General Interest

Blackstar Amplification is proud to announce the release of ID:X, a new generation of advanced DSP modellingamplifiers created for guitarists who demand intuitive control, powerful tone, and flexible connectivity. Available inboth 50 Watt and 100 Watt models, ID:X goes head-to-head with the current market leader delivering a streamlineduser experience with unmatched sound quality and versatility.

Built on the foundation of Blackstar’s acclaimed and award-winning ID:Series, Silverline and AMPED, ID:X introduces a discreet user-friendly OLED display, providing instant visual feedback and deep access for editing settings and effects without the need for menu-diving or external devices. The amps feature six carefully designed voices that cover everything from pristine cleans to our signature Blackstar high-gain tones, all shaped by a powerful four-band EQ section including our patented ISF, allowing players to craft their sound with precision.

Over 35 effects are included, spanning overdrives, distortions, modulation, delays and reverbs. Each effect is fully editable directly from the amp using simple, real-time encoders, making it effortless to dial in tones and jump between different effect types and parameters on the fly.

ID:X also includes Blackstar’s latest IR-based CabRig™ technology, offering powerful speaker and mic simulation and featuring new In The Room™ technology which creates the experience of standing next to an amp while you play, rather than the more studio focussed tones of traditionally captured IRs – all with a choice of EL84, EL34 and 6L6 valve responses to shape the amp’s dynamic feel. Players can create and store up to 99 patches, with easy recall via the front panel or using the compatible FS-12 or FS-18 footswitches. The amps are fully integrated with Blackstar’s Architect software, providing deep editing, patch management and access to a growing online community where you can create, share and download patches with other users and artists.

With a full suite of modern connections, including balanced XLR out*, USB-C for recording, a ¼-inch line out, headphone output, MIDI in and thru* and an aux input, ID:X is ready for everything from silent practice and studio sessions to full live performance. Selectable power modes (including 1W for quiet playing) make it just as suitable for late-night inspiration as it is for the stage.

Designed for players who want the sound and response of a pro rig without the weight or complexity, ID:X represents a bold step forward in modern amp design. Combining hands-on control with studio-quality tone and next-level flexibility, it’s the all-in-one solution today’s guitarists have been waiting for.

The Blackstar ID:X Series is available now at authorised dealers worldwide.

For more information, visit www.blackstaramps.com/idx

*XLR & MIDI on ID:X 100 only.

While there are a myriad of guitar tunings to choose from, E standard generally remains the most popular. And according to The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins, you shouldn’t need anything else.

While the Darkness also use drop D on some songs – which involves tuning the low E string down a whole tone – many of their biggest tracks, including I Believe in a Thing Called Love and Love Is Only a Feeling – are in E standard.

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In an interview in the new issue of Guitar World, Hawkins explains his love of a “standard-tuning guitar”.

“There’s not a semitone down across the board,” he explains. “If you can’t put your ideas across with that, you’re in trouble anyway, I think.

Hawkins is far from the only guitarist who feels E standard is the superior tuning. Recently, Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith recalled the pushback he received when trying to get his bandmates to experiment with drop D.

“We do songs like Run to the Hills, The Clairvoyant, it’s Drop D,” he said. “I’m the only one in the band who would do it. ‘Come on! Let’s drop the D, move with the times!’ They’re like, ‘Nah.’”

Elsewhere in the new Guitar World interview, Justin Hawkins explains his approach to using the minor pentatonic scale to craft solos.

“There are a lot of moments when it’s pentatonic, but I go for harmonic minor stuff as well,” he says. 

“I like a ninth in a solo because I think it forces you to decide whether you’re going to go up or down from there. You can’t just have it suspended in no man’s land. You have to make a choice.

“Pentatonic is a go-to thing when you’re building a solo. But I tend to think of a solo as a collection of phrases that you’ve bastardised and made your own.

“And I’ve got a couple licks that I don’t think anyone else does that sounds like a spider crawling across the fretboard.”

In other news, Justin Hawkins has expressed his opinion that rock music should evolve if it wishes to stay relevant in the modern era.

“Rock is a middle-aged guy in a world full of people who are just generation… whatever the fuck it is now,” he told Kerrang! [Rock] has to wake up and be part of it.

“I’m saying that if [rock as a genre] wants to flourish and be the best again, it has to sort of pull its head out of its arse,” he adds. “[It has to] realise that, yeah, Led Zeppelin existed, The Rolling Stones existed, AC/DC existed, but you have to do that for now. That’s what we are.”

The Darkness released their latest album Dreams on Toast in March this year. Listen below:

https://open.spotify.com/album/19syLvSEiTyMcBMgdLtqp6?si=0IOvA_4nR_SMJjUzpx-RU

The post Justin Hawkins refuses to use any other guitar tuning than E standard: “If you can’t put your ideas across with that, you’re in trouble” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

While many agree that Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax are the Big Four of Thrash, Gary Holt seems to think Exodus are the truly definitive thrash band.

In a recent chat with Serbian journalist Jadranka Janković Nešić, the guitarist insists that his band is “the greatest thrash band in the world”, and they “have been for many years”.

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In fact, Exodus have been around since 1979 – years before any of the ‘Big Four’ bands had formed. “Everybody else can fuck off,” he laughs. “We’re better than all of them! And I’m sorry, it sounds like an ego, but listen to any of our records. We’ll crush them all!”

Of course, Holt says it in jest. He takes the entire notion of the ‘Big Four’ with a pinch of salt. “I’ve never worried about any of that stuff,” he says. “Big Four, Big Five, Big Ten…”

Holt even goes on to praise one of the Big Four, noting Metallica’s 1986 record, Master of Puppets. “Master of Puppets, to me, is the greatest metal album ever made,” he notes. “And, you know, [while touring] … And Justice for All they were already way bigger than any of us. Then they just became the biggest metal band of all time.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Holt discusses Exodus’ follow up to 2021’s Persona Non Grata. “It’s going to be released as two totally separate records,” he reveals. “We had so much material that we just [thought], let’s work extra hard.”

“I wish we had 20 songs done instead of 18, because then we would have the next album done! Then I could go on vacation or something. I’ve never had one.”

What should fans expect? “It’s 100 percent Exodus and, at times, 100 percent different,.” Holt reveals. “There’s some surprises on it. It’s super heavy, and there are some moments that are so fast, but there’s moments that are also super slow. Just satanic, evil as fuck!”

The post “Exodus are the greatest thrash band in the world. We’re better than all of them!”: Gary Holt thinks his band are better than Metallica, Slayer and the rest of the Big Four appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Limited-edition Martin guitars, the 000-18 1955 CFM IV 70th and D-18 1955 CFM IV 70th, pay tribute to Chris Martin IV's 70th birthday and the folk boom of 1955. Featuring reclaimed spruce tops from Alaska, vintage appointments, and a limited run of 70 instruments each, these guitars blend history with modern craftsmanship.

To celebrate Chris Martin IV’s 70th birthday, C. F. Martin & Co. is proud to introduce two limited-edition guitars that honor a pivotal year in both Martin’s history and American music: the 000-18 1955 CFM IV 70th and the D-18 1955 CFM IV 70th.

1955 wasn’t just the year Chris was born—it marked the dawn of the folk boom, a cultural movement that would forever shape the sound of American music. As acoustic guitars took center stage, Martin Dreadnoughts and 000s became essential tools for a new wave of artists. These new limited-edition models pay tribute to that defining moment, blending vintage inspiration with modern craftsmanship.

Each guitar is based on an original 1955 Martin recently acquired at auction. The 000-18, serial number 145102, came from the Heritage Auctions Guitar Shop Collection and was prized for its honest wear and soulful tone. The D-18, serial number 144636, was part of the renowned Skip Maggiora Collection—150 vintage instruments auctioned to benefit music education and youth charities. Both original guitars showed decades of play and served as direct inspiration for these commemorative instruments.

One of the most striking features of both models is their reclaimed spruce tops—a first for Martin. The wood comes from old-growth trees salvaged around Prince of Wales Island in Alaska, including wind-felled trees, dismantled log bridges, and massive logs once used in historic barge ramps and floating logging platforms. Sustainably sourced and steeped in history, the spruce tops are printed to replicate the look of the original 1955 instruments, adding visual character to their tonal warmth and balance.

The 000-18 1955 CFM IV 70th features a gloss 000 body with mahogany back and sides, non-scalloped Sitka spruce X-bracing, and a focused, articulate sound ideal for fingerstyle players and singer-songwriters. ($4,699)

The D-18 1955 CFM IV 70th offers the bold voice of a gloss Dreadnought, with rear-shifted non-scalloped X-bracing for enhanced projection and tonal clarity. ($4,699)

Each guitar is limited to just 70 instruments and includes a hardshell case and an embossed paper label hand-signed by Chris. Released together, they celebrate Chris’ legacy and the timeless Martin tradition of quality, innovation, and respect for the past.

The 000-18 1955 CFM IV 70th and D-18 1955 CFM IV 70th are available now online and through select Martin dealers.

For more information, please visit martinguitar.com.

Step aside Papa Het… Anthrax and Armored Saint’s John Bush has revealed that he was once asked to front Metallica instead of James Hetfield.

In an interview with Get On The Bus, Bush explains that he was approached with the proposition of fronting Metallica around the release of their 1983 debut, Kill ‘Em All. “It was an honour to be asked to sing in Metallica,” he reflects. “It just was not my fate.”

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Metallica’s manager, Jonny Z [Jon Zazula], asked Bush personally – and, when his request was denied, he’d approach Bush yet again in the 1990s to join Anthrax. Second time lucky.

It would take 28 more years for Bush to finally give fronting Metallica a trial run. Armored Saint opened up for Metallica on their run of 30th anniversary shows in 2011, and Bush joined Hetfield and co onstage to sing The Four Horsemen. “They told the story about how, ‘we were gonna maybe get this guy, but it didn’t happen… this is what it would sound like if he did join,’” Bush recalls. “That was a really special moment in my life.”

Despite the experience, Bush insists it just wasn’t his “destiny” to front the band. “I could have ruined metal. That’s just too much, man – that’s too much pressure,” he admits. “It just wasn’t my fate. And I could never imagine anybody singing those songs other than James Hetfield. That would’ve been a big loss for heavy metal.”

While Bush never ended up officially joining the Metallica ranks, he’s glad that he’s found friends in the Metallica gang. “There’s always a connection… Armored Saint ended up going out and touring with Metallica on Ride The Lighting and March Of The Saint, for us,” he says.

“We have a lot of history together as friends. And one of the funny things is James, during Metallica’s recent set [at Sonic Temple], said, ‘I was stoked to see Armored Saint Today… We destroyed a lot of hotels together.’”

These hotel-destruction tales have been teased for years. Back in 2011, Hetfield and Lars Ulrich introduced Armored Saints to the stage, referring to the legendary event. “There’s a story… Let’s see… it was a hotel in Detroit or something…” Hetfield begins, before Lars cuts him off, looking into the audience and asking: “is everybody over 21?”

The post “I could have ruined metal!”: Armoured Saint frontman reveals how he was once approached to be Metallica’s lead singer instead of James Hetfield appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Ad feature with Taylor Guitars

Andy Powers wants to make Taylor fans a little uncomfortable, sort of. “Well not uncomfortable,” the ever-affable Taylor CEO quickly corrects himself. “But I think it does feel like a bit of a surprise. Like, ‘Where are we going with this? I did not expect that sort of change from you’.”

Powers is talking to us about the Gold Label series of instruments – a totally new line for Taylor that debuted back at the NAMM Show in January 2025… and quickly became some of the most talked about guitars to come out of El Cajon in a very long time.

Because anyone who knows and loves Taylor Guitars knows that there’s a pretty successful formula – the look tends to be clean, sleek and modern, the bodies tend to prioritise player comfort with cutaways and contours, the sound tends to be pristine and hi-fi, and the playability is slinky and inviting. But the first Gold Label instruments broke with at least a couple of those conventions – with radically different looks and a wealth of under the hood innovations that made them, in some ways, the most un-Taylor guitars the company has ever made.

Or to quote our review of the Gold Label 814e, “A guitar that melds vintage warmth with the precision and clarity we’ve come to expect from a V-Class guitar – if you’ve been left cold by Taylor guitars in the past, this might make you take another look.”

And to hear Powers himself talk about it, that was very much the point: “This is a different flavor altogether,” he explained to us ahead of launch. “Equally good, equally interesting, but probably speaks to a different musician – or different use case at least. And so this will be interesting to watch expand. There’s a lot that we can do with this coming in the future.”

Plenty of players have clearly already got the message when it comes to the Gold Label Collection, because that future is already here. Barely six months after the initial launch, part two of the Gold Label Collection might be its most exciting development yet.

Pushing Power

The original Gold Label 814e guitar also debuted a brand new Super Auditorium body shape that was designed to take advantage of two revolutionary Andy Powers creations – a Fanned interpretation of V-Class bracing, and the brand new long-tenon Action Control Neck. The result was a warmer, rounder and more robust tone that felt dramatically different from any other Taylor guitar that had come before it, and also more traditional and vintage at the same time.

The Super Auditorium felt like a more classic take on the traditional Taylor formula, but anyone who played a Gold Label guitar knew instantly that this could be used in a variety of different ways. But the non-cutaway 814e was already a pretty big guitar – few would have expected the next evolution of the Collection would be to go even bigger. Enter the Gold Label Grand Pacific.

The Grand Pacific body shape was already the big brother of the modern Taylor line – a slope-shouldered design that’s pretty much the exact same width, length and depth as a classic Dreadnought guitar. But for the Gold Label, Powers decided that the sonic qualities of the design meant he could go even bigger than a dread.

The Gold Label GP retains the beautiful dimensions of the original, but this thing is an extra 3/8-inch deeper – making it a whopping five inches deep at the soundhole. That’s deeper than a dread, that’s deeper than a Super Jumbo… but Taylor is known for making smaller and more compact bodied acoustics still sound fantastic… why would the good folks in El Cajon suddenly want to go in the other direction?

The answer is “lung capacity” – the extra body depth in the Gold Label Grand Pacific gives the guitar more low-end expressiveness, a deeper resonant frequency, and of course, a little more ‘sonic push’ when it comes to volume. In practice this translates to a guitar that combines the wonderfully in-tune and clear high-end characteristics of a V-Class guitar with an expanded low-end expressiveness – giving your notes and chords articulation and clarity wherever you play them.

It can also shout with the best of them. While the onboard LR Baggs Element VTC means you’ll sound great when plugging in, the sheer power and volume available with the Gold Label GP will mean you’ll have no problem being heard should you choose not to.

Colour & The Shape

The look of the original Gold Label 814e was head-turning, and that was entirely intentional, “With that sound in hand, I needed to appoint the guitar appropriately.” Powers explained. “And this does feel like such a radical change for us.”

Powers drew on his love of vintage banjo and archtops of the pre-war period, plus the acoustic guitar-making language of the 1930s, to inform the radically classic look of the Gold Label guitars.

But the new spruce/rosewood 717e and spruce/mahogany 517e also add another striking look to the palette to go with the eye-catching sunburst options of the 814e. The 717e and 517e Blacktops do exactly what it says on the tin – painting the spruce top black for a strikingly vintage and old school appearance. If Taylor had been making guitars during the Great Depression, they might very well have looked like this, and it’s a stunning prospect.

It all adds up to demonstrate why the Gold Label concept is such an exciting one for Taylor – whether you’re a devotee of their guitars or not. This is a company boldly stepping out of their comfort zone and trying different things, but alloyed to the precision and innovation the brand is synonymous with.

The obvious and safe thing to do would have been to follow up the Gold Label’s initial success with something safe and more traditionally Taylor – a cutaway guitar or one with a Grand Auditorium body shape, for instance. Neither of those options would have been wrong of course, but it shows the commitment of Powers and his team to use Gold Label to broaden the brand’s horizons. They’re pushing into the unknown here, and that’s by design.

“I don’t have it entirely mapped out,” Powers explained of the grand plan for the Gold Label Collection. “That would be tremendously boring, because then it might as well be done! I like there to be a little bit of adventure in life. It’s the kinds of things that I remember made me excited with guitars, and still make me excited with guitars. Let’s do something that when we pick the instrument up and play the same open-position chords, we go, ‘Wow, I hear this in a new way’. That feels inspiring. That’s worthy of living.”

Find out more about the Gold Label 717e and 517e at Taylor Guitars.

The post The power of change: why Taylor’s Gold Label guitars are getting bigger, and why you should be excited appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.