General Interest

Carlos Santana certainly has a spiritual side, and says he often gets “visitations” from other musicians both dead and alive.

One particular visit came from legendary guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who asked Santana to borrow his treasured Dumble Steel String Singer amplifier from his brother Jimmie, so he could play guitar through it once again through Santana’s physical body.

• READ MORE: What kind of maniac brings a Dumble to a guitar retreat – and lets everyone play it? Robben Ford, apparently

In an interview for Guitar World’s latest print issue, he explains, “I call them visitations. I get visitations from Miles Davis sometimes, as well as B.B. King. You don’t have to be dead to visit me. Sometimes a dream is not a dream; someone has come back to communicate with you.”

He adds, “I feel very honoured that these people come to me. Sometimes I feel like I’m like [John F. Kennedy International Airport] and all these musicians are landing on me and sharing things. I have to figure out what it all means.”

This may all sound a little crazy to those who aren’t so spiritual, but according to Santana, he’s not the only one who has these dreams. Apparently, SRV’s guitar tech had the exact same dream Santana did regarding the revered boutique Dumble amp.

“With Stevie, he was saying, ‘Carlos, where I am, I don’t have any fingers; I am only spirit.’ He missed putting his fingers on a guitar and making the speakers push air. He told me to call his brother Jimmie [Vaughan] and ask him to lend me his amp, the #007 Dumble, and then play it with a Strat so he could feel it through me.

“You know that Ghost movie with Whoopi Goldberg? There’s a part where a ghost comes into her body so he can feel. That’s what Stevie was doing. He wanted to utilise my body and hands because he missed playing guitar.”

He continues, “Jimmie wasn’t sure at first. Fortunately, Stevie’s tech, René Martinez, had the same dream and called Jimmie, which is how we convinced him to lend me the amplifier. The last person to borrow it was John Mayer. Let’s just say Jimmie doesn’t loan that thing out very easily.”

After cancelling some shows earlier this year after contracting Covid, Carlos Santana is back healthy, and is touring across Europe this month. He then kicks off his House of Blues residency in Las Vegas in September.

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

The post “He said, ‘Carlos, where I am, I don’t have any fingers’”: Carlos Santana says Stevie Ray Vaughan came to him in a dream and told him to borrow his brother Jimmie’s Dumble amp appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

PRS has refreshed its SE Silver Sky guitar by introducing four new colours, created in collaboration with its signature artist John Mayer.

The finishes, which are available for the first time on any PRS model, are almost crayon-like and nostalgic, with three primary colours and an added dark green hue. They are: Derby Red, Trad Blue, Laurel Green, and Dandy Lion (yellow). Each is available in a left-handed format too.

• READ MORE: Paul Reed Smith says there’s “nothing more important” to guitar making than this

The models have all the typical features of the SE Silver Sky, which launched in 2022 as a slightly more affordable alternative to the original John Mayer signature released in 2018. The SE has a poplar body, bolt-on maple neck, and rosewood fretboard with PRS’ trademark, instantly recognisable bird inlays.

It offers a 22-fret, 25.5” scale length featuring the original 635JM carve and an 8.5” fretboard radius. It’s anchored by three single-coil 635JM “S” pickups, a two-point steel tremolo, synthetic bone nut, and vintage-style tuners.

“The new Silver Sky SE lineup features four new colours inspired by traditional American fashion. These are time-tested hues that have been popular through decades, and I’m excited to share them with the world as the latest SE colourways,” comments Mayer.

Take a look at the new finishes below:

The Maple version of the SE Silver Sky is also being updated alongside this new launch, with two new finishes previously offered on the rosewood-equipped model. The SE Silver Sky Maple now introduces Moon White, Stone Blue, Summit Purple, and Nylon Blue. The Maple model landed in 2023 following the first SE launch, and both models earned a 9/10 in our respective reviews.

PRS Guitars is continuing its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025, with more new gear and limited-edition guitars coming throughout the year in honour of its 40th Anniversary.

To find out more or locate a dealer for the new SE Silver Sky Rosewood colours, head to the PRS Guitars website.

The post The PRS SE Silver Sky is now available in four new finishes – inspired, according to John Mayer, by “traditional American fashion” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

£235/€279/$295, crazytubecircuits.com

If you’ve ever watched old footage of Angus Young bouncing across the stage with his SG, you might have noticed that he never trips up his bandmates with a gigantic snaking cable. That’s because, as far back as the late 70s, he was using the wireless Schaffer-Vega Diversity System. While modern wireless units are prized for their transparent nature, the Diversity certainly added its own tonal colour to proceedings – but to Angus’ mind this was no bad thing. In fact, he liked what the wireless unit did to his signal so much, he started using it in the studio as well.

• READ MORE: The Gear Used By Angus Young and Malcolm Young on AC/DC’s Back In Black

So you can see what Crazy Tube Circuits’ designers were thinking when they set out to create the ultimate drive pedal for AC/DC fans: fiery Marshall amp tones are one thing, but why not include the Schaffer-Vega bit as well? Thus, the Heatseeker overdrive and preamp/enhancer.

Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker – what is it?

CTC has been going big on dual gain pedals of late, and this one follows the usual template, with drive on the left footswitch and the boosty business on the right; you can run the latter into the former, or use each on its own, and there’s an effects loop for any other pedals you might want to put between the two.

Key to the overdrive part of the deal is a three-way toggle switch for choosing between Marshall JTM45, Super Lead and Master Volume sounds. You also get a three-way tonestack along with presence, preamp volume (gain) and output level, plus a ‘wall of sound’ switch that can be engaged to “increase the soundstage” – whatever that might mean.

All these tonal toys mean the left side of the pedal is more than slightly crowded – manipulating those little toggles is like performing keyhole surgery on a squirrel – but over on the right we find just two controls: boost level (up to 15dB) and a larger second knob to “enhance dynamic response and harmonics”. Hmm, intriguing.

It’s all JFET-based, and the circuit is boosted internally to 27v for a more amp-like feel. So I guess this is literally high-voltage rock’n’roll?

Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker – what does it sound like?

Every time you add something to this pedal it sounds bigger, brighter and better – but it would be a mistake to overlook the simple charms of the mid-gain JTM45 tone with all the knobs at halfway. It’s rich, smooth and tight, and a strong starting point for any journey into Plexi-land.

The tone controls are solid, and the presence knob works at least as well as it does on the average Marshall amp, but it’s the two toggles that really bring this unit to life. The three amp types sound markedly different in terms of top-end friskiness and saturation, but are all equally good – and a flick of the switch to engage the wall of sound adds depth and ‘bigness’ in a way that makes it hard to turn off again.

Hit the other footswitch and you soon know you’re not dealing with a standard boost circuit. It’s bright and peppy, but somehow more integrated into the tone than an all-out treble booster. There’s also some extra compression in there, which just adds to the sense of excitement.

It’s ironic, though, that the biggest knob on the pedal is the one that has the least effect. I had some real “Is this thing working?” moments with the enhance dial, which is so subtle that you might well wonder why they bothered. And of course, if they hadn’t bothered, that would have opened up some much-needed room for the overdrive controls…

Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker – should I buy it?

I’m wary of enhancers in principle. If your tone is so flat and lifeless without one, doesn’t that mean you have a more fundamental problem to fix? So let’s focus on the left side of the pedal – this is a fine Marshall-voiced overdrive with a lot of really useful tone-adjusting features, and the enhancer is just one of them: a powerfully biting boost that’s best reserved for solos. Think of it that way around and the Heatseeker looks like an excellent option for those about to rock.

Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker alternatives

Our galaxy is home to billions and billions of Marshall-emulating overdrive pedals, many of them with a built-in boost. Another Greek-made option is the Tsakalis AudioWorks Room #40 (€240), and I’m a big fan of the DryBell Engine (€340). But if it’s just the sound of that old wireless system you’re after, try the SoloDallas Schaffer Replica Classic (€269).

The post Crazy Tube Circuits Heatseeker review: “You don’t need to be an AC/DC geek to be thunderstruck by the range of hard-rocking tones on offer here” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Earlier this July, Noel Gallagher presented possibly the greatest gift to any Oasis gear-obsessive: a complete photograph of his entire pedalboard for the band’s Live ‘25 reunion shows, and even a shot of his amp set up too.

The band are currently amid the first leg of the global tour, which kicked off in Cardiff on 4 July and marked their first live performance together since their infamous split in 2009. With both Gallagher brothers in good spirits and bucket hats back in fashion, now is the perfect time to brush up on your britpop guitar work.

The good news? Most of Gallagher’s pedals are actually pretty cheap and cheerful, and you could easily grab one from a guitar store or online retailer. The bad news? His more boutique selections are pretty much impossible to track down, and would cost you an arm and a leg if you did manage to stumble upon one. One of his pedals is even on ‘borrow’ from Paul Stacey, and when we say borrow, we mean he’s never getting it back.

So with that in mind, we’ve tracked down some of the best low-cost alternatives for the most rare and expensive pedals in his collection, and we’ve also found a few handy swaps for some of the more accessible items too, just in case they’re not of interest to you, or you just want an excuse to buy more pedals.

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Rarity: SIB! Echodrive

We’re starting with the toughest out of them all – the coveted blue SIB! Echodrive. This pedal has been a mainstay on Gallagher’s board for years now, and has been used across his gigs with both Oasis and his High Flying Birds band. It’s a 12AX7 tube-driven overdrive and delay pedal all in one. Gallagher never really uses it for the latter function, but is a huge fan of its drive.

We say this pedal is the toughest one to duplicate out of all of Gallagher’s units because it’s notoriously known that there is no faithful emulation of it on the market right now, and other drive pedals are often said not to come close to its revered tone. Just to give you an idea on how much this one might cost you, its similarly rare Fatdrive sibling retails for over £1,000 second-hand. However, we have found one cheaper option you could certainly give a go:

Alternative: Keeley Electronics DDR

The Keeley Electronics Drive Delay Reverb features, as you’d maybe expect, drive, delay and reverb. Both the time-based and overdrive sides of the pedal are completely independent, so you can choose to purely crank up its drive capabilities similarly to Gallagher’s approach. And for an extra bit of reassurance, we rated it a glowing 9/10 in our 2019 review, and you can hear it in action in our very own demo. You can get this one for £198 via Thomann.

Rarity: Pete Cornish SS-2

Moving on to the next rare gem, we’ve got the Pete Cornish Soft Sustain 2. This handwired overdrive is the pedal that’s on loan from Paul Stacey, but back in a 2023 episode of That Pedal Show, Gallagher essentially said that he is never getting it back  – and just like Stacey, we’re also going to have a hard time getting our hands on this one.

The legendary Pete Cornish has worked with a plethora of high-profile guitarists including Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, and David Gilmour. There are some great budget-friendly replacements for this one, and we’re starting with our top, most-suited pick first:

Affordable alternative:  MXR Distortion+

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Despite its name, this pedal’s circuitry is essentially the same as many other overdrives. Originally designed back in the 1970s, it’s been used by guitarists like Randy Rhoads and Jerry Garcia. The modern M104 is still on the market, and its germanium diode clipping emulates tube-driven warmth. .

Affordable alternative: Boss OD-3

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It’s simple, it does the trick, and it’s £98. This one is possibly the most versatile overdrive out of our choices, so if you want a pedal that you can get plenty of use out of outside the Oasis rig, this one is not a bad option. Boss says that its “dual-stage overdrive circuit offers a level of sustain and compression unmatched by any overdrive pedal”. It’s great for lead sounds, so crank this one up for your solos..

Affordable alternative: Tube Screamer Mini

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Tube Screamers are loved by many, and this mini version is only £64. It has just three simple controls for tone, level, and drive. It might not be the closest replication of SS-2 tone, but it’s still a solid option for a tight budget, or those with a small pedalboard due to its nano chassis.

Rarity: Finest Treble Booster Model OR

This pedal is sadly no longer being produced, and it was based on an orange-coloured (not Orange branded) treble and bass booster used by David Gilmour in Pink Floyd: the Colorsound Power Boost.

Bernd C. Meiser, the owner of BSM, sadly passed away in 2024, and the company has since closed down. Your next best bet to get a pedal like this would be to look for an emulation of the original Colorsound pedal that inspired its creation. We’ve found some that match up fairly well:

Affordable Alternative: Crazy Tube Circuits HI-Power

A match made in heaven, the HI-Power is quite literally branded as a “homage to David Gilmour’s guitar sound from the Wish You Were Here album”, and its right side offers a “faithful reproduction of a Coloursound boost and overdrive” – great news! However, reaching just over £200, it might still be a little out of budget for some. If you’re looking for the closest pedal you can buy, this is it, so saving your pennies for this one might be worthwhile, and you can get it right now from Thomann.

Affordable alternative: Boss BD-2 Blues Driver

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Gallagher isn’t opposed to a nifty Boss gem, and at £92 you can’t really go wrong. The BD-2 is a well-loved overdrive ideal for bluesy and vintage tube amp sounds that’s reactive to nuance in-play. In fact, we rate it a flawless 10/10.

Affordable alternative: Electro-Harmonix LPB-3 Nano Linear Power Booster

A neat and tiny unit, this Electro-Harmonix boost pedal is also a sturdy option – it hosts an active three-band EQ with treble and bass knobs to control highs and lows. Its boost dial sets the overall output of the pedal, and there’s a ‘max’ switch to toggle between 20dB and 33dB of maximum boost. It retails for $129 at Sweetwater.

The normies

The cheapest pedals on Gallagher’s board are the TC Electronic Polytune 3, Keeley Compressor Plus, and the Dunlop Cry Baby Mini. We recommend sticking with these if you want to closely re-create his board, all while keeping costs to a minimum. Gallagher also uses two Boss pedals – a Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay and a Digital Delay DD-3 – both of which are accessible and not too costly.

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However, the ZVEX Lo-Fi Looper, Empress Effects Echo System, Kingsley Page Tube Boost, plus the Strymon Timeline and El Capistan all sit at more of a mid-range price point. While they’re readily available, these may also be unaffordable to a vast number of players. The best alternatives we have found for Gallagher’s mid-range priced pedals are as follows:

ZVEX Lo-Fi Loop Junky: Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy (this pedal can recreate its warbling tones, and you could chuck a cheap looper into your signal chain like the TC Electronic Ditto for the full effect)

Empress Effects Echosystem and Strymon Timeline: Line 6 DL4 Delay

Strymon El Capistan: Catalinbread Belle Epoch BOS (or an even cheaper option, the JHS 3 Series Tape Delay)

Kingsley Page Tube Boost: Keeley Katana Clean Boost

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And there you have it – a complete overview of all the pedals you’ll need to sound biblical. As a band with proud working class roots like Oasis would probably agree, cost shouldn’t be a barrier to having brilliant fun with your set up and experimenting with tone. While all the ingredients might be there, it’s ultimately up to you on how closely you’d like to emulate the rig, and at what pace you’d like to bring it all together. Afterall, the most important thing to remember is that this is Oasis: the attitude in your hands will prevail over all.

If you’re looking for more savings, check out the Guitar.com Deals page.

The post Here’s how to build your own version of Noel Gallagher’s touring pedalboard – without rock star money appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

PRS Guitars today released the SE Silver Sky Rosewood in four new colors, created in collaboration with Grammy award-winning PRS Signature Artist, John Mayer. The fresh finishes, offered for the first time on any PRS model, are Derby Red, Trad Blue, Laurel Green, and Dandy Lion (a brilliant and eye-catching yellow).

“The new Silver Sky SE lineup features four new colors inspired by traditional American fashion. These are time-tested hues that have been popular through decades, and I’m excited to share them with the world as the latest SE colorways,” said John Mayer.

The SE Silver Sky is a familiar iteration of the original Silver Sky model that was first introduced with John Mayer in 2018. The SE starts with a poplar body, bolt-on maple neck, and rosewood fretboard with PRS trademark bird inlays. The 22-fret, 25.5” scale length neck features the original 635JM carve and an 8.5” fretboard radius. It is anchored by three single-coil 635JM “S” pickups, a two-point steel tremolo, synthetic bone nut, and vintage-style tuners.

The SE Silver Sky Maple colorway is also being updated to include two new finishes previously offered on the rosewood-equipped model. The SE Silver Sky Maple's new color palette is Moon White, Stone Blue, Summit Purple, and Nylon Blue.

PRS Guitars continues its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025. Stay tuned to see new gear and 40th Anniversary limited-edition guitars throughout the year. For all of the latest news, click www.prsguitars.com/40 and follow @prsguitars on Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, X, and YouTube.

PG contributor Tom Butwin explores the Henriksen Bud SIX, a compact 9″×9″ amplifier that delivers 120 watts of clean, full-range sound. Weighing just 13 pounds, this U.S.-built amp is designed for working musicians who need reliable tone, real power, and maximum flexibility in a small footprint.

Each of its two channels features XLR and ¼″ combo inputs, phantom power, a five-band EQ, reverb, and presence control. Independent effects loops allow for detailed signal routing whether you're playing acoustic or electric, singing, or using backing tracks through wireless or aux input. The Bud SIX also includes a post-EQ and post-reverb XLR line out, a headphone jack for silent monitoring, an extension speaker output, and a tweeter defeat switch. It comes with a tilt-back wedge and a padded gig bag to make setup and transport easy. Whether you're a jazz guitarist, a solo performer, or running a pedalboard-heavy rig, the Henriksen Bud SIX is a powerful and clear solution that adapts to almost any stage or studio environment.

Learn more and find your new "Bud": https://henriksenampfliers.com

The Bud SIX

Do you want to have an amplifier the size of a toaster that gives you the quality of tone for BOTH electric and acoustic instruments that you’d expect from a studio situation with enough volume to cover almost any gig? Of course you do. That’s why if you play guitar, or any stringed instrument with a pickup for that matter, you need a Bud. The Bud has every feature you need and more than enough volume to get your bandmates or club manager to ask you to turn down, and coupled with the extension cabinet you can keep up with the heaviest-handed drummer with no problem. The amp and cabinet are naturally feedback resistant which limits the need for artificial notch filtering and other suppression technologies that negatively effect your tone.

But it’s not all about size and volume, there are lots of tiny, loud amplifiers on the market. You’ve tried them. You know what they sound like. The Bud is different. Henriksen Amplifiers is all about tone first, the incredibly portable size and feature set of The Bud were developed around the sound, not the other way around and you can definitely hear the difference. Our pre-amp, from input to output, is designed using the highest grade audio components. We offer a 5-band EQ with carefully chosen center frequencies which were fine-tuned by ear to meet the demands of different playing environments using the widest possible array of musical instruments. We give you two identical pre-amps, each with independent EQ and reverb and actual 48 volt phantom power, and an auxiliary input on each channel so that whatever you are using it for can be EQ’d separately from your instrument signal.

Last year, Kiki Wong beat out 9,999 other applicants to the vacant position of Smashing Pumpkins guitarist left by Jeff Schroeder in 2023.

As for what made her stand out among the hordes of other guitarists going for the spot, frontman Billy Corgan reveals all in a new interview with Guitar World.

• READ MORE: “They all started having kids and getting married, and nothing was getting done”: Why Metallica’s Load and Reload were split into two albums

Recalling the audition process, Corgan says: “I had to give some sort of filter to it because the response was so overwhelming, and that filter was, ‘Send me anybody with a professional resume.’ If they’ve done anything – play a casino in Vegas, tour with any band that’s got a recording history, anybody who would remotely qualify – send them to me.

“I would say there were easily, gosh, 500 or 600 of those, I had to go through all of those responses and whittle them down.”

“The thing I remember very distinctly, obviously given the result, was when I saw Kiki’s name, I kind of stopped and thought, ‘Wait, I think I follow her on Instagram.’ Then I went to Instagram to confirm this, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s that person I really like.’”

Corgan says the fact he knew of Wong already meant he already had a “positive impression” of her, which remained in his head as he mulled over other candidates.

“There were a lot of other people who had very impressive resumes,” he says. “I would go to their Instagrams and look at the way they stood or the way they played or the way they talked about music – even just the pictures they posted. But I kept thinking, ‘This person has no idea what kind of band I’m in.’”

He later adds: “A lot of people played well, but once we talked to them I thought, ‘They’re not really going to fit into our world,’ We’re a bit of a weird lot. [laughs] We’re kind of picky in our own way. Maybe every band is, but I know the way we’re picky.

“Kiki was just who she was. She wasn’t trying to be someone else. She wasn’t trying to be a flatterer. She was just herself. And it was like, ‘OK, this person can hang in our world.’ After that, for the next three hours, nobody who followed Kiki could beat her.”

On the other side of the story, despite making a lasting impression on the Pumpkins for simply being herself, Kiki Wong wasn’t hugely optimistic about her chances when she submitted her application.

“My brain is wired in a way that makes me on the verge of being a pessimist – slightly pessimistic but closer to a realist,” she says.

The opportunity also came just a few months after she had given birth to her baby.

“There’s always this voice in my head, like, ‘When am I going to quit the dream and be just a person? How long can I keep hammering at this thing and constantly being let down?’ Now I had an actual reason to think that way, which was to take care of my kid.

Wong says she had “just thrown the resume in there”, adding: “I was like, ‘There’s no way. There’s probably 4,000 people already.’

As for what Kiki Wong brings to the band, Billy Corgan says it’s her penchant for all things heavy.

“She’s got that [James] Hetfield/Kerry King downstroke thing that I could never do, whatever the fuck that is. That Master of Puppets thing – I have to cheat that shit… Hetfield and Kerry King would tell you the same. So would [Dave] Mustaine. The only way to play that way is you gotta do all downstrokes.

“There’s a belief that the attack of the downstroke is better than if you pick up-down, up-down. To me, when I see somebody who can do that with the downstrokes, I’m like, ‘Fuck, I can’t do that!’”

The post “She’s got that Hetfield downstroke thing that I could never do. That Master of Puppets thing – I have to cheat that s**t”: Billy Corgan on what Kiki Wong brings to the Smashing Pumpkins appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.