Music is the universal language
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” - Luke 2:14
Guitar.com
Is a new The Who album on the cards? Pete Townshend claims Roger Daltrey “wants to give it a try”
Don’t count The Who out just yet. A new album from the prog rock legends may not be as far-fetched as it once seemed – at least if Pete Townshend is to be believed.
While frontman Roger Daltrey has repeatedly downplayed the idea of another Who record in recent years – citing the cost and underwhelming commercial performance of 2019’s WHO as reasons to move on (“there’s no record market anymore,” he previously said) – Townshend has now suggested that door might not be fully closed.
The Who guitarist and primary songwriter recently shared a glimpse of his new London writing studio on Instagram – a space he says was “built by Rick Astley” and “mine now”.
“I’m loving it. Great sound. I’m very spoiled,” Townshend writes.
And when one commenter suggested there was “no way” “another Who album” would happen, Townshend fired back with a surprising reply: “You might be wrong. Roger wants to give it a try.”
The musician also fielded questions about his current setup, revealing a relatively no-frills approach to writing and recording.
“I use a MacBook. The sequencer is an MPC Live III. I use it on the road like a portastudio,” he writes in the comments, adding that his speakers of choice are Genelec.
Whether that setup ends up powering a full-blown Who record remains to be seen – but for now, it appears the idea is back on the table.
In the meantime, Townshend has previously revealed he’s sitting on hundreds of unfinished pieces – and isn’t opposed to using AI to help complete some of them.
“I’ve managed to wade through about half of [my unfinished music],” he said during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “What’s interesting is… I don’t know what to do with it! I’m quite interested in AI [to see what it makes of it].”
“I’m quite interested in [using it to rework] some of my old songs that didn’t quite work,” he added. “[If I put stuff] onto Suno or some AI music machine, [I could see] what it can make of it. There might be some hits!”
The post Is a new The Who album on the cards? Pete Townshend claims Roger Daltrey “wants to give it a try” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
The Real Riot Women: the Gen Xers discovering punk and embracing guitar
“People on Facebook I hadn’t spoken to in a decade were all sending messages, going, ‘Hi. How are you?’” begins Lucy Morgan of London-based, kitchen punk band, I, Doris. “Just wondering, have you seen this TV show?” The series in question is Riot Women, a critically acclaimed six-part drama from the BBC that the New Yorker described as “genius” and currently sits at 92% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Set in the quirky and inclusive Northern town of Hebden Bridge, pub landlord Jess Burchill assembles an unlikely crew of women to form a band for a local talent contest. But for a legion of Gen X women across the globe, the storyline felt far from fictional.
Director of the upcoming documentary Menopunks, Alicia J. Rose, performs in two bands born from Portland’s punk energy, the city also responsible for seminal riot grrrl acts like Heavens to Betsy, Team Dresch, and later, Sleater-Kinney.
For Rose, the show was a welcome tonic in its focus on women in their 50s and 60s reclaiming their voices. “[It] reminded me of The Full Monty but with women and rock and roll as the MacGuffin,” she says from her home in Oregon City. “I love every fucking character in the show. They’re not the real thing, but I’ll tell you, the real thing does fucking exist.”
Nana Punk
South Wales sextet the Nanaz, an outfit that formed in 2024 through a punk rock workshop, proves not only that these women exist, but their sounds are in demand, thanks to the BBC series. “We’re riding a very good wave, partly as a result of Riot Women,” admits bassist Anne-Marie Bollen. “People are looking at who’s actually doing this for real.” The group met through the Nana Punk project, an initiative hosted at Wales’ Millennium Centre to break barriers and build new communities.
For the Nanaz’s Deborah de Lloyd, the sessions were a crash course in stepping out on stage. “At the end of the workshops, they got us to play a gig, with no rehearsal time, in the middle of the Millennium Centre. I was working out the chords ten minutes beforehand!” Lead guitarist Angela Samuel, who played acoustic before turning to electric in the last few years, is still astounded by their progress. “When we started, I thought ‘There’s no way we’re going to get a band going,’ but we actually have!”
I, Doris’s Lucy Morgan’s entrance to music was more traditional. Rather than taking in the toilet circuit of dingy East London dive bars, she was classically trained. But the desire to perform with other creatives like her was strong.
“I liked the idea of having a band with Cassie [Fox, LOUD WOMEN founder and I, Doris bassist and frontperson]. We have a shared love of pop music, Dolly Parton, and gin-soaked evenings.” For Fox herself, it’s railing against societal expectations. “It’s what we do, rather than play bridge or golf,” she quips. “What are normal middle-aged women supposed to do with their time?”
Portland’s Alicia J. Rose feels similarly, learning drums when she turned 40 and forming Party Witch. She’s since added another artistic output to her arsenal that’s quickly picked up steam in the community, as she shares. “I’m in another band called The Fabulous Bloodstains with Gilly Ann Hanner [ex Calamity Jane and former tour support for Nirvana]. It’s the most real version of the Riot Women that I’ve ever experienced in my life. We formed to open for two sold-out shows of Sleater-Kinney playing as the Ramones last October.”
Anne Marie Bollen of the Nanaz. Image: Press
Seeing Red
This new burst of creative flow didn’t come easily for Rose, though, whose forthcoming documentary, Menopunks, paints an intimate portrait of celebrated female musicians (think vocal tornado Neko Case and original riot grrrl Allison Wolfe of Bratmobile) navigating midlife. In the BBC’s Riot Women, vocalist Kitty Eckersley and keyboardist Beth Thornton pen the band’s talent show entry, Seeing Red, supercharged with the frustrations of accessing HRT (hormone replacement therapy).
The struggle isn’t a new subject for I, Doris, who wrote their own powerful post-punk number about gynecological healthcare three years prior. Alicia J. Rose is adamant that the shift from hot flashes and brain fog on stage is all thanks to the drug. “Now I have the energy to be in two bands. Now I’m making a movie, and I couldn’t be doing any of these things if I were as miserable as I was two years ago.”
While the TV series’ songwriting themes line up with lived experience, there’s a longstanding ethos from the riot grrrl era that doesn’t chime so well. In the ‘90s, Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna began demanding “Girls to the front!” at her band’s shows to create safe spaces for women in a male-dominated scene. While the riot women of today are happy blasting out their politically charged tunes, they’re demanding visibility on their own terms, as I, Doris’ Lucy Morgan explains.
“In my last band, I hid behind a trombone. I, Doris is my first opportunity to be on a stage as a performer, not someone hiding in the background, [but] it took me a lot of years to get over some really crippling stage fright. It’s only as I got past 40 that I became comfortable with standing up on stage and people looking at me.”
Lucy Morgan of I, Doris. Image: Press
Getting Things Wrong
This trepidation to take up space also feels familiar to the Nanaz’s second guitarist, Claire Symons. “They’re always trying to get me out from behind a pillar!” she admits before bandmate Marega Palser chips in. “When we started, it was like if you’re shy, just put a fucking bag on your head.” But as Symons reflects, that’s not so easy when you’re a woman of a certain age. “Someone said, ‘Wear a balaclava. Do a Kneecap!’ And I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, I’m always hot!’”
Pushing past the debilitating stage fright and questionable accessories, bands like the Nanaz and I, Doris are channeling a lot of the early DIY spirit that post-punk godmothers The Raincoats gifted us back in the 1970s, a learn-as-you-go mentality. “We’ve got no shame in making mistakes or getting things wrong,” says Marega Palser of the Nanaz. “The fact that you’re getting up on stage and doing it is enough of a signal to women of the same age. It’s important to see that there are other ways of being and behaving.”
The same could be said for the bands’ attitudes to guitar culture. I, Doris’ latest addition, Lenie Mets, who has consistently performed in London’s live music circuit, is unsettled by the weight often placed on an artist’s gear. “I honestly couldn’t give a blank shit about that. You see a guy with his 500 guitars and the pedal boards they come up with, and you just think, why?” Some of that resistance may stem from how the gear is marketed and displayed.
Research by Fender revealed that women were predominantly buying guitars online “because in the bricks-and-mortar stores there was nobody to relate to, and they weren’t getting treated well”. For the Nanaz’s Anne Marie Bollen, her bass came via an unlikely punk grapevine about a decade ago. “Richie from Dub War told me to drive over quickly — a guy had been kicked out, and I could have his bass for £100,” she laughs. “Years later, we’re playing shows with Bad Sam featuring Dean Beddis, and he goes, ‘I had one like that!’ I said, ‘I know — it’s yours!’”
With the Welsh creative community rallying around them, it’s no surprise that the Nanaz have been embraced on the live circuit. But there’s one particular supporter in the crowd who’s been rooting for lead guitarist Angela Samuel for years. “We’ve got Ang’s dad in the audience,” beams Bollen. “He’s 87 and an old rock and roll drummer. He’s always wanted Ang to be in a band.”
Claire Symons of the Nanaz. Image: Press
Louder Than Ever
It’s champions like these that are helping to turn up the dial on women’s voices that have been systematically suppressed and repressed for generations. In the ‘90s, women-fronted bands grappled for the single slot on an all-male festival bill. Today, initiatives like Nana Punk and Leicester’s Riotous Collective mean more Gen X women are making noise than ever before.
“We deserve to be louder than fucking ever,” insists Alicia J. Rose back in Portland. “So why the fuck not pick up the loudest instrument possible and turn it up to fucking 11, as Tufnel said, and rage against every fucking machine that will be in listening distance?” The beauty of this collective coming-of-age? The message is spreading far and wide for others to reconnect with their creativity, regardless of status or tech setup.
Like The Raincoats’ Gina Birch seeing the “madness and chaos” of The Slits for the first time, sometimes we just need to see someone like us on stage. Today’s real-life riot women are making that visibility louder — and contagious.
“What I’ve found really amazing is talking to other female friends who have said, ‘I’ve started singing lessons!’ or ‘I’m going to play the guitar!’” says the Nanaz’s Claire Symons. “My sister-in-law even said, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get my mandolin out that I bought 15 years ago, and I’m now gonna have another go!’”
Follow the real riot women at @thenanazband, @idorisband and @menopunks
The post The Real Riot Women: the Gen Xers discovering punk and embracing guitar appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“I saw UFO play with Van Halen in the ’70s – they got their asses kicked”: George Lynch recalls seeing Eddie Van Halen’s “mind-bending” playing up close
Dokken guitarist George Lynch has recalled watching Eddie Van Halen play up close in the ‘70s, and how his chops humbled even the formidable musicians of English hard rock outfit UFO, who Van Halen supported during a show at the Golden West Ballroom in California in 1976.
“I saw UFO play with Van Halen at the Golden West Ballroom in Norwalk, California, near where we lived. We played there a lot.” Lynch tells The Music Zoo owner Tommy Colletti in a new conversation [via Blabbermouth].
- READ MORE: EVH unveils two 5150 “blast from the past” models – with both throwback and modernised features
“It was somewhat dramatic, because I don’t know if UFO knew what they were in for. And I love UFO – we all love UFO – but they got their ass kicked. I mean, they came up, and I don’t think they were ready for that.”
Lynch goes on to recall the “paradigm shift” in hard rock brought about by Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing and how he spearheaded two-handed tapping’s foray into the mainstream.
“To see it up close and personal as it was happening, in Mammoth [one of Eddie Van Halen’s pre-Van Halen bands, not to be confused with his son Wolfgang’s active band of the same name] and also early Van Halen, it was mind-bending to see that in person. It was just insane.
“I mean, I’d just go to my studio or go home and just get on my guitar for eight hours and go, ‘I gotta step up. This is insane.’”
Elsewhere, blues ace Joe Bonamassa recently pondered whether Eddie Van Halen would have been as cool if he were to have used an amp modeller like a Neural DSP Quad Cortex, as opposed to the vintage analogue gear that was available to him at the time of Van Halen’s heyday.
The guitarist and avid gear collector said: “Instead of a 68 plexi with a laydown transformer, a Univox [EC-80A Tape Echo], and MXR Phase 45, a [Marshall] basket weave cabinet, and a Boogie Bodies Strat, imagine if the same Eddie Van Halen showed up with a Neural [Quad Cortex] and a Suhr.”
He asked, “Is it as cool? I’m not knocking John Suhr, I’m not knocking Neural… Great invention, but I just pose the question. People hear with their eyes. It’s the whole thing.”
The post “I saw UFO play with Van Halen in the ’70s – they got their asses kicked”: George Lynch recalls seeing Eddie Van Halen’s “mind-bending” playing up close appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Gojira guitarist’s new Jackson signature is the first-ever Rhoads model to feature an EverTune bridge
Jackson has blessed Gojira guitarist Christian Andreu with a brand-new signature model, and intriguingly, it’s the first-ever Rhoads model in the Jackson lineup to feature an EverTune bridge…
The guitar joins two existing Jackson signatures under the French guitarist’s portfolio, completing a trio of custom-spec’d Randy Rhoads tuned for his punishing riffs in Gojira.
In terms of specs, as stated, the headline feature of the Pro Plus Series Signature Christian Andreu Rhoads RR24 EVTN6 is its EverTune bridge – the first time one has featured on a Jackson Rhoads.
For those unaware, the EverTune is a patented bridge design which uses a system of springs and levers to keep a guitar perfectly in tune no matter the conditions or ferocity of playing that’s thrown at it.
As you’d expect, then, the EverTune is widely favoured by metal musicians, with Andreu’s Gojira co-guitarist Joe Duplantier using one during the band’s landmark 2024 Olympic opening ceremony, as well as other metal stalwarts including Trivium’s Matt Heafy and Tetrarch’s Diamond Rowe.
Credit: Jackson
Elsewhere on the spec sheet, Christian Andreu’s new signature model features a single Fishman Fluence Modern humbucker in the bridge position – with a three-way mini toggle for access to three different Fishman voicings – 24 jumbo stainless steel frets on a “lightning-fast” 12”-16” compound-radius ebony fingerboard, and a three-piece neck-thru build with graphite reinforcement with alder wings for “earth-shaking tone with fortress-like stability”.
“It started as love at first sight when I was 15, seeing the legendary Kirk Hammett wield this iconic shape. It was the most metal thing I’d ever seen, and I was hooked,” Andreu says.
Credit: Jackson
“20 years later, holding my first Jackson RR signature model turned that teenage dream into reality. And now, I’m even more excited to introduce my brand-new RR signature guitar. This instrument isn’t just something I play live; it’s an extension of who I am.
“It’s also an honour to represent the first-ever RR model equipped with an EverTune bridge! With an unbelievably smooth neck, perfect balance and effortless playability, this guitar feels like it was built for me. I couldn’t be prouder of how it turned out.”
Watch Christian Andreu put his new signature model through its paces in Jackson’s new demo video below:
“This Pro Plus Series signature is the culmination of everything we’ve learned about extreme performance,” adds Jon Romanowski, VP of Product, Jackson.
“It’s a precision-engineered instrument built to withstand the most punishing tour conditions while delivering the sonic brutality that defines Gojira’s legendary sound. We’re proud to collaborate with a groundbreaking artist who shares our commitment to creating instruments that unleash musicians’ full creative potential.”
The Pro Plus Series Signature Christian Andreu Rhoads RR24 EVTN6 is available now, priced at $2,429 / £1,849. Learn more at Jackson.
The post Gojira guitarist’s new Jackson signature is the first-ever Rhoads model to feature an EverTune bridge appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
EVH unveils two 5150 “blast from the past” models – with both throwback and modernised features
EVH has launched two new 5150 Series models, the DX and DX QM (quilted maple), which blend both throwback and modernised features together.
The DX offers a modified Strat-style basswood body with a deeper upper body curve. While the striped original had a single humbucking bridge pickup only, this new version comes with a HH pickup configuration and also has a lower bout kill switch.
- READ MORE: The best value electric guitars: 11 affordable options for beginners and players on a budget
These models also offer a graphite-reinforced bolt-on quartersawn baked maple neck with a modified “C” profile, 12”-16” compound radius baked maple fingerboard with 22 jumbo frets and black dot inlay, plus a hand-rubbed satin urethane back finish, heel-mount truss rod adjustment wheel, and a “hockey stick” headstock decorated with the EVH logo decal.
Its custom designed EVH Wolfgang Alnico 2 humbucking pickup configuration is controlled by a three-way toggle switch. The bridge pickup delivers punch and articulation with sweet sustain and thick chunky rhythms in a perfectly balanced EQ curve, according to the EVH brand, while the neck pickup serves up “no-nonsense, balls to the wall overdrive and endless sustain without skimping on articulate cleans when the volume is rolled down”.
The DX is completed by an EVH-branded top-mount Floyd Rose bridge and locking tailpiece with fine tuners for each string, plus a patented EVH D-Tuna for switching back and forth from drop-D to standard tuning.
The DX is available in Black or Candy Apple Red Metallic, while the DX QM comes in Pacific Drift (blue) or Limeade Zest (a green into yellow ombre).
The MSRP for the 5150 Series DX is £1099 / €1299 and the 5150 Series DX QM is £1249 / €1449. Find out more via EVH.
The post EVH unveils two 5150 “blast from the past” models – with both throwback and modernised features appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Fender to celebrate 75 years of the Telecaster with one-night-only Nashville event featuring Brad Paisley, Brent Mason and Brothers Osborne
With the Telecaster’s 75th anniversary celebrations well underway, Fender has announced Tele Town, a “live music experience” with appearances from a smorgasbord of top Tele players at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville – “where the Telecaster became a legend”.
Taking place Monday, 4 May, 2026, Tele Town will be a “one-night live music experience” celebrating all things Telecaster, with a curated lineup of performers including Brad Paisley, Brent Mason, Brothers Osborne, Guthrie Trapp, James Burton, Luke McQueary, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, Trey Hensley and Zach Top.
They’ll perform alongside a dedicated house band led by Nashville native and the event’s musical director Derek Wells.
Elsewhere, the event will be hosted by Nashville guitarist and music historian Zac Childs, who will take the audience through performances and segments which highlight the Telecaster’s “pioneering design and role in shaping Music City’s – and the world’s – musical identity.
“75 years after its debut, the Telecaster remains proof that simplicity endures, adaptable enough to move across genres, generations, and stages without losing its identity,” says FMIC President of Americas, Justin Norvell.
“This celebration is our way of honouring not just an instrument, but a cultural phenomenon that has shaped music for over seven decades.”
He continues: “Tele Town at the Ryman will be the culmination of this celebration – bringing that story to life on one of music’s most hallowed stages in the heart of Music City. From our limited edition collections to the content pieces and community celebrations, we’re ensuring the Telecaster’s legacy reaches both longtime fans and discovers new ones who will carry its voice into the future.”
Credit: Fender
“Serving as musical director for Tele Town is a true honour, especially in my home city of Nashville, where I grew up and where the Telecaster’s legacy runs so deep,” adds Derek Wells.
“Putting this show together has been about more than just great players, it’s about capturing the spirit of an instrument that’s shaped so much of the music we all love. This lineup is full of people who’ve lived with this guitar onstage and in the studio, and I’m certain that when we all are together, you’ll see people playing with love and reverence for what this instrument has meant to us all.”
Tickets for Tele Town will go on sale Friday, 27 March, 2026 at 8AM PT. All net proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to local Nashville charities.
Prior to the event, the Fender Custom Shop will also celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Telecaster with an exclusive Roadshow event on 3 May from 18:00 – 21:00 at Carter Vintage in Nashville. The event will feature FCS Senior Masterbuilder Paul Waller, Master Pickup Winder Josefina Campos, and Fender’s Chief Engineer of Guitars Tim Shaw, who will offer an “intimate look” at the craftsmanship behind Masterbuilt guitars.
Visit AXS for ticket information for Fender Presents: Tele Town.
The post Fender to celebrate 75 years of the Telecaster with one-night-only Nashville event featuring Brad Paisley, Brent Mason and Brothers Osborne appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Joe Bonamassa thinks Eddie Van Halen wouldn’t have been as “cool” if he’d used a Quad Cortex instead of vintage analogue gear: “People hear with their eyes”
Joe Bonamassa has been questioning if modern gear looks as cool as good old fashioned analogue rigs, and believes people “hear with their eyes” to a certain extent.
The blues guitarist and gear obsessive’s home gear museum, known as Nerdville, holds thousands of rare and vintage gear gems, with over 600 guitars. The collection has grown so much that he’s even slowing down to avoid reaching “a saturation point”.
With such an avid love of gear, Bonamassa may be somewhat biased, but he poses an interesting question, and he’s not alone in quizzing how smaller and modernised set ups can sometimes take away from the visual aspect of putting on a gig or affect the sound overall.
During his appearance on the No Cover Charge podcast, he uses Eddie Van Halen as an example: “Instead of a 68 plexi with a laydown transformer, a Univox [EC-80A Tape Echo], and MXR Phase 45, a [Marshall] basket weave cabinet, and a Boogie Bodies Strat, imagine if the same Eddie Van Halen showed up with a Neural [Quad Cortex] and a Suhr.”
He asks, “Is it as cool? I’m not knocking John Suhr, I’m not knocking Neural… Great invention, but I just pose the question. People hear with their eyes. It’s the whole thing.”
Interestingly, not all artists believe smaller rigs impact the visual aspect of live shows. Chad Zaemisch, guitar tech for James Hetfield of Metallica, actually feels that a large wall of amps is not missed at their shows. In an interview with Guitar World, Zaemisch explained how their one-off Freeze ‘Em All concert in Antarctica in 2013 caused their transition.
“We were kind of forced to come up with a solution for playing a show in Antarctica where we couldn’t have speakers. For environmental reasons, they didn’t want any noise pollution. Matt Picone from Fractal came and got all our sounds started. It was definitely a learning curve for us and the band, but once we got through that, everybody started to look at how convenient it was.”
He went on to add, “Everybody’s all about content these days, and not a lot of people want to watch a band stand in front of their amp line with nothing else going on. Now we can use large video screens. It opens up a lot more opportunities to do different things.”
The post Joe Bonamassa thinks Eddie Van Halen wouldn’t have been as “cool” if he’d used a Quad Cortex instead of vintage analogue gear: “People hear with their eyes” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“Maybe he’s a drummer”: Outrage sparked as viral video shows airport baggage handler throwing guitar cases to the tarmac
A video taken by a passenger onboard a plane at Los Angeles International Airport showing a baggage handler throwing guitar cases to the ground has gone viral.
The footage has been seen by millions, with 4.1 million views on TikTok alone. It’s also made the rounds on Instagram, where a number of musicians have commented in outrage. This isn’t the first time an incident like this has occurred, as a number of other artists have faced damage to their instruments over the years following flights, including Emily Wolfe, Madi Diaz, Pete Thorn, and more.
You can watch the footage below, but beware, it will make you wince. Touring guitarist Chris LaPlante comments, “first time I’ve wanted something to be AI”, while another user on TikTok comments, “was he kicked out of the band?” Others are questioning, does he hate music, or is he just a drummer? It seems we will never know.
@goyamariacookieI hope your guitars are ok #LAX #losangeles #airport #guitartok
Nick Ruiz, who captured the footage, has spoken to Need To Know, and says, “The whole situation felt wrong. My instinct was to start filming.”
At the time of writing, LAX has not commented publicly on the viral footage.
A number of musicians have argued that it is better to pay for a seat for your guitar – Joe Bonamassa has also spoken about doing so – but with many touring musicians on a tight budget, it’s not always possible.
Emily Wolfe called out Southwest Airlines after her signature Epiphone White Wolfe guitar had its headstock “completely broken off” following a flight in August last year.
In a post on Instagram, she explained how she followed every guideline for traveling with an instrument: it was in a hard-shell flight case, checked in properly, and was labelled with fragile stickers.
When she first filed a report at the airport, she was first told the airline was not responsible for anything inside the case and that instruments are considered “fragile items.” After posting about her experience online, the airline eventually reached out and agreed to cover the damages.
The post “Maybe he’s a drummer”: Outrage sparked as viral video shows airport baggage handler throwing guitar cases to the tarmac appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Ace Frehley’s number-one Les Paul headlines upcoming auction at Julien’s – and could fetch half a million dollars
![[L-R] Kirk Hammett's “Ouija” ESP Custom, Ace Frehley's number one Gibson Les Paul, Stevie Ray Vaughan's MTV Unplugged Guild F-412](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Music-Icons-auction-2026-hero@2000x1500.jpg){kind=icon}
Julien’s Auctions is set to sell a number of high-profile instruments from the rock and metal world in its upcoming Music Icons auction, including some owned by Ace Frehley, Kirk Hammett and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Celebrating the “enduring power of heavy metal”, the Music Icons auction will also feature instruments played by the likes of Billy Duffy, Izzy Stradlin, Mick Mars and Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward. Over 800 items in total will be featured.
It also celebrates 50 years since Kiss first came to London for their Destroyer tour in 1976, with Ace Frehley’s most-played 1975 Gibson Les Paul front and centre, expected to fetch between $400,000 and $600,000.
Elsewhere the sale features: Stevie Ray Vaughan’s 1969 Guild F-412 from his 1990 MTV Unplugged performance, which is expected to fetch between $300,000 and $500,000; Kirk Hammett’s stage- and studio-played (and signed) “Ouija” ESP Custom, expected to sell for between $250,000 and $350,000; and Izzy Stradlin’s 1987 Gibson HR Fusion 1 (estimate $30,000 – $50,000.
But again, the late Ace Frehley is at the centre of the Music Icons auction, with a number of other pieces of memorabilia also up for grabs, including his 1977 tour jacket, a full-length kimono from the Rock & Roll Over tour era, and a stage-worn jumpsuit.
An exhibition of highlights from the auction has been unveiled at London’s Hard Rock Cafe Piccadilly Circus, where it will remain before travelling to Japan to the Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo on 27 April, the day the sale goes live. Additional items will be unveiled on 13 May at Hard Rock Cafe Times Square, available to the public until the live auction on 29-30 May.
“Interest in music memorabilia is reaching unprecedented levels, fueled by collectors who appreciate both the cultural significance of these instruments and the legacy of the artists behind them – often resulting in record-breaking sales,” says Martin Nolan, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Julien’s Auctions.
“Our annual Music Icons auction, featuring extraordinary guitars from Ace Frehley, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Kirk Hammett, underscores Julien’s ongoing commitment to bringing museum-quality pieces to market while shaping the global conversation around music collecting.”
Learn more at Julien’s Auctions.
The post Ace Frehley’s number-one Les Paul headlines upcoming auction at Julien’s – and could fetch half a million dollars appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“The strongest opinion in the room is often the right opinion”: How Mark Morton handles writing disagreements with his Lamb of God co-guitarist Willie Adler
![[L-R] Willie Adler and Mark Morton of Lamb of God](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Mark-Morton-Willie-Adler-new-hero@2000x1500.jpg)
Disagreeing with bandmates when working on new material can be uncomfortable to say the least, but Lamb Of God’s Mark Morton has shared how he handles creative friction with those around him.
The band released their 10th album Into Oblivion on 13 March, which follows on from their 2022 release, Omens. Reflecting on their writing process in a new interview, Morton shares how he works with fellow guitarist Willie Adler, and how he knows when to step back and let others take the reins on a track.
“We sometimes disagree. But I’ve learned over the years that if you’ve got five guys and a producer in the room, and you’re trying to make everybody happy, you’re going to wind up diluting a piece of music to the point where it’s not going to have an identity. Somebody’s got to be willing to say, ‘I’m not directing this one,’” Morton tells Guitar World in its new print magazine.
“When that’s me, I fall back and let the people who are the most motivated and the most excited about that particular song steer it. When I stopped trying to be in control of everything, I realised the strongest opinion in the room is often the right opinion. If I disagree with Willie about something, but he’s so dead set on doing it his way because he thinks it’s way better, then I will defer to him, and vice versa.
“Conversely, if somebody’s clinging to something but everyone else thinks it’s the wrong thing, sometimes you’ve got to have that conversation and go, ‘You know what, man? The whole rest of the room disagrees with you so maybe you should just step away.’”
Adler goes on to add, “Mark and I have such a long history together that we’ve learned how to read each other and work together. We feed off each other to such an extent that I’d feel very lost going into a writing session or writing songs without Mark… I can fuck up around Mark. I can woodshed something and sound terrible, but it’s alright because I know I’m going to get there. And Mark knows I’m going to get there.”
Lamb Of God’s new album Into Oblivion is out now. The band are currently on tour, and you can view the full list of scheduled shows via the official Lamb Of God website.
The post “The strongest opinion in the room is often the right opinion”: How Mark Morton handles writing disagreements with his Lamb of God co-guitarist Willie Adler appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Gary Holt: “All I listen to is Adele”
![Gary Holt [main], Adele [inset]](https://guitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Gary-Holt-Adele-hero@2000x1500.jpg)
Being a music lover means listening widely and leaving any snobbery at the door, and that’s certainly the case for Gary Holt, who says he’s always liked pop music.
It’s highly unlikely that all metal artists only listen to metal, and listening widely has influenced his work without it even being conscious. The Exodus guitarist and former Slayer member says there is one artist he particularly loves, and that’s Adele and her soothing piano work.
In an interview for the new print edition of Guitar World, Holt says, “All I listen to is Adele. If you ask me what my five favourite musicians are right now, they’re all Adele. She’s one of the greatest voices ever, and if you listen to her records, outside of the hits, there’s world-class piano playing. Most of it is just her and the piano, and I love listening to piano.”
Fellow guitarist Lee Altus adds: “Good music is good music. I’m not sitting around listening to metal all the time either. One of my all-time favorite bands is ABBA. I grew up on Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Iron Maiden. That stuff is still what I go back to, but I love lots of other things.”
Asked if they think the experimental nature in the band’s sound comes from their appreciation of genres outside metal, Holt says, “Maybe. I don’t sit there listening to Adele thinking, ‘I’m going to put pop music into thrash metal,’ but I’ve always liked pop. I was listening to Madonna on the Exodus tour in the eighties with Venom.
“Prince is my hero. There’s probably more Prince influence in Exodus than anyone would ever notice. Listen to Violence Works. Until the riff comes in, it sounds like we’ve lost our minds and have done a disco song. To me, Promise You [This] sounds like Blackfoot meets Discharge. There’s never a rhyme or reason to why it all happens. We just follow the riff.”
Exodus are touring across the UK and Europe right now. You can find out more via their official website.
The post Gary Holt: “All I listen to is Adele” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Metallica gifted Wolfgang Van Halen a “perfect attendance during a world tour” certificate for not missing a support slot on his M72 tour run: “If that doesn’t show you how much they care…”
Wolfgang Van Halen and his band Mammoth have been involved in some pretty huge gigs across their time together so far, but supporting Metallica on their whopping M72 world tour was monumental.
Often making headlines for their wholesomeness, be it embracing new and younger fans through the Stranger Things fanbase or their charity work with All Within My Hands, it seems Metallica also look after those around them pretty well too. According to Wolfgang, the thrash legends gifted him with a certificate for perfect attendance and even a signed photograph of Mammoth with the band backstage at their final show together in Mexico.
In a Trunk Nation interview, Wolfgang shares his Mammoth highlights, and begins, “The couple gigs we did opening for Foo Fighters was a really big thing for me. Overall, just being a part of the 72 Seasons world tour with Metallica was probably one of the craziest things we’ve been a part of. That will forever go down as just… Wow.
“Being a part of that and being able to see how it operates, they’re basically a traveling city [with] the amount of people that it takes to build that stage and just to operate in a stadium to begin with. It was such a crazy level of stuff I’d never really been around. To be in that area and see how it works and figuring out how to play on such a crazy stage was a really fun challenge, and really shaped the live band that we are now because of that.”
He goes on to show a certificate to the camera, decorated with guitar picks in the striking yellow colour of Metallica’s 72 Seasons album: “We were the only band out of all the openers to play every single building with them,” he says. “If that doesn’t show you how much they care and how cool they are… They also sent it with [this],” he then shows the photo of them all together.
See it in the video below:
After a lot of speculation, Metallica have confirmed that a residency at the Las Vegas Sphere will take place later this year, with shows kicking off in October. The shows will continue their ‘no-repeat’ weekend tradition, which sees them perform two shows in each city with entirely unique setlists on each night.
The post Metallica gifted Wolfgang Van Halen a “perfect attendance during a world tour” certificate for not missing a support slot on his M72 tour run: “If that doesn’t show you how much they care…” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“Call my guitar man if you want the exact number”: Keith Richards reveals the astonishing number of guitars in his collection
Keith Richards, like many huge artists, has a rather vast collection of guitars. In fact, he’s not even sure of the exact number he has, and some of them he’s never even seen.
Richards’ impact on guitar culture led to him earning his own Gibson ES-355 signature model earlier this year. Two super-limited Collector’s Edition models were released in January and were developed in close collaboration with Richards. Just 150 were made available in total, each based on his own treasured 1960 ES-355, which has accompanied him on every Rolling Stones tour since 1997.
These guitars were made using 3D scanning technology to replicate the true character of his original guitar, with 50 models signed both on the instrument and label, and 100 with only a signed label.
Speaking to Guitar World for the latest edition of its print magazine, he says, “What a surprise, and what a fuckin’ honour. I tell you, when they came at me with this one, I was like, ‘How can I refuse?’ It was a shock to me at first, because when I started, the idea of even owning a Gibson was pretty much out of the picture.
Richards was then asked how many of them he’ll get to keep: “Oh look, I have enough guitars already,” he says. Asked if 3000 guitars is an accurate figure for the number in his collection, he continues, “It’s something like that. You can call my guitar man, Pierre de Beauport, if you want the exact number, but it’s around there. But it’s not like I go around buying them or anything; a lot of these guitars have been given to me. I’ve never seen them all.
“I actually only use about… Well, the working number is about 15 guitars in the rack, for different sounds and whatever. But the other 2,900, I don’t know. They’re taken care of, though. I mean, this is a prime collection.”
The Collector’s Edition ES-355 models are now sold out online – view more at Gibson.
The post “Call my guitar man if you want the exact number”: Keith Richards reveals the astonishing number of guitars in his collection appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“I would rather do anything than sit there and watch somebody fiddle with pedals” Snail Mail on why she’s embraced the guitar on her terms on new record, Ricochet
You have your whole life to write your first record. But time goes by awfully fast when you have to follow it up, a pressure-cooker reality that Lindsey Jordan made work for her while assembling Snail Mail’s superb second LP Valentine. Released in 2021, its blend of barbed anti-romance and winsome indie-rock felt like someone getting something out that needed to come out.
It’s now been five years since it got its hooks in, though, and the intervening period increasingly feels like both a reset and a long exhale. “I love that record, I’m so proud of it,” Jordan says during a Zoom call from her home in Greensboro, North Carolina. “But I knew that, even if I was going through brutal heartbreak, I didn’t want to write about it anymore.”
Instead, Jordan compares the songs on Ricochet, her long-awaited third album, to her earliest bedroom-sculpted releases, believing the patient catch-and-release of the writing process has given them a similar sense of honesty and emotional clarity, no matter how thorny the philosophical subject matter.
“I spent probably four years trying to optimise my process,” she continues. “I worked super slowly, really trying to figure out what it was going to be. I was trying to write every day on tour, and I ended up putting together maybe nine of the 11 songs, including writing the vocal melodies before there was a single lyric.”
Image: Daria Kobayashi Ritch
Palette Cleansing
The record’s guitar sounds also formed part of that formulation, with Jordan and producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch, who also plays bass in Brooklyn indie-rock band Momma, building a collaborative playlist that pulled at disparate threads of 90s rock, from Ivy’s cultured power-pop to the brawny vulnerability of Third Eye Blind and Oasis, and pillowy early ‘00s pop in the form of Frou Frou and Dido. “Some of it was directly referenced: Agony Freak was so inspired by Pinback,” Jordan says. “We had our palette before we had anything else.”
“The way that Aron demos with people, and the way that Momma demos, which is really interesting because they’re collaborative [writers], is to really develop stuff before they even step foot into the studio,” she adds. “I’ve never been in a studio and not had a few weeks of adding flourishes or something. The way that they prepare for stuff is that they’re setting the tone and there’s not a second in the studio for writing, which actually I would recommend to pretty much everybody at this point. The references we decided on together were spot on. I feel like we combined tastes and made it happen in a way that was more intentional than I’ve ever done on a record with a producer before.”
But, when confronted with this rich, texturally detailed backdrop of sunny melancholy, Jordan pushed back lyrically by pondering the stuff that never gets any easier: cosmic insignificance, time’s hard-nosed disregard for how we feel. The result is an intriguing push-pull relationship between arrangements that feel entirely sure of themselves and words that are anything but. “I feel like a person who is very aware of that tension,” Jordan observes. “It’s something I love messing with.”
“One day we won’t be around,” she sings during Light on Our Feet, the sentiment swooping on a beautiful hook, strings darting between its drawn-out vowels. Towards the end of My Maker, the line, “Above us it’s just sky,” tumbles into a belted refrain, its lilting acoustics decorated with intricate solos. “The melodies were as confident as they could possibly be,” Jordan says. “I love, love, love the lyrics but I have revisions in my head for all of them.”
Uncertainty Principle
That admission also points to one of Ricochet’s greatest strengths — its ability to embrace uncertainty and constant re-evaluation. In posing a long list of questions, with comparatively few answers, Jordan suggests that if you need to change your mind, or admit that, maybe, you just don’t know, then that’s cool.
From the opening riffs of Tractor Beam on down, the record feels like one of those long summers when some things come into focus while others get muddied up. “On …Maker I wanted to say “Above us it’s just sky,” but it was like, ‘Who am I as the speaker here?’ I don’t feel like I have a particularly unique view of what’s going on, or of the human experience,” she says. “It’s definitely not coming from a sage.”
While some sessions took place at the Nightfly and Studio G in Brooklyn, Ricochet was chiefly tracked at North Carolina’s Fidelitorium Recordings, a space owned by Mitch Easter, whose production resume includes R.E.M.’s first two LPs, Pavement’s Brighten the Corners and his own work fronting the slept-on power-pop band Let’s Active.
“He’s so fucking nice and cool,” Jordan says, noting that she was able to drive up to the studio each day, dropping her dog at daycare en route. “He came to see us in Nashville not that long ago with Dinosaur Jr, and I punished him really hard after.”
At Fidelitorium, Kobayashi Ritch and engineer Hayden Ticehurst often had things humming along by the time Jordan arrived each day, underlining the shared understanding of what they were aiming for. The simpatico relationship even extended to how they’d chase loose threads.
“I would rather do anything than sit there and watch somebody fiddle with pedals — I hate that part of the process so much,” Jordan notes. So, instead, she played and played and played while Kobayashi Ritch popped his earplugs in and went to work in the live room. “She was a great sport for that,” the producer says. “The thing I like most is when an artist is okay being like, ‘Dude, if you want to take your time, I’ll just play.’”
Image: Daria Kobayashi Ritch
Bat The Cycle
Using a Radial switcher, Kobayashi Ritch would cycle through rigs, often running multiple amps in concert to build something texturally extravagant without much reliance on fixing things in post. On the song Hell, there were four of them in airy harmony, with a load of room mics up to create a sense of space.
Plucked from Easter’s collection and thrust into heavy rotation were a 70s tweed Princeton, a Twin Reverb and a Guild Thunder, which would often only have its reverb channel mic’d. “The Princeton, you put that thing on 10 and it sounds so good,” Kobayashi Ritch recalls. “He also had a Bad Cat and a Vox [doing] the AC30 thing, and then an Orange combo — something ‘70s, huge and heavy.”
The guitars on the record skew character actor rather than matinee idol, with personality and availability at the forefront of the conversation. Jordan’s Noventa Jazzmaster and Rickenbacker 360 were in the mix, along with a Martin acoustic with a really high action belonging to bassist Alex Bass. Kobayashi Ritch, meanwhile, threw his HSH Strat, a ‘90s Jazzmaster with Curtis Novak pickups and a double cutaway ‘68 Gibson Melody Maker into the fray, with their contributions orbiting Jordan’s prized ‘71 Gibson SG, which did a lot of work in the studio, a setting that it’ll be exclusively inhabiting from now on.
“I’m not bringing the SG on tour,” she says. “It’s not worth it to me. It was expensive and setting it up was a whole song and dance, like nothing I’ve ever been through with a guitar before. I love it so much. It’s also the only vintage guitar I’ve ever had. I don’t want anything to happen to it.”
Despite being a rich, adventurous record packed with strings, horns and tiered harmonies, Ricochet never loses sight of Jordan’s personality as a guitarist, from the swooning Goo Goo Dolls-esque melody of Cruise to the subtly knotty arpeggios of Dead End. Part of that can be traced back to the fact everything is in its right place.
Jordan observes that the tracking process was essentially free of distractions or extraneous info, allowing all attention to be focused on bringing the sound in her head to life. “In finding out what works for me, I feel like [I realised] I would like to work with my friend who is the same age in a studio that is intimate and chill and kind of bare bones,” she says. “My girlfriend did the art, me and my best friend did all the music videos together. It’s not DIY because we have label backing and stuff, but it feels like now I have the experience and the opportunities to do whatever I want.”
Snail Mail’s Ricochet is out on March 27 through Matador.
The post “I would rather do anything than sit there and watch somebody fiddle with pedals” Snail Mail on why she’s embraced the guitar on her terms on new record, Ricochet appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Celebrate Foo Fighters’ new album and get Dave Grohl’s Pelham Blue Epiphone DG-335 at a discount at Thomann
In case you missed it: the Foo Fighters are back, and they’ve got a new album dropping this April. What better time to get your hands on Epiphone’s take on Dave Grohl’s beloved Pelham Blue DG-335 guitar?
The Epiphone Dave Grohl DG-335 arrived in 2024, offering a slightly more affordable version of Grohl’s signature Gibson DG-335. As part of a massive spring sale, Thomann has currently discounted the Epiphone model, and it’s now priced at £769, down from £869.
[deals ids=”5jyvglTqdGTualCIXFizHO”]
The guitar pairs elements of Gibson’s ES-335 and Trini Lopez models, and has a layered maple/poplar body, one-piece mahogany neck, Trini Lopez-style headstock and Indian laurel fretboard with mother-of-pearl split diamond inlays.
Electronics include a pair of Gibson USA Burstbucker humbuckers, controlled by two volume and two tone pots. Other key specs include Grover Mini-Rotomatic tuners, a LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge and stopbar, a Switchcraft toggle and jack, CTS pots and Mallory capacitors.
The new record from the Foos will land on 24 April and is titled Your Favorite Toy. It follows on from 2023’s But Here We Are, and will mark the band’s 12th studio album. Its title track was released as the first single, with second single Caught In The Echo having landed last Friday (20 March).
In a statement about the title track, Grohl said: “Your Favorite Toy really was the key that unlocked the tone and energetic direction of the new album. We stumbled upon it after experimenting with different sounds and dynamics for over a year, and the day it took shape I knew that we had to follow its lead. It was the fuse to the powder keg of songs we wound up recording for this record. It feels new.”
Head over to Thomann to shop this deal and more in its spring sale.
The post Celebrate Foo Fighters’ new album and get Dave Grohl’s Pelham Blue Epiphone DG-335 at a discount at Thomann appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
“I can’t wait to throw it through a Marshall”: Richie Sambora reunites with long-lost Gibson Explorer after 40 years
After nearly four decades out of sight, Richie Sambora’s original 1976 Gibson Explorer – the very guitar behind some of Bon Jovi’s earliest riffs – has finally resurfaced and made its way back to him.
Sambora bought the guitar as a teenager, and like many young players, had to take his time making it his own. The guitarist reportedly spent around three years customising the instrument piece by piece, working within a tight budget and upgrading it as he could afford to. In 1985, while Bon Jovi were touring overseas, the Explorer was stolen from a warehouse and effectively disappeared.
For years, it was assumed to be gone for good – until it turned up in the hands of Paris-based vintage dealer Matthieu Lucas, who runs Matt’s Guitar Shop.
Speaking to Guitar World, Lucas reveals that he came across the instrument while going about his usual business, but something about this Explorer stood out straight away.
“I bought this guitar from somebody who said he was from Michigan and sold it as Richie’s original Explorer,” he says. “It’s the first time I have been offered such a Bon Jovi guitar as [typically], the early Bon Jovi guitars never come up for sale.”
After securing the deal, Lucas did his due diligence, sending photos to Sambora’s team to help verify the instrument.
“What I learned then was that it was stolen, and I immediately called Richie’s team to give Richie his sword back,” he says.
A few weeks later, Lucas and his team flew to New Jersey with the guitar, ready for the handover.
“We opened the case, and I gave [Sambora] the guitar. He grabbed the neck and said, ‘Oh yes, that’s mine!’ Lucas recalls. “I had to make it right and make sure Richie got this guitar back.”
Beyond the emotional moment, Lucas says the guitar is set to return to active duty.
“It will be the first guitar he will use on stage when he gets back to it,” he adds. “Richie played everything on this guitar and composed the majority of Bon Jovi’s hit songs on it, so I am so glad he got it back now.”
Meanwhile, Sambora has also spoken about how the Explorer had shaped his early years as a player. Influenced by artists like Eric Clapton – who also favoured the model – he set out to get one of his own.
“I just wanted to be like Eric Clapton. Eric Clapton was playing Explorers,” he says, recalling how he eventually spotted one in a music shop he was dealing with. “I didn’t have the money for it. Like I didn’t have the money for the Les Paul either.”
Instead, he worked out a payment plan – the guitar cost around $250 – and began using the axe while still paying it off.
“I was already working with this when I was in debt for the rest of the money,” Sambora explains.
And now that it’s back in his hands? He’s not exactly planning to stow it under glass.
“I’m keeping this forever. However long that is for me,” he adds. “I can’t wait to throw it through a Marshall.”
The post “I can’t wait to throw it through a Marshall”: Richie Sambora reunites with long-lost Gibson Explorer after 40 years appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Watch David Ellefson perform Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction in its entirety
It doesn’t look like David Ellefson will be getting an invite to perform on Megadeth’s final tour any time soon, but that’s not stopping him from celebrating his tenure in the band on his own.
And for your viewing pleasure, new footage has appeared online of Ellefson’s recent stop in Bochnia, Poland on his ongoing Bass Warrior tour, which sees him perform Megadeth’s landmark 1992 album Countdown to Extinction in its entirety, among solo material and other rock classics.
“Tonight in Bochnia, Poland – what a night! Bochnia, this was our third time with you and you were absolutely incredible,” Ellefson wrote on social media after the show. “Thank you for coming out and celebrating Countdown To Extinction with us for a high-energy, SOLD OUT show.
“Every voice, every riff, every moment – unforgettable. It was also amazing to bring Angry Again and 99 Ways To Die back into the set – two killer tracks from that 1992–93 era that hit just as hard today.”
David Ellefson’s Bass Warrior tour is billed as an “annual celebration” of bass and metal, in which he’s accompanied by musical director and guitarist Andy Martongelli.
“Bass Warrior has become an annual celebration with my fans across Europe,” Ellefson says. “This year I’m really excited to be performing the Countdown to Extinction album in its entirety on the tour. It’s always been one of my favorite albums in my discography and I’m looking forward to celebrating those songs with my fans on the tour in March.”
It seems Dave Mustaine is concrete in his position that he doesn’t want to include former Megadeth members on the band’s ongoing final tour. But that hasn’t stopped David Ellefson from making his thoughts on the decision known.
Last month, Ellefson said Megadeth should “give the fans what they want” and offer him the chance to perform on the tour.
“I have always said that I am available for that,” he said. “And I would do it because I think any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded.”
The current 2026 Bass Warrior tour is yet to make stops in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. See the Bass Warrior webpage for tickets and more info.
The post Watch David Ellefson perform Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction in its entirety appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
This 64-pickup guitar records every string separately – and lets you decide the tone after you’ve played
A guitar with 64 pickups might sound like the product of some gearhead’s fever dream, but this one is as real as they come. Dreamed up by David Wieland of Dark Art Guitars as part of his master’s thesis in electrical engineering, the ‘Polymap’ system takes the idea of a pickup and pushes it to its absolute limit.
“I built a polyphonic guitar pickup system that can record 64 individual pickups simultaneously called Polymap,” Wieland explains.
The platform for all this experimentation is an eight-string, headless Alchemist model with a 26.5” scale length. The guitar pairs a swamp ash body with a striking maple burl top, though much of that wood has been carved out to make space for what Wieland describes as a “giant hole” of electronics.
And it’s what’s packed into that cavity that really sets this thing apart.
At its core, Polymap completely rethinks how a guitar signal is captured. Instead of blending string vibrations into a single output via two or three pickups, Wieland’s design captures each string – multiple times – as isolated data.
“The basic idea was to build a guitar that doesn’t record the kind of finished mixed output signal, but instead a lot of information about each one of the strings,” says the engineer. “Now, this is a very fancy way of saying that instead of two or three pickups, we have a few dozen that are only picking up one string each.”
The number didn’t land on 64 by accident either. Wieland opted for eight pickups per string across all eight strings, essentially creating multiple ‘listening points’ along each string’s length. Think of it as having a neck pickup, bridge pickup and everything in between… all at once, and all separately captured.
“Because we want to record all 64 pickups simultaneously without mixing them, the only real choice was to digitise them inside of the guitar,” he explains. “This means that we essentially built a 64-channel audio interface integrated into the guitar that then sends out one single digital signal to the computer.”
Those signals are handled via Cycfi Research pickup capsules, routed through a control board that buffers each signal before sending it to 64 individual analogue-to-digital converters. From there, everything lands in your DAW.
“Inside of the computer, we can take those 64 audio channels and get them into a DAW,” he continues. “In order to do anything useful with them, we wrote a VSSD plugin that allows you to mix all of these signals together, apply various effects, and then get a stereo output that you can listen to on just regular headphones.”
For guitarists, that’s where things start to get especially interesting. Instead of committing to pickup selection, tone and effects on the way in, you’re capturing raw string data, and deciding everything in post.
“Now, because we get the raw data into the DAW, this means we are actually recording the raw data and not the mixed output,” Wieland says. “So, all of the effects and the choice of which pickups are active can be made after it is recorded.”
In practice, that opens up a level of flexibility that conventional guitars simply don’t offer. You could track a part once, then audition different pickup positions after the fact, spread individual strings across the stereo field, or route low strings to a bass rig while sending the upper strings through a guitar amp. Multiple pickup positions per string can also be blended and delayed to create physically grounded spatial effects.
“This makes it a really powerful recording tool,” says Wieland.
And as the Polymap project puts it: “The guitar no longer has a single analogue output but becomes a spatially mapped instrument.”
Check out Wieland’s wild creation in action below.
Learn more at Dark Art Guitars.
The post This 64-pickup guitar records every string separately – and lets you decide the tone after you’ve played appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Paul McCartney reveals his rift with John Lennon was mended, in part, because they both got into baking bread: “It was nice that we had that in common”
1970 didn’t just see the end of the biggest band in the world – it also marked the fracture of one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of all time. As Beatles fans now know, the road to conciliation in the years that followed was a long one. Though as Paul McCartney now reveals, it didn’t hinge on music so much as something far more domestic.
In a new interview, McCartney shares how his rift with fellow Beatle John Lennon was mended in part by a shared love for – you guessed it – baking bread.
Speaking in the new Audible audiobook The Man on the Run, the bassist opens up about the messy aftermath of the Beatles’ split and the unraveling of his bond with Lennon.
“When we first broke up, good old John, he was like, slinging missiles at me,” says Macca. “He was just writing songs against me [like] How do you sleep at night?. You know, I was thinking ‘ok thanks.’”
“This is John, you know, if he doesn’t like someone, he’s going to sling arrows at you. And knowing that I can’t really effectively sling back stuff because I’m just not that good at that. It’s not my thing, you know?”
Beyond the musical back-and-forth, McCartney points to deeper tensions around business decisions as a key source of friction at the time.
“In the beginning, it was quite sort of hurtful, obviously. And it was the business thing. They were trying to stay with this guy who we knew was trying to rob the company. And it was like I was the only one who’d seen that the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes,” he explains.
“But then they started to realise I was right about Klein, and they went off him. So it was healing itself, as you said. And eventually we were actually able to talk to each other, instead of ‘Ah, you…’”
With tensions cooling, the Lennon-McCartney pair gradually found their way back to each other – not through music, but through everyday life.
“John had had Sean, so he was now the father of a young baby. So, you know, I would bring him up and we’d talk about kids and domestic things,” says McCartney. “And I started making bread and it was getting pretty good, you know. And I started talking to him. He said ‘Oh yeah, I’m making bread’.”
As Macca explains, those small, ordinary connections proved surprisingly meaningful.
“The things we had in common were just ordinary little domestic things,” he says. “So somehow that was peaceful. And it was nice that we had that in common. And we weren’t fighting anymore.”
The post Paul McCartney reveals his rift with John Lennon was mended, in part, because they both got into baking bread: “It was nice that we had that in common” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante review – a dual dirt pedal that’s faster than the speed of light
€185/£185/$289, twilightpulseaudioworks.com / northernstomps.com
Guitar pedal makers are electronic engineers and therefore, by definition, nerds. So there’s a little clue to the inspiration behind the Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante in its name… but you’ll only get it if you’re a physics fan.
The most famous constant in science, as proposed by Einstein himself, is the speed of light (in a vacuum). This overdrive pedal from German indie maker Twilight Pulse, then, is a tribute to the Greer Amps Lightspeed. Not that it’s a mere clone, though – the presence of a second footswitch is enough to make it clear there’s something else going on inside this handsome blue box.
Image: Richard Purvis
Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante – what is it?
First of all, it’s not normally Pelham Blue: this is a limited-edition colourway for UK dealer Northern Stompboxes, the standard finish being white. On the inside, the Konstante is a two-in-one pedal, offering Lightspeed-style transparent overdrive – with the promise of more gain and more headroom than the original – alongside a separate Echoplex-style boost circuit.
Three of the controls are for the drive – output level, gain and tone – while the boost/preamp gets just a level knob. There’s a toggle switch in the middle for changing the order of the two circuits, and a pair of bypass switches that are about as far apart as they could be without falling off the edges of the enclosure. Mind you, this being a compact pedal, that’s still not very far – something to bear in mind if you don’t happen to have the feet of a ballerina.
Image: Richard Purvis
Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante – what does it sound like?
There’s a laid-back fluffiness to the overdrive side of the Konstante that reminds me of the Coggins Audio Dinosaural Hypoid Drive – and considering I gave that pedal 10/10, well, it’s safe to say we’re off to a decent start. But it’s slightly more tonally transparent than the Dinosaural, with only the merest hint of a sweetening effect in the mids, and it’s distinctly more fresh and zingy at the top end.
The gain range runs from virtually clean to moderately filthy, but the tone knob isn’t quite so transformative: it stays pretty crisp almost all the way round, with some extra upper-mids bite coming in as you push it past halfway. If you like your drive pedals on the dark side, you might find this one a bit too chimey. The key feature here, though, is that it has a truly organic sound and feel – which is exactly what the Lightspeed is famed for.
If anything, the boost side of the Konstante is even closer to transparency, giving a lift to the top and bottom ends of the spectrum that leaves the spiky mid frequencies fractionally softened by default. On its own it’s excellent, and teamed up with the other half of the pedal it offers two compelling options: an extra kick to the front end of the drive for added saturation, or a powerful loudness boost on the way out.
Image: Richard Purvis
Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante – should I buy it?
If you’re in Europe, this pedal is cheaper than the one that inspired it – and it has an added boost option that’s anything but an afterthought. That has to make it wildly tempting… as long as you’re not put off by the brightness of its core tone, or the potential for mishaps caused by having two footswitches barely an inch apart.
Either way, the Konstante is a superb little stompbox that marks out Twilight Pulse as a very classy boutique contender.
Image: Richard Purvis
Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante alternatives
For the sound of the Greer Amps Lightspeed, you might consider the Greer Amps Lightspeed ($249/£229). Other overdrive pedals with an independent boost circuit include the Keeley D&M Drive ($229/£229) and ThorpyFX The Dane MkII (£264.99/$319).
The post Twilight Pulse Audioworks Konstante review – a dual dirt pedal that’s faster than the speed of light appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.