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Even the most refined guitarists can struggle from time to time. Hell, Metallica’s James Hetfield thinks Master of Puppets is tricky, and Brian May describes the Bohemian Rhapsody riff as “unnatural”. But that’s what separates the rookies from the pros – a pro won’t back down from a challenge.

Steve Vai and Joe Satriani in particular have made a point of pushing themselves in their joint project, SATCHVAI. Alongside challenging riffs, they also strayed far out of their comfort zone; for the track Old Sins Have Long Shadows, Vai braved it out with a fretless guitar. “They’re not my expertise… I struggle with them!” Vai admits in a new interview with Guitarist.

• READ MORE: Jackson’s new Legends Series celebrates the influence of Randy Rhoads, Marty Friedman, Scott Ian and David Ellefson on the brand’s legacy

Typically, Vai is known for his excellent fretboard tap dancing. Without the frets, though, he felt lost. In many ways, a fretless axe is the ultimate test for a guitarist, as scrapping the frets essentially throws all conventional chords out the window. It almost transforms an axe into an off-kilter violin. However, Vai knew that the track in questioned required a fretless guitar to capture a “ghostly” feel.

“[That was] one of the big challenges for me…” he says. “When I approached [that track] one side of me is thinking ‘My God what am I going to do?’ But to get that ghostly, weird, offbeat riff, it had to be [a fretless guitar], y’know? All the vibrato and little shakes – it doesn’t sound like a guitar. It sounds like a ghostly spirit.”

Other challenges took less intimidating forms – like opting for a nylon-stringed guitar instead of a bold electric. “The nylon string intro to The Sea Of Emotion Pt 2,” Satriani says. “When I first composed that, I had full distortion, stereo echo, chorus and I’m playing it on electric guitar… but the song made this journey from a grown man who still thinks like a 14 year old, sitting by his amplifier, having a rock ‘n’ roll moment, to seeing that I should play it on a nylon-string and leave space for what Steve did, which is that electric violin-type dreamscape.”

“It was a piece of cake on the electric, but not on the acoustic…” he laughs.

SATCHVAI’s debut, The Sea of Emotion, drops on 6 November.

The post “My god, what am I going to do?”: Steve Vai and Joe Satriani are two of the greatest guitarists of all time, but these instruments made them panic appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$279.99/£259, walrusaudio.com

The story behind the Walrus Audio Lüm tells us that guitarists are a bloody nightmare. Dammit, do we want a multi-mode soundscaping reverb pedal with presets in a compact enclosure or don’t we?

• READ MORE: Source Audio Pathways review: “a pedal that sits comfortably between the worlds of modernity and tradition”

When Walrus Audio decided to discontinue the Slötva because of poor sales, the answer to that question appeared to be a clear no. But then, finding itself with a bunch of leftover PCB assemblies for Slötvas that nobody wanted, it did a bit of firmware tweakage and came up with last year’s limited-edition Lüm – mostly to avoid chucking all that unused hardware away. This time, though, it did sell… so much so that the Lüm is now back as a permanent fixture of the Walrus range.

In truth, the words ‘a bit of firmware tweakage’ are probably understating the efforts that were made to turn a relative flop into such an in-demand pedal. Anyway, the Slötva is now consigned to the past – is the Lüm the future of stompbox atmospherics?

What is it?

There’s more to the story of this pedal – because before the Slötva came the Slö (similar but without presets), after it came the Slöer (excellent but far from compact), and along the way we also got a trio of more adventurous ambience generators in the Lore, the Fable and the madcap Melee. All of these, to one degree or another, have fed into the character of the Lüm.

So we’re not dealing with a simple spring-style reverberator here. The emphasis is on otherworldliness, and there are three different modes to take you away from this ghastly planet to somewhere more sublime: a ‘grain cloud’, a ‘grain verb’ and a forward/reverse reverb. That word ‘grain’ means we can expect some randomised stuff, as the reverb is chopped up into bits and spat out again.

Build quality and usability

The full-production Lüm has had one major enhancement from the original limited edition: it’s pink instead of blue. This is good news because pink pedals sound better, it’s a FACT, and I will hiss menacingly at anyone who says otherwise. Mind you, it’s also available in plain black, which you might prefer if you’re all about the doom.

A low-pass filter control means you can opt for full-frequency shimmeriness or something more moody, and holding down the right footswitch makes the reverb glide up to a secondary setting at one of three speeds: almost instantly, over a second or over five seconds.

Explaining exactly what the ‘X’ and ‘stretch’ knobs do is a little more tricky, so it might be best to just stomp away and see where the celestial winds take us. Getting started is easy enough because of the three editable factory presets – just hit both footswitches to scroll through them, and use each one as a starting point for exploring the modes.

Sounds

There’s one factory preset for each mode, which makes sense – and the first one uses mode 1, which also makes sense. It’s a big and dreamy reverb, with a nice bit of grainy fluttering that adds interest but feels tastefully embedded in the ethereal wash. In this mode the X knob makes those grains bigger or smaller – from bouncy to jittery – and this is very useful for getting the texture just how you want it.

The second preset – using, you guessed it, mode 2 – is not massively different, but here the grains have been softened up much more by the reverb, a bit like the rice in a well-cooked risotto, resulting in a noticeably smoother effect. And mode 3 is smoother again, combining a ‘regular’ reverb with one that swooshes around in rhythmic waves.

There’s plenty of blissed-out fun to be had with all three modes, either clean or with masses of distortion; but if you are about to fuzz things up, you have a big decision to make about pedal order. Distortion before reverb is ‘correct’, but how about the other way round? An interesting reference point here is the aforementioned Melee, which includes both effects and lets you switch them around. Here’s what I wrote about its reversed combination back in 2023: “There’s so much harmonic overload, even when playing single notes, that you end up with an almost glitchy feel to the snowballing surface roar, snatches of melody struggling to rise above the swirling morass.”

How I didn’t win some sort of award for that sentence I’ll never know. But anyway, all of that is equally true of the Lüm if you run it through something very gainy indeed. Heavy shoegazers (by which I mean My Bloody Valentine fans) will be extremely happy here.

So that just leaves the stretch knob. Its role is to alter the sample rate of the pedal, and in normal use this has a fairly minimal effect. Where it really becomes a feature, though, is as the source of the secondary setting reached by holding down the ‘moment’ footswitch: this adds a ramping pitch-shift to the wet part of the signal, which can be subtle or extreme.

I had some good times with this set to a slow rise of just a semitone or two, using my whammy bar to push the dry signal in the opposite direction for quasi-atonal strangeness… and then I had some not-so-good times trying to find any other uses for the function that didn’t feel a wee bit gimmicky. It’s a pity you don’t get more options here – say, an eternal freeze setting, or changes to multiple knobs instead of just one at a time – but as an emergency messer-upper it’s certainly worth having on board.

Should I buy one?

The Lüm is a fine pedal, sure enough, but it has rivals that are arguably even finer – and I’ve listed three of them below. The only thing is, one of them doesn’t do presets and the others aren’t compact – so that’s the gap in the market where this little pink stomper fits very neatly.

I don’t think it’s a perfect ambient soundscaping device by any means – there are compromises in its design that some players will find limiting, not least the fact that you only get three modes to play with. But if you’re looking for a simple and practical shortcut to astral mind-expansion, you might not need anything more than this.

Alternatives

Anyone willing to sacrifice presets for the joy of only having a single footswitch to worry about has a top-class alternative in the EarthQuaker Devices Afterneath V3 ($249/£225). If, on the other hand, you have a bigger chunk of pedalboard space to fill up, you might as well go for something truly cosmic like the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Dark Star Stereo ($329/£339) or Source Audio Encounter ($399/£369). Those two are both stereo.

The post Walrus Audio Lüm review – one small box, three colossal reverb effects appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Roger Waters has levelled some sharp criticism at Metallica frontman James Hetfield following his recent comments at the Sphere, where he told attendees the band was “not here to influence you with any bullshit”.

His comments appeared to address the recent spate of artists who have used their platform – including Hayley Williams and Macklemore, who was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour for doing so – to make political statements.

“Metallica is not here, like some other entertainers, to influence you with their bullshit,” Hetfield said. “Okay? We are here… no bullshit… we’re here to forget about all the outside shit, okay? “Metallica’s agenda is love, energy and heavy music, baby”

• READ MORE: Jackson’s new Legends Series celebrates the influence of Randy Rhoads, Marty Friedman, Scott Ian and David Ellefson on the brand’s legacy

His comments drew backlash from some, many of whom pointed out Metallica’s history of making political statements in their music, including in hits like One, Disposable Heroes and Don’t Tread on Me.

Now, in a new podcast appearance, former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters has made clear what he thinks about Hetfield’s comments. And when we say “made clear”, we mean made very clear…

“Can we stop talking about this prick? I’m so bored with him,” he says. “He’s just showing that he’s a complete prick. He’s got an IQ of about three, and why we’re talking about him, I honestly don’t know because he’s a nobody and he’ll always be. He may have a few hundred million dollars or whatever, but he’s a prick.”

Waters even goes as far as to question Hetfield’s musicianship, adding that he’s “no musician”.

“I heard them playing acoustic instruments and they couldn’t. It was appalling,” Waters says.

It appears to be a case of over-exaggeration and relying on shock factor in order to make a point, as Hetfield’s acoustic playing on the likes of Fade to Black and The Unforgiven is pretty solid…

Still, they are some pretty harsh words from Roger Waters, who does have a history of making brash statements and political messages. In 2023, he drew ire from German police and the US State Department after dressing in Nazi garb at a show in Berlin.

The post “He’s a nobody and he’ll always be”: Roger Waters levels bizarre rant at Metallica’s James Hetfield following recent Sphere comments appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

[Editor’s note: Guitar Center deals are aimed at US customers. If you’re outside the US, you’ll be shown similar deals.]

If you’ve ever been tempted by one of the many forward-thinking gear launches from Positive Grid, well now might be the best time to get your hands on one of its clever smart amps.

Right now at Guitar Center, there are loads of deals on offer across the Positive Grid product range – you can save over $100 on one of its Spark amps, or try out its wireless Spark NEO headphones for less.

• READ MORE: Five reasons why you need to try the new Spark Pedal

Positive Grid’s Spark GO 5W battery-powered combo amp is now under three figures at $99, saving you $50. This ultraportable smart guitar amp, integrated with the Spark app, provides pocket-sized access to amps, pedals, auto chords, a Smart Jam mode and over 50,000 tones in the cloud. We awarded it a solid 9/10 in our 2023 review.

You can also save $88 on the Spark CAB. This full-range, flat-response (FRFR) powered speaker cabinet was designed with amp sims and digital modellers in mind. It’s lightweight, portable, and ready for live performances, recording sessions, home practice and more.

If the Spark LIVE is more your thing, you can save over $100 on this four-channel smart amp & PA system right now. With four channels, a mixer and a wide collection of effects, it’s versatile for all kinds of live performances and was rated a flawless 10/10 by us.

Other offers include the Spark NEO headphones (now $199), Spark MINI amp (now $174), and the funky Spark MINI VAI version (now $188), made in collaboration with Steve Vai.

In other Positive Grid news, the brand launched its first ever floor-based amp modeller with the Spark PEDAL in September, which we awarded an 8/10. We said: “The Pedal is further proof that the Spark concept can be a fun and useful tool in almost any musical scenario, but there are some compromises here that eat into the great tones, easy usability and streamlined design of the ecosystem.”

View all of these Positive Grid deals and much more at Guitar Center.

The post We’re feeling positively fantastic about these Positive Grid deals at Guitar Center – save over $100 on a Spark amp and more! appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Longtime Trivium frontman Matt Heafy has revealed that he nearly quit the band last year.

Speaking to Metal Hammer in a new interview, the guitarist – who has led the Orlando metal outfit since 1999, when he was just 13 – explains how tensions led to a boiling point following a tracking session last year, likely for their upcoming album Crown in the Grave, which arrives next month.

• READ MORE: Jackson’s new Legends Series celebrates the influence of Randy Rhoads, Marty Friedman, Scott Ian and David Ellefson on the brand’s legacy

“[Our] chemistry starts falling apart a little bit,” Heafy says. “Not from one person, not from me, but it’s just the sum of its parts. Things aren’t going right. Quiet explosion.

“I’m tracking guitars. I stand up. I leave. I call [my wife] Ashley. I’m like, ‘I’m done with this fucking band. I can’t do this shit anymore. It’s 26, 27 years of this shit that just keeps happening.”

He continues: “[I was] at [our rehearsal space] the Hangar. I just start driving home, get home, turn my phone off. Like, ‘I’m not going [back] in.’ And then Ashley lets the dust settle, and she’s like, ‘You’re not quitting the band. You can’t quit the band. You’re part of this band. You’ve got to figure this out. Go back to the studio.’”

Thankfully Heafy decided to stay in the band, but personnel changes did take place shortly after, with drummer Alex Bent leaving Trivium in October 2025.

“Sometimes, when there’s a change, when your favourite married couple gets divorced, you break up with your girlfriend, you get fired from your job, you fire someone from your company, sometimes things have to happen for the survival of the ‘whole’, or the ‘whole’ will not survive any more,” Heafy continues.

Trivium are set to release their 11th studio album Crown in the Grave next month, the followup to 2021’s In the Court of the Dragon.

Matt Heafy says all the recent changes have Trivium feeling like a band reborn. “I stopped trying to be safe and perfect at every show,” he says. “Instead, I was actually enjoying the experience and living. If I messed up, it was okay because I’m human. With all of the changes Trivium went through, it’s like a brand new band.”

Check out the album’s lead single Dead Inside of Me below:

The post “I can’t do this s**t anymore”: Matt Heafy nearly quit Trivium last year – here’s what made him stay appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

£499/$589.85, dawnerprince.com

There are some pairs of words we use more or less interchangeably: ‘dial’ and ‘knob’, ‘delay’ and ‘echo’, ‘bassist’ and ‘disappointment’… and also ‘rotary’ and ‘Leslie’. But this last one is complicated, because not every rotary simulator pedal wants to sound like a Leslie.

• READ MORE: T-Rex FuzzTopia review – an unorthodox combo of raw fuzz and smooth distortion

While Donald Leslie might have invented the rotary speaker cabinet, other companies later came up with their own variations on the formula. And now, pedal makers are coming up with their own variations on the variations. The Dawner Prince Eclipsa is one of them: a tribute to the near-forgotten Yamaha RA-200.

What is it?

If there’s one guitarist who can bring out the unhinged tone-freak in any mild-mannered music listener, it’s David Gilmour. And among his legion of obsessive admirers is Dawner Prince founder Zoran Kraljevic, whose love of the Pink Floyd man’s tones has already been expressed through the Boonar delay and the Pulse – which is where our ‘alternative rotary’ story actually begins.

The Pulse is based on Gilmour’s Doppola rotating speakers from the 90s (a custom-built take on the Maestro Rover RO-1 design). So the Eclipsa is a logical next step – this time recreating the sound of the Yamaha cabs he was using at the end of the 70s, as well as the Alembic F-2B valve preamps that powered them.

If you are one of those Floyd obsessives, this means what you’re looking at here is the sound of The Wall (well, some of it). If you’re not, a more significant factor is probably the RA-200’s unusual configuration, with three vertically rotating horns at the top and four fixed drivers below. Either way, this is not just another Leslie sim.

Build quality and usability

The bit about build quality won’t take long: this is a Dawner Prince after all, made in Croatia to a reliably sky-high standard of workmanship. It’s fairly compact but weighty, with classy knobs and two soft-touch footswitches.

As with most rotary sims, one of those switches is for bypass and the other is for ramping between fast and slow spinning speeds. You can also hold that one down for a couple of seconds to bring the virtual horns to a stop (and then once more to wake them up again), but what happens when you hold down the bypass footswitch is more interesting: the LED changes from red to green, and this signifies that the Alembic preamp will remain active in bypass. Why? So you can use it as an always-on tone improver, and turn the rotary effect on and off without a noticeable shift in tonality or output level.

The preamp has four mini-knobs of its own – volume, bass, middle and treble – plus a bright switch. But the really important stuff is going on up top, where you’ll find the rotary controls: slow speed, fast speed, virtual microphone distance, inertia (up and down ramping speed) and blend. This latter gives you all rotary when fully clockwise, and all static when fully anticlockwise; it’s centre-notched for an even balance between the two.

Sounds

Yeah, sure, making sounds is great – but wouldn’t you rather spend the evening watching three little orange LEDs flashing on and off? These represent the three horns, and they’re not quite in sync – which makes them much more interesting to look at (alright, maybe not for a whole evening) and might also create some extra-complex modulation as they constantly shift in and out of phase.

First of all, though, the Eclipsa has absolutely got ‘the rotary thing’, simulating the uniquely fruity swirl that happens when moving sound sources create a layered Doppler effect. As with a good Leslie sim, the slow mode sounds better on the bridge pickup with some overdrive, carving out a swooshy arc that’s doubly immersive in stereo; the fast mode sounds better on the neck pickup for sweet and shimmery wibblage; and the stealthily ramping transitions are weirdly mesmerising.

The next question is whether it really does sound distinct from a Leslie type. My reference here is the Strymon Lex v2, and the difference in voicing is pronounced: while the Lex has a soft, almost watery quality in the midrange, the Eclipsa is less coloured and more solid. It’s not harsh but it can get metallic, in a way that could make you wonder if it’s been hanging out with some flangers.

This isn’t categorically better or worse, but it is its own thing – and it’s not the only unique feature the Eclipsa has to offer. At times you might also notice an added element of quivering fast modulation even when it’s in slow mode – a result, I’m guessing, of the aforementioned phase shifting between the not-quite-synchronised horns. It’s subtle, but it’s very cool.

And then there’s the preamp. This isn’t an extreme tone-mangler by any means, but the three-band EQ is plenty powerful and can easily be set up to thicken the lower mids or maybe give your top end a polish. What it won’t do is bring the scuzz: push the volume and it will get much louder, but with only a moderate amount of breakup. For the full-on rotary roar, you’ll have to stick a drive pedal in front.

Should I buy one?

The Eclipsa is another predictably excellent pedal from Dawner Prince, and the question of whether it’s worth getting is complicated only by its spit-yer-drink-out price. Its all-round quality is undeniable, and the sounds it makes are like nothing else out there, but if there’s only room in your life for one rotary sim pedal then you might have a hard time justifying it ahead of a cheaper Leslie-based model.

On the other hand, if you’re a serious Gilmour worshipper – or simply someone who wants all the best tones and can afford to pay for them – then you might consider this an essential purchase.

Alternatives

The Dawner Prince Pulse ($339.95/£286) is a simpler device with no preamp modelling, but its five-knob layout matches the Eclipsa. Back in Leslie land, the Strymon Lex v2 ($349/£319) and Neo Instruments Mini Vent II (€369/£295/$399) are both superb-sounding options, and the latter is also available in a more pedalboard-friendly Micro version.

The post Dawner Prince Eclipsa review – a new spin on the rotary speaker simulator appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

In the age of bands like Greta Van Fleet, modern listeners are yearning to experience the magic of yesteryear’s rock and roll. Even Dave Mustaine has noticed plenty of youngsters in the crowd at Megadeth’s final tour, keep to soak up some old school metal. And, if you ask the legendary thrash frontman, there’s a reason why: music nowadays has become less “genuine”.

In a new interview with Chris Jericho, Mustaine hints that the industry took a turn when the lines between genres began to become too blurry. In particular, Mustaine seems to take a jab at nu-metal. “Our generation of metal… I think that the music was more genuine,” he says. “I think that there came a time – not saying that any of these bands were responsible for it – but around the Linkin Park era… bands were doing metal with keyboards and stuff like that.”

• READ MORE: “People don’t know that I wrote that part”: Dave Mustaine on creating one of Megadeth’s most well-known bass riffs

He notes that Linkin Park’s influence on the charts is comparable to how Billboard Top 200 changing how they calculated their sales figures in the ’90s “ruined the charts”.

Mustaine has made his stance on nu-metal very clear in the past. Speaking to LifeMinute last year, he blasted 2000s nu-metallers, simply believing that they relied on keyboards and rapping as a way of disguising a lack of skill. As he puts it, they “didn’t do any solos” because they “couldn’t do any solos”.

“Thank God that genre went away – people started to learn how to do solos!” he added.

He also hinted at how he didn’t feel the acts were ‘genuine’. To him, the high reliance on tech and production was essentially cheating: “When people do things for their own art, that’s great, but when you start seeing these manufactured records that band members didn’t play on, that’s fraud!”

Nu-metal acts at the time certainly felt the sting of Mustaine’s distain. In 2011, ExploreMusic interviewed Korn frontman Jonathan Davis about opening for Megadeth on tour – and Davis clearly felt Mustaine’s cold shoulder. “It was hard touring with Megadeth because at that time Dave Mustaine was really mean and just had attitude,” Jonathan recalled [via Blabbermouth]. “It was scary being on there… I respected him and everything, but I kind of got my feelings hurt, because he was mean at times.”

However, Mustaine is by no means closed minded. While he likes to keep his metal more pure, he does reveal that his sound is a product of many different sounds. In particular, he tells Jericho about his love of German electro-synth innovators, Kraftwerk.

“Listening to that kind of music gave me a lot of ‘tangled creation’ in my head when it comes down to music,” Mustaine says. “Instead of making everything 4/4 – you know, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, an outro – I don’t think like that.”

His eclectic palette has served him well over the years, even slipping into some of his work with Metallica. While remembering bassist Cliff Burton, who passed away 40 years ago in a fatal tour bus crash in 1986, Mustaine recalls how Burton essentially brainwashed him into putting Sweet Home Alabama into Metallica’s 1983 track, The Four Horseman.

“Cliff was a very, very, very sweet man… there was only one thing that I couldn’t stand about him,” Mustaine says. “It was how much he listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd… one day, we got to rehearsal, and we’d been listening to that song, Sweet Home Alabama, over and over and over… Lars goes, ‘We need a slow part for The Four Horseman Man’, and I said, ‘Oh, really? Okay. And I picked up my guitar and I [basically played Sweet Home Alabama].”

For more info on Megadeth’s ongoing final world tour, head to Megadeth’s official website.

The post “Our generation of metal was more genuine”: Dave Mustaine on why youngsters take solace in old school metal appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Few guitar brands are as synonymous with heavy metal music as Jackson. Through the years, some of the genre’s top players have chosen Jackson guitars as their weapons of choice, and the brand has just honoured some of the most iconic with its new Legends Series.

Four metal players are honoured with the new Legends Series: Megadeth alumni David Ellefson and Marty Friedman, plus late Ozzy Osbourne sidekick Randy Rhoads and Anthrax veteran Scott Ian.

Each of the four guitars in the lineup are inspired by classic instruments built originally for these four players. “Jackson has translated these highly personal instruments into signature models built for today’s players – preserving the details that made each original distinct while making those ideas accessible beyond the artists who inspired them,” the brand says.

• READ MORE: So you’re buying a second-hand guitar: these are the things you need to know

The Legends Series starts with a recreation of Randy Rhoads’ white and gold Concorde V, which he built with Grover Jackson in 1980. The guitar – dubbed the CD1 – features an alder body, Seymour Duncan JB/’59 pickups, a compound-radius 12”-16” fingerboard, and a vintage-correct six-saddle tremolo with a whammy bar.

“The Rhoads family is so pleased to see this new Randy Rhoads CD1 model from Jackson,” says Kathy Rhoads D’Argenzio, Randy Rhoads’ sister. “Randy’s historic legacy has remained in the spotlight for over 40 years. There is no doubt Randy would be so honoured to know the impact he has had on Jackson Guitars and on the world of rock and metal guitar.”

Next up is the Marty Friedman KE-1 – a recreation of his late-’90s Jackson Kelly signature model which he used extensively across some of Megadeth’s biggest albums, including Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction. This one features an alder body with a three-piece maple neck, singular Seymour Duncan JB pickup, plus a Kahler 7330 fixed bridge for rock-solid tuning stability.

“My KE-1 represents living the dream to me,“ says Marty Friedman. “When I had the opportunity to create my own signature guitar, I went all out with Jackson to build the ultimate heavy metal guitar. No expense was spared, from the pickup and bridge to every detail and dimension. After thousands of concerts and countless recordings, the KE-1 remains a huge part of my journey and an iconic instrument that people associate with me.”

Next is the Scott Ian Rhoads RR22, which sports bolt “Not” body graphics which were central to Anthrax’s ‘80s era, plus a neck-through construction and a top-mount Floyd Rose 1000 Series tremolo.

“My Not Rhoads was such an important part of my journey,” Ian says. “I discovered my tone with it. It’s been used on every Anthrax record – it was the main guitar on those first five albums in the ‘80s. It’s the guitar that kind of made my life. I love that people connect with it.”

And finally, Jackson has recreated its first-ever five-string bass, which was built for the former Megadeth bassist in 1990. It features an alder body with a three-piece through-body quartersawn maple neck, EMG 40DC and CS pickups, a three-band EQ, a Jackson HiMass 5-string bridge, and Open-Gear Hipshot tuners.

“My Jackson Concert basses have always been the sleek, high-octane version of what I consider to be a great bass,” Ellefson says. “Their slightly smaller body and fast action made them perfect for my aggressive playing style. My original 1987 Concert Bass gave me the freedom to fully develop my playing without limitations from the instrument. Jackson basses have become an integral part of who I am and the music I’m known for.”

On the Legends Series as a whole, Jackson VP of Product Jon Romanowski adds: “Randy, Scott, David and Marty didn’t just play Jackson instruments – they helped define what Jackson became and pushed heavy music forward in the process.

“You can hear and see their influence in heavy music today, across generations of artists and increasingly across genres. Making these instruments available to players isn’t simply about recreating the past; it’s about putting them into the hands of the players who will take that influence somewhere new.”

Pricing for each of the four new Legends Series models is as follows:

• Randy Rhoads CD1 – $2,499
• Marty Friedman KE-1 – $2,299
• Scott Ian Rhoads RR22 – $2,199
• David Ellefson CB V Concert Bass – $2,499

Learn more about the Legends Series at Jackson.

The post Jackson’s new Legends Series celebrates the influence of Randy Rhoads, Marty Friedman, Scott Ian and David Ellefson on the brand’s legacy appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

You’ve probably noticed that the very process of existing is getting more expensive every week it seems. As the fundamentals of life become more and more of a drain on all our resources, we often cut back on luxuries and look for savings on our hobbies to relieve some of the pressure. Guitarists are not immune to this.

• READ MORE: Why guitar frets are made of different materials – and how it has a huge impact on your playing experience

But life without fun is hardly life at all, and there are ways in which we can still enjoy our favourite hobby (and the pull of GAS) in ways that still save us some cash. The most obvious way here is buying second-hand gear. While certain vintage guitars come with huge premiums, most used gear can be had with significant savings over buying new from a store or online retailer.

As long as you don’t mind a little wear and tear, you can easily find top-tier instruments with a lot of life left in them for a great price. But just how much life is left in your new-old guitar? And what should you look for when shopping, buying and even valuing your own guitar to sell?

Setups and playability

The setup of a used guitar is often a real problem, though easily fixed. Used or vintage guitars are often being sold because they’re underutilised or rarely played, sometimes relegated to the back of a closet, hopefully in a case or bag. Even guitars left safely perched on racks can slowly degenerate and affect the overall playability.

Things like high action, bad intonation, rusty strings and buzzy frets aren’t always a red flag, and can be easily remedied if you know what you’re looking for. When checking out the action of a guitar, a consistently high action along the fretboard is usually a sign of a bridge that is simply raised too high, an easy fix! Depending on your guitar’s design, there’s usually two screws at the bridge that can raise or lower the high and low side of the strings independently.

The Acoustic Questions

For an acoustic guitar, the action issue is a trickier one to fix. A flat-top’s bridge is often glued to the belly of the guitar, and string tension can slowly lift this over years, usually decades, of tension.

This will often create a bubble on the guitar’s belly, or the bridge itself can lift. Both of these will create high action, so a quick check can help you make a safe purchase. Neither of these are a total deal breaker, but definitely require big fixes, so tread lightly.

If the action is inconsistently high across the board, it can be for a few different reasons. Most likely the truss rod is improperly adjusted, or has been left untouched for a long time. This will be most obvious around the middle of the fretboard (by distance, not frets), usually the 8th or 9th fret.

This will result in either the strings being the furthest distance at this point if the neck is too bowed, or the closest point if the neck is adjusted with too much convex. Both of these are easily remedied as long as the truss rod is functioning correctly, so a quick adjustment with an allen key to check its effect on the neck’s straightness helps. A quarter turn should be enough to confirm the truss rod itself is working as expected!

Neck Warping

What’s difficult or impossible to remedy is a warped neck, meaning it’s more bowed on one side than the other. This can be easily checked by staring down the fretboard towards the bridge from the headstock, as imperfections will be much more obvious from this angle. You’ll easily be able to see how warped or bowed the neck is. Generally, a warped neck can’t be fixed without a lot of work, though if the price is right, a whole new neck could still yield a great deal!

Hardware Failures

All this talk of adjustments, fixes and setup is reliant on the hardware itself. Used instruments are often well used, as such have rusty components, screws, scratchy pots, seized threads or other damage from sweat, dirt and grime. Screws that secure things like input jacks, scratchplates and pickup selectors are easily replaceable and don’t have any great effect on the guitar’s playability.

Tuning machines, tremolo bridges, nuts and rusty electronics, however, greatly affect both sound and function of a guitar, so a little check can go a long way. Ensure tuning machines are secure, turn evenly, smoothly and are generally free of rust, especially where wound strings make contact with the machine head. Equally important is the guitar’s nut, as this area often chips when made of bone, plastic or other materials, and while it is an easy fix by a professional, it’s still a cost that’ll have to be factored in.

Tremolo systems like a Floyd Rose or Ibanez’s Edge Trem operate on a knife’s edge that pivots on two bolts that bold the bridge in place— this sharp edge wears over time, causing the bridge to skid on the bolts and wrangles the whole thing out of tune. Both tremolo and hard tail bridges take a beating, and tiny screws and threads often fill with sweat and rust. They can be taken apart and cleaned out, but making sure all the parts move smoothly is essential for setting up the guitar for the best playability.

Pots And Jacks

Another issue that is common with older guitars won’t reveal itself until you’ve plugged it in – namely issues with the pots of the input jacks.

Scratchy pots (where there’s an audible sound when you’re adjusting the pot) or inconsistent jack connections are, thankfully, easily fixable or replaceable without too much investment. A little soldering know-how will have you switching out or upgrading parts if need be, which brings me to my next point.

Customisations and modifications

Pre-owned guitars are often modified or customised to the owner’s needs, so when buying an electric guitar, a quick look around the control cavity can be a good idea. Modifications might have been DIY, and while signal might be passing from A to B, a rat’s nest of cables, solder and switches might be hiding beneath it all. While the guitar passing signal at all can be a good sign, it can require an overhaul if you want to return the guitar to factory specs!

All in all, a little know-how can help you safely and confidently get a great deal on a used guitar. Many problems arise from a lack of use, guitars and basses requiring regular servicing as the wood expands and wears, and as components wear in and wear out over time.

There’s absolutely some red flags like warped necks, rat’s nests of electronics and more, besides obvious problems like breaks, cracks and chips. However, even problem areas that need total replacement can still come in on budget, as long as you know what you’re signing up for. There’s a world of unique, inspiring and totally affordable instruments out there, so happy hunting!

The post So you’re buying a second-hand guitar: these are the things you need to know appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

In 1973, Black Sabbath, creatively spent and fresh from a failed writing stint in Los Angeles, returned to the UK and rented Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean to write their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. After four albums in as many years, Tony Iommi had hit a wall. By his own account: “It just went dead.” The castle was supposed to fix that. And it didn’t hurt that it came with its own ghost.

One night, Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne were talking along a corridor when a figure came towards them and ducked left into an armoury room. Startled, they rushed in after him but there was no way out of the room and nobody inside. When they sheepishly told the owners, they replied: “Oh yeah, that’s the castle ghost. Don’t worry about him,” Iommi recalls in an interview with Uncut.

• READ MORE: “You killed it!”: Diamond Rowe just played Enter Sandman at an NFL game – and Metallica have given their seal of approval
  

Bill Ward, however, wasn’t taking any chances. “Why’ve you got that?” Iommi asked when he found a dagger in Ward’s bedroom. “Bill, you can’t stab a ghost!”

Whatever the ghost did, the effect was immediate. Iommi came up with the riff to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and in his words, “the rest came fairly shortly afterwards”. Geezer Butler likened hearing it for the first time to seeing his first child born, and it marked the end of the band’s drought.

Not bad for a band who went to a castle to get away from it all and found paranormal inspiration instead…

In other Iommi news, the guitarist’s first solo album in 21 years, From the Dark is out on October 23 via BMG. The follow-up to 2005’s “Fused” features Norwegian vocalist Jørn Lande, Merciful Fate bassist Becky Baldwin and former Robbie Williams drummer Karl Brazil, with Iommi co-producing alongside longtime collaborator Mike Exeter.

The album’s lead single World Alone, delivers the kind of high-gain riffs and thunderous rhythm section you’d expect from the Black Sabbath legend, while other tracks promise more sinister territory.

The record will also feature Queen guitarist Brian May on Death Wake, while a deluxe edition will include expanded versions of Iomi’s recent solo releases Scent of Dark and Deified.

From the Dark is available to pre-order now.

The post “Bill, you can’t stab a ghost!” Black Sabbath’s run-in with the paranormal – and how a haunting helped end Tony Iommi’s writer’s block appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Ad feature with BOSS

If you’re a guitar player, chances are you’ve spent more time than is entirely healthy thinking about your pedalboard, and specifically the endless game of Tetris involved in getting all the sounds you need onto the board you have.

A great way to get around this sort of issue is to use a compact multi-effects unit to expand the versatility of your board – adding a huge variety of sounds on tap without needing to have a board that looks like something that would be suitable for sending astronauts to Mars.

BOSS’s new EX-4 Effects Expander is an interesting new take on the formula – and it’s one that could transform your entire rig in a variety of ways. Let’s take a look at three different ways you could incorporate it into your pedalboard.

Building the ultimate fly rig

Most compact multi-effects pedals are effectively one-shot units – with a large number of sounds on tap, but limited to just one effect at a time. The EX-4 rips that whole rulebook by not only offering 120 premium BOSS effects in its library, but the ability to run up to four separate effects at once.

The benefits here are pretty obvious. While you can of course use the EX-4 to just provide one effect at a time should that be what you need, the ability to build out multiple mini-signal chains in one pedal means that it has the potential to replace not just one or two pedals on your board, but a whole host of them.

This is a game-changer for those who want to travel light for shows – especially touring musicians and those who do a lot of varied gigs. If you’re flying or using any kind of public transport to get to your gig, you’ll know that you want to keep things as streamlined as possible – but a limited load-out doesn’t mean you have to bring limited sounds.

By making the EX-4 the focal point of a small travel board, you have access to a broad palette of pro-ready sounds, and paired with your amp sim or IR pedal of choice, it enables you to have everything you want at your feet with minimal hassle.

The heart of a hybrid powerhouse

Scaling down your rig is all well and good of course, but what about going the other way? Yngwie Malmsteen didn’t teach us that “more is more” in order to watch us all streamline our guitar rigs down to the smallest possible option.

Thankfully, the EX-4 has everything that the most maximalist effects fan could want to make it the powerhouse behind a serious set-up. For starters, the EX-4 not only has 128 factory presets, but also the flexibility of 128 user-generated presets. That means that you don’t have to worry about scrolling through and swapping out sounds and settings between songs – you can simply program everything you need in beforehand, and then cycle through presets as you need them.

But what if you want a pedal to be the beating heart of a hybrid rig that pairs a classic no-messing tube amplifier with a switching system like BOSS’s own impressive ES-8 unit? Well, the EX–4 comes ready to add a broad palette of modulation, delay, reverb, filter, pitch, and speciality effects to this set-up, straight out of the box.

For one, thanks to a pair of space-saving TRS jacks, the EX-4 is fully MIDI controllable, meaning that you can hook it up to your switcher and be able to control everything you need without any need for tap-dancing.

What’s more, the EX-4’s stereo inputs and outputs also double as an effects loop, meaning that you can further enhance and expand your sonic options by adding a favourite dirt pedal or other go-to effect in the pedal’s loop, and then take advantage of the internal routing options to ensure that it sits exactly where you want it in the chain.

As if that wasn’t enough, the pedal’s two footswitches can be programmed for sophisticated custom operation – allowing you to switch or adjust individual parameters on the fly. Want to kick in that momentary effect or kick things up a gear for a solo? The EX-4 has you covered.

Expanding your sounds without expanding your board

If you’re an effects obsessive, you’ll know well the pain of having to try and squeeze all the sounds you might want into a limited footprint – invariably there are some sounds you’d love to have at hand for the rare occasion you need them, but you can’t justify the real estate to keep them on your board.

The EX-4 can solve all your pedal-picking headaches by offering a huge number of useful effects – including some really esoteric ones like the Slow Gear or Slicer – in a compact package that also includes loads of quality more common effects like delay, modulation and reverb.

The EX-4’s ability to run up to four effects at once means that most of the time it can sit on your pedalboard as a great-sounding option for everyday use, but with the flexibility to add those more occasional sounds into the mix as and when you need them.

If you’re a guitarist that loves finding new textures, the ability to explore these new sonic landscapes, safe in the knowledge that you won’t have to re-wire your pedalboard to make it work in a live environment, is priceless.

What’s more, the impressive level of internal and external routing options removes many of the compromises that pedalboard-based multi-effects can often necessitate. For starters, the stereo input and output jacks double as an effects loop, meaning that you can use it to build a reorderable signal chain with any external pedals you choose. The exp out also means that you can hook it up to an external footswitch or expression pedal and further add flexibility to your on-the-fly switching options.

The pedal itself also features a variety of useful utility features on board to enhance this further, including foot volume, two noise suppressors, send/return, and divider/mixer. And you aren’t limited to running the effects on the EX-4 in one direction either – with advanced series, parallel, and wet/dry options within the virtual chain itself, you can create complex effects configurations that maximise your tonal versatility.

Avoiding option paralysis 

A common drawback with mutli-effects units is that they have so many sounds on tap, and so many parameters to edit, it can be quite overwhelming knowing how to get a great sound out of each effect.

Thankfully, BOSS has taken the pain out of all this with the new Gear Suite function – tap this dedicated button while you’re selecting an effect, and you’ll be presented with a bunch of presets for each different effect type, and once you’ve found the sound you love, you can even save user presets for each effect and then use them across your global presets.

It all adds up to a pedal that takes away much of the pain of using a compact multi-effects unit, while expanding your tonal options to elevate it beyond a simple occasional pedal. Whatever your needs, the EX-4 adds a new dimension to your board.

Find out more about the EX-4 Effects Expander at boss.info

The post Why the BOSS EX-4 could transform your pedalboard appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

There must be something wholesome in the air today, because dreams are coming true left, right and centre. America’s Got Talent winner Nene Royal isn’t the only one living the dream, after she took to the stage alongside Avenged Sevenfold in Singapore to play two of the band’s biggest hits.

Diamond Rowe – guitarist of Georgia heavy metallers Tetrarch – is also living the dream, after taking to the field at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta to cheer on the Falcons for Sunday Night Football with a crushing rendition of Metallica’s Enter Sandman.

Donning a Falcons jersey, joined by mascot Freddie Falcon and wielding her Jackson Signature Pro Series Monarkh, Rowe brought the noise and lit up the ground with one of the most iconic heavy metal riffs of all time, before the Falcons’ game against the Baltimore Ravens.

The guitarist has since posted footage of her electrifying performance on her socials, which you can now watch below in all its glory…

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It marks a full-circle moment for Diamond Rowe, who is quick to call Metallica “the band that made me fall in love with heavy music and inspired me to pick up a guitar in the first place”.

“WE DID IT,” she writes. “We brought heavy music to NFL Sunday Night Football.”

What an awesome experience. I’ve dedicated my entire life to this instrument. Countless hours practicing, years of grinding, taking risks, making sacrifices, and chasing a dream that many (most I can still call by name) told us was impossible. But we continue to shatter those glass ceilings and moments like this remind me exactly why I’ve never once thought about quitting.”

She continues: “To have the opportunity to pay homage to who I consider the greatest band of all time, in a STADIUM felt extremely fitting and was an absolute honour.”

“I couldn’t be more proud to represent heavy music on a stage like this, in front of 70,000 strong. If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout this journey, it’s that you should always bet on yourself.”

• READ MORE: “Metallica is not here to influence you with any bulls**t”: James Hetfield explains why Metallica steer clear of politics at their shows
  

A HUGE thank you to the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons for trusting me to bring some noise to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. And to everyone behind the scenes who helped bring this moment to life, I appreciate you more than you know. Thanks Josh [Fore, Tetrarch rhythm guitarist and vocalist] for holding down the wah for me behind the goal post…”

“We can officially check the NFL off the bucket list y’all! Now somebody tell the boys in Metallica!”

Well, it looks like someone did, indeed, tell the boys in Metallica about her performance, as the band have since commented on her Instagram post, writing: “Awesome stuff, Diamond. You absolutely killed it!” We’d imagine Diamond Rowe is freaking out right about now…

We were lucky enough to host Diamond Rowe at Guitar.com HQ last October for an episode of My Guitars & Me, where she explained why tone knobs on guitars are unnecessary.

The post “You killed it!”: Diamond Rowe just played Enter Sandman at an NFL game – and Metallica have given their seal of approval appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Remember when we said America’s Got Talent winner Nene Royal would be joining Avenged Sevenfold onstage in Singapore?

Following a whirlwind rise to fame on the show, which saw her steal the nation’s hearts with her takes on rock and metal classics including Muse’s Hysteria, The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army and Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun, and even joining Linkin Park themselves for a rendition of The Emptiness Machine.

Yep, at just 16 years old, the Phuket, Thailand guitar prodigy has experienced staggering success, and it seems she’s still very much on an upward trajectory…

Last night at Singapore’s Indoor Stadium, Nene Royal took to the stage in front of thousands of rabid A7X fans to perform a five-track set of classic covers, including Hysteria and Black Hole Sun – staples of her repertoire following AGT – as well as Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name, System of a Down’s I-E-A-I-A-I-O, and finally Zombie by The Cranberries.

But her experience didn’t end there, as she also joined Avenged Sevenfold themselves later in the night to perform two tracks alongside the band: Bat Country and Unholy Confessions. You can check out footage of the wholesome performance below:

The rest of Avenged Sevenfold’s set was chock full of classics from their discography, opening with Nightmare, Game Over, Afterlife and The Stage, before hitting Shepherd of Fire and Buried Alive, throwing in fan favourite Gunslinger, and closing with Halloween-adjacent epic A Little Piece of Heaven.

Late last month, Nene Royal – real name Rattikarn Amloy – spoke to Metal Hammer about how she landed the opportunity to open for Avenged in the first place.

“The managers in Singapore text me: ‘Oh, I hear you wanna play with Avenged Sevenfold?’” she recalled.

“I was like, ‘Yeah!’ They said, ‘Well, Avenged Sevenfold want you to support them.’ They asked for me, ‘Do you wanna do it?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah!’”

She was, of course, excited at the opportunity, but as you would be, also a little apprehensive…

“It’s my first time playing support to Avenged Sevenfold, so I was like, ‘I’m scared!’” she said. “And I’m going to play in front of how many? 40,000!”

Avenged Sevenfold’s tour continues, as they head to Oceania to perform four dates in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Auckland, NZ, alongside Coheed & Cambria and Aussie metallers Thornhill.

Check their website for dates and tickets.

The post WATCH: AGT winner Nene Royal joins Avenged Sevenfold onstage in Singapore to perform Bat Country and Unholy Confessions appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$249/£219, beetronicsfx.com

There are two reasons for me to dislike the Beetronics Seabee Lite. The first is that it’s a product of compromise, a cut-price version of an existing model with a bunch of features stripped out. The second is that I’m not a big fan of chorus pedals in the first place.

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Luckily, there’s one very strong reason for me not to dislike the Seabee Lite at all: how it sounds. Because this unit is packing a whole range of usable modulation effects, and some of them are nothing short of gorgeous.

What is it?

The standard Seabee, an analogue bucket-brigade stereo chorus with digital control and presets, came out back in 2023. I gave it an 8/10 rating because it did make a bunch of wonderfully nice noises, but that’s not to say I truly liked the thing: it was clunky and overly complicated, and some of its more extreme effects had all the musicality of two foxes mating in a concrete mixer.

The Seabee Lite is less clunky and less complicated. But what has actually been lost in the name of simplicity? Not a lot, to be honest. The biggest difference is that the pitch-shifting ‘harmochorus’ effect has been left out – and I for one am not very upset about that – but you still get multiple modes, 16 preset slots (eight factory, eight to fill up yourself), an expression pedal input and two footswitches with bonus functions. And it still looks awesome.

Build quality and usability

This California-built stomper certainly doesn’t feel any less robust than the full-fat Seabee, with a similar wedge-shaped enclosure and non-popping soft footswitches. In use, it’s still a lot more fiddly than the average chorus pedal – but you can at least get started quickly. Ignore the feedback control, the two three-way toggles and the tap-tempo footswitch, and you’ve got a straightforward two-knob job with switchable chorus and vibrato modes.

You’ll soon want to dig deeper, though. Dialling up the feedback will add resonance to the modulation, flipping the tone switch left or right will filter the ‘wet’ part of the signal, and selecting one of the non-chorus modes – ‘flangee’ or ‘wobblee’ – will dramatically change the character of the effect, turning it into a flanger or a… wobbler?

Put all that together and you can see why Beetronics felt the need to keep the preset functionality. This is accessed by tapping both footswitches together, then hitting right or left to scroll up or down through the 16 slots, indicated by four colour-coded LEDs. The only snag here is that there’s no way to switch back into live mode instantly – you just have to scroll to the end of the line then tap once more, ie: up from slot 16 or down from slot 1. Bit of a pain, that.

Sounds

Did I say I wasn’t a big fan of chorus pedals? Dang, I must be getting old – because I love this one. The Seabee Lite in classic mode is a thing of lusciousness, adding depth and fluid movement to a dry sound in timeless style – in either mono or stereo. So that’s the basics ticked off right there, with the bonus of virtually hiss-free performance (which is not something you can say about all choruses).

Flipping to ‘wobblee’ mode brings a gently glitchy element of random shifting that reminds me of the Chase Bliss Generation Loss MkII; this can be fun, but ‘flangee’ is better, keeping the fundamentals of that liquid chorus sound and adding a gently metallic swirl. And remember, this is new – the other Seabee doesn’t even have a flanger mode.

It also doesn’t have the Lite model’s band-pass and high-pass filter options – although these are a minor enhancement rather than a transformative one, letting you adjust the tonality of the modulation without affecting the dry signal. The high-pass in particular is nice to have if you’re worried about your low end getting too throbby.

There is pure pitch vibrato available if you turn the feedback down and flip the right-hand toggle, and here the tone switch becomes much more powerful – because there is no dry signal, so everything is filtered. Keep things tasteful by going easy on the depth, and this is another rich vein of sweet tones to explore.

Now, a long time ago I mentioned that the footswitches had bonus functions – and they’re worth a look. Hold down the left switch and the modulation speed will quickly rev up to something like maximum, then slow back down once you let go; the right switch does the same thing with the depth. It’s not quite Leslie-style ramping, but it works nicely and could be useful for the occasional cheeky wibble-blast.

Another thing I mentioned earlier is that this pedal sounds luscious in stereo… but there’s a caveat to that. The factory default setup has dry signal on one side and wet on the other, and this can sound weird with anything beyond low-level chorus effects. If you are using a stereo rig you might want to dive into the global settings and change it to wet plus wet with phase inversion, creating a more natural stereo picture. The process is explained in the little manual booklet.

Should I buy one?

The last thing I expected this to be was my new favourite chorus pedal, but here we are. The Seabee Lite is a gem, building on a beautiful fundamental voice with a host of extra options that have all been expertly judged to add genuine value.

The fact that it costs considerably less than the regular Seabee, and adds only worthwhile new features while dumping all the stuff that didn’t really hit the mark, just makes it even harder to resist. If you’re after more than just a chorus pedal, without going full-on into multi-effects, this has to be on your list – probably at the top.

Alternatives

A couple of more conventional multi-modulation offerings are the Kernom Elipse (€369/£369/$299) and Wampler Terraform ($299/£279). Then, of course, there’s the non-Lite version of the Beetronics Seabee ($349/£329)… or you could treat yourself to the fully analogue purity of the Asheville Music Tools ACV-1 ($397/£399) or Hamstead Redwing (£429/$599).

The post Beetronics Seabee Lite review – the kooky chorus pedal gets simpler, cheaper… and better appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Fender has revamped its flagship US-made American Professional line, offering up redesigned bridges, upgraded electronics, reshaped neck profiles and new V-Mod III pickups.

Clocking in starting at $1,799.99 (£1,849 in the UK), the new American Professional line comprises all the usual Fender suspects, including a Stratocaster, Stratocaster HSS, Telecaster, Hotshot Telecaster, Jazzmaster, Jaguar, Precision Bass, Precision Bass V, Jazz Bass and Jazz Bass V.

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Fender says the changes are aimed at how the instruments feel, respond and hold up on the road, while keeping what defines each model. “You don’t evolve an instrument like the Strat or Tele by changing things just to make them new,” explains Justin Norvell, Fender’s Chief Product Officer for guitars and basses. 

Fender American Professional series – what’s new

V-Mod III pickups are voiced for balanced output, string-to-string clarity and touch sensitivity. The Strat, Tele, Jaguar and Jazzmaster get new single-coils, the Strat HSS gets a redesigned bridge humbucker, the Precision Bass gets a new split-coil and the Jazz Basses get new pickups of their own. Fender senior design engineer Steven Casado tells Guitar World that revised magnet staggers follow the fingerboard radius more closely, which he said helps tone hold up under heavy distortion. These pickups are paired with ClassicGear Precision potentiometers, and every guitar gets a push-pull tone control for an additional voice.

The Strat has ClassicGear Radial bent-steel saddles and an upgraded 2-point tremolo. The Tele has a top-load or string-through bridge with compensated brass bullet saddles. The Jaguar and Jazzmaster pair a ClassicGear J-Bridge with a Panorama tremolo and both basses get a redesigned HiMass Modern Bridge. 

Interestingly, the new ClassicGear J-Bridge found on the new Jaguar and Jazzmaster arrives as a cheaper version of the Fender Custom Shop RSD J bridge. This is only available on the brand’s top-line Custom Shop guitars and routinely sells for hundreds on the second-hand market as a result. “Everyone’s loved the Custom Shop RSD bridge,” says Justin Norvell. “That bridge is one of one, handmade and milled. It was like, ‘How can you make it in quantity?’”

Elsewhere, the guitars across the new American Professional line sport Deep “C” profile necks, while the Precision Bass has a Medium “C” profile, and the Jazz Bass a slim “C” profile – all with rolled fingerboard edges. The Telecaster and Hotshot Telecaster also get a newly sculpted heel.

Justin Norvell has also explained that the new Strat saddle design, which keeps screw ends from sticking up, addresses a “70-plus year gripe”.

The Hotshot Telecaster adds a V-Mod III Stratocaster pickup in the middle position with 5-way switching. The Jaguar and Jazzmaster have a tap function on the bridge pickup, plus the Rhythm Circuit. The Jaguar keeps its 24-inch short scale.

Finishes include Aged Cherry Burst, Oxblood, Dark Night, 3-Color Sunburst, Olympic White, Black, Natural and Butterscotch Blonde, depending on the model, with maple or rosewood fingerboards.

Fender says it will add left-handed versions of the Stratocaster, Telecaster, Precision Bass and Jazz Bass in spring 2027.

Learn more at Fender.

The post Housed within Fender’s newly revamped American Professional line is a bridge previously only available on top-line Custom Shop models: “It was like, ‘How can you make it in quantity?’” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Four years after the launch of the Lore in 2022 – an ambient effects pedal built around five reverse delay and reverb programmes to evoke the concept of a storybook fantasy world – Walrus Audio has revived its Storybook Series with the Lore MKII. But that’s not all…

The Oklahoma audio company has actually unveiled two new pedals in the series, with the Fable MKII joining the new Lore version. The Lore MKII is marked as a Stereo Reverse Soundscape Generator, while the Fable MKII is a Stereo Granular Soundscape Generator. The original Fable landed in March 2023 as Walrus’s first granular delay pedal.

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Both are built on Walrus Audio’s proprietary MDSP platform, developed entirely in-house and add full stereo operation with mono-in/stereo-out capability, MIDI control, clock sync, expression/external tap functionality and expanded presets. Each pedal has three onboard presets plus a Live mode, with up to 127 presets accessible via MIDI.

Both pedals run five custom dual-effect algorithms with complex feedback paths. The feedback and regen controls loop through these paths to build evolving stereo textures that Walrus describes as closer to instruments than effects.

A multifunction tweak control covers width, mod rate, mod shape, shift and ramp. A momentary dive/rise function lets players manipulate the clock rate in real time.

Two distinctive approaches

The Lore MKII’s algorithms range from reverse delay into reverse reverb to dual pitch delay combinations, producing reversed swells, octave shimmers, dark textures, sustained pads and intricate pitch-delay patterns. Separate feedback paths let sounds keep evolving rather than simply repeating.

The Fable MKII pairs delay with granular processing, which manipulates short sound samples through different playback speeds, directions and positions. Its five modes cover reversed textures, bright octave-up cascades, deep octave-down ambience, glitchy clouds and randomised pitch effects. Dual feedback paths can take sounds from smooth ambience to chaotic granular swarms.

Finish options

Each pedal comes in two finishes: an illustrated standard version with artwork by English illustrator Niall Grant (Green for the Lore, Gray for the Fable) and a Minimal Black version with a simplified icon on a black enclosure.

Both the Lore MKII and Fable MKII are now available at £319 / $349.99 each from authorised Walrus Audio dealers. More information at Walrus Audio.

The post Walrus Audio revives its Storybook Series with MKII versions of its much-loved Lore and Fable pedals appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Geordie Greep, former frontman of the now defunct London experimental rock band Black Midi, has cancelled three US shows on his North American tour, after denying an allegation of sexual misconduct during a recent show in Vancouver.

NME reported on Sunday that a total of five shows had been cancelled: in Boise (9 Oct), Salt Lake City (10 Oct), Boulder (12 Oct), Denver (13 Oct) and Omaha (14 Oct). But as of the time of writing, only the first three of those shows were cancelled, with tickets for the Denver and Omaha shows on 13 and 14 October, plus a date in Des Moines, Iowa on 15 October, still available on Greep’s website.

• READ MORE: “Metallica is not here to influence you with any bulls**t”: James Hetfield explains why Metallica steer clear of politics at their shows
  

Greep has not issued a public statement about the cancellations, however they follow his October 8 show at The Pearl in Vancouver.

Before the gig began, an attendee reportedly handed out flyers reading “Geordie Greep A Rapist” and “You know what you did this morning Oct 8th”, apparently referring to an incident that happened earlier that day. The flyers gave no further detail of the allegation.

Greep went on stage alone and addressed the crowd directly. He explained that he had been out at bars with members of his touring party the night before where they met some people and ended up at a late house party. There, he said, he misread a situation and “got the wrong end of the stick with someone that was there”. He said he apologised immediately and described the episode as a “complete misunderstanding on my part”.

“I would never rape a woman. I’m not a rapist,” he told the audience.

Greep said he had not wanted to pressure his bandmates into playing given the circumstances and told the audience they were free to ask for refunds or leave.

“I just wanted to be transparent with you about what happened,” he said. “I’m very, very, very sorry; I made someone uncomfortable without meaning to. It’s not a good thing, it’s not good.”

He went on to perform a shortened solo set in which he said all proceeds from the show would be donated to an anti-violence organisation in British Columbia.

Greep addressing the allegations (credit: u/wreeum on the Geordie Greep subreddit) https://t.co/jnqJdV30zv pic.twitter.com/1GjTFbFW8n

— NINE-UP (@NINEUP5) October 9, 2026

Greep launched his solo career after Black Midi announced an indefinite split in 2024, releasing his debut album, The New Sound, later that year.

Earlier this year, former Black Midi guitarist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin died aged 26 following a “long battle with his mental health”.

For help, advice or more information on sexual harassment, assault and rape, you can visit the Rape Crisis charity website in the UK or RAINN in the US.

The post Geordie Greep, formerly of Black Midi, cancels three US tour dates following sexual misconduct allegation appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

If you’re a bit of a pedal hoarder, Zoom might have crafted the ultimate multi-tool for you. The Zoom Neurig comes as the brand’s push forward into the “next-generation” of amp modellers – and Zoom believes the touchscreen tech’s 32 built-in amp heads, 139 effects and capacity to import over 700,000 Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) captures will “redefine everything”.

For those unaware, Neural Amp Modeler, often referred to simply as NAM, is a free, open-source AI project used to model guitar amps and pedals. As well as Zoom’s Neurig embracing NAM, it also has the ability to source digital models from TONE3000, an online community set up to share digital amp and gear models.

• READ MORE: “Metallica is not here to influence you with any bulls**t”: James Hetfield explains why Metallica steer clear of politics at their shows

With NAM and TONE3000’s catalogue available for free, it essentially means that any model is just a click away when you’re using the Zoom Neurig. NAM integration means users can easily load up amps, pedals, and even full signal chain models… which sounds impressive, right? Well, it gets even better – because all this only costs ¥47,800, which is roughly $300.

But, alongside the staggering library and endless possibilities, the Zoom Neurig comes with a wealth of stock sounds out the box. It features 32 built-in amp heads, spanning from the more vintage feel of the 1965 Fender Twin Reverb to the likes of the Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier.

The real “next-generation” feel comes in the modeller’s native support for TONE3000’s NAM A2 Lite, with Zoom branding it “most accurate and best-sounding amp modelling technology in history”.

The supposed genius behind NAM A2 Lite is its ability to “reproduce the amplifier itself, not just the tone”. In essence, it doesn’t just mimic the sound of an amp, but it embodies the “behaviour of every knob and parameter” of any amp or pedal it chooses to emulate. In essence, it tries to understand the nuances of the original technology.

As for the built-in models, there are also six Zoom originals. These include Pollex, a drop-tuned, djent-focused tone, as well as the ‘60s-inspired Redloom, and blues-rock crunch of Muddy.

There are also effects to experiment with, of course. The Zoom Neurig comes with 139 built-in effects, allowing you to toy with reverbs, delays, bit crusher, ring modulator, and more. 17 effects are also tailored specifically for use with an expression pedal. You can also run up to 14 effects simultaneously in series, parallel or split routing.

In terms of hooking your gear up, you can plug in any of your physical gear into the unit’s send/return jacks. There’s also MIDI in/out, stereo and mono outputs, and the signal path can also be split in two. As for control, alongside the touch screen there are four footswitches and two rotary controls. There’s also Bluetooth connectivity, if that’s of interest.

Alongside the NAM A2 Lite’s AI-aided tech, the Zoom Neurig also comes with AI-driven tone generation and AI stem separation functionality, which are accessible via the SessionZ Pedal cloud service.

It’s also worth nothing that this compact bit of kit is very portable, with four and a half hours of battery life. So, if you’re a travelling musician, it’s pretty handy to be able to call on one tool that allows you access to hundreds of thousands of digital models in a pinch…

For more information, head to Zoom.

The post Zoom’s touchscreen Neurig pedal delivers hundreds of thousands of NAM captures plus AI stem separation, and could “redefine everything” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Last week, James Hetfield stated that he wont use Metallica’s ongoing residency at the Las Vegas Sphere as a way of platforming any “agendas” – instead, he hopes the shows can be an escape from “all the outside shit”.

On 10 October, the Metallica frontman took a moment to address the Las Vegas Sphere crowd. “Metallica is not here, like some other entertainers, to influence you with their bullshit,” he said. “Okay? We are here… no bullshit… we’re here to forget about all the outside shit, okay?”

“Metallica’s agenda is love, energy and heavy music, baby!” Hetfield concluded.

• READ MORE: “It’s what we’ve been looking forward to for 21 hours of the day”: Slash on why Guns N’ Roses still love touring and have no plans to stop

While his speech remained vague, some have honed in on Hetfield’s reference to “some other entertainers”, believing it to be a nod to Macklemore, who was recently dropped from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour after using his support slot to advocate for a “Free Palestine”. The rapper has since insisted that “being apolitical” in the current climate is fruitless.

Again, while politics isn’t outright mentioned by Hetfield, Redditors have been debating when the frontman became “apolitical”. Many have pointed to Metallica’s back catalogue as a case in point; 1988’s …And Justice For All is a seemingly anti-war political commentary, with a title track critiquing how money and greed influences the legal system, while Disposable Heroes and One both explore how soldiers are seen as disposable pawns, then left to deal with life-altering physical and mental wounds.

Others have also pointed to Metallica’s 1991 self-titled release, with the famous Black Album artwork featuring the Gadsden flag’s coiled snake, a symbol taken from the 1775 American Revolution. While the symbol has been co-opted recently by fascist, racist groups, Metallica’s usage seemed to fall in line with anti-government sentiments.

The “anti-government” sentiment was seemingly confirmed by the record including a track called Don’t Treat On Me, which is also another reference to the Gadsden flag as it was the flag’s motto. Again, many Reddit users have debated the meaning of this track for years, with many landing on the Gadsden reference being the “antithesis of fascism”.

With all this in mind, therein lies the question – have Metallica turned “apolitical”? Well, if we look back, the band have seemingly never wanted to “influence you with [any] bullshit”, because Hetfield has always distanced himself from taking a side politically.

“Don’t Tread on Me, I love the song, but it shocked a lot of people, because everyone thought it was pro-war when they thought we were anti-war… all we’re doing is writing songs, we’re not standing politically on any side,” Hetfield told Village Voice in 2012 [via MusicRadar].

But that shift isn’t a more recent change – in fact, one year after the release of …And Justice For All, Hetfield explained how he prefers to “steer away” from politics. “We’ve steered away from all that, we’ve had numerous letters asking us to play for this cause, that cause,” he told NME in 1992 [via The Guardian]. “We’re a musical band, [and not into] political shit.”

“I mean we’re not anti-war, we’re not pro-war…” he continued. “War has its purpose, y’know, but I’d rather not see it happen.”

Metallica are set to ride out their Las Vegas Sphere residency long into next year, extending their Life Burns Faster tour up until March 2027. For tickets, head to the band’s website.

The post “Metallica is not here to influence you with any bulls**t”: James Hetfield explains why Metallica steer clear of politics at their shows appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Queens Of The Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen has pretty great taste. Between custom Echoparks, double-necked offsets and his very sought-after signature Jazzmaster, he’s rarely seen playing a guitar that doesn’t make you go “oh, what the hell is that and how do I get one?” And now, for one more guitar in his arsenal, that question just got a lot easier to answer.

While it started life as a custom-shop build, the new Troy Van Leeuwen Telecaster XII is not a high-end custom recreation, or even a mainline Fender model: it arrives as part of Squier’s ever-creative and weird Paranormal series, a perfect home for its mashup of design elements and unique approach.

I chatted to Troy about the origins of the guitar, how J Mascis paved the way for affordable signatures, and how the very nature of a 12-string gels with the perfectly imperfect approach of the new Queens record Perfecth.

Where did this guitar originate?

“There’s a little backstory that goes back to when I first started working with fender on my Jazzmaster. This was right when our record …Like Clockwork was coming out. There was so much 12-string on that record that I was like, I should probably have a double-neck guitar, you know – my idea was to have a Jazzmaster on the bottom and an Electric XII on the top.

“I was talking to Paul Waller, a Master Builder at the Custom Shop, and he was like, ‘This is probably gonna take six months from concept to playable guitar.’” We were about to hit the road, and I was using a Burns Double Six reissue for my 12-string. Paul basically said, ‘Why don’t I build you a 12-string Tele instead?’ – which was perfect, really, as I had always wanted a 12-string Telecaster, I just never saw one.

“So he took some measurements, and four weeks later I had this Custom Shop Telecaster 12-string, in a copper relic finish! Between myself and Dean [Fertita] we used that guitar a bunch – recording, live, what have you. So that’s how that particular guitar started. Recently when I was chatting to some of the guys at Fender, they were maybe talking about doing another signature. I just went, ‘we should do this 12-string Tele!’”

What was the benefit of working within the Squier range rather than making this a Fender release?

“My very first electric guitar was a Teisco Del Rey – that guitar always holds a special place in my heart! It was cheap, I got it from a garage sale for like 60 bucks – and it didn’t sound like anything else. So to me, to do something with Squier was important – there, J Mascis blazed the trail for us, really.

“It became about getting something out there that’s really simple and affordable for kids to try, too – I didn’t have a 12-string until I was in my late 20s! The new guitar is super accessible and simple. Plus, it’s a Tele. There’s a reason that guitar has been around for 75 years. It’s classic, it’s simple, it always sounds good!”

What makes you reach for a Telecaster over a Jazzmaster?

“There’s just a different kind of twang, you know. With a Jazzmaster, it’s more of a surf twang, the Tele, it’s more of a country twang. And if I grab a Jazzmaster, I’m probably gonna use the vibrato system, because it’s one of the best for staying in tune if you’ve got the right bridge, which for me is the Mustang bridge. The Tele is more straightforward: it’s a slab, it’s squared-off, it’s no-frills – the Jazzmaster gets you this plethora of other stuff, but with the Tele, you know what you’re gonna get.”

How do you make 12-string sounds fit well within a Queens Of The Stone Age song when it comes to writing and recording with them?

“A lot of what we do in Queens with 12-strings – because there’s three guitar players, myself, Dean and occasionally Josh – it’s usually single-note stuff. Especially focusing on the higher strings, for more of that ringy, doubled character. I guess you would call it a Middle Eastern sound. You can’t really get away with a lot of lushness with three guitar players. There’s not room for a lot of big, giant chords because it fills up the signal and the mix, and so with a 12-string in particular that’s why it’s more single-note parts.”

How has your approach to dialling in tones changed over the years?

“The older Queens stuff was leaning more on that big hollow-body, humbucker sound. But over the years, it’s definitely widened and sharpened at the same time. With single-coil you can get this clearer overdriven sound, if you’re pushing the amp with the right sort of boost. The cleans aren’t completely clean, and the overdrives aren’t searingly saturated – there’s this happy medium, and that’s where I hang out these days, I’m definitely leaning on the single coils.”

A 12-string arguably sounds great because it’s a slightly imperfect instrument, even more so than six-string guitars – always slightly out of tune with itself. Was that an approach you wanted to take generally on Perfecth, given the name?

“With this new record, it’s another examination of simplicity. Most of it was plugging straight into the amp without a lot of effects, even if there is a time and place for reverb and stuff. I’ve been using this really cool SG Systems amp, and it has a built-in Maestro phaser – it’s incredible, because you can plug it in and either have it phasing, or dial it in like a notched frequency thing. But it’s really liberating to just plug straight in on a record like this, and let it do the magic.

“As we’re also producers and guys that might jump in the mix, too. So you can kind of pre-mixing the record by deciding what tones are going to go down straight to the tape. There’s a song on the record called Insignificant Other, and it’s a seven-minute song that we recorded live at, well, probably 3am. It was take two. All of us in the room, no effects. Doing that you have to go, ‘Those are the frequencies Josh and Dean are going to live in,’ and so on. It’s when you start taking stuff away as part of that, everything opens up, and it feels more natural.”

The new record is taking a lot more of an analogue approach in a time where a lot of music is moving away from that.

“I’ll take it further than that: the name of our record is Perfecth, which is basically saying there’s no such thing for us. On Insignificant Other there are mistakes that we kept – some of those were happy mistakes, what you might call ‘magic’, and some of them are just us feeling it out in the room.

“Guitars are absolutely not perfect. They shouldn’t actually work. When you combine all the elements, a wooden neck, metal frets, metal strings – it’s never going to be truly in tune. So for us, we’re examining the human experience by doing things that are perfectly imperfect, perfectly human. I mean, people are using AI and that’s fine or whatever – but it’s just boring. It’s fucking boring!”

Find out more about the Squier Paranormal Troy Van Leeuwen Telecaster XII at fender.com.

The post Troy Van Leeuwen on how 12-string guitars help make a “perfectly imperfect” sound appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.