Norse Guitar Feeds

In Converge’s world, things don’t happen by accident – if they say something, they mean it. So, when vocalist Jacob Bannon ushered in the metalcore pioneers’ new record Love is Not Enough by observing that “realism is missing from a lot of modern music”, you knew they planned on doing something about it. “People, especially young people, crave authenticity,” guitarist Kurt Ballou expounds. “The process of recording metal music has been more akin to data entry than playing instruments for quite a long time now – there’s a whole generation who have been raised with this sort of ‘perfect’ music.”

• READ MORE: How Angel Du$t became the most unconventional band in hardcore

Love is Not Enough is not that. It’s a hulking, febrile thing, alive in all its grit and human imperfections. It is Converge at their most Converge – a band reflecting upon the artistic choices and creative bonds that have underpinned a genre-shaping 35 year run. There are solos on the title track with the head-spinning ferocity of Axe to Fall’s all-timer of an opener Dark Horse, for example, while To Feel Something finds Ballou reinterpreting stabbing, lurching Jane Doe-era carnage from the perspective of someone who’s learned to control the violence at their fingertips. Following on from 2021’s Bloodmoon: I, a collaboration with modern goth icon Chelsea Wolfe, Ben Chisholm, and Cave In’s Stephen Brodsky, it is about uncovering fresh ore in old hills.

“There are songs on Bloodmoon that I barely played guitar on,” Ballou says. “Making Love is Not Enough, that goes back to regular Converge, where we are much more comfortable in our roles. The division of labour is well established in the band and it’s back to being focused on our own stuff. But, also, there’s less space to hide. The guitar ideas are mine, and I’m playing them all. There’s a deliberate lack of collaboration on it. Guitar solos are not my thing, but we’re not having guest musicians here. No one’s playing this solo for me, so I gotta fucking do it. So, you know, I did it.”

Image: Press

Caving In

Recorded at Ballou’s God City facility in Salem, Massachusetts, the album is chiefly a document of a band capable of caving your head in from 10 paces. Bassist Nate Newton and drummer Ben Koller are a rhythm section with an unparalleled track record of unleashing sense-rearranging barrages, while Ballou and Bannon remain a pugilistic pairing pushing each other to scabrous new heights.

If you A-B the studio version of Love is Not Enough’s closer We Were Never The Same against its staging in Converge’s recent Audiotree session, you get a visceral idea of how close they have come to capturing the real thing. “When it comes to recording hardcore and metal my approach is always, ‘What does it feel like to watch this band live?’” Ballou says. “What does that excitement feel like, and can I try to capture that excitement? That’s my goal.”

Ballou is an interesting case study for this stuff, though, because he’s a working producer as well as a gnarly guitar player in a hardcore band. When he’s collaborating on Nails’ latest voyage into the death metal morass or helping Fleshwater assemble molasses-thick shoegaze-pop, his word isn’t law.

In fact, his views on recording music are malleable and driven by the desire to get at what people really want. “In my job, I interact with younger people who are fascinated with analog equipment – they’re taking pictures of their session with point and shoot film cameras,” he continues. “But I don’t want to be a luddite. I don’t want to be too cool for modern techniques.”

“All that technology exists for a reason,” he continues. “Incredible engineering has been done to create amp sims, drum replacements, audio file warping and tuning, and I do use that stuff sometimes when it’s helpful to present the music in the most flattering way. I’m not opposed to it. But I think that one of the things about technology that is important to keep in mind is exercising some restraint.

One of the things about an older style of recording is not so much that tape sounds better than digital, or tube amps sound better than modellers, it’s more that the process of using analog equipment necessitated a certain type of workflow. It didn’t require restraint when you were limited to 24 tracks. That was just what there was, and you had to make it work. Now, you would have to make a choice to limit yourself.”

Tools Of The Trade

That studio-rooted discipline also has interesting parallels with Ballou’s attitude towards his other-other career with God City Instruments (GCI), a boutique outfit producing guitars, basses, pedals and DIY pedal kits – something that grew out of Ballou’s legendary GCI business card, which took the form of an actual PCB (sans components) for his Brutalist Jr circuit.

“My wife does a lot of the order-fulfillment side of that and I QC guitars,” he says. “We’ll get a shipment every three or four months and I’ll spend a few days with them. The company is still pretty small, but it’s manageable. I’m not really trying to grow it – I don’t really want to lose control of it.”

“To double my sales would require more than double of my effort, you know? I think a lot of bands end up in a similar situation,” he adds. “Converge, for example, we have great people that we work with, our fans are awesome, and we can go and play shows just about anywhere in the world. But to play a venue twice the size is more than twice as expensive. We’d be required to have guitar techs and drum techs and lighting techs. The ticket price gets a lot higher and now we’re not doing things on our own terms.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, GCI gear forms the backbone of Ballou’s work on Love is Not Enough. Fitted with their overwound Slug Jammer humbuckers, there are multiple Craftsman models in play, along with a 27.5” scale Deconstructivist baritone that was used to bring the muscle on Distract and Divide, To Feel Something and Amon Amok, a trio of Drop A monsters.

“I’ve also got a really good short-scale Tele with Lindy Fralin pickups,” he notes. “I used that for a bunch of the clean, atmospheric background sounds on Amon Amok. On Force Meets Presence I might have used my First Act Sheena. I can’t remember if I actually did this, or if I just was thinking about doing it, but a lot of that song is rooted on the A string, so to make that clean I might have taken the low E off of the guitar for that whole section.”

Image: Press

Spreading The Load

While working on Bloodmoon: I, Ballou had to find his place within a guitar sound that he viewed as vibe-based more than “dense or athletic”. Here, the opposite is largely true. But his amp selection process remained the same, with five or six rigs primed for work as he chased a tone. “I used to have a whole bunch of amps running at the same time, hoping to capture the best of all worlds,” he says. “But I’ve come to realise over time that it just flattens whatever cool character each one has.”

With the rhythm sounds oscillating between an early Sparrows Sons model, employed with a Boss OS-2 to accent its articulate, wide-ranging gain, and a GCI Onslaught-assisted Dean Costello HMW, most of the leads were tracked with a first generation Bad Cat Black Cat, paired again with an OS-2 or a GCI Crimson Cock.

“That’s like an NPN Rangemaster,” Ballou says. “It’s really the best for matching a guitar to an amp. If your guitar feels too bright or too dark, or not loud enough, or too loud, by turning a few knobs on that thing, you can make it work.”

What pass for cleans in Converge’s world, meanwhile, were captured on a Traynor YRM-1 that Ballou picked up for $99 in the mid-1990s. “I can, honestly, probably record anything with that amp,” he observes. “I also have a few JMP 2204s, but one of them is from a transitional year when it started getting a little more JCM900-ish. I want to say I have a ‘76 and a ‘79. They’ve obviously been maintained differently over the years, but the newer one is tighter and the older one is creamier. I like them both a lot – that was set up as a pedal platform as I needed different sounds. If a song needs a fuzz part or an HM-2 part, that amp can do it all.”

Image: Press

Bright Spark

Zooming out, though, something remarkable about the way Love is Not Enough sounds is the warmth and clarity behind its guitars. As a riffer, Ballou is naturally a grimy, aggressive player, meaning that keeping a sense of nuance alive requires deliberate thought. “I’m always pushing the brightness to try to get more clarity,” he says. “But then sometimes you end up with a very chirpy sound, which is not very metal. The OS-2 quells the chirpiness and also starves the bottom end.”

From both a philosophical and practical perspective, Ballou sees his yard as the mid-range. Returning again to the idea of a division of labour, he is happy to leave the sludge to Newton and the splashy stuff to Koller’s cymbals. He’s not trying to grind you to a pulp, he’s trying to punch you in the solar-plexus. “Listen to the classic Slayer records – they don’t have crushing low end or sizzly high end,” he says. “There are great guitar sounds that have that, but we’ve always thought of Converge more as a hard band than a heavy band.”

Converge’s Love Is Not Enough is out February 13 through Deathwish/Epitaph.

The post Why metalcore pioneers Converge have returned to bring an end to “data entry” modern metal and show a new generation the power of authenticity appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.



Episode 160 of the Truth About Vintage Amps Podcast, where amp tech Skip Simmons fields all of your questions about tube amps.

Thank our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars and Amplified Parts.

Some of the topics discussed this week:

1:09 Fishing and weather report, Tule fog

4:43 Skip’s amp backlog

5:19 A West guitar amp with a Dynaco 454216 transformer, a paper plate breakfast hack

10:45 Our sponsors!

12:56 What’s on Skip’s bench: A 1950 Princeton, a White amplifier, a Tweed Deluxe AND a Vibrolux; Electromuse amps

14:39 The Lonesome Captain’s music video (YouTube link)

17:31 A Webster-Chicago 166-1 with a post phase-inverter tone control

20:36 The Valco/National/Supro single 6V6 with reverb and tremolo

28:06 A Silvertone 1472 with replaced parts; terminal strip grounds

30:55 Two filter cap Princetons (link to TDPRI forum)

32:11 An original Garnet Session Man; modding a Masco ME-27; recommended reading

39:49 The Wood Wire & Volts show; the Benson Babylon (as mentioned on episode 158!)

44:16 Speaker impedance mismatch on a Danelectro amp and its effect on tone, Spanish rice, Goya pasta

50:21 Suggestions for an unused triode in a Geloso G226A amp

54:32 Bill Krinard’s return?; Dr. Z’s new, single-ended PhD amp; Emery Sound amps

57:18 A new speaker for my Traynor YGM-3?; Peavey amps; smoked pork tenderlions

1:03:35 Making a baby Leslie speaker at home and adding caps to filter out EMI/interference (check out more pics on our Patreon)

1:11:00 Getting spray paint off a grill cloth (3M Safest Stripper); fixing a Fender speaker baffle; and a cursed reverb unit

1:16:50 A Cunningham CX322 tube giveaway; Alembic stereo pre-amps, redux

Note: Starting around minute 60, our Zoom connection went bad and Skip can be a little hard to hear. We tried to clean it up as best we could. Sorry!

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

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

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

Above and below: Listener Bruce’s West combo, with a Dynaco transformer. 

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 160 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

If you’re hoping to streamline your rig this year then look no further than the Line 6 Helix floorboard processor, now on sale at Guitar Center just in time for Presidents’ Day – saving you $200.

This popular rig command centre launched back in 2015, and went on to compete with the likes of Neural DSP, Kemper, and Fractal. Across the years, the Helix has undergone several updates that have expanded its offerings of amps, cabs, mics, and effects.

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The Helix utilises Line 6’s HX modelling engine, and captures the sonic nuance and dynamic response of vintage and modern gear. Its dual DSP architecture enables vast processing capabilities, while its large colour screen and touch-sensitive switches help to simplify deep editing.

• READ MORE: This guitarist is using a Steam Deck as his entire live rig – and it’s genuinely impressive

The screen gives users a clear view of their signal chain, while the footswitches let you edit blocks on the fly by simply tapping and turning the nearby knob. It also offers four stereo signal paths, four effects loops and a comprehensive I/O layout. Learn more in the video below:

And speaking of amp modellers, Fractal Audio has made the leap to native software with ICONS – a new line of amp-modelling plugins and standalone applications that brings its acclaimed modelling and effects tones directly to DAWs and desktop setups.

Powering ICONS is Fractal Audio’s advanced amp modelling, which recreates analogue circuits at the component level so that “each model sounds, feels, and responds just like the real thing at any setting.”

The Line 6 Helix multi-effects unit is reduced to $1,099.99. Learn more and shop more deals at Guitar Center.

The post Get a Line 6 Helix at $200 off this Presidents’ Day at Guitar Center appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

You might assume the members of the Rolling Stones and their families are all financially set for life given the enduring success of the band’s music. But as revealed in a recent court case concerning Ronnie Wood’s son Jesse, not everyone in the Stones’ world is rolling in it.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Jesse Wood stood before magistrates in West London last month after pleading guilty to an unspecified minor driving offence, revealing he was living on around £1,000 per month with an annual income of £14,000, and was surviving on savings. The 49-year-old guitarist and model asked for leniency, it’s said, after being handed a £957 court bill.

• READ MORE: Yungblud says “it’s only the people who didn’t reach the mountaintop” who are “gatekeeping” rock music

As one of rock music’s all-time commercially successful bands, it’s easy to assume the money would be of no concern to any member of the Rolling Stones and their families.

Ronnie Wood’s net worth is reported to be substantial – somewhere in the region of £150 million as quoted by numerous sources – but it’s important to note that the point at which he joined the Stones was instrumental in shaping his financial position later down the line.

Wood joined the band in 1975, after many of their most royalty-generating hits had already been written. For example, the royalties generated by hits like Satisfaction (1965) flow to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

An anonymous industry source quoted by the Daily Mail explains: “People see stadiums and assume it’s one big pot of money for everyone. It never has been.

“Mick and Keith operate in a different financial stratosphere. Ronnie’s world has always been more complicated, and that has trickled down.”

While Ronnie Wood no doubt earns a considerable wedge for being a Rolling Stone – from touring revenue and songs written since he joined, for example – the source notes that there’s a reason for the disparity in what each Stones member takes home.

“He gets paid handsomely to be a Rolling Stone, but he doesn’t own the jukebox,” they go on.

People often incorrectly assume that a person’s quoted net worth is a liquid pot of cash they have in the bank ready to distribute as needed. But the picture is always more complicated than that. The Daily Mail notes that much of Ronnie Wood’s fortune is tied up in illiquid assets, including a multi-million-pound art collection, as well as property and investments.

“His wealth is structural,” a financial advisor tells the Daily Mail. “It’s in paintings and properties and future tour revenues. That’s not the same as having millions in a bank account to distribute.”

The post “Mick and Keith operate in a different financial stratosphere”: The stark financial disparity of the Rolling Stones revealed by Ronnie Wood’s son’s court case appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

PG Editorial Director Richard Bienstock has interviewed Slash more than a few times throughout the last couple decades. So, we’ve called on him to join us in celebrating the Guns N’ Roses guitarist as we discuss his sound, his riffs, and his look! Tune in to find out about the time the two went guitar shopping and when Slash showed up at Richard’s desk.

If you’re looking to grab a bargain before Presidents’ Day comes to an end, then head over to Sweetwater where you can grab the popular Sabre model from Sterling by Music Man for less than $1,000.

The Sabre model has a long history – it was first launched in 1978 by Music Man, with production ceasing in 1980. It was then revived in 2020, and rated 9/10 by Guitar.com no less. The Sterling version then landed in 2022, offering a slightly more affordable take on the premium Music Man model.

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Saving you $500 and now priced at $999.99, this dent and scratch model from Sweetwater may only have minor cosmetic flaws but all of its key features work just perfectly. It offers a super lightweight nyatoh body topped with a piece of highly figured flame maple veneer, and comes in a Deep Blue Burst finish.

It also offers a roasted maple neck and a rosewood fingerboard with a 12-inch radius, modern “C” shape, and stainless-steel frets. Completing this rock-ready model is a Modern Tremolo and Sterling locking tuners, while tone is driven by a pair of Fishman Fluence Modern pickups that deliver two distinctive humbucker voices courtesy of a push-pull knob.

• READ MORE: Sterling By Music Man Rabea Artist Series Sabre – a solid rock and metal workhorse

Check out the video below to hear the Sabre in-play:

If you’re looking for more Presidents’ Day deals, then check out our guide to all the best finds, as we trawled through the internet to find the best savings so you don’t have to. We found a bunch of huge deals on products from Fender, Gibson, Taylor, Positive Grid and many more treasured brands.

You can shop this deal and more over at Sweetwater.

The post Presidents’ Day bargain: Save a MASSIVE $500 on this Sterling by Music Man Sabre at Sweetwater appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

It’s been a big year for Yungblud. Though a hugely successful artist in his own right for years, July saw him perform Changes at Black Sabbath’s massive final show at Villa Park, attracting tens of thousands of new eyes and even earning him his first Grammy for Best Rock Performance.

He’s since cemented himself as a prominent figure in the modern-day rock scene, performing with the likes of Nuno Bettencourt and Aerosmith (in a VMAs performance which attracted considerable criticism, including from The Darkness brothers Justin and Dan Hawkins). 

But Yungblud’s sudden boost in exposure has also led some to accuse him of being an “industry plant”, a claim he vehemently denies. “If I’m an industry plant, I’ve planted the f**king plant myself,” he recently said.

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

 Yungblud – real name Dominic Richard Harrison – says the backlash he’s faced as an artist diving deeper into the rock world is partly a result of “gatekeeping”, and has an opinion on who’s mostly to blame for the elitism.

“When people say to fit in rock, that is the most un-rock ‘n’ roll thing ever,” he told Rolling Stone Australia & New Zealand in a recent interview [via Ultimate Guitar].

“Rock music isn’t supposed to be a gatekept boys club, and it became that. That’s why it’s been suffocated, and boring, and so adherent to the past. We have to allow young people to pioneer something, or at least try and give this thing a heartbeat.”

The artist says many who might be inspired to try and start a band or make a career in rock music are dissuaded from doing so because of the alleged gatekeeping that goes on.

“It just sucks, because you just know that a 17-year-old in a room who was loving sounding like Queen, my biggest fear is that they get deterred from pursuing a career in it by some old bit of cunt on the internet,” he continues. “And I’m here to go, if you’re young, play rock, fuck it. Don’t listen to them. There’s a new generation of ideas.”

Yungblud says it’s not rock music’s most venerated names putting walls up around the genre, though.

“When you actually meet the legends like Steven [Tyler], Ozzy [Osbourne], Billy Corgan, they fucking want it. It’s only the people who didn’t necessarily reach the mountaintop [who are] gatekeeping the genre,” he goes on. “So, if you’re young, and if you want to start a band, do it with everything you’ve got.”

Despite his critics, Yungblud has many famous voices from the legacy rock world on his side, including Ted Nugent, who recently branded him the “real McCoy”.

In other news, it was recently revealed that Yungblud only got the gig to play Changes at Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning show 48 hours before the event.

“48 hours before, he wasn’t gonna be the singer of that song,” said event director and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello. 

“Things were changing… I landed at Heathrow Airport and I got a call, like, ‘That’s not happening.’ So I’m, like, ‘Okay, let’s figure it out.’ And it turned out to be one of the highlights.”

The post Yungblud says “it’s only the people who didn’t reach the mountaintop” who are “gatekeeping” rock music appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The PRS Silver Sky – and the more affordable SE Silver Sky, in particular – are two of the most commercially successful electric guitar launches in recent memory, with the SE version topping Reverb’s best-selling electric guitars list two years in a row in 2022 and 2023.

But naturally, when a guitar becomes so ubiquitous, critics become louder. And much of that criticism has been levelled by those not a fan of the most expensive core Silver Sky’s smaller 7.25” fretboard radius.

• READ MORE: I spent my afternoon sifting through Presidents’ Day guitar deals so you don’t have to

It’s very much a debate on the minutiae of guitar building, but the argument basically goes that a larger fretboard radius and flatter fingerboard makes it easier to play solos as a less curved surface allows for a more consistent and low action across all six strings. It’s also argued that a smaller radius and more curved fretboard can sometimes lead to bent notes choking out while going over the hump of the ‘board.

But PRS main man Paul Reed Smith thinks these concerns are unfounded, as he explains in a recent interview on the Zak Kuhn Show.

“When I was a kid, nobody said you can’t play solos on a Tele or Strat. That’s new internet lore,” he says [via Ultimate Guitar].

“And so when we made the prototypes for John Mayer, we tried every single radius, every scale length, every position, every body shape. We tried everything. And he goes, ‘I want it to be the same as the guitars I’m used to. I don’t want to look down when I play.’ So we made it 7.25” and everybody, everybody pushed back. ‘Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea, you can’t play solos on a 7.25” radius.

Smith says despite the noisy opposition to the Silver Sky’s smaller fretboard radius, he thought it was “a bunch of hooey”.

While acknowledging that notes can sometimes choke out on bends on a fretboard with a smaller radius, Smith continues: “That I understood, but the idea that you couldn’t play solos on something that people have been playing solos on forever, just seemed Looney Tunes to me.

“What hurts me when people attack, it’s they’re so adamant that they know what they’re talking about. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don’t…

“I’m sorry. One of the solos in [ZZ Top’s] La Grange is on a Strat, from what I can hear – sounded good to me. [Dire Straits’] Sultans of Swing, don’t even get me started. Machine Gun [Jimi Hendrix] is ridiculous.”

Last year, John Mayer himself downplayed the importance of fretboard radius on a guitar’s playability, even saying the height one sets their strap is more important.

“I just looked at the guitars I loved the most, and they were 7.25 inches” he said, speaking about the Silver Sky’s 7.25”-radius fingerboard. “That was my measuring stick. Now that I know the math behind it, I still don’t think about it. The difference between 7.25” and 9.5” is less significant than your strap being an inch higher or lower. I’ll fight anybody on that.”

The post “It just seemed Looney Tunes to me”: Paul Reed Smith dismisses the notion that you “can’t play solos” on a 7.25”-radius fretboard appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

When you ask a guitarist to think about Taylor, the brand that’s been at the vanguard of acoustic guitars for the last 50 years, chances are they’re imagining the Grand Auditorium. Created by iconoclastic co-founder Bob Taylor in 1994 to be the ultimate all-purpose acoustic guitar, the Grand Auditorium sits between the big-bodied dreadnought and the more compact concert-sized instruments. Its versatility, a shining example of the brand’s determination to do acoustic guitars differently, has made it the most popular and beloved of Taylor’s many innovations since the brand’s humble beginnings in a hippy co-op in San Diego.

That’s probably why Andy Powers, Taylor’s CEO, President and Master Guitar Designer, chose the Grand Auditorium to put his most definitive and impactful stamp on the brand since his promotion to CEO in 2022. Enter the Taylor Next Generation Grand Auditorium – Powers’ reimagination of the brand’s most iconic instrument for its post-founder era.

The Taylor Next Generation Grand Auditorium on the Guitar.com Cover. Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

When you look at the instrument, though, you’d be forgiven for wondering what exactly is new about it.

“Well yeah, exactly!” Powers exclaims, sat cradling a new 814ce in his lap within the airy surrounds of a Californian hotel suite. “This is a guitar that we’ve built for a long time. It’s an iconic model for us. And we deliberately wanted to keep it appointed in the form that we know and love. But what’s so interesting about this instrument is that it represents our best and brightest guitar-making. A lot of very materially significant parts of the guitar design have been upgraded.”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Stick Your Neck Out

Perhaps the most important and impactful change is one that you might never even need – but you’ll be thankful for if you do. The Action Control Neck is a Powers innovation that has been the best part of a decade of trial, error and experimentation, and after a limited debut on Taylor’s Gold Label collection last year, it’s now ready for the limelight.

Traditionally, acoustic guitar necks are glued into the bodies – a perfectly fine way to do it, but one that comes with its own issues. If you don’t like the height of the strings and general playability, your only real option is to take it to a luthier who will have to carefully remove the neck, add some shims to alter the neck’s angle so it’s more to your preference, and then reglue it back. What’s more, as a guitar gets older, the force of years of string tension often gradually pulls the neck forward, raising the action and making the guitar uncomfortable to play. The only solution? A neck reset.

“This instrument represents our best and brightest guitar-making”

“[With] a conventional neck reset, your guitar might be in a luthier shop for a month,” Powers explains. “That’s going to cost some money. It’s like open heart surgery for a guitar.”

Back in 1999 Taylor took its first steps to change this. The NT Neck, as it was known then, utilised cutting edge computer-controlled milling to create a bolt-on neck that had the same tonal transfer as glue, but also gave any tech or luthier the ability to easily remove the neck and reset it.

“We’ve been known for building great playing guitars that are easy to service, easy to adjust,” Powers explains. “But I wanted the adjustability to go even further. The way that we’ve built guitars with our Taylor neck system, that’s a huge improvement. But the Action Control Neck takes that level of adjustability farther than anything.

“You can do an action adjustment literally within seconds and not even have to re-tune the guitar. You simply adjust it to where you want to play, and you’re ready to go.”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

As he talks, Powers pulls out a flexible shaft screwdriver – the sort you can buy on Amazon for the price of a good cup of coffee – to demonstrate. He pops the screwdriver into the soundhole, gives a quick turn, and before our eyes, the action has been visibly lowered, but the guitar is still in perfect tune and intonation all the way up the neck. A job that would take a trained professional hours or even days to complete has been done in less time than it took to write this sentence. It feels a bit like a magic trick.

But why invest so much time in something that isn’t really a problem for Taylor once the guitar is out of the doors of their factory in El Cajon, California? Sustainability is one thing – which Taylor has taken seriously in its guitar-making for decades. If you’ve got a guitar that can be tweaked to a player’s individual taste – or their evolving playing style – in a heartbeat, you’re likely to hold onto that guitar for much longer.

“And you may never need to make those adjustments!” Powers adds. “You might pick the guitar up, it feels great, sounds great, and you’re happy forever. But I know for myself, over time my playing approach changes, or I start wanting to play in a different style. That means I want the guitar set up differently – fine. Just adjust it.”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Grand Gestures

Wanting to meet real musicians where they are is also key to the other significant innovation at the heart of the Next Generation Grand Auditorium. The Taylor Expression system has been ever present in the brand’s guitars for the best part of two decades – the three rounded control knobs on the guitar’s top are about as distinctive a part of Taylor’s visual design language as the pickup itself was in shaping its live sound.

Now all of that is changing: the new Claria system offers not only a more subtle visual proposition, but a different approach to amplifying the sound, too.

“The development started by creating a pickup for big artists on big stages,” Powers explains. “It was the kind of situation where you don’t get to tune the environment to suit the pickup, so we needed to tune the pickup to suit the environment. And so we wanted to create something that was very player-centric, real intuitive and very easy to use.”

“I want the guitar to serve the player well in every way that we can”

While the Claria started with the needs of artists playing stadiums and other big rooms, Powers soon realised that the problems he was trying to solve could present themselves in any setting.

“If you’re playing a club date, when you walk on stage, you may not even get a soundcheck. Sometimes you barely get a line check and you’re off and running! And so you need something that you can dial in quickly that offers a greater selection of useful sounds.”

That user-friendly simplicity is at the heart of the new Claria system – if the Expression system was a scalpel made for carefully crafting perfect studio-quality tones, this is a lot more forgiving. “You’re not doing surgery on your amplified sound,” Powers reflects. “You’re just going, ‘That sounds good. Let’s play!’”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Player Power

There was a time when Taylor guitars were designed for a certain type of player, and had a certain type of sound. Bob Taylor himself enjoys remarking that people often speak both positively and negatively about the sonic qualities of his guitars, using much the same language. It doesn’t bother him, so long as both sides agree that the instruments are well-made.

Powers is cut from a different cloth. His background as a boutique luthier who made guitars to suit each customer’s needs has helped make the ‘Taylor sound’ a much broader church than it was before he joined the company over a decade ago.

“I want the guitar to serve the player well in every way that we can,” he affirms. “The whole idea behind this was that we want to build a great, professional-quality guitar. If you were to pick a guitar because you like the sound of it, I want to make sure that all the other aspects of that instrument support you in your play. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Image: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

The proof of his success has been placing prototypes of these Next Generation guitars in the hands of artists – the grin on Powers’ face tells its own story. “You see players respond to these, and you can actually watch fresh inspiration happening,” he enthuses. “It does really feel like it’s a breath of fresh air. I can see the future. I can see where we’re going. I know that players love playing music. That’s what interests us in the first place. So let’s build the guitars to suit them and serve their needs.”

The Taylor Next Generation Grand Auditorium is available now

Words: Josh Gardner
Photography: Rachel Billings

The post How Taylor quietly revolutionised its most iconic design with the Next Generation Grand Auditorium appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The Flange With No Name is reborn

The Grand Ole Opry, George Gruhn of Gruhn Guitars,and Martin Guitar have partnered to create a limited-edition Martin HD-28 Grand Ole Opry 100th Anniversary guitar. Opry member Vince Gill was the first artist to ever play the one-of-a-kind instrument when the guitar was introduced to the public for the first time and played it on the 100th Anniversary Opry show on November 28, 2025.

To purchase the limited edition Martin HD-28 Grand Ole Opry 100th Anniversary guitar click HERE.

The Martin HD-28 Grand Ole Opry 100th Anniversary is a one-of-a-kind instrument handcrafted to honor a century of music, storytelling, and unforgettable moments on country’s most iconic stage. For generations, Martin guitars have been in the hands of countless artists who shaped the sound of country music from the Opry’s hallowed ground—heard by millions and woven into the very history this guitar celebrates. Built on the foundation of Martin’s legendary HD-28, it delivers the bold, balanced Dreadnought tone players have long trusted: powerful bass, clear trebles, and rich overtones shaped by forward-shifted scalloped X-bracing and time-honed craftsmanship.

To mark the Opry’s 100th anniversary on November 28, 2025, Martin’s artisans added exclusive details found only on this guitar. The headplate features a custom inlay of the historic WSM microphone rendered in mother-of-pearl and abalone, a tribute to the broadcast that carried country music nationwide. A matching commemorative inlay theme continues along the ebony fingerboard, celebrating a century of Opry history and the artists and moments that defined the genre from this storied stage.

Handcrafted with a solid spruce top, solid East Indian rosewood back and sides, bold herringbone top trim, and elegant antique white binding, this special HD-28 also features a comfortable Golden Era Modified Low Oval neck that feels effortless in the hands. Together, these elements blend Martin tradition with Opry heritage in a single, remarkable instrument. It’s a playable piece of history made for those who keep the circle unbroken.



 

In what has become an annual tradition, Evan Gluck (NY Guitar Repair) hosted a guitar repair roundtable at the 2025 Fretboard Summit. This year, he brought Ceil Thompson (StewMac); TJ Thompson (Pro Luthier Tools); Mamie Minch (Brooklyn Lutherie); and Mark Stutman (Folkway Music) onstage.

It’s an insightful (and often hilarious) talk about the realities of running a guitar repair business. Very quickly, these five guitar repair experts go deep on customers, the surprise revelations they’ve had in their careers; the tasks (and people) they avoid; and much more.

Give it a listen. It may just make you a better customer the next time your guitar needs to be repaired.

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. Register today: https://fretboardsummit.org

Our 58th issue of the Fretboard Journal is now mailing. Subscribe here to get it.

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The post Podcast 537: The 2025 Fretboard Summit Guitar Repair Panel first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

One of the great paradoxes of guitar sonics is that reverb, an effect invented to give electronic and recorded sound more natural ambience, can also make the instrument feel otherworldly. It’s reverb that transforms guitar and amp into waves crashing off the Malibu cliffs, and reverb that makes the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” sound like the darkest of moonless city nights.

That midnight tone is among those that lives in Keeley Electronics’ Andy Timmons signature Nocturne, a versatile stereo pedal perfectly at home exploring reverb’s dual potential to recreate natural atmosphere or sounds that seem beyond physical dimensions.

Exploring the Atmosphere

Inspired by the Keeley Andy Timmons Halo delay/reverb, the Nocturne focuses on reverb exclusively, offering three flavors: nocturne, spring, and plate. While the latter two are the most conventional, they can be dialed in to break free from the constraints of their mechanical counterparts. All three modes give you control over tone, reverb level, decay, and modulation. But the pedal also has alternate functions that enable the tone and decay knobs to control a high-pass filter (which tailors the low end) and pre-delay (a powerful and often overlooked parameter that shifts the space between transient notes and the onset of the reverb).

Spring and plate do the most basic versions of their job well, but they happily go beyond the norm. In spring mode, the modulation control governs the mechanical “boing” overtones in the reflections, which range from realistic to totally over the top. Though I preferred the more subtle settings, which enabled me to capture the essence of gentle slap heard in my old Fenders and Ampegs, it was also easy to move between big and clangy or smaller and subtly ambient.

“It made me slow down, allow the notes to hang, and listen—and even led to new music for a documentary soundtrack I’d been struggling with.”

For most conventional guitar-tone tasks, the plate mode would be my go-to. It’s especially effective for high-gain sounds, where you can dial in the sense of a big amp in the studio. I used the Nocturne both in front of a solid-state amp and in the effects loop of a modified Bassman 10, which has Fender-style and pentode preamp channels and EL34 power tubes. The pentode channel can be set to preserve more low end than a typical guitar preamp, so the high-pass filter was especially useful there. More important, though, was the Nocturne’s high headroom, which meant it could live in the effects loop, on the receiving end of preamp and other drive sources, without complaint—even when powered by a basic 9-volt supply (18-volt is optional).

Dark Reflections

While both spring and plate are effective day-to-day tools, it’s the eponymous nocturne mode that opens up the pedal’s creative potential, delivering lush, modulated sounds with distinct echoes blended into long decays. I often got lost in the swirl of shimmering sustain while playing simple thirds and drones. It made me slow down, allow the notes to hang, and listen—and even led to new music for a documentary soundtrack I’d been struggling with. Things got more interesting when I grabbed an EBow, where the sustain and feedback-like harmonics let me create a sonic bed with far more texture than many synths, and far more expression than a sample.

As these experiences suggest, I often found myself playing to the effect in Nocturne, letting it serve as a guide, and treating it as an extension of my guitar and amp. Using the assignable expression input to change parameters while playing only enhances the sense of interactivity here. It’s that responsiveness to player input—and the fact that so many big sounds don’t completely obscure dynamics—that make the nocturne mode so effective as a creative tool.

The Verdict

While there are plenty of creative and powerful spatial effects on the market, the Nocturne is one of the few I know that works like it was designed for the guitarist without dumbing things down. It’s easy to get started and the basic sounds are satisfying, but it also invites you to go deeper. Preset capability (you can create up to 72 with MIDI) means that in a performance setting you can switch easily between completely space-altering effects and more earthly ambiance. The high fidelity and headroom make it a powerful studio tool.

Though it takes time to master some functions (it took a few tries to get the expression pedal assignments right) the layout remains super intuitive. That essential simplicity makes Nocturne equally suited to pedalboard minimalists and MIDI-based rigs. But whichever camp you’re in, you might want to leave a note for family and friends when you plug in, because you’re likely to get lost in space.

February 13, 2026 Tomorrow, Saturday Feb 14, 2026, we are starting up TG Live for the new year. The topic is creating instrumental arrangements, and you can Register Here. I will be going over some of the things I think about and consider as I arrange things. One of the most important things is to […]

The post Totally Guitars Weekly Update February 6, 2026 appeared first on On The Beat with Totally Guitars.

Music drawn from theater, film, and folklore becomes a vehicle for close ensemble playing and thoughtful arrangement.

Sure, Presidents’ Day is no Black Friday – but it’s still a great opportunity to take advantage of some great deals on guitar gear. I understand, however, that it’s not exactly the most thrilling endeavour to have multiple tabs open sifting through the deals pages of all the big music retailers, which is why I’ve done exactly that so you don’t have to.

Presidents’ Day itself lands officially on the third Monday of February every year, which in 2026 is Monday the 16th. But some of the top music retailers are already offering pre-Presidents’ day discounts, and here are the best deals I’ve found…

 Fender Player II Stratocaster HSS – save over $200

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When we got our hands on the Fender Player II Stratocaster HSS after its launch in 2024, we scored it a strong 9/10, even suggesting it could be the last guitar you’d ever need. Boasting a humbucker and two single coils for a wide palette of tones, this guitar takes the time-honoured Stratocaster blueprint and adds a number of appointments for the modern player, including rolled fingerboard edges, a rosewood fingerboard and an alluring Blue Burst finish. Get it now at Guitar Center with over $200 off until 18 February.

Fender FA-135CE All-Mahogany Concert Acoustic-Electric – save $100

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In the market for your first acoustic guitar? Hell, the all-mahogany Fender FA-135CE would make a solid addition to any existing guitar collection, too. It boasts a mahogany build for a warm, resonant tone, Fishman electronics for amplification, a slim neck profile for supreme playability, plus a single cutaway for good upper fret access. Right now at Guitar Center, get it with $100 off, and pay just $219.99.

Gibson Les Paul Standard ’60s – save nearly $1,000!

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If you’ve got a little extra cash to spend and fancy getting yourself an authentic Gibson ‘60s Les Paul Standard, this awesome deal at Guitar Center means you could save a whopping $900 – and pay just $2,099. With an AAA figured maple top, pickups recreated from PAF-era examples, plus a gorgeous Honey Lemon Burst finish, what’s not to love…

Positive Grid Spark MINI – save $50

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One of the most kitted out practice amps on the market, the Positive Grid Spark MINI doubles as a Bluetooth speaker – so you can play along to your favourite tracks – and also comes with a smart app packed with a host of forward-thinking features. Did we mention it’s tiny, so totally portable? But don’t worry, it still boasts a sound which belies its form factor. We gave it a 9/10 in our review and called it a “game-changer”, so trust us, we know what we’re talking about. Get it now direct from Positive Grid with $50 off.

Taylor Builder’s Edition 514ce – save $400

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Go on, you only live once, so push the boat out; treat yourself to your last-ever acoustic guitar with this insane deal on the Taylor Builder’s Edition 514ce at Sweetwater. This Presidents’ Day, you can save a massive $400, taking the normal price of $3,399 down to just $2,999. We get it: that’s not exactly an impulse purchase, but there’s a reason why Taylor acoustics have been widely regarded as some of the best money can buy for decades. This one won’t let you down…

Fender Custom Shop Madison ’54 Telecaster NOS Masterbuilt by Greg Fessler – save almost $3,000

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Okay, this one’s a little gratuitous, but hey, maybe there’s a hardcore guitar collector out there who fancies saving nearly $3,000 on a Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt Telecaster… You’ll still have to part with $8,745, but that’s a price slashed from $11,660 – so if you’re a serious collector with a bit of cash to spend, why not add this eye-catching Tele to the collection…

Of course, you might still want to browse the Presidents’ Day sales yourself…

• Guitar Center Presidents’ Day sale
• Positive Grid – 20% off select Spark gear
• Sweetwater Deal Zone
• Reverb Deals & Steals
• zZounds Big Deals
• Up to 84% off amp sims at Plugin Boutique

The post I spent my afternoon sifting through Presidents’ Day guitar deals so you don’t have to appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Vibey melody maker Mark Speer details Khruangbin's implausible rise from lonely cover band to festival headliner, explains his approach to guitar that leans more keyboardist and harpist than shredder, and even shares a secret (that he still employs today) from the band's earliest gigs to trick the audience into acceptance and applause.

This transcription of the Carole King classic comes from the original studio recording—played in G but sounding in A, thanks to a capo at the second fret.

Josh Freese has reflected on his dismissal from the Foo Fighters last year, which came two years after he was announced as the band’s touring drummer in 2023 following the death of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022.

In May last year, the 53-year-old drummer – who over the course of his illustrious career has performed with the likes of Guns N’ Roses, Nine Inch Nails and The Vandals – shared his “shock and disappointment” at receiving the news that he had been let go from the Foo Fighters after two years.

• READ MORE: David Ellefson thinks Megadeth should “give fans what they want” and include him in farewell tour: “Any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded, untruthful and unfair”

“In my 40 years of drumming professionally, I’ve never been let go from a band, so while I’m not angry – just a bit shocked and disappointed,” Freese said in an Instagram post at the time.

Now, in a new interview with Modern Drummer, Freese reveals he has a “couple of small theories” as to why he was let go from the band, but adds he “can’t really go into them right now”.

“The Foo Fighters are such a big, mainstream band that everything I say gets taken out of context, reposted and blown out of proportion,” he reasons [via Louder]. “People created headlines from one quick, simple comment I made on a podcast not long ago, it’s crazy.

“I’ve got to be careful about what I say about it. But I’ve got a lot to say about it and I’ve been just trying to figure out how and when to go about really articulating it.”

Freese adds that despite his shock at his dismissal from the band, he “did really enjoy the last two years [he] spent with those guys”, adding however: “They were good to me… until they weren’t.”

Much of Freese’s disappointment at being let go from the Foo Fighters appears to stem from his admiration for frontman Dave Grohl.

“I loved having Dave as a bandleader,” he continues. “I enjoyed being around those guys. They were generous and good to me… and that’s what makes the whole thing even more of a mystery. I think I’m a pretty good read on people, and I did not see that coming. One day it was nothing but laughs, we’re on stage and Dave’s looking at me every night like, ‘You’re killing it, dude!’ And then it was just – over.”

Foo Fighters have a string of tour dates planned for 2026 in North America. For tickets and dates, head to the band’s official website.

The post “One day it was nothing but laughs, then it was just over”: Josh Freese is still confused about his Foo Fighters dismissal – and says he needs to be “careful” what he says about it appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

If this is truly the end of the road for Megadeth, David Ellefson believes he should be a part of it. Last August, the thrash metal titans announced plans to release one final studio album followed by a farewell tour, bringing more than four decades of metal history to a close.

But while leader Dave Mustaine has publicly stated that he doesn’t intend to invite former members back for the band’s final run, Ellefson clearly sees things differently. The ex-Megadeth bassist also describes his continued absence as “unfounded”, “untruthful” and “unfair”.

Speaking on Argentinian rock radio station UnDinamo, the musician reiterates that he remains “available” for Megadeth’s final tour – potentially alongside other past members such as guitarist Marty Friedman.

• READ MORE: David Ellefson shares his thoughts on the final Megadeth album: “I hear it and go, ‘This is a Dave solo record…’ It doesn’t sound like Megadeth”

“I have always said that I am available for that. And I would do it because I think any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded,” says Ellefson [via Blabbermouth]. “It’s untruthful and it’s unfair because clearly there’s nothing wrong. So, I would hope and even pray to [God] that any misunderstanding, any bitterness would be removed, that that would somehow be dissipated.”

Reflecting on his career and the role of fans, Ellefson adds: “It’s funny – you make your first record, you have no fans. You just make your first album. Then you start to get fans who [say], ‘Hey, give us more.’ So you make album two, like we do. And then at that point, you – I feel – have an obligation to listen to your fans. You don’t have to do everything they say, like, ‘Make Rust In Peace Part II,’ ‘cause creatively the spirit leads you where it’s supposed to go. But I think, especially when you’re playing concerts – making albums is music business; playing concerts is show business. They’re two separate things that kind of come together.”

Without fans, he adds, there is no second album – and no farewell tour. “So, to me, you give them what they want.”

He also points to Friedman’s 2023 appearances with Megadeth as a sign that reunions are possible.

“So for me, yes. Marty – I can’t speak for anyone else, but Marty coming back to play a couple of shows showed his willingness, which I think was great,” says Ellefson. “I would wish that Dave [Mustaine]… Look, if it were just me and Dave sitting here, I’m sure everything would be fine, but there’s a lot of people with influences, and that can be sticky. So my hope is that the voice of the fans gets louder than any other voice that would tear it apart.”

The post David Ellefson thinks Megadeth should “give fans what they want” and include him in farewell tour: “Any reason that I’m not there now is unfounded, untruthful and unfair” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.