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Neil Young is not a man who does a lot of gear-focused interviews, which makes the secret of his incredible and hugely influential guitar tones something of an enigma in guitar circles. While guitar fans do our best to extrapolate what Young used, we do have the benefit of one forthright source. His longtime guitar tech Larry Cragg has been pretty open about the gear Young has used and his preferences when it comes to tone.

• READ MORE: The Gear Used by Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti

What we don’t really have is any concrete idea of exactly what he was using and when – so we’re left to pull from what Cragg has shared, combing the various interviews, photographic evidence from his studio and live sessions, and a fair bit of hearsay, too.

Harvest is an album that many see as the pinnacle of Young’s long and storied career. And there’s a good case for it – it’s his best-selling album, and gave him his only number one song in the US in the shape of Heart Of Gold.

The album also helped solidify his signature sound. As we know, Young has, at times, been very experimental when it comes to his guitar rig, but for most, when we think of the “Neil Young Sound” we think of Harvest.

The ‘Old Black’ Les Paul

We can’t talk about gear used on a Neil Young album without talking about his main electric guitar, Old Black. Old Black is a heavily modified 1953 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop that Young obtained from his Buffalo Springfield bandmate Jim Messina. However, regarding the recording of Harvest, there is some debate over what pickup was in the bridge position. The most reputable sources, as well as Neil Young himself, claim that the Firebird humbucker was installed in 1973, which would be after the recording of the album. It is widely believed that the pickup in the guitar during the sessions was a DeArmond Dynasonic single-coil (the neck was still a stock Gibson P-90 which had been rehoused in an aluminium cover).

Cragg stated that he installed the DeArmond which was in the guitar for about two years before being replaced by the Firebird humbucker. If the Firebird pickup was installed in 1973, then the pickup in Old Black during the recording of Harvest would have been the DeArmond.

The White Falcon

As the story goes, Young traded his first White Falcon, a 1959 model, to Stephen Stills in exchange for a rare 1960 White Falcon that had stereo outputs (though Cragg often refers to this guitar as a 1970 model). This guitar was unique, so much so that it had its own model name, the 6137 (a regular White Falcon was a 6136). It was made from 1958 to 1981, but in very small numbers.

The guitar actually had different pickups than a standard Filter’Tron; it had what historians call “Project-O-Sonic” pickups which had wiring that separated the three pole pieces on the bass of each pickup from its three pole pieces on the treble side of each pickup. Meaning that one output was for bass and the other for treble. They could be routed to two different amplifiers and panned in a recording mix. It is easy to see why Young wanted this particular White Falcon model as it was so much more versatile in the studio. This guitar was most notably used on the solo for Words (Between the Lines of Age).

Martin D-45

The main acoustic used on Harvest was a Martin D-45. That guitar was used on songs like Old Man. Young bought this guitar in 1969 as a reissue – the D-45 was originally made from 1933 until 1942. Martin wisely started making them again in 1968 and it has been a mainstay of the company’s lineup ever since.

Pre-war D-45s are quite rare and only 91 are said to have been made. Neil Young’s former bandmate Stephen Stills is said to own a 1939 model that he calls ‘Mother Maybelle’. At some point Young had his tech scallop the braces on the inside of the guitar to enhance its tonal response. To amplify the acoustic, Cragg installed two FRAP pickups (Flat Response Audio Pickups) inside the guitar. One is for the top strings, and one is for the bottom strings. In this way, they were better able to tweak the tone of the guitar to their liking.

Amps & Effects

The primary amplifier for his electric guitar work on the album was a 1959 Fender Deluxe Tweed (5E3), especially during the barn sessions at his ranch, where most of the electric tracks were recorded for Harvest. As far as we know, Neil Young is still partial to the Tweed Deluxe.

As for effects, there were very few, which is something that has become somewhat characteristic of his signature sound. There was, however, a 15 IPS (inches per second) tape slap-back on Young’s vocals for a few tracks, which is often confused for a subtle echo or delay. The other “effect” is something we had already alluded to… perhaps just as important as the gear itself was the studio where it was recorded, and Harvest was the first album to utilize a new studio that Young was in the process of building in his barn at his newly acquired thousand-acre ranch in Woodside, California, that he called Broken Arrow.

The barn where the album was recorded allowed Young and his band to play loud, allowing for the room ambience to be captured. The barn, and relatively primitive recording techniques, unlike a proper recording studio, often resulted in bleeding between tracks, which means you can hear the bass in the guitar tracks or drums in the piano tracks, etc. This makes mixing more difficult, but nonetheless was something that Young and his production crew embraced. This concept of using the room and recording techniques, essentially, as an effect, was a brilliantly simple way to record and forge his own sound. The sound was far from perfect, but it was Neil Young.

Neil Young is known as the Grungefather, and the recording techniques used on Harvest, along with the natural tube distortion of a cranked out Deluxe amp, helped to sculpt the tones that many rock musicians still chase today. Harvest remains a favorite among Neil Young fans and the mainstream at large.

The post The guitar gear used by Neil Young on his Harvest album appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

After Cradle of Filth members, husband and wife Marek “Ashok” Šmerda and Zoe Marie Federoff, recently quit the band citing “low pay”, high stress and “years of unprofessional behaviour from people above us”, band leader Dani Filth has offered a response.

Šmerda and Federoff’s resignations came in quick succession last month, with the latter claiming the band’s management were “dishonest” and “manipulative”, also saying they had attempted to withhold advance payments for the band’s new album.

• READ MORE: “Sharon actually sat in on my audition – probably to see if she’d wasted plane tickets!”: Jimi Bell on his Ozzy Osbourne audition – and why he lost out to Zakk Wylde

Posting screenshots of her contract with the band on social media, Federoff says her lawyer “called it the most psychopathic contract a session musician could ever be handed”.

Now, Dani Filth has come forward with his “side of the story, now that so many accusations have been levelled at the band, our management, and me personally”.

Apologising for the “tardiness” of his statement following a period of reflection, Filth says he doesn’t want to partake in “tit-for-tat or slander”, but wishes to “clarify the following points”.

Filth says “one of the main reasons” for the ongoing dispute between Šmerda, Federoff and the band is a “miscommunication regarding the nature of the contract”.

“There is not a contract that was ever expected to be signed as is, but was the initial framework to build from,” he writes.

Filth also accuses Šmerda and Federoff of engaging in arguments while the band was on tour, sometimes in front of fans.

“I’m sad to see that Zoe is picking facts to fit an agenda but am willing to share the full story including the description of events of the first three days of the South American tour, to show a more balanced picture so that people can make their judgements based on the wider context,” he says.

“During those first days, heavy drinking, escalating arguments, and repeated public disputes created a very disruptive atmosphere for everyone involved. 

“I personally witnessed heated exchanges between Zoe and Ashok that included both verbal and physical abuse, culminating in a public display in front of the hotel and fans who had gathered for last minute autographs in Sao Paolo. This was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of abusive behaviour that strained the entire team.”

Filth also says he took issue with the way Šmerda spoke about band manager Dez Fafara, as well as Sharon Osbourne, in screenshotted text messages.

The messages, confirmed by Consequence, read: “Dez Fafara – you are a sick, evil person trained by sickest person in music industry – Sharon Osbourne – the criminal who should be whipped to death.”

“Dez is very honest, transparent and truthful and doesn’t get paid until I allow the accountant to pay him,” Filth continues.

“This means everything goes through my accountant and then said accountant sifts through all the financial numbers to see what can and cannot be afforded. Dez never handles any of the moneys coming in.

“Dez called out for Zoe’s firing, to which Ashok spoke out for her and went after the Royal family of heavy metal and we won’t have anybody speaking about Ozzy’s wife like this.”

You can read Dani Filth’s full statement below:

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The post “So many accusations have been levelled at the band, our management, and me personally”: Dani Filth issues lengthy statement amid Cradle of Filth dispute appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Landing a gig with Ozzy Osbourne is a dream for any guitarist and Jimi Bell certainly came closer than most.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Bell recounts the audition that almost saw him become the Prince of Darkness’ next axe-wielder following Jake E. Lee’s exit in 1987, sharing everything from the gear he brought to the surreal dinner where Osbourne ate off his salad plate.

• READ MORE: “Are you crazy? You’re a rock star”: Ozzy Osbourne’s baffled reaction when Randy Rhoads told him he was going to quit his band shortly before his death

Bell’s journey began with a call from Kramer Guitars: “I was endorsed by Kramer Guitars and Dennis Berardi, the president, had kind of taken me under his wing. One morning he called to say Jake E. Lee was out and he’d sent a video of me to Sharon. Suddenly I had an audition – but the catch was I had to fly out that same day.”

Already familiar with Ozzy’s classics like I Don’t Know, Crazy Train, Flying High Again, and Suicide Solution, Bell spent the hotel ride brushing up on his repertoire.

When it came time to play, he didn’t need much gear as the amps were already set up. “I just had to bring myself and my Boss 7-band EQ to push the amp a bit harder. I’m pretty sure it was a Marshall JCM800,” he recalls. “The energy in the room was intense but inspiring.”

Bell explains that the first round of audition was with Randy Castillo and Phil Soussan, though the moment that stuck with him the most was Sharon Osbourne sitting in on his session.

“Most of the players went through that first round. Sharon actually sat in on mine – probably to see if she’d wasted plane tickets! She liked what she saw, and I was told I did great.”

The next day brought him onstage with Ozzy himself: “Surreal doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he says. “It went exceptionally well – I was locked in with the band and stayed true to the song and the solo, but I added a little flair unique to me. Ozzy literally leaned down in front of my amp while I was playing.”

The guitarist also took a solo on his own, noting how the vibe in the room was “strong” then. “Ozzy and Sharon told me it was down to me and Zakk. I went to dinner with them at a fancy restaurant, where Ozzy ate off my salad plate with his fingers!”

“Then I went back to their house and hung out for a while, and I even met Ozzy’s oldest daughter, Aimee,” he continues. “At that point Zakk had already started working with them, and I think his similarities to Randy played a big part in the final decision.”

Though he didn’t land the gig, Bell looks back on the experience without regret.

“I don’t know if he ever saw my tape; but I know Sharon did, and that’s what got me in the room. More importantly, Ozzy saw me live, just inches from my amp. I think that moment said more than any demo ever could,” says the guitarist.

The post “Sharon actually sat in on my audition – probably to see if she’d wasted plane tickets!”: Jimi Bell on his Ozzy Osbourne audition – and why he lost out to Zakk Wylde appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Former Guns N’ Roses member Matt Sorum has seen his fair share of frontmen command a stage. But after catching Yungblud’s recent gig at the Hollywood Palladium, he says he’s convinced rock ’n’ roll’s future is in safe hands.

The drummer recently shared a photo with Yungblud – real name Dominic Richard Harrison – on Instagram, praising the pop-rock provocateur as a “pupil of RNR” who’s “done his homework” and studied greats from Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler to Axl Rose and Ozzy Osbourne.

• READ MORE: He brought the house down at Black Sabbath’s farewell gig, and once hilariously defied a no-moshing order at a Japan show. Like it or not, Yungblud is the star rock music needs

“Happy to report there is hope in the world of rock n’ roll,” he writes. “Truly inspired and blown away by Yungblud’s gig at the Hollywood Palladium last night. If you were there you know what I mean. The room was electric and the crowd was insane. The energy all came from the stage as Yungblud brought it.”

“He has discovered himself and is unleashing it on the world,” Sorum continues. “I will go so far as to say I saw something historic last night and the world needs this. Congrats Dom you are going no place but up!”

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It’s no faint praise, coming from a musician whose career spanned stints with Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver and the Hollywood Vampires. Sorem’s comments also add to a growing chorus of rock veterans championing Yungblud as more than just a crossover act dabbling in guitars.

The 27-year-old recently brought down the house at Black Sabbath’s farewell show last month with a soaring rendition of Changes that won over even hardened skeptics. Ozzy Osbourne himself had long been a supporter, forging a personal friendship with the singer before his passing in July.

Meanwhile, Yungblud’s ‘Idols’ World Tour is set to continue across North America and Europe in 2025. The tour began on 23 August in Los Angeles and is scheduled to conclude in April 2026 in the UK.

The post “There is hope in the world of rock ‘n’ roll”: Matt Sorum hails Yungblud as rock’s next great star after Hollywood Palladium show appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

A red Baldwin Burns Double Six 12-string electric guitar lent to Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler in the mid ‘70s is headed to auction, and could fetch up to £30,000, experts say.

The guitar was lent to Knopfler by old friend Jeff Sadler, who played guitar for numerous bands in north-east England, including Brethren, which later became Lindisfarne. It was originally intended to be part of Christies’ massive Mark Knopfler Guitar Collection Sale, which raised nearly £9 million last year.

• READ MORE: Reverb’s Labor Day sale is on – save thousands on guitars, amps and pedals right now

However, according to auctioneer Gardiner Houlgate, the 12-string was withdrawn prior to the auction and returned to Jeff Sadler.

Despite Knopfler using the Double Six “regularly in the studio and on stage” – including on Dire Straits’ second album Communiqué, and at the band’s Prince’s Trust Rock Gala performance in the mid ‘80s – the instrument is said to be in “perfect original condition”.

Now, the guitar is scheduled for auction via Gardiner Houlgate on 9 September, alongside a Jimmy Page-owned 1957 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120, which was given away by the Led Zeppelin man in a competition in NME Magazine in 1974.

“Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits had a huge influence on music and guitar players not just in the 1980s and ‘90s, but through to today,” says Luke Hobbs, auctioneer at Gardiner Houlgate.

“I’m confident this guitar will attract a lot of attention from fans and collectors alike – particularly as it has such a great story behind it.”

The auction – featuring both the Mark Knopfler-played Double Six 12-string and Jimmy Page-owned Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 – will take place at Gardiner Houlgate, 9 Leafield Way, Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 9SW on Tuesday, 9 September.

The guitar will also be available for public viewing on Friday 5 and Monday 8 September from 09:00 – 17:30, and on the day of the sale, too.

For more information, head to Gardiner Houlgate.

The post Burns Double Six 12-string “borrowed” by Mark Knopfler for 50 years and used on classic Dire Straits album could fetch £30,000 at auction appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

More than a decade since Sonic Youth’s split, Thurston Moore is certain about one thing: fans hoping for a reunion shouldn’t hold their breath.

It’s a stance that has held firm even after the guitarist briefly reconnected with former bandmates Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley late last year at New York’s the Stone. The trio’s hour-long set of improvised noise had shades of Sonic Youth’s old magic, but Moore insists it wasn’t meant as a prelude to something bigger.

• READ MORE: “If I can’t find a plectrum, it’s the only thing that really un-anchors me”: Thurston Moore says he never leaves home without a guitar pick

“It was a gig I had at the Stone, and I initially asked Lee to do a guitar duo,” the musician explains in a recent chat with Rolling Stone. “We’ve done this before in different places, and I thought it would be cool to ask Steve to play, because he’s in town, and he plays drums. And I thought that would be cool. So that’s all it was.”

Asked if the performance stirred any nostalgia, Moore quickly shakes it off: “I didn’t think about that. I don’t, like, miss things. I miss the future,” he says. “As far as music is concerned, reformation doesn’t really come into it so much.”

“We had a solid career of 30-plus years, far longer than most bands have had. The legacy of the recordings stands on its own. I don’t feel like there’s anything left unsaid as far as what we were doing.”

As unique as Sonic Youth’s sound was, the guitarist says he has little interest in recreating it: “We’re all kind of long in the tooth now. I don’t know if that can ever be recaptured. And I don’t like the whole ‘re’ thing, you know, reforming.”

Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth co-founder and Moore’s ex-wife has echoed similar sentiments. Speaking with Rolling Stone last year, Gordon said that any reunion “would never be as good as it was.” And Moore agrees.

“I find bands that get back together to be just an exercise,” he says. “A lot of the time it’s less to do with the band and has more to do with the brand. Unless it’s the OG members, you know, but even, a lot of the aspects of bands that are so important is their youth. And to replicate that is a little bit like a grandmother in a mini-dress, which I don’t want to be.”
Despite frequent offers, he’s content to leave Sonic Youth where it ended.

“I get asked every day. We all do. It’s a constant thing,” Moore says. “I like it because I’m glad we had such an effect and left such a mark… I’m so proud of it, and it’s such a big part of my life experience. But it’s very encapsulated. It has a great beginning and middle and end.”

With that chapter closed, Thurston continues to focus on his solo work. Earlier this year, the musician released a new single, The Serpentine, followed last month by a cover of the Velvet Underground’s Temptation Inside Your Heart.

The post “I don’t feel like there’s anything left unsaid”: Thurston Moore on the likelihood of a Sonic Youth reunion appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Few compliments hit harder for a guitarist than being mistaken for Eric Clapton. And for John Mayer, that moment came courtesy of none other than session legend Robbie McIntosh.

Over his career, McIntosh has played alongside some of music’s biggest names – from Paul McCartney and Mark Knopfler to Norah Jones – and, of course, John Mayer.

Looking back on his time in Mayer’s band for his Where The Light Is live album, McIntosh shares a story that perfectly illustrates the Gravity hitmaker’s guitar prowess.

• READ MORE: “I could put a record out right now”: John Mayer says he’s written enough songs to make a new album – but here’s why he’s not going to do it

“Steve Jordan and Pino [Palladino] had done Continuum and John was looking for another guitar player,” he tells Andertons. “Pino and Steve suggested me, I think just because I can learn things pretty well.”

While preparing for the sessions, McIntosh was deep into Mayer’s catalogue when a mix-up occurred. Listening to one of the tracks, he assumed the lead guitar was Slowhand’s – only to find out it was the work of Mayer himself.

“John is an unbelievable guitar player, but playing some of the parts was quite easy – I certainly can’t play his lead stuff,” says McIntosh. “Then John actually phoned me up, and I kind of put my foot in it, because I thought Eric Clapton was playing the lead guitar on, I think it was Stop This Train.

“I said, ‘Oh, when did you get Eric to play on that?’ He said, ‘Eric’s not playing on it. That’s me.’ Just on that track, it sounded more like Eric Clapton than John Mayer. He laughed, and he said, ‘Oh, thanks, man.’”

It’s no surprise Mayer took it so gracefully, for the guitarist has long cited Clapton as a major influence. The two have since shared the stage at events like Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival and even recorded guitar duets together.

Watch the full interview below.

The post “Eric’s not playing on it. That’s me”: The time John Mayer received the ultimate guitar playing compliment from Paul McCartney’s session guitarist appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Few guitars have earned the reputation of the Fender Stratocaster. Ergonomic, versatile, and endlessly imitated, it’s often held up as the very blueprint of electric guitar design.

Since its debut in 1954, the Strat has served as a faithful workhorse for players ranging from Jimi Hendrix to pop powerhouse Olivia Rodrigo. But as Rodrigo’s guitar tech Luis Munoz argues in a new video on social media, even Leo Fender didn’t get everything right.

• READ MORE: Meet the new Fender American Ultra Luxe Vintage collection: Aged lacquer finishes meet stainless steel frets, locking tuners and shred-ready necks

In fact, “Leo Fender got one thing wrong,” Munoz declares in a new Instagram reel. And the problem, he argues, isn’t with the guitar’s design flourishes, but with something far more basic: the wood screws used to hold its neck in place.

“The Strat is iconic, but Leo missed one detail: wood screws for the neck joint,” he explains. “The neck comes off often for many reasons like shimming, some have the truss rod adjustment at the heel, for fret work etc. With all that on and off, those holes will eventually strip.”

To prove his point, Munoz showcases a Hendrix anniversary Strat that arrived on his bench with a loose neck and a crude “fix” – toothpicks shoved into the screw holes.

“My guess, they were probably drilled a bit too big from the factory? The solution, toothpicks shoved in as a ‘fix’. That doesn’t work,” he writes.

Instead, the guitar tech lays out two proper solutions: redrilling and plugging with maple, or using threaded inserts with bolts. The latter, Munoz notes, is his “go-to” option. “[It’s] faster, stronger, cleaner,” he explains, adding that while he’s more cautious with vintage pieces, inserts are often the best long-term fix for most working guitars.

By the end of the reel, Munoz demonstrates the finished job: “I can take the neck off a million times with no worry now,” he says. “Some claim better sustain because of the tighter connections. Ps, I don’t know if that’s true.”

Watch the full process below.

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The post Olivia Rodrigo’s guitar tech explains the “one thing Leo Fender got wrong” when designing the Fender Stratocaster appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

€199.99 (Tonex One) & €799.99 (Tonex Cab), ikmultimedia.com

Just when you think the line between real guitar amplification and digital emulation couldn’t get any more blurry, along comes IK Multimedia and pours a bucket of molten lava over it.

Looking for a portable headphone amplifier? A device you can plug into your laptop via USB for direct recording, with instant access to multiple amp and speaker cabinet models? A jamming tool that can produce clean and dirty tones of all kinds at virtually any volume? A proper chunk of gigging backline, with channel switching, that lets you hear yourself on stage without relying on monitors? The Tonex One and Tonex Cab aim to give you all of the above, and more.

• READ MORE: Blackstar ID:X 50 review: “stands out by knowing exactly what it is, and who it’s for”

IK Multimedia Tonex One & Cab – what are they?

It’s probably time to stop being surprised by how much functionality can be crammed into a single pedal these days. After all, what’s going on inside the Tonex One is mostly just digital processing, so the only reason it’s as big as it is – and next to the original Tonex Pedal this thing is basically an atom – is that IK needed to make room for knobs and sockets.

So, that functionality… there is computer software involved in this package, and I’ll come to that in a minute, but it is possible to simply power up the pedal, plug in a guitar and start playing – with 20 factory presets to scroll through and plenty of scope for on-device editing. There’s a tuner built in, and you can even pick two favourite sounds then flip between them with the A/B footswitch.

That just leaves the question of what you’re plugging it into. There’s only one jack output on this pedal, but that’s not as limiting as it sounds. For a start, the USB-C port that’s used for connecting to your PC or Mac for sound-editing can also send audio from the pedal for recording; and the main output doubles as a (stereo) headphone socket. So you’re covered for silent noodling, as well as running it into a DI box, a recording interface… or an FRFR cabinet.

In case you’re not familiar with that term, it stands for ‘full range, flat response’ and means the Tonex Cab is no ordinary guitar cabinet. Like an English salad, it’s designed to be utterly characterless – that is to say, as tonally neutral as possible, with all the frequency-filtering coming from the source, so its only job is to make everything louder. And by ‘louder’ I mean an eminently giggable 350 watts of solid-state amplification.

That’s pushed through a custom Celestion 12” driver and a 1” tweeter, and there are tone controls on the top for tuning it to the room, plus various other bonus features including an aux input. You can even load IRs into the cab, which could be useful for playing with preamps that don’t have that part built in.

And so we come to the third part of the deal: the on-screen editing. IK is known for its AmpliTube emulation software, and a stripped-back SE version of that is included with the pedal along with Tonex SE and Tonex Editor. This is the free corner of a large and complex app ecosystem that includes lots of paid add-ons plus options for capturing and sharing home-recorded tones, but for the purposes of this review I’m going to stick with Tonex Editor – that’s the simple way to control the sounds being produced here.

IK Multimedia Tonex One & Cab – are they easy to use?

Just looking at this pedal, you know the word ‘fiddly’ is going to come up before too long… but I’ve got to admit, IK has done a sterling job of making the Tonex One easy to operate.

For starters, if you’re plugged into a computer you don’t even need a nine-volt power supply because it can be powered through the USB port – a simple idea but a brilliant one. And here’s another: the status LED in the middle is actually a button. You can use this to change control mode for the four knobs – bass, middle, treble and volume or gate threshold, compression, reverb and gain – or, by pushing it and the footswitch simultaneously, to enter preset scrolling mode. It even changes colour. Fiddly? Yeah, a bit, but smart.

The cab is even simpler, because all you really need to do is switch it on, plug in the pedal and make sure to start with the volume at zero unless you want your eardrums to shatter like poppadoms. It has tilt-back legs for better stage monitoring, just like a Fender Twin Reverb – and, at 15kg, has the advantage of being about half that amp’s weight.

The software side is pretty straightforward too – at least once you’ve got it going. The first thing you’ll need to install if you don’t have it already is IK Product Manager, a sort of hub for managing all your IK downloads. Confusingly, the only option that showed up on my Mac was called Tonex CS; but once downloaded, this magically changed its name to Tonex SE… and turned out to contain both Tonex and Tonex Editor.

It’s a bit of a mess, to be honest, but luckily that’s not the case with the editing app itself. With the pedal plugged in, it takes just a few seconds to sync then lets you go ahead and twiddle yourself into oblivion. Changes on the desktop are instantly applied to the pedal, so you can make adjustments in real time and not have to worry about saving.

The included amp selection is not huge but covers most bases, from Marshall and Soldano to Dumble and Dr Z, and there are 16 cab models to choose from. All amps share a common control array, including parametric EQ and presence, and you even get some basic ‘studio’ effects: compression, modulation, delay and reverb.

On the subject of effects, the free software’s 20 presets include one that has a Tube Screamer in the circuit, and five stomper-only models that can be used in front of a real amp, turning the Tonex One into a sort of ‘normal’ overdrive/fuzz pedal (there’s a stompbox mode where the footswitch engages bypass instead of A/B flipping).

But I don’t want to dwell on these virtual pedals too long – partly because they’re not very good, and partly because there’s so little you can do with them. Yes, there are thousands more stompbox models you can download from IK’s ToneNet sharing site; but if you dream of stringing together a virtual pedalboard to run into your virtual amp, like you can in AmpliTube, that’s not an option here. You can’t even adjust the knobs in Tonex Editor. Forget the pedals, move on.

IK Multimedia Tonex One & Cab – what do they sound like?

Shall we start with the One and Cab working together? Go on then, but just let me warn the neighbours first – because while 350W is nothing special by FRFR standards, this black box is nonetheless an absolute house-shaking beast.

In terms of sheer volume, you’ll be fine here unless you’re planning to play Wembley Stadium without a PA. Maybe it doesn’t feel exactly the same as cranking a real valve amp, but it’s big, rounded and well balanced, and sounds just as convincing at bedroom levels as it does when you’re waking babies three streets away.

Clean tones have all the top-end chime and low-end warmth you could ask for, the transition into crunch happens naturally and with no loss of conviction, and the various high-gain models are impressively tight and impactful. It’s in the heavy zone, in fact, that the Tonex One seems to be happiest of all: even if the noise gate is pretty crude, the factory presets for full-throttle Marshall, Orange, ENGL and Mesa Boogie sounds are all excellent. There’s also a Tweed Deluxe model that does the Neil Young ‘splat’ remarkably well.

Given the aforementioned limitations with virtual effects, it’s important that our teeny-weeny amp can take real pedals well – and it can, getting on famously with everything from low-gain drives to Muff-style fuzzes. I’d have no qualms about using this as a live rig with my pedalboard.

Everything above applies equally when you’re listening through headphones or desktop monitors, meaning this pedal very much lives up to its billing as a true all-round tool… and it’s worth noting that the Tonex Cab works fine without its wee friend as well: I ran a Walrus Audio ACS1 into it and was rewarded with a rainbow of top-class clean and overdriven tones.

One more clever feature to add to the list: there’s a knob on the cab’s control panel marked ‘amp tone’, which the manual says “increases the realism”. What that actually means is anyone’s guess, but it can be used to liven up the midrange in a way that’s surprisingly useful.

IK Multimedia Tonex One & Cab – should I buy them?

The Tonex One is an ambitious little pedal that makes a fine job of everything it sets out to do – so if you like what you’ve read about it on the IK website, you’re unlikely to be disappointed. The Cab is more complicated because it’s quite expensive for an FRFR box, and the extra functionality you’re getting for that money isn’t necessarily going to change your life… but the two of them do look awfully cute together.

IK Multimedia Tonex One & Cab alternatives

Don’t overlook the full-size Tonex Pedal (€429.99), which offers more tweaking power (and space) without resorting to the external software. Other miniature amps worth considering range from the headphone-friendly Fender Mustang Micro Plus ($134.99/£119) to the almighty Walrus Audio Mako Series MkII ACS1 ($449/£419).

Don’t like the price tag on the Tonex Cab? The Positive Grid Spark Cab ($299/£289) is a way more affordable 140W option, while the likes of Fender, Laney, Line 6 and HeadRush all make powered FRFR cabinets now.

The post IK Multimedia Tonex One review – a complete amp solution for absolutely everyone? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Though one of the most well respected names in modern-day bluegrass, Molly Tuttle is embarking on something of a stylistic departure with her new album, So Long Little Miss Sunshine.

Still deeply rooted in the mesmerising flatpicking prowess with which the California native has earned herself two Grammys, the album sees Tuttle venturing more into the realm of pop country, swapping solos with a “constant stream of notes” for more melodic bluegrass-inspired leads – ones that are more singable.

And in a new episode of Guitar.com Originals series My Guitars & Me – the first of season three, no less – Tuttle shows off her custom dreadnought and collection of Pre-War Martins which you’ll hear on the record.

“We were talking about this for a whole year, planning this guitar,” Tuttle says as she proudly shows off her custom Martin “Crooked Tree” D-28, inspired by her third studio album, Crooked Tree. The guitar sports a set of tree branch-inspired inlays on the fretboard, culminating in a Crooked Tree logo at the end of the ‘board with Tuttle’s initials ‘MT’.

“I sent that to them as one potential inlay idea,” she explains, “and then they had this idea to make the fret markers out of branches, and make it get more and more crooked.”

Elsewhere, Tuttle showcases her Herringbone dreadnought acoustic, made by North Carolina’s Pre-War Guitars Co., which specialises in aged recreations of pre-war guitars from the ‘30s and ‘40s.

“I played a show in Ohio, and this guy came up to me and said he had all this beautiful Brazilian rosewood,” Tuttle recalls. “And he knew I liked Pre-War guitars, so he offered to send the wood to the guitar company for free, and have them build me this guitar. So it was kind of out of the blue.”

“The thing that’s interesting about the Pre-War Guitars Co. is that they age all the wood, and they also have different levels of distress that you can order, so some of their guitars they scratch up and make them look crazy. They’ve even put a bullet hole in the guitar before. They’ll chain them to a car and drag them [along].”

On the stylistic direction of her new album – which arrived earlier this month – Tuttle explains that it was her vision to stay grounded in her bluegrass roots, while experimenting with more “general” sound.

“There was a little bit of both, making sure my identity and my roots with bluegrass and American roots music still stayed a through line on the new album,” she says. “And a lot of how we did that was with the guitar playing.

“But at the same time I wanted to stretch my playing as well… I wanted to make the style a little more general, and more uniquely mine – not trying to fit into any certain mould.”

Watch the latest episode of My Guitars & Me with Molly Tuttle above.

The post How Molly Tuttle is breaking the bluegrass mould with her custom dreadnought guitars appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Labor Day is just around the corner, and many of the major music retailers are hosting massive sales to celebrate. Right now at Reverb, you can save hundreds – and in some cases thousands – on a range of guitars, amps and pedals until Wednesday 3 September.

So is now the time to treat yourself to that new piece of gear you’ve been craving. You know, it might just be.

• READ MORE: One pedal to rule them all: Boss’s new PX-1 Plugout FX puts 16 classic effects at your feet

Let’s face it, the price of an authentic Gibson Les Paul puts it out of reach of many guitarists’ budgets. But if you’ve been thinking about shelling out to finally get your own LP, this Murphy Lab Aged ‘59 Reissue has been discounted by a huge $1,349.25. Granted, even with the discount it’ll still cost you $7,645.75, but previously priced at nearly $9,000, we can tell you that this is a hell of a deal.

Sold in “excellent condition with very few signs of wear”, this ‘59 Les Paul Reissue features next to no fret wear, and all electronics function as new.

Or if a Les Paul isn’t your style and you’re looking for a high-ticket guitar that’s a bit more metal-ready, why not gander at this 1977 Greco Flying V, discounted by $525, taking its price down from $3,495 to $2,970.

Other highlights from the electric guitar department picked out by our very good friends at Reverb include a Natural-finished 1987 Fender Telecaster Thinline ‘72 Vintage Reissue, discounted by a strong $460, meaning you pay just $1,839.99. There’s also something for those on a slightly tighter budget, with this PRS Limited Edition SE Custom 24 in Ruby priced at $679.20 down from $849.

Or maybe you’re not in the market for a new guitar, but are keen to give your pedalboard a little love?

We’ve spotted a host of solid deals on stompboxes, including $96 off this MXR M279 Deep Phase Phaser and a cool 20% off this Keeley Electronics Blues Disorder

Click below to browse the entire Labor Day sale over at Reverb.

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The post Reverb’s Labor Day sale is on – save thousands on guitars, amps and pedals right now appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Steve Vai and Joe Satriani first started jamming together as teenagers, but their musical partnership gone on to span over 50 years. Now aged 65 and 69 respectively, the pair are still going strong – but they still feel like a pair of excitable teenagers when working together.

In a new interview with Thomann’s Guitars & Basses, Vai explains that his musical bond with Satriani still feels as exhilarating and fruitful as when the pair were young. “We’re kind of frozen at 14 years old,” he smiles. “You know, the way [we’re so] enthusiastic about the shows and playing together… it’s like being a teenager again.”

• READ MORE: Joe Satriani on why he doesn’t rate vintage guitars “The musician has to connect with the guitar for it to become special”

While the pair have toured together over the years on Satriani’s G3 tours, their collaboration for the SATCHVAI band is the first time the pair have properly worked as a pair. “We tag team, you know,” Vai explains. “I would say it’s my favourite co-creative guitar extravaganza, because we started doing it when we were teenagers. We’ve developed ears for each other.”

The idea for the band came when Eric Johnson wasn’t able to continue touring with G3. “We wanted to extend the tour… So Joe and I went out as Joe Satriani and Steve Vai,” Vai recalls. “Then we [had a call and decided], ‘well, why not just create some new music [together]?’”

Before Vai had even “hung up the phone”, Satriani has already sent ideas over. “I get these two tracks from Joe, and they’re The Sea of Emotion [Part 1 and Part 2], which is a place that we used to go and hang out when we were kids,” he says.

Inspired by Satriani’s enthusiasm, Vai got to work, adding in his own ideas for The Sea of Emotion Part 3. The third movement really embraces that teenage spirit – and Vai even used a genuine recording from the pair’s younger. “So there’s, like, six or seven seconds or so of Joe and I as teenagers,” he grins.

The original recording is from when Vai was 12 and Satriani was 16. “I started lessons with Joe when I was like 12, and I’d go to his room and he had this Sound on Sound tape recorder,” Vai recalls. “And I was just so attracted to this thing, because I loved the idea of recording, I loved the idea of engineering… I said, [Joe], tell me about that thing. He goes, ‘Well, let’s try it.’”

“So he showed me this riff, and he was playing these chords, and we recorded it. We got like, eight minutes, you know, as long as the tape was. And then many years later, Joe sent it to me, and I transferred it to digital, and I thought, I’m going to take a piece of this and actually put it at the beginning of the song.”

While only two tracks have been released, including The Sea of Emotion Part 1 and Glenn Hughes’ feature track I Wanna Play My Guitar, the rest is still being pieced together. “A lot of it is kickback to our youth with mature ears and fingers,” Vai says. “I Wanna Play My guitar is so representative of that time.”

The post “We’re kinda frozen at 14 years old”: Steve Vai explains why he and Joe Satriani are still so enthusiastic about playing guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$3,599/£3,799, martinguitar.com

How many times have we been told that the Dreadnought acoustic guitar was originally created for country stars, folkies and singing cowboys? Chris Martin IV himself is at pains to put this misconception to bed because – as he explained to me in a recent conversation for the Martin Journal – everything actually started in Hawaii.

• READ MORE: Furch Pioneer MM Review: “the biggest compliment that you can give to a travel guitar is that it doesn’t feel like one”

The resonator guitar, lap steel and even the earliest electric guitars were created for Hawaiian music – the first dreadnoughts made by Martin under the Ditson brand name were no exception. So why don’t we talk about it more?

Martin O’ahu HG-28 – what is it?

This new Martin guitar – named the O’ahu HG-28 – is a Hawaiian koa and spruce beauty designed to go some way towards correcting that imbalance. As well as being the first guitar from Martin’s new O’ahu sub-brand, it also celebrates the significant impact that the tiny Hawaiian archipelago has had on popular music since the explosion in popularity that followed the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. After this World’s Fair event was held in San Francisco, suddenly aloha shirts, ukuleles and slack key tuned guitars were popping up everywhere.

This particular guitar would not exist without a surreal moment of serendipity when Chris Martin IV found an unusual instrument in an online auction and couldn’t resist giving it a home.

The guitar in question was one of the more improbable Gibson models of the time – the HG-2O which featured among its bizarre specs, an internal resonating chamber and additional F-holes in both the upper and lower bouts. Utterly bonkers and ultimately an evolutionary dead end for the flat-top acoustic.

But when CFMIV checked out his new vintage purchase – complete with a soundboard that had all but collapsed over the years – he realised that the guitar was essentially a round- shouldered dreadnought for Hawaiian music.

It set Chris to imagining what a similar Martin guitar might look like – an evolutionary missing link between those original Ditson dreadnoughts and the all-conquering Martin models that would come along in the 30s. This was the spark of inspiration that led – after much research and development – to the O’ahu HG-28 I am now holding in my hands.

But the HG-28 is more than just an interesting alternative history lesson – it has plenty of intriguing qualities on its own merits for those who maybe don’t quite get on with Martin’s most famous and influential design.

Despite the majestic power that typifies its voice, some will tell you – with a straight face! – that the traditional Martin dreadnought design is too boomy. The body is too big, it is uncomfortable, they will claim.

Well, thanks to the HG-28, dreadnought-curious players can now enjoy a more ergonomically svelte experience. The gently slope-shouldered body is no deeper than a Martin 000 and feels good when seated. The guitar is built around a shorter 24.9” scale length too which promises added warmth and intimacy if that’s what you’re looking for.

Koa is an interesting wood – it was a traditional choice for ukuleles (it only grows in Hawaii after all) – and Martin pioneered its use for acoustic guitars in the 1920s. Nowadays it’s often seen as an attractive, if pricey, alternative to rosewood or mahogany – one that has seen heavy use in recent years by Martin’s great modern rival, Taylor.

Koa is loved for its beautiful figure and timbral properties that mean it pairs very well with good spruce. As luck would have it the lid of this box is made from a slice of pale Sitka – a classic choice that looks striking against the top’s herringbone purfling and cream binding.

Some might raise eyebrows at a £3.5k guitar shipping without a hard case, but the softshell gigbag included still feels very premium with generous padding, a robust neck support and a rather fetching woven fawn-coloured outer covering.

Martin O’ahu HG-28 – feel and sounds

Pulling the HG-28 out of said gigbag, and it’s instantly a very welcoming experience. The neck features Martin’s Low Oval High Performance Taper and is made from what Martin frustratingly vaguely describes as ‘Select Hardwood’. In this case it certainly looks like something mahogany-coded with some spectacular grain accentuated with dark pore filler. It’s an immediately comfortable squeeze – fast and familiar. The 1.75” nut width offers enough room for fingerstyle too.

While a short-scale slope-shoulder dreadnought could feel very like a Gibson J-45, the whole vibe of the O’ahu HG-28 is reassuringly Martin from the arm position on the lower bout to the balance point at the waist. Time to make some noise!

I honestly hadn’t planned to stay in standard EADGBE for very long with this guitar – I was extremely keen to get involved with some of the naughtier slack key tunings I’ve encountered over the years. However this is actually a very workable little dreadnought in missionary tuning and it could prove a useful alternative to a D-18 or D-28 – especially in the studio.

With bare fingers the HG-28 has a sweet voice – Martin supply the guitar with uncoated strings so there is an element of extraneous string noise, but the koa back and sides are more forgiving than a rosewood instrument might be.

Taking a medium flatpick to the guitar certainly wakes it up. The bass response – though definitely present – is not quite the full 25.4” scale bark of a D-28 but there is more than enough punch for a convincing G-run and the trebles are smooth and balanced all the way up the fretboard.

Easing the O’ahu HG-28 into DADGAD reveals a woody, fundamental quality to the voice – this helps prevent the sympathetic resonances typical of that tuning from getting muddy or indistinct and the short scale makes wider vibrato and bends a genuine pleasure.

The guitar has played a fascinating role in the history of Hawaiian music and kī hōʻalu or slack key playing is at the heart of it. Taro Patch tuning – known to the rest of the world as Open G – reveals a lot about the character of this instrument – that koa shimmer across the shorter scale length, the slightly metallic transient to the note that is so typical of sitka spruce. These are subtleties but there is no denying that this is an instrument with its own distinct personality.

Martin O’ahu HG-28 – should I buy one?

With the new O’ahu HG-28 Martin has a very interesting proposition on its hands. Whether you’re into the Hawaiian vibe or not – where else are you going to find a koa slope-shoulder short scale dread at this price point?

It is evident that a lot of thought has gone into this instrument – but more than that – the O’ahu HG28 represents an acknowledgement of the role of Hawaiian culture in modern popular music. There is a beautiful Hawaiian concept of ‘pono’ – the word means righteous, balanced, good. From beautifully figured koa to the palm trees on the label and the correct reverse apostrophe in O’ahu this is a very pono guitar.

Martin O’ahu HG-28 – alternatives

The HG-28 is very much doing its own thing in terms of design and sound, but there are some fine koa-based acoustics out there that show off this fine wood for various budgets. Taylor’s Academy 10e LTD ($999) is a Mexico-made dreadnought that apes the HG’s blend of spruce top with a Hawaiian koa back and sides. Dana Bourgeois is one of the world’s finest acoustic luthiers and his transnational Touchstone series brings his wares to slightly more accessible price points. The limited edition Hawaiian Country Boy D ($3,149) utilises koa back and sides with a spruce top tuned and selected in Main. If money’s no object and you really want to go all out, Turnstone’s TD Koa and Sitka (from £8,500) is pretty much as good as it gets.

The post Martin O’ahu HG-28 review: “this is an instrument with its own distinct personality” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Ever feeling yourself needing a boost? And not the C-tier Cadbury’s chocolate bar? Boost pedals can really help make your rig performance-ready, adding a lot of dynamics to both your level of gain and your actual volume. But how to use them and what they ultimately do can be a little confusing – so let’s explore how they can fit in a rig, and some great options you can buy today.

• READ MORE: How much headroom do you need? Pedal platform amplifiers explained

So, what does a boost pedal do? While you may think this question has a stultifyingly self-evident answer, the reality is a little more complicated. In short, though, a boost does increase the level of your signal – that much, hopefully, you knew already. But there are lots of different ways in which different pedals achieve this signal increase, and lots of different ways to use the resulting sound, ranging from a totally linear uplift in level to a dirty, nasal, midrange spike.

The rest of your rig matters!

Other than the variation in circuitry, the other complicating factor in what a boost does is the rest of your rig. In short, it’s important to remember that a lot depends on your sonic goals and where you’re putting a boost within the larger context of your guitar, pedals and amplifier. The ideal type and placement of a boost depends on whether you want to push your gain a bit harder, shape the sound of a dirt pedal, or give yourself a clean volume lift for solos.

We’ve already explored headroom in more depth when looking at pedal platform amplifiers, but it’s worth a quick refresh here. If you increase signal into any amplifying device, there’s going to be a certain point where the output only gets more distorted rather than louder. Boost pedals will often mean you’re going to have to contend with your amp’s headroom. If your amp has run out of headroom, putting on a clean boost will not make it louder – it will just make it more distorted.

You can solve this by putting a boost in the effects loop, although get some earplugs in before you do that! And even then, you might still run out of power-amp headroom. This is also why pedal order is important more generally. If you put a boost before an overdrive or a distortion, you’re likely just going to make that pedal distort harder – if you place it after one and your amp has the headroom to handle it, then you’ll be able to get a cleaner level increase.

Both cases have their uses – putting a boost in front of a drive is conventionally done when the boost has its own shaping EQ character. For instance, a Rangemaster-style treble boost in front of a Big Muff compensates for the midrange scoop and reduces the amount of low-end being distorted for a tighter, more cutting sound. But if you want a simple volume increase for a solo, then it’s a better idea to put a cleaner boost after your distortions. But what makes a clean boost a clean boost?

Clean boosts

When people talk about clean boosts, this normally means two things – firstly, these pedals impart as little extra compression/distortion as possible, and any EQ controls are working with a flat, neat palette rather than shaping any extra “character”. These are the kinds of pedals that excel at simple volume increases for solos – but they can also be used to drive amp preamps and overdrive pedals harder. there are countless options out there, but here are just a few for a range of budgets:

MXR Micro Amp, Micro Amp+

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The MXR Micro amp is a great example of this style of boost. Its circuit is a simple op-amp, dialled in with enough headroom to give a big boost of signal without any extra clipping. The Micro Amp+ variant adds a clean, active two-band EQ for extra shaping.

Keeley Katana Mini

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The Keeley Katana Mini is a very clean and a very transparent boost pedal made with cascading FETs. There’s a huge range of volume available, and the full-sized Katana’s Pull Boost mode for a little bit of extra push has been integrated into the upper ranges of the volume knob here.

TC Electronic Spark and Spark MINI

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These two pedals are some of TC Electronic’s most well-regarded, up there with the Ditto as very long-standing, standard parts of the range that are great for guitarists on a bit of a budget. There’s nothing crazy going on circuit-wise – they’re just reliable, loud and clean, with the added bonus of an EQ control for the full-sized pedal.

Dirty boosts and character boosts

Here I’m collating some modern pedals that aim to add in a specific sonic character, while still avoiding being either ultra-linear, ultra-flat clean boosts. A lot of the time these take from the Rangemaster playbook (more on that in a moment) without exactly recreating the topology – that is, providing an all-important midrange kick to give you some extra oomph – while others are just a little too dirty to call clean, while still obviously being boosts rather than drives.

EarthQuaker Arrows

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The EarthQuaker Devices Arrows is an awesome boost pedal with a great upper-midrange character – it’s cleaner and tighter than your typical Rangemaster-derived thing, and makes an absolutely excellent pairing with Big Muffs and/or gainy amplifiers to add some tightness and clarity for faster rhythm playing or soloing.

Electro-Harmonix Screaming Bird

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A modified version of the LPB-1, the EHX Screaming Bird features altered input and output capacitors to offer quite a harsh high-end boost. While in some rigs it can be a bit like jamming knitting needles into your ears, in the right context it’s fantastic – if you want to evoke a vintage Brian May-style sound with a lot of high end, it’s a great option when paired with the right amp.

ZVEX Super Hard On

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The ZVEX Super Hard On, despite its somewhat juvenile evocation of tumescence, is not messing about. It’s a JFET-based boost that offers frankly insane volume. It’s not totally clean, but it’s bright and punchy, and so loud the rest of your rig is unlikely to cleanly handle its absurd levels of output – in the best way possible. While it can be used to completely obliterate an amp’s front end, more subtle settings are also a great way to give life to a slightly dull set of pickups, thanks to that brightness.

JHS Haunting Mids

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The JHS Haunting Mids is part EQ pedal and part boost. The parametric midrange is really good for dialling in exactly what frequency you want to boost – making it a really powerful pre- or post-overdrive shaper.

Benson Germanium Boost

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The Benson Amps Germanium Boost is designed to be an ultra-clean take on the format – rather than the Rangemaster’s ragged, spitty sound, this pedal uses some interesting tech tricks to keep the headroom as high as it can be. It’s definitely a ‘boutique’ take on the format with a price tag to match, but it’s got some serious fidelity to match.

Rangemaster-style pedals

The Dallas Rangemaster was arguably the first boost pedal. It’s a similar circuit to an early fuzz, although uses only one transistor – and so that cascading gain structure that gives something like a Fuzz Face oodles of distortion is gone. However because of the design, and the ragged, slightly compressed sound of a single germanium transistor with little surrounding circuitry, it does still add a bit of grit by itself.

The main thing that makes a Rangemaster sing, though, is the midrange response. Despite being called a “treble booster”, it’s really giving you a big boost in the upper midrange – this sound is all over Tony Iommi’s early Black Sabbath work, and basically everything Brian May has ever done. Because of its old, germanium design and the fact the original isn’t technically made anymore, there are plenty of very pricey boutique clones out there. But here are some of the more accessible options:

Laney Black Country Customs TI Boost

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A signature pedal for none other than Tony Iommi from Laney’s own pedal brand, the Black Country Customs TI Boost adds a two-band EQ, a mids switch and separate volume and drive controls for a very tweakable take on the classic boost.

Catalinbread Naga Viper

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Like the TI Boost, the Catalinbread Naga Viper aims to update the Ragnemaster for a modern approach – here we’ve got silicon transistors for some more stability, as well as discrete volume and gain controls for dialling in treble-booster grit at more manageable output levels. There’s also a bass control for classic vintage thinness or a bit more doomy grunt.

Mythos Pedals Cestus

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The Mythos Cestus is one of the more accessible “authentic” takes on the pedal, with only one knob – but there is still a voice switch for a range of, well, frequency ranges. The germanium transistor is also out, replaced by a 2N2222A silicon transistor for a bit more consistency – and, rather than something loaded with an original OC44, it means this boutique treble-booster is relatively affordable.

The post Boost pedals explained – from overdrive-shapers to simple volume lifts appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Boss has unveiled the PX-1 Plugout FX, a shapeshifting stompbox designed to put the company’s historic pedal catalogue at your feet. Launching with 16 faithfully modelled classics and the promise of more on the way, the PX-1 gives you the flexibility of a pedalboard without the sprawl.

Since 1977, Boss compact pedals have been a fixture underfoot, with over 140 different models produced and more than 19 million sold. From the workhorse DS-1 Distortion to the elusive Slow Gear, these little enclosures have defined the sound of countless records. Now, the PX-1 condenses that legacy into a single unit – one that’s expandable via the Boss Effect Loader app for iOS and Android.

• READ MORE: BOSS’s RT-2 Rotary Ensemble pedal offers classic rotary speaker sounds in a compact footprint

Backed by newly developed BOSS algorithms, each effect in the PX-1 delivers the genuine sound and response of the pedal it’s based on. Every detail is modeled with stunning accuracy, thanks to a powerful DSP engine dedicated to recreating the sound of a single effect at a time. The control layout stays familiar too: we’ve got the classic Boss knob interface along with an onboard display for current parameters and internal settings so you can dial in tones quickly.

Connectivity is equally future-proofed. The PX-1 offers external control with one or two footswitches or an expression pedal. A handy Swap function lets you flip between two effects on the fly, while almost any parameter can be assigned for real-time tweaks mid-performance. Stereo I/O provides flexible connectivity and enhanced sound for models with stereo operation, while tap tempo and MIDI clock support are provided for time-based effects.

At launch, players get 16 effects, including eight permanently installed “1” models and eight that can be loaded into the pedal’s eight user memories:

• OD-1 Over Drive
• SP-1 Spectrum
• PH-1 Phaser
• SG-1 Slow Gear
• CS-1 Compression Sustainer
• TW-1 T Wah
• SD-1 SUPER OverDrive
• DS-1 Distortion
• CE-2 Chorus
• BF-2 Flanger
• PN-2 Tremolo/Pan
• OC-2 Octave
• PS-2 Digital Pitch Shifter/Delay
• VB-2 Vibrato
• DD-2 Digital Delay
• DF-2 SUPER Feedbacker & Distortion

Roland has also sweetened the deal with a six-month Roland Cloud Ultimate membership. That unlocks not only the PX-1 effects in plug-in form, but also heavy-hitters like the JC-120 Jazz Chorus and RE-201 Space Echo.

Priced at $249.99, the Boss PX-1 Plugout FX ships this September. The company also plans to expanding the library of effects on offer through the companion app, with the first new tranche due in January 2026 – these pedals can be auditioned for free, and then can be purchased for $9.99 each.

Learn more at Boss. 

The post One pedal to rule them all: Boss’s new PX-1 Plugout FX puts 16 classic effects at your feet appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Pete Townshend has long been synonymous with the violent poetry of smashing guitars on stage. But in a new interview, the Who guitarist suggests the act was perhaps less about spectacle than resentment – specifically, the sting of a father who didn’t believe he was “worthy of a decent instrument”.

• READ MORE: “One of the difficulties Roger had was Zak jumped straight into Instagram and started to mouth off”: Pete Townshend reveals the real reason why The Who fired Zak Starkey

“I was a geeky young kid with a big nose who wanted to be an artist or a journalist, not play in a rock band,” says Townshend in a recent chat with the New York Times. “My father, a brilliant musician, didn’t believe in me and allowed my grandmother to buy me a [expletive] old guitar that I couldn’t play.”

“Some of my guitar-smashing antics probably started because it had become a symbol for me of the way my father had not considered me worthy of a decent instrument.”

The admission also sets the tone for the rest of the conversation, where Townshend’s candor stretches beyond family wounds and into the very business of rock and roll. Asked if pop music itself is a swindle, the guitarist replies: “The swindle starts when you become a property and don’t belong to your fans anymore.”

“You belong to record companies, to promoters, to managers. The audience worships you for what you’ve done years before. They’re not interested in anything new. For Roger and I, it’s difficult to do anything other than feel like we’re a Who tribute band.”

Still, Townshend says he hopes to keep working with Roger Daltrey in some capacity, even if the Who as an entity winds down. “If he doesn’t want to do a Who album, I’d love to write songs for him for a solo project.”

That possibility hangs over the band’s farewell tour, which is set to conclude on 28 September at Las Vegas’s MGM Grand Garden Arena. Beyond that, the future of the Who, Townshend admits, is “in Roger’s hands.”

“I’m 80, I don’t like being away from my family, my studios, my dogs and my friends. I’m not looking to spend the next five years of my life waiting to [expletive] drop dead on the stage,” he says. “The end of the tour could give Roger and I permission never to call each other again. I hope that doesn’t happen.”

The post “My father, a brilliant musician, didn’t believe in me”: Pete Townshend attributes his guitar-smashing antics to feelings of rejection from his father appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Cradle Of Filth guitarist Marek “Ashok” Šmerda has quit the band, citing “low pay”, high stress and “years of unprofessional behaviour from people above us”. His wife, keyboardist Zoe Marie Federoff, also announced her departure mid-tour, alleging “dishonest” and “manipulative” management practices and “psychopathic” contracts.

Šmerda, who joined Cradle in 2014, initially said he would finish the group’s current tour before leaving, but frontman Dani Filth later announced that the musician had been fired with immediate effect. He also dismissed Šmerda’s comments as an attempt “to illegally defame and derail the band”.

• READ MORE: Jason Richardson leaves All That Remains to focus on “new opportunities”

The split escalated quickly after Šmerda and Federoff – who had both announced their decisions within days of each other – began sharing details about life inside the band. In his statement, Šmerda said, “We simply do not feel like Cradle can provide for our future, and in fact hinders it. Among other reasons it is a lot of work for relatively low pay, the stress is quite high, and we haven’t felt for a while like this band actually prioritising/caring about members. It has been years of unprofessional behavior from people above us that led to our decision.”

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Federoff, who joined in 2022, claimed management were “dishonest” and “manipulative” and alleged they attempted to withhold advance payments for the group’s new album. The keyboardist also said she was branded “cancer” and a “dead horse” and threatened with termination when she challenged them.

“Our lawyer called it the most psychopathic contract a session musician could ever be handed,” Federoff wrote alongside screenshots of her contract, noting that she and Šmerda refused to sign.

She also broke down their earnings, saying the couple made around “£150/day currently and £25K a year roughly in this band.” The pay, combined with the stress and alleged hostility, had left them disillusioned.

“[Filth] might not get his hands dirty, but in the end, he directs them,” Federoff said. “The atmosphere he creates is threatening and abusive, and he constantly exploits us for very low wages, yet always demands exclusivity to Cradle’s schedule. It is madness to keep people locked in poverty for the ego of one person.”

Meanwhile, Dani Filth has hit back at the accusations against the band’s management, calling them “completely unjust and unfounded.” He added that while the rest of Cradle were “taken aback” by the couple’s departure, they would continue touring as planned.

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The sound that helped define heavy metal is back. Gibson has revived the Tony Iommi Signature Humbucker, the brand’s very first signature pickup from the late 1990s, putting the Black Sabbath legend’s searing tone back within reach.

Few guitarists have left as indelible a mark on heavy music as Tony Iommi. More than just spark a genre, his pioneering riffs with Sabbath set the blueprint for metal that countless bands still chase today.

Originally released in the late ‘90s as Gibson’s first-ever signature pickup, the Tony Iommi Humbucker quickly became a cult favorite. Originals are now scarce, but the new reissue brings it back to the masses – all for the price of $229.

• READ MORE: “I think he really just held out to do that show”: Tony Iommi speaks on Ozzy Osbourne’s death just weeks after Black Sabbath’s final farewell

Inside the pickup lies a unique mix of ceramic and Alnico 2 magnets along with custom windings, delivering all the rumble you need while maintaining crystal clarity. Fully wax-potted and epoxied, the humbucker is built to resist unwanted feedback, while its 4-conductor wiring allows for series, parallel, and split coil operation.

“I’m really excited that Gibson’s bringing back my signature humbucker; they were getting pretty hard to find!” says Iommi. “This pickup came about after a lot of time spent in Nashville, just experimenting with different setups to get that perfect tone and sustain from my favorite guitars.”

“We had to make sure it worked with my light gauge strings and low tunings, but still pack a punch, and the result has got some serious output. They’re on my signature guitars too, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how they turned out.”

Gibson CEO and President Cesar Gueikian adds, “I’d personally installed these on one of my Gibson guitars 15 years ago, and I was blown away with the distinct Tony Iommi and Black Sabbath sound I was able to get out of them. They have such a great, clean look with the unique pickup cover, and we are excited to bring the Riff Lord’s signature humbucker back as we continue to pay tribute to Tony.”

The Tony Iommi Signature Humbucker is available now at the Gibson Pickup Shop.

Learn more at Gibson.

The post The riff lord’s tone lives again: Gibson revives its first signature pickup, the Tony Iommi signature humbucker appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It takes effort to sound alive – the kind of sweat-broiled effort that’s laced throughout the Beths’ new record, Straight Line Was a Lie. Here, in the New Zealand band’s latest collection of seemingly weightless, effortless power-pop jams, you will find bare-bones honesty, both sonically and thematically, driven by real grit, graft, and intent.

• READ MORE: Meet Boko Yout: Sweden’s most interesting new band who approach guitar chaos with the mindset of a cinematographer

While writing, guitarist-vocalist Liz Stokes pulled apart her process in the face of anxiety, medication and chronic illness, delving into life experiences that had previously been balanced on a shelf by turning to mechanical processes, whether that was clacking out pages on a typewriter, reading books on the craft, or boarding a flight from Auckland to Los Angeles in search of synapse-firing stimulation.

“It was really useful to be making something,” she says. “When I was struggling to make music, it was nice to be pulling something out of my brain and putting stuff in: books and movies and shows to feed the machine. Maybe you can’t get it to spit out what you want it to spit out, but you can hopefully spit out something else.”

Straight Line Was a Lie is home to songs that turn over living in a body that’s out to stymie you – Stokes discovered that she had Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition that leads to hyperthyroidism – alongside reflections upon the complexity of her relationship with her mother and analysis of the way she navigates the world in comparison to the way she’d actually like to do it.

Every step of the way, these knotty, heavy emotional beats are carried by the sort of daring melodic work that has made the Beths such a unique proposition in indie-rock. But, more so than in the past, there’s also a keen appreciation for woody textures and a spotlight that’s always seeking out moments of chemistry and camaraderie.

While much of the record was made at guitarist-producer Jonathan Pearce’s studio in central Auckland, the band also decamped to the “winterless north” of New Zealand for a retreat that sounds pastoral and restorative. They surfed and hung out. “It was a real cheat code,” Pearce says. “I think getting everyone out of the city and making a record full time, it kind of gives you your twenties back.”

Stokes’ push for candour found a reflective surface in Pearce’s desire to stage a record that felt similarly documentarian. It isn’t an accident that you can hear the air moving as Tristan Deck’s kick drum sparks No Joy – a song about becoming washed out by antidepressants – into life, while Roundabout’s jangle feels like it’s only getting to you after it’s done a lap of the place. “Without wanting to get too intense about it, I do have the belief that these days you have to really work to put the space and the human beings in the recording,” he says.

“Music libraries, let alone AI, are getting so good. If you can’t hear people shuffling around in the room, the specific room that the performance is happening in, then it could be anything. “It could be anywhere. On previous albums, we’ve pursued that power-pop sensation that the music is happening right at the very front of the speaker. There’s nothing behind it, it’s right there in front of you. This one, it felt like there was lots more space. We really went looking for it.”

A core element of the record’s make up is Stokes’ Martin 00-15M, one of two “fancy new guitars” that became go-tos while in the studio, reflecting a greater interest in pensive pieces that play like the title track from 2020’s Jump Rope Gazers with the dream-pop dialled down in favour of something more plainly spoken. “I had always hated playing acoustic guitar because it was really hard,” she says with a laugh. “You have to be very clean and you can hear your fingers, which is a pro and a con, right? You can really hear the humanity in it.”

The other fancy new guitar was made for Stokes by Elliott Trent, the Poole-based luthier who’s also assembled instruments for Wet Leg’s Hester Chambers and California folkie Madison Cunningham. He contacted Stokes through the Beths’ Discord and was, initially, filed away as probable spam. “No one’s out here offering free guitars,” Stokes says. “That’s crazy. But Jon was like, ‘I think you should talk to him, he’s trying to help us.’”

Stokes eventually went with Trent’s M2 model, which arrived with two sets of pickups – mini humbuckers and hand-wound P90s. The original plan was to run with one of each, mirroring the G&L Fallout that had underpinned earlier Beths records, but both humbuckers are still in place. “They just sounded so good,” she says. “He makes all the hardware,” Pearce adds. “He’s not just finishing a body and sticking parts on it. He’s doing beautiful work.”

Pearce’s ‘78 Goldtop Les Paul Deluxe, meanwhile, continues to be foundational to his sound, which, as always, veers from nimble leads to sparky, fuzz-corrupted soloing. “It just shits on other guitars,” he says. “But I did get a Burns Double Six, a ‘60s one, and it slays. It’s got the Tri-Sonic pickups. It was in really rough shape, covered in mould and with a hugely bent neck. The guy who sold it to me said, ‘I think my brother played it in his punk band in the 1980s.’ That is a ridiculous story, right? What kind of punk band plays a 12 string from the 1960s? That is a band that I wish I could hear.”

The task of bringing it back from the brink fell to David Parker, whom Pearce describes as “the genius who sets up all our guitars here in New Zealand.” Parker had to get creative given the state of the Double Six and some of the more esoteric aspects of its engineering, including making his own key to adjust a truss rod that had been assumed to be pushing up daisies. “I completely stripped it down, cleaned it, and then I sent it to David,” Pearce continues. “Somehow, the truss rod was still working, it was just all the way backed off. He could straighten the neck over time. He made a new bridge for it, and it’s awesome. It’s all over Metal and Till My Heart Stops and has inspired a lot of parts.”

Next up, in the spirit of keeping things transparent, Stokes picks five records that speak to her as being particularly honest. They come from her peers in New Zealand’s indie scene and generational writers who have shaped the tastes of millions of listeners, but she was struck by one detail in making her selections. “I feel like in trying to assess other people for their authenticity or something, it makes you look for a brain that’s similar to yours,” she says. “I’ve been like, ‘Well, maybe when people are singing about being happy, they are just lying because obviously everybody is a ball of anxiety.’ I just can’t relate to that.”

The Goon Sax – We’re Not Talking (2018)

“I guess you can hear that the songwriting feels very earnest, and it’s extremely early twenties. It’s like being inside the brain of somebody that age. I feel like I thought half those thoughts and felt all those feelings. Hearing them stated so plainly, that would be a really scary thing to do. It feels like a very brave album to put out there.”

Pickle Darling – Bigness (2019)

“They’re an artist from New Zealand. All of their albums are great but Bigness is the first one I heard from them. It has extremely bedroomy, home recording vibes. It’s very lo-fi but I find Lukas [Mayo] always plays really interesting little guitar parts – the melodies really flow over each other in a way that I find really addictive. The lyrics feel a little bit stream of consciousness and the way that they string ideas together is a little bit collagey, I think. All these little thoughts feel very real, and they feel very unstudied because of that.”

Hans Pucket – No Drama (2022)

“This is a friend’s band from New Zealand. Oliver Devlin is the main songwriter. I fell in love with their first EP Jalapeño when I heard it on Bandcamp, and I was like, ‘Who is this? They’re from Wellington? Dammit!’ I’ve put down No Drama, which is their most recent album. They have a song called Kiss The Moon, which I’ve talked to Ollie about. I think it’s very brave to write about domesticity, that’s something that feels very honest. And because it’s more specific and less generic, it hits home very closely. It’s like being inside of a relationship in a very real way.”

Rilo Kiley – The Execution of All Things (2002)

“Jenny Lewis is one of my all time favourite songwriters and musicians. She’s been so influential on an entire generation of millennial women, and younger. The best example on that album is A Better Son/Daughter, which I think is this iconic song. It’s so raw, and it’s extremely honest. Anything that is dealing with the relationship with your parents feels like hallowed ground. We saw them play at Just Like Heaven and I was bawling the entire time. Hearing everybody screaming, ‘Sometimes when you’re on, you’re really fucking on,’ was really great.”

Tiny Ruins – Ceremony (2023)

“It’s a beautiful record all the way through. It’s a slow burn. You keep coming back to it because there’s something about it – the feeling of it just pulls you in. It’s quite a quiet record. Hollie [Fullbrook] has a real way with words and melodies. It can feel cryptic, or like it says not a lot, but it creates a whole world. There’s a lyric that I really like from a song called Earthly Things. The line is just, ‘The weather’s been so wild this week.’ It’s a thing that you would say, put in a really beautiful song.”

The Beths’ Straight Line Was A Lie is out on August 29 through Anti-.

The post The Beths Pick Their Five Most Honest Guitar Records Of All Time appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The Police frontman Sting is reportedly being sued by his former bandmates, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland, over lost royalties from their biggest hit, Every Breath You Take.

The news is being reported by The Sun, while People has found documents relating to the suit in the London High Court’s database, pertaining to “general commercial contracts and arrangements”.

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According to a source, per The Sun, Summers and Copeland are claiming “substantial damages”, saying “they are owed millions in lost royalties”.

The dispute has been ongoing for some time, according to the source. “Lawyers tried repeatedly to reach an out-of-court settlement but hit a stalemate,” they say. “Andy and Stewart decided there was no alternative than court, so [they] pressed the button.”

Sting is named as a defendant in the suit under his real name Gordon Matthew Sumner, as well as his publishing firm, Magnetic Publishing Limited.

According to the Daily Mail, Sting earns around £550,000 per year in royalties from Every Breath You Take alone. And per Guitar World, PRS For Music records state Sting is the sole composer and author of the song.

Formed in 1977, The Police later split in 1984 – before reuniting several times in later years – having sold over 75 million records worldwide. Every Breath You Take is by far their biggest hit, and was the best-selling single of 1983, and fifth best-selling single of the ‘80s overall.

Andy Summers hinted at legal action against Sting back in 2023 over royalties for Every Breath You Take, saying of his contributions to the track: “That song was going in the trash until I played on it.” He later said, apparently of forthcoming legal action: “Watch the press. Let’s see what happens in the next year.”

Also in 2023, Summers admitted he found Every Breath You Take corny at first, saying it felt “a million miles from The Police”.

The post “They are owed millions”: Sting sued by Police bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland over lost Every Breath You Take royalties appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.