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MONO partners with Polyphia guitarist Tim Henson on signature dual-carry guitar case
[Editor’s note: MONO is part of Vista Musical Instruments, which like Guitar.com, is part of the Caldecott Music Group.]
Polyphia guitarist Tim Henson has further expanded his growing collection of signature gear with a new take on MONO’s M80 Classic Dual guitar case, which is able to carry two guitars at once within a streamlined profile.
Henson, of course, has a number of signature guitars to his name with Ibanez, including his TOD-10 electric, which sports his signature rose-and-thorns inlay across its fretboard, and a number of nylon-strings gear towards virtuosic playing, too.
So with so many guitars in his portfolio, it makes sense that he’d have a signature carry case that can protect more than one at the same time, right?
Though it’s another entry in Henson’s catalogue of signature gear collaborations, the new Tim Henson M80 Classic Dual case marks a big moment in MONO’s history, as it’s the first time the musical accessory company has officially collaborated with an artist. Henson himself has been a user of MONO cases for some time, so the partnership is a natural fit.
You might think it’s just a guitar case, but MONO’s design-led philosophy and meticulous attention to detail is apparent all over the new Tim Henson case, which was developed over months of prototyping.
On the outside, the case sports a distinctive square-patterned front panel with durable, water-resistant Sharkskin material for reliable protection, along with a custom Polyphia metal badge, a specially incorporated front handle and reinforced steel-riveted webbing handle.
Inside, it boasts MONO’s patented dual protection design – which keeps two instruments safe at once – with the brand’s patented Headlock neck suspension system, as well as a custom off-white plush interior.
“I’ve been using MONO gear for years, so I’m very happy to have gotten the opportunity to make my own version of the M80 Classic Dual,” Henson says. “I’m constantly switching between my electric and nylon-string signature guitars, so having one case that carries both and looks exactly the way I want it to is perfect.”
The MONO x Tim Henson M80 Classic Dual Electric Guitar Case is available now for $399.99 via MONO’s website and select authorised dealers.
Learn more at MONO.
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The iconic British folk guitarist that Richard Thompson claims is the “original guitar hero”
Of the most influential guitar players of all time, heavyweights like Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix often get the first mentions. But there’s one guitarist who’s somewhat unsung by comparison, and was so influential, in fact, that folk-rock guitarist Richard Thompson calls “the original guitar hero”.
And that’s Davey Graham, the late veteran British guitarist and folk-rock revivalist, credited with popularising DADGAD tuning, among many other accolades.
- READ MORE: Does tonewood really matter? This is how the wood your guitar’s made of affects the sound
“He was a great player, and a great pioneer who took from everything,” Thompson explains in a new interview with Uncut. “He knew enough jazz, North African music, traditional music, Caribbean music, it’s all in there, and if you went to visit him he’d switch from one to the other, like, ‘Have you heard this one? But what about this?’ He was the first. After him comes Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, then John Martyn et cetera.”
Though he had a lasting impact on the guitar world, Davey Graham wasn’t without his struggles. In an interview last year, folk legend Martin Carthy spoke of Graham’s battle with heroin addiction, recalling the first time he dabbled in the hard substance and how it affected his creative ability.
“I thought I’d done a really good job, but when I put the record on, I went: ‘What the fuck is that?!’ It was absolutely terrible. I was playing this solo that was nonsense,” Carthy remembered of the pair re-recording a version of Port Mahon, originally written by Sydney Carter.
He went on: “On the way home from that session, Davey told me that he’d had his first fix the night before: ‘Oh, it was great, I’m going to do it again.’”
Continuing in the new interview with Uncut, Richard Thompson says: “One does not judge. People have to get through life, and sometimes you need a bit of fortification to do so.”
Thompson himself is a lifelong teetotaller, a decision he says he made at a “fork in the road” in the 1970s.
“If you’re in the music community you see a lot of damage, you see a lot of people die young,” he says. “In the ‘70s I saw a fork in the road, and I can go this way and I’ll be dead in, you know, seven years, and if I go this way, I might survive. It was a conscious choice.”
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You won’t believe how long it took Matt Bellamy’s guitar tech to capture all his amp sounds
For a spectacle that is a Muse show, frontman Matt Bellamy is pretty particular about the sounds he wants onstage. The Manson-toting guitarist is well and truly an amp modeller convert, with a Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III being the heart of his live rig.
Yep, Bellamy’s arsenal of custom electric guitars might be the main attraction for regular folk attending Muse shows. His numero uno, a Floyd Rose-equipped Manson MB and the stunning mirror guitar with an MXR Phase 90 and ZVEX Fuzz Factory built right in, are some notable highlights.
But for us slightly nerdier guitar gear aficionados, what’s lurking within the walls of his rack-mount amp and effects processor is far more intriguing…
- READ MORE: Does tonewood really matter? This is how the wood your guitar’s made of affects the sound
And that’s because it’s packed with heaps of custom amp captures from Vox, Diezel, Laney, Orange, and Fender amps, and even a Gibson amp dating back to 1938. And as his guitar tech Chris Whitemyer explains in a new interview with Premier Guitar, the process of capturing them was so meticulous that it took a whopping 63 days. That’s over two months…
“That was one thing Matt insisted on, was ‘I don’t want anyone else’s amps.’ He wants his amps,” Whitemyer explains, adding that the Muse superstar is the proud owner of “about 35” amps. “There’s kind of oddball ones that are really cool, and they’re all in there [the Axe-FX III].”
The veteran guitar tech, who has also worked with Guns N’ Roses, Whitesnake and Nine Inch Nails, goes on to explain how he and Bellamy are “always” running a combination of amp sounds as opposed to any one on its own, and says he runs three Axe-Fx III units concurrently to get Bellamy’s sound.
“All of those amp sounds [in the Axe-Fx III] are his amps,” Whitemyer says. “[We modelled] everything. 63 days, eight hours a day, left before dinner every day…”
Earlier this year, Manson – which is part-owned by Meng Ru Kuok, CEO of the Caldecott Music Group, which also owns Guitar.com – announced that it had worked with Matt Bellamy to create a production-run model of his iconic Time is Running Out guitar.
Loaded with a slew of integrated systems, including a Sustainiac Sustainer, Z-Vex Fuzz Factory, Manson/Ron Joyce FL Wah, and a MIDI Strip controller, the guitar comes at a hefty price tag, with the more decked out version sitting at £29,999, and a [slightly] more affordable model available at £11,999.
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Does tonewood really matter? This is how the wood your guitar’s made of affects the sound
The wood that your guitar or bass is made from affects your tone as much as any other gear choice you make, as much as pickups, pedals and amps. This is especially true for acoustic guitars, with or without a pickup.
Different woods like alder, ash, mahogany and more add subtle nuance to the resulting tone, in turn changing how you play, pick, dig into strings and the harmonic content bouncing around.
There’s countless arguments, discourse and opinions online about how much each component of a guitar affects the overall sound, extending to discussion around factors off the guitar, such as player’s hands, technique, feel and more. Discourse aside, what is true is that everything matters.
While different woods have different amounts of impact, each component affects sound, which in turn affects feel, affecting technique and subsequently the final signal that has passed through the guitar to an amplifier or out of a soundhole. Even the most simple guitars might have a handful of components doing 1 per cent each, but 20 of those leads to a 20 per cent variance between sonics and sound— a huge amount when you think about it!
The weight and feel of the guitar is largely at the behest of the woods it’s made from, both the body, neck and fretboard, and these also feature wildly different tonal characteristics because of structural integrity, quality and weight.
Image: Adam Gasson
Fretboards
Fretboard wood varies a little less than body wood, so let’s start there. Many guitars feature either rosewood or maple fretboards, though ebony is another common, albeit premium, choice. Various woods like purpleheart, or amaranth, ovangkol and pau ferro are all often used in situations where rosewood is unavailable, either because of logging restrictions or cost prohibitive situations.
Rosewood is used extensively on electric guitar fretboards. Being a softer wood, it absorbs certain frequencies and accentuates others, often being known for a warmer, more midrange sound, making it a great choice for a mid range instrument like the guitar. Brightness is retained in a controlled way, while low end melts away a little bit without the resulting sound being overtly thin.
Maple is a harder wood, and while retaining the mid range character of rosewood, its bright disposition is thanks to the snap and attack of your playing bouncing off the hard surface instead of vibrating away into the wood. This is augmented by the glossy finish on many maple necks, used both for tone, as well as to protect the clean, light-coloured maple from getting grubby.
Ebony is again, even harder than maple, and is particularly bright, the grain almost invisible on premium cuts of ebony. While rosewood has visible grains and imperfections in the wood, ebony usually offers a particularly glassy finish, both aesthetically and sonically. Furthermore to your choice of wood, designs like a one-piece maple neck can prevent tone from fizzling away between components. While a rosewood fretboard is often glued to a maple neck, for example, the tiny gap between neck and board allows vibrations to escape, while a single piece of maple that serves as neck and fretboard has no gap for that sweet, sweet tone to escape to!
Image: Adam Gasson
Perfect Pairings
Pairing your fretboard wood with body wood can help to shape and refine the sound. More common warm guitar woods like mahogany for electric guitars or rosewood for acoustic guitar can be paired with snappier fretboards for a controlled tone, while matching a warm fretboard with a warm body wood can provide a more mellow, vintage, mid-range focused sound.
Mahogany is commonly used on Gibson’s Les Pauls, paired with a rosewood fretboard, or ebony on the Custom range. Fender uses alder extensively to provide weight relief compared to the hefty mahogany Gibsons. Alder provides a nice middle ground that harnesses the punch of a rich, firm wood, while its lightness allows a little mud and low end to fizzle away. Fender also commonly uses various species of Ash, even lighter and brighter again, paired with warmer fretboards.
These subtle differences are augmented further by your choice of pickups, so be weary of those pairings! The wrong choice of pickups can either miss out on the richness of your wood, or augment to the point of harshness.
Image: Adam Gasson
Acoustics
These choices are even more obvious on an acoustic guitar, guitar makers pairing different woods for the top, sides and back of the guitar. These choices, along with the soundhole, serve as the guitar’s amplifier and affect the sound entirely. Variations of maple are commonplace in modern tops for acoustic guitars, the bright demeanour of the wood being perfect for clarity in playing.
More vintage-style acoustics, like parlour guitars, sometimes use rosewood for the top and sides resulting in a warmer, more dimmed sound that allows the mid range to shine through. Both rosewood and ebony are common on acoustic guitars, though the brightness of maple is often overkill for the brightness of acoustics, the resulting sound being brittle and harsh.
The character and controlled acoustic qualities of a tonewood come together in semi-hollow guitars, some of which have a comb of standard electric guitar pickups and piezo systems. The timbre of the tonewoods in semi-hollow electrics harness woods like alder and ash, usually reserved for solid body electrics, tying together acoustic resonance and controlled, mid-forward chime.
While tonewood may have a small effect on its own, the way they allow or prevent vibration from escaping into the ether have a huge effect on the resulting sound. Different designs allow sound to vibrate away differently, either pushing brightness into your pickups or mellowing it out entirely. Harder and softer woods offer brighter or warmer sound respectively, and your choice of body wood yields the same results, this being exacerbated in acoustic guitars because they act as both guitar and amplifier as sound bounces out of the soundhole.
In the pursuit of your perfect sound, you’ve also got to try different tonewoods to see what matches your style, technique and feel, different woods either being great to augment your own playing, or to harness different tonal tools for different jobs. There’s no right answer for everyone, but there might be a wrong one, so try as many guitars as you can.
The post Does tonewood really matter? This is how the wood your guitar’s made of affects the sound appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Brian May was asked what guitar he’d have used if he hadn’t built the Red Special: the answer may surprise you
Brian May is best known for playing his self-made Red Special, and there’s a reason why he very rarely uses other guitars.
May crafted the original with help from his father as a teenager, but has also been known to play other models from brands like Fender and Gibson; he can even be spotted in the music video for Crazy Little Thing Called Love with a black Telecaster in-hand. Yet, according the Queen guitarist, no other electric models besides his Red Special have ever really felt like the right fit.
In an interview with radio station Planet Rock, May is asked by a listener what guitar he would play as his main instrument if he didn’t have his Red Special, to which he confesses he never found one to have his desired tone.
“Nothing ever really worked for me apart from my own one, it’s odd. I always found the Fenders too thin and scratchy for the sound I was trying to get, and I found the Gibsons a little too much in the other direction, a bit too dark. They didn’t have the crispness and the top end that I wanted.
“My guitar, partly by design and partly by good luck, sits somewhere in the middle. It also has a very wide range of tones because of the way I have hooked it up and wired pickups in series, but in phase and out of phase. So it has a wide range of bright to dark.”
He concludes, “I can only really get my sound with the guitar I created with my dad, or a copy of it. Now we make them, we sell them. I take great pride in the fact that they’re well made and they’re not too expensive… It’s an extension of me and always will be.”
Watch the interview below:
The Red Special might be the perfect fit for May, but other artists who have played it have found its build to be a little peculiar. Namely, Steve Vai recalled getting his hands on the original, and struggling to play it: “The neck is like a bat, it’s got like, what, gauge .08 strings? But it was a miracle to actually have the guitar under my fingers, and he allowed that. And Joe [Satriani] and I have had a great relationship with him since,” he said.
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Fender recreates Lee Sklar’s highly customised P-Bass – but you’ll need to write on it yourself
Fender has made a “faithful recreation” of Lee Sklar’s highly customised Precision Bass, which has accompanied the bassist and session musician throughout his esteemed career.
The Lee Sklar Precision Bass forms part of the Fender Stories Collection and captures the distinctive modifications Sklar made to create a bass that is uniquely his own, minus the sprawling handwriting that covers the original.
The original bass has been used on an estimated 2,000 albums as his “go-to” instrument when in the studio, and is affectionately named Old Frankenstein. The handwriting on its body mostly consists of autographs from other musicians and celebrities.
Sklar’s bass chops have shaped countless recordings from James Taylor and Carole King, to Phil Collins, Toto, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, and Rod Stewart. His P-Bass features on close to an impressive 85 percent of his recorded work.
Sklar transformed the instrument by stripping it down to bare wood. This signature recreation is fitted with a Hipshot BT3 Bass Xtender for “flexible” low-end range changes, dual EMG Active Lee Sklar P pickups, a Badass II Bridge, and a modified Precision Bass neck shaved down to Jazz Bass dimensions and dressed with mandolin frets.
Find out more in the video below:
“It is my go-to instrument when I go in the studio. It’s the first thing I think about when I hear a song. That’s what made this project with Fender and EMG so meaningful to me,” says Lee Sklar.
“We put a lot of time, detail and care into every part of this bass, from the pickups and electronics to the feel and response of the instrument, to make sure it captured what I love about this guitar. At the end of the day, though, the most exciting part is knowing that another player can pick up this bass, make it their own and use it to create some music of their own.”
Lee Sklar’s original P-Bass. Credit: Fender
Justin Norvell, Chief Product Officer, Guitars, adds: “Whether you know it or not, you’ve heard Sklar’s playing. His ability to weave in and out of different genres, moods and energies is unparalleled and in order to honour such fearless playing, this instrument needed to be crafted with meticulous care.
“Sklar’s P-Bass has been alongside him for an extraordinary portion of that career, so recreating it meant getting the details that make the instrument uniquely his, exactly right. It’s an incredible instrument and a fitting way for Fender to celebrate both Lee’s legacy and 75 years of the Precision Bass.”
The Lee Sklar Precision Bass is priced at $3,499.99 USD/£3,249 GBP. Find out more by visiting Fender.
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Gibson and Baggs tackle muddy live performance sound with the new HiFi DNA acoustic pickup system
Gibson and acoustic amplification company Baggs have partnered together on the new HiFi DNA acoustic pickup system, designed to deliver “the most natural, studio‑grade live tone ever achieved from an acoustic guitar”.
The new HiFi DNA pickup is available on a wide range of Gibson acoustic guitars across its Modern and Original Collections, with a standalone version for individual purchase coming soon that can be installed via a simple peel-and-stick application.
Baggs, formerly known as LR Baggs, changed its name earlier this September as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, to mark a new, modernised era for the company.
Gibson says the pickup is intended to close the gap between live performance and studio-quality output, marking a “major leap forward” in acoustic amplification.
It works by utilising a dual Class A preamp architecture, which treats two individual sensors as their own independent studio channel. These lighter and larger sensors run through their own custom-voiced Class A preamp before they are blended together, preserving purity and articulation in a unified output.
Overall, the system captures both string detail and body resonance with improved accuracy, meaning it reacts to the guitar as a whole instrument to produce a tone that sounds like “stepping inside the guitar” itself.
Learn more in the videos below:
“HiFi DNA is a big leap forward – dual sensors with their own independently optimised preamps keep each signal pure and deliver unprecedented fidelity with the same gain before feedback as our acclaimed Element Under Saddle Pickup,” says Lloyd R. Baggs, Founder of Baggs.
“The name ‘DNA’ speaks to our character as relentless innovators and to what this new sensor can do. It’s lighter, more flexible, and more responsive. Less mass and stiffness means more life, more breath, more truth from the guitar.”
Baggs goes on to explain, “One of the discoveries that excited me most was bringing dual preamps to market. We’ve known for years how powerful that architecture is, but it was never before feasible at scale. Now, each sensor has its own preamp stage before they’re blended, which keeps both signals pristine. If you combine two mic diaphragms – or two piezos – before amplification, they tug on each other, and the sound can get muddy. Separating them preserves every detail.
“The two sensors work almost like a pair of choir mics: each hears a different part of the instrument, with enough overlap to feel natural and enough focus to stay immediate. You get ambience without losing attack, space without losing touch. It’s a new way of hearing and capturing the acoustic guitar – clear, alive, and deeply connected to the player.”
Robi Johns, Sr. Product Development Manager at Gibson Acoustic, further states: “What we’re able to do now is capture the true timbre and full dynamic range of a real acoustic guitar – so the player’s touch, nuance, and personality finally come through on stage the way they do in the room.
“I’ve been a student of the guitar my entire life, and for decades it’s been a struggle to make an acoustic sound right on stage. In the studio, with a great microphone, you can hear the whole voice of the instrument, but live that colour and character were always compromised. The first time I heard Lloyd’s new HiFi DNA pickup, I was stunned. It felt like I wasn’t listening from a point in space anymore – I was inside the guitar. It was the solution I’d been chasing since the 1970s. For the first time, the individual personality of each guitar comes through in amplified form. It transforms the entire playing experience.”
View the full Gibson x Baggs HiFi DNA collection, or head over to the Baggs website to learn more about the company.
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Why Martin’s 16 Series is its most interesting new range in years
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The iconic shape and look of a natural-finished square-shouldered Martin Dreadnought is so familiar, so legendary, that it’s not just defined the last 100-plus years of Martin, it’s become the thing people who have absolutely no idea about guitars picture when someone tells them to imagine a guitar.
For generations of players, the classic Martin body shapes – be that a Dreadnought, Auditorium or Concert – have become familiar friends, trusted confidants and companions through a lifetime’s musical journey. But Martin didn’t become the most iconic American acoustic guitar brand by resting on its laurels and playing the hits for a century or more – the Pennsylvanian company has forever been pushing the boundaries and trying new things.
That spirit has continued apace over the last few years, whether that’s been through exploring new body shapes like the GPC and the SC, trialling alternative tonewoods in the Inception range, or expanding the visual palette with new finishes like Mezcal Burst, Paisley Ember Burst and Amber Fade Sunburst.
Even by this standard, however, the brand new and reimagined 16 Series is taking Martin’s already big tent, and expanding it for a lot of new guitar players with bold, and unconventional ideas about what a Martin guitar is. In fact, the new 16 Series might be the most interesting new range of guitars the brand has created in a long time – and this is why.
The Martin DSS-16E guitars. Image: Press
Any Colour You Like
There’s a fun anecdote that Martin’s Mike Dickinson told Guitar.com in our film Perfect Harmony. Back in the 1970s, Johnny Cash asked Martin to build him a guitar, and being The Man In Black, he wanted it to be… well… black. The legend goes that Martin CEO Chris Martin III really wasn’t a fan of painting over the beautiful spruce top of a Martin guitar, and so the Martin team effectively made this guitar in secret, with the company owner not realising it had ever happened until he saw Cash on TV with the guitar, and was delighted.
It’s safe to say that things have changed at Martin in the decades since then, and has expanded the visual palette of its guitars a great deal.
But while signature artists like Cash and Eric Clapton (with his limited run collabs with Hiroshi Fujiwara) have added solid colours to their guitars in the past few decades, it’s safe to say that we’ve seen nothing before like the new 16 Series.
The Martin DSS-16E in Cherry Cola. Image: Press
Whether its Cherry Cola, Blue Denim, Black Smoke or Cream, the eye-popping new colours that adorn the spruce tops of the 16 Series are as striking as they are appealing – you have to admit, you might never have thought about a bright red Martin guitar before, but now you’ve seen it, it works, right?
These new finish options aren’t just marketing gimmicks either – you don’t have to spend much time looking at stages across the musical spectrum in 2026 to see that plenty of young singer-songwriters are looking to painted-top guitars as a way to stand out on stage – and these new options certainly do that.
Of course, if you’re not a primary colour kind of guitarist, the stunning 1935 Burst gives a modern twist to the shade top look, and there are some natural-finish versions in there, too. What’s more, closer inspection will reveal that while these guitars are bright and colourful, the finish is semi-transparent, allowing you to still see the grain of that beautiful spruce underneath – we’re sure Chris Martin III would appreciate that.
The Martin 00L-16E in Blue Denim. Image: Press
Shape Sorter
If the finishes were the only departure for the 16 Series, that would still be a big deal, but you’ve probably noticed that this isn’t the biggest change for 2026. While the previous 16 Series guitars were designed to straddle the worlds of traditional and modern acoustic guitars, the new ones do something much more unexpected.
Because in addition to a refreshed take on the modernist GPC platform, the range now comprises three very rarely seen body shapes in the Martin canon – a slope-shouldered Dreadnought, a slope-shouldered 00, and the Jumbo.
Quite aside from the visual point of difference these guitars offer, they also offer a different experience in terms of both playability and sound than the more conventional Martin guitars you might be familiar with.
The DSS-16E Slope-Shouldered Dreadnought offers a punchy midrange, strong treble response, and a focused low end. With a spruce top and mahogany back and sides, it offers a woody, more intimate tone that pairs perfectly with a shorter-than-normal 24.9″ scale length. This gives a more relaxed and comfortable playing feel that complements the DSS’s natural warmth, while forward-shifted scalloped X-bracing enhances both the bass response and resonance.
The Jumbo sized J-16E is another eye-catching entry – this 14-fret spruce/rosewood beast is designed to command a room with a body size that delivers thunderous volume with sparkling top-end response – it’s the perfect Martin guitar for strummers, rhythm players, and anyone who wants to command the stage.
Finally, the smallest guitar in the range, the 00L-16E brings the slope-shouldered style to the classic Martin 00 body style. Compact and intimate, the 00L still has surprising projection for a guitar of its size, with a woody and responsive tonality that’s the perfect pairing for fingerstyle, songwriting, or rhythm work.
The Martin Grand J-16E 12-string. Image: Press
Martin Magic
These unconventional shapes pair with the striking new finish options to produce some of the most non-traditional Martin guitars ever, while still maintaining that touchstone of heritage and familiarity that players love about the brand.
What’s more, while they may look different to the norm, they remain every bit the Martin guitars that we know and love – just with a slightly different accent.
It goes without saying that these 16 Series guitars aren’t replacing anything – you’ll still be able to buy all the D-18s and 000-28s you want, and these guitars don’t change that at all. What they do instead is create new colours in the crayon box, and new paths for more guitarists than ever to discover the magic of Martin guitars. And that’s something we can all get behind.
Find out more about the Martin 16 Series at martinguitar.com
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“Never let a corporation tell you what the rules are”: Former Fender Custom Shop head takes swipe at former employer with pointed S-style build
Earlier this year, Fender shook the guitar industry’s foundations when it sent cease and desist letters to a plethora of small builders demanding they stop making guitars similar in body shape to its iconic Stratocaster design.
Many in the guitar community criticised the move, and significant pushback was mounted by some of the brands targeted, including German retail giant Thomann – which went on the offensive to sue Fender after it was sent a C&D letter, presumably over its S-type Harley Benton guitars – and California-based boutique builder LsL Instruments, which hired the lawyer who successfully beat Fender in a trademark dispute on behalf of a consortium of brands back in 2009.
Now, former Fender Custom Shop head Mike Eldred has apparently made his thoughts about Fender’s legal action clear, with a new S-style build that appears to take aim at his former employer.
Mike Eldred was let go from the Fender Custom Shop a little over a decade ago, after serving as its head for around 17 years. During his time at Fender, he created the Filter’Tron pickup-equipped Cabronita Telecaster, and has continued a similar naming convention since his departure with his line of El Cabron guitars.
His removal made waves at Fender, and was a significant reason why John Mayer left Fender’s artist roster and later joined PRS, where he helped develop the Silver Sky, one of the biggest commercial guitar successes in recent history. Side note: PRS was another brand targeted by Fender’s cease and desist campaign.
Eldred’s new El Cabron Black Corp certainly makes a statement – one which we assume takes aim directly at Fender. Firstly, it’s a S-type guitar at a time Fender is clamping down on Strat copies, and secondly, it features a pointed message across its body: “Never let a corporation tell you what the rules are.”
Credit: El Cabron
The guitar also features the classic Flower Thrower artwork by UK graffiti artist Banksy, which symbolises the power of peace and love being more powerful than violence and aggression.
We don’t know much in the way of specs, but we do know the guitar features a Gotoh 510TS bridge, and a single humbucker hand-wound by Willy Houston at Rocket Pickups, with voicing designed by Mike Eldred and Grover Jackson.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Black Corp guitar has already sold out on Mike Eldred’s El Cabron website, despite its wallet-denting price tag of £5,275…
You can take a closer look at the official El Cabron website.
Credit: El Cabron
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Gibson unveils two stunning luxury acoustics – a Hummingbird and SJ-200 built using elegant koa wood
Gibson has expanded its Artisan Series with two new acoustic guitars – an SJ-200 and Hummingbird, two of the brand’s most iconic acoustic designs – built using premium koa tonewoods.
Handcrafted by the team at Gibson Acoustic in Bozeman, Montana, both guitars feature a “richly figured” koa back and sides paired with a AAA Sitka spruce top, offering “sparkling high-end clarity that develops greater warmth and complexity with regular play”. A notable aesthetic touch comes by way of a three-rope marquetry strip running across the centre of the back of each guitar.
First up, the new SJ-200 – built on a blueprint introduced in 1937 and that’s come to be widely regarded as the “King of the Flat Tops” – features, alongside its koa back and sides and Sitka spruce top, a rosewood SJ-200 two-bar moustache bridge with abalone bar inlays, a tortoiseshell pickguard with abalone dot inlays and a silver-foil stamp that creates “vivid, shifting iridescence” as the light shifts.
Credit: Gibson
Elsewhere, the guitar sports a mahogany neck with a Round profile, a bound 20-fret rosewood fingerboard with abalone graduated crown inlays, and a single-ply bound headstock, TUSQ nut and gold-plated Grover Rotomatic tuners.
In terms of electronics, the SJ-200 Elegant Koa is fitted with L.R. Baggs Anthem electronics, which combine an under-saddle Element pickup with an internal mic and preamp to faithfully reproduce the guitar’s unplugged tone.
Meanwhile, the new Hummingbird Elegant Koa features a very similar spec sheet, with the same koa back and sides and Sitka spruce top, Round-profile mahogany neck, 20-fret rosewood fretboard, and TUSQ nut and saddle.
Visually, this one stays true to the design that has made the Hummingbird such a classic, with the familiar artwork on its tortoise pickguard. This art is developed, though, now with gold and silver-foil details that shift as the light changes. This one also features L.R. Baggs electronics, this time a VTC system.
Credit: Gibson
Premium guitars need premium protection – so each new Elegant Koa acoustic model ships with a Gibson Custom hardshell case.
“The SJ-200 and Hummingbird represent defining chapters in Gibson acoustic history,” says Robi Johns, Gibson Acoustic Senior Product Development Manager.
“With the Elegant Koa models, Gibson Custom honors the character that made these instruments legendary while introducing the beauty, clarity, and evolving warmth of koa. These are guitars designed to form an even deeper connection with players over a lifetime of music.”
These are high-end acoustics, and their price tags reflect that, with the Hummingbird Elegant Koa coming in at $5,199, and the SJ-200 Elegant Koa priced at $6,899. If those figures feel a little outside your budget range, you can check out some of the mouth-watering high-res photos below instead…
These guitars are available now, both at Gibson.com and at the Gibson Garages in Nashville, London and Miami.
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“There’s a couple of ex-girlfriends’ pictures inside”: Billie Joe Armstrong reveals the secrets of his most iconic guitar
Of all the electric guitars in Billie Joe Armstrong‘s collection, his Fernandes S-type – affectionately named “Blue”, and which he’s owned since just 12 years old – is far and away his favourite.
The guitar has been with him for decades, accompanying him during countless live shows, and appearing on many of the band’s now-immortal studio albums, including their breakout album, Dookie (1994), and 1995’s Insomniac.
Blue remains a staple of the Green Day frontman’s live rig to this day, and can be clearly identified during shows thanks to its liberal covering of stickers and other marks of personalisation.
- READ MORE: Green Day serve up Basket Case and a few ice cream cones from the top of a Mister Freezie van
And now, the guitarist has spoken to US music retailer Sweetwater about his beloved Fernandes, diving into detail about some of the stickers that make it uniquely his.
“My mom bought it for me from my guitar teacher back in 1985 or something like that,” Armstrong says. “I just loved it so much. I really wanted a Stratocaster. It’s been part of my life ever since. Through the years I’ve kept it. I felt like it was a sound that I needed to hold onto.”
Explaining some of the stickers, BJA points to a photo on the back of the guitar, which shows himself in the 7th grade doing his “best Mick Mars impression”.
“I just started plastering stickers all over it, putting the “BJ” on it I think there’s a couple of ex-girlfriend’s pictures inside of here, stuff like that,” he says, pointing to the guitar’s lower bout where fresh stickers cover layers that came before.
Armstrong calls it the “ultimate punk rock guitar”…
The way the guitar looks is clearly a big talking point, but Billie Joe Armstrong regards Blue as indispensable to his sound. He goes on to explain its significant role in the recording of Dookie.
“When we went in to record Dookie, I was really adamant about playing Blue because I just felt like it was such a part of my sound for my whole life,” he says. “There was something that was really important to me. I played a lot of Insomniac [with Blue] also. It’s on the first four and a half albums.
“I could have played a different guitar, but there was something about this that just had, at that time, a deep distortion that created something unique.
“A lot of people have a distortion sound, but nothing that comes across as instantly identifiable. I think that’s what my Blue guitar and the Plexi has.”
The Green Day frontman has become somewhat synonymous with that pale shade of blue, and recently launched his signature 1959BJA Marshall stack – road tested at this year’s Super Bowl – which is wrapped in a similar colour.
You can watch the full video below:
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Watch guitar tech mastery in real time as Angine de Poitrine break a string during a live show
Angine de Poitrine suffered a string break that nearly derailed their whole show as a jam session pushed their instruments to the limit.
Guitarist Khn de Poitrine and drummer Klek de Poitrine were performing at Le Poisson Rouge (LPR) in New York on 9 September when they hit an instrumental snag…
While the custom-built guitar and bass rig had not suffered too many major malfunctions at previous shows, the string break on the six-string half of the instrument very nearly saw the show end early.
During a performance of Ababa Hotel, Khn’s guitar needed to be restrung, a complex affair given the custom-built rig has a bass attached underneath.
Despite the near-disaster, the band managed to keep their jam going all while a guitar tech was on hand to fix the broken string. A viral video of the restringing has since been shared to YouTube, where fans of the band hailed the guitar tech for fixing the instrument mid-jam. The crowd in attendance were heard cheering once the restring had been completed.
To this day nobody knows the identity of Khn or Klek, and it’s a choice the duo have spoken about in interviews.
When explaining their decision not to reveal their identities to Cult MTL, the duo confirmed it was nice to live a life off stage without fame impacting them.
“There’s a comfort to feeling, ‘Oh, I’m this on stage,’ but after that, I’m a normal person,” they said. “We can avoid the, ‘Oh, this is the drummer’ talks, where everyone swarms you after a show when I just want to drink my water.”
Angine de Poitrine has enjoyed viral acclaim over the last year, with a performance at Montreal International Jazz Festival drawing a 70,000 strong crowd.
You can watch Angine de Poitrine jam around their instrumental restring below.
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Martin overhauls its Nazareth-made 16 Series – here’s what’s new
A Nazareth, Pennsylvania-made Martin is about as prestigious an acoustic guitar as one can get, which has kept players demanding the very best returning to the brand’s 16 Series time and again.
And now, Martin has announced the latest overhaul of the 16 Series, introducing a raft of exciting new specifications and finish options. Handcrafted in Nazareth, these US-made acoustic electrics boast all-solid-wood construction, along with gloss-top finishes and a range of distinctive body shapes to choose from.
These body shapes run the gamut and cater to just about every acoustic player, from “intimate, responsive” 00L models to “warm, punchy” Dreadnoughts, to larger Jumbos. There’s also a Grand Performance cutaway model, and even a “room-filling” Grand Jumbo 12-string.
Each 16 Series model comes fitted with L.R. Baggs Element electronics, with spruce tops complemented by a back and sides of either satin solid mahogany or East Indian rosewood.
A highlight of the series, Martin says, comes with the DSS-16E, which with its 24.9” scale length, marks the first time Martin has built a short-scale sloped-shoulder Dreadnought model.
Credit: Martin
“The compact 00L models bring surprising projection and a focused, intimate tone, while the Jumbo models deliver bold volume, deep bass, and commanding stage presence,” says Martin.
“The GPC offers balanced tone and comfort with a Grand Performance body and 000 depth, while the Grand J 12-string delivers lush shimmer, rich overtones, and room-filling sound to the lineup.”
Colour options in the refreshed 16 Series lineup include Blue Denim, Cherry Cola, Cream, Black Smoke and 1935 Burst, as well as more traditional natural tops, too.
Coinciding with the launch, Martin is offering a small run of accessories and lifestyle merch inspired by the series, including Blue Denim and Cherry Cola steins, a Cherry Cola ringer T-shirt, Blue Denim corduroy hat, and Blue Fade leather strap.
The refreshed 16 Series and accompanying merch are available now. Learn more at Martin.
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Win a 75th Anniversary Fender Player II Precision Bass – here’s how to enter
Fancy winning your very own Fender 75th Anniversary Player II Sparkle Precision Bass? Right now, there’s a way, and we’re about to tell you how…
Fender has just partnered with Music Venue Trust (MVT), which works to support and improve grassroots music venues across the UK. As part of the new partnership, the guitar giant is inviting players and music fans to nominate their favourite local venue, and everyone who makes a nomination is being entered into a prize draw to win a 75th Anniversary Player II bass. Easy, right?
Your nomination could massively help your favourite venue, too, as the three venues which receive the most nominations – one from each of England, Scotland and Wales – will receive a gear bundle packed with equipment from Fender’s portfolio of brands.
This bundle includes a Hot Rod Deluxe IV amplifier (worth £1,119), 5150 Iconic Series 40W EL34 1×12 combo (~£719), Rumble 200 bass amp (£699), Acoustic SFX II amplifier (£739), and a StudioLive SE Digital Console Mixer (£2,839). All in all, this is a bundle worth over £6,000.
“Grassroots music venues are where it all begins, the stages where artists cut their teeth, develop their careers, and the places music fans discover their new favourite acts. Fender has always believed in the power of that connection, and this partnership with Music Venue Trust is our way of putting that belief into action,” said Liam Cunnah, Executive Vice President, EMEA, Fender.
“We’re asking fans across the UK to tell us which venues matter most to them, because nobody knows these spaces better than the communities they serve, and we look forward to getting some fantastic new gear into the rooms where the next generation of artists will make their mark.”
“Grassroots music venues are where artists develop their craft, build audiences and create the foundations of sustainable careers. They are also vital cultural spaces at the heart of their communities,” adds Denzil Thomas, Partnerships Lead at Music Venue Trust.
“This partnership with Fender gives music fans an opportunity to celebrate the venues that matter to them, while helping us highlight the extraordinary work these venues do every day to support live music.”
To vote for your favourite local venue and be in with a chance to win a Fender 75th Anniversary Player II Sparkle Precision Bass, head to Fender.
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“It’s great… but it’s too much. I gotta get this on R&B radio”: What Quincy Jones told Steve Lukather when he first played on Michael Jackson’s Beat It
To this day, Michael Jackson’s Thriller is still the best selling record of all time. Released in 1982, it featured some of Jackson’s most pivotal hits – including Beat It, a timeless, funky rock tune topped off with a grandiose Eddie Van Halen solo. However, if Steve Lukather hadn’t been reigned in, it could have been a distorted metal banger.
In a new interview with Guitar Player, the Toto guitarist recalls having to tone it down a notch while recording riffs for Beat It. The late Quincy Jones was in charge of production, and he thought that Lukather was going a little too hard. “I initially cranked the riff out on a bunch of quadrupled Marshalls,” Lukather admits. “But then Quincy called and said, ‘It’s great… but it’s too much.’”
After all, Jackson experimenting with hard rock and metal, but he was still the King of Pop. “I gotta get this on R&B radio,” Jones apparently told Lukather. “Use a little Fender amp and turn down the distortion.”
Lukather also reflected on Jones’ request to “calm down” his performance in an interview with The Guardian in 2024. “‘It’s too metal, you gotta calm down… I gotta get it on pop radio!’” Lukather recalled Jones saying. “I had played a bunch of really wild guitar parts, because I knew Eddie’s solo was on it.”
Despite getting a small slap on the wrist for his heaviness, it didn’t dampen Lukather’s experience. Elsewhere in his Guitar Player interview, he reveals that working with Jackson was fun – albeit a tad chaotic. “[Jackson] was a real pro, though what did make me laugh was his monkey, Bubbles,” Lukather remembers. “[One time he] ripped apart the vocal booth. That was the weirdest thing I saw. It made me laugh on the floor, of course.”
“[Jackson] was very collaborative – he wanted my input,” he adds. Jones was similar, but always aware of what the mainstream radio stations would want. “With songs like Human Nature, Quincy would go, ‘Make it funky for me, man. I gotta get this on R&B radio!’ I came up with that part on the spot, and that’s what ended up on the radio.”
As for Lukather’s more recent work, he has been co-producing an upcoming Van Halen release with Alex Van Halen. While there were rumours of him stepping into Eddie’s role, he has since put the record straight. “That’s the most ridiculous and humorous thing I’ve ever heard,” he told Guitar Player. “I am no more qualified to try and play like Ed Van Halen than I am to be the first man to tug my dick on the planet. I don’t know how anybody could think that would even be a reality. Honestly, it’s laughable… I don’t play like Ed.”
“I am there 100% to be his co-producer and help him through the technical aspects – I’m not gonna play,” he said. “There’s not gonna be any Lukather or Toto fingerprints on a Van Halen thing. I can fucking promise you that!”
The post “It’s great… but it’s too much. I gotta get this on R&B radio”: What Quincy Jones told Steve Lukather when he first played on Michael Jackson’s Beat It appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“I’ve got CDs and cassettes full of them – I just can’t get away from it”: Tony Iommi has a massive stockpile of unheard riffs
At 78 years old, Black Sabbath legend and heavy metal pioneer Tony Iommi is showing no signs of slowing down. A year on from the death of his Sabbath bandmate and longtime friend Ozzy Osbourne, the guitarist is gearing up to release his first solo album in 21 years, From the Dark, next month.
He’s the man behind some of the most influential and enduring riffs in the history of heavy metal – think Paranoid, Iron Man and War Pigs – so it stands to reason that Tony Iommi is sitting on a treasure trove of never-before-heard guitar parts just waiting for the right song or context.
As he explains in a new interview with Classic Rock, he is indeed sitting on a pile of currently unused riffs and guitar ideas, and explains how creating music is just part of his DNA.
“I’ve got CDs and cassettes full of them, thinking that if I ever get stuck I can go back and get one. But I rarely do,” he explains. “Though saying that, I’ll probably never come up with another riff.”
Iommi continues: “The thing is, I don’t have to do this. It’s not about the money, because we don’t need the money. But this [gestures towards the studio], this is what I do. I just can’t get away from it. I have things I want to say.”
Quite how many riff ideas he’s sitting on is anyone’s guess, but we’re sure to hear a bunch of them when his new album From the Dark drops on 23 October. In fact, we’re even set to be treated to a little Iommi acoustic playing…
In July, the guitarist detailed his decision to incorporate some acoustic guitar playing on the new album, and how it ultimately boiled down to wanting to push himself outside of his comfort zone.
“I like to do something you don’t really expect. And to be honest, I hate playing acoustic. I’m not very good at playing acoustic,” he confessed, before speaking directly on the track which features acoustic guitar, Legacy: “On that bit, I just thought it would be nice and different.”
The album will also feature a guest appearance from Brian May, although Iommi wanted the Queen legend to feature even more.
“I said to him, ‘Play on some other tracks,’ but he went, ‘Oh no, it’s your album,’” Iommi recalled recently. “That’s the relationship we’ve had with each other for all these years. We’ve played a lot together. He is a great friend.”
From the Dark arrives 23 October via BMG. Listen to its lead single World Alone below:
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Noel Gallagher reveals the “best bit of advice I’ve ever been given” from Johnny Marr about buying guitars
![[L-R] Noel Gallagher and Johnny Marr](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Noel-Gallagher-Johnny-Marr@2000x1500.jpg)
According to Noel Gallagher, Johnny Marr is somewhat of a Guitar Guru. Simply touching a guitar owned by the ex-Smiths guitarist is enough to inspire Gallagher – which is pretty helpful, considering Marr has gifted Gallagher a few guitars over the years (including a Gibson Les Paul that was also owned by The Who’s Pete Townshend). However, after over 30 years of soaking up Marr’s guidance, the Oasis axeman is finally sharing the ultimate advice Marr has ever given him.
Ahead of Marr auctioning off some of vast collection of gear, the guitarist is hosting a public exhibition in collaboration with Christie’s London. To celebrate the opening of Marr’s Guitars: The Johnny Marr Collection, Marr and Gallagher had a walk around reflecting on their history. In Gallagher’s eyes, the second time they hung out was when he realised Marr was somewhat of a genius.
- READ MORE: Unexpected gear used by Frank Zappa
The revelation came after the pair had perused the selection in a Doncaster guitar shop. On the day, Marr had experimented with a guitar with nine pickups, before handing it back to an employee and telling Gallagher “let’s go”. The two friends then went to a sandwich shop, and that’s when Marr shared some life-changing guitar advice. “This is the best bit of advice I’ve ever been given,” Gallagher says. “He buys a sandwich, and he says, ‘I’ve got to go and eat before I think about buying this guitar.’”
Marr’s logic? “You should never buy a guitar with an empty stomach,” Gallagher recalls.
Alongside his belief that a full stomach is the key to guitar clarity, Marr also believes that the Les Paul is the “ultimate guitar”. Back in the 90s, Gallagher wasn’t so sold on a Les Paul – but Marr’s firm stance was enough to sway him to give a Les Paul another shot. “After about a week, I was like, I fucking love these guitars,” he recalls.
“He texted me and said, ‘I’m even standing different, because [a Les Paul] changes your gait, your attitude, and everything,’” Marr adds.
Marr is so committed to the Les Paul that he has famously gifted at least two Les Pauls to Gallagher over the years, including a 1960 Gibson Les Paul and a black 1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom. One of his Les Paul gifts even made its way onto the cover of Oasis’ 1994 debut single, Supersonic. In fact, a number of Marr’s gifted guitars feature on the cover, including a Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo.
“I remember that you’ve always been a bit gung-ho with your guitars,” Gallagher tells Marr. “I remember the day that when Oasis was recording Definitely Maybe for the first time, and you sent down some guitars… because [the band only had] one guitar each…”
At the time, it left the Oasis brother feeling starstruck. “I remember looking at it on the floor, thinking, ‘That cannot be the fucking the Smiths guitar…’” Gallagher laughs. “I was thinking ‘what if somebody stands on it… [because we were all] rat ass at four in the morning.’”
Christie’s London Marr’s Guitars: The Johnny Marr Collection is running until 17 September. Marr’s new album The Age Of Everything is also out 2 October.
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“We will vigorously defend what we believe is a meritless lawsuit”: Mastodon respond to legal action from Brent Hinds’ estate
Last week, news broke that the estate of late Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds was suing his former bandmates, over the unauthorised use of his likeness on the cover of their latest album, as well as other alleged infractions.
The filing – made at the Fulton County Court in Atlanta, Georgia and reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution – claims Hinds’ likeness was used on the cover for Marrow Deep – released 28 August – without permission, and that the buyout of Hinds’ interests in the band was never finalised prior to his tragic death in August 2025.
The lawsuit alleges that the band “selected and placed a recognisable image of Brent on the album cover of Marrow Deep and disseminated that cover to advertise, market, distribute and sell physical albums, digital downloads and streams, merchandise and related goods or services.”
Now, Hinds’ former Mastodon bandmates – guitarist Bill Kelliher, bassist Troy Sanders and drummer Brann Dailor – have responded in a brief post on Instagram.
They write: “Sadly, a private business dispute with the estate of our dear departed friend Bren Hinds was made public. We strongly deny allegations of ill intent on our part and intend to vigorously defend what we believe is a meritless lawsuit.
“We don’t intend to speak publicly on this going forward, as we feel this wouldn’t honour Brent’s memory or the legacy of his musical gifts.”
It was announced that Brent Hinds had left Mastodon in March last year. He was a founding member of the band in 2000.
The split appeared to be mutual at the time, but in the months following, the guitarist made some thorny comments about his former bandmates, calling them a “shit band with horrible humans”.
Despite the seemingly fractured relationship in the months prior to his death, Hinds’ former bandmates have been remembering their time with him lately fondly.
“He was a man scorned. He said some hurtful things, but I know he didn’t mean it,” said drummer Brann Dailor in a recent interview.
“I was always hopeful that he was going to call me at some point and be like: ‘Dude, I’m done being a ding-dong. Can I come back? I have a riff…’ We were 100% sure he would’ve done that.”
Just a year on, the death of Brent Hinds still affects the members of Mastodon profoundly.
“It isn’t easy to talk about Brent, he was our family, someone we all loved wholeheartedly. He was a wild man, our wild man and that came with some challenges,” the band wrote in July.
“Both things are true and we aren’t interested in chasing one truth over the other. Losing him has meant sitting with a type of grief we never expected. No more hugs, no more high fives, no more disagreements, no more making up. That part has been hard, it’s real.”
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“It’s about having a space that’s big enough to tell 132 years of stories” Gibson’s Mark Agnesi on why Miami’s new Gibson Garage is its biggest yet
Mark Agnesi has got used to answering the same question about Gibson’s latest Garage location: why Miami? The first of Gibson’s popular and innovative “retail experience” locations was in the brand’s home town of Nashville, the second jumped across the pond to London, reimagining the existing Gibson artist space in the centre of one of Europe’s biggest cities.
Most people might have expected the next Garage then, to build on that theme – a New York, Paris, Tokyo… Instead, they opted for a prime spot in the most bohemian part of one of America’s most fun towns. So, why Miami?
“Why Miami? I don’t know if people realise that there’s this whole other part of the world that listens to music in Spanish, and Miami is the hub for all of that music, all of those bands, all of those artists,” Gibson’s Director of Brand Experience explains.
“It’s also a huge port of call for everyone coming in from South America. It’s one of those cities that a lot of people come to. And because of that we’ve had strong relations in Miami forever, so it made a lot of sense for us to put some roots down there as well.”
Inside the Gibson Garage Miami, including the custom-finished guitars created for launch (Image: Gibson)
Go Big
The Miami Garage is also a different proposition to the previous two spaces that Gibson has inhabited – both in vibe and scale. The location, which is smack bang in the middle of Miami’s artsy Wynwood neighborhood, is double the size of the other Garages, and is a much more bespoke offering than the other two.
“It’s the first time that I wasn’t handed a space to design it,” Agnesi explains. “This time we purposefully went out and started looking at spaces, and I got to take the learnings from the first two and really build out what I think the experience should be for Garages moving forward.”
For example, the Miami Garage’s ironic previous life as a parking garage helped create a focal point for the space that Agnesi feels elevates things above what Gibson has been able to do previously.
The exterior of Gibson Garage Miami is as striking as its interior (Image: Gibson)
“The performance space is really the star of the show in Miami,” Agnesi enthuses. “You know, I’m in the ground floor of a parking garage, so there’s no columns anywhere screwing up the interior. Like in Nashville, we have all these great things, but if you’re not in the right spot, you start getting blocked out by columns. Miami is this big space that we can put 400 people in, and everyone’s got unobstructed views of the stage.
“That was the first thing I fell in love with when I walked in there. And as a result the whole Garage really does revolve around the stage, the other areas just open up like a book around it – just like our open-book headstock, man. And the extra space, because we have several different brands, you can have a shop for each one.
“But then you can bring people together, and do these cool things that you really can’t typically do, like bring major artists through to play on stage in the middle of the afternoon, or have Marty Schwartz giving guitar lessons to people and letting kids jump up on stage with him. It’s about having a space that’s big enough to tell 132 years of stories.”
A mural outside the Gibson Garage Miami by street artist Nate Dee (Image: Gibson)
Art Rock
Wynwood is famous around the world as an epicentre of art – the area is home to dozens of galleries and the legendary Wynwood Walls project made the area a wonderfully realised canvas for street art.
Given the location, it was a natural fit for the Miami Garage to expand on the celebration of visual art that began with the London location – the Gibson Gallery. This photographic celebration of Gibson’s impact on music history is a small part of the London Garage, but it’s a large and permanent exhibit in Miami.
A Kramer mural inside the Gibson Garage Miami by street artist Solano (Image: Gibson)
“Just like to be able to walk in, even as a non-player who doesn’t quite understand the brand, and to look up at the walls and literally see the entire history of the last 100 years of recorded music on the wall,” Agnesi reflects. “It starts to click with people.”
The opportunity to bring some of Wynwood’s famous arts culture into the Miami Garage was also something that Agnesi couldn’t resist.
“You’re like ground zero for street art culture,” he reflects. “So we had an actual Wynwood street artist come in and do this massive mural for us in the Kramers section. So actually in the space, there is legit Miami street art. I believe each Garage has to feel like the city that they’re in, and in Miami it’s spectacular.”
Each of Gibson’s brands gets their own bespoke area at the Miami Garage (Image: Gibson)
Factory Record
The Gibson Garage locations have been celebrated for the way they bring the brand and its various sub-brands into the real world, and allow those who have never been to the Gibson factory in Nashville to experience a little of what it’s like. For Agnesi, it’s an ongoing process, but one where the passion for Gibson and guitars drives the whole endeavour.
“Because we love this stuff, man,” he explains. “No matter what, the one thing we all have in common is that we all love this stuff. And anytime you can be in a room with a tonne of guitars, it’s the best feeling in the world.
“But it’s easy to put a tonne of stuff in the room. What we really want to try and do is curate it correctly and artfully so that when people walk in, I want you to feel like you walked into the chocolate factory. I’m still always trying to get there, to give you the Willy Wonka experience. But we’re getting closer with each Garage, and sooner or later we’ll get it.”
“I think it’s really important that all roads – whether it’s product or marketing, storytelling or ad campaigns, our history – all of this stuff converges inside that space. If you’re really into it and you’re a fan of it, there’s this place that you can walk in and really be in the middle of everything that’s happening with Gibson.”
The performance space is the heart of the Miami Garage, and can hold up to 400 people (Image: Gibson)
Broad Church
Everything is an increasingly broad concept at Gibson. While the brand focused on getting the classic stuff right when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2019, the last few years has seen the family of brands branch out to target a much broader audience than it had for a long time – but for Agnesi that’s part of the Gibson DNA.
“We were talking about the Gibson Gallery. You know there’s a picture of Bill Monroe with his Gibson mandolin in there, practically inventing bluegrass. Then there’s “Mother” Maybelle Carter and the Carter family, they pretty much invented country. But then over here there’s BB King and Albert King, and over there there’s Slash and Jimmy Page, and over here is John Lee Hooker and Jimi Hendrix, and over here is Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. Gibson really has been across all stringed instruments, across all genres of music since the dawn of recorded music. It’s all there, we are that diverse.
“So yeah, we had to get the core right first, but then you can start going places. We just released baritones a couple weeks ago. Baritones are back – it’s so cool! We can reach this whole other segment that we weren’t reaching before. We’re doing more stuff with Floyd Roses for people that want that stuff. We’ve got new pickup ranges and higher output pickups and all these different things. And the stuff that Epiphone is doing. I don’t even know if I can talk about some of the crazy new Epiphone stuff that’s coming… but it’s mind blowing how far it’s come in the last five six years.”
The Gibson Garage Miami is the first US Garage to feature a permanent Gibson Gallery display (Image: Gibson)
Hand in hand with the evolution has been the Garages, each one a multi-year project of increasing scope and ambition. And before he’s even finished with the Miami Garage, the brand announced that the next one would arrive sometime in 2027 on the Las Vegas Strip. Agnesi is clearly still focused on the Wynwood project, but the scope of the Vegas Garage is clearly something that has him very excited.
“I feel like Nashville and London are like churches to the brand, right?” Agnesi explains. “Miami is like a cathedral. Las Vegas is the Vatican. Las Vegas is on a totally different level. Las Vegas is a complex on the Vegas Strip, complete with architecture. The Gibson Garages have always just looked like whatever the building that we got the lease in looked like. This is the first time we really identify architecturally what the brand looks like.
“And now we’re going to be out on the Las Vegas Strip, with LED screens playing content out over Las Vegas, 24 hours a day. Las Vegas is a whole other thing. We’ll get into Las Vegas next year. I’m stoked about Miami right now. I’ve got too much to think about!”
Bespoke Gibson merch and custom-finished guitars are exclusive to the Miami Garage (Image Gibson)
The post “It’s about having a space that’s big enough to tell 132 years of stories” Gibson’s Mark Agnesi on why Miami’s new Gibson Garage is its biggest yet appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
It’s Guitar Month at Sweetwater – and a bunch of Positive Grid gear has been discounted
[Editor’s note: These are Sweetwater deals, and are US-focused. If you’re outside the US, you’ll be shown similar deals.]
Right now, Sweetwater is celebrating Guitar Month – which means plenty of guitar discounts and offers galore. Amidst all the dazzling deals, Positive Grid, in particular, has slashed prices across a wide range of products. We’re talking amps, wireless guitar systems and headphones… and, because we’re oh-so nice, we’ve even made things a little easier for you and cherry-picked the best deals. You can thank us later.
If you’re after something a little more portable, the Spark Mini – AKA one of the greatest practice amps ever –has also had a price drop of $50. That means you can grab this weenie combo amp for just $199. That’s under $200 for over 30 different amp types, effects tones, and a surprisingly huge sound despite its small two by two inch scale and 10-watts of power.
There’s also savings on the Steve Vai edition of the Spark Mini – which is unsurprisingly named the Spark Mini Vai, of course. We considered this to be a perfect compact amp for shredders in particular, awarding it 9/10 in 2024. It’s got all the perks of the Spark Mini with the added bonus of Vai-approved sounds pre-loaded onto it, meaning its a tad pricier than the standard edition. Though, only $15 more, meaning it’s just $215 than its usual $269 pricepoint. Not too shabby.
If you’re after something a little bigger, the Spark Cab is also on sale. The 140-watt cabinet comes with a 10-inch woofer and two high-frequency dome tweeters, plus full audio spectrum (45-20,000 Hz) frequency response – and it’s currently $53 off, costing just $296.
For the clumsy axemen our there, Positive Grid’s Spark LINK might be your saving grace. Removing cables from the chaos, we gave this wireless guitar system an 8/10 in 2024, deeming it a “remarkably simple and effective solution”. And, if you’re keen to ditch the wires, you can get the Spark LINK for $119 instead of its usual $149 – a $30 saving.
Sweetwater has also thrown some very exciting bundle deals thrown into the mix, too. For example, you can get the Spark LINK wireless guitar system with the Spark NEO Core headphones. While it’s a somewhat ironic pairing, considering the Bluetooth NEO Core headphones pride themselves on also having a wired option to hear your tones directly plugged into your instrument, we can’t complain seeing the deal. Purchased separately both items would cost $218 – but, bundled, you’ll save $19 and only have to pay $199.
There’s also a great saving of $52.99 if you’re after a portable performance bundle. This comprehensive kit boasts a Spark LIVE 150-watt 4-channel Combo Amp and PA System, as well as a Spark Control X footswitch, the Spark LINK, and even rechargable batteries for the Spark LIVE- and it can all be yours for 849, rather than its individual total of 901.99.
To explore further Positive Grid deals and more, head to Sweetwater.
The post It’s Guitar Month at Sweetwater – and a bunch of Positive Grid gear has been discounted appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.