General Interest

Got a budget to stick to? Well it’s a good thing you don’t need to break the bank to get a great-sounding guitar, at least according to The Cars guitarist Elliot Easton.

Speaking in a new interview with Guitarist, the musician explains how modestly priced guitars can punch well above their weight with a “good setup” and why players should buy the best instrument they can afford, regardless of the brand on the headstock.

• READ MORE: “It means a lot to me that a young musician can buy an affordable guitar and have the same opportunities we did”: Why Billy Corgan doesn’t play expensive guitars

“We live in a time when there are more great guitars available to us at lower prices than there ever were when I was a kid,” he says.

“The Epiphone and Squier guitars that you can get now, with a good setup, will play great and sound very close to more expensive versions.

“So buy based on your budget, and buy the best one you can get because you won’t grow out of it and get tired of it. You’ll always play it and it’ll always be good.”

As Easton puts it, you could own the most expensive guitar out there, but it won’t do you much good without a proper setup.

“Even the most expensive guitars are only as good as their setup. That’s my feeling,” he says.

Offered a choice between a really good guitar and a cheap amp, or vice versa, the musician says: “That depends on the situation. I’ve got a ton of really good guitars and some great amps, too.

“If the situation is that I’m somewhere and I have to make a choice… well, it’s a hypothetical question!”

“I can certainly say the passion I have for guitars is not the same for amps,” Easton adds. “I love great amps, but I don’t know what ‘rectifier’ or ‘tube’ is in that one or this one. I’m not an amp geek in that way.”

The post The Cars guitarist says that Epiphones and Squiers can “sound very close” to expensive guitars “with a good setup” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Less than a year after Aerosmith pulled the plug on their farewell tour, guitarist Joe Perry says one last gig isn’t off the table – if they can get there.

The band announced their retirement from touring last August, cancelling all remaining dates of their Peace Out farewell tour due to frontman Steven Tyler’s vocal injury.

Now, appearing on a recent episode of SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Perry opens up about the possibility of one last Aerosmith show, and what it would actually take to get the band back on stage.

• READ MORE: “Well, I don’t know if I can reproduce that”: the times Aerosmith’s Joe Perry played a solo so good, he didn’t know how to do it again

“Well, yeah, I’m always hoping, but going on the road, it’s a big deal pulling that together,” he says [via Ultimate Classic Rock]. “It’s one thing to sit there and look online and see who’s touring and stuff, and there’s dates that show up, but there’s so much planning, and what it takes out of you physically, it’s a lot more than people realise.”

“It’s one thing when you’re doing it when you’re 25 or 30,” Perry adds, “but it’s another when you’re starting to get up there [in age] like us. It’s a really physical thing, going out on stage. And all that energy that you’re putting out, that you’re transferring to the audience, it takes something out of you in a physical and emotional way. And all of that energy that you give, that’s flowing out there, that’s making people feel good, it takes it out of you.”

The guitarist also shares that the members are still in regular contact; he and Tyler even shared the stage at a San Francisco charity gig back in April.

“So I don’t know, man. But we’re talking about it. I mean, except for anything on the calendar, we’re all alive and well. So, we’ll just have to see.”

“I know there’s gotta be at least another Aerosmith gig, and I’m not looking forward to putting the setlist together for that one. But I don’t know, man. We’ll just have to see,” says Perry.

And as for Tyler? “I think he would [do it],” Perry reckons. “I think it’s just a matter of getting there, you know? I mean, we’re up there, man. And it’s a lot.”

He continues: “I’ve always played like every show’s the last one. I hate to sound like it’s a downer, but I give it up every night, you know? The first gig we did for that [farewell] tour that got cancelled, we certainly felt like it was gonna be another one, but, you know, shit happens.”

Check out the full interview below.

The post “There’s gotta be at least another Aerosmith gig”: Joe Perry on the band’s future following last year’s retirement appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

For most artists, self-doubt is part of the job. But Bruce Springsteen isn’t most artists.

In a new conversation with Rolling Stone, the singer-songwriter reflects on his sprawling 74-track box set Tracks II: The Lost Albums, and explains why – even during the quieter stretches of his career – he never questioned his place in music.

• READ MORE: “Got lucky with an exceptional hospital”: Bruce Springsteen guitarist undergoes emergency surgery on tour

Springsteen’s latest record gathers material largely written and recorded during the 1990s, a decade often seen as a lost chapter in his career. Between 1992 and 2002, the musician released only one studio album, 1995’s The Ghost of Tom Joad, leading some to wonder if his fire had dimmed.

But as Springsteen puts it, “that was for a variety of reasons”.

“Our children were very young at exactly that moment. And also I didn’t have any interest, really, in working with the band. I felt just burned out on it at that particular place in time. But I was working on music all the time. I just wasn’t releasing it.”

Asked if there was any point in the Nineties where self-doubt had started to sink in, he admits: “not really.”

“I always used to say, when I was in the middle of some of the big lawsuits [in the mid-Seventies], ‘OK. Well, somebody can take your publishing and somebody can take your records or take your songs or take whatever money you’ve made out of the thing, but you can drop me out of an airplane anywhere in the United States or most parts of the world, I’ll land and I’ll find the nearest roadhouse and I’ll light up somebody’s night.”

“And so, that’s something that’s in me,” he adds. “You can never lose it. And so during the Nineties, I understood that.”

He recalls telling longtime manager and co-producer Jon Landau, “‘Gee, this record didn’t do as well. Jon, it’s just not our time. Somebody else’s time.’”

“If you’re ever going to have a long career, hey, it’s going to be your time and it’s going to be not your time sometimes,” says Springsteen, “and you got to be OK with that and you just got to carry on, work on.”

Springsteen, who’s set to wrap up his tour with the E Street Band later this week, also teases a “finished” solo record on the way.

“I would imagine it will come out in ‘26 sometime,” he says.

The post “Drop me out of an airplane anywhere, and I’ll find the nearest roadhouse, and light up somebody’s night”: Bruce Springsteen on why he never gave in to self-doubt appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“Scale length”, as well as being one of the few pieces of terminology shared between guitarists and herpetologists, is amongst the most important of a guitar’s specifications. It can totally change how a guitar sounds, in ways far beyond the impact of your choice of pickups or tonewood.

• READ MORE: Fender Vintera II Bass VI review – is this the ultimate bass for guitar players?

But whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned player looking to branch out into some alternative-scale instruments, the impact of changing scale length can be a little confusing – so let’s explore the long and short of it.

What does the term scale length mean?

Scale length is the distance between the two places on a guitar that its strings are anchored. These are the nut, up at the guitar’s headstock, and, at the other end of things, the bridge. Halfway between these two points will be the 12th fret, with the rest of the fretboard scaled to match. The distance is most often displayed in inches, even in the parts of the world that favour metric – so I’ll stick to using inches rather than mm here.

So, what does changing the scale length actually affect? The main thing to consider is the fact that the same string at a longer scale length will need more tension applied to it to reach the same pitch. This tension is also affected by string thickness – a thinner string will need less tension for the same pitch, a thicker string more. If you’re wanting to tune lower, you can keep the same tension by increasing the string thickness or the scale length, or both. When talking about scale length, it is therefore important to keep in mind these two other factors.

String tension

Having a good idea of what string tension you want to set up a guitar for is important, as it has a huge impact on the sound and playability of your instrument. However, there is a lot of variance in how different players will approach this. One of the most immediately noticeable things tension affects is how easy it is to press the strings to the frets, and to bend. Higher tension means the string will offer more resistance in both cases. Hence players who want to do heavy bending all the time might opt for a lower string tension with thinner strings and/or a shorter scale.

Conversely if you play the guitar like it owes you money, you might want higher tension to keep things from accidentally being bent out of pitch. Higher string tension means more pitch stability in general – if you hit a string really hard, it will naturally bend sharp for a moment, as the energy from you hitting the string has added tension to the system. This effect is exacerbated at a lower starting string tension, as the same amount of energy will affect a thinner string’s pitch more than a thicker string’s.

What string tension does tonally is a little harder to pin down, as a lot of other factors will likely change alongside it. But, generally speaking, lower tension is associated with a ‘warmer’ tone while higher tension is associated with a ‘snappier’ or “brighter” tone. There are many, many other factors at play here, but it’s worth keeping in mind when choosing between, say, a Baritone tuned to B standard or a Gibson-scale guitar tuned to B standard.

Scale exercises

The other variable that impacts string tension is tuning – there are many weird and wonderful alternative tunings out there, some of which are at far lower pitches than E standard, and using a different scale length or a different set of strings or both can make more out-there tunings possible while keeping a similar playing feel.

So when thinking about different scale lengths, it’s handy to consider it as a variable alongside both string gauge and the pitch you’re tuning to. All three of these things impact playability and tone to some degree, and of course there are the generally accepted “right” ways of doing things – but keep in mind that we’re in the subjective land of musical expression here, so certain things that might seem like downsides at first are looked on by some as benefits.

¾-scale guitars – 22” and 22.5”

Let’s begin at the shortest scale lengths that you’re likely to see while still having the instrument count as a guitar, rather than a large six-string ukulele. Guitars between 22” and 22.5” are normally called ¾-scale guitars. And, no, neither of those numbers are actually three-quarters of either of the commonly accepted “standard” electric guitar scale lengths. Don’t think about it.

Regardless, ¾-scale guitars – such as the Gear4Music Visionstring I reviewed relatively recently – are most often beginner instruments, which makes a lot of sense. Their shorter scale length means that all of the frets are very close together – good for smaller hands or those who haven’t developed a wide stretch yet. But it also means that the string tension is lower, and so fretting and bending are both easier. This is super important – think back to those days before you developed your fingertip callouses. Any extra (literal) push-back from the instrument is less than ideal while playing is still painful! Not all guitars of these scales are explicitly beginner things, though – the Fender Duo Sonic has a tiny 22.5” scale, but is hardly placed as a pure beginner guitar.

While the lower tension can add a lot of sonic character and make for a very approachable instrument, there are some less ideal results. These are often not that great at staying in tune, not helped by beginner instruments also being inherently affordably-made. The slacker tension also means less stability when you actually hit the strings.

“Short scale” guitars – 24”

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If someone refers to a “short scale” electric that normally means 24” or thereabouts. The most notable examples are Fender’s Mustang and Jaguar – they’ve come to be known and loved by players for their springy, looser feel thanks to that shorter scale.

Here’s where that balancing act between those three elements of scale, tuning and thickness come in – on Jags and Mustangs, you can get away with using thicker strings like 10-52s without having way too much string tension to comfortably play in E standard Combine the thicker sound of these heavier strings with some aggressive playing and bright, punchy single-coils, well… thank me later. It’s a great combination, and the result is very hard to emulate on a longer-scale guitar. You’ll likely be familiar with the approach if you’ve ever heard of this small underground band called “Nirvana”.

Gibson scale – 24.75”

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The shorter of the two “regular” scale lengths, this is the standard scale for the vast majority of Gibson’s electric and acoustic guitars. Many guitars that draw direct inspiration from Gibson will also have this same 24.75” scale.

The impact of Gibson’s slighter shorter scale length varies, obviously, depending on your approach – but it means that you’ve got a good amount of room to go in either direction. With 9s, you can absolutely get away with two-whole-tone bends, if you fancy channelling your inner Jimmy Page. Alternatively make the most of those humbuckers, and get some thicker strings for some really massive sounds without having to work as hard as you might have to do on a Strat.

PRS Scale – 25”

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Paul Reed Smith’s approach was to split the difference between the big G and F, slightly favouring the G – for a slightly snappier sound and feel on the lower strings, while retaining easy bendability on the higher strings. Like a less extreme version of a multi-scale eight-string, which PRS sadly do not make at the moment.

Fender scale – 25.5”

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The scale of many of Fender’s ‘standard’ guitars, including basically all Stratocasters, Telecasters and Jazzmasters you’ll see on the market. A 25.5” scale is often cited as a relatively important part of the sonic character of a Strat or a Tele, thanks to the spankier sound mixed with a set of single-coils. The slightly longer scale length also means that Strats in particular really like to be tuned to Eb standard, as you get a very responsive feel from the slightly reduced tension.

Baritones – 26.5”-28”

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Generally a six-string that’s above 26.5” is classed as a baritone guitar. The longer scale length allows for a lower standard tuning without having to resort to suspension-bridge cabling in lieu of strings – the “standard” baritone tuning is B-B, five semitones down from E standard. Baritones are also, in 2025, just as tonally varied as regular-scale guitars – you’ll see a good few metal-focused guitars in this category, but not every long-scale guitar is pointy and destined for melodeath.

Do you need a baritone to tune to baritone tunings? Absolutely not, however the tonal results of tuning a standard-scale guitar to A vs a tuning a baritone to A will be very different. A baritone will let you keep tension higher, meaning a cleaner, brighter and more tuning-stable sound. This is great if you want some clear, country-tinted ambience, or if you’re aiming for speed and accuracy in your music. However, if you are aiming for chaos and darkness, you can absolutely set even Gibson-scale guitars up to play in absurdly low tunings – just be ready to accept a certain degree of pitch variance if you dig in.

Long-scale baritones/Bass VIs – 30”

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Are Bass VIs baritone guitars or six-string basses? The answer: yes, no, sort of. Guitars like the Danelectro six-string bass and the Fender Bass VI may have the same scale length as some guitars that are marketed as ‘baritones’, but what splits the difference is string gauge and tuning – a “standard” Bass VI string set is thicker than a “standard” baritone set, and Bass VIs will come tuned to one octave below E standard rather than the baritone standard of B.

It’s also worth noting that these are different from six-string bass guitars that are more explicitly extended range bass guitars, which will have much wider fretboards and take full-sized bass guitar strings rather than a set of thicker guitar strings.

Because of the age of their designs, Bass VIs and other six-string bass guitars of this ilk have their own playing traditions that differ a little from what people tend to use modern baritones for. The ‘tic tac’ bass sound, for instance, is centred around clean, percussive basslines played on Danos and/or Fender VIs, slotting between the upright bass and the electric guitar’s place in the band.

Multi-scale guitars

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Now that we have explored the many-faceted world of the different guitar scale lengths, it’s time to make things even more complicated. Hooray! If you’ve ever heard the term multi-scale guitar and been a little confused before now, let’s clear things up – all it really means is a guitar that has a different scale length for different strings. A multi-scale instrument allows the lower-tuned strings to have a longer scale for extra tension, and the higher-tuned strings a shorter scale for easier bending. The variance in scale means that the frets, along with the bridge and nut, are “fanned” to compensate. Many multi-scale instruments will have more than six strings, however six-string examples do exist.

The post Do you really need a baritone? A complete guide to guitar scale length appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Supercool Pedals has unveiled the tenth pedal in their lineup: the Triniphase – a bold, all-analog phase shifter inspired by the technical legacy and cassette-futurism aesthetic of a golden TV age.

The Triniphase is a thoughtful and calculated approach to a classic and revered modulation effect, offering complex and organic analog phase modulation with a unique and intuitive control scheme.

The Triniphase offers expertly crafted replications of some of the most sought after vintage and modern sweeping phase effects, but what sets the Triniphase apart from its peers are the tactile controls of the RGB buttons that invite users to mix colors and sounds to spawn new and complex pitch and phase modulation adventures.

The Triniphase highlights include:

• Unique sounds including classic phase sweeps, rotary-style univibe oscillation, formant-like voice effects, manic vibratos, and more
• 4-stage and 8-stage phase effects (via RED/DEPTH switch)
• 2 unique LFO modes (via GREEN/LENGTH switch)
• Phase-based pitch shift mode (via BLUE/MODE switch)
• RESO knob for aggressive or subtle feedback control of phasing effect
• RATE knob for a wide control of phasing effects from subtle sweeps to near self-oscillation
• All-analog signal path and control
• Eye-catching nostalgic design inspired by the legacy of the Sony Trinitron
• True Bypass switching with standard 9v center negative power supply
• Designed and assembled in Canada

The Triniphase is the 10th installment in the Supercool pedals lineup with a street price of $219 USD, and is available for purchase with worldwide shipping through www.SupercoolPedals.com as well as in select independent retailers.

Fat envelope and wah sounds are made even wilder with the help of an expansive octave effect that can be used in tandem or independently from the filter.

For those that haven’t delved too deeply into the subject or the sounds, envelope filters can seem a little loaded, stylistically speaking. Used well, they add bounce, joy, or even menace to a guitar or bass. Used wrong, they sound horribly corny. Used unconventionally, though, they can radically reshape guitar tones in surprising ways. Leveraging how they reshape tone with picking dynamics, for instance, is a great way to bust out of a box. They also pair well with distortion, fuzz, delays, modulation, and more (though if you aren’t willing to dig for gold in these combinations the results can confound at first).

Tsakalis Phonkify X FINAL VIDEO

The Tsakalis Phonkify X, an evolution of the original Tsakalis Phonkify, is, in part, a great envelope filter for the way it smooths the path to the outer edges of the effect’s potential. It’s got great range, which is enhanced by effective mix, gain, frequency, and Q controls. Using those controls together in the right combinations also makes the Phonkify X sound fat where other envelope filters can sound narrow, thin, and not terribly nuanced. (An internal voltage doubler that increases headroom is another contributing factor.) And with an octave section that can span corpulent and piercing regions of the sound spectrum—and be used independently or with the filter—the Phonkify X is a trove of powerful, odd, and uncommon guitar sounds, and a true provocateur for those in a rut.

Clarity, Body, and Brawn

One of the Phonkify X’s great strengths is the extra mass and air in its range and how easy it is to find it. As far as envelope filters—which can be counterintuitive to many players the first time out—go, the Phonkify X is very forgiving and responsive. The same qualities make it a great pair for radical or merely fattened fuzz and drive tones. Sixties-type germanium fuzzes coax fiery Hendrix- and Ron Ashton-isms that you can also utilize in traditional sweeping wah fashion if you add an expression pedal to the mix. It also sounds amazing upstream from a dark smoky overdrive that can blunt the sharpest filter edges while adding ballast and attitude.The octave effect is great on its own, too, not least because you move between deep octave-down settings and reedy high tones.

The Verdict

The latter can be a bit cloying and full of digital artifacts in some applications, but when the low octave content is used to temper that tendency, or dial it out entirely, you can summon very organic, complex, and rich tones that can be made rumbling and earth shaking with distortion or drive, or reshape the pedal’s filtered tones if you add it back in the mix. (An additional switch also enables you to situate the octave before or after the filter.). Together, these two effects that blend so seamlessly are a formidable combo.

To all the amps I’ve loved before—PG editorial director Ted Drozdowski’s odyssey through the world of amplification.

Amps are the mouthpiece through which the language of electric guitar tone is spoken. That makes them profoundly important. Since our gear theme this issue is amps, I’ve been obsessing about my own amp history. Amps can be part of a lifelong sonic odyssey. Here’s my journey.

While I’ve had some sweet ones over the years, my first amp was a mistake. I’d gotten my first electric guitar, a ’70s Strat, and I needed to plug it into something. I found an affordable new JMF Spectra 60-T, which had reverb, channel switching, and gain/master volume, so it seemed versatile and cool in blonde Tolex. I owned it for a year and was never happy with its buzzsaw distortion or plinky cleans, but concede that I was likely the reason it never sang like any of the guitars I heard on recordings or stages. I sold the Spectra to a violinist, who sounded awesome through it, and used the money to bump up to a black-panel ’66 Fender Twin Reverb.

Now, that amp gave me a toehold on the tones of my blues idols, or at least a pinky grip, given my minimal skills. I picked up a used MXR Distortion+ and soon played my first gig. As I was leaving the stage after my second performance, a friend, Dennis Keller, who co-owned Cambridge Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts, grabbed me and said, “You need a Marshall.” Luckily, my wife, Laurie, overheard him, and bought me a 1972 50-watt Super Lead head for my birthday. (Yes, she is special!) I immediately picked up a matching-year 4x12 and an obsession was born: I started playing through two amps, switching between the Twin and Marshall for clean and distorted sounds, alienating sound engineers from that day forward.

The sonic expressionism of alternative rock/grunge really spoke to me as a songwriter and noisemaker, even though my deepest interests were in traditional American music and psychedelia. So I beefed up the double-amp setup after seeing my favorite band of the era, Catherine Wheel, take new Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifiers straight out of boxes and onto the stage at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Connecticut, where we were lucky enough to open for them. Such depth and power. Of course, I scored a Trem-O-Verb model, and ran it in parallel with my Marshall head through a pair of 4x12s. I used the Marshall au naturel and gussied up the Mesa with the fairly extensive pedalboard I’d built up. This was not a practical rig, but it was magnificent, and the Twin was relegated to the studio until I sold it a few years ago.

“I owned it for a year and was never happy with its buzzsaw distortion or plinky cleans, but concede that I was likely the reason.”

After the band I was in imploded, I trimmed back to the Marshall and a 2x12, and there I stayed as I played in both a psychedelic rock band called Devil Gods and transitioned into playing blues seriously, thanks to discovering the sounds coming from North Mississippi artists R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. In Scissormen, I was committed to taking that rusty trad sound, which I considered the aural equivalent of Zen poetry, into the present. As I extensively toured the U.S. and, occasionally, Europe, I scaled back to an Epiphone Valve Standard combo until, in about 2010, the great documentary filmmaker Robert Mugge, who is a friend and a fan of Scissormen, decided to make a movie about me and the band, BIG SHOES: Walking and Talking the Blues.

I had to game-up my sound again, and added a hand-me-down Peavey combo and, for the film and soundtrack, went back to playing in stereo, which I still do today. In subsequent years, I sometimes paired the Epiphone with a ’64 Supro Tremo-Verb Laurie had inherited, or the Marshall with a 1x12, or an Orange Micro Terror, which I contend is a cross between Chihuahua and werewolf.

When the Epiphone expired, I determined to get a nice boutique amp and finally, really define my sound. I auditioned over a dozen makes and models and bought a used Carr Vincent, which I like to think of as a super Fender. The random pairing continued with happy sonic results until 2022, when filmmaking entered again. This time, I was about to make a movie I created and crowdfunded that features my current cosmic roots band Coyote Motel. I thought The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South—a musical cultural history—would be a defining work as a musician and journalist. And it is. So, I needed an amp as harmonically rich and present as the Vincent. With consultation from Steve Carr, I acquired a Telstar. To my ears, the pairing, audible in all 10 of the film’s musical performances, is what I’ve always been looking for but I didn’t necessarily know it.

That’s the thing. Anyone’s amp odyssey is evolutionary, intensely personal, and sometimes accidental or motivated by circumstances. Mine may be over. But I’m not ruling out modeling or, really, anything. Today, my amps make me very happy. And I hope yours do the same!

PG contributor Tom Butwin features the all-new Hotone Verbera. The dual-engine reverb pedal blends IR realism with algorithmic creativity and adds the ability to clone your favorite reverb effects.

Hotone Verbera Convolution Reverb Pedal

Ever imagined your sound echoing through a sold-out stadium? Or reverberating off the metallic walls of a NASA spacecraft hangar? What if your guitar fell into a cosmic white hole… or drifted through the vaulted ceilings of a centuries-old cathedral?

Welcome to Verbera — where imagination meets reality. This is not your typical software convolution plugin. Verbera is a standalone, hardware-based convolution reverb pedal — with Instant IR loading, stunning tweakability, and boundless sonic range. Whether you’re recreating iconic spaces, vintage hardware, or crafting otherworldly reverbs never heard before, Verbera gives musicians and engineers a powerful new tool for both live and studio setups.

Surf’s up—it’s summertime. On this episode, we’re talking about the most legendary, well-choreographed, reverb-drenched surf rockers of all time, the Ventures. They not only created the template for instrumental guitar music, they influenced just about every classic rock guitar hero you can think of. And their catalog is truly epic, so where do you get started? That’s what we’re discussing.

From “Walk, Don’t Run” on, the Ventures made a splash. Let’s look at their hottest hits, and maybe a few odd choices along the way.

With Black Sabbath’s final-ever live concert set to take place this Friday (5 July) in their hometown of Birmingham, Tom Morello is putting things into perspective.

The Rage Against the Machine guitarist – who’s been tapped to oversee the all-star farewell event – notes the upcoming tribute show will be both historic and unusually intimate, not least because this time, the honourees are still around to witness it.

• READ MORE: Why Jake E. Lee agreed to perform at Black Sabbath’s final show even though he “hasn’t spoken with Ozzy Osbourne or seen him in decades”

He likens the upcoming gig to the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, in which A-list bands gathered to pay tribute to the late Queen singer, or more recently the two transatlantic shows that honoured Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins following his death in March, 2022.

“But guess what? They weren’t alive to be there to play and to enjoy it,” says Morello on the new issue of Metal Hammer. “Black Sabbath’s gonna be there, dude. To be in their backyard, with a line-up of the biggest acts in metal paying tribute to them, has got to be pretty special.”

As the musical director of Back to the Beginning, Morello is keeping most of the setlist and guest roster under wraps, though he teases that surprises are guaranteed and that fans would do well to be in their seats from the very start.

“I will say this – for anyone lucky enough to be going to the show, don’t be late,” he says. “This is not one of those shows where the bands are playing in ascending order and you can show up at 5pm. We have surprise guests that you won’t believe. Trust me – don’t be late.”

Born in Birmingham in 1968, Sabbath’s bleak, heavy sound paved the way not just for metal, but for a wide range of genres and artists that followed. That legacy, says Morello, is impossible to overstate.

“Their DNA is everywhere, not just in metal,” he explains. “I’ve talked to [Public Enemy rapper] Chuck D about them, the Run DMC guys – the founders of hip hop were influenced by Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. Same with the world of EDM. Without them, literally nothing would be the same.”

The post “They weren’t alive to be there to play and to enjoy it” Tom Morello compares Black Sabbath farewell gig to Freddie Mercury and Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Co-designed with low-end professor and tone connoisseur Ian Martin Allison, the MXR Bass Synth will turn your bass into a filthy funk machine, delivering a range of monophonic synth tones that call back to hits from Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Parliament Funkadelic, and more. This pedal is ready made for intergalactic grooves, capturing vintage analog-style vibes with killer tracking and sustain to serve up thunderous sub-octave, expressive envelope, and lush modulation effects with the flexibility and control that modern players demand.

A full, player-friendly suite of controls allows you to shape not just the aforementioned effects but every other detail of your bass synth tone: blend dry and wet signals, sculpt filter sweeps from rubber-band bounce to syrupy slow-motion, adjust filter cutoff and resonance for extra punch, switch between triangle, sawtooth, or square waveforms, and add harmonically rich oscillators for more complex textures.

Or you can skip straight to the groove with eight presets that Ian crafted, inspired by iconic tracks from Michael Jackson, Herbie Hancock, Peter Gabriel, and more. And for tone chasers who love to dive deep, the Bass Synth offers advanced parameters, stereo capability, and flexible rig integration to take your sound anywhere you want it to go.

Whether you’re replicating pop hits in a cover band, holding down the low end at church, or touring the world, this pedal gives you instant synth bass magic. Get down on the one with the MXR Bass Synth.

“Over the years, I have tended to make synth sounds either with individual pedals or with blocks in a multi-FX unit, and while those sounds can be super cool and get close to legit synth sounds, the MXR Bass Synth gets closer and, in some cases, even totally indistinguishable from an incredible keys rig,” Ian says. “We worked tirelessly to make this thing as perfect as we possibly could—to tweak every single parameter, to get every aspect of how the knobs turned and what effects they controlled just right—and especially the latency and tracking. I wouldn’t relent until we got it perfect. This is perfect.”

MXR Bass Synth highlights:

• Intergalactic grooves and vintage analog-style vibes reminiscent of your favorite funk hits
• Designed in collaboration with Ian Martin Allison
• Thunderous sub-octave, expressive envelope, and lush modulation effects
• Killer tracking and sustain
• Eight different presets to plug you straight into the groove
• Three different waveforms, additional oscillators, tap and expression control, and more

Availability

The MXR Bass Synth is available now at $269.99 street from your favorite retailer.

Jake E. Lee has shared a shocking update about the shooting incident that landed him in the intensive care unit last October.

The 68-year-old guitarist, best known for his tenure with Ozzy Osbourne between 1982 and 1987, previously revealed that he was shot multiple times while walking his dog in Las Vegas.

• READ MORE: Why Jake E. Lee agreed to perform at Black Sabbath’s final show even though he “hasn’t spoken with Ozzy Osbourne or seen him in decades”

Now, in a Facebook post shared last week, Lee says that justice is on the horizon: “The two that shot me have been caught and face sentencing next month,” he writes. “The gun was tied to two previous murders so my case is almost an afterthought. They’re going bye bye for a long time. On that happy thought, see ya on TV!”

The post includes a picture of his dog Coco, who was with him during the incident and reportedly targeted in the attack. According to the guitarist, the gunman fired 15 shots, with some aimed at Coco. Lee was struck three times, with one bullet narrowly missing his spine.

Elsewhere in the post, the musician also confirms his upcoming appearance at Black Sabbath’s final show in Birmingham.

“Just confirming I’m playing,” Lee states. “In fact I believe I’ll be first at bat, which means Coco has to be up at 7:00am to watch Pops! I’m thrilled to be sharing the stage with top tier musicians, I won’t name cause you never know until the curtain rises, but will confirm once we have our rehearsal next week.”

In related news, Jake E. Lee recently opened up about why he said yes to Black Sabbath’s farewell concert despite decades of no contact with the Prince of Darkness.

“Tom Morello [the show’s musical director] called me,” he told Guitar World. “He said, ‘There’s going to be a thing, an original Sabbath performance and Ozzy Osbourne’s final performance. I can’t see this going on without Jake E. Lee in there somewhere.’”

“It’s a thrill to be a part of it,” Lee continued. “And even more so for me to watch it. I hope Ozzy can get through it. I haven’t spoken with him or seen him in decades.”

The post “The gun was tied to two previous murders” Jake E. Lee shares shocking update about his shooting appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.