General Interest

The guitarist’s solo was flawless, and she says she only just picked it up recently

Brian Wilson typically turned to his brother, Carl, for leads, but David Marks got a rare chance to buck that trend in 1964

Montreal’s Fish Circuits, helmed by builder Mike Poisson, has made quite a splash the past few years with colorful offerings like the Model One, Lunatique, and most recently the Astronomie, a dynamic reverb that can swell in and out depending on settings and playing style. Fish Circuits’ first delay, the Echo Limiteur, comes in a characteristically sleek box that, like all their others, could be used as a bludgeon. But with an analog delay, a second digital delay, and a limiter, its utility as a tool for defense pales in comparison to the sounds its circuitry produces.

Swell Set Of Features

The Echo Limiteur consists of two delay modes, swell A and swell B. Swell A is a straightforward delay channel, governed just by the global echo and blend knobs and the range switch. The last of these shortens or lengthens the delay-time range of the echo control. “Hi” gives you longer delay times (up to 1150 milliseconds) and slightly cleaner repeats courtesy of the digital PT2399 chip, while “Lo” gives you lower-fidelity repeats and a shorter sweep of possible delay times (up to 650 milliseconds). Both swell A and swell B knobs control the number of repeats.

The limiter affects the swell B mode alone. It limits the delay feedback and can be triggered dynamically by the dry signal, wet signal, or both. This effectively means you can use infinite repeats that won’t overpower your dry sound and/or infinite repeats that reset each time you pick a note or chord. The release switch tells the limiter how quickly to lay off the limiting, while the trigger lets you decide whether a dry, wet, or combined signal activates the limiter. Limit, meanwhile, controls the sensitivity of the trigger: All the way counter-clockwise, it’s nearly non-existent, while fully clockwise, the slightest noise in your signal will trigger the limiter, chopping the repeats. All three controls are extremely interdependent.

Got it? Probably not. You have to physically experience the responses of each of these features to really grasp how they manipulate the signal. And there will be some who wish the Echo Limiteur’s switch-controlled functions were more deeply tweakable. Not me though; we are in the age of the pedal-builder-as-auteur, and I loved allowing my playing to be guided by Poisson’s preset parameters.

Push it to the Limit

Playing through the dynamic-delay side of the Echo Limiteur immediately expands the possibilities of your instrument. Because it responds to playing dynamics, it’s not exaggerating to say there are endless ways to apply the Echo Limiteur. You can set it for a cavalcade of tight, spiraling repeats that cut out sharply the second you play another note, or you can tone down the limiter so that it only cuts off the delay when you play hard. In this arrangement, you can pick delicately beneath a bed of towering, oscillating feedback and pull the plug on the delay just by strumming a bit harder. If you want to bail on the dynamic aspect entirely, you just hit the left footswitch and you’re in regular delay land (the right one is the on/off switch).

Thanks to the analog MN3005 chip, the repeats are foggy, greasy, and frayed. But the augmented repeat lengths—courtesy of the digital PT2399 chip—extend the pedal’s utility. My only gripe is that I wish the Echo Limiteur was capable of even shorter, tighter delay times. It bottoms out at roughly 100 milliseconds, which means you can’t use the dynamic limiter with the most slashing and jittery machine-gun repeats.

The Verdict

The Echo Limiteur already feels destined to be a classic. The potential applications in live contexts, in particular, are thrilling to consider, and I’m sure that in the years to come, we’ll hear new music defined by the Echo Limiteur’s many voices.

Harris turned the used guitar market on its head, despite the skepticism of many industry peers

Drummer Brann Dailor led the tributes after an emotionally charged set dedicated to the guitar hero

Luke Bentham, guitarist and vocalist in Hamilton, Ontario, rock outfit the Dirty Nil, was in the basement caverns under the Vatican when he glimpsed something that changed the direction of his band. It was a series of bronze reliefs by Francesco Messina, depicting the horrors of war. Amid the six pieces in the series, one in particular grabbed Bentham: It showed two men in desperate hand-to-hand combat, grappling to get control of a knife. “It was the hardest piece of art I’d seen in a very long time,” says Bentham.

YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

He and Nil co-founder and bandmate, drummer Kyle Fisher, tried to obtain the rights to use the image for the cover of their new record, The Lash, but the Vatican wasn’t having it. “We got a cease and desist from the Vatican, and their lawyers are no joke,” Bentham says with a grin.

Still, before he left, Bentham snapped a picture of Messina’s sculpture on his phone, and it hovered over the creation of The Lash like a twisted idol. “It definitely fired me up musically for some reason,” he says. “It’s rare that I’ll see something and it’ll make me want to play my guitar a certain way, but this is one instance where it came to pass that way.”

Messina’s work took Bentham somewhere vicious and primal. It pulled him back to some of the sounds the Nil had explored earlier in their 14-year career: white noise, feedback shrieks, “sheet-metal-shaking distortion.” It made Bentham think of the work of the Jesus Lizard’s Duane Denison. “Something about this cold, metallic, brutal piece of art made me play guitar a bit more angularly, and with a much higher threshold and acceptance of microphonic and horrible feedback than I’ve been looking for on our last few albums,” he says.

Enter The Lash, a scummy, barbwire-scraped slab of punk rock ’n’ roll, scarred with white-hot slashes of classic metal, hardcore, thrash, and garage rock. After the radio-ready melodies and tidy production of 2021’s Fuck Art and 2023’s Free Rein to Passion, The Lash feels like a triumphant return to the basement. “I’m incredibly proud of this record because we made it because we wanted to,” says Bentham. “I’m not a big believer in the idea that tension makes good records.”

“Something about this cold, metallic, brutal piece of art made me play guitar a bit more angularly, and with a much higher threshold and acceptance of microphonic and horrible feedback.”

To honor that energy and bring The Lash to life, Bentham and Fisher bailed on the higher-budget trappings of their previous records and went back to basics, working with local engineer and powerviolence musician Vince Soliveri at Boxcar Sound in Hamilton. When it came time to record Bentham’s vocals, Soliveri had a strange-looking mic set up. “I was like, ‘What’s this microphone? Is it something you like to use for vocals?’” Bentham recalls. “Vince was like, ‘I have no idea what it is. It just looked cool, so let’s try it out.’”

He continues, “I think Vince’s attitude towards that specific thing is a pretty good indicator of how we approached making this record, which was different from the 'tried and true' way we've made our last few. There are trade-offs when you enter that world, and complexities that enter your life and your band when it comes to staying in that world. With pretty much all of our previous records, there’s been some sort of behind-the-scenes animating force to make it a certain way or an internal pressure: ‘If we do this, then maybe we can get that.’ We basically decided for ourselves that we had fun, but we are leaving the casino.”

Luke Bentham’s Gear

Guitars

1975 Gibson Les Paul Custom

Shyboy T-style (studio)

1952 goldtop Gibson Les Paul (studio)

Amps

Marshall 1959SLP w/ Marshall 8x10 cabinet

Ampeg VT-22 (studio)

Fender Deluxe Reverb (studio)

Vox AC4 (studio)

Effects

Various Pro Co RAT models

Electronic Audio Experiments 0xEAE Boost

Strings & Picks

Ernie Ball Power Slinky (.011–.048)

Dunlop .73mm picks

Those “internal pressures,” which are skewered on the new track, “Rock N’ Roll Band,” were jettisoned this time. With The Lash, the philosophy was simply, “Let’s just make a record, see what happens,” Bentham says. “It’s been a long time since I found myself in that headspace, I think probably since we made ‘Fuckin’ Up Young’ and all those songs 14 years ago.”

“We basically decided for ourselves that we had fun, but we are leaving the casino.”

Still, The Lash has moments unlike anything the Nil have produced to this point. The slow, cornered-animal growl of “This is Me Warning Ya” and the haunted-house romance of “Spider Dream” are two of the record’s doglegs into the softer end of the macabre. And the stomping “That Don’t Mean It Won’t Sting,” is unexpectedly intro’d by cello and xylophone, thanks to violinist and friend Sara Danae.

Even as the band has grown, Bentham’s rig has scarcely changed. His calling-card tone for the past decade has been a 1975 Gibson Les Paul Custom, tuned to E-flat standard, through a Pro Co RAT (or two, with the second set to “drop the hammer”) and into a Marshall 1959SLP head and a Marshall 8x10 cabinet. Bentham admits he’s pretty hard on his guitars—the ’75, which has a stock pickup in the neck and an early production DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge, has had its headstock broken on more than one occasion.

While recording The Lash, though, Bentham changed things up. Rather than the usual RAT pedals, he leaned on the Electronic Audio Experiments 0xEAE Boost, which he describes as the most “extreme” dirt pedal he’s used to date. “That pedal is absolutely brutal,” he says with a smile. For the record’s violent feedback, Bentham and Soliveri borrowed one of producer John Goodmanson’s tricks: Split the guitar signal via an A/B box, send one signal to the amp being tracked in an isolation room, and another to a 5-watt amp in the control room. The feedback generated from the small combo jumps back through the pickups, and out to the stack in the isolation room (a Vox AC4 helped out for those purposes). For clean tones, meanwhile, Bentham called on his godfather’s 1952 Les Paul goldtop and a Shyboy Telecaster copy, both running into an Ampeg VT-22. The Ampeg’s reverb, along with the onboard effect from a Fender Deluxe Reverb, is the only coloring Bentham applied besides his dirt.

“There are so many distractions and complications as you navigate a career in music, but you must return to the simple joy of a howlingly distorted Les Paul Custom E chord as your guiding light.”

The RAT, by the way, is still Bentham’s one true love in live settings. “I’ve learned not to mess with my rig, which has served me very well for basically 12 years now,” he says. “It’s never ceased to put a smile on my face to plug into my plexi with my Custom, turn it up, and play an E chord. If that doesn’t make me happy, then I’m probably done with rock ’n’ roll, because that’s what this whole thing is. There are so many distractions and complications as you navigate a career in music, but you must return to the simple joy of a howlingly distorted Les Paul Custom E chord as your guiding light.”

YouTube

On his long-running video tutorial series Let ’er Riff, Bentham breaks down the tricks behind the foundation-shaking fury of The Lash’s opening track, “Gallop of the Hounds.

IK Multimedia releases the Brown Sound 80/81 Signature Collection for TONEX, the second part of the limited TONEX Brown Sound series. Carefully crafted to match the recorded tones of two iconic early-'80s albums, this collection features 73 precisely designed Tone Models, along with several amp-only captures that can be used with IK or 3rd-party IRs or run through a real cab live on stage.

Offering both authentic recreations and thoughtful variations to reflect different theories about how these legendary tracks were recorded, the new Brown Sound collection captures the darker swagger and heavier edge that marked a milestone in the guitarist's journey.

1980 Tone Models

On the 1980 album, the tones are thicker, drier, and more saturated than on the second album, marking a return to a raw, aggressive sound that echoes the ferocity of the debut. It's more in-your-face with a noticeable midrange punch, tighter low end, and more focused articulation. It reflects a shift toward a more modern, high-gain tone, hinting at the sonic direction that would influence the next generation of rock and metal players.

1981 Tone Models
Compared to the raw brightness of 78/79, the 1981 tone is tighter and more controlled, with pronounced low-mids and a more percussive attack. There's less of the spacious, open-air feel of the earlier records, replaced by a thick, almost claustrophobic intensity that matches the album's darker vibe. The gain is higher, the reverb is dialed back, and the overall sound feels more focused, brooding, and polished, yet still unmistakable.

The Amp: "The ONE"
At the heart of the Brown Sound 80/81 collection is "The ONE" - a meticulously crafted Marshall-style amp built from the ground up with the exact same spec as the infamous 1968 Super Lead serial number #12301, including crucial mods that capture the DNA of the early brown sound like no other amp model.

Ready to Play
As with all collections in the series, these Tone Models were crafted using period-correct gear and capture techniques to recreate the middle two albums of that era genuinely. Each Tone Model reproduces the recorded album tone in exquisite detail, offering an ideal foundation for adding time-based effects-either within TONEX or through a favorite pedal.

Pricing and Availability
The Brown Sound 78/79 Signature Collection is now available via ToneNET and within any version of TONEX for Mac/PC at $/€99.99.*

• TONEX Brown Sound 78/79 – $/€99.99* - Includes 50 Tone Models.
• TONEX Brown Sound 80/81 – $/€99.99 – Includes 73 Tone Models.
• TONEX Brown Sound 82/84 – $/€79.99 pre-order (reg. $/€99.99) – Includes 77 Tone Models. Coming soon.
• TONEX ONE Brown Sound Limited Edition – $/€249.99 – Available in white, red, or yellow. Includes Brown Sound 78/79 and a choice of one other Brown Sound collection (a $/€199.98 software value). Existing Brown Sound 78/79 users will receive a $/€50 discount at the IK store.
• TONEX Brown Sound Anthology Collector's Limited Edition – $/€599.99 – Box set includes all three colors of TONEX ONE (white, red, and yellow) plus all three Brown Sound Signature Collections (78/79, 80/81, and 82/84). Limited to 200 units worldwide. Shipping soon.

*Pricing excluding taxes.

For complete details and information about the Brown Sound Anthology collections and pedals, and to hear the tones, visit:
www.ikmultimedia.com/tonex-brown-sound

Easton’s 1982 Gibson Custom Shop left-handed Flying V was a much-loved guitar, but when someone offered "stupid money" for it he couldn’t turn it down. Still, it looked cool on the cover of GW

The alt-rock stars have been on the receiving end of sexism and miming accusations – but what they produce live is the real deal

Turnarounds come around within the last four bars of a 12-bar blues progression and getting them right puts the cherry on top of the sundae

With some help from Banker Guitars’ Matt Hughes and SonoTone Strings’ PK Pandy, we unpack the mysteries of sustain – and why it differs from resonance and volume

Why buy multiple pedals and amps when one small combo can cover it all? Harley Benton’s new DNAFX AmP20 brings eight amp models, a host of effects, and preset storage into a tidy, 20-Watt practice amp that won’t break the bank.

Priced at just $116/£103, the DNAFX AmP20 is a 20-watt Class D combo designed to give guitarists a versatile setup in a single, compact unit. Built around an 8” full-range custom speaker, the AmP20 delivers eight amp tones spanning Clean, Country, Blues, Rock, Lead, Brown, Ultra, and Metal. Whatever your style, this little amp has you covered.

• READ MORE: 5 reasons why the Harley Benton EX-84 Modern is the perfect budget metal guitar

Adding to the flexibility are six programmable user presets, a 3-band EQ, as well as Drive and Master Volume controls. LED indicators make dialing in settings a breeze, even at a glance.

Onboard DSP effects include modulation options – Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, and Chorus – as well as time-based effects like Spring, Delay, Delay+Reverb, and Hall. There’s even a tap tempo for delay, letting you sync effects perfectly to your playing.

Credit: Harley Benton

Despite its friendly price tag, the AmP20 doesn’t skimp on practicality: you get a built-in digital chromatic guitar tuner with multicolored LED display, Bluetooth for playing along with backing tracks, a line-in for external sources, and a headphone out for those late night practice sessions. An optional footswitch (sold separately) lets you toggle between your six stored presets without missing a beat.

Measuring 33 x 346 x 202 mm and weighing just 6 kg, the DNAFX AmP20 is compact enough to move around easily but packed with enough features to feel like a full rig.

The Harley Benton DNAFX AmP20 is available now at Thomann. Check out the amp in action below.

Learn more at Harley Benton.

The post Why Harley Benton’s new DNAFX AmP20 is the “perfect practice amp” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Former Pixies bassist Paz Lenchantin still has a few tricks up her sleeve, including a debut solo album

Turpin's new Mirador bandmate doesn’t like relying on pedals for his sound

Mastodon honoured Brent Hinds during their first show since his death, describing the guitarist as “one of the most creative, beautiful people that we’ve ever come across in this world.”

Hinds was killed in a motorcycle crash in Atlanta last Wednesday, 20 August, at the age of 51. His death was confirmed to Atlanta News First by the Fulton County medical examiner’s office, after police reported that a man riding a Harley Davidson was killed in a collision with a BMW SUV.

• READ MORE:“A bottle rocket of creative spirit” and a “motherf**ker on six strings”: The guitar world pays tribute to Mastodon’s Brent Hinds 

On Friday (22 August), the band took stage at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, Alaska, marking their first performance since Hinds’ passing.

Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor delivered a moving tribute at the end of their set, reflecting on Hinds’ impact both on the band and their fans: “We lost somebody very special to us yesterday,” he said. “Brent Hinds, 25 years with us as our guitar player, one of the most creative, beautiful people that we’ve ever come across in this world, tragically left us. Very, very unfortunate.”

“We loved him so, so, so very much. And we had the ups and downs of a 25-year relationship, you know what I mean? It’s not always perfect, it’s not always amazing, but we were brothers to the end,” he continued.

“And we really loved each other and we made a lot, a lot of very beautiful music together. And I think that that’s gonna stand the test of time, evidenced by you people here tonight.”

“So we will continue to play Brent’s beautiful, beautiful music that he helped us make, that we formed this band together and traveled the world together, slept in a van together, laid our heads down on beds of fucking kitty litter, got way too drunk to remember anything the next day about a thousand, million times over and over again with the love that we shared and the beauty, all the audiences that we played for, all the stages we stepped on.”

“I don’t know. We’re just at a loss for words. We’re absolutely devastated and crushed to lose him and to be able to never have him back again,” Dailor said. “But you guys made it OK for us to come on stage and do this tonight. So that was for fucking Brent, OK? Thank you guys so much.”

He concluded, “Thank you for helping us get through that one, it was fucking tough for us. But you guys are fucking amazing, so thank you.”

Brent Hinds co-founded Mastodon in 2000 with Bill Kelliher, Troy Sanders, and Brann Dailor, a lineup that stayed intact until his departure earlier this year. While the band initially described the split as amicable, Hinds later claimed he had been forced out for “embarrassing” the group.

On Thursday, Mastodon shared a statement on social media expressing their “unfathomable sadness and grief” over Hinds’ passing: “We are heartbroken, shocked, and still trying to process the loss of this creative force with whom we’ve shared so many triumphs, milestones, and the creation of music that has touched the hearts of so many,” said the band.

The post “It’s not always perfect, but we were brothers till the end”: Mastodon pay tribute to Brent Hinds at first concert since guitarist’s death appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Walter Trout has lived through enough close calls to fill a biography: drug addiction in his twenties, liver failure in his sixties, and now the daily grind of making music at 74. Somehow, like the nine lives he jokes about, he keeps landing on his feet.

As the blues legend tells Classic Rock magazine, “I never expected to make it this far. I’m like a cat. I’m on my 4th or 5th chance here. And with each one I get more involved in wanting to be an artist, wanting to say something that means something to somebody.”

• READ MORE: “If you have a kickass amplifier, why put it through a $100 pedal?”: Walter Trout sees “no need” for guitar pedals

For Trout, that drive is rooted in the stage. Touring remains his lifeblood, though it comes with discipline: “It’s incredibly important to rest, to eat well, to pace yourself,” he says.

“I drink a lot of water and do vocal exercises to warm up my voice. The weird thing is that I’m finding the older I get, the more power I have in my voice. I even have more of a range. I don’t understand it.”

That vitality carries straight into his performances: “I want people to come and see us and feel the energy. I want to give them everything I have, and at the end of that two hours be completely drained. I’ve had many people come and see my band and they go: ‘you guys play like you’re twenty.’ I don’t want them to say it’s a bunch of old men up there doddering around.”

When it comes to his guitar playing, Trout has little interest in mindless flashiness. “Great guitar players now, they’re dime a dozen,” he says. “I want to play less but have it mean more. Melody, feeling, expression – that’s what I’m going for.” It’s a philosophy that carries into his upcoming record, Sign Of The Times, which arrives on 5 September.

And in a world where technology is creeping further into music, Trout makes it clear he’s not about to hand any part of his craft over to a machine.

“It used to be if they had a video of somebody murdering somebody, they showed that in the courtroom and the guy was obviously guilty as hell. None of that works [any more] because of these deep fakes,” says the musician.

“I’m not gonna ask a computer to help me do what I do. If it’s not coming from me, I’m not putting it out there.”

The post Walter Trout: “I’m like a cat. I’m on my 4th or 5th chance here” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The Lamb of God guitarist reveals how he enlisted some of Southern rock’s finest for Without the Pain

Eastman Guitars is one of the true upstart success stories of the last decade: its high-quality instruments have challenged outdated preconceptions about Chinese guitar-making, and earned fans among musicians big and small across the globe.

Now, the brand is disrupting the entry-level end of the market with the FullerTone – an instrument that takes everything the brand has learned over the last decade and applies it to its most affordable guitars yet. The results are spectacular.

The Eastman Guitars FullerTone on the Guitar.com Cover. Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com

But Eastman’s CEO & founder Qian Ni never planned to be a guitar maker. A classically trained flautist, Qian started Eastman Strings in 1992, thinking he’d make quality violins, cellos and strings more affordably in China.

“I had no goals,” Qian admits. “I just wanted to see where it would go. I loved music and felt lucky to be able to potentially build something within an area that I enjoyed.”

“Eastman started the way all the old guitar companies did: the hard way, not the easy way” – Pepijn ‘t Hart

In the ensuing years, Eastman would expand rapidly, moving into making mandolins and archtop guitars before its first decade was up. Quite by accident, the company was charting a path that many iconic American electric guitar brands did almost a hundred years previously.

“Eastman really started the way all the old guitar companies started,” notes Eastman’s director of fretted instruments and product development, Pepijn ‘t Hart. “The hard way, not the easy way – with carved tops and dovetail neck joints.”

Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com

The Hard Way

Doing it the hard way involved challenging the status quo. Traditionally, Chinese guitars were a means for US brands to produce their designs more affordably.

“Most people use China as cheap manufacturing, but China has a really high level of skill and craftsmanship,” asserts Qian. “A lot of people see China’s cheap labour, but cheap doesn’t mean low quality.”

When Eastman started out building violins, the aim wasn’t to reinvent how they were made – it was to do it using time-honoured methods in a place where training such skilled artisans was much lower. Given the similarities in their construction, it wasn’t long before Eastman started making archtop guitars, and it was through these early efforts that Qian crossed paths with American luthier Otto D’Ambrosio. Shortly after, Qian rang him “out of the blue”, D’Ambrosio remembers with a smile, and peppered him with an “overwhelming” number of questions about guitar building.

“We have to do some things differently and take the risks associated with that” – Qian Ni

It didn’t take long for D’Ambrosio to realise that the brand’s focus on doing things the hard way would reap benefits for guitar-making. As evidenced by seeing the brand’s Beijing workshop – which now produces all of Eastman’s electrics and archtops.

“The shop already had this knowledge base of working with their hands,” D’Ambrosio remembers. “That was always the part that fascinated me: seeing that level of skill there at that time when nobody else was doing it.”

Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com

All In Our Hands

That grounding enabled Eastman to move into the big leagues of solidbody electric guitars in 2016. Their instruments clearly took inspiration from the classic designs, but with a level of craftsmanship, finesse and consistency that led this very publication to describe them as “giant killers”. But it wasn’t the overnight success it seemed to many.

“I’ve heard it many times over the years, ‘Oh, there’s a new workshop, and they’re going to be a real competitor for you’,” ‘t Hart explains. “Not to be cocky, but we know that’s not possible. Because we started in 1992 building violins, cellos and double basses by hand. You can’t just get 200 people and get them hand-building instruments to that level of expertise overnight – it’s impossible!”

“That’s what we do best: the hardworking culture of our craftspeople,” Qian agrees. “It’s about consistent craftsmanship. Our instruments are made by a team of specialists, all masters in their specific field of expertise. In a way it’s like what Stradivari did in Cremona – learning from the best.”

Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com

The Shape Of Things To Come

The success of the first wave of Eastman solidbodies shook up the electric guitar world, but their next step – unique original designs – is one that has confounded many brands. But D’Ambrosio, now Eastman’s chief designer of fretted instruments, had something special cooking.

In 2019 Eastman launched the Romeo, a thinline semi-hollow that would be its first truly unique design. Fittingly, it was a guitar that was percolating in the background as an archtop project for D’Ambrosio before Qian intervened.

“I had not given Romeo the attention it deserved,” ‘t Hart explains. “[Qian] saw the prototype in the workshop and said, ‘Oh, this is the future of our electric guitars. This is the thinline that we should start building.’ And it shifted my view on Otto’s design, because suddenly I didn’t see it as an archtop. Now, it’s my most used Eastman guitar.”

Romeo got the ball rolling for a bold new phase of the Eastman electric guitars project: establishing a distinct visual style. Next came the Juliet, the brand’s first original solidbody, which won Eastman fans in a variety of artists, most notably James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers, who fittingly described it as “a design for life”. But these milestones were setting the stage for something even more significant.

Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com

Bolt From The Blue

By the start of the 2020s, Eastman was an established electric guitar brand with a growing presence thanks to its original designs. But it still wasn’t doing everything its founder wanted it to do.

“Qian is a no nonsense guy,” ‘t Hart explains. “He said to me, ‘We’re still an acoustic company at heart’ – kind of disappointed! Because do you know how hard it is to break into the electric market?! We were so proud of our accomplishments. But then, I realised what he meant: you can only be an electric company if you can supply all guitar players, with the FullerTone series, we have accomplished that.”

The challenges of making a great entry-level guitar were, for Eastman, worth facing. “We want to invest in making better instruments,” Qian explains. “In order to do so, we have to do some things differently and take the risks associated with that.”

“We have a blank slate to do whatever we feel is the right thing to do” – Pepijn ‘t Hart

So Eastman did the entirely unexpected: they started making guitars in the USA under D’Ambrosio’s supervision, and for the first time ever, they made a bolt-on – as opposed to the set-neck instruments the brand had been known for.

“We always said we could never do a bolt-on neck!” ‘t Hart laughs. “But Qian gives us so much trust and freedom… so I said to Otto, ‘Hey, what about a bolt-on? Is there anything we can do to improve Mr Fender’s brilliant design from the 50s? And Otto started doing what he does best.”

A bolt-on neck is a much simpler and thus more affordable instrument to produce than a set-neck, but one with its own eccentricities. “The Fender neck design, it’s been around for 70 years,” D’Ambrosio explains. “And while there are workarounds, the inherent flaws in terms of the screws loosening and the neck shifting are still there. So we just looked at it with a different kind of lens to figure out how we could really lock in the neck and body.”

The result was the FullerTone neck: a revolutionary new way of bonding guitar and neck together in a way that only requires a single bolt, but has the fit and stability of a set neck instrument. The resulting guitar, christened D’Ambrosio in honour of its designer, turned heads upon its launch in 2024. But it was just the start.

Image: Joseph Bishop for Guitar.com

The Fuller Picture

In 2025 Eastman launched a new range of guitars, named FullerTone after the neck that makes them possible, which at under £800 are also the most affordable electric guitars the brand has ever produced.

To get there, Eastman leaned on modern CNC production techniques, armed with the lessons learned in the US. “I don’t think the FullerTones would be as good as they are without the D’Ambrosio series,” ‘t Hart insists. “Otto made these guitars in his workshop to enable our shop to catch up. That’s the thing that Leo Fender did so brilliantly: he created this guitar that could be built in large quantities, without the quality ever dipping. That’s what we also needed to do with FullerTone.”

Not only do the FullerTone guitars feel like a culmination of 30 years of learning, creativity and expression for Eastman, they’re also a fitting tribute to the passion of the people who have collaborated to create it.

“We always said we could never do a bolt-on neck! But Qian gives us so much trust and freedom” – Pepijn ‘t Hart

“Otto and I, it’s like we both have Eastman tattooed across our hearts,” ‘t Hart says. “I could not imagine myself working for any other company, because we have a blank slate to do whatever we feel is the right thing to do.”

Qian Ni, whose colleagues credit with the trust necessary to experiment and innovate, remains self-deprecating. “We believe that we are building instruments that will help musicians to perform at a higher level, all the way down to the student,” he says, mission-based as ever. “You have to learn from the best. I won’t take any credit. We have been inspired by so many great companies, and if our work has done the same for others, we feel honoured to be a part of that history.”

For Pepijn ’t Hart, the only way for Eastman is up – but he’s still relishing being the upstart challenging the status quo while he can.

“I really try to cherish the place where we’re at now. Because there’s going to be a time when we are on top – then you have to stay there. This is the best part!”

Words: Josh Gardner
Photography: Joseph Bishop

The post With the FullerTone, Eastman Guitars stands at the new frontier of quality affordable electrics appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When the call came, our columnist was ready.

Perhaps, like me, you’re a fan of Tony Levin—maybe even a fan of King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, John Lennon, Paul Simon, or any of the hundreds of major artists whose albums Tony has contributed bass to. He’s the bassist on Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” for instance, which is a song I’ve not only listened to literally thousands of times, but one with a bass tone that is hugely influential on my sound.

So when I got an email recently asking me to fill in for Tony in Stick Men, a co-led project he has with Pat Mastelotto (Mr. Mister/King Crimson) and Markus Reuter, you might imagine there was some shock and excitement going on in my brain—feelings that had to be tamed very quickly in order to do the best job I could: literally playing Tony’s bass and Chapman Stick parts in his own band.

The initial focus was on transcribing and learning the music in a very short amount of time. The call came on Monday night, and by the time I got the song list it was Tuesday—with the only rehearsal on Thursday morning at 10 a.m. We got to chug through the tunes a few times for a couple of hours in the studio, and then the first show was Friday.

My process for learning material that isn’t charted is to immerse myself in it for as long as possible. The longer I listen, the easier it becomes to learn the notes and the forms.

This time around, I didn’t have that luxury, so the process was heavily weighted toward doing the fastest and most accurate transcription work on each song, and making detailed notes about form along the way. The music is incredibly complex and very specific in places, and even after the gigs had started—through the six shows we played over three nights—I was getting notes from Markus and Pat about where we could improve, make little tweaks, and make the show better.

“You have to summon all the experience and confidence you have to keep a level head and not let the situation get the better of you.”

I found the big key was having to maintain my huge respect for Tony and for the music while trying to put aside the “hero” aspect of how he fits into my life. I didn’t have any kind of personal relationship with Tony up until this point. We’d only met a couple of times over the years. The photo that accompanies this story is from 2011, I believe, at S.I.R. Studios in Los Angeles.

But as an influence and a presence in my playing, he’s kind of been there the whole time I’ve been a bass player. To suddenly be sitting in the seat of one of your heroes can bring in some thoughts that might not serve you that well when it comes to giving the music 100 percent of your focus.

There was also this added challenge not often encountered by bass players, where I had to play a significant amount of melodic and upper-register material. This is due to Tony playing a Chapman Stick in the band, and the concept between Tony and Markus being that either of them can play melody or bass parts and trade off at any time.

Effects were a huge part of the success of the gig, and it took almost as much time to build the pedalboard as it did to learn the music.

Even after locking in what I thought would work for the shows—and falling in love with one of my old Sovtek Big Muffs all over again—I came back from the rehearsal and threw the Big Muff in a parallel loop because it was draining a little too much of the low end when I got in the room with the band. That’s a huge part of effects that I don’t think we give enough attention to. We work so long dialing in sounds at home or in the studio, but the reality of the gig—and the changing conditions from night to night and stage to stage—is always so different from that controlled home setup.

So, I learned three big things from this incredible experience:

1. You never know when the call is going to come, and you need to be ready at all times.
2. You have to summon all the experience and confidence you have to keep a level head and not let the situation get the better of you.
3. Never commit to a signal chain in the pedalboard until you’ve heard all the sounds in the live context of the band you’re playing with.

Ultimately, it was an honor to be called, a thrill to be able to pull it off, and a total highlight of my musical year

In a rare interview, the Hüsker Dü and Sugar mastermind walks us through his entire career, right on up to his brand-new “give the people what they want” record, Here We Go Crazy