Music is the universal language
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” - Luke 2:14
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A New Era In Guitar Tone?
Dinosaur Jr.: Back to the Noise
J Mascis has so many guitars that at least one of them has no obvious job. “It’s not good for songwriting, playing live, or recording. It’s not good for any of the real things we do. That leaves just playing it,” says the Dinosaur Jr. frontman, sporting a gray beard and red-framed glasses, via Zoom from a St. Louis hotel. “That’s kind of interesting: to play, knowing nothing will come out of it.”
The axe in question is a Gibson Les Paul Custom that had a broken headstock when Mascis bought it. “The guy at the shop said it was his bandmate’s,” Mascis recalls. “You could tell he just played it so much that it was somehow awesome. You could feel it was worn in just right.” Mascis had the headstock repaired, but he maintained everything else about it, including the “20th anniversary” letters stamped on the fretboard and its overall battered quality. “It’s beat up, and it’s been played at shows. It has a good feel you can only get from playing all the time. Somebody’s favorite guitar for years—it’s cool.”
The guitar has almost nothing to do with the reason Mascis is on this Zoom: to promote There Near, Dinosaur Jr.’s first album in five years. For this project, Mascis mostly employed a 1959 Fender Jazzmaster, after taking a multi-year break from the model. “I’m getting back to my roots because I never seem to,” he says, “and [playing] leads with it and stuff.” He retired the Fender from touring when he realized the guitar was worth tens of thousands of dollars, which freaked him out: “I’ll just play it when I’m recording,” he says.
Befitting Dinosaur Jr. since the Amherst, Mass., trio’s debut album, Dinosaur, in 1985, There Near is packed with Mascis’ solos and distinctively slacked-out voice meandering over the din. What’s slightly different about There Near, compared to the band’s previous album, 2021’s Sweep It Into Space, is a foundation of precise, Who-like power chords; the opening track “Several Got Away” has the feel of “I Can’t Explain” or “My Generation.” Mascis has zero theories about why that might be so: “Yeah, that’s just the songs I came up with,” he says. “At the time, I’m not sure where they came from.”
One physical piece of inspiration for There Near: a Mesa/Boogie Mark I amp, similar to the one Mascis used for the Dinosaur album 41 years earlier. Mascis purchased the more recent one secondhand, learning that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame had once utilized it for bands onstage. It had hemp cone speakers, and he plugged it into a Marshall cabinet he miked for the recording. “It was an interesting, clean sound that I hadn’t gotten again—this thicker-than-a-Fender sound,” he says. In 1985, he “didn’t know anything about amps,” he adds. “I had a Yamaha solid-state amp, because I saw Bob Mould had one. I thought, ‘How bad could it be?’ But my friend, the good guitarist in town, told me how terrible it sounded. I just used the amp they had at the studio”—the Mesa/Boogie Mark I.
The band’s core—Mascis; bassist Lou Barlow, who would go on to front acclaimed indie-rock band Sebadoh; and drummer Emmett Murphy, known as Murph—has been together off and on since 1984, following the breakup of Mascis’ and Barlow’s hardcore band, Deep Wound. The new trio developed a distorted, sludgy sound that would resonate amid the ’90s alt-rock and grunge explosion.
The group put out Dinosaur on an indie label, Homestead, which employed a young Boston punk-zine publisher and show promoter named Gerard Cosloy. He had briefly managed Deep Wound and, after joining Homestead—also home to hardcore heroes Big Black and Naked Raygun—offered to release a record by Mascis’ new band. “Back then, the Minutemen were a band we liked, and they said, ‘You need an album. That’s like a flier for the gigs. It’s better to have an album than a tape if you want to get gigs,’” Mascis recalls. “It seemed more legitimate or something.”
After the first album gave Dinosaur Jr. a reputation as noise-rock innovators—their concerts reinforced this perception by cranking up the volume beyond healthy human-hearing capacity—the band shifted to a new label. Mascis had always admired SST Records, which had signed Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, and the Minutemen, so he left Homestead to go there. “That kind of ruined my relationship with Gerard,” Mascis recalls. “He kind of got pissed off and jumped ship. But I had to follow my dreams.”
In 1990, Cosloy went on to join Matador Records, which released landmark indie-rock albums by artists like Pavement, Guided By Voices, and Liz Phair. Did Mascis ever reconcile with him? “Yes and no,” he says. “I mean, we’re not great. We never were as good of friends after that. But we definitely hung out a little bit.”
Mascis’ early professional bridge-burning had little impact on Dinosaur Jr.’s career. The band’s first SST album, 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me, was simultaneously more focused, song-wise, and more insanely packed with innovative guitar leads. The guitar-rock masterpiece was one of many crucial albums that soon revolutionized MTV and radio while helping the band become a touchstone for the Lollapalooza generation. (Dinosaur Jr. was on the storied festival’s 1993 bill with Alice In Chains, Rage Against the Machine, and others.)
“As I get older, my attention span gets less and less. I can’t play guitar for eight hours straight in the studio like the old days.”
The original Dinosaur Jr. lineup, though, was fraying. Mascis and Barlow were silently feuding. Mascis maintained tight control, writing almost every song, but Barlow was evolving into the band’s George Harrison, and he needed an outlet of his own. In 1987, Barlow released a four-track cassette of home recordings under the name Sentridoh, with his friend Eric Gaffney contributing percussion; that project helped lay the groundwork for Sebadoh and the lo-fi aesthetic at the core of the band’s music. Tensions within Dinosaur Jr. continued to grow: As the story goes, Mascis informed Barlow he was disbanding the lineup, but he put a new version together instead, initially with a rotating cast of bassists.
Both entities kept moving forward: Dinosaur Jr. signed with a major record label, Sire, and released their Mascis-produced 1991 album, Green Mind; Sebadoh was prolific, peaking with 1994's electrifying Bakesale, and Barlow formed several other projects and collaborations, including the Folk Implosion, best known for the 1995 Kids soundtrack hit, “Natural One.”
Mascis and Barlow continued on their separate trajectories until 2005: Indie label Merge Records reissued their early albums, and they reunited for a tour, which led to a 2007 record, Beyond, with the original lineup.
How has the Dinosaur Jr. dynamic between Mascis, Barlow, and Murphy changed over the years? Mascis pauses for a long time before responding: “Um. It’s hard to remember. At some point, it seemed like Murph and Lou flipped. When we first started, Murph wasn’t sure he wanted to do it all the time, sometimes. He’d quit for a week, but me and Lou were super-dedicated to the band.
“When we got back to the band, it seemed like they had switched the roles. Murph was way more into it than Lou,” Mascis continues. “Other than that, it seems similar. I’d write the drum parts and Murph learns them. Or, for Lou songs, me and Murph would both drum—just try to write some drum parts, because Lou doesn’t think of drums.”
The band created There Near in bursts over the course of a year at Bisquiteen Studio, in Amherst. That’s a function of age, says the 60-year-old Mascis: “As I get older, my attention span gets less and less. I can’t play guitar for eight hours straight in the studio like the old days. Now we just figured—[don’t] push it at all. Record for an hour and a half, four days a week. At that schedule, it takes a while.”
The approach, Mascis says, tightened the album and made it easier to focus on a unifying sound. There Near follows Dinosaur Jr.’s nearly 40-year formula—moaned and mumbled Mascis lyrics set to a stomping rhythm, which is especially pronounced on the faster songs like “Several Got Away” and “Gone Off,” but slower tracks such as “Walk Me Back” open up to sharp torrents of shredding as well. “It’s good for quality control because you have time to weed out what you don’t like and see if you still like the thing four months later,” he says.
The two songs that deviate from this style are the Barlow-written “Blowin’ Up” and “No One’s Ready,” which have a softer, more melodic feel, with more space to accentuate the pointed lyrics: “You’re about as dumb as they come / and telling stupid stories every day,” he begins on “Blowin’ Up.” Mascis cedes control on Barlow’s compositions, playing guitar and bass as needed. “I just step back a bit and see what he wants me to do on the song,” he says.
“Back then, the Minutemen were a band we liked, and they said, ‘You need an album. That’s like a flier for the gigs.’”
In the early days, Dinosaur Jr. put out a new album every two or three years; more recently, in part due to the band members’ solo projects, the gap has expanded to four or five years. But there’s no strategy for the timing of There Near, according to Mascis: “We just kind of do ’em. There’s no rhyme or reason. It just feels like time to do a new album. You’ve played all these places already, so it feels like you need a new album so you can play all the same places again. I guess that’s the logic in our head. That’s how we grew up.”
During the mixing process, Mascis adds, he wrote a couple of other songs “that were on the back burner,” and recorded them in the studio living room. Eventually, Dinosaur Jr. will release a seven-inch single as an addendum—but Mascis refuses to divulge any information about these additions. “Like what? What do you say about a song?” he asks. “Songs that didn’t quite make it. The one song sounded a lot like all the other songs. There were three that were vying for the last slot on the album, and one was just slower. It seemed to be good to have a slower song.”
At one point during the half-hour interview, Mascis refers to a Fender Super Champ as his “favorite around-the-house amp,” which he uses to “just watch TV and play the guitar and hope for the best.” He adds: “It sounds really good at a low volume.”
It’s one of many public references Mascis has made over the years to his lifelong passion for watching television; in 1997, he informed this reporter, for a Billboard story, of his obsession with MTV’s The Real World. The streaming-and-bingeing era hasn’t changed his habits much—including one specific and unexpected technical characteristic of his TV time. “I still watch it on my computer. I like the computer because it’s 15 inches—and that’s the size of the TV I had when I was a kid in our kitchen,” he says. “It was an odd size back then, but somehow I’m always drawn to 15-inch screens.”
All this talk of TV leads Mascis to an even more passionate subject: guitars. He brings up his Gibson Les Paul Junior in TV Yellow, which, he says, “supposedly looks white on TV, because white guitars would get blown out. You wanted the look of a white guitar on TV, you get the TV model.”
Did Mascis ever play the “TV Model Junior,” as he calls it, on TV? Dumb question, as it turns out. “Well, it’s black-and-white TV,” he says with a small smile. “So I don’t know if that would work now.”
J Mascis’ Gear
Guitars
- 1959 Fender Jazzmaster (leads)
- Gibson Les Paul Junior, TV Yellow (rhythm)
- Rickenbacker 620-12 12-string
Amps
- Mesa/Boogie Mark I
- Marshall JCM800 Model 4104, 50-watt 2x12 vertical-input combo
- (All amps miked through a Marshall cabinet)
Pedals
- Tone Bender MkI-circuit fuzz (“I’ll use that as a base and then add other fuzzes to it.”)
MXR Flanger/Doubler Review
Some pieces of gear become legendary because everyone used them. Others become legendary because one person used them, relentlessly, until the sound became inseparable from the player. The original MXR Flanger/Doubler—the M-126 rack unit, a fixture of studios and touring rigs throughout the ’70s and ’80s—belongs mostly to the second category. Yes, it swept through countless studio sessions in its heyday, doing the jet-engine swoosh work flangers are built for.
But its most famous devotee wasn’t chasing psychedelic swirl. Dimebag Darrell, who used the M-126 as a staple of his live rig, utilized its doubler function as an always-on thickener that let his single guitar occupy the space a fleet of overdubs would otherwise fill up. That’s a strange kind of legacy for a rack unit: famous not for a given solo, but for making one guitar sound like more than one guitar, subtly of all things, in the background of some of metal’s most iconic tracks.
Of course, Dimebag’s stealth-thickener case is only one half the story this mono circuit tells. Dial the flanger mode toward more classic, chorus-style settings, and you’re squarely in the territory that defined an entirely different corner of ’80s guitar: the shimmering, liquid clean tones of Andy Summers’ work with the Police, Adrian Belew’s otherworldly textures with Bowie and King Crimson, Eddie Van Halen’s more atmospheric flourishes (think “In A Simple Rhyme”), and the deep, gothic swirl Robert Smith built entire Cure records around.
It’s a testament to the original circuit’s range that it served both the gated-guitar bombast of Pantera and the shimmering clean-tone architecture of “Walking on the Moon.” And this pedal captures that split personality faithfully.
Two Voices, One Bucket-Brigade Heart
The new Flanger/Doubler is unambiguously analog, built around genuine bucket-brigade devices rather than a digital approximation. A dedicated doubler button toggles between the pedal’s two personalities. Flanger mode delivers that sweeping, metallic, jet-engine swoosh, all shimmering comb-filter movement and swirl. Doubler mode does something subtler and, frankly, more useful for many working guitarists. It splits your signal, delays one copy just slightly, and recombines it with the dry signal to create the illusion that you tracked the part twice. There’s no pitch drift (as long as the width control is set to zero,) no irregular pick attack like you might encounter in an actual double-tracked take—just an instant, single-pass thickening that can turn a thin single-coil strum into something that sounds like it’s already been mixed.
Once you’ve picked your mode, the real sculpting happens across five very interactive controls. Manual sets your base delay time—essentially, where in the frequency spectrum the effect’s comb-filtering sweet spot sits. It works hand-in-glove with width, which determines how far that sweep travels from the manual-set center point. Speed, unsurprisingly, governs how fast that sweep oscillates back and forth, ranging from a glacial .03 Hz crawl all the way up to a frantic 18.5 Hz flutter that starts to resemble ring modulation.
“There’s no pitch drift, no irregular pick attack like you might encounter in an actual double-tracked take—just an instant, single-pass thickening that can turn a thin single-coil strum into something that sounds like it’s already been mixed.”
The Regen Generation
Regen is where the personality really lives. It’s a feedback knob, feeding a portion of the delayed signal back into itself. Pushing it from 0 toward 100 percent takes you from a smooth, mellow coloration to aggressive, metallic resonance. And then there’s invert. Flip it, and the wet signal’s polarity reverses entirely, which sounds like a spec-sheet footnote until you actually hear it. Suddenly your settings range from open and vocal to mid-heavy and filtered using the same control settings you had before you flipped polarity. It’s a clever way to expand the pedal’s usable palette without adding a single additional knob.
A mix knob blends wet and dry to taste, and MXR was smart enough to include two LEDs that visually track delay time—a small, thoughtful touch for anyone who’s ever tried to dial in a flanger sweep onstage while a screaming PA drowns you out. CV in and out jacks let the Flanger/Doubler talk to modular synths, sequencers, and CV-enabled expression pedals. And a line-level switch keeps it well-behaved when you feed it hotter studio-level signals rather than a guitar’s comparatively polite output.
The Verdict
At $333 street, the MXR Flanger/Doubler is priced somewhere between boutique premium and mass-market affordability. That said, it’s not strictly a “character” pedal that’s useful for just an occasional outré moment. Just as it did with the late, great Dimebag, it has the potential to become the very heart of your tone, and the pairing of the doubler and a tight gate is pure magic for riffs. If you’ve spent years chasing a “how did they get that thickness?” tone on a favorite record, there’s a significant chance that this box can provide an answer.
MXR Flanger/Doubler
D'Addario Introduces Artist+ Carbon Capo and Updated Artist Capo
Adding to the company’s broad range of guitar accessories, D’Addario has introduced a pair of new capo models: the new Artist+ Carbon Capo, featuring the company’s first-ever carbon fiber design, and an updated black Artist Capo.
Both capos feature D’Addario’s patented FlexFit Technology, which automatically adapts to different fretboard radii and string gauges, distributing pressure evenly across every string and fret. The net result? Improved tuning stability.
Together, the two capos are designed to give guitar players more control and fast, one-handed operation. Both capos feature an adjustable spring tension micrometer, which allows players to achieve the exact pressure they need for clean, buzz-free fretting without pulling the strings out of tune. And both capos include a built-in pick holder that keeps a spare pick conveniently within reach.
Assembled in the USA, the new Artist+ Carbon Capo pairs these features with ultra-lightweight carbon fiber construction, delivering pro-grade strength without adding unnecessary weight and bulk to the neck of the guitar. The updated Artist Capo brings the same FlexFit performance to its original design, so players have two distinct options built around the same proprietary tech.
Key features include:
- Adjustable Spring Tension Micrometer: Allows players to achieve the ideal, specific pressure they need for clean fretting and better tuning stability.
- Patented FlexFit Technology: Automatically adapts to fretboard radii and string gauges, distributing even pressure across every string.
- One-Handed Operation: Makes capo placement and position changes fast and easy.
- Built-In Pick Holder: Keeps a spare pick conveniently within reach.
- Ultra-Lightweight Carbon Fiber Construction (Artist+): Combines durability with minimal weight.
- USA Assembly (Artist+): Assembled in the U.S. for long-lasting quality.
D’Addario’s Artist+ Carbon Capo is available at a street price of $29.99. The updated Artist Capo carries a street price of $25.99. For more information visit Daddario.com.
Artist+ Carbon Capo
Adding to the company’s broad range of guitar accessories, D’Addario has introduced a pair of new capo models: the new Artist+ Carbon Capo, featuring the company’s first-ever carbon fiber design, and an updated black Artist Capo.
Boss launches Katana-25, a compact 25-watt home practice amp for $199.99
Boss has announced Katana-25, a 25-watt combo amp aimed at new and returning players who want Katana tones in a compact package for home playing. It’s available now from authorised BOSS retailers for $199.99.
The amp is the latest addition to the Katana range, which BOSS launched in 2016 for guitar and bass.
Sound and design
The Katana-25 pairs a custom eight-inch speaker with an open-back cabinet and a 25-watt reactive analog power section. Boss says it is built on its Tube Logic design approach, which aims to capture the feel and response of a tube amp.
Players get six amp characters covering pop, blues, country, classic rock and high-gain metal. One is voiced for acoustic-electric instruments. There are also more than 60 effects from the Boss library, with up to five usable at once.
Presets and controls
The amp has 20 factory presets and 10 empty slots for custom tones. Players can recall memories and adjust basic preamp and effects parameters from the panel without the app. There’s also a tap tempo button for delay effects and a built in tuner.
A Power Control switch toggles between full power and a half-watt mode, intended to give a cranked-amp feel at bedroom volumes. BOSS says the feature is inspired by its stage-class Katana models.
Bluetooth and Tone Studio
Onboard Bluetooth lets players stream songs from a phone or tablet to jam along and connects the amp to the BOSS Tone Studio app. The app offers more detailed effects editing and access to BOSS Tone Exchange, where users can download new sounds.
Tone Studio’s Session feature lets players browse and play YouTube videos in the app. They can also set points on a song’s timeline to trigger automatic memory changes during playback.
The Katana-25 is available now from authorised BOSS retailers, for more information visit boss.info.
The post Boss launches Katana-25, a compact 25-watt home practice amp for $199.99 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Rig Rundown: Chelsea Wolfe
PG’s Chris Kies caught up with Chelsea Wolfe and her longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm at Marathon Music Works in Nashville, where they were playing in support of Wolfe’s new record, The Dark. Have a look at some quick highlights below, and tune into the new Rig Rundown for all the details.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Hollow Victory
Wolfe was given this Gretsch Broadkaster years back and keeps coming back to it—she’s drifted further into hollowbodies over time, which she says is a shame given how much she likes her solidbodies. She likes the resonant feedback and the low end, and feels a bigger guitar suits her frame. Managing that feedback is a nightly adjustment depending on the room.
Cold Comfort
The ES-335 has long been seen as Wolfe’s signature electric, and it’s still on the road, though at the moment it comes out for one song—“Cold.” She figures every tour ends up with one guitar you play the most, and this time it isn’t this one.
Dolly’s Pickguard
Her Taylor 416ce sports a custom pickguard inspired by a photo of Dolly Parton with a similar one. Taylor gave her this one and sent it to a maker in Nashville to have the pickguard made. People point out she rarely uses a pick on the acoustic. She thinks it looks beautiful anyway.
Grayscale
Wolfe’s amp is a Fender Bassbreaker combo, which she believes is discontinued. She likes how it takes pedals, and she likes the look: slightly vintage but in grayscale rather than the usual tan. She has the head and cab as well, but it’s the combo on this tour.
Chelsea Wolfe’s Pedalboard
The top row of Chelsea’s board stays on all night: a JHS NOTAKLÖN for general gain, an EarthQuaker ZEQD-Pre she landed on after a long search for the right preamp, a UAFX 1176 compressor, and an EQD Dispatch Master. The heavier end runs a JHS Hard Drive for most of the newer material, an EQD Acapulco Gold that’s been on her board since the Hiss Spun era, and a Death by Audio Apocalypse. A Korg tuner and a Dunlop volume pedal round it out.
Her Happy Place
The left half of the floor is all vocals. Wolfe’s father gave her pedals as a kid and she ran her voice through them with an adapter she rigged for the mic cable, which is where all this started. A Radial Voco-Loco gets the mic into the chain, feeding a DigiTech DigiDelay and a Boss RV-6 she calls her ride or dies, an EQD Afterneath, a JHS Octave Reverb, and a Boss RC-20XL. Not seen here: the Third Man Troika, a Jack White and JHS design built for singers—the one piece of gear she admits to impulse-buying.
Florida Man Special
Chisholm found this Peavey T-40 on Reverb, sold by Drew Storcks of Shy, Low, already fitted with an Electrical Guitar Company aluminum neck by someone he’s never identified. He’d wanted a T-40 since seeing one at a session with the Armed, and wanted an aluminum neck for the sustain. It’s brighter and meaner than anything else he’s played, enough that he had to calm down his existing tones to accommodate it.
The B Team
The Nash bass was his main for years and he used it a lot on the new album, before the Peavey turned up. It’s the backup now, and picking it up after the T-40 is a shock—mostly because of how light it is.
Quad Squad
Chisholm abandoned a full pedalboard mid-rehearsal once a Neural DSP Quad Cortex arrived. It’s running Ampeg models, fuzz, overdrive, compression, and chorus, plus the modulated-delay patch behind the whale noises he makes between songs. A clean channel runs parallel at 50 percent, so the low end survives the worst of the fuzz. A Dunlop Volume (X) 8, Korg tuner, and Walrus Audio supply round things out.
Two Fifteens
A Quilter Bass Block 802 powers the rig, with its EQ bypassed entirely — he’s using the effects return and letting the Quad Cortex do the amp work. The cab is a Tyrant 2x15 he got from Sean at Tyrant years ago, after deciding an 8x10 wasn’t delivering the sub frequencies he wanted.
Fender and Kim Gordon team up for a signature Jazzmaster with a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker
Fender has launched the Limited Edition Kim Gordon Jazzmaster, a signature model developed with the Sonic Youth co-founder and priced at £1449/$1099.99/€1699.
The guitar has an Olympic White alder body with a matching headcap and a Modern C maple neck with a 9.5” radius rosewood fingerboard. The guitar pairs a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in the bridge with a Player Series Alnico V Jazzmaster single-coil in the neck. Fender says the combination is designed to cover everything from “articulate textures” to heavier, more aggressive tones.
Other features include rolled fingerboard edges and white pearloid block inlays, plus a vintage-style floating tremolo and a Jazzmaster bridge with Mustang saddles. Tuning duties go to ClassicGear machine heads with an 18:1 gear ratio.
Fender says the guitar reflects Gordon’s long relationship with the Jazzmaster and her approach to the instrument, which it describes as defined by “dissonance, texture and restraint.” Gordon is best known as a bassist, but has regularly returned to guitar in the studio and onstage and the Jazzmaster has long been associated with the no-wave and noise rock scenes she emerged from.
“One thing that’s great about the Jazzmaster, if you have a guitar that sounds good by just plugging it into an amplifier, it doesn’t need effects,” said Gordon. “That’s really satisfying.”
Justin Norvell, Fender’s Chief Product Officer for Guitars and Basses, said the company wanted to “capture that sense of individuality and experimentation while staying true to the character and feel of the Jazzmaster.” He added that the two pickup types give players “the freedom to explore” whether they’re chasing noise, writing songs or looking for new sounds.
The model is the latest instalment in Fender’s The One. For All. campaign, which celebrates artists who reinterpret the company’s instruments. Fender has also released a demo video of the guitar featuring Lauren Andino, alongside a launch film in its Artist Signature Series.
The Limited Edition Kim Gordon Jazzmaster is available to order via fender.com.
The post Fender and Kim Gordon team up for a signature Jazzmaster with a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“It’s a way of lightsabering people!” why Getdown Services’ Josh Law loves playing guitar
Getdown Services have earned their (tongue-in-cheek) self-styled monicker as Britain’s Best Band
thanks in no small part to the Minehead duo’s chaotic live shows, where Ben Sadler and Josh Law strip off, get sweaty and proceed to, in their own words, “go mental”.
- READ MORE: Hudson Freeman wants to soundtrack the end of America. All he needs is a nylon-string guitar
When things really need to go up a gear and really get raucous, Law reaches for the guitar he’s loved since he was a kid, to “lightsaber” the audience with monster riffs and frenetic solos – as he says, “when you want to rock out, there’s no better tool for the job”.
But while he’s unhinged on stage, off it Law’s guitar playing reveals his love of Jack White and classic rock, with some delicately tasteful banjo chops adding a very different element to his style as he shows us his two favourite instruments – a tried and tested Dano, and his beloved custom guitar from UK maker, Ancoats.
Indeed, in the latest episode of My Guitars & Me, Law reveals a much less bombastic side of his guitar playing than we’re used to seeing from him on stage, with his beloved Danelectro in hand, he reveals that his interesting right-hand technique developed as a result of a pandemic dalliance with learning the banjo.
“Covid came, and I wanted a new thing to learn,” Lord tells us. “And I wanted to get an instrument where I was like, ‘I’m actually going to practice this.’ So, I picked up the banjo. But it really jumped my guitar playing forward ’cause I could do the roving thumb thing. And I tried to not get in the habit playing the banjo like a guitar. I tried to pick up new techniques and it’s it’s really changed my whole thing with guitar.”
It’s a far cry from the “commanding” sight of Lord and his bandmate Ben Sadler stripped to the waist, screaming commands at their audiences during Getdown Services’ legendarily feral live shows. The climax of these moments is usually when Lord reaches for his guitar to blast a sick riff or shred an aggressively kinetic solo – but that wasn’t the original plan.
“When we started the band, one of the things I wanted to do was not play guitar,” he admits. “The shows started getting a bit raucous but that wasn’t really the intention – we were just kind of crooning and stuff! And then it kind of went a bit chaotic and we started going insane on stage. But if you want to rock out, there’s no better instrument than the guitar. It’s the best thing for it. It’s the best tool for the job.
“So we got like three or four years into the band and I was like, ‘Ah, I should probably play guitar, ’cause I can actually play that one.’ I can’t I can’t sing or really dance or do anything really. But guitar I can play a bit. If you get to a point in the set where the crowd are loosened up. They’re all going mental. We’re going mental. Everyone’s sweaty. If you pick the guitar up, it’s another way of beaming energy out.”
Watch the full episode of My Guitars And Me with Getdown Services’ Josh Lord
The post “It’s a way of lightsabering people!” why Getdown Services’ Josh Law loves playing guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Elan Audio Lab Introduces the SoundBakery Reactive Load Box, Attenuator and DI
Elan Audio Lab has released the SoundBakery, a passive analog reactive attenuator, load box, and DI designed to let players run tube amps at high output while controlling speaker volume. Handmade in the USA, SoundBakery builds on the design legacy of MetalHead Electronics.
SoundBakery uses a reactive load designed to mimic a speaker cabinet’s changing impedance. Its attenuation knob adjusts speaker output from approximately 25 percent of full level down to silence. A dedicated Attenuator Bypass switch connects the amplifier directly to the speaker cabinet for full, unattenuated output. The balanced XLR and 1/4-inch line outputs remain connected even in bypass mode.
With the reactive load engaged, SoundBakery operates without a speaker cabinet for silent recording, direct-to-PA use, and in-ear monitoring. The line outputs can also feed another amplifier. They carry the amp’s signal without cabinet simulation or EQ, allowing players to add impulse responses or cabinet simulation in their recording software. One level control adjusts both line outputs.
SoundBakery requires no batteries or power supply.
Features:
- Reactive load for tube amplifiers up to 100 watts
- Three dedicated 4-, 8-, and 16-ohm amplifier inputs
- Speaker attenuation knob
- Dedicated Attenuator Bypass switch
- One 1/4-inch speaker output
- Balanced XLR and unbalanced 1/4-inch line outputs
- Shared line-out level control
- Silent load-box operation
- Aluminum chassis, approximately 4 lb.
- Dimensions: 5.9 x 7.9 x 2.75 inches (150 x 200 x 70 mm)
SoundBakery is available directly from Elan Audio Lab for $479. For more information, visit elanaudiolab.com.
SoundBakery
Elan Audio Lab has released the SoundBakery, a passive analog reactive attenuator, load box and DI designed to let players run tube amps at high output while controlling speaker volume. Handmade in the USA, SoundBakery builds on the design legacy of MetalHead Electronics.
Boss Announces Katana-25 Guitar Amplifier
Boss has introduced the Katana-25, the latest addition to the company’s popular amplifier lineup for guitar and bass. Offering the Katana sound in a compact 25-watt amp for home playing, Katana-25 is designed for new and returning guitarists. It offers six unique amp characters and over 60 onboard Boss effects provide studio-grade sounds, while onboard Bluetooth and the companion Boss Tone Studio app enhance daily sessions with support for song streaming, effects editing, playing with YouTube videos, and downloading new sounds on Boss Tone Exchange.
The new Katana-25 expands on a well-established legacy. Introduced in 2016, the Katana series has become a go-to solution for guitarists with its responsive feel and versatile features. The new Katana-25 brings this technology to guitarists who want to explore different styles in practice and home use.
Key to the Katana series is the Boss Tube Logic design philosophy, which delivers the authentic tube sound and feel. Like classic tube designs, Katana-25’s 8” speaker, open-back configuration and 25-watt reactive analog power section work in harmony to create a highly interactive playing experience with solid bass, high-end detail, and punchy dynamic response.
Katana-25 encourages experimentation and creativity without requiring additional gear. Six unique amp characters allow players to take on any musical genre with authority, from pop, blues, and country to classic rock and high-gain metal. One amp character is tuned for acoustic-electric instruments, further increasing the amp’s versatility. Users also get access to over 60 effects from the historic Boss library (up to 5 simultaneously), with detailed sound editing available in Boss Tone Studio.
The Katana-25 panel allows users to save/recall Tone Setting memories and tweak basic preamp and effect parameters without opening the app. The amp includes 20 ready-to-play presets with dialed-in pro sounds, plus 10 empty slots for storing custom setups. There’s also a tap tempo button for delay effects and a convenient built-in tuner, an essential tool for every guitarist.
Inspired by stage-class Katana models, Katana-25 features a Power Control to achieve expressive, cranked-amp tone at modest volumes. With the flip of a switch, users can toggle between full power punch and a half-watt mode that produces bedroom-friendly levels without sacrificing sound quality or feel.
Katana-25 is equipped with onboard Bluetooth connectivity for audio streaming and communication with Boss Tone Studio. Players can connect a mobile device and jam along to songs from their device’s library, use the app to edit tones in detail, explore additional sounds on Boss Tone Exchange, and more.
Boss Tone Studio includes a powerful Session feature that lets users browse and play YouTube content in the app and set up points on a song’s timeline to trigger automatic memory changes while playing. Several hardware options are also available for controlling sounds in real time, including an FS-series wired footswitch, the FS-1-WL Wireless Footswitch, or the EV-1-WL Wireless Expression Pedal.
With its user-friendly interface, versatile tones, and integrated practice tools, Katana-25 is an easy choice for players looking to explore their sound, as well as anyone shopping for a gift on their behalf.
The Katana-25 is available at a street price of $199.99. For more information visit www.boss.info.
“You can’t choose to be an artist. It’s something that you have to compulsively do” Tough Cookie are mastering their own vision of intimate guitar music
It’s a quiet afternoon as two-thirds of East London act Tough Cookie (vocalist and guitarist August Tse, fellow guitarist Jess Ayres and bassist Daniel Hvorostovsky) are settling into Denmark Street’s buzzy guitar shop, Regent Sounds.
On a street that is overflowing with music history, Regent Sounds takes some topping – before it was a guitar shop, the space was a studio used by everyone from Hendrix to the Stones, and in its life as a guitar shop it continues to attract music fans from across the world.
- READ MORE: Hudson Freeman wants to soundtrack the end of America. All he needs is a nylon-string guitar
It’s hard not to feel the weight of the place when T-Bone Walker’s 1949 Gibson ES-5N (currently up for sale on Reverb for £1.5m) sits in its temperature controlled case next to where we’re sitting down to get to know one of the UK’s most intriguing new guitar bands.
On their emotionally-wrought new EP, Devotion, Tough Cookie enshroud you in a cathartic release, one that needle points moments of devastation, acceptance and healing. Taken from the title from a Patti Smith book, the band cycle through tracks which feel like excavating grief as you watch the familiar warmth of someone close fizzle out.
Together, primarily, August and Dan created detailed, nuanced songs that capture the storytelling of Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith, all of which were recorded in a haunted East London church basement. We sat down with Tough Cookie to hear more about their must-listen new record.
Image: Press
It’s been a while since you released your 2025 project The Countryside Is Good For You. How have things changed for Tough Cookie since then?
Jess: “So much has changed. It was so great to get that initial bit of music out, but it’s been even better to get this next EP out because it feels so much more authentic to who we are now as a band.”
Dan: “It’s more a concise piece of work than the previous which was written over so many years, and then we took it into a studio and re-recorded everything in the space of two days to make it sound cohesive. We love it as a piece of work, but, as musicians, we are looking back on it thinking it feels disconnected because of the narratives, the songs and the instrumentation and style of play on each of the songs. This time we tried to make it concise by keeping the guitar sounds consistent on this project.”
You recorded the EP in a church basement and it feels like a more formative project for the band. How do you feel you’ve grown as musicians?
Jess: “It was like learning of an identity, to be honest. Our first mixtape was quite literally a mixtape – it was songs from different eras of this band’s life. Whereas making the EP was like ‘okay, cool, this is Tough Cookie’s identity now.’”
Dan: “It feels like we’re able to write the emotions out onto paper and into the music itself and have everything sort of back itself up.”
August: “I think understanding the relationship between the music and art has changed. It was all trial and error for the first mixtape, and there was the decisive direction we went with at the time, but I don’t think it matched the music we were creating because the music was disconnected. I think a lot more preparation was done with this EP because we knew what we wanted it to sound like, so it forced the things I was painting so the whole world feels more concise.”
How did each of you get involved with the guitar as an instrument? Do you have any special anecdotes tied to learning to play the guitar or any notable artists that influenced you?
August: “I remember hearing Maroon 5 in the She Will Be Loved era. Guitar music wasn’t really part of my world until I became a teenager. I listened to Green Day and My Chemical Romance, more emo/punk stuff. People I was friends with in Asia didn’t listen to guitar music, so I wasn’t exposed to it. My family didn’t either so moving to England was the first step into it.”
Dan: “For me, it wasn’t that late. I got my first guitar when I was 13 and I taught myself because my mum really liked the Beatles, and she got me the Beatles songbook, which had the chords above the lyrics. It had standard music notation, which I could already read because I started by playing the piano so I started learning all these Beatles tracks. After playing acoustic guitar and listening to things like Guns N’ Roses, I want an electric guitar and got into heavy metal music.
“I was trying to play Avenged Sevenfold songs and stuff like that. When I met August, we decided to switch instruments because August used to play bass in another band and I also played a guitar, and then I got infatuated with the bass guitar. August got infatuated with the electric guitar, so we kind of swapped and pseudo taught each other to play those instruments.”
Jess: “Around the same time that they were teaching each other their instruments. I was figuring out the alternative direction I wanted to go in because I was playing acoustic guitar for ages.
“I was playing rhythm mostly. I was trying to do the neo-soul thing, and it was quickly becoming apparent that was just not gonna be my thing, so I started playing in a punk-inspired riot girrrl band and thought electric guitars were fun, probably for the same realisation Dan had around at a similar time which is interesting. We were all in the same place, but it was happening in parallel.”
How does guitar music come into the fold of Tough Cookie’s discography? Are there any artists or styles of playing the band have learned or taken inspo from?
Dan: “Leading on from when August and I were teaching each other our instruments, we were both studying music at different unis in Leeds. I was studying harmony and classical harmony and then that sort of opened doors into modern music. Radiohead became a massive influence in terms of the songwriting in the production and soundscape of the whole thing.
“It’s more of how can we make the world and the ambiance with the guitar with the pedals that we’re using so there isn’t a normal sort of lead [guitar] line. We wanted to focus more on the feeling rather than the parts.”
Jess: “They talked a lot about what a part of a song elicits in terms of emotion as well as the track and how it’s played.”
Dan: “You can play a lead part in so many ways. It’s about the emotion, the feeling and the mood of it.”
Image: Press
Your debut mixtape The Countryside Is Good For You was “a journey of self discovery amid chaos”. This era is detailed with stories of painful choices and moments of self-preservation. How did you tap into that deep emotional part of yourselves?
Dan: “I think it’s just the way we were all feeling at the time. That sort of chaos from the first record is still there, and I think we’ll always still be there in the way that we feel, especially mental health-wise. I don’t think anyone’s perfect, and people go through phases. People go up and down all the time and that’s definitely reflected in the record and the way that it feels in the lyrics, which are predominantly August wrote. It’s very much from their perspective and the way that they’re feeling. As much as we chip in with stuff as well, but it’s also it’s all just to reinforce this main storyline.”
The EP takes its name and emotional thread from Patti Smith’s book Devotion. Are there any other books that fed your creativity?
August: “A lot of William Burroughs and Devotion influenced it quite heavily. Not so much in what happens in the book, but I think some of the themes are definitely reflected in the record.
“The book is about an ice skater and there’s this man watching her, but the whole point of it it’s talking about her devotion to ice skating. I think that was quite important when it came to this EP – how devoted we are as people to making music and doing this, because it’s not an easy industry, and there are lots of things that get in the way and to still be doing it is quite a lot.”
Dan: “There’s also other themes that are carried through like the lack of spirituality or losing spirituality, which is definitely reflecting some of the songs like Mercy. The EP is also about the compulsion to make music. It’s like in Patti Smith’s Devotion, it’s about how you can’t choose to be an artist. It’s something that you have to compulsively do. Something that you don’t you don’t have control over, and this is the only way that you can express yourself and be alive and exist.”
Do you each have a song that’s a particular favourite from the EP?
Dan: “My favourite is Tragedy Frontline. This is a song that I worked really, really hard to bring to the band and make everybody understand. It took a while for people to understand it, but as soon as soon as they got here, things started flowing in the right direction.”
August: “The lyrics came really quickly too. I wrote them in a day. Mercy was done really quickly too.”
Dan: “Although we were fighting about the chorus because August didn’t like it at first, so we sat on it. We sort of slept on it overnight. The next day, you were like, ‘Oh no, actually, this slaps!’”
August: “I liked it, but I couldn’t write a vocal for it because I just didn’t know what to do. I think I was watching this Bob Dylan movie. I say that the melody came into my head from above, but maybe I’m just stealing Bob Dylan’s. I don’t really know. My favourite is Let Me Die, probably. I like it because it’s got double meaning. I think it doesn’t mean what people think it means.”
Jess: “I’d say that’s mine as well. August and Dan are heading up the writing, so when the songs came to me it was almost a fully fleshed out song. I get the privilege of listening to something and having my own first impression of it without really knowing where the creative decision has come from. There was an emotion within me that I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but it was pulling something. It definitely elicits the most emotion for me.”
Now the EP is out, how are you hoping the music is received?
Jess: “This EP is the embodiment of mental health so I hope listeners can see themselves in it. That’s the best way I can think of because that’s how it’s meant to be.”
August: “I want people to take the time to understand it rather than just listening to our face value, because the reason it took so long to write some songs is that there usually is a deeper meaning behind each one. It would be fulfilling to know people have put some thought into the lyrics as much as I did writing them.”
Devotion is out now on Capitol Records UK
The post “You can’t choose to be an artist. It’s something that you have to compulsively do” Tough Cookie are mastering their own vision of intimate guitar music appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Two Limited-Edition EarthQuaker Pedals
Podcast 568: Joe Heiland (Boveda)
PSA: As winter approaches, it’s time to protect your cherished instruments from drying out and damage. Today, we’re talking to Joe Heiland from Boveda about their ridiculously simple (and ingenious) two-way humidity control packs. Joe walks us through the history of Boveda, their roots in the cigar (and cannabis) industries, and some best practices for looking after your guitars, mandolins, banjos and more.
Learn more: https://store.bovedainc.com/collections/for-music
We first met Joe and Boveda at our Chicago Fretboard Summit and we now have their control packs on nearly all of our guitars here at the Fretboard Journal. No matter what method you use, we hope this conversation inspires you to protect your instruments.
Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal’s quarterly print magazine. Issue 61 is about to be mailed to all subscribers: https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/products/fretboard-journal-annual-subscription
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(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).
We are also brought to you by Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com, located in Seattle, Washington.
The post Podcast 568: Joe Heiland (Boveda) first appeared on Fretboard Journal.
Noel Gallagher admits he’s a guitar “hoarder” – but he did once gift an axe to an Oasis tribute act
Unlike his pal Johnny Marr, who feels more sentimental about jackets than guitars and even auctioned off over 100 axes back in September, Noel Gallagher struggles to part with his instruments. In fact, he’d go so far as to label himself a guitar “hoarder”.
The confession came in a new episode of Chicken Shop Date with Amelia Dimoldenberg. However, the Oasis guitarist followed it up by adding he does occasionally find the strength to give away a guitar – if someone is worthy, of course. In fact, Gallagher admits that he once bestowed one of his beloved guitars on a Noel Gallagher impersonator. “I’m a hoarder… [but] I’ve given a few [guitars] away,” Gallagher explains. “I once gave a guitar to a guy who played me in a tribute band.”
As he recalls, the tribute act was called Noasis, one of the most recognisable Oasis cover bands on the scene – and don’t just take our word for it. “We went to see them [and it was] sold out!” Gallagher says. “I brought [a guitar] down and gave it to the lad.”
In a way, it makes sense why the Oasis brother might have found the strength to hand his guitar over to Noasis. In a way, he wasn’t even giving it away, he was just giving it back to an alternate version of ‘himself’.
However, Gallagher might have been keen to bring along a present consider he had snubbed the band in the past. When one of the members appeared on Radio X in 2022, he remembered that Gallagher had declined to attend a Noasis gig when the band invited him back in 2008.
“It was 2008 and [someone we know] had done some work on Noel’s house and told us where he lived,” the bandmember explained. “So when we were down [performing] in London, and we went and knocked on his door like school girl [fans]. His wife answered, and we told her who we were. She said ‘oh, I know you! I’ll go get him.’”
“Noel came to the front door, and we just said ‘we’ve got a gig in town later, do you fancy coming along?’” he recalls. Unsurprisingly, the band were met with a very Noal Gallagher response: ”He said ‘No, I’m not interested.’”
Of course, Gallagher more than made up for it by attending a gig and gifting an axe later down the line. As for the gifted axe’s current whereabouts, it seems the Noasis performer still has it. In fact, Gallagher tells Dimoldenberg that he caught up with his tribute clone a year and a half after the gig he did attend; “I bumped into him working in a clothes shop, and I said to him, ‘How’s the band going?’ He said, “It’s not so good now… We’ve been overtaken by the Urban Verve.’”
While Noasis might have been overtaken by a Verve tribute band at the time, the Oasis comeback is sure to have helped them have a massive boom in popularity. In fact, they’re on tour right now, with plans to perform in Oxford the day before Halloween. Then, they’ve got a spattering of gigs across November, December, and well into the new year.
If you didn’t manage to get hands on Oasis tickets for next year, perhaps Noasis could be a good backup plan. Hell, they’ve got a gold-star of approval from the man himself – and, if they’re good enough for Noel Gallagher, you’re sure to have a good time.
For more information on Noasis, head to their site. Oh, and Oasis are on tour next year too.
The post Noel Gallagher admits he’s a guitar “hoarder” – but he did once gift an axe to an Oasis tribute act appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Epiphone Prophecy Victory FR review: “This is a guitar that is asking you to play it fast”
$1,499, epiphone.com
For the best part of two decades, Epiphone’s Prophecy collection has been the best place in Gibson’s range for guitarists of a heavier persuasion to find instruments that retain the timeless looks of a Gibson guitar but with features and spec that make them ready for the most high-performance shredding demands.
You may have also noticed that in recent years, Gibson has been giving heavy guitarists more love than they have done for quite some time – whether that’s through signature models for the likes of Adam Jones, Kirk Hammett and Dave Mustaine, or adding guitars with Floyd Rose vibratos and baritone scale lengths to the standard range.
Right on time then, arrives the brand new Prophecy Collection – Epiphone’s full-bore assault on the world of high-performance heavy guitar, which includes for the very first time a Victory guitar without the USA price tag.
Image: Press
What is it?
The revival of Gibson over the last eight years has, understandably, been driven by the brand focusing on making its most famous and classic as good as they can be, but the Victory stands out as quite a unique part of the story.
This forgotten 80s curio was revived a few years ago as a guitar built for the needs of today’s modern technical players, and has proved a smash hit – spawning various hard-rocking variants including a very impressive Floyd Rose-equipped version I reviewed earlier this year. Its first ever appearance in Epiphone colours then, is a big deal – probably the biggest deal of the five-strong Prophecy revival (alongside the baritone Les Paul).
All of the guitars in the Prophecy collection share several pretty serious features that are worth noting, most notable of which is probably the thermally aged, graphite-reinforced one-piece maple neck. This features the new Hyperglide 10-14 inch compound radius, while the ebony board sports 24 stainless steel frets along its extended 25.5-inch scale length.
Pickups are once again Fishman Fluence units developed specifically for the range, but this time they’re mounted to the body using a new trademarked Dual-Axis Pickup Stabilization (DAPS) system, which Epiphone claims keeps the pickups “securely aligned and parallel to the strings while allowing precise height adjustment”. The humbuckers also feature advanced onboard electronics to offer active, classic bucker and single-coil tones at your fingertips courtesy of push/pull pots on both volume and tone.
The Prophecy Victory has a mahogany body with a rather fetching flamed maple cap. The guitar is satin-finished all over and you can choose between either this Obsidian Storm Satin or the greeny Aqua Smoke Satin finishes. In terms of hardware, the success of the FR version of the Gibson model is reflected with a Floyd Rose 1000 Series locking tremolo and locking nut here, plus locking Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners – all the metal is matt black, of course. You also get a Protector Ultralite gigbag into the bargain.
Image: Press
Build Quality & Playability
When I reviewed the Gibson Victory, I was struck by the level of fit and finish that Gibson’s production line was bringing to the party – it was near-Custom Shop levels, and felt like a guitar much more in line with that sort of price tag.
The Epiphone Prophecy version replicates the same trick in a lot of ways – if not for the Epiphone logo on that hockey stick headstock, I would not have batted an eyelid at this being a USA production guitar, and in some cases even beyond. The satin finish may not be to everyone’s tastes but I think it really suits a mean and moody rock machine like this, and its expertly applied all over, with no blemishes or overspray, while the fretboard is immaculately inlaid, while the bound fretboard is nicely done to avoid any friction or sharp edges.
Stainless steel is a tough material to work with but clearly no corners have been cut here, and every one of the 24 frets here has been expertly installed, polished and filed to make the playability effortlessly smooth.
And smooth is the order of the day here for sure – this new Hyperglide neck is slim without feeling too skinny, while the asymmetrical carve and compound radius means that you can chug in the lower reaches and blaze away without impediment up top. This is a guitar that is asking you to play it fast – like a sports car with a five-speed manual shifter, it wants you to rev it up, hug the corners, and hold on for dear life.
Import Floyd Rose units don’t always have the best reputation, but I find the FR 1000 unit here to be a fine example of the form – you can dive bomb to your heart’s content and it returns to pitch every time, while the general action is very smooth and fluid.
Image: Press
Sounds
Fishman’s Fluence pickups have become hugely popular in heavier circles, and so its no surprise that Gibson tapped Larry Fishman’s company to provide some custom units for the Prophecy when it was revamped a few years ago.
As far as I can tell, the pickups here are the same custom-voiced units found in previous Prophecy guitars, and that’s no bad thing. In practice that means you have a pair of active humbuckers (there’s a mercifully easy battery access on the back of the guitar) that offer three distinct voices: modern active humbucker, passive PAF-style bucker, and a single-coil.
The active mode is, as you might well expect, a more modern sounding voice – one that’s designed for the most brutal amounts of gain, which it accepts with pleasure, while still maintaining note and chord integrity. When other pickups might get mushy, this one continues to provide clarity and power in spades.
The PAF mode is more suited to classic rock and metal tones – if you want to let the amp or your pedals do more of the work, and provide a less overly compressed tone, this is the sound you’ll be drawn to.
I’m less overly taken with the single-coil mode – as is so often the case with any kind of coil tap/split, it just left me wanting more. It’s fine in a pinch, and it frees you up to take one less guitar to a gig if you only need a single coil sound for a few songs in your set, but you’d certainly want something a little fuller and rounder if you wanted to record this sound, for example. Still, it remains impressive that a guitar at this price point can offer so many sounds in one package.
Image: Press
Should I Buy One?
It’s interesting to consider the Prophecy Victory in the context of its Gibson bigger brothers, because they do feel like quite distinct instruments – despite the fact that they look very similar on first glance.
This Prophecy version – like the rest of the line – feels like the brooding, darker sibling to its Gibson equivalent. This is a metal guitar first and foremost – one that is designed to tame vast amounts of gain in a way that its passive-pickup’d sibling could never hope to do. It’s also fast in a way that very few other guitars in the Gibson/Epiphone catalogue are – slinky and unrestrained in a way that you’d normally expect from a Kramer or a Jackson.
And that is perhaps the most encouraging and heartening part about the Prophecy collection, and this Victory in particular. Too often metal guitarists have to make do with instruments from smaller brands or from metal-focused sub-brands of the big dogs. It’s great to see the mainstream Epiphone marque catering so explicitly to heavier musicians – and to see the Victory become a more engrained part of the wider Gibson line.
Image: Press
Alternatives
It would be remiss to talk about affordable metal axes without bringing Ibanez into the discussion, and the venerable Genesis RG550 ($1,199) is a great rock machine – though it doesn’t have active pickups. The Sterling by Music Man Sabre ($1,499) is a rare example of a guitar in this price point that also sports Fishman Fluence humbuckers, while the Schecter Hellraiser C-1 FR ($1,499) offers a Floyd and a pair of EMG pickups.
The post Epiphone Prophecy Victory FR review: “This is a guitar that is asking you to play it fast” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Epiphone refreshes its metal-focused Prophecy Series with new shapes and a baritone
Metalheads of the world! Epiphone’s most metal-friendly series has had a makeover. That’s right, the Prophecy series is expanding, welcoming in five new models – the Victory FR, Les Paul, Les Paul Baritone, SG, and Flying V – all tailor-made for high-speed performance, lower tunings and chunky riffage.
At face value, the new Prophecy collection drenches five of Epiphone’s most iconic guitar shapes in darkness, with each boasting a gothic new look complete with black nickel hardware and satin finishes. But the collection doesn’t just look cool – improvements have been made to ensure your tone is gnarlier and more consistent than ever.
- READ MORE: Hudson Freeman wants to soundtrack the end of America. All he needs is a nylon-string guitar
While the Prophecy line has always dedication itself to speed and precise performance, the new collection ups the ante. All five new models boast reinforced, thermally-aged Hyperglide necks to ensure nothing gets in the way of your high-speed fretboard carnage, while locking Grover tuners and new bridge systems are also in place to keep your tuning consistent regardless of how much you thrash around.
As well as the slick new necks, each axe also comes with a bound ebony fretboard with a 10-inch to 14-inch compound radius, 24 stainless steel frets, and extended scale lengths to aid with anyone chasing lower-tuned chugs. Each model also comes with custom-voiced Fishman Fluence pickups developed exclusively for the Prophecy line, allowing players to flick between modern active humbucker tones, or experiment with more vintage-inspired or articulate cleans.
Across the new collection, each axe comes with its own unique perks. The mahogany Prophecy Victory FR comes in at 25.5-inch scale length, and features a Floyd Rose 1000 Series locking tremolo, Floyd Rose R3 locking nut, and locking Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners. It also comes in Obsidian Storm Satin and Aqua Smoke Satin.
Credit: Epiphone
The Prophecy Les Paul comes as one of the lighter options in the new collection, thanks to the single-cutaway axe’s weight-relieved mahogany body. This model comes with a LockTone Modern bridge and through-body, and a Frequensator-inspired tailpiece to nail even the tightest of low tones. As for colourways, the Prophecy Les Paul is available in Obsidian Storm Satin, Forest Phantom Satin, and Crimson Fog Satin.
Credit: Epiphone
As the name suggests, the Les Paul Baritone is great for those keen to dip deep into lower tunings. The 27-inch axe has an extended scale and comes with .012 to.060-gauge strings optimised for baritone tunings. It also has the perk of a weight-relieved body, with a Modern Contoured Heel and rear belly carve for improved upper-fret access. The Prophecy Les Paul Baritone comes in just one colour – a classy Obsidian Storm Satin.
Credit: Epiphone
Elsewhere, the Prophecy SG boasts a double-cutaway design with a mahogany SG Modern body and comes in at 25.5 inches. This model is available in Obsidian Storm Satin and Crimson Fog Satin.
The Prophecy Flying V comes in as the coolest model of the lot – after all, it’s a Flying V – and pairs it with locking Grover Rotomatic tuners, a Graph Tech nut, LockTone Modern bridge, and through-body tailpiece. In terms of colour options, the Flying V comes in Obsidian Storm Satin and Orchid Bloom Satin.
Credit: Epiphone
Credit: Epiphone
Of course, this isn’t just a guitar for metal lovers. The design is perfect for any genre that’s a little messy, chaotic, and needs some reliable stability when performing. “Heavy music comes in more than one shape, and the players pushing it forward aren’t coming from just one scene,” Lewis McKinney III, Marketing Manager at Epiphone, says. “The rebuilt Prophecy Series gives guitarists across metal, hardcore, and beyond an instrument they can count on gig after gig, with the range to turn the sound in their heads into something you can feel in the room.”
The new collection is also being launched alongside a new Epiphone Prophecy apparel line. New ‘Fulfill the Prophecy’ hoodies and t-shirts are available now.
Every new Prophecy model costs £1,249. For more information, head to Epiphone.
The post Epiphone refreshes its metal-focused Prophecy Series with new shapes and a baritone appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Epiphone Unveils Redesigned Prophecy High-Performance Series
Epiphone has introduced a redesigned Prophecy Series, its line of performance-oriented electric guitars. The series includes five sleek-looking models: the Prophecy Les Paul, Les Paul Baritone, SG, Victory FR, and Flying V. The new models feature Hyperglide necks, stainless steel frets, and custom-voiced Fishman Fluence pickups, and each comes with a Protector Ultralite case.
The Prophecy’s stealth-style visual aesthetic is a tip-off to an expansive feature set designed to enhance playability and performance. Every Prophecy guitar has a thermally aged one-piece maple neck with graphite reinforcement and a Hyperglide profile. The neck carries a bound ebony fretboard with a 10"–14" compound radius and 24 stainless steel frets. The models use extended scale lengths meant to keep lower tunings tight and defined, and each has its own hardware and ergonomic changes. Locking Grover tuners come on every model. All five have black nickel hardware and satin finishes.
Each of the new models has a pair of Fishman Fluence pickups voiced specifically for the series. They offer three voices: a high-output modern active humbucker, a vintage PAF-style humbucker, and a single-coil-style sound. The switching gives players quick access to all three. The pickups are mounted using DAPS (Dual-Axis Pickup Stabilization), Epiphone’s own body-anchored mounting system. DAPS keeps the pickups aligned and parallel to the strings while still allowing height adjustment. Stabilization wings and precision-machined pockets hold string-to-magnet spacing steady. The system also does away with conventional pickup rings.
“The Prophecy Series is built for players who expect more from their instruments,” said Aljon Go, Epiphone’s product development manager. “By pairing our iconic designs with modern performance features like custom-voiced Fishman Fluence pickups, Hyperglide necks, and stainless-steel frets, we’ve built a lineup that’s fast, versatile, reliable, and built for today’s players. Every detail was engineered to help musicians focus less on their gear and more on their performance.”
“Heavy music comes in more than one shape, and the players pushing it forward aren’t coming from just one scene,” said Lewis McKinney III, Epiphone’s marketing manager. “The rebuilt Prophecy Series gives guitarists across metal, hardcore, and beyond an instrument they can count on gig after gig, with the range to turn the sound in their heads into something you can feel in the room.”
The Prophecy models are available for a street price of $1,499 each and come with a Protector Ultralite case. Here are key details for each model.
- Prophecy Victory FR: Victory body shape in mahogany with a flamed maple veneer, a 25.5" scale, and an Explorer-style headstock. Hardware is a Floyd Rose 1000 Series locking tremolo, a Floyd Rose R3 locking nut, and locking Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners. Finishes are Obsidian Storm Satin and Aqua Smoke Satin.
- Prophecy Les Paul Baritone: 27" scale, strung at the factory with .012–.060 strings for baritone tunings such as B to B. It has an Ultra Modern weight-relieved mahogany body with a maple top and flamed maple veneer. A Modern Contoured Heel and rear belly carve make the upper frets easier to reach and the guitar more comfortable to hold. The tailpiece is a through-body design inspired by the Frequensator, meant to balance string tension and help with low-end definition and sustain. The only finish is Obsidian Storm Satin.
- Prophecy Les Paul: Ultra Modern weight-relieved mahogany body with a maple cap, flamed maple veneer, rear belly carve, and Modern Contoured Heel. Its 25.5" scale adds tension for drop tunings. Hardware is a LockTone Modern bridge and a through-body, Frequensator-inspired tailpiece. Finishes are Obsidian Storm Satin, Forest Phantom Satin, and Crimson Fog Satin.
- Prophecy SG: Mahogany SG Modern body with a maple cap, flamed maple veneer, and a 25.5" scale. It shares the series’ Hyperglide neck, compound-radius ebony fretboard, and 24 stainless steel frets. Finishes are Obsidian Storm Satin and Crimson Fog Satin.
- Prophecy Flying V: Flamed maple veneer, multi-ply binding, and a 25.5" scale. It has a bound ebony fretboard, locking Grover Rotomatic tuners, a Graph Tech nut, a LockTone Modern bridge, and a through-body tailpiece. Finishes are Obsidian Storm Satin and Orchid Bloom Satin.
Prophecy Series
Epiphone has introduced a redesigned Prophecy Series, its line of performance-oriented electric guitars. The series includes five sleek-looking models: the Prophecy Les Paul, Les Paul Baritone, SG, Victory FR and Flying V. The new models feature Hyperglide necks, stainless steel frets, and custom-voiced Fishman Fluence pickups, and each comes with a Protector Ultralite case.
The Almighty Dreadnought—The Design, Players, and Music that Shaped the World’s Defining Flattop
The best acoustic guitars under $500: six-string stunners from Guild, Gretsch, Cort, Fender & more
If you ask us, the opportunity to play guitar should be a human right. World leaders haven’t quite realised this yet, so the most affordable way to start playing is to buy a reasonably priced acoustic guitar. With no amplifier required, all you need is a couple of limbs, the guitar itself and a little spare time.
You can get very good new acoustic guitars for under $500 – and decent ones for as little as $50. There are all sorts of styles, designs, tonewoods and finishes to choose between, so to help you navigate through the noise, we’ve reviewed ten of our favourite budget-friendly models below.
More than just an affordable entry point for beginners, lower-budget acoustic guitars present an opportunity for experienced players to explore different styles of the instrument. You can get reasonably priced 12-strings, parlour guitars, open pore guitars and nylon-stringed guitars, as well as affordable takes on classic designs such as the Dreadnought. (The original was released by Martin in 1916, but it’d cost a trifle more than $500 to buy one of those on the vintage market).
On a similar note, you might be an electric guitarist looking for an occasional-use acoustic to play on the side. If this sounds like you, then you might get along best with a playability-focused acoustic guitar that has a relatively low action and a slim neck. Whether you’re an experienced musician or you’re just starting out, we’ve included a diverse selection of acoustic guitars that might fit the bill below.
Worried about the cost? Schools in the United States can apply for grants towards buying musical instruments from the Guitar Center Music Foundation. In the UK, Music for All provides similar grants to schools, groups and individuals.
At a glance:
- Our pick under $500: Guild D-320
- Best dreadnought under $500: Gretsch Jim Dandy Dreadnought
- Best all-mahogony under $500: Cort Earth L60M OP
- Best nylon-stringed under $500: Córdoba Guitars Fusion 5
- Best 12-string under $500: Epiphone DR-212
- Best from Fender under $500: Fender CD-60S
- Best electro-acoustic under $500: Tanglewood TA4CEGR
- Best bargain under $500: Gear4Music Student Acoustic Guitar
- Best parlour under $500: Harley Benton CLF-50E
- Best folk guitar under $500: Alvarez Artist AF30
- Why you can trust Guitar.com
Our pick under $500: Guild D-320
This could be the benchmark for entry-level acoustic guitars, with great looks and beautifully rich sounds. For a price far lower than our $500 upper limit, you’re getting traditional styling, a solid mahogany top, a rosewood fingerboard and nice details including pearloid dot markers and fancily-shaped machine heads.
With narrow string spacing, the D-320 is a comfortable choice for new guitarists (or for experienced electric guitarists). The action is fairly high, but strikes a good balance between providing slick playability and limiting fret buzz. Give it a strum and you’ll encounter a tone that’s more characterful than anything you’d hear from some guitars that cost double the price: bold, warm and woody.
Need more? Read our Guild D-320 review.
Best dreadnought under $500: Gretsch Jim Dandy Dreadnought
Any guitar collector can tell you that the right affordable instrument might have just as much character as a top-of-the-range model. This Dreadnought-style Gretsch is a good example, with 1930s-style looks and a slightly reedy tone that sounds fresh from the campsite. It’s quite similar to the classic Gretsch Jim Dandy – an affordable parlour guitar that’s also worth checking out – but it packs some added bass and volume.
What our reviewer enjoyed most about this guitar, besides its exceptionally cool appearance, was its playability. The vintage-style frets feel slick and smooth, while the edges of the fretboard roll smoothly into the neck, inviting you to reach for that next chord.
Need more? Read our Gretsch Jim Dandy Dreadnought review.
Best all-mahogony under $500: Cort Earth L60M OP
A guitar’s tonewood is definitive to its sound, and in the Cort Earth L60M OP’s case, it’s all about the warmth and balance of mahogany. The finish is open pore (unlacquered), so the wood’s tone and grain can really shine through.
This plays and sounds like a considerably costlier acoustic guitar, with just the right action, easily tweakable tuning pegs, and far more projection than you might expect from such a modestly proportioned acoustic. Its tone is relatively trebley, which will suit guitarists who like to occupy the mid-range frequencies in an ensemble. Acoustic and electro-acoustic versions are available.
Need more? Read our Cort Earth L60M OP review.
Best nylon-stringed under $500: Córdoba Guitars Fusion 5
Want the sweet sound of nylon strings, without the finger workout that tends to come with playing a classical guitar? This hybrid model is our top pick for ‘contemporary’ players, with a comfy neck and a distinctive shape that opens up the higher end of the fretboard for exploration – at least across the higher strings.
Seated comfortably on the lap, the Fusion 5 sounds lively and surprisingly loud – not unlike a flamenco guitar. It’s an electro-acoustic model with an under-saddle pickup, so you can tweak that sound (as it’s heard through an amp or PA) using the discreetly integrated tone and volume controls.
Need more? Read our Córdoba Guitars Fusion 5 review.
Best 12-string under $500: Epiphone DR-212
The full, bright sound of a 12-string guitar is a lovely option to have within reaching distance – but shelling out on one is often a stretch. This Gibson model is a reasonably priced compromise, with a modified Dreadnought-style format that will feel familiar to most acoustic guitarists.
If you haven’t played a 12-string before, the DR-212 could make a fine introduction to the type. Its mahogany neck and fretboard have a comfy feel, and the well-considered action makes fretting manageable (you’ll need a little extra finger strength for a 12-string) while avoiding fret buzz. Restringing a 12-string is always a bit of a faff, but the DR-212 makes it relatively easy with straightforward bridge pins.
Best from Fender under $500: Fender CD-60S
You might associate Fender mostly with electric guitars and basses, but this mahogany dreadnought acoustic is a wallet-friendly classic in its own right. The neck is glossily finished and has rolled edges where it meets the fretboard, which makes for accessible playability that will suit guitarists whose hands are more accustomed to electric guitars.
The CD-60S has plenty of personality, as you’d expect from anything bearing the Fender logo. Its solid spruce top and mahogany back and sides make an eye-pleasing pairing, while delivering a balanced tone with plenty of brightness. There’s an all-black version that goes nicely with acoustic covers of The Cure, too.
Best electro-acoustic under $500: Tanglewood TA4CEGR
If you’re looking for an acoustic guitar that’s simple to record or amplify through a PA (or amp), then you’re probably best off getting an electro-acoustic model with an in-built pickup and output. This eye-catching model from brilliant budget guitar-maker, Tanglewood, is our top pick.
The body shape (which Tanglewood calls ‘Super Folk Cutaway’) feels great on the knee, and perhaps surprisingly, the bold green finish uplifts the guitar’s natural beauty, highlighting the gorgeous grain to its quilted ash top. On a less organic note, Tanglewood’s Premium Plus EQ system gives you a preamp and tuner at your fingertips, which will come in handy for gigs and open-mic nights.
Best bargain under $500: Gear4Music Student Acoustic Guitar
Costing around one-tenth of the price limit we’ve set for this article, theGear4Music Student Acoustic Guitar gives you a decent platform for learning guitar – or a way to keep playing when funds are tight.
Look, there’s nothing fancy going on here, but you’re getting a serviceable full-size instrument with basswood construction, a laminated poplar fretboard that plays smoothly enough, and a C-shaped neck that essentially gets out of your hand’s way while you practice chord shapes and scales. It also has guitar strap buttons, so you can sling it over your shoulder and take it out busking, once you’ve honed your repertoire.
Best parlour under $500: Harley Benton CLF-50E
A parlour guitar is a smaller-bodied acoustic guitar that pretty much begs you to pick it up and play it, whenever you set eyes upon it. In an ideal world, every guitarist would have one (and we would also have a room to which we refer as a parlour).
If access to cash is what’s holding you back, this ultra-affordable, prettily finished parlour model from Harley Benton would be a great pick. Its mellow, twangy tone is ideal for the living room – or for a campsite jam – while the streamlined mahogany body makes for low-effort transportation. This is an electroacoustic model, so you can always boost the volume via the mixing desk in a live performance setting.
Best folk guitar under $500: Alvarez Artist AF30
With plenty of hollow to sit on a bouncing knee and a beautiful combination of tonewoods (sitka spruce on top; mahogany pretty much everywhere else), this entry-level Alvarez guitar is a great match for delicate fingerpicking and soulful strumming. It looks just as folksy as it sounds, with a natural wood finish.
Despite its accessible pricing, the AF30 has some features that you might associate with a higher-end acoustic guitar, including a real bone nut (typically produced as a byproduct of cattle farming – yuck!/yum!), creative shaping to the saddle and scratchplate, and a 50/50 gloss and satin finish on the neck.
Why You Can Trust Us
Every year, Guitar.com reviews a huge variety of new products – from the biggest launches to cool boutique effects – and our expert guitar reviewers have decades of collective experience, having played everything from Gibson ’59 Les Pauls to the cheapest Squiers.
That means that when you click on a Guitar.com buyer’s guide, you’re getting the benefit of all that experience to help you make the best buying decision for you. What’s more, every guide written on Guitar.com was put together by a guitar obsessive just like you. You can trust that every product recommended in those guides is something that we’d be happy to have in our own rigs.
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The Art of Acoustic: A Custom Grand Orchestra with Bold Character
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