General Interest

Adam Sturgeon, Status/Non-Status

Being left-handed has major downsides when it comes to guitars. There are very few choices available, setups are often terrible, and the better options come with reversed wiring. I've spent a lot of time building my own guitars, with various issues and inevitable failures along the way. So, it was very exciting to connect with Belvedere in building my own, fully custom leftie. Belvedere is a newer guitar company operating out of the Mile End Guitar Coop in Montreal. From highly curated woods to handwound pickups, pre- and post-build consults, I’m feeling incredibly fortunate and inspired to work with them!

Obsession: Lately, I’ve also been totally obsessed with tattoos. Again. There are several shops and quite the community of artists in my neighborhood, and I’ve been making new friends and getting renditions of some of my favorite personal items tattooed all over my legs—a coffee mug, old guitar pedal, even a hockey skate.

Dennis Cagle, Reader

I have gone to NAMM and other vintage shows for a number of years now. I’ve played the best of the big-name manufacturers, as well as boutique guitars from across the country … and other continents. As a lifelong musician and a wanna-be luthier myself, I honestly can say that my favorite builder is none other than Anthony Sims and the guys at Lucky Dog Guitars. They produce the best-quality, best-sounding, best-looking, and best-playing guitars that I’ve found. Even though I’m no longer on the road, and the guitars that come in for setups or other jobs are ones I work on for my own enjoyment, I had to buy a Lucky Dog for myself. For playability, it’s the standard that I strive for when I send one out. I won’t even mention what great guys Anthony, John, and Eric are.

Obsession: A few years ago, I attended the Amigo Guitar Show that comes to Franklin, TN, each year. This show had thousands of vintage instruments, treasures really. One vendor had a $60,000 price tag on a Martin dated around 1918, if I remember correctly, and he looked at me and said, “Pick it up and play it.” I’ve been obsessed ever since.

Ted Drozdowski, Contributing Editor

For sound, imagination, and vibe, Chris Mills from Zuzu Guitars in Pennsylvania is my guy. Chris built my main instrument, which I call the Green Monster, and no two of his guitars are alike. The Monster’s finish is a Behr color called fish pond, the mahogany body and perfect-for-me neck are hand cut, and Chris makes his own exceptional pickups, which, with coil splitting, give me the core tones of a Les Paul and a Strat, with a Strat’s weight and balance. If you check zuzuguitars.wordpress.com, you can see all of his work, which is trad and rad at the same time.

Obsession: Tremolo. I’m in a Pops Staples phase … again. But, I love adding EHX’s Pico Atomic Cluster to it, for a William Burroughs approach to melody.

Brett Petrusek, Director of Advertising

Rock N Roll Relics for their unmistakable visual signature, cool energy, and rock ’n’ roll attitude. Their shop in North Hollywood has an old-school record store vibe. It reminds me of the early San Dimas Charvel era. Every guitar I’ve picked up from Billy Rowe and Co. has always just felt great, like an old friend. You don’t need to spend a lot of time getting to know the guitar; it just works with you right away. With custom finishes, custom colors, and premium parts, like ratio tuners by Graph Tech, Jescar Frets, TonePros bridges, paper in oil capacitors, and multiple pickup configurations, you can make it your own. It’s also cool to know that no two guitars are the same—when it’s yours it’s uniquely yours.

A totally different style, but I must also give a shout out to Tonfuchs guitars from Germany. I was happy to discover and see a few of these guitars in the wild at the 2026 NAMM show; the builds were impeccable. Uwe Schölch is an artisan/craftsman of the highest order. Check his guitars at tonfuchs-guitars.com, and on IG at: @tonfuchs_guitar.

Obsession: Currently in the studio working on my band’s second album and I kinda want a Flying V. So yeah, recording and Flying Vs.

While Joe Satriani and Steve Vai’s SatchVai project has been touring for the last couple of years, the pair of guitar legends are still in no rush to release a full album. Instead, they’ve been drip-feeding their fans, sticking to one collaborative release a year – and it’s finally time for another single.

Dancing comes as SatchVai’s third track to date. It joins the 2024 release of I Wanna Play My Guitar and 2025’s The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1 – and it’s a vibrant burst of playful guitar tones. The riffy reimagining of Paolo Conte’s 1981 track of the same name sounds like it could soundtrack a bombastic cartoon heist, unfolding in a chaotic slew of bright, bouncy grooves.

• READ MORE: Dave Mustaine says he wants to move into acting after Megadeth’s retirement – and would even cut his hair to do it, but only for a “big part”

“Dancing really captures the playful side of what Steve and I discovered on stage together last summer – that push-and-pull of melody and energy,” Satriani explains in a press release. “The video also gave us a chance to show that spirit in a completely different way.”

Directed by Satriani’s son, ZZ Satriani, the Dancing music video is brilliantly goofy. The surreal narrative sees Satriani and Vai trying to please an over-the-top manager (played by comedian Brendon Small) who insists that their live show isn’t entertaining enough. To up their gave, the SatchVai pair need to start doing backflips, grow bigger fingers… and start Dancing, of course.

“This band thrives on surprise – musically and visually,” Vai says. “Dancing is a perfect example of that. It’s melodic but relentless, and the video turns that energy into a kind of surreal comedy. It’s a glimpse into the personality of this band before we even hit the stage.”

While there’s no telling what ‘surprises’ the duo have in store next (perhaps the second half of The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1?), the SatchVai project will be embarking on a US tour this April. The Surfing With The Hydra tour will run up until 30 May, with support from prog-metalers Animals as Leaders.

Head to satchvaiband.com for more information and tickets. 

The post Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are “Dancing” and letting loose on latest SatchVai single appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Last month, Sharon Osbourne hinted that she was in talks with Live Nation to revive Ozzfest. Now, Sharon claims that there will “absolutely” be an Ozzfest revival next year.

In a recent appearance on the RIFFX podcast, Ozzy Osbourne’s widow and ex-manager since 1979 confirmed the news. When asked if Ozzfest would return in 2027, she said: “ Yes, absolutely – we’re gonna do it.”

• READ MORE: “Maybe he felt my part was getting bigger than a band member should be”: Jake E. Lee on contract negotiations for Ozzy’s The Ultimate Sin

First held back in 1996, Ozzfest served as an annual festival celebrating the metal and hard rock scene. From nu-metal to dark gothic metal, the line-up was an eclectic representation of the metal genre. It halted its run in 2008, with a few one-off events before a solid run of annual events between 2015 and 2018.

As Sharon explains, that three year run wasn’t meant to end in 2018. In her words, her and Ozzy always wanted to revive Ozzfest – but, unfortunately, that’s when Ozzy fell ill. “It was just a month before Ozzy got sick, and that was at the Forum in L.A…. there were no plans to stop it,” she says. “We were still gonna do it, but Ozzy couldn’t.”

However, Ozzy didn’t want his illness to put a permanent halt on Ozzfest. “Ozzy and I would talk about it, and he’d say, ‘Do you think Ozzfest would work without me?’” she recalls. “And I’m, like, ‘Yeah, it’s a brand. It will work without you.’ And he said, ‘We should do it!’”

In January, Sharon revealed in a Billboard interview that she was in discussions with Live Nation about Ozzfest. “It was something Ozzy was very passionate about: giving young talent a stage in front of a lot of people,” she explained. “We really started metal festivals in this country. It was [replicated but] never done with the spirit of what ours was, because ours was a place for new talent. It was like summer camp for kids.”

In the interview, she also shared plans to include some new flavours in the Ozzfest revival line-up. “I’d like to mix up the genres,” she said.

Despite Ozzy’s name being slapped on the festival, Sharon played an equal role in Ozzfest’s creation. In fact, Sharon is the reason the festival even exists; she brainstormed Ozzfest to spite Lollapalooza, since the festival refused to book Ozzy to perform. So it’s safe to say fans are in safe hands. “All of the creative direction for visuals at Ozzfest was mine,” she told Billboard. “I can’t sing a note – I’m tone-deaf – but I can be creative, and I like to create things.”

The post Sharon Osbourne says Ozzfest will “absolutely” return in 2027 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

After over 40 years, the end of Megadeth is in sight. And while frontman Dave Mustaine wouldn’t be surprised of their farewell tour lasts “three to five years” – via an interview with Kerrang! – he’s already making plans for life post Megadeth – and he’s got his sights set on Hollywood.

As he tells Classic Rock in a new interview, he plans to use his retirement to pursue new avenues of interest, like expanding his acting portfolio. “I wouldn’t mind studying acting,” he says.

• READ MORE: Dave Mustaine claims Megadeth would have been less successful if not for the motivating factor of Metallica “trying to hold me back”

While he’s not a very seasoned thespian, Mustaine has had a handful of small acting gigs in the past. Perhaps his most serious role was a one-off appearance in the TV series Black Scorpion. The 2001 show followed the titular superhero fighting crime, and Mustaine played villain Torchy Thompson. More recently, he did some voice acting in the 2017 horror/musical Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill.

That being said, Mustaine is adamant he wants to fine-tune his skills. “I’ve already done a ton of stuff on TV – hosting game shows, appearances in small sitcoms and movies – so I’m very accustomed to being in front of the camera,” Mustaine explains. “I think that might be fun to do.”

And he’s serious about it; he’s even willing to chop of his iconic ginger mane to land the right gig. “If they asked me to cut my hair, I’d be willing to do it!” he adds. “But it would have to be for a guaranteed part – and a big part, to make that kind of a commitment!”

As well as his acting dreams, Mustaine also notes that he’d be interested in helping other artists. If anyone is keen to learn some guitar from one of the best, he’s more than willing to pass down some advice. “I really want to share my gift with younger musicians,” he says. “Actually, it doesn’t even have to be a younger musician. It it’s somebody that’s a little bit older and they want to learn what it is that makes Dave tick, I don’t care about their date of birth, I just want to be able to share.”

He goes on to note that sharing his gift is only fair – considering it was a generous “gift from God”, in his words. “I’ve been gifted,” he emphasises. “I wouldn’t be this good on my own.”

Recently, Mustaine revealed that ex-Megadeth members wont be involved in the band’s grand farewell tour. It’s a decision that ex-bassist David Ellefson has criticised. Speaking on Argentinian rock radio station UnDinamo, he said: “I have always said that I am available for that. And I would do it because I think any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded… I would hope and even pray that any misunderstanding or any bitterness would be removed, that that would somehow be dissipated.”

Megadeth are currently on tour in support of their self-titled final record. See the band’s official website for dates and tickets.

The post Dave Mustaine says he wants to move into acting after Megadeth’s retirement – and would even cut his hair to do it, but only for a “big part” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and that was certainly the case for Chris and Rich Robinson. Famous for being “at each other’s throats”, The Black Crowes brothers claim that their 2015 split was crucial to heal their relationship. Of course, a few rounds of therapy also helped.

In a new interview with Classic Rock, Rich claims that his relationship with Chris is “night-and-day better” than it once ways. “It’s so much healthier,” he insists. “Making records is so much cooler. Touring is so much better. We call and talk about the day-to-day shit… just stuff like brothers do, you know?”

It’s a healthy, brotherly bond that wouldn’t have been possible without their six year split between 2015 and 2021. “When we got back together, we had grown a lot,” Rich explains. “We’re both in our fifties now! So we said: ‘Look, we don’t want to do some bullshit money grab, going on tour and fighting and have it be shitty.’”

• READ MORE: “You all can stop asking me if I am buying it now!”: Joe Bonamassa weighs in on the sale of Norman’s Rare Guitars

As well as generally maturing, Chris notes that therapy was also played a massive part in healing old wounds. “Rich and I are mid-century products of the Deep South; our emotional vocabulary was not vast,” the brother notes. “To be where we are today, we had to mature, and that meant going through what we went through.”

Speaking to Howard Stern in 2019, Chris expressed his remorse over how he’d ended things with his brother. “I said some horrible things. I was in a negative place, but you know what, I’ve apologised to Rich about that,” he said. “A lot of things have changed for me in the last two years. I was in a relationship that was failing, I was in a negative place, I was dealing with depression. And I’m sitting over here, like, ‘Why am I saying bad things about my brother?’”

It would be two more years until the pair finally made amends in 2021 – and they’re glad they waited. Despite plenty of enticing offers to tour across that period, the brothers knew they had to patch up their relationship before working together again. By 2021, the pair were ready – and it was just in time for the 30 year anniversary of their debut, Shake Your Money Maker.

“We needed to strip everything back, and put our relationship first,” Rich tells Classic Rock. “We needed to listen to each other… and so Chris and I have been really adamant about that, and it’s helped our relationship tremendously.”

Nowadays, the pair are thick as thieves. In the interview, the brothers even recall an interaction with the late Todd Snider; when the guitarist visited the Robinsons, he marvelled at how in-sync they were. “What’s going on with you two?” he apparently exclaimed. “Are you wizards? You don’t even say anything to each other!?”

Since their reunion, the brothers have been churning out some great work together, from 2024’s Happiness Bastard, and their latest record, A Pound Of Feathers, is set to drop 13 March. It’s an impressive feat for a pair who, at one point, couldn’t stand being in the same room as one another.

The post “Our emotional vocabularies were not vast”: Black Crowes brothers Chris and Rich Robinson on how they put their legendary feuding behind them and reinvent the band appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Looking to add a Tele to your collection? Sweetwater is currently offering a $200 price drop on Fender’s American Professional II Telecaster.

The Professional II line was unveiled in 2020, offering a line-wide revamp of the brand’s flagship American Professional series of electric guitars and basses. The launch followed rumours that the series was due its first revamp since it was originally launched back in 2016.

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This Butterscotch Blonde model features several improvements and upgrades that enhance the classic Tele design. Namely, this model is fitted with V-Mod II Telecaster single coil pickups designed by Fender’s pickup guru, Tim Shaw. They’re described as offering a vintage voice with modern clarity.

• READ MORE: These Custom Shop ‘57 Fender Strats with matching painted necks are sure to get guitar purists talking

The model also has a roasted pine body, a choice steeped in Fender history, as pine was one of the woods Leo Fender experimented with when he was first developing the Telecaster. Other key specifications include a maple neck with a satin finish, a Deep C neck profile, and a contoured heel joint. The model also has a maple fretboard with 22 narrow tall frets, plus an upgraded cut three-saddle top-load/string-through bridge for enhanced flexibility for setting individual string tension.

Find out more below:

At the time of its launch, Fender’s Justin Norvell said of the series: “Over the past few years we have refined and elevated the American Professional series as a result of ongoing conversations with our artist partners.

“With their feedback and innovation a priority, we reviewed every element across the series, incorporating specs like a new sculpted neck heel, new pickups, supernatural neck finish, and various aesthetic refinements including bold colourways, tonewoods like roasted pine and tortoiseshell guards on select models.”

Shop this deal and more over at Sweetwater.

The post Get a Fender American Professional II Telecaster for $200 less right now in this tasty deal at Sweetwater appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

“I’m more obsessed with guitar now than I’ve ever been in my life,” professes Finn Keogh. Although Keo’s frontman and rhythm guitarist has been toying around with his dad’s Yamaha acoustics, banjos and mandolins since primary school, his first true love was songwriting, not his six-string. “I know it sounds mad, but I’m going through a Hendrix phase right now. It took me all this time…”

The ying to Keogh’s yang is lead guitarist Jimmy Lanwern, dubbed the “final fit” for the London alt-rock quartet after many had attempted the role. Gripped by Hendrix, Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis and all sorts of 90s alt-rock, Lanwern’s “conventional guitar heroes” route explains why you’ll generally catch him with a Jazzmaster or Jaguar. “I don’t know if it’s quite obvious,” he jokes through his dark mop of hair, “but Jonny Greenwood was a huge influence on me.”

Although Keo had been slaving away on the London gig circuit for a couple of years, Lanwern’s introduction sparked a significant shift in their fortunes. By his third gig, they’d secured an agent, manager and played at Scala, as mutterings of the capital’s next great guitar act intensified while they consciously held back music. Closer in age than their bandmates, Keogh and Lanwern’s friendship is key to their synchronicity with the guitar.

“I actually saw his pedalboard before anything, because I was fed up with playing with guitarists [who] would turn up without a pedalboard,” Keogh explains. “If you invite someone to rehearsal and they plug their Les Paul into the fucking black Boss Katana, they might be able to shred….” He politely declines to finish that sentence, but in Lanwern, he found a player who had substance to his style. “I was more serious about tones than I was about my playing, and I think that’s the reason it works,” Lanwern tells Guitar.com.

Image: Hermione Sylvester

The Sound Of Sirens

After breaking the deadlock last March with debut single I Lied, Amber, Keo’s debut EP Siren followed in June. Every strum of the guitar feels intentional and raw, finding a moody middle ground on songs like Hands and Thorn. Rarely driven by catchy riffs and hooks, there is a sense that Keo are steadily curating their own wall of sound, albeit with much more of an indie twang than the haze of The Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine.

“We definitely think more about soundscaping,” explains Keogh. “Not just throwing on an overdrive and going, ‘This is the scale and this is a lick.’ [Creating] an atmosphere more than anything, that’s what I love about Jimmy’s playing.” In conversation with Keogh today, his charismatic but pensive nature resembles a bandleader who cares deeply about each moving part within that atmosphere.

Perhaps destined to become a frontman, Keogh admittedly resonates with lead singers more than guitarists, picking up playing habits from friends and peers. “My old friend used to really aggressively swing his neck after every chord, and it’d have this nice vibrato,” he explains – a trait that he’s transferred onto Lanwern. “Not only did it look cool, but you’re changing the pitch – ever so slightly – of that chord. It’s almost like shaking the slide on a fret.”

Admitting he fell in love with Ben Howard’s “percussive” pick-and-go technique and early Keo songs attempted to recreate Pearl Jam’s Daughter, the framework for Keo clicked into place when he stopped looking to other artists for inspiration. While he also writes solo material – and has recently penned a global publishing deal with Universal – he’s realised any rules for what defines a Keo song are made-up.

“Every band starts by looking for [their sound], and it takes them a long time to not,” he elaborates. “You’ll get two years down the line and always drop those songs. The best songs, for me, you’ve got everyone in the room after going, ‘Where does that come from?’ Almost like trying to figure out your ancestors or giving it a DNA test. ‘Why did that sound like that?’ The best influence naturally comes out, rather than thinking about it.”

The Kids Are Alright

TikTok has aided Keo’s early buzz, despite their alt-rock serving as the antithesis to the commercial sounds you’d expect to go viral. At their shows, you’ll find rooms dominated by teenagers, a characteristic shared by bands like Fontaines D.C. and Wunderhorse in recent years. Keo’s sound has drawn unavoidable comparisons to the latter, and there’s a sense they are next in line to follow them through to academies and arenas. On this month’s upcoming UK tour, they’ve shifted 3,000 tickets in London alone.

“I think we get an unfair amount of criticism for jumping on some bandwagon with Wunderhorse and Fontaines,” muses Keogh. “But I can wholeheartedly say that since the dawn of time, I wanted to make a band that was Pearl Jam-esque, Nirvana-esque, Radiohead-esque. I will give kudos to Wunderhorse and Fontaines, because when I saw them very early on, it was quite reassuring to see how people were doing guitar music in a new fashion. We definitely took a lot of influence from those bands, but we were already on our way to figuring out how to make something new.”

“I remember a period of time where I was really frustrated, that I was into all this old music, and no one else I was mates with seemed to really be into it,” recalls Lanwern. “Meeting Finn and the boys and seeing bands like Wunderhorse and Fontaines, it does reassure you.” At their gigs, both Keogh and Lanwern see snippets of their younger selves in the audience: the fan undergoing that eureka moment, finding others who love good old-fashioned rock music.

“You can see them coming to your shows, it’s like they’ve had this secret on their chest for their whole lives,” says Keogh. “They discover our band, and they’re like, ‘Fuck, I get this, and maybe only I get this,’ and I think that makes it more valuable to them. Everyone else that comes to the shows feels the same, and then suddenly you’ve got all of those people in a room, a bit of a scene going, and a community.”

Image: Hermione Sylvester

At the time of writing, just four guitar bands are on the Reading & Leeds 2026 line-up, a festival that has always existed as a pillar of youth. They are Fontaines D.C., Florence and the Machine, Geese and Keo. Having already performed on its BBC Introducing Stage, do Keo feel the pressure of the festival’s guitar-rich heritage, as if they’re flying the flag for the next generation of guitar bands?

“To say we’re carrying the torch is quite a big thing to claim, but it is quite a surreal thing for it to be growing so quickly, and I feel like we’re almost trying to catch up with it,” responds Lanwern. “It’s hard to accept, mentally, where we are,” adds Keogh. “When you’re coming up, there’s this imposter syndrome here and there, but within Keo now, we’ve honed our craft so much and truly put in the hours. There is also now this confidence of, ‘We are the real deal,’ because we’ve fucking gone through everything we needed to go through.

“When we go to Reading, the mindset is that we are competing for that ‘spearheading band.’ We do feel like we’re on the tail of those bigger bands, and we’re putting everything we fucking have into this band. If you put enough effort into something, you feel like you’ve gained enough knowledge and earned your stripes, essentially. The shows give you adrenaline. You want those shows where all eyes are on you – where it freaks you out.”

With just one EP to their name, everything about Keo’s attitude, sound and decision-making points towards a band destined for greatness. Such is the confidence in their live show that only last month, they released their Live At Village Underground film in independent cinemas around the UK. Now, speaking to Guitar.com in between studio sessions, they are readying their next move.

“A band gets to a certain point where you almost start referencing yourself, and you’re not thinking about other bands,” concludes Keogh. “It takes years to get to, but in the last six months, there’s no need for [explanation]. Keo has got its own blueprint now, it’s going down its own lane, and that really fucking excites me.”

Keo will tour the UK from 5-15 March 2026.

The post Keo are proving that Gen Z still love guitar music: “We do feel like we’re on the tail of those bigger bands” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.



Episode 161 of the Truth About Vintage Amps Podcast, where amp tech Skip Simmons tackles all of your questions about guitar tube amps.

Thank our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars; and Amplified Parts / Mod Electronics. Use the discount code TAVA10MOD for a one-time, 10% discount on Mod Electronics orders at https://www.modelectronics.com. Usable on speakers, amp kits, pedal kits, reverb tanks, etc. Offer ends April 11, 2026.

Some of the topics discussed this week:

:42 Phil Upchurch and ‘What It’s Like to Be a Musician’

3:25 On the Bench: A non-working outboard tremolo by Skip, a unique Massie trem circuit, putting trem in a Bassman 100, bias modulating tremolo

9:57 A TAVA giveaway (Thank you, Union Tube & Transistor and Exile!)

14:44 An Electro-Music Baffler, answered; a vintage Roberts electric mandolin; Tiny Moore; Bob Wills in Sacramento

25:12 Follow our Instagram page and help us get to 10,000 followers, the Garnet amp book (link), the Garnet Herzog

28:16 An amp tech for Guam

36:12 Working on a Johnson Celestion, why were some volume pots in front of the first tube? the best spare 6V6s to seek out

42:02 Talking Micro-Frets guitars on the Fretboard Journal Podcast (link)

43:13 Why is my Fender Super 60 so noisy?

49:30 A 1968 Fender Super Reverb with replaced transformers, using the extra secondaries? bias talk

56:03 Homemade salsa

59:19 Recommended reading: Proper Records’ ‘Hillbilly Boogie’ box set (Amazon link)

1:00:33 Recommended watching: ‘The Life We Have’ (YouTube link, warning: it’s a tear jerker)

1:01:46 The Webster-Chicago 166-1 vs. the Voice of Music 160 amp schematics; homemade chicken wings

Want amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.

Want to support the show? Join our Patreon page to get to the front of the advice line, see exclusive pics, the occasional video and more.

Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.

Win these shirts (details around minute 10)…   

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 161 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Electric guitars can be marvelous contradictions. They are simultaneously robust mechanical objects and fragile ecosystems where a few small changes can turn poetry into prattle. The good news for those of us who prefer our magic quick and easy is that improvements don’t require a lot of money or late nights spent questioning life choices. Here are a handful of my favorite simple tweaks that can enhance performance and sound. I think of these as seasoning adjustments rather than major structural renovations—salt, not sous-vide.

1. Saddle-Slot Polishing: Who doesn’t benefit from a nice massage? I know I do. Microscopic burrs or rough casting marks on saddles—especially on import bridges—can rob sustain and introduce phantom harmonics as well as tuning issues. You don’t need to totally reshape anything, just a little buff and shine. Use a strip of 1000–2000 grit sandpaper or abrasive cord gently pulled through the string slot a few times. The goal isn’t to reshape anything, it’s just subtle smoothing. The audible result is a clearer attack, smoother decay, and fewer pings when tuning.

2. Trem Spring Alignment and Tension: Fender-style tremolo springs are usually installed once and then forgotten, but uneven spring tension can cause a bridge to return inconsistently. Try loosening the claw screws slightly and then retighten them evenly, counting the turns and matching the distance traveled. Be sure to mark where you began by drawing a line on a piece of masking tape. I like to snap a reference photo to remind me where I started. Symmetrical tension often yields a more predictable return-to-zero, so start there. Some techs advise removing a spring or two on the treble side where the tension is higher, but I always start with all of the springs on deck. Keep experimenting until you get the result you want. If things improve, you’re gold. If not, relax, because that photo will always be your map back home.

3. Pickup Screw Isolation: Here’s one for those of us not afraid of getting lost in the woods. Pickup-mounting screws can transfer vibration from the body into the pickup in unpredictable ways—especially if you play loud or use a ton of gain. Put a short length of surgical tubing over the adjustment screws instead of using traditional springs. The pickup becomes mechanically quieter, which translates to less microphonic behavior at volume. Larger tubing can quiet the springs themselves if that’s the problem. While you’re in there you can stick a length of self-adhesive foam rubber to the bottom of the pickup plate to calm down microphonics.

“Electric guitars are a microscope for vibrations, so it helps to start at one end of the fiddle and check everything that screws or bolts down.”

4. Contact-Point Cleaning: Electrical contact cleaner is cheap but the results are big. Your guitar has more contact points than you might imagine. Output jack, switch contacts, pot wipers, and bridge ground screws are all fair game. Oxidation is the silent tone thief, stealing high end and dulling your tone. A five-minute cleaning session can restore sparkle you didn’t realize had left the room. This isn’t mojo—it’s maintenance. If you’re feeling ambitious, take this opportunity to re-solder anything that looks questionable.

5. Tighten Up and Fly Right: Loose or rattling parts can introduce mechanical noise, especially at stage volume. Electric guitars are a microscope for vibrations, so it helps to start at one end of the fiddle and check everything that screws or bolts down. Start with the tuners and work your way down. The audible differences are minimal—until they aren’t. When you’re standing in front of a loud amp, eliminating one more source of chaos is an act of mercy.

6. Neck-Screw Torque Consistency: On bolt-on guitars, uneven clamping pressure can subtly affect resonance. Remove and reinstall the neck screws one at a time, tightening them evenly and deliberately—not crazy-tight, just consistent and snug. If you feel any of the screws very easy to turn going in, you might want to put a thin strip of wood in the body hole to improve positive mechanical contact. If you want, you can remove the neck altogether and look for stray finish or anything that might be between the neck and body that might rob the transfer of vibration.

Final Thoughts from the Bench: None of these modifications will turn a plank into a prima donna on their own, but that’s not the point. Guitars, like recipes, respond best to small, thoughtful adjustments made by you while paying attention. Every little thing contributes to the whole. Sometimes the improvement isn’t just the sound itself—it’s your relationship to the instrument after you’ve listened closely while messing with it. And if nothing else, you’ll have spent a few hours learning about your guitar in the most direct way possible: with your hands on it, instead of your wallet.

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have one of the deepest guitar-shredding relationships in the 6-string universe. Famously, Satch was Steve Vai’s guitar teacher back in their Long Island days, and they’ve developed their careers across the decades as solo artists, as partners in the G3 world, and now with their own co-led band, SATCHVAI. To celebrate, we’ve got a two-episode arc with each of the guys talking about the other one’s playing. First up is Satch talking all things Vai, from their early days in the lesson room to their upcoming Surfing With the Hydra tour.

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Legendary guitar icons Joe Satriani and Steve Vai return today with the SATCHVAI Band release of their brand new single, “Dancing,” out now via earMUSIC, alongside a wildly entertaining new video directed by Satriani’s son, ZZ Satriani.

The video stars actor, comedian and musician Brendon Small (Metalacolpyse. Dethklok), a longtime friend of both guitarists, who hilariously portrays an overzealous talent manager pushing the duo to cast dancers for the band’s upcoming live show. The chaos unfolds in sync with the track’s fast-moving melodic interplay between Satriani and Vai — a rapid-fire exchange of soaring guitar lines that mirrors the eccentric parade of auditioning performers. Eagle-eyed fans will also spot a cameo from the band’s powerhouse drummer Kenny Aronoff, adding to the tongue-in-cheek energy.

Musically, “Dancing”— a reimagined interpretation of a song by iconic Italian singer, pianist, and songwriter Paolo Conte — showcases the SATCHVAI Band at full throttle — a vibrant, melodic conversation between two of rock’s most expressive guitar voices. Built on momentum, melody, and fearless musical chemistry, the track captures the spirit of spontaneity and joy that defined their electrifying European tour.

Satriani shares, “‘Dancing’ really captures the playful side of what Steve and I discovered on stage together last summer — that push-and-pull of melody and energy. The video gave us a chance to show that spirit in a completely different way. Watching ZZ bring this absurd casting concept to life — and having Brendon step into the madness — made it even more fun.”
Vai adds, “This band thrives on surprise — musically and visually. ‘Dancing’ is a perfect example of that. It’s melodic but relentless, and the video turns that energy into a kind of surreal comedy. It’s a glimpse into the personality of this band before we even hit the stage.”

The release arrives as the SATCHVAI Band prepares to bring their “Surfing With The Hydra” 2026 U.S. Tour stateside for the first time. Launching April 1 in Seattle and running through May 30 at Wolf Trap, the tour follows a celebrated European run that included stops in London, Paris, Copenhagen, and festival appearances at Hellfest, Umbria Jazz Festival, and Guitares en Scène.

Support on all dates will come from progressive metal innovators Animals as Leaders.

On the Surfing With The Hydra Tour, fans can expect a full-band, high-energy performance featuring more new material from the forthcoming SATCHVAI Band album alongside iconic favorites from both artists’ catalogs.

“Dancing” follows the duo’s previous releases, including the cinematic instrumental “The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1” and the anthemic “I Wanna Play My Guitar,” featuring powerhouse vocals from Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple and Black Country Communion. A full album is expected later this year.

Together, these tracks preview a collaboration that is decades in the making. Despite nearly 50 years of friendship, the SATCHVAI Band marks the first time Satriani and Vai have formally united in a shared group — alongside Aronoff, bassist Marco Mendoza, and guitarist Pete Thorn — forging a live experience built on virtuosity, friendship and fearless creativity.

All ticket details available at SATCHVAIBAND.COM

SATCHVAI Band “Surfing with the Hydra” 2026 U.S. Tour (with Animals as Leaders):
April 1 – Seattle, WA – Paramount Theatre
April 2 – Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
April 4 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theater
April 5 – Reno, NV – Grand Sierra Resort and Casino
April 7 – Long Beach, CA – Long Beach Terrace Theater
April 8 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
April 10 – Mesa, AZ – Mesa Amphitheatre
April 11 – Las Vegas, NV – The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas
April 14 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
April 16 – Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall
April 17 – Dallas, TX – Music Hall at Fair Park
April 18 – Austin, TX – ACL Live at the Moody Theater
April 20 – Mobile, AL – Saenger Theatre
April 22 – Pompano Beach, FL – Pompano Beach Amphitheater
April 24 – Clearwater, FL – Baycare Sound
April 25 – St. Augustine, FL – St. Augustine Amphitheatre
April 26 – Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
April 27 – Atlanta, GA – Atlanta Symphony Hall
April 29 – Charlotte, NC – Ovens Auditorium
April 30 – Durham, NC – DPAC
May 2 – Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre
May 3 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre
May 5 – Milwaukee, WI – The Riverside Theater
May 7 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
May 8 – Cincinnati, OH – PNC Pavillion at Riverbend Music Center
May 9 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park
May 10 – St. Louis, MO – The Factory
May 12 – Buffalo, NY – Kleinhans Music Hall
May 13 – Toronto, Ont – Meridian Hall
May 15 – Northfield, OH – MGM Northfield Park
May 16 – Rochester Hills, MI – Meadow Brook Amphitheatre
May 17 – Syracuse, NY – Landmark Theatre
May 20 – Boston, MA – Leader Bank Pavilion
May 21 – Albany, NY – Palace Theatre
May 22 – Waterbury, CT – Palace Theater
May 23 – Virginia Beach, VA – The Dome
May 27 – Reading, PA – Santander Performing Arts Center
May 28 – New York, NY – Beacon Theatre
May 29 – Atlantic City, NJ – Borgata Hotel Casino & SpaMay 30 – Vienna, VA – Wolf Trap

Twin brothers Tim and Nick Frank were college students in their Canadian hometown when they built their first guitar.

It was the late 2000s, and Tim Frank was working a summer job at a canoe club that had taken over a decommissioned firehouse on Ward’s Island, just south of Toronto’s harborfront. There, he and his brother had access to a backyard shed equipped with a bandsaw, a MacGyvered drill press, and a dream.

It wasn’t the first time either of them had experimented with lutherie. When they were teenagers, Nick had gifted Tim a copy of a Dan Erlewine book on guitar repair, and Tim started doing fixups for his friends while Nick defretted his bass so that he could play more like Jaco Pastorius.

Building their own guitar posed a whole other challenge. The first one they built together at the canoe club had problems, but it showed a lot of promise. Tim and Nick kept honing their skills at college in Halifax, working out of a tiny room in Tim’s house that they converted into an ad-hoc workshop. When they returned to Toronto, they found a home in a 2,600-square-foot warehouse space in a century-old building in the city’s east end, which is where they decided to go all-in and start their own guitar company in 2014.

Fast-forward to today, and the Frank Brothers Guitar Company is established as an international purveyor of boutique guitars, with a small but mighty catalog of one-of-a-kind designs. Led by Tim and Nick, with business support from their older brother Jon, Frank Brothers has carved out a niche with its unique, vintage-inspired aesthetics and high-quality craftsmanship.

The company’s signature model is the Arcade, a double-arched solid body noted for its eye-catching look, comfortable playability, and warmth, sustain, and openness. When Frank Brothers brought the Arcade to the NAMM show just a few years into the company’s tenure, an early Reverb review commended the “superb build quality” and described playing it as “a raw and overwhelming experience.”

Since then, Frank Brothers’ reputation has continued to grow. The company’s roster of clients includes Phish’s Trey Anastasio, Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson, Zac Brown Band’s Clay Cook, Walk the Moon’s Eli Maiman, Dispatch’s Brad Corrigan, Arkells’ Mike DeAngelis, the Beaches’ Leandra Earl, and solo artist James Bay, as well as live and session players for John Mayer, Vulfpeck, and Lou Reed.

It’s been just over a decade since the Frank Brothers first broke into the boutique-guitar market. But for the full story of the family business, you have to go way further back.

A Local Legacy of Music

In the Frank family, there’s an ingrained appreciation for craftsmanship in musical instruments that’s been passed down through generations. The brothers’ father, Jim Frank, was an award-winning recording engineer who worked with artists like Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, Bob Seger, and the Guess Who. Through him, the brothers learned about the value of high-fidelity sound. Their grandfather, Philip Frank, was an acclaimed violinist who played with Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra and recorded with a golden-era Stradivarius. He taught them respect for quality instruments. “We grew up with this understanding that not all instruments were made the same, and that they didn’t have equal value or sound, and that there were some instruments that were just special,” Tim Frank says.

So, when the brothers started building their own guitars professionally, they wanted to make instruments that would sound great, feel great, and play great—and last for generations. “When we first started, there was this newbie attitude where we didn’t know any better, so we tried to achieve something that we didn’t have the skills for at the time,” Tim says. “But we were always chasing perfection.”

The Frank brothers also had access to a wealth of knowledge and guidance from several master luthiers based in Toronto. When Jean Larrivée gained international respect for his steel-string acoustics in the 1970s, he enlisted several highly talented craftspeople to help build Larrivée Guitars. When he later relocated to Canada’s west coast and then onward to California, Larrivée left behind a community of people like William “Grit” Laskin, Linda Manzer, David Wren, and Tony Duggan-Smith, who stayed in Toronto and became renowned luthiers themselves.

“There’s been a culture of guitar-making here in Toronto since the ’70s, and these people were still around,” says Tim. “We got the opportunity to talk to some of them, ask them questions.”

Finding Their Niche

In a world of Fenders and Gibsons, the twins wanted to stand out. For inspiration, they looked to the retro Japanese imports of the ’60s and ’70s. These were models that took the recognizable silhouettes of classic American guitars and twisted and stretched them into funky new shapes that still resembled the originals, but were different enough that the companies making them wouldn’t get sued. “We wanted to make something that was familiar but different,” Tim says. “Something that people would recognize, but would also be its own thing.”

Drafting their concepts by hand, Tim designed the body and Nick the headstock, each of them sketching separately. When they put their two pieces of draft paper together, the designs complemented each other perfectly. Call it twin telepathy.

By the time of their third guitar build, they had zeroed in on what would be recognized today as an Arcade. The design features an arched top and back, an extra-deep neck tenon, and their signature “blended heel,” with a 25" scale length, a 12" radius, and a deluxe, hand-painted finish.

“We grew up with this understanding that not all instruments were made the same.”—Tim Frank

A couple of years ago, they added two additional models, both with a body design that looks a tad like a Gibson SG but sits more like a classic Fender. The Radar Deluxe is a set-neck mahogany guitar with a 24 3/4" scale length and a 12" radius with Kalamazoo-style parts. The Sonar is a California-inspired design with an alder body and a maple bolt-on neck, with a 25 1/2" scale length, a 9.5" radius, deep body contours, and Fullerton-inspired parts such as a Mastery vibrato and a chopped T-style bridge.

That brings Frank Brothers’ current catalog to six models in total, all fully customizable. There are four different Arcade models, with the base edition starting at $4,495, the thinline at $4,695, the signature at $5,795, and the semi-hollow at $6,795. The Sonar is the most affordable at $3,895 and up, while the Radar Deluxe starts at $4,395.

Almost all of Frank Brothers’ guitars are custom models that are made to order. Occasionally, they’ll make a few “brothers’ choice” guitars that they’ll sell on their website, and some are made for their 11 dealers in Canada, the U.S., United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Japan.

In the early days, it would take about 12 weeks to make one guitar. But their two-man operation has since doubled with the addition of two craftspeople so they can keep up with demand. Nowadays, the company makes two or three guitars a week; last year, they built 138 total.

A Meticulous Process

Step into the Frank Brothers workshop in Toronto and you’ll instantly be greeted by the rich, earthy aroma of freshly cut wood. On the day Premier Guitar stopped by, the air was filled with the sweet smell of Spanish cedar, evoking a sauna or a cigar box. (In this case, the guitar being built was for a cigar-loving client, so it was an intentional choice.)

Frank Brothers mostly uses mahogany for the Arcade model and the Radar Deluxe, but some are made with korina instead—for clients, like blues guitarist Josh Smith, who are seeking a body similar to mahogany but with a bit more presence and clarity in the mid-range. The Sonar is typically alder or maple.

“There are few people you can be as ruthlessly honest with as your brothers.”—Tim Frank

The company brings in ethically sourced shipments of new woods a few times a year, letting them dry out for over a year before cutting them into smaller chunks for body blanks, which are further dried for another six to 12 months until they’re ready to be milled. The milling process itself happens in gradual steps using their novelty-size jointer and Haas CNC machine to gradually pare down and shape the wood as its natural tension is released. “We’re not just milling it and then making the guitar,” Tim says. “We’re milling it, letting it rest, letting it de-stress, milling it again, and shaping it over time so that we get the most stable piece.”

During our visit, the CNC machine was in the process of milling the radius into a fretboard, having already been resurfaced three previous times. When it comes time for the fret slots, they’ll cut them in a pocket style rather than a straight line through the wood so that the fret tangs aren’t visible from the sides. Tim says this creates a firmer fit. “It’s a little detail that adds fractions of an amount of extra stiffness,” he says. “But, you know, we’re going for fractions.”

Once the fretboard gets glued to the neck, they use a highly precise straight edge to re-level the wood with sanding blocks until they reach their straightness tolerance of one half of a thousandth of an inch—less than the thickness of a human hair. They repeat that process again as they build in the tension of a single-action truss rod, and again as frets are installed.

Frank Brothers also take an unusual approach to their joints. For their angled headstocks, they use a “diamond” volute joint popularized by Martin acoustics prior to the First World War and typically found today on high-end classical or flamenco guitars. Tim Frank says it’s a highly labor-intensive practice, but it gives them a more sturdy, durable joint and, as a side benefit, the process uses a template that reduces wood waste. And then there’s Frank Brothers’ secret ingredient, the “blended heel.” Because the Arcade body is arched on both the top and the back, there’s no flat reference surface to build the heel. Instead, they do the build inside a block of wood, and only once they’re ready to glue the neck in do they cut the shape of the guitar.

“You get this big, Bo Diddley-looking thing with the neck in it,” Tim says. “And then we put it on the machine, and then we cut it out. It’s more like carving a statue from a block of marble than it is building a piece of furniture or a traditional guitar.”

While both brothers have a hand in each guitar from first cut to final finish, the woodworking is Nick’s area of focus. Tim’s specialty is the finishing, done entirely by hand with a nitrocellulose lacquer and great attention to detail, making it the most time-consuming part of the whole process.

Frank Brothers opt for classic colors like candy apple red, Pelham blue, shoreline gold, and sunbursts, but they put their own retro-inspired spin on these by tweaking and re-toning the paints so they appear aged. While finishing, Tim even takes it an extra step further by using a razor blade glued to a toothpick to meticulously scrape the color off along the edges to reveal the bony white binding.

“At this price range, it’s expected that it has to sound good, play great, look great,” Tim says. “But where we have a lot of fun is with those really small details—finessing those things into making these guitars go beyond expectation.”

“It’s a little detail that adds fractions of an amount of extra stiffness. But, you know, we’re going for fractions.”—Tim Frank

By the time a Frank Brothers guitar is ready to play, roughly 60 hours of manual labor have been undertaken at their Toronto workshop. Tim Frank says their pursuit of perfection is ultimately what has allowed them to grow their client base almost entirely by word of mouth.

“The feedback we get from people that play our guitars—even in Toronto, where the weather and humidity fluctuate like crazy—is that they really don’t need to mess with them,” Tim says. “They’re super, super stable because of all that engineering. The end result is a guitar that you don’t need to futz with much. And also, we think it makes for a better-sounding guitar—something that’s more responsive, a little bit more lively, and with better sustain.”

A Guitar to Last Generations

For the Frank Brothers Guitar Company, it’s all in the name. The Frank family fostered an appreciation for fine instruments, and now that the brothers are running their own family business, that brotherly dynamic powers everything they do. “There are few people you can be as ruthlessly honest with as your brothers,” Tim says. “That relationship has really influenced the way we build guitars and the level that we work at. We’re really focused on the details.”

Tim defines that standard as “heirloom quality”—the idea that a Frank Brothers guitar should be something that you’d be proud to pass on to your children and grandchildren, the same way their father and grandfather passed on their musical legacies.

“We’re trying to make something that you would not only be proud to own and play yourself, but also want to pass along to the next generation,” Tim says. “We’re trying to make timeless guitars.”

There’s nothing like a great deal on guitar gear to cure the early-week blues, and this time Positive Grid is delivering the goods.

For a limited time, guitarists in the US and Canada can take advantage of this sweet deal on the brand’s Spark NEO Core modelling amp headphones, and get them for just $135, down from $159. Meanwhile, players all over the world can get Positive Grid’s AI-powered BIAS X amp and effects suite at a massive 25% discount.

• READ MORE: I tried using an AI-powered amp and effects suite to create my guitar sound for me – here’s what happened

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Arriving in September last year, BIAS X is the next iteration of Positive Grid’s industry-leading amp modelling and effects software, BIAS FX. While it came with plenty of new amp and effects models, the biggest talking point was the addition of an AI assistant right within the software, which can turn ideas in the form of simple text prompts into fully working signal chains. While some guitarists love tinkering with the settings of their chain on a granular level, some of us just want a solid tone so we can start playing. BIAS X takes a lot of the guesswork – not to mention the time it takes – out of the tone-shaping process.

The team here at Guitar.com all had a go, and were thoroughly impressed by the range of awesome sounding virtual gear available, plus the reliability of its AI-powered features. And for a piece of software that’s so useful – and may very well change the way you craft guitar tones – you can get it right now at 25% off, for just $111. Alternatively, there’s a number of upgrade options available for existing Positive Grid customers too, in which you can also save 25%. So don’t wait to have a go at AI-powered tone creation yourself.

Positive Grid’s Spark NEO Core headphones, meanwhile, offer a formidable headphone amp solution for guitarists, pairing a suite of powerful amps and effects with AI-powered tone generation, plus high-quality 40mm drivers tuned for guitar and bass. Simply download the Spark app and plug the cans straight into your guitar, and you can enjoy high-energy practice sessions without the fear of disturbing your neighbours, family members, or anyone else who might put a premature stop to your best riffs ever.

Shop Positive Grid’s full product range now.

 

The post Save big on Positive Grid’s AI-powered BIAS X and Spark NEO Core smart guitar headphones appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when a guitarist goes all-in on vintage gear, just look at Joe Bonamassa. The blues legend and self-professed vintage connoisseur’s home gear museum, Nerdville West, reportedly holds over 1,000 items – including no less than 600 guitars.

However, even a collector of Bonamassa’s caliber admits there’s a limit. During a recent chat on the No Cover Charge podcast, the musician reveals he’s finally hitting the brakes on new acquisitions, as there’s only so much gear a person can meaningfully explore.

• READ MORE: “You all can stop asking me if I am buying it now!”: Joe Bonamassa weighs in on the sale of Norman’s Rare Guitars

“As far as acquiring stuff, I’ve really slowed down, because there’s a saturation point,” he explains. “I’d like to get to the stuff that I own, and discover the sounds that I can get out of those pieces, before it just starts piling up and piling up and piling up.”

The guitarist says last year’s Los Angeles wildfires helped put his obsession into perspective. Clearing out his collection in the wake of the fires reminded him just how overwhelming hundreds of instruments can be.

“You never want to go into a situation, I’ve done this when I cleared out this place after the fires, where you’re pulling out cases and have no recollection of when, where, or how you acquired it. And it’s probably starting to get to that point,” says Bonamassa.

“Obviously, you can’t evacuate everything. So, you have to prioritise. And I thought about it for years. I said, ‘Well, if we gotta go, here’s what’s going.’ This being one of them, you know – Mr Skinner [Bonamassa’s ‘Skinnerburst’ Les Paul] has to come along.”

Elsewhere in the chat, Bonamassa also reveals his tactical approach to collecting rare gear.

“What I do is, I never telegraph anything. You won’t know I’m interested until I’d be like, ‘I’ll take it,’ or, ‘I’ll cut you a check.’”

The guitarist says he tends to acquire gear in batches, securing spares and matching pairs of key amps and instruments: “Like, you notice there’s two [Marshall] JTM45s. There’s three in here, and one in Nashville. So, I’m usually ‘a pair and a spare,’ And you look at the back wall, there’s a bunch of Blackface Fender amps, and Selmers behind you, and [Fender] Tweeds and everything.”

The post “You don’t want to have no recollection of when, where or how you acquired it”: Why Joe Bonamassa is hitting the brakes on his vintage gear collection appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Walking away from a band you’ve called home for years is never easy, as former All That Remains guitarist Jason Richardson knows well.

In a recent chat with Guitar World, Richardson – who joined the metal band in 2018 after the tragic passing of founding guitarist Oli Herbert – says his departure last July was driven not by personal conflicts but rather, frustrations over management and the handling of the band’s 2025 album, Antifragile.

• READ MORE: Dave Mustaine claims Megadeth would have been less successful if not for the motivating factor of Metallica “trying to hold me back”

When asked whether leaving was a “difficult” decision, he admits [via Blabbermouth], “Kind of, but not, simultaneously. I don’t wanna get into the weeds of it publicly, but I’m still cool with all of the guys in the band. It was mostly just a business thing. And things just were not executed like they were promised to be, from management and the people tasked with putting the record out.”

“I’m glad the record exists, but the fact that it’s already been out almost a year and there hasn’t been one show. So it’s, like, there’s just a lot of things on the business side in the back end that I was not happy with at all.”

The guitarist is quick to stress that it wasn’t about personal relationships.

“It has nothing to do with anyone’s personality or anyone in the band at all,” he says. “It just wasn’t, in my opinion – like, I could be doing other things than trying to make that work when it so clearly was not going to – from my perspective, at least.”

Despite the frustrations, Richardson looks back on the album fondly: “I still love the guys. I love the record. I loved working with [producer] Josh Wilbur, the guy who did the album. He’s phenomenal. And that’s probably one of the best things about that record, for me at least, is now I have a great relationship with him, and we’re gonna keep working together. But I am happy all those songs are real, so there’s that at least.”

Following Richardson’s exit, former Unearth and As I Lay Dying guitarist Ken Susi has officially stepped in as his replacement, opening a new chapter in the band’s story.

The post Jason Richardson on leaving All That Remains: “There’s just a lot of things on the business side that I was not happy with at all” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Every guitarist has that one guitar they can’t live without, and for Joe Perry, it’s the “Burned Strat”. From small club gigs to MTV stages, the Fender/Warmoth hybrid has been a constant in Perry’s musical journey – an instrument so personal he calls it his “desert island guitar,” and one he can “pretty much do anything” on.

Speaking to Guitar World, Perry reflects on the axe’s origins, describing it as a “work in progress” even after decades of tweaks and shows.

“The inspiration for putting it together was when I left the band, I put most of my Aerosmith guitars aside and basically put this guitar together out of Warmoth parts,” Perry explains. “I was going back to playing clubs and theaters, just cruising the country in a van with a band and playing. In a way, that guitar fit in with my philosophy of leaving the Aerosmith thing to the side and playing this one guitar that I’d put together.”

• READ MORE: The time Joe Perry snapped the headstock of one of his favourite guitars: “Steven wanted to throw it into the audience – I had to wrestle him for it!”

“You can tell it was played a lot because I did a lot of shows back then, and there’s just a sound and a feel to it,” he adds. “It had a left-handed neck and body, and it was my go-to guitar for those three years. When it was time to start going back on the road with Aerosmith, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll pull that one out’ because it symbolised so much of me; it had a sound and felt really comfortable.”

By the early 2000s, Perry and his tech built the current Burned Strat to preserve the original.

“I didn’t want to take a chance on the original guitar being lost, so somewhere around 2001, me and my tech put another one together with the same philosophy – just bits and pieces, you know?”

As for what makes the Burned Strat so unique, Perry explains, “It’s the same guitar as far as the Fender body and Warmoth neck. It’s kind of a relic; I’ve changed the pickups, the vibrato bar and the bridge. I carved off more of the body to make it comfortable, and I even put it in the freezer overnight and then took a blowtorch to it so the finish would crackle, which gave it a jump-start to the way it would look over the years.”

He’s also upgraded the tremolo with a Vega-Trem bridge and even used a Dremel on it – “just to make it a little more of this or that,” says the guitarist. “So I can divebomb on it and use it as another musical tool – but I also can get the classic vibrato sound.”

Recent pickup swaps to a pair of Seymour Duncan P-Rails have expanded the guitar’s tonal palette as well.

“Each one has a P90 and a Strat-style pickup in it; those two sit in a humbucker slot. We went from three pickups to two, but with those pickups, there are really four positions, and you can switch them with the microswitches we added. I can have the pickups separate or together, and the toggle lets me pick which one I want and when. I can pretty much do anything on that guitar.”

Perry recently put the Burned Strat through its paces at the MTV Video Music Awards with Steven Tyler and Yungblud, as well as on Aerosmith’s latest collab EP, One More Time.

“Everything you hear I did with that guitar and just a few foot pedals,” he says, noting that its hybrid string setup and fat frets let him bend notes comfortably – even with arthritis starting to kick in.

“At this point, it is and will continue to be my ‘desert island guitar,’ but you never know,” Perry laughs.

The post Inside the heavily modded – and blowtorched – Fender/Warmoth hybrid Joe Perry calls his “desert island guitar” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

What does it feel like to get your hands on one of the most famous guitars in rock history? For Myles Kennedy, it’s something he still struggles to put into words.

Reflecting on the time he was able to hold Eddie Van Halen’s iconic Frankenstein axe, the Alter Bridge frontman admits the moment caught him off guard.

“We weren’t tracking with Frankenstein. Have I held Frankenstein? Yes,” Kennedy tells Guitar World. “Was it a total, Excalibur-level experience? I don’t even know how to articulate that, but I got emotional – that was a pretty special moment.”

• READ MORE: Channel your inner Eddie Van Halen with this new reverb plugin inspired by the sound of the Sunset Strip

Even though Frankenstein didn’t feature on Alter Bridge’s latest record, Van Halen’s legacy was still close at hand when the band tracked the album at the legendary 5150 Studios in Los Angeles.

“As far as amps and whatnot, there was a 50-watt 5150 III that we used when we were doing pre-production, so I plugged into that,” Kennedy explains. “I had it set up because I couldn’t fly out my Diezels. I fell in love with that amp, and it became a big part of the sound. I ended up marrying it with the [Diezel] VH4 when I was actually tracking.”

That EVH head didn’t just win over Kennedy. Fellow Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti was equally impressed when he paired it with his own signature PRS amp.

“I thought [the 5150 III] sounded so good, especially mixed with what I was using, which was my signature PRS head,” says Tremonti. “I loved it so much that I got one; they were nice enough to give me one, and I took it on the last tour we did. So now it’s a part of my sound.”

“It’s given me a new appreciation for 50-watt heads. As long as I’ve been playing guitar, and as long as I’ve collected amplifiers, I don’t think I’ve ever owned a 50-watt head – maybe a single 1×12 combo that was 50 watts. I never appreciated how aggressive a 50-watt head is. When you pair it with 100-watt heads, it’s got a certain character – a bite that cuts through the mix. But it’s not harsh.”

Elsewhere, Kennedy also opens up about what it meant to be invited into 5150 by Wolfgang Van Halen himself – and the responsibility that came with it.

“Wolf was incredibly kind enough to bring that offer up with our manager,” says the musician. “We were like, ‘Really?’ We knew the history of all the incredible music that had been made there. Just the fact that he trusted us enough to come in and not totally ruin the legacy really meant a lot. When we all showed up, we were very cognisant of that, and we wanted to honour the situation.”

Alter Bridge’s new album is now out. Listen below:

The post “Was it a total, Excalibur-level experience? I don’t even know how to articulate that”: Myles Kennedy on holding Eddie Van Halen’s Frankenstein guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$149.99, digitech.com

It has now been a few years since JHS’ Josh Scott gave the invisible hand of the free pedal market a little push, and accidentally kickstarted a craze for the original DigiTech Bad Monkey. Reverb listings for the pedal soared to stratospherically silly prices, and the presence of true magic within it was hotly debated. There were those who claimed that the Bad Monkey was a better Klon than some Klons. There were also those who claimed that all of these comparisons were proof that most overdrive pedals can be set to sound pretty similar.

• READ MORE: Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini review: “this is the most universal Quad Cortex yet”

Regardless, talk of a reissue was inevitable, one that might fit into the lineup of a newly-reinvigorated DOD/DigiTech – and here we are. First things first, this is a DOD reissue of a DigiTech pedal, presumably because it’s an analogue stompbox, and Cor-Tek (parent company of both) now wants to keep things consistently and sensibly divided – DOD dedicated to the analogue, DigiTech the digital. It’s also, as we’ll explore, more than a straight ‘reissue’ – we could have gotten a simple four-control remake of the original circuit, updated to modern spec with a better buffer and a less dated enclosure. That’s all here, but there’s a lot more to unpeel, including a totally unique barrel control that can blend together three discrete variants of the circuit.

Image: Adam Gasson

Build and layout

The Badder Monkey is packed into the standard DOD single-stompbox format, used for everything from the Overdrive 250 to the Carcosa. It’s a really sturdy platform, with a solid build and a cool little reversible backplate if you want pre-attached velcro. The only real negative for some might be the side-mounted jacks, but overall it’s still a well-executed version of the standard single-stomp.

The Badder Monkey does look uniquely great. The barrel draws the eye, of course, but the UV print on the enclosure is also brilliantly glossy and very three-dimensional – I have to give a nod to the design execution on the titular Monkey bending the bars of an otherwise abstract control outline, labels included.

Even discounting the barrel, the full control scheme is pretty whacky – for good or for ill. If you thought the Supermassive Black Fuzz’s control scheme was ‘theme over function’, it shows Boss-like restraint compared to the Badder Monkey. Here Bananas and Curiosity are gain and volume, while Mood is a concentric EQ control – Screech and Grunt for treble and bass, respectively.

I can see the logic on the EQ side, but Bananas and Curiosity do seem totally arbitrary – you’ve just got to remember that gain’s on the left and volume’s on the right. These knob names are unusually whimsical for DOD – even its other strongly-themed pedals such as the Carcosa or Chthonic still have knobs called things like “output” and “high cut” rather than “Eldritchness” or “Cyclopeanity”. But it’s only a slight knock against the pedal, really – it’s clearly having a lot of fun with the whole vibe, and so themed control names were perhaps inevitable.

Image: Adam Gasson

In Use

I first stay a little more conventional, and begin my testing with only the original Bad Monkey in the mix. This circuit is, as you may or may not already be aware, essentially a Tube Screamer-derived thing with the addition of a two-band active EQ. By itself, it is very easy to see why this gained status as a hidden gem from the early 2000s – that original slightly clunky enclosure was indeed hiding a fantastic overdrive sound.

Thanks to the two-band EQ it is as full or as sharp as you need it to be, and still allows the core sound to provide the all-important midrange presence. Like any good TS-inspired thing it can bring a clean amp to life as well as it can clear up gainy chugs. More extreme EQ settings behave as you’d expect – feel free to remove all the bass and pretend your guitar’s coming through an Amazon Basics walkie-talkie, or remove all of the treble and pretend you’re playing it underwater.

The real beauty, though, lies in the pedal’s versatility within the context of a full sound. You can target problem areas of both fizz and mud far more effectively than you could with a single tone control. These are all of the things that made the original so ripe for a modern revival, and so in terms of a straight-ahead reissue, DOD has absolutely done the job. But of course, like those well-meaning activists at the beginning of 28 Days Later, it is now time we open the cage and let the Badder Monkey run truly rampant.

Image: Adam Gasson

Barrel of fun

Did you know that the phrase “more fun than a barrel of monkeys” dates all the way back to the 1800s? The phrase, along with a few other interesting things, has led to a sort of vague general association between monkeys and barrels within the collective unconscious. Imagine, if you will, a whimsical pirate ship. There’s obviously a monkey there, who has likely poked his head out of a barrel, one full of either gunpowder, gold doubloons or bananas. And before you write in, Donkey Kong’s love of throwing barrels at plumbers doesn’t count as part of this association, as he’s an ape, not a monkey, and as such will not be mentioned again in this review.

The Barrel/Monkey continuum also brought us that children’s toy with loads of plastic monkeys in it, a copy of which is actually included as case candy with the Badder Monkey. It has also spawned the new 360-degree barrel control, a patent-pending continuously-rotational potentiometer that is employed to blend between three variants of the circuit: Behaved, Bad and Badder. Behaved is a smoother, more tonally subdued variant of the pedal, while Badder is a more chaotic and aggressive version – Bad is simply the original circuit.

With all the talk about how a lot of overdrive circuits can sound nearly identical, here the trio of circuits do all have a very distinct flavour. Behaved is indeed very subdued – there’s a noticeable roll-off to any barking high-end, and there’s a fair bit less gain. Badder, however, lives up to its name with a far more aggressive approach to both the distortion and the midrange hump.

The fact that the barrel is a three-way continuous blend control means you can choose your preferred blend of any two of the three circuits on offer – which is, for an analogue pedal, a completely wild thing to be able to do, and has to be commended from a pure engineering standpoint. But it does also offer real tonal flexibility: the three voices, while all ultimately being variants of a very green-flavoured overdrive, are all disparate enough to make the in-between positions worthwhile – for instance, blending both Behaved and Badder gives you a very smooth overdrive sound with a subtle undertow of snarl somewhere beneath the surface – it’s a very effective thing.

If you want to throw all subtle blending to the wind, however, just use the middle toggle switch to select ‘troop’ mode, which engages all three circuits in parallel – the resulting sound is extremely full-fat – it may not perform quite the same with the exacting tone-shaping precision as a single or a blended sound, but it is a hell of a lot of fun.

This switch can also set the blend to be out of phase, which leads to a rather weird but nonetheless engaging sound – it makes the effect far more of a character overdrive for adding an ear-catching texture to solos, more so than pure utility. It’s a strange experience, sweeping through the middle positions in the inverted mode, leading to a sort of infinitely variable clash of the different characteristics of the circuits.

Image: Adam Gasson

Should I buy the Badder Monkey?

It’s hard to overstate just how much joy the Badder Monkey brings me – DOD didn’t have to do any of this. It didn’t need to be a whacky, three-mode reissue with a totally unique blend control and the option for nasal out-of-phase sounds and an included copy of Monkeys In A Barrel. This could have been an easy win – but DOD took the stranger, far more creative path. The initial furor around the DigiTech pedal strayed a little close to the sun of discourse, and risked just being frustrating and draining as people bemoaned the hype and the hipsterishness of it all – this is the perfect inversion of any of the phenomenon’s negativity into something far more joyful.

All that has been discussed above is interesting enough, tonally and experientially, that you might assume it’s relegated to some exclusive boutique overdrive that’ll require a remortgage or two. And given the price silliness from the first spike in demand plus the barrel, DOD could have also probably gotten away with charging something like £200 for this thing. But the Badder Monkey is instead pretty damn reasonably priced at £129 – that’s not much over the going rate for a new official TS9, and about £100 less than the JHS Bonsai, another multi-circuit Tube Screamer-inspired pedal, albeit with a very different approach.

The Badder Monkey is also one of the few fun Tube Screamer-derived things out there – the circuit has such a reputation as a utilitarian tone-scalpel that it tends to evaporate any whimsy in its vicinity. The Badder Monkey, on the other hand, is more fun than a… well, you know the phrase.

Image: Adam Gasson

Badder Monkey alternatives

The world of Tube Screamer-derived things is fairly massive, with everything from ultra-affordable clones to more in-depth boutique variants out there. Listing them all here would balloon the wordcount of this review to that of the Silmarillion, and so I shall mention but two. If you fancy something a little more budget and prosaic, there is always the Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini ($79.99 / £49.99), a far cheaper single-mode version of the green overdrive sound. For another well-regarded refined boutique take on the thing that won’t break the bank, consider the EarthQuaker Devices Plumes ($119 / £124.99) – a straightforward take on the pedal with three clipping modes.

The post DOD Badder Monkey review: much-memed pedal gets a bananas reissue appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

As pedal builders, we often field questions about effects, but many players endlessly chase tone without grasping that the guitar-pedal-amp ecosystem is an inseparable whole. The initial signal from your guitar is the primary architect of your tone’s gain structure and frequency response. It’s the “first domino.” Every subsequent device in your chain—every capacitor in that boutique pedal and every line of code in your modeler—is just reacting to the ghost that your pickups sent into the wire.

The relationship between pickups and pedals is highly dynamic—an interaction between impedance and signal level. Consider one of the most popular pedals: the Ibanez Tube Screamer. In the hands of a metalhead with an active-pickup guitar and a high-gain amp, it functions as a reliable booster, yielding an aggressive metal sound. Conversely, in the hands of a bluesman with a Strat and single-coils plugged into a Fender amp, the Tube Screamer becomes the heart of a very SRV-esque blues tone. The same pedal, yet its response and character drastically change depending on the input signal.

The most extreme example is the fuzz pedal. (Personally, we focus on building fuzzes and other unique pedals.) In my experience, fuzz is the most idiosyncratic and signal-responsive pedal, affected not only by the pickup but also by whether the signal passes through a buffer or not. Empirically, my hypothesis is: Fuzz generally struggles to produce a clear, usable sound with high-gain or active pickups.

Technically, this happens because traditional fuzz circuits (especially those using germanium transistors) have low input impedance and severely limited headroom. High-gain pickups send a signal that is simply too “hot,” causing excessive and uncontrolled clipping at the fuzz pedal’s input. This results in a muddy, indistinct sound (or what’s often called “splattering”). Low-gain pickups, on the other hand (like single-coils, P-90s, or PAF-style humbuckers), provide a quieter initial signal, preserving the fuzz circuit’s headroom and allowing it to produce rich, dynamic textures.

The Ampless Rig: A New Challenge

So, what about the current era of all-direct or ampless rigs? Let me share an empirical experience. I’m a huge fan of the sound of a Les Paul plugged into a tube amp. However, the reality is I’m an amateur player who can’t afford a crew to haul that heavy gear to a gig. Whether I like it or not, I had to embrace the modern ecosystem. I started experimenting with a direct system using analog/digital amp and cab simulators.

The results were surprising: My Les Paul with high-gain pickups sounded terrible—dirty and muddy—in this direct setup. Then, I tried a guitar with low-gain pickups, and it worked!

This success wasn’t because the low-gain pickup was magically better, but because it unintentionally fixed a fundamental technical issue: gain staging.

1.Digital Input Clipping: High-gain pickups produce a much higher output voltage. When this hot signal enters the input of a digital multi-effect or direct box, which has headroom limitations on its digital preamp or analog-to-digital converter (ADC), the signal undergoes digital clipping even before the amp simulation begins. This is what leads to a “broken” and indistinct sound.

2. Optimal DSP Headroom: Low-gain pickups naturally send a lower initial signal, providing much better headroom for the digital signal processing (DSP) to optimally handle distortion, modulation, and EQ.

In the modeling era, the biggest challenge is strict gain staging. Different manufacturers—Boss, Line 6, Fractal, Valeton, Nux, Hotone—implement very different analog front ends and output drivers, so results vary. Ultimately, we just have to stick to the golden rule: If it sounds good, it is good!

The bottom line is that when we talk about stompboxes, pedals, multi-effects, or modeling—none of them can stand alone. The sound of an Ibanez Tube Screamer will remain a mystery until you plug it into a guitar and an amp.

If you want to “tweak” your pedal or multi-effect, you must also tweak your guitar’s pickups. Perhaps the problem isn’t the pedal’s algorithm or the modeling itself, but your gain staging is ruined because your pickup is too hot, making the signal too large to be ideally interpreted and processed mathematically by the multi-effect you are using.

And all of this can change with time and need. For me, when gigging with a tube amp, I like using a Seymour Duncan El Diablo in the bridge position (to aggressively push the tube preamp). When using a direct or modeling setup, I prefer a Seymour Duncan Jazz Model in the bridge position (because the cleaner, low-output signal provides better headroom for the digital processor).

Think of your pickup as the lens on a high-end camera. You can have the most powerful image processor in the world—the flashiest DSP or the most expensive boutique pedal—but if the lens is blurry or letting in too much light, the final “picture” will always be a distorted mess.

Adding to the company’s line of boutique effects, Lucky Dog Guitars has introduced the Chicken Nugget compressor, capable of delivering old school guitar compression made famous by country players throughout the decades, but with modern updates. The Chicken Nugget combines classic dynamic compressor sound and feel with an added sparkly clean tone in a separate, parallel channel. The two channels are completely independent and have their own dedicated volume knobs for maximum flexibility as you blend them together. Both channels offer plenty of output above unity gain, so both can be used as volume boosters.

The Chicken Nugget’s eye-grabbing graphics are augmented by a large retro-style jewel pilot light (in a “fried chicken” color) and playful descriptions for the control set. The compression channel offers three knobs and a two-position toggle switch for tone shaping. The “Cluck” knob controls the amount of compression; “Crow” varies the compression release time; and “Comp” adjusts the output volume level of the compressor channel.

The compression channel’s two-position toggle adds EQ flexibility: its “Greasy” and “Crispy” settings can tailor the effect to your guitar’s pickups. Use the “Greasy” setting with bright single coils for classic compression twang. Use the “Crispy” low-cut setting for tightening up a humbucker by eliminating muddy low-end frequencies.

The pedal’s clean channel offers two control knobs. “Gain” adds body and juice to your clean signal, while “Volume” controls the clear, uncolored signal parallel that can be added to the compressed signal.

Other features include:

• Soft switch controlled mechanical true bypass – if the pedal loses power it immediately goes into true bypass so you don’t lose your signal
• 9-volt operation using standard external power source – no battery compartment
• Retro-cool graphics and “chicken head” knobs, color coded for ease of use: cream for the compression channel and red for the clean channel

The Lucky Dog Chicken Nugget carries a $189 street price and is available through luckydogguitars.com