Norse Guitar Feeds

Boasting a 580,000 square-foot spherical enclosure packed with 1.2 million programmable LED puck lights, the Las Vegas Sphere, it could be argued, currently sits as the pinnacle of venue design.

Capable of hosting up to 20,000 concertgoers, the venue, since opening in 2023, has hosted acts from across the music spectrum, from Eagles, U2 and Dead & Company in the rock world to dance artists like Anyma and Zedd.

Indeed, more and more artists seem keen to jump on the bandwagon and see how their unique artistic styles fare on the Sphere’s ma-hoosive spherical screen, including Metallica, who recently made waves by announcing their 2026 residency at the venue.

But not everyone is quite so convinced, it would seem. Speaking to American Songwriter, Kiss frontman Paul Stanley explains why the glam rockers were never tempted at the thought of performing at the venue.

“Towards the end of the [End of the Road farewell] tour, people were saying, ‘Why don’t you play the Sphere?’” Stanley recalls. “The truth of it is, the Sphere minimises a band. It makes a band miniature. You’re not going there to see a band – you’re going to see screens.”

While Kiss officially hung up their black-and-white outfits and makeup bags in 2023 with a massive swansong set at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the band are set to continue with a string of widely anticipated avatar shows, in which hologram technology will be used to project their likenesses onto the stage, much like ABBA’s Voyage shows.

So it would seem Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer aren’t totally averse to new and emerging technologies, just not the Sphere itself as a concept. He continues:

“We wanted to incorporate the highest of technology, but we want to be the centre of it. It’s a very, very different experience than going to see a postage stamp with a band on it. This is the antithesis of that – it’s 180 degrees from that. The show is going to be spectacular, but it’s only as good as what you put into it.”

Stanley concludes: “If you’ve seen the ABBA [Voyage] show, everybody who’s there is having an amazing time. You become immersed in those four people on stage. This takes it even further.”

Paul Stanley isn’t the only rock veteran against the idea of playing at the Sphere. In August 2025, Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson revealed he hated the idea of the band playing at the venue, saying: “What’s the point of even being there, if you’re a band?”

Kiss’s avatar shows are tentatively scheduled for 2028. Check out a list of upcoming events at the Las Vegas Sphere.

The post “You’re not going there to see a band – you’re going to see screens”: Why Paul Stanley was against Kiss performing at the Las Vegas Sphere appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The search for tonal nirvana never really ends, but strip away the pedals, plugins and endless tweaks, and every electric rig still hinges on two essentials: the guitar and the amp. Which matters more, though, is a debate that’s rumbled on endlessly for decades. Now, Jake E. Lee has thrown his hat into the ring – and he’s firmly on Team Amp.

If the question sounds familiar, that’s because it’s divided players at every level of the game. Yvette Young of math rock band Covet has previously argued that a great amp can elevate even the most budget-friendly instrument, while Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X insists the guitar itself is the foundation of your tone.

• READ MORE: Charvel recreates Jake E. Lee’s Bark at the Moon/Ultimate Sin-era Blue Burst guitar

Speaking in a recent interview with Guitarist, Lee doesn’t hesitate when presented with the classic rig dilemma, even if he’d rather avoid it altogether.

“Oh, no! Not this question,” he laughs. “I’d rather have a good amp. The shitty amp will make any guitar sound shitty, but a good amp will make almost any guitar sound good. I have some really cheap guitars that I love, where the action is high and [they’re] kinda funky-sounding. But I don’t have any amps that are shitty. The amp is more important.”

It’s a perspective shaped not just by decades onstage – including his tenure with Ozzy Osbourne – but also by a lifetime of gear hunting, where amps have often delivered the biggest surprises.

Recalling his time touring England during the Bark at the Moon era, Lee tells the story of stumbling across what might be the ultimate vintage bargain: an overlooked Marshall combo gathering dust in a small shop.

“I used to go into every mom-and-pop shop and see what they had. One day, we were in Northern England and I went into this one shop and an older gentleman in his 60s was behind the counter.

“I see this old Marshall with the plexiglass logo, covered in dust. I said to the guy, ‘How’s that Marshall? Where is it from?’ He says, ‘I don’t know… it’s been here for the last 20 or 25 years.’ I was like, ‘What? Does it work?’”

“It was a 45 with the cream back panel and the gold, square plexiglass logo on the front,” Lee continues. “He picked it up, dusted it off and even though it had been sitting there for years and years, it was brand fucking new. Not a scratch. He said it had been there since maybe ’64 or ’65, and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ He said, ‘No. Why? Do you want it?’ I said, ‘I’ll take the chance if it’s cheap enough,’ and I got it for around £60 [approx. $80].”

“For that amount of money, even if it didn’t work, I’d have figured it out – but it worked. I went to soundcheck, plugged it in and it wasn’t the kind of sound I was looking for with Ozzy – really creamy and sweet and smooth and compressed, with a little sag. That was my greatest find.”

Guitars, however, are a different story. Lee admits one of his biggest regrets isn’t a bad purchase, but rather, one he didn’t make.

“About 20 years ago, I was in a local guitar shop… there was nothing new but this ‘67 Telecaster. And I don’t like Telecasters… But I picked this one up anyway and it felt really good, so I plugged it in. It sounded really good and I had a connection with it.”

“But I put it back down and said, ‘I don’t really like Teles… I don’t even know why I picked it up,’” says Lee. “Two days later, I went back in there because I couldn’t quit thinking about it and it just felt right, but they’d sold it already. So that’s a different kind of buyer’s remorse, right? Maybe we’d call that no-buyer’s remorse [laughs]. I still think about that Tele every once in a while… there was just a connection there. I really wish I’d bought it.”

The post “A good amp will make almost any guitar sound good”: Jake E. Lee picks a side in the great rig debate appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

By: Steve Canfield

PART I – Prosody For Guitarists

PART 2 – Soon!

Every guitarist has written a line that looks great on the page and fights the melody when you try to sing it. Here’s what’s happening, and how to fix it in 30 seconds per line.

Every guitarist has written a line that looks great on paper and then fights the melody when you try to sing it. The words are right. The chord progression is right. But something is still off. In almost every case I’ve seen, the culprit is prosody.

Prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of spoken language. It’s the reason “REC-ord” (the noun) sounds different from “re-CORD” (the verb). It’s the reason a lyric can scan perfectly on the page and still land wrong when you sing it. When a melody fights the natural stress of the words, the listener feels it even if they couldn’t name what’s wrong.

This is a two-part piece. Part 1 covers syllable stress, the first and most underused tool in matching lyrics to melody. PART 2, covers phrase contour and how the shape of a melodic line carries emotional weight.

The Strong Syllable Rule

Every English word of more than one syllable has a pattern of strong and weak syllables. “Guitar” is weak-STRONG. “Music” is STRONG-weak. “Am-BI-gu-ous” is weak-STRONG-weak-weak. Native speakers never have to think about this; we just know it.

When you sing a word, your melody assigns emphasis to syllables through pitch and duration. Higher notes and longer notes feel more accented than lower, shorter ones. If your melody emphasizes the wrong syllable, the line sounds awkward even when the listener can’t articulate why.

A classic example: a songwriter writes the word “forever” onto a melody that lands the high note on “FOR-ev-er.” But “forever” is “for-EV-er.” The melody is fighting the word. The listener’s ear expects the emphasis on “EV,” gets it on “FOR,” and the line feels stilted.

This is a fixable problem, once you know to listen for it!

The “Say it, don’t sing it” Test

Before committing a line, say it out loud in the rhythm of your intended melody. Not sung. Spoken, with the same emphasis pattern your melody is about to use. If the spoken version feels natural, the sung version will too. If the spoken version sounds stilted or robotic, the melody and the words are fighting each other.

This works in reverse too. If a line is bothering you in a song you’ve already written, speak the words in the rhythm of the melody. The awkwardness will either disappear (meaning the problem is elsewhere) or it becomes obvious.

Three Ways To Fix A Line That Fights Itself

In order of how much they cost you as the writer:

1. Change the word. If “forever” is fighting your melody, what about “always”? “AL-ways” starts with the strong syllable. If the emphasis in your melody lands on beat 1, “always” sings naturally where “forever” won’t. This is usually the cheapest fix.

This arrangement is based loosely on the version recorded by Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice (1980), and it works as a study in traditional flatpicking accompaniment.

Rolling Stones legend Ronnie Wood has spoken about his relationship with guitar icon Jimi Hendrix, remembering the time the pair lived together in the late ‘60s.

In an extract from his new book Fearless: The Anthology – shared exclusively with Guitar.com – Wood, who is also a keen painter, reflects on his friendship with Hendrix, sharing a painting of the two at New York’s Scene Club in 1968.

“During the time I was with the Jeff Beck Group,” he writes. “Jimi liked how I played bass and he’d say to Jeff, ‘Let the bass player play,’ so Jeff would have to let me take long solos. That’s how I got to know Jimi more – we’ve have jamming sessions. He used to just turn up and come and play.”

• READ MORE: Ronnie Wood celebrates 50 years as a Rolling Stone with new paintings of bandmates Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts

In the late 1960s, both Ronnie Wood and Jimi Hendrix shared a house in Holland Park, which belonged to soul singer Pat “P.P” Arnold. During this time, Wood remembers being “mind-blown” by Jimi’s playing chops – particularly his ambidexterity.

“He was quite quiet as a flatmate,” Wood reflects. “He’d just sit back and play right-handed or left-handed guitar – that ambidextrousness blew my mind. If I try to play left-handed it’s like giving a child a guitar.

Credit: Genesis Publications

“Sometimes we’d get out the acoustics and swap blues licks for him to warm up before a show. He always said, ‘I don’t like my voice.’ And I’d say, ‘Don’t worry, your guitar playing takes care of that.’ He was a very sweet man.”

Described as Ronnie Wood’s “musicography”, Fearless: The Anthology charts – in his own words – some of the most defining moments from his illustrious career, from performing in London clubs with The Birds in the ‘60s to his time as bassist with the Jeff Beck Group, all the way to his five decades with the Rolling Stones.

This edition also opens up Ronnie Wood’s archive for the first time, showcasing via special photography everything including legendary guitars and other rare instruments, custom-made straps, amps, designer stage wear, concert setlists and so much more.

Some of Wood’s most important stage and studio guitars are featured including his Duesenberg Starplayer TV, Versoul Raya, Gibson Firebird and even his collection of lap and pedal steels.

“Every detail – the colours, patina, wear and tear and unique modifications – has been captured to tell the story of Ronnie’s extraordinary journey through music,” says a press release shared with Guitar.com.

Fearless: The Anthology is available now for pre-order. While copies of the Deluxe Edition have already sold out, the Collector’s Edition is still up for grabs, priced at £325, and shipping in May 2026.

Learn more at RonnieWoodAnthology.com.

The post Ronnie Wood remembers living with “sweet man” Jimi Hendrix: “He’d just sit back and play right-handed or left-handed – that blew my mind” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Sudden, world-conquering success might sound like the dream for any musician – but for 22-year-old Dave Grohl, that reality quickly became overwhelming.

In a new interview, the former Nirvana drummer opens up about anxiety and coping with fame at the height of the band’s explosion. Speaking in a recent chat with Logan Kelly on Logan Sounds Off, the Foo Fighters frontman reflects on just how disorienting Nirvana’s sudden mainstream success was.

• READ MORE: “I was afraid of silence, of having to feel”: Dave Grohl admits he used music as a “crutch” after Taylor Hawkins’ death

“We didn’t think that it would be as popular as it became,” Grohl begins. “But I knew that the songs were so good. Kurt [Cobain] wrote amazing songs. His voice was so amazing and as a band we made this crazy noise and so I knew that it was special but I didn’t really think anyone else would understand the way that we did.”

“So when it became hugely popular it kind of freaked us all out. We were not expecting that to happen and it’s a lot to deal with. We were young too. I think I was 22 years old and I didn’t have much life behind me at that point. So yeah, it kind of freaked us all out.”

As the band’s profile grew, so did the pressure and the scale of what they were dealing with.

“It got to the point where I would have anxiety,” the guitarist explains. “The shows were getting bigger and I was nervous about that. Crazy shit was happening – shows were turning into riots.”

To cope, Grohl found himself retreating to something far removed from the chaos of Nirvana at their peak: “Whenever I had that anxiety or felt uncomfortable with it I would just go back to Virginia to my mother’s house and I would sleep in my childhood bedroom and hang out with my buddies from high school and be like ‘okay well life is still real.’ Like there’s still real life here.”

“I think everybody needs that,” he adds. “I think Kurt maybe didn’t have that and being the front person of the band he really did bear the brunt and responsibility of whatever it was. That could be difficult for anybody, especially at a young age. But I’ve always kind of relied on that.”

These days though, Grohl says he’s found a different kind of safety net – one built within his own band.

“It’s funny now as a band since we’ve been together for so long, just as I would lean on or retreat to my family when I was young, I can do that now with our band. We’ve just been together for so long that if I’m losing my fucking mind and the band is really busy and things are crazy, I can sort of step into the band instead of out of it for comfort.”

Elsewhere in the chat, the Foo Fighters leader also reveals his newfound fascination with Quebec rock duo Angine de Poitrine, noting how their music “absolutely blew my fucking mind.”

Watch the full interview below.

The post “I’d go back to my mother’s house and sleep in my childhood bed and feel like life is still real”: Dave Grohl on coping with Nirvana’s sudden mainstream success appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Billy Corgan is no fan of AI, and the world certainly won’t be seeing him use it in his music any time soon, if ever.

Appearing on the latest episode of And The Writer Is… podcast, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman slams artificial intelligence as “the most cataclysmic technological innovation” since the invention of moving pictures, framing its rise as an existential threat to songwriters and the creative process itself.

“You didn’t ask me, but I’m gonna make a declaratory statement,” Corgan begins [via Blabbermouth], “I refuse, refuse, patently refuse to use AI in my music creation. Because, to me, it’s a deal with the devil. Simple. Whether it’s the Promethean fire myth or whatever, to me you’re literally leaning into the thing that will destroy you. Period.”

• READ MORE: “Adapt or give up and become an Uber driver”: Diplo has harsh words for music producers sceptical of AI

For Corgan, the value of making music lies in the struggle itself: the doubt, the creative blocks, and the slow process of finding something new.

“The pressure, the inspiration, the soul searching, the ‘I’m not sure I got anything else to say’, that’s all part of the journey that a songwriter needs to go through,” he explains. “I’m saying it’s good that a songwriter has doubt, it’s good that a songwriter’s not sure they have anything left to say, it’s good that a songwriter has to think of a new chord that they haven’t thought of. That’s where the magic comes from.”

Removing that struggle risks changing not just how music is made, but how it is valued. In an AI-shaped future, he argues, authenticity itself could become a selling point.

“Maybe people will listen to me and continue to listen to me into my old age because they know it’s coming from me. That actually might be part of the sale.”

But Corgan’s concern extends beyond individual artistry. What begins as a creative tool, he warns, could reshape the entire ecosystem around music-making.

“I’m saying I’m making a bigger argument,” he continues. “We, us, we’re flirting with the thing that will destroy us as a economy, as a business, as a movement. We’re asking to be eradicated. We’re giving them our information. They already have all our other information. God knows what the labels are doing… You’re asking to be wiped out.”

“I think the real fallow winter that’s coming is you’re gonna lose generations of songwriters.”

He then draws a comparison to the rise of superproducers like Max Martin, and a music landscape whereby the “producer-writer is more important than the artist”, noting how AI could accelerate that shift to its extreme, to the point where the human musicianship is no longer central to creation at all.

“You’re gonna see the rise of the guy who knows how to run the programs better than the other guy or girl,” says Corgan. “And he’ll be branded and he’ll have a sponsorship and he’ll be doing commercials [saying] ‘you can be just like me… I’m just really good at knowing how to put this information together. I don’t even know fucking music. I just know what I like.’”

While he acknowledges that every generation has its technological ‘shock’, Corgan believes this one will hit harder than most.

“Let’s face it, this shit’s gonna wipe out a lot of people,” he says. “This might be the most cataclysmic technological innovation in this town since the change from silence to talking pictures. A lot of people are gonna lose their gig and there’s gonna be a lot of new faces who are suddenly boy or girl wonder because they know how to press some fricking buttons.”

The post “I patently refuse to use AI in my music creation”: Billy Corgan calls AI “a deal with the devil” that could “wipe out” generations of songwriters appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Ever wondered what it takes to keep one of rock’s biggest guitarists stage-ready night after night? In a new interview, Slash’s longtime guitar tech Ryan Redler peels back the curtain on life in service of the Guns N’ Roses icon – and it’s every bit as relentless, high-pressure, and gear-destroying as his ferocious playing style suggests.

Speaking on Shane Theriot’s Guitar Channel, Redler reveals the brutal workload that comes with maintaining Slash’s road-worn arsenal, starting with a seemingly simple task that quickly becomes anything but.

• READ MORE: “It was the perfect choice to make fun of guitar heroes”: The story behind Angine de Poitrine’s ridiculous double-neck guitar

“Slash, I had to change his strings every day,” Redler explains. “He would play one song and destroy [them], because of the sweat and just how hard he plays.”

“So I was stringing his guitars every day – six, seven, eight, at least, stretching the strings, too, making sure the nut’s all set,” he says. “Man, I was wrecking my hands. I was changing so many guitars of his a day that on days off, I’d just rest my hands.”

That same intensity also extends beyond strings and into last-minute gear curveballs. During the interview, Redler recalls one particularly tense moment during the 2015 World on Fire tour that nearly derailed a show. Tasked with prepping a last-minute double-neck guitar, he was hit with an unexpected request just minutes before showtime.

“We went to Europe, and he decided he wanted to play a song where he needed a double-neck. We didn’t take his with him, so I found him a double-neck, and right before the show, I showed it to him, and the pickup covers were still on.”

Redler continues, “He goes, ‘You got to take the pickup covers off.’ And I was like ‘now?’ And it was getting close to showtime, and I had a lot of stuff to do. So that meant four pickup covers off, and they’re soldered on there.”

“One of my friends just told me, 11 years later, he’s like, ‘Oh, there’s a really easy way to do this.’”

“But [at the time] I had to do four of them, and it was hot. We were outdoors. I didn’t have my whole work case. So I started doing it. I’m taking the pickguards off… I was melting the solder to get that off, and one of those springs goes flying,” he says. “I was nervous enough, and that spring goes flying, and it’s an old wooden stage. And I didn’t have my stuff with me. I didn’t have a spring, and I don’t know what I would have done.”

With the clock ticking and the stage moments away from going live, Redler scrambled to recover: “I looked for about 15 minutes, and time’s running out. It’s showtime… but I found that spring. I did it, and hopefully it was in tune that night!”

Beyond repairs, Redler’s guitar tech’ing duties with Slash also extend into the performance itself.

“If he’s playing a lead, [I had to] hit a boost or a chorus,” says Redler.

Even so, the pair’s working relationship remains surprisingly grounded: “If we had something go wrong, I could always go talk to him and say, ‘Hey, man.’ He’s always available. You could always go into the dressing room after and say, ‘Hey, I screwed up.’”

The post “I had to change his strings every day. He would play one song and destroy them”: Slash guitar tech reveals what it’s like working for the Guns N’ Roses legend appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$2,199.99/£1,980, line6.com

On their current development trajectory, floor-based guitar processors will control the entire known universe by 2046. Digital amp modelling has come a long way since the original Line 6 Pod appeared in 1998, and it’s the same company that’s now pushing forwards towards cosmic domination with its new twin flagships, the Helix Stadium and Stadium XL.

This is the latter. It’s big, it’s heavy, and in pricing terms it’s a cost-of-living crisis in a box. But it’s also stuffed with new processing tech and advanced features, which should make it more useful – and more tonally realistic – than any previous offering in the Helix line.

Line 6 Helix Stadium XL – what is it?

When you see a huge black rectangle like this, either you’re watching the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey or there’s a new deluxe guitar processor in town. In fact, the Helix Stadium XL is slightly less monolithic in dimensions than the old Helix Floor, despite having the same basic layout – two rows of six footswitches plus an expression pedal – and a bigger display: a full eight inches instead of six and a bit, and now with touch control.

What it’s packing on the inside is, in a word, everything – and that includes such bonuses as imported backing tracks, stomp-free looping and automated setlists – but let’s start with the modelling basics. Plug your guitar in at one end, and connect one of the assorted outputs straight to a live PA, a recording interface or simply a pair of headphones; you now have access to 134 amplifier models, plus 46 speaker cabinets and 246 effects pedals. These can be arranged in up to 512 user presets, all controlled by swishing a fingertip around on that screen (with some help from the many knobs and buttons plus the touch-sensitive footswitches).

Image: Adam Gasson

Of course, having a touchscreen is nothing new in this field – the HeadRush Pedalboard had one back in 2017, and Line 6 is really catching up with everyone else here – but there’s more that’s new in the Stadium XL… starting with the all-important amp models. These have been built using a new technology called Agoura, which claims to provide more lifelike sounds and feel than ever before. This is thanks to its component-level capturing of real amplifiers, right down to such ultra-nerdy details as measuring impedance levels between gain stages and current flow within valves at different voltages.

Mind you, if you still don’t trust anyone else to supply your amp tones, you can always use your own: also new is a system called Proxy, which is Line 6’s take on profiling, cloning, capturing or whatever else you want to call ‘the Kemper thing’. This wasn’t ready for the initial launch but has arrived with firmware version 1.3, allowing you to clone your own amps and pedals so you can take them on the road in virtual form.

And finally, there’s Showcase – the ‘live automation engine’. This lets you set the unit to switch automatically between different settings at precise points – including recording loops then playing them back later in a song – and sync those cues with external MIDI gear. You can also use it to import stereo backing tracks and send different mixes to different outputs – Line 6 gives the example of routing a click track to a drummer via the headphone socket while everything else goes to the main stereo outputs.

Image: Adam Gasson

So basically, you’re no longer dealing with a mere guitar processor here but a sort of robot performance hub. You might find that idea wildly exciting; you might find it utterly irrelevant to your guitar-playing life. Either way, note that all the Showcase stuff happens in the Helix Stadium PC/Mac app, with your files jumping over to the unit afterwards via WiFi.

Line 6 Helix Stadium XL – is it easy to use?

Unless you nodded off halfway through the previous section – don’t feel bad, it happens all the time – you’ll have gathered that this is an extremely powerful and complex piece of equipment. That means one of the main design challenges for Line 6 was ensuring ease of use; and on the whole, thanks in no small part to that spacious touchscreen (it’s about the same size as an iPad Mini), they’ve succeeded.

Image: Adam Gasson

You’ll probably want to set aside a distraction-free evening for getting used to the main navigation procedures, but the fundamentals are all pretty intuitive and there’s plenty of help at hand from the online guides and tutorials. Even the cloning process is just about foolproof: all the steps are laid out clearly on the screen.

If you do want to dive into the Stadium XL’s more advanced features, be prepared for some head-scratching along the way – but honestly, there’s so much going on without them that you might never feel the need.

Line 6 Helix Stadium XL – what does it sound like?

People get awfully combative about why their preferred amp modeller sounds so great and all the others are so crap, don’t they? But it seems to me that the differences are getting smaller year by year… and if Line 6 was behind the competition in terms of sheer realism before, it isn’t any more. The Agoura models sound consistently excellent, to the extent that it’s hard to see what more you could possibly ask of them. And that goes for the playing feel too.

Image: Adam Gasson

As ever, there are dozens of factory presets to scroll through in order to get a sense of what the device can do; and as ever, most of them have too much reverb. But everything is covered, from chiming black-panel cleans to roaring Marshall crunch, from oddball ethereal ambiences to aggressively gated modern metal tones – and there are no obvious weak points.

A couple of new tone-shaping features are worth mentioning here: Hype and Focus View. The former is an extra control that lets you push an amp beyond strict realism into something a bit more ‘big’ and compressed – think of it as a sort of pre-mastering option – and the latter, much more interestingly, is a way of adjusting multiple controls at once by moving the cursor around a screen with different tone types in each corner. This is adding nothing in terms of available sounds, but as an extra-intuitive way of navigating a virtual amp (or pedal) it’s wonderfully clever.

The effects are good too, within certain limitations: I couldn’t get a Muff to sound as expansive as my Stomp Under Foot Ram’s Head, or a Klon to quite match my Bondi Effects Sick As… and there’s still no such thing as a satisfactory digital emulation of the Deluxe Memory Man. But they’re generally very close, and I had no complaints about any of the modulation pedals.

Image: Adam Gasson

And I was, in the end, able to get an absolutely identical sound to that Ram’s Head… by cloning it. The Proxy tech works really well on both pedals and amps, though the process does take a while and, like rival systems, involves a lot of strange noises if you’re using a speaker cab and microphone to get the full picture. Make sure the windows are closed if you’ve got easily spooked neighbours.

The power of Showcase is also impressive. Its most useful element is probably the ability to import multiple backing tracks, then tweak their levels and panning in mid-performance, turning the Stadium XL into a highly flexible virtual band on top of all its other skills.

One practical issue to mention is the half-second gap when switching between presets. But this is easily avoided as long as you don’t insist on changing amps in mid-song: if you use ‘snapshots’ instead to store and jump between different settings within the same rig, the changes are gapless.

Line 6 Helix Stadium XL – should I buy it?

The Stadium XL is full of ‘wow’ moments; it’s just unfortunate that one of them is for the price. If that’s not an issue for you, then go for it – this is a fabulously powerful processor with a user-friendly interface and a sackload of top-quality tones.

For the rest of us, it might make sense to wait and see if Line 6 rolls out a more affordable model as a replacement for the Helix LT. If that comes along with the same touch display and Agoura amp modelling as the Stadium and Stadium XL – never mind Proxy and Showcase, which are very cool but inessential for the average player – then it will surely be the one to get.

Line 6 Helix Stadium XL alternatives

We gave the Neural DSP Quad Cortex ($1,799/£1,449) a 10/10 review, although that was five years ago and its seven-inch screen is no longer the state of the art. The Fender Tone Master Pro ($1,599.99/£1,499) is another strong contender with a seven-inch display, but don’t forget the non-XL version of the Line 6 Helix Stadium ($1,799.99/£1,549), which saves you more than a few pennies by chopping off the expression pedal.

The post Line 6 Helix Stadium XL review – “bewilderingly ambitious… but it feels like the future” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Sponsored by MusicNomad: MusicNomad’s Acousti-Lok™ is a strap solution that adds the safety & flexibility of using strap locks on your acoustic guitar without permanently modifying it. Designed to be used with Schaller style strap locks, Acousti-Lok’s strong, solid brass construction gives you the security you have been looking for. With different Acousti-Lok versions to choose […]

Gretsch has launched two new guitars offering alluring and modern takes on two classic designs.

Both reimagined versions of designs dating back to 1958, the C6134TG-58 Limited Edition 1958 Custom Penguin and G6136TG-58 Limited Edition 1958 Custom Falcon arrive as real lookers, sharing a dark Emerald Night finish, plus Bigsby tailpieces and TV Jones Ray Butts Ful-Fidelity Filter-Tron pickups.

• READ MORE: This Sex Pistols 50th Anniversary Marshall stack might be the most punk guitar amp ever
  

These TV Jones pickups are made according to the personal notes and designs of late Filter-Tron inventor Ray Butts, and are said to produce a tighter bass response and slightly more top end than modern Filter’Tron pickups, while the absence of wax potting “results in a more open, three-dimensional sound”.

Both models share similar spec sheets, with a Space Control bridge with a pinned ebony base, gold hardware, Standard U neck profiles and 22 medium jumbo frets. As a forward-thinking appointment, both guitars feature Luminlay glow-in-the-dark side dot fret markers, plus gold plexi pickguards with their respective birds etched in.

In terms of where they diverge, the Penguin has a mahogany solid body and neck with a Bigsby B3GP String-Thru vibrato tailpiece. Its body is chambered just like the Duo Jet, making it lighter and more resonant than most solid-body guitars.

The Falcon hollow body has a maple body and glued-in neck, and it has a Bigsby B6GP String-Thru vibrato tailpiece. The body was constructed with 1959 trestle bracing, running 2.75” deep.

“Both models deliver rich vintage tone with elevated playability,” Gretsch writes. “These rare birds are crafted for players who want a classic Gretsch feel with standout performance.⁠”

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Both guitars are available now, with the Penguin priced at £3,739, and the Falcon at £4,339.

Head to Gretsch for more information.

The post These limited-edition Emerald Night Gretsch Penguin and Falcon guitars are real lookers appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Dave Mustaine has spoken about the influence he feels he’s had on the guitarists in his Big Four co-members, Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax.

In a new interview with São Paulo, Brazil’s 89 FM A Rádio Rock, the Megadeth frontman explains the effect his guitar playing had on his thrash metal contemporaries. “I’ve been very invested in the metal community,” he says [via Blabbermouth].

• READ MORE: “I’d listen to it in my bunk on my Walkman in private”: David Ellefson kept his love of Metallica’s Master of Puppets a secret from Dave Mustaine

“Kerry [King, Slayer guitarist] and I played together [during the early days of both bands], and I showed him how to play Megadeth songs, which was before [Slayer] started having all their pivotal records. Kerry and I had a really great time together.”

He continues: “And I wrote music in Metallica and I wrote music in Megadeth. So I’ve been very influential with the guitar with these three bands.”

Dave Mustaine was Metallica’s lead guitarist between 1981 and 1983, before he was fired from the band for alcoholism, drug addiction and personal conflicts. He helped write a number of songs on the band’s debut album Kill ‘Em All – which was ultimately recorded with Kirk Hammett who joined in ‘83 – as well as Ride the Lightning, from the band’s sophomore album and covered this year on Megadeth’s final album.

“And when I met Scott [Ian, Anthrax guitarist] and the guys in Anthrax out in New York,” he goes on, “the same thing happened.

“Their first record was very different from the record they made after they met me and the guys in Metallica. So I think that’s great. I love all those bands.”

Though tensions have died down in the decades following their split, Dave Mustaine continues to reflect on his past with Metallica in interviews. Recently, he claimed that Megadeth’s success was, in part, due to the motivating factor of Metallica “trying to hold me back”.

“And it wasn’t just Metallica, it was everybody. For a long time, it very much was me against the world. It was like, okay, if you’re not with me, you’re against me,” he said.

Megadeth released their final album earlier this year, and are embarking on a massive world tour for the rest of 2026.

For a full list of dates, head to megadeth.com.

 

The post “Their first record was very different to the record they made after they met me”: Dave Mustaine on how he has influenced Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Jack White and Donald Trump have never quite seen eye-to-eye. From filing a lawsuit over the usage of Seven Nation Army in a 2024 Presidential campaign video, to branding Trump a “disgusting, vile, egomaniac, loser, child” in December, the White Stripes man has always been very vocal about his distaste for the US President.

Now, White has criticised Trump for likening himself to Jesus in a since-deleted Truth Social post. The controversial image in question was an AI-generated depiction of Trump in a white robe ‘healing’ veterans, surrounded by a holy, halo-like glow – something he told reporters was merely intended to show him as a “doctor making people better” [via the BBC].

• READ MORE: Jack White never wanted to use a Stratocaster because they were “overused” and “indicative of white boy blues”

In light of the image, White took to Instagram to voice his disdain. His thoughts centred around the seemingly blasphemous nature of the AI-image, questioning how devout Christians continue to support the US President. “Hey evangelical Christians?” the guitarist writes. “Remember that anti-Christ you been squawking about all these years and how he’d present himself as Christlike and bring about the end of days with a final war in the Middle East involving Jerusalem? Well…check out your boy now!”

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He goes on to question why Catholic supporters continue to stand by Trump in spite of his multiple “attacks [on] the character of their Pope”, with Trump recently labelling Pope Leo XIV “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” [via The Independent]. White also included a second AI image of Trump depicted as the Pope from May last year, to further cement his point.

“How did so many millions of people fall for this conman?” White continues. “He’s already got worst President in the history of America on lock, but I’m gonna go ahead and take the honour of pronouncing Trump ‘Worst American of All Time.’”

In more positive news, it’s shaping up to be an exciting year for White. The garage rocker is set to host his first ever UK art exhibition, These Thoughts May Disappear, opening in May, as well as confirming a slew of dates for a 2026 world tour.

The tour will see White swinging by the UK in August, too. His UK run will include two gigs at London’s Eventim Apollo on 25th and 26th August, as well as shows in Bristol, Newcastle, Belfast and Dublin.

White has also teased fans with two new tracks, G.O.D And The Broken Ribs and Derecho Demonico. While nothing else is confirmed, here’s to hoping White is gearing up for a new album.

For more information on Jack White’s upcoming tour, head to his website.

The post Jack White brands Donald Trump the “Worst American of All Time” in light of the US president seemingly likening himself to Jesus Christ appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Punk may pride itself on breaking rules, but Violet Grohl thinks some of its male musicians are still playing by old ones. The 19-year-old, daughter of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, has criticised what she describes as “attitude problems” among male artists of her generation.

Speaking to The Forty-Five ahead of her debut album Be Sweet To Me, Grohl outlines her frustrations with the current state of punk and hardcore scenes, particularly when it comes to how women are treated within them.

On her track Cool Buzz, she points to what she sees as a disconnect between the progressive image some male musicians project and the reality of their behaviour.

• READ MORE: “It was the perfect choice to make fun of guitar heroes”: The story behind Angine de Poitrine’s ridiculous double-neck guitar

“It still feels like an exclusive scene,” says Grohl. “Especially when you wanna listen to really hardcore shit and run around and mosh, there’s a lot of ‘Oh, you’re too delicate, you’re too feminine, this isn’t your place.’ But I do wanna be in that space and I know there are a lot of other girls who want to be there too. So I think more girls should make punk music, if these spaces aren’t gonna allow it.”

While she’s found a sense of community among female artists – including close friend Persia Numan, daughter of Gary Numan, and collaborator on What’s Heaven Without You – Grohl is far less charitable when it comes to her male peers.

“I don’t like male musicians my age,” she says bluntly. “I don’t care. They have attitude problems. They’ve been saying this about us for so fucking long – it’s time that they sit down, be quiet and play their music.”

As a woman in rock, Grohl says learning to set boundaries has been as important as finding confidence in her voice.

“The best advice I’ve been given is that it’s OK to say no or that you don’t want to do something,” she says. “For a lot of women, it took them a really long time to accept and implement that into their lives. It’s inspiring to be around the kinds of people who don’t give a fuck and will say whatever they feel.”

Be Sweet To Me arrives on 29 May. Check out Grohl’s latest single 595 below.

The post Violet Grohl thinks male musicians of her generation have “attitude problems”: “It’s time that they sit down, be quiet and play their music” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Between viral live sessions, a rapidly growing cult following, and even a recent co-sign from Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Angine de Poitrine’s rise has been hard to ignore. But for a band that looks and sounds this intense, their core idea is surprisingly tongue-in-cheek.

In a recent chat with Cult MTL, guitarist Khn de Poitrine reveals that the project didn’t begin as some grand artistic statement, but as an inside joke that spiralled into something much bigger.

“This project is a culmination of a lot of years of inside jokes,” says Khn. “The names were our alter egos in a 10-minute free jazz project, where I was just fooling around on saxophone and (Klek) was on drums.”

• READ MORE: Slipknot’s Jim Root explains why Fender Telecasters are like sunglasses

That playful, slightly absurd energy also shaped the band’s iconic masked personas, which were originally conceived as a kind of experiment in anonymity.

“At first, the idea for the costumes was to play more shows and play a bit of an Andy Kaufman-esque joke on the crowd and say, ‘Hey, can we start a band without anybody knowing who we are?’ And who is it behind the masks?” drummer Klek de Poitrine explains.

What started as a gag, however, has since become something more practical.

“There’s a comfort to feeling, ‘Oh, I’m this on stage,’ but after that, I’m a normal person,” Klek adds. “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.”

Musically, the duo’s sound is just as unconventional. Before releasing their debut single Sherpa in 2024, the band’s signature microtonal approach began with a DIY experiment.

“I took two guitars, and I took the frets from one board, which was kind of rusty and fucked up anyway, and I put them on a second fret board,” Klek recalls.

Early performances saw Khn juggling between a microtonal guitar and bass while looping parts live. But it didn’t take long before the pair began thinking bigger – and stranger.

“We thought it would look fucking sick, and for 15 seconds, we were like, ‘Oh, that’s a funny joke.’ But it became clear that it was a good idea,” Klek says of the now-signature double-neck build.

After fielding eye-watering quotes from luthiers – including one that came in at $12,000 per fretboard – the instrument was eventually built by a “professional friend” of Angine de Poitrine. And it quickly became central to the band’s identity.

“The whole idea of the band was to assume a bit of a satirical approach to rock music in general,” says Khn. “We wanted an exaggeration, so the double-neck guitar was the perfect choice to kind of make fun of guitar heroes.”

“We will have short musical statements in the songs that are actually just jokes, like, this is the boomer lick, and just shout (distortedly) ‘Hail Santana!’ into the microphone. Obviously, we love Santana. It’s a love statement, but also a caricature, because you’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself and say, ‘What we do is ridiculous.’”

The post “It was the perfect choice to make fun of guitar heroes”: The story behind Angine de Poitrine’s ridiculous double-neck guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$129, ehx.com

When you think of Electro-Harmonix, you may not think weird, at least, not weird effects. Magnetospheres and cigars aside, EHX’s sonic focus is for the most part gain and utility pedals. But every once in a while, the brand passes what we’ll call the “Chase Bliss Event Horizon” and makes something entirely dedicated to bleeps and bloops, the sort of pedal you’d see in an old Knobs review. The latest effort from EHX in this particular direction is the Atomic Cluster, a “spectral decomposer” – what does that mean? Let’s get into it.

• READ MORE: Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante review – a dual dirt pedal that’s faster than the speed of light

What does the Atomic Cluster do?

The Atomic Cluster is, kind of, the filter equivalent of an arpeggiator. It isolates the component frequencies of your signal – the note’s fundamental and its overtones – and then rhythmically steps through them.

Controls include a volume and wet/dry blend, along with two knobs specific to this kind of effect: speed, which determines how quickly the effect steps through the discrete frequency bands, and atoms, which determines how many bands the pedal is chopped into. You also get a mode switch, which decides whether the transitions between the frequency bands are sharp and choppy or smoothed over.

These controls are packed into EHX’s pico form factor. There are undeniable benefits to the Pico platform, mostly in terms of saving pedalboard space – but you may find the controls fiddly to turn, and, as with all mini pedals, they can end up not saving quite as much space as you might hope, as ultimately you still need to leave room for patch cables, and to actually hit the footswitch.

Image: Press

Does the Atomic Cluster sound good?

My initial experiences with the effect are, sonically, pretty hard to square with anything anyone would want to use in any musical setting. In isolation, with an otherwise clean and dry sound, I find the Atomic Cluster fairly useless. The harsh filtering is just kind of unpleasant rather than interesting, and the steps between the atoms are pretty jarring, even on ‘smooth’ mode.

However, as the pedal works using overtones, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that putting a clean guitar sound into the front of the Atomic Cluster is going to be a tonal disaster. The signal that comes straight out of a guitar pickup has a strong fundamental compared to its harmonics – and so the resulting chopped-up sound, with the Atomic Cluster isolating these harmonics, is an unbalanced mess.

Hence, the next thing I do is get a distortion pedal placed ahead of it – this gives a more complex sound for the pedal to work with, a block of full-frequency sound to chop into slices. I then also turn on some reverb and delay – as well as helping evoke a more soundscapey vibe, these effects also help mask the crunchy artefacting from the digital filtering.

With these extra effects engaged, the sound is a lot more intriguing. It kind of sounds like my playing is being automatically accompanied by a weird, complex modular synth setup, pseudo-arpeggiating through the sounds of sustained chords. It does very little to augment the sounds of more traditional shreddy or bluesy playing, but you already knew that. Instead, I spend some time making loops and picking out some sparse, slow chord changes – the Atomic Cluster does indeed add a dimension of interest and depth in this musical mode.

As some people have pointed out in the comments of EHX’s official demo, the Atomic Cluster comes alive best on a synth, and indeed when I plug in a hardware synth I have a much easier time finding strange, crystalline worlds within its tonal universe. This isn’t too surprising, especially with more complex, multi-oscillator sounds, as these provide a fuller-frequency basis for the pedal to work with.

For guitar, though, it does feel like I at the very least need some compression, if not distortion, before the pedal to have it functioning properly – and indeed, this is actually recommended in the pedal’s manual. Which slightly begs the question as to why some compression or distortion weren’t included as part of the effect’s digital signal chain. Perhaps it would have brought the price up too much, or been too much of a lift given its miniscule form-factor and four knobs. However, we’re now in a world awash with all-in-one ambient-in-a-box pedals – which, even if they’re weird and unique effects, can function without too much help from a wider board.

And so the Atomic Cluster remains a difficult pedal to enthusiastically recommend to anyone other than EHX completionists, or those who are happy to compensate for its limitations. Sure, it’s a unique character effect, but it’s so unique and so characterful you may find yourself wrangling your playing – and your signal chain – to be in service of it. This can be cool for bedroom sound-scaping – but it’s a harder sell outside of that context. The good thing about it is its price – it is luckily not a lot of money for a pedal that needs a little signal-chain help.

Electro-Harmonix Atomic Cluster alternatives

The first thing it reminds me of is my dearly departed EQD Arpanoid, which is a more traditional arpeggiator that pitch-shifts your sound rather than slices it up. For a more in-depth and perhaps easier to use lo-fi filter thing, you’ve got a lot of options, of course, but the Old Blood Noise Endeavours Float comes to mind, being a controllable and weird set of filters.

The post EHX Pico Atomic Cluster review – is this whacky and weird filter effect worth it? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Press Release

Source: The Green Room PR

Reba McEntire will begin releasing music capsules each month, thematically curated songs from throughout her career paired with brand new recordings that spotlight the road ahead for the iconic entertainer. The first release, ONE NIGHT IN TULSA, centers songs around her home state and will be released this Friday, April 17 via MCA and is available for pre-save HERE.

On April 9, McEntire previewed the project during a special performance at her restaurant Reba’s Place, where she debuted a new song and title track of the first capsule “One Night In Tulsa.” Written by Neal Coty, Kylie Frey and Thom McHugh, the song marks a return to the ’90s country ballads that cemented McEntire’s place as one of the genre’s most definitive voices of heartbreak.

ONE NIGHT IN TULSA

• “One Night In Tulsa”
• “Tulsa Time”
• “Oklahoma Swing”
• “Does The Wind Still Blow In Oklahoma”
• “No U In Oklahoma”

Each digital music capsule pairs a newly recorded song with carefully selected tracks that trace the evolution of one of country music’s most enduring and influential voices. In tandem with each music capsule, tailored playlists will launch to further illuminate the defining eras of McEntire’s career. Beginning May 1 with “The Making of Reba,” the first playlist captures a young McEntire finding her voice through classic country heartbreak, laying the foundation for everything to come. The playlists serve as a companion piece, offering fans a deeper, more expansive look at the moments, milestones, and music that shaped her legacy.

About Reba McEntire: 
Multi-media entertainment mogul Reba McEntire has become a household name through a successful career that includes music, television, film, theater, retail and hospitality. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Hollywood Bowl member has more than 50 award wins under her belt, earning honors from the ACM Awards, American Music Awards, People’s Choice Awards, CMA Awards, GRAMMY® Awards and GMA Dove Awards. Reba was also a 2018 Kennedy Center Honors recipient, in addition to multiple philanthropic and leadership honors. Reba has celebrated unprecedented success, including 35 career No.1 singles and more than 58 million albums sold worldwide. Reba earned her 60th Top 10 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, extending her record for the most Top 10 hits among female artists. Reba’s Top 10 success spans five straight decades, landing her in the singular group with only George Jones, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton who have the same achievement. Most recently, her latest single, “Trailblazer,” featuring Lainey Wilson and Miranda Lambert, garnered an impressive 2.6 million on-demand streams in its first week, marking a new personal best for Reba in the streaming era. The Oklahoma native and Golden Globe® nominated actress has multiple movie credits to her name, a critically-acclaimed lead role on Broadway in Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun, and starred in the 6-season television sitcom Reba. Reba has also proven to be a savvy entrepreneur, with longstanding brand partnerships including her Dillard’s clothing line and western footwear collection REBA by Justin. She has even added restaurateur to the list with Reba’s Place, a restaurant, bar, retail and entertainment venue in Atoka, Oklahoma. Her book Not That Fancy landed on the New York Times bestseller list. For more information, visit www.Reba.com.

Marshall is celebrating 50 years of the punk rock pioneers the Sex Pistols with a limited-edition pink-and-yellow JCM800 Half Stack.

Inspired by the pink-and-yellow colour scheme of the band’s seminal – and only – album, 1977’s Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the Sex Pistols 50th Anniversary JCM800 was developed in close collaboration with guitarist Steve Jones.

It offers up 100W of raw British valve tone, and comprises a JCM800 head paired with a 4×12 1960A cabinet with Celestion G12T-75 speakers, helping capture the “aggression and clarity that defined the band’s sound”.

• READ MORE: Epiphone unveils the all-new Futura Series – seven classic Gibson shapes with metal-ready pickups and colour-shifting finishes
  

Each unit is built at Marshall’s Bletchley, UK factory, and comes clad in the same pink-and-yellow colourway as that landmark Pistols record, and features a custom 50th Anniversary badge, making it “as much a collector’s piece as a stage-ready weapon”.

Credit: Marshall

“The JCM800 became a defining voice of British punk,” says Steph Carter, Culture Marketing Director at Marshall. “Working with Steve to reimagine this amp for the band’s 50th Anniversary has been a powerful tribute to the sound that changed everything.”

“I’ve been using Marshall for a long time now and the 800 series for me are my workhorse – always reliable, always consistent,” adds Steve Jones. “I like to keep things simple, as the saying goes. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll.”

Matt Young, President and CEO of Bravado, the Sex Pistols longtime merch partner that was a key driver of the collaboration, adds: “With Never Mind the Bollocks, the Sex Pistols embodied the zeitgeist of punk rock’s sound and aesthetic in a game-changing way. 

“This collaboration with the band and Marshall celebrates that moment in a loud and irreverent way and we think musicians and collectors all over the world are going to love it.

Available from 17 April 2026, the Sex Pistols 50th Anniversary JCM800 Half Stack is limited to just 81 units worldwide.

Learn more at Marshall.

The post This Sex Pistols 50th Anniversary Marshall stack might be the most punk guitar amp ever appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Yuichiro Yokouchi, founder of Japanese instrument manufacturer FujiGen – one of the world’s largest guitar manufacturing firms – has died aged 98, a statement on the brand’s social media confirms.

Since its foundation in 1960 – first as Fujigen Gakki Seizo before rebranding as FujiGen in 1989 – Yokouchi’s company has been an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) for some of the world’s largest guitar brands, including Fender Japan, Ibanez, Orville by Gibson and Greco.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our founder, Yuichiro Yokouchi, at the age of 98,” reads the statement on the official FGN Guitars Instagram page.

“With the ambition to become Japan’s finest guitar manufacturer, he named our company after Mt. Fuji – an enduring symbol of the highest standard. Through his dedication and vision, he realised that ambition, laying the foundation for our company to become a world-class guitar manufacturer representing Japan.

“We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all our customers and players around the world for their continued support, which has been an essential part of our journey together. We remain committed to honouring his legacy through our craftsmanship and pursuit of excellence.”

Born on September 18, 1927 – and raised in a farming family with no formal training in music or business – Yuichiro Yokouchi’s introduction to the music world came when a friend, Keikichi Watanabe, and businessman Yutaka Mimura, invited him to manage an ailing violin company in Kiso, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

“I’m planning to acquire a company affiliated with the Suzuki Violin Company in Kiso, Yokouchi, would you be willing to manage it?” Mimura asked Yokouchi [per Fuzzfaced.net].

The business plan ultimately fell through, but it planted the seed in Yokouchi’s mind that an instrument company was where his future lay.

Yokouchi subsequently partnered with Mimura to start a musical instrument company, reaching out to violin maker Shiro Suzuki, brother of Shinichi Suzuki, founder of the legendary Suzuki Method of music education.

Encountering difficulty pinning down an affordable factory space in Matsumoto, Yokouchi had the idea to repurpose a 100-square-meter cow shed from his family’s farm. To make this happen, he had to sell his cows. “I had to sell all my cows from this farm to start this business,” he once said in a NAMM interview.

Yokouchi started as Vice President, later becoming President in 1969, and then Chairman of FujiGen in 1986. Steering the ship, he nurtured the company into a guitar manufacturing juggernaut. According to Guitar World, his OEM factory was producing over 15,000 guitars per month.

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