zakk Wylde

Posting screenshots of her contract with the band on social media, Federoff says her lawyer “called it the most psychopathic contract a session musician could ever be handed”.

Now, Dani Filth has come forward with his “side of the story, now that so many accusations have been levelled at the band, our management, and me personally”.

Apologising for the “tardiness” of his statement following a period of reflection, Filth says he doesn’t want to partake in “tit-for-tat or slander”, but wishes to “clarify the following points”.

Filth says “one of the main reasons” for the ongoing dispute between Šmerda, Federoff and the band is a “miscommunication regarding the nature of the contract”.

“There is not a contract that was ever expected to be signed as is, but was the initial framework to build from,” he writes.

Filth also accuses Šmerda and Federoff of engaging in arguments while the band was on tour, sometimes in front of fans.

“I’m sad to see that Zoe is picking facts to fit an agenda but am willing to share the full story including the description of events of the first three days of the South American tour, to show a more balanced picture so that people can make their judgements based on the wider context,” he says.

“During those first days, heavy drinking, escalating arguments, and repeated public disputes created a very disruptive atmosphere for everyone involved. 

“I personally witnessed heated exchanges between Zoe and Ashok that included both verbal and physical abuse, culminating in a public display in front of the hotel and fans who had gathered for last minute autographs in Sao Paolo. This was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of abusive behaviour that strained the entire team.”

Filth also says he took issue with the way Šmerda spoke about band manager Dez Fafara, as well as Sharon Osbourne, in screenshotted text messages.

The messages, confirmed by Consequence, read: “Dez Fafara – you are a sick, evil person trained by sickest person in music industry – Sharon Osbourne – the criminal who should be whipped to death.”

“Dez is very honest, transparent and truthful and doesn’t get paid until I allow the accountant to pay him,” Filth continues.

“This means everything goes through my accountant and then said accountant sifts through all the financial numbers to see what can and cannot be afforded. Dez never handles any of the moneys coming in.

“Dez called out for Zoe’s firing, to which Ashok spoke out for her and went after the Royal family of heavy metal and we won’t have anybody speaking about Ozzy’s wife like this.”

You can read Dani Filth’s full statement below:

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The post “So many accusations have been levelled at the band, our management, and me personally”: Dani Filth issues lengthy statement amid Cradle of Filth dispute appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Any distortion pedal with white text on a matte-black finish is going to draw comparisons to Pro Co’s beloved rodent, the RAT, but SOMA Laboratory’s Harvezi Hazze offers a much more versatile brand of distortion. It’s a smartly designed, do-it-all transistor distortion and waveshaper—a function that changes waveforms from, for instance, sine, to square, to triangle, altering the output significantly. Together, the Harvezi Hazze’s circuit and interactive controls summon many unusual tones that go beyond simple distortion.

Spoil Sport

Harvezi Hazze’s three lower knobs—level, tone, and gain—need little description. Up top, though, there’s a switch for selecting from soft-clipping, hard-clipping, or “total feedback mode,” as well as knobs labeled spoil and spread. Spoil sets the amplitude threshold at which the waveshape change takes place, and spread sets the intensity. These two knobs, and the interplay between them, are the beating heart of Harvezi Hazze, and the key to unlocking the most unusual dirt.

A suite of six switches on the side of the enclosure greatly expands the Harvezi Hazze’s palette. From first to last, they activate the tone circuit, boost bass frequencies, change how the tone knob functions, change the central frequency of the tone sweep, cut highs, and engage a preset compressor situated just after the input.

Jams from Georgia

The Harvezi Hazze’s wavehaper is based around unijunction transistors sourced from e-waste bins at flea markets in Tbilisi, the capital of the nation of Georgia. (The pedal’s Georgian name roughly translates to “a fault on the transmission line” or “signal jamming.”) The obscure transistors help the Harvezi Hazze cover tones from gentle distortion mixed with clean signal to warped, sputtering mayhem. In my testing, I discovered so many fascinating, musically pleasing sounds that I was stumped at how they all fit into one dirt pedal. The engineers at SOMA turned an impressive magic trick with this one.

At times when I wanted heavier and dirtier sounds from the Harvezi Hazze I found that tweaking the spoil and spread settings, while altering with the tone knob, can squeeze much more aggressive and volatile sounds from the pedal. There is one drawback to all this versatility: Because the controls are all so interactive, small adjustments can leave you wondering where one sound went and how you arrived at the latest one, and the lack of presets means you’ll be taking lots of photos of your settings if you want to revisit them.

The Verdict

$336 for a distortion pedal is a big ask, but in terms of flexibility and range of possible sounds, Harvezi Hazze is up there with the most deeply featured distortion units on the market, and there are boutique offerings in this price bracket that deliver a tenth of what this pedal can accomplish. In the studio, you could track 10 different guitar parts with totally unique sonic fingerprints, all with the Harvezi Hazze. For the right players and producers, this pedal could be a one-stop tone shop, and a studio staple.

The former Mastodon guitarist died following the accident that occurred on August 20

The guitarist was enjoying a day off before SOAD’s Chicago show and suddenly found himself playing one of the band's classics in front of a shell-shocked audience

Landing a gig with Ozzy Osbourne is a dream for any guitarist and Jimi Bell certainly came closer than most.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Bell recounts the audition that almost saw him become the Prince of Darkness’ next axe-wielder following Jake E. Lee’s exit in 1987, sharing everything from the gear he brought to the surreal dinner where Osbourne ate off his salad plate.

• READ MORE: “Are you crazy? You’re a rock star”: Ozzy Osbourne’s baffled reaction when Randy Rhoads told him he was going to quit his band shortly before his death

Bell’s journey began with a call from Kramer Guitars: “I was endorsed by Kramer Guitars and Dennis Berardi, the president, had kind of taken me under his wing. One morning he called to say Jake E. Lee was out and he’d sent a video of me to Sharon. Suddenly I had an audition – but the catch was I had to fly out that same day.”

Already familiar with Ozzy’s classics like I Don’t Know, Crazy Train, Flying High Again, and Suicide Solution, Bell spent the hotel ride brushing up on his repertoire.

When it came time to play, he didn’t need much gear as the amps were already set up. “I just had to bring myself and my Boss 7-band EQ to push the amp a bit harder. I’m pretty sure it was a Marshall JCM800,” he recalls. “The energy in the room was intense but inspiring.”

Bell explains that the first round of audition was with Randy Castillo and Phil Soussan, though the moment that stuck with him the most was Sharon Osbourne sitting in on his session.

“Most of the players went through that first round. Sharon actually sat in on mine – probably to see if she’d wasted plane tickets! She liked what she saw, and I was told I did great.”

The next day brought him onstage with Ozzy himself: “Surreal doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he says. “It went exceptionally well – I was locked in with the band and stayed true to the song and the solo, but I added a little flair unique to me. Ozzy literally leaned down in front of my amp while I was playing.”

The guitarist also took a solo on his own, noting how the vibe in the room was “strong” then. “Ozzy and Sharon told me it was down to me and Zakk. I went to dinner with them at a fancy restaurant, where Ozzy ate off my salad plate with his fingers!”

“Then I went back to their house and hung out for a while, and I even met Ozzy’s oldest daughter, Aimee,” he continues. “At that point Zakk had already started working with them, and I think his similarities to Randy played a big part in the final decision.”

Though he didn’t land the gig, Bell looks back on the experience without regret.

“I don’t know if he ever saw my tape; but I know Sharon did, and that’s what got me in the room. More importantly, Ozzy saw me live, just inches from my amp. I think that moment said more than any demo ever could,” says the guitarist.

The post “Sharon actually sat in on my audition – probably to see if she’d wasted plane tickets!”: Jimi Bell on his Ozzy Osbourne audition – and why he lost out to Zakk Wylde appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Time to level up your live sound for less with this awesome sale on IEMs at Thomann

Mayer – who has demoed the pedal while Josh Scott recovers from a serious bike accident – says the 424 Gain Stage has forced him to explore new ways of playing